My Random Journey Through Trek #32

Deep Space Nine
Empok Nor

Quark is having issues with retaining customers in his bar thanks to ongoing maintenance by the Chief and Nog, unable to totally fix the problem and with no replicator sourced replacement parts they decide to visit the sister station to DS9 "Empok Nor" which was recently abandoned by the Cardassians. Garak is invited along since it's common practice to booby trap a resource and that is proven to be a good idea as Garak is able to gain entry and power up the station without incident or so they think. It turns out that there were three soldiers in statis left to deal with any intruders, two survive and are revived and begin to hunt down the Starfleet personnel.

It's not all plain sailing though as Garak becomes infected by a compound they find smeared on a railing, it's the same drug that is driving the even more determined Cardassians to hunt down intruders and as time passes Garak himself becomes more of a threat to the remaining Starfleet crew.

Empok Nor is an entertaining episode, its slow pace works to perfection to enhance the suspense and danger involved with being on this moth balled space station. Garak and Miles are great fun as the initial friendly banter which supports the first half of the episode and as the situation evolves into a life and death struggle their dialogue remains the most important aspect. There were some issues most of which exist to make the plot work beginning with the rather suspect inability to repair DS9 in the first place, a conduit shouldn't rely on a like for like original replacement rather than a replicated part. It was rather amusing to see that Health and Safety in terms of noisy working conditions and the environment weren't an issue for Starfleet or Quark missing the opportunity for compensation for loss of business. I also wondered why Empok Nor seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, the design after all seemed to be intended for ore processing but it wasn't in orbit or close to an asteroid belt and while yes Cardassians would bobby trap a resource you would think it would make more sense to destroy it or move it. There was also evidence the station was abandoned quickly which goes against the more organised security measures so when we see a girder has smashed into one of the pods you wonder why, these stations are built strong.

Got to have an audience

Empok Nor is a very good example of what DS9 was created to provide, a much darker and gritty episode of Star Trek with many shades of grey and who else but Garak (Andrew Robinson) could maximise that potential. It was great to see Garak even more dry and cutting as the drug began to take effect and when he gutted the security officer and pointed out he had fetched the wrong tool you had to smile despite the loss of another "red shirt". Speaking of which I was not impressed with the Starfleet personnel both in terms of attitude, tactics and awareness when they knew they were in danger but they were there to set the scene for Garak and Miles with Nog (Aron Eisenberg) thrown in as a pawn in the spirit of the game which was a constant in the story.

IMDB

Rating 8

Fringe Season Five

The fifth and final season of Fringe was in doubt for quite a while although John Noble went on record as saying he had no doubts since as a story teller it made no sense not to allow the show to wrap up the narrative. FOX for once did the right thing and gave the show 13 episodes which begin their run on September 28th 2012 and the finale aired January 18th 2013 (FOX in the USA).
The whole story takes place in the future of Earth during the year 2036 after The Observers had taken over, this world was first seen in the season four episode Letters of Transit and as we know thanks to being Ambered the original Fringe team were then able to pick up their lives and battle against the invaders. Walter had a master plan thanks to his relationship with September but after that collapses a second plan is revealed as Walter left instructions recorded on tape which are recovered bit by bit from the old lab in Harvard. Many of the episodes cover the search for pieces and elements of this second plan including such things as a mineral, a magnet and in a huge call back the young boy first discovered in the first season episode Inner Child. In fact this whole season rewards the long terms fans of the show by bringing together a lot of elements seen in the show so far both in very specific terms and some a little more vague but that's half the fun spotting the them just as we did looking for the Observers in earlier episodes. It was great to see the Fringe technology being used to strike back at the invaders and almost frightening to see what Walter was truly capable of by building a antimatter weapon in a matter of minutes which vaporises a building or creating a pocket universe but we've always know he really was the dangerous one.

The highlight of the season for me was Etta played by Georgina Haig who really was the child of Olivia and Peter bringing the intelligence and passion we've seen from both her parents, it was also a short lived appearance but as we know in Fringe and time travel stories death isn't always permanent.

The final season was written and planned out in advance to maximise the time and budget and as we know it's not always easy to create a conclusion to a long running series (genre or not) that will be acceptable to everyone but I think by and large this was achieved by the writers of Fringe. Of course anyone that has watched scifi and time travel stories knows in their bones that the only way to defeat a time traveller is by time manipulation and thus we get the happy ending based on what we knew from the early seasons of the show. Yes we lost many characters along the way some of them brave and courageous and some of them even came back by via alternate universes/timeline but ultimately the shows underlying theme of love wins the day with a little help.

It's the love of a parent for a child which sets everything in motion and it's that same emotion that drives the events and ultimately provides the solution albeit not in a straight forward manner.

Favourite Episodes...

• "The Bullet That Saved the World"
• "Black Blotter"
• "Liberty"
• "An Enemy of Fate"

Truth be told that really don't miss the mark with the final season episodes, the planning and fine tuning of the scripts allowed for perfect use of resources and story telling to provide us with a great spectacle.

My rewatch of the show has been very satisfying, it really does add to the experience to watch the show at pace and you do lose that monster of the week feel by watching episodes quickly, it doesn't hurt that it's easier to keep track of plot elements and call backs with less time between seasons:)

The Blu-ray boxset is excellent quality, good picture quality, very good audio and a fair amount of extras but there's always room for more commentaries:)