Why Deep Space Nine is the best of the Trek series

Now I already wrote an entry about Captain Benjamin Sisko (see here) but I wanted to expand further on why I liked this series the most of all the Star Trek series. I may have to turn in my geek card by the time I am done (or perhaps apply for some sort of gold/diamond/platinum geek card). But this was an awesome television series and it deserves all the praise it can get. Especially since so many fans seem to overlook it.

The first major difference between DS9 and all the other series is that it takes place far away from the Federation. I know Star Trek: Voyager also took place away from the Federation but they were still onboard a starship, not all that different from the other Trek series. DS9 takes place on a space station built by an alien species, the Kardassians. It is primarily inhabited by another alien species, the Bajorans, who for many years had been enslaved by the Kardassians. There is still bitter tension and anger over the years of military occupation. These are completely foreign concepts in the Star Trek universe before now. Everyone in the Federation mostly lives in peace and prosperity. There is no war and there certainly is no slavery. This gave the writers of DS9 a brand new fertile ground for storytelling.

In essence the world of DS9 is the dirtier side of life in Star Trek. On this station there is crime, racism, religious extremists, greed, all things that are completely absent from the rest of the Trek series. The social issues that Gene Roddenberry explored with the original Star Trek still exist in the world of Deep Space Nine. We also have a new theme of religious extremism, which is absent from most of the other series.

One of the nice things about Deep Space Nine was that it was often the neglected child of the Star Trek franchises. Between The Next Generation and Voyager, Deep Space Nine got lost in the shuffle. This allowed the writers to take risks with the stories. One such example is “The Siege of AR-558”, which if you removed the aliens and ray guns could have been a scene from a film like Platoon or Apocalypse Now.

Another great part of DS9 is Klingons. I explain in another article (see here) why Klingons are so bad ass and DS9 has them in spades. Starting with season 4 and going all the way to the finale, the Klingons become a major presence in the storylines. The Next Generation had Klingon episodes but they were usually few and far in between.  Deep Space Nine was seeped in Klingon culture. There was a Klingon restaurant on the station; the character Dax had been an ambassador to the Klingons; they even imported the character of Lieutenant Worf from The Next Generation and made him a series regular.

Along with the Klingons, we also learn about another alien race that only made a few appearances in The Next Generation, the Ferengi. The Ferengi were first introduced in The Next Generation episode “The Last Outpost.” According to cast and crew members these aliens were meant to be the major villains of The Next Generation just like the Klingons had been the major villains of the original series. Unfortunately when the episode debuted the Ferengi were viewed as inept and comical. They were used in several more episodes of TNG but were never seen as the threat they were supposed to be.

It wasn’t until Deep Space Nine that the Ferengi got the chance to become important aliens in the Star Trek Universe. At the beginning of the series it is established that DS9 is an important port of trade for aliens of all species and the Ferengi are a species that are obsessed with the pursuit of profit. No more so than the stations resident Ferengi, Quark (played by Armin Shimerman). He owns the local bar and runs a black market trade out of it. Quark can be seen as a parody of almost any venture capitalist and is a reminder that while the humans of the show have evolved beyond greed, not all species in the universe have done the same. Also, which I feel needs to be mentioned, the Ferengi seem to be the one species in the galaxy that use the holodeck for the purpose that every fanboy would probably use it for. One can only hope they have good cleaning supplies in the 24th century.

Star Trek, the original series, was always about examining the human condition using aliens and space travel as substitutions for real humans and real situations. Some of the most memorable episodes were about racism, or greed, or civil rights, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine proudly carries the torch established by that first series. Gene Roddenberry sadly passed away before this series went on the air, which is ironic because of all the spin-offs of  his vision, this is the one that I feel most captured his initial intent behind Star Trek.

The Joker: Greatest Super Villain of All Time

Lex Luthor does what he does for power. Magneto does it for mutant superiority. Darkseid does it to rule the universe. But the Joker? The Joker does what he does just for laughs. And that is why The Joker is the most dangerous of all super villains. His sole purpose in life, his guiding compass, is a warped sense of humor. Sometimes the Joker’s plots are just goofy puns and sometimes they are sadistic plans that would make the Marquis De Sade blush. Either way, The Joker remains forever the Clown Prince of Crime.

