I’m giving episode 5 a 6, and I’m being generous. Something that could have been serious, epic, with a legacy, respect, and a message to silence the whiners, only served to fuel their whining. I mean, that Sam looks like she came from a Cartoon Network children’s show, one of those deformed puppets, because that character constantly breaks the tone of the tribute to Sisko with a completely unnecessary infantilization, surpassed only by the stupid Flotter episodes on Voyager.
Instead of giving this role to a character who could have carried out the tribute without constantly breaking the tone and acting like a silly little girl, they give the role of “emissary” to this girl who doesn’t even know where she is. I imagine Sisko, from celestial time, facepalming.
I liked the parallel with “The Visitor” and the book Anslem, and the inclusion of Jake Sisko showing all his love for his father. But this Sam character is worse than Neelix. Neelix was nosy, annoying, and a clown, but he had backstory and emotional moments; this girl is all bark and no bite. She’s even more cloying than Neelix, and that’s saying something. I just can’t connect with her. I’ve been having trouble connecting with her since the beginning, but this episode made the disconnect even worse.
Maybe they’ll give her a twist in the future and change my mind, but for me, she wasn’t the right character to pay homage to someone as serious and important to the franchise as the Prophet’s Emissary and the one who led the war against the Dominion, because this girl seems like she came from some other franchise, like Zoey 101 or something.
I’ve been very clear about my stance against pointless whining about everything new, but with this character, I have to step aside. And without accepting pointless whining or arguments, I can accept how little Star Trek that character represents. In fact, when they put those childish letters over the CBS sign at the beginning, I already knew what was coming. I can’t stand Sam and her childish, silly attitude.
Neelix may have died long before this, but he’d surely be turning in his grave over how annoying that character is, shouting from his grave, “I’m the most annoying character in Star Trek, you’re not going to take my place!”
Another thing that, for me, was unnecessary in that episode was that kiss between Caleb and Tarima. It’s a completely unrelated storyline for an episode dedicated to Sisko. If they were going to do it, they should have waited for another episode, because it only stole the spotlight from the tribute to the DS9 captain. Why put that there? Why keep breaking the tone of the Sisko tribute with something totally disconnected from the main plot, when Sam was already doing it all on her own with her childish, clueless attitude?
I liked the ending, with Sisko’s voice speaking, the “Thank you, Avery,” and the Deep Space Nine symphony, and maybe that helped my perception of this episode a little. But someone commented on Facebook: “With Discovery, I had to keep checking the clock to know when it was going to end,” and that’s how I felt about this episode. At some point, I got distracted by my cell phone when that girl, Sam, was acting like a fool, especially in the bar. What a terrible performance that actress gave in that bar scene. The Rosa de Guadalupe has better actors than that girl.
I don’t side with the whiners who criticize everything for no reason, but I can’t stay silent here and not express my dissatisfaction with an episode I thought was going to be epic, based on all the comments I’d read on social media. Instead, it left me with a bittersweet feeling, more bitter than sweet, because, as I said before, the episode had good parts, but a large part was very difficult to digest, especially that character Sam, who seems out of place in this franchise’s universe.
Honestly, I don’t expect to have to write another review like this, and I’m going to keep giving the series a chance, because I quite liked the previous Klingon episode and I did feel the spirit of the franchise in that one. Therefore, I’m going to continue watching, because I really want to know if Caleb’s mother is going to appear and what’s going to happen with Nus Braka. But with this episode, even though it was dedicated to the man who saved Bajor from the Pah-Wraiths, I didn’t feel the spirit of the franchise. It felt like an episode from something else entirely, all because of that character I just don’t connect with at all.
I won’t go on any longer so this article doesn’t get as long as Neelix or SAM, but I wanted to give my opinion on this episode and make it clear that I don’t buy into everything just because it has the Star Trek name attached, as someone once told me in a comment.
Thanks for reading.
