Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Sixth Season
Paramount - Paramount
Release date: 2003-11-04
DVD
Director:Anson Williams
Actors: Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Cirroc Lofton, Alexander Siddig, Colm Meaney
6, 6th, Six, Sixth, Horror / Sci-Fi / Fantasy, Movie, TV Shows, Television
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Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Sixth Season
Date undefinedI cannot express enough superlatives about Season Six of Deep Space Nine. Even though it has been about a decade since this season aired on television, the stories never get old and the storylines are always enjoyable. There are quite a few episodes that are vying for my favorite..."Far Beyond The Stars", "Profit and Lace", etc. Knowing that the upcoming season, Season Seven, is the last of the televised episodes, it makes me wish that movies will be made with the cast of this series. A Deep Space Nine movie is L-O-N-G OVERDUE!!!!!!!
Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Sixth Season
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After I watched this episode again recently, it set me thinking about a lot of things that I not only saw with this particular version of Star Trek, but science fiction as a whole. The episode 'Far Beyond the Stars' is easily the high-water mark for this entire show, despite the fact that it was completely separate from the main and ongoing story-line of the show. This episode actually stands by itself much like 'Inner Light' does with Next Generation and 'City on The Edge of Forever' with the Original Series.
The main thought, and I won't even bother to say premise, is that the ever lingering question that plagued this show and made things abrasive for many of the cast members was openly and very adroitly addressed here.
The question being: Can a show have a black Captain, or a black hero as the driving force?'
Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko suffered under this plague the entire time that the show ran. While many think that Hollywood is colorblind, it just isn't the case. Tensions from this show probably derailed much of what was going on with Star Trek in the nineties and quite possibly damaged the franchise for a long time to come, much like a butterfly effect. I'm sure the producers would disagree. Of course they would. I'm not saying that it was the fault of Avery Brooks or because they cast a black Captian and that it was a bad idea. Not at all. On the contrary.
The executives in charge of DS9, as well as the head writers were openly hostile towards Brooks and even through the seven years the show ran, the problems continued and never seemed to fade until finally, the show ended. Star Trek lore is rife with information about the relationships between Avery Brooks, Brannon Braga and Steven Behr. Let's just say it mirrors what Albert R. Broccoli once said about Sean Connery as James Bond when they were originally trying to get Carey Grant: 'He's not exactly what I was looking for'.
This episode speaks to this tension, in my opinion, more than anything. Not being a trekkie without inside knowledge doesn't diminish it either. Benjamin Sisko is 'Benny', stuck as a black science-fiction writer in 1950's America, during Jim Crow, Segregation and probably just before the bulk of the civil rights movement and dreaming of a better future for all of us, not just himself. The episode in this context is bleak and has the same sinister feeling that most of the DS9 episodes had, but deals directly with every day issues. It was a stroke of genius to have a science fiction show set 200 years in the future deal with an issue that is apparently 50 years in our past, but still relevant and eye-opening. Should this episode have won a Hugo Award? Yes. Without any doubt in the world. In 1998, when this episode and aired and would have been a contender, it never even got a mention. The Hugo in 1998 went to the film 'Contact'. Just shameful. I wonder if it had anything to do with 'a Black Captain'?
The struggle Benny is going through in this, shows the pain that all writers must endure on some level, some more than others. Charles Bukowski, suffered much like our good friend Benny and once stated: 'The Gods have really put a shield on me'. I've truncated that quote for reasons that are obvious to anyone that has read Bukowski. I fall apart every time I watch this episode because Avery Brooks depiction of the frustrated writer, caged in like a parakeet, is very true and very well-acted. It's painful to watch, not because of the intensity that he's going through on-screen, but because every word and gesture he emits is more than true. You can feel on some deeper level that you're seeing the events of perhaps thousands of peoples lives. It takes you all the way back to another question: 'Does the caged bird still sing?'
His soliloquy of 'you cannot destroy an idea' is powerful and so in the face of everybody that has never faced a day like this, a moment like this, a life like this.
I don't want to recap the entire episode as many folks have already done that. Watch the episode if you haven't seen it, you're really are missing out if you haven't. If it's been awhile revisit it, it's honestly Star Trek's finest hour, bar none.
This episode 'Far Beyond The Stars' is from Season 6 and is Episode 13. It premiered February 11th, 1998.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Sixth Season
Date undefinedDeep Space Nine goes where the other Star Trek series rarely did. After the first few seasons, DS9 steered away from the techno-babble and "we can solve it with science" approach (which is often the complaint against Star Trek in general), and moved into the darker side of Trek and inter-planetary society.
The sixth and seventh seasons of Deep Space Nine are must buys for any fan. If you own one, you have to own the other, they not only go together, but more importantly, it is the point at which the series takes its darkest plot twists, and really becomes all about war, and the social and political issues surrounding it. There are some fun and less heavy episodes of course, as Star Trek has always done so well, but there is no lack of action in this DVD set.
If you're trying to decide on only one season, don't make the mistake of passing over season seven. It has by far the most involved and dark storyline, which season six lacks at times. Season six is not on the same level as season seven. Don't get me wrong. This season (6) is still great, but not quite as good as the next one. Still, for any fan of the series, season six is a must buy, (you can get tired of watching season 7 over and over), and it completes the storyline that culminates in season 7 and the last episode.
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