The character of the Joker made his first appearance in the pages of Batman #1 in 1940. Since then, he and the Caped Crusader have been considered nearly synonymous characters, one perfectly reflecting the other. Two sides of the same coin (which is probably more fitting for Two-Face). Batman being the perfect methodical crime fighter and the Joker being the living embodiment of just pure chaos. While there have been stories done featuring the characters fighting other adversaries there is just something about a Joker vs Batman storyline that excites every comic book fan. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter, two great tastes that go great together.

Now it’s curious why the Joker has become such an iconic character. Batman has such an expansive rogues gallery with no shortage of maniacs. Two-Face, The Scarecrow, The Riddler, The Mad Hatter, the list goes on of psychopaths who fight Batman. But it is the Joker that is most associated with the character of Batman. Perhaps that is because the Joker has the inciting villain in some of the most memorable Batman stories.

Besides the death of his parents, there are two truly haunting stories that shape Batman’s identity. The first is the memorable A Death in the Family which featured the “death” of Jason Todd (yes, I know he got better). And the second is The Killing Joke which showed the crippling of Barbra Gordon (Batgirl, who in The New 52 has been retconned as not being crippled, which I disagree with) and the brutal torturing of Commissioner Jim Gordon. The last two are done because the Joker want to drive Jim Gordon insane claiming all it takes to make a sane man crazy is "one bad day."

Part of the reason that the Joker is so closely connected to Batman is that, in part at least, Batman helped to create the Joker. Although the definitive origin of the Joker has never been truly told, the version that most writers tend to reference is the one that appeared in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. In that story, a failed comedian is talked into helping commit a crime at a closed chemical plant. While he thinks he will be sharing in the big score, his compatriots have really just brought him there to be a fall guy and they dress him up in a garish outfit with a large metal red hood. When Batman shows up the comedian is knocked into a vat of acid and presumed dead. A combination of the chemicals, the near death trauma, and the knowledge that his wife and child died in birth turns him into a man unhinged. Behold the Joker.

While the chemical plant story was referenced in Tim Burton’s Batman, the idea put forth in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight fits more in line with the spirit of the character. In that, Heath Ledger’s the Joker gives several different origin stories for how he received his disfiguring scars. Each story is as likely as the other to be the truth and yet you as the viewer get the feeling that none of them are true. And that is the Joker. His reality is whatever he decides it to be at any given moment.

Now while the Joker is primarily a Batman villain, many other heroes have had encounters with the Clown Prince of Crime. When Gotham becomes tiresome, the Joker has been known to go to nearby Metropolis and harass the Man of Steel, Superman. In the cartoon movie World’s Finest, Lex Luthor hired the Joker to kill Superman and in the Elseworld tale Kingdom Come, the Joker is shown in flashback murdering Lois Lane and the entire staff of the Daily Planet.

 

Though to me the crowning achievement of the Joker to the DC Universe was the storyline Joker’s Last Laugh. In that crossover, believing he is dying, the Joker infects an entire maximum-security prison full of super villains with his patented Joker toxin. In essence he turns the worst criminals that the Justice League have ever faced into high-powered versions of himself. One Joker is bad enough but a super powered army of Jokers is pure chaos.

Comic books are full of iconic characters. But is a rare occurrence when a comic book villain outshines the hero he was created to face. Moriarty does not outshine Sherlock Holmes. Pat Garret does not surpass Billy The Kid. But in many ways the Joker is a far more interesting and complex character than Batman is. Batman is a tortured hero who will never feel his quest for justice ever be completely fulfilled. Whereas the Joker is a creature guided purely by his Id. Whatever whim tickles his fancy he follows. As a person who tends to overthink things I can’t help but wish I was a bit more Joker in my behavior.

