Emissary

DVD, DS9 S1 (Emissary)

I didn't realise how much foreknowledge was needed to follow so much of the plot and characters in this pilot episode! 'Voyager' starts off so much more coherently, with an easing in of each new person and the story encompasses action, meeting new races, all in the usual Trek way. DS9 is not quite as successful, but, as the series became known for it, starts as it means to go on, with a complex political, religious and conceptual backdrop, with a much more personal story for the central figure of Sisko. I feel 'Caretaker', the pilot for 'Voyager' is more successful in its introduction of Trek ideas and conventions, but 'Emissary' sets up so much more, and with hindsight, more satisfyingly works up the pieces that are introduced, whereas 'Voyager' and later, 'Enterprise' tended to lose sight of it's origins and set-up.

After watching the recent 'Star Trek XI' film, it's surprising how similar the teaser is to this - a main character loses someone dear in a big battle, and an evacuation, with a really powerfully emotive and punchy beginning! I wonder if that part of the film was inspired by this?

The characters are introduced in various ways, and like the series that came after, it's a patchwork, with events not necessarily coming neatly together. Perhaps the biggest arrival for regular viewers is O'Brien, moving from the Enterprise. His scenes wistfully having a last look round his beloved ship are very well played, as is Picard's appearance to give him a send off from the transporter pad. As always with a new Trek, a character from a previous version is on hand to provide continuity. Picard does this nicely, and makes it 'bigger' than any passing the baton sequence before or since (with the exception of Spock in STXI), with both Picard and the Enterprise, and Locutus of Borg.

The episode is probably twice as good when you've seen the entire series, and to see how so much came from scenes in this episode is a delight. It's brilliant that Kai Opaka knows Sisko is the Emissary even though he doesn't, and viewers that have only seen this episode don't either! Very little is explained from just seeing this episode in fact.

One problem was a technical thing, which you don't expect on Trek - in Sisko and Picard's first scene the dialogue plays with a muffled rustle underneath each line, which is barely noticeable, but annoying. Apart from this, I only felt the sets weren't shot as well as we're used to in other episodes, but maybe they are simply different angles that feel strange, as they experimented to see what worked. It gives scenes more energy sometimes, but doesn't always present them in the best views. Then again, this allows the station to unfold on screen like a beautiful piece of origami in subsequent episodes. The sets and effects themselves are still impressive today.

Perhaps Sisko's hardest job was to explain things to such a different race as the wormhole aliens. Explaining Life, Time and the Universe As We Know It, is nothing compared to the rules of baseball!

And I noticed the level of detail poured into this pilot: there's no wormhole in the credits, just in case viewers hadn't heard what the series was all about! They wouldn't bother these days as people would probably know the events of the whole season by the time they watched it... Perhaps the title music wasn't as good? It feel like heresy to say so, but maybe I've got so used to the 4-7 theme, the older one seems odd. I always used to prefer the older version as it sounds more remote, frontier-like and sad, but also with intent to explore, to build and to protect. Perhaps it takes time to get used to hearing the old version again?

In all, the second best Trek pilot, on a par with 'Broken Bow', though it was made about nine years before!

*****