Buy This DVD Box Set Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!
Episodes
Disc Three: “Statistical
Probabilities”, “The Magnificent Ferengi”, “Waltz”, “Who Mourns For
Morn?”
Episodes
Disc Four: “Far Beyond The Stars”,
“One Little Ship”, “Honor Among Thieves”, “Change Of Heart”
Episodes
Disc Five: “Wrongs Darker Than Death
Or Night”, “Inquisition”, “In The Pale Moonlight”, “His Way”
Episodes
Disc Six: “The
Reckoning”, “Valiant”, “Profit And Lace”, “Time’s Orphan”
Episodes
Disc Seven: “The
Sound Of Her Voice”, “Tears Of The Prophets”
Stars:
Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Michael Dorn, Terry Farrell,
Cirroc Lofton, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, and Nana Visitor
Guest
Stars: Brock Peters, Marc Alaimo, Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodenchik, Wallace Shawn,
Louise Fletcher, J.G. Hertzler, Philip Anglim, Rosalind Chao, Andrew Robinson,
Jeffrey Combs, Penny Johnson, Chase Masterson, Casey Biggs, William Sadler,
Barry Jenner, Melanie Smith, Marc Warden, Cecily Adams, Iggy Pop, Paul Popovich,
Salome Jens, and Andrew Robinson
Writers:
Pam Pietro Forte, David Weddle, Bradley Thompson, Ira Steven Behr, Rene
Echevarria, Ronald D. Moore, Michael Taylor, Philip Kim, Marc O’Connell, and
Hans Beimler
Directors:
Allan Kroeker, Michael Vejar, Jesus Salvador Trevino, Victor Lobl, Chip Chalmers,
Alexander Siddig, Avery Brooks, Michael Dorn, Jonathan West, Rene Auberjonois,
Winrich Kolbe, Anson Williams, David Livingston, Levar Burton, Marc Scott Zicree,
Scott Thompson Bauer, and Alan Eastman
Based
On “Star Trek” Created By: Gene Roddenberry
Feature Length: 19
hours and 36 minutes
Extras:
“Mission Inquiry: Far Beyond
the Stars”, “24th – Century Wedding”, “Crew Dossier: Julian
Bashir”, “Crew Dossier: Quark”, “DS9 Sketchbook: John Eaves”, “Photo
Gallery”, “Section 31 Files”
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions
Packaging:
Digipack Book Style Gatefold Within A Slipcase
Chapter
Stops: 8 Per Episode
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year
of Television Broadcast: 1997-1998/DVD Release: 2003
Home
Video Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: Not Applicable
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
When
we last saw our brave heroes on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” the
Cardassians lead by Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) and his new Dominion allies had
successfully taken the space station back from the Federation and the Bajoran
people because of it’s strategic location next to the only known stable
wormhole that connect the Alpha Quadrant with the Gamma Quadrant. However Sisco
(Avery Brooks) left a self replicating mine field that prevented the Dominion
from sending reinforcements into the Alpha Quadrant while Major Kira (Nana
Visitor) and Odo (Rene Auberjonois) implemented a program that disabled all of
the computer terminals in Ops. Jake Sisco (Cirroc Lofton) has chosen to stay
behind and cover the occupation as a journalist while a fleet of Federation
starships assembled to confront the Dominion.
Three
months have past now and the war has not gone well for the Federation and it’s
Klingon allies. Captain Sisco has been reassigned to what his essentially a desk
job at a Starfleet base helping to conduct military strategies while Jadzia Dax
(Terry Farrell) has been commanding the Defiant on various maneuvers.
Sisco reunites with his crew aboard the Jem’Hadar ship he discovered the
season before. Entering into space now controlled by the Dominion, he succeeds
in destroying a factory where the Jem’Hadar soldiers are able to receive the
drug the Dominion uses to keep control over their shock troops, but the ship is
severely damaged and crashes on a world where coincidentally a Dominion ship has
also crashed. The resulting conflict only solidifies the fact that there can be
no reasoning with the Dominion’s shock troops and no trusting their smarmy
Vorta middlemen. Meanwhile Quark’s brother Rom (Max Grodenchik) has been
incarcerated and is facing execution for sabotage aboard the station while Odo
has been slowly seduced by the Changeling leader (Salome Jens) aboard the
station, which puts Kira’s resistance cell at risk. The six part story arc
culminates in the Federation successfully taking back Deep Space Nine from the
Dominion, but in order to prevent a fleet of Jem’Hadar reinforcements from
retaking the station, Sisco makes a bargain with the “Prophets” or aliens
that exist within the wormhole that will ultimately build to a price to be paid
by the end of the series to finally fulfill Bajoran prophecy and conclude the
most destructive conflict the galaxy has ever known.
There
are many side stories and new elements added to the sixth season of “Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine” that had elements of high tension, success, and tragedy
for all involved. Rom’s son Nog (Aron Eisenberg) is promoted to Ensign, but
the danger to his own well being as a Starfleet officer is even greater now than
when he was a cadet. Worf (Michael Dorn) marries Jadzia Dax and over the course
of the season their romantic personal lives have to take a sideline to the war
at hand and ultimately Jadzia loses her life to Gul Dukat, who has lost his mind
after losing his daughter Ziyal and has now allied himself with the Pa-Wraiths,
a malevolent force bent on taking control of the wormhole aliens “Celestial
Temple” and bring doom to Bajor. We also discover the Federation’s
untouchable secret service “Section 31” that question Dr. Bashir (Alexander
Siddig) because of the pattern of circumstance that has surrounded his service
since he first arrived aboard the station. This was compounded after his work
with some institutionalized genetically engineered humans on the probability of
success in the war against The Dominion is unlikely and therefore Bashir
recommends that the Federation should surrender to the Dominion if lives are to
be spared.