Crappy Super Powers

In America there was the short-lived and critically panned Heroes. But in Britain there is the completely brilliant and still going Misfits. The basic concept of the two series is the same. A divergent group of individuals is blessed with amazing powers and abilities. But the reason why I give so much more praise to Misfits than I do to Heroes is because in Misfits they explore a concept that has long puzzled me about super heroes. Where are all the completely crappy powers?

On one episode of Misfits they introduce a character who has what he calls “lacto-kinesis.” He can control milk and other dairy products with the power of his mind. Now I am quite fond of an ice-cold glass of milk and even I have to admit this is a pretty dumb power. It has no offensive or defensive capabilities to speak of (even though the character in the show does use it to kill). But really at best it saves you a few seconds going from the counter to your fridge for a bowl of cereal. And with the rise in lactose intolerant individuals its a pretty selective ability.

If we're going to look at a group of individuals with varied super human abilities we need to consider the X-Men. In the world in which these characters inhabit there are these people called “mutants.” The X-Men are dedicated to helping teach mutants how to use their abilities for the betterment of all of humanity. But if you look at the mutants the X-Men accept into their ranks, there seems to only be mutants of a certain caliber of power accepted into the Xavier Academy (or the Jean Grey Academy as Wolverine decided to name his branch of the school in the current comics). 

There are no lacto-kinetics on the X-Men. Nor is there anyone who doesn’t appear to be either an offensive or defensive asset in battle. And that seems a bit discriminatory since there are millions of mutants in the world (there was a brief period in the comics where there wasn’t but they recently corrected that). Millions of mutants means odds are not every one gets a fantastic healing factor (like Wolverine), optic blasts (like Cyclops), or even telepathy (like Professor X, Jean Grey, Cable, Emma Frost, and a whole bunch of others, which seems kind of lazy on the part of the writers). Someone is going to get the short end of the genetic stick and get a completely worthless power. But we never seem to see these individuals at the Xavier School.

True, there are mutants whose mutations cause them to be physically deformed. One particular group of deformed mutants are The Morlocks who live in tunnels beneath Manhattan. Their mutations are all too physically overt for them to pass among normal humans. The majority of the X-Men look like normal people and can walk along crowded streets without anyone realizing their true nature. The main two exceptions to this are Beast and Nightcrawler. And even Beast spent the majority of his life looking like a normal human.

Nightcrawler, on the other hand, was born with the physical appearance he has in the comics. That of a blue furred devil. But with this physical abnormality comes great physical agility. That and the ability to short-range teleport. So even though Nightcrawler lost the lottery in the looks department, he still got a leg up in the powers department. Just check out the first five minutes of the film X2: X-Men United if you want to see how kickass a fighter Nightcrawler is (he takes out an entire secret service detail using an amazing mixture of teleporting and martial arts). Point is, his powers are still quite useful even if they do cause him to be an outsider among normal society.

As bad as Marvel is, DC is even worse. While Marvel at least acknowledges the possibility of ugly people with powers, no one in the DC Universe with super powers has any form of physical deformity. It’s like if super models also had super powers. Even the Legion of Super Heroes, which has such obscure and weird characters as Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater Lad, find a way to utilize those powers to the fullest, and you certainly couldn't claim any of them are deformed in any way. The Legion is made up of members from multiple worlds throughout the universe. An entire universe of super powered individuals and not one of them seems to have a useless ability or is physically repulsive.

 

Now to be certain there are powers that have drawbacks and downsides to them. Rogue of the X-Men can absorb the powers of anyone she touches but she can also drain the life out of them so she is left fearing physical contact with others. Maul of the WildCATS can increase his strength and size but as he does so he loses his intelligence. So there are downsides to some powers. But even with the downside of certain powers, they never outweigh the benefits of that power to render them useless. Theoretically Rogue is the most powerful mutant there is.

