“In The Hands of the Prophets”
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
The Culture Wars come to Deep Space 9. And in a quaint early ’90s “Omigawd what if the Culture Wars were actually a real ‘war’!” way too. Little did they know.
Surprisingly, I actually found myself rooting for Keiko. The acting on the show is very slowly improving — hopefully in between Season 1 and 2 they all get to take some acting lessons.
Directing-wise, this episode was a bit hit or miss. There’s one great moment when Sisko and O’Brien are discussing the murder of Ensign Aquino and Neela is seen in the background fiddling with a computer console but also eavesdropping on their conversation. I thought that was a rather cool, if a bit blunt way to clue you in if you hadn’t already figured it out in the first five minutes.
Unfortunately, there’s also the climactic scene on the promenade (it must have a really good contract — all climactic scenes get filmed there). Not only is there unnecessary and distracting slow motion — complete with — I kid you not — a slowmo “NOOOOOOO” — but there’s also Sisko’s ridiculous leap, shown above. He looks like either a vampire bat or a blow up doll. I can’t decide which is more unappealing.
All things considered, a reasonable way put the terrors of this season (I’m looking at you, “Move Along Home”) to sleep.