Some
of the show’s best writing can be found in episodes from the sixth season that
include “Far Beyond The Stars,” where we are bought back to 1940s America
where an African American Science Fiction Writer (Avery Brooks) creates an
entire imaginary world with his stories, which just happen to feature an African
American Captain assigned to a space station at a new hub of galactic commerce.
Consequently his unwillingness to disassociate himself from his stories prompts
a backlash that places the status of his sanity in question.
The six part story-arc that details how the Dominion is driven out of
Deep Space Nine can be explored on discs one and two with the episodes “A
Time To Stand”, “Rocks And Shoals”, “Sons And Daughters”, “Behind
The Lines”, “Favor The Bold”, and “Sacrifice Of Angels” While new
elements such as “Section 31” and the “Pa-Wraiths” are introduced in the
episodes “Inquisition” and “The Reckoning” respectively. “You are
Cordially Invited” details the wedding between Worf and Jadzia while the sixth
season finale “Tears Of The Prophets” details their tragic separation as
well as the second time Sisco seems to leave the station possibly for good only
this time it is to find his own place in the tapestry of events that have
occurred during the show’s past six seasons and ultimately the ending of
season six is a strange inverse of the finale in season five.
The
starship battles and effects are spectacular in this season and the seven DVD-Videos
that make up the box set offer the best way to watch and listen to all 26
episodes that make up Paramount Home Entertainment’s “Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine: The Complete Sixth Season” box set. I would not have thought it could be
possible given the fact that filmed television programs are edited on video, but
the sixth season of “Deep Space Nine” is the best looking “Star Trek” TV
series box set to be released by Paramount so far. There is absolutely no
artifacts or video noise to speak of. The picture quality has never looked so
solid and the effects sequences are breathtaking. I cannot wait to see how
Season Seven will look and eventually “Star Trek: Voyager” since it is
obvious to me now more than ever that the more recent the season, the better the
picture quality on DVD. The quality of the English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Soundtrack remains full though not terribly discrete. It is still an improvement
over the English Dolby Surround Soundtrack that is also provided on all seven
discs as well. English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing impaired are
encoded onto all 26 episodes as options.
Like
the previous sets, all of the extra value features are located on the seventh
disc that begins with a featurette detailing the above mentioned episode “Far
Beyond The Stars” complete with filmed interview clips with the episode’s
Director and series Star Avery Brooks as well as Armin
Shimerman, who states this as being his favorite episode that he worked on from
the entire series (8:49). “24th Century Wedding” (10:54) focuses
on the wedding between the characters of Worf and Jadzia Dax as detailed in
episode “You are Cordially Invited.” There are also two new crew dossier
featurettes. One focuses on the character of “Dr. Julian Bashir” (Alexander
Siddig), who comments on the evolution of his character through the interactions
with Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) as well how real life events impacted his
portrayal of the character from being the wide-eyed young Doctor interested in
“frontier medicine” to the seasoned genetically engineered professional he
ultimately turns out to be (14:21). The
second dossier focuses on “Quark” (16:00), with Armin Shimerman discussing
how he tried to make Quark and by example the Ferengi more of a
three-dimensional character and race than his first initial appearance as a
Ferengi in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” first season episode “The
Last Outpost.”
There
is a new sketchbook to completed scene comparison featurette with John Eves
(9:16) as well as a photo galley of production shots. Strangely there is no
trailer for “Star Trek: Voyager” coming to DVD in the set even though
Paramount has mentioned it in advertisements in select magazines. Instead there
is the same “Adventures Of Indiana Jones: The Complete DVD Movie Collection”
trailer (1:48) included on previous releases as if it were necessary to remind
sci-fi, fantasy and fantastic fiction fans that the second most requested film
trilogy is now finally available on DVD. I mean I realize these discs are
planned and produced months in advance, but now that the “Indiana Jones”
trilogy is available on DVD, I don’t think it’s necessary to advertise it.
By this point they should be selling themselves.
Ten
new hidden “Section 31” files are included in this DVD set and ironically
there is no “Section 31” file on “Section 31” itself. I mean that was a
pretty cool idea that added a darker dimension as to how the United Federation
of Planets conducts top-secret information gathering and espionage and I was
hoping to see William Sadler, who makes his first appearance in the series and
introduces their existence in the episode “Inquisition,” to appear in an
interview clip. After the various genre films and TV shows he has appeared in as
well as his guest appearances on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” I think he at
least deserves two minutes of DVD screen time.
Hopefully he’ll be included in the season seven set.
The hidden “Section 31” files are easy to find and are composed of
short featurettes on the episodes “Tears Of The Prophets” (2:28), “Return
To Grace” (4:02), “His Way” (1:43), “Favor The Bold” (3:32), “The
Magnificent Ferengi” (2:49), “Who Mourns Morn” (2:48), “Waltz” (2:16),
“Change Of Heart” (3:18), and two shorts focusing on the romance between
Kira and Odo that run at (1:19) and (2:30) respectively.
In
just a few more weeks the seventh and final season of “Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine” will arrive on DVD so get prepared to relive the final adventures if you
have not already by picking up Paramount Home Entertainment’s “Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine: The Complete Sixth Season On DVD” box set now at retailers on
and offline.
©
Copyright 2003 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
Buy This DVD Box Set Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!