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We leave the space station behind this week for a couple of planet-based episodes. Sisko and O’Brien find a civilian “Paradise”, and Dax and Odo discover a planet where all is not as it seems, in “Shadowplay”.
Lev
-I think the thing that was supposed to make Paradise work was the battle of wills between Sisko and Alixus, which I seem to recall reading was based directly on the classic David Lean film Bridge On The River Kwai. All the stuff with the hot box is a direct lift from that film, and as would occur when DS9 later directly lifted much of Brigadoon, I think the shift in context from film to show makes the material not work. Alec Guinness plays the Sisko equivalent in the film: he is a POW who is being punished by a Japanese officer and chooses to go back in the hotbox because that’s the only way to maintain what little power and dignity he has. He doesn’t really have any other option, as he is in captivity during a war. Sisko was just trying to prove a point I guess? It’s a striking sequence but not a powerful one (as in the Lean film), and I feel like that’s climax of the thing.
I will say this, though. Gail Strickland isn’t a great actor, but just with her voice and bearing, she’s already most of the way to being a luddite/hippy dictator.
Eric Brasure
-Yeah, the whole thing comes across as half-baked to me.
Mindy
-I never really liked Paradise. The whole premise seems ridiculous to me. And I never bought that everyone would stay after Alixus has been revealed.
I have always liked Shadowplay. I love Odo’s relationship with the little girl. Damn sophisticated holograms! Reacting to meeting a Changeling, a creature that was apparently a myth to the creator of the holograms. I love that the old man was real. Love how kind and empathetic Dax and Odo are. I love how this episode makes Odo think about his very nature and wonder a bit more about his history.
Next week: Quark plays….Humphrey Bogart?
Eric Brasure
-I buy it (shock, etc) but it doesn’t play well in the episode–they don’t sell it enough.