Cool powers, crappy heroes

When you look at the world we live in, some people are blessed with great intelligence, or athletic prowess, or an amazing creative skill. But many people are not. Most people are average or below average in both physical and mental aptitude. Taking that fact into consideration one should assume that if the normal population has unimpressive citizens so to should the super human population. As I think I’ve shown in most of my blog entries about super heroes and villains, these characters are really just a reflection of our own society. And sometimes our society has unimpressive members. If the fictitious world of super heroes is to be a proper reflection of the factual world of reality it should also include citizens that are less than impressive.

Horror Movies: Who are the REAL monsters?

I started writing this blog entry around Halloween, which means I am probably writing this while some horror film is playing on TV. That’s the beauty of Halloween, there is a horror flick playing on almost every channel 24 hours a day for the entire month of October. Usually one of the classics of the genre. Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and all their various sequels and remakes. It is a good time of year if you’re a film fan.

But as I watch these many horror flicks, I have wonder what really motivates these movie monsters. Sure they’re killers, but what are they killing for? Humans kill all the time but there is usually a reason behind it. For good or for ill, death happens for a reason. And I believe the killers in our favorite films are no different.

Jason Vorhees is the hockey masked wearing killer from the Friday the 13^th films. But why? Why does Jason kill? Well, Jason was a mentally challenged young boy who died when the camp counselors who were supposed to be watching him went off to have sex. This inspired his mother, Mrs. Vorhees who is the killer in the original film, to go on a killing spree to avenge her son. And then in the subsequent sequels it is left to Jason, who is somehow still alive, to take up where his mother left off. So basically Jason is performing revenge killing. Not just at the people who caused his death but to the very youth culture in which they belonged. If you watch the Friday The 13^th films you will notice that it is the Teens who engage in sex who usually die first. They are the ones who first attract Jason’s wrath. So Jason is not just some mindless killer but a deeply damaged individual who went through a traumatic event in his youth.

If we really want to see a mindless killer we need to look at Michael Myers (no, not the SNL alum) who featured in the Halloween films (except for part 3 which is underrated). The motivation of Michael Myers is never revealed. He just kills. In later films in the series he seemed to want to target members of his family, but he will still kill any random individual who gets in his path. There is no clear target for his violence. Jason targeted misbehaving teenagers, and tended to ignore people who didn’t quite fit the parameters of those initial victims. Michael just kills and in several of the films is described as “pure evil.”

Of the many classic slasher killers from the horror films of my childhood, the one true character that can be called a monster is Freddy Krueger. Right from the first film Freddy is a supernatural creature whereas both Michael and Jason are originally mortals. Plus, whereas prior to the beginning of their films, Michael and Jason have yet to kill anyone, Freddy was a child murder long before the film franchise even starts. Before he haunted the dreams of the teenagers of Springwood, he was a notorious serial child murderer. Even before he was a movie monster, he would have been considered a monster. Now Freddy sometimes gets forgotten behind those other two because his films tend to have a lower body count. But if you look at how gruesome his kills are and the pleasure he gets from it, he is certainly a far worse monster than Jason or Michael.

 

Though as evil as Freddy is, he seems to be an amateur in the kill department when it comes to the star of the Hellraiser films, Pinhead. Pinhead is a Cenobite, who are a race of interdimensional demons who can only enter our world through a magic puzzle box. Once Pinhead and his minions are released they dispatch all those around them using the most depraved and sadistic methods they can conceive of. Usually this involves ripping off a persons skin, hanging them with hooks and chains, basically the types of things you would see in a very kinky S&M club but with the end results always being fatal.

While there are many more horror killers I could consider, I decided to keep it to those few. Leatherface is just a retarded hillbilly and the Leprechaun is more of a joke than a monster. Plus most other movie killer franchises do not have the same killer throughout their entire franchise so it is hard to examine the overall motivation of a particular killer. But with these four I think I can make my point pretty well. What truly makes a monster seems to be emotion. Both Pinhead and Freddy take pleasure and joy from their killing. Jason and Michael just kill because they don’t know how to do anything else. To me, this is what makes being killed by Freddy or Pinhead so terrible. With Jason or Michael they’ll most likely just stab you and let you die. But Freddy and Pinhead will both draw out your death and play with you which is a far worse way to die.