DS9: Past Tense

[FaxModem1]

I actually really liked the concept of the encampment. The first episode was fine too because it handled the characters discreetly, but the second episode was just horrible.

I think part of the issue with the episode, as I mentioned in my original thread, is that all the suspense gets sucked out of the room anytime we cut back to Kira and O'Brien. Focusing on just Sisko, Dax, and Bashir would have made the suspense of the hostage situation higher, and the stakes of what they're doing more real. But, the pressure also doesn't really build up, due to the fact that we know that Sisko, Bashir, and Dax will be fine.

More time fleshing out the hostage takers and hostages probably would have made the episode more effective, akin to how the film John Q did so. Milk some tension off of the fact that the woman is hypoglicemic, and finding a chocolate bar in a slum is a bit hard to do. Have someone point out that the people living in the Sanctuary Districts don't get the best medical care, and there have been people hospitalized or dead, etc. The drama becomes, will they get her killed because she's a hostage with a medical condition and they're acting as the bad guys? It gives more of a ticking clock to their situation. Show the pot boiling over, while also showing the camaraderie happening between the homeless prisoners and the people who work there. So that when the SWAT team comes in and guns all the hostage takers down(thankfully non-fatal to Bell/Sisko), we see just how bad this world has gone.

At least, I think that's one way that it could have gone.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I actually really liked the concept of the encampment. The first episode was fine too because it handled the characters discreetly, but the second episode was just horrible.

More time fleshing out the hostage takers and hostages probably would have made the episode more effective, akin to how the film John Q did so. Milk some tension off of the fact that the woman is hypoglicemic, and finding a chocolate bar in a slum is a bit hard to do. Have someone point out that the people living in the Sanctuary Districts don't get the best medical care, and there have been people hospitalized or dead, etc. The drama becomes, will they get her killed because she's a hostage with a medical condition and they're acting as the bad guys? It gives more of a ticking clock to their situation. Show the pot boiling over, while also showing the camaraderie happening between the homeless prisoners and the people who work there. So that when the SWAT team comes in and guns all the hostage takers down(thankfully non-fatal to Bell/Sisko), we see just how bad this world has gone.

Well I agree. I'd be happy if they chose that path and did it competently, but I'm not being too picky I think.

A considerable point, if not major, crucial, or critical, is this terrorist leader. His ambitions are a bit simple; he wants to go to Taz Mania. Fair enough, that reminds me of Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay when Blockbuster is introduced as someone that simply wants his own island. It's cute. But in this second episode, Sisko just strolls in and starts making decisions. Like wut? lol. This terrorist guy is in this murky state between hardened criminal that's willing to kill people and disenfranchised misanthrope that doesn't want to move back in with his parents. Then what's funny on top of that, is that Sisko fumbles with the temporal PD when the real martyr dies prematurely, then proceeds to employ the "person looking for job" as the diplomatic terrorist leader that's making demands to close down the encampment with the hostages at gunpoint as leverage. I see like an 80% + chance that in real life this poor guy would be incarcerated severely for adopting this crisis.

[FaxModem1]

I actually really liked the concept of the encampment. The first episode was fine too because it handled the characters discreetly, but the second episode was just horrible.

More time fleshing out the hostage takers and hostages probably would have made the episode more effective, akin to how the film John Q did so. Milk some tension off of the fact that the woman is hypoglicemic, and finding a chocolate bar in a slum is a bit hard to do. Have someone point out that the people living in the Sanctuary Districts don't get the best medical care, and there have been people hospitalized or dead, etc. The drama becomes, will they get her killed because she's a hostage with a medical condition and they're acting as the bad guys? It gives more of a ticking clock to their situation. Show the pot boiling over, while also showing the camaraderie happening between the homeless prisoners and the people who work there. So that when the SWAT team comes in and guns all the hostage takers down(thankfully non-fatal to Bell/Sisko), we see just how bad this world has gone.

Well I agree. I'd be happy if they chose that path and did it competently, but I'm not being too picky I think.

A considerable point, if not major, crucial, or critical, is this terrorist leader. His ambitions are a bit simple; he wants to go to Taz Mania. Fair enough, that reminds me of Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay when Blockbuster is introduced as someone that simply wants his own island. It's cute. But in this second episode, Sisko just strolls in and starts making decisions. Like wut? lol. This terrorist guy is in this murky state between hardened criminal that's willing to kill people and disenfranchised misanthrope that doesn't want to move back in with his parents. Then what's funny on top of that, is that Sisko fumbles with the temporal PD when the real martyr dies prematurely, then proceeds to employ the "person looking for job" as the diplomatic terrorist leader that's making demands to close down the encampment with the hostages at gunpoint as leverage. I see like an 80% + chance that in real life this poor guy would be incarcerated severely for adopting this crisis.

According to the writers, the whole point of Tasmania guy was that he was pretty much forced into that situation by life, and that if things were slightly better, he'd be happily working at a car garage somewhere.

According to Behr, the presentation of the character of B.C. in this episode is the key to the overriding theme. In "Past Tense, Part I", B.C. kills Gabriel Bell in cold blood, but in Part II, it is never mentioned that he is a murderer. The reason for this, according to Behr, is that B.C. would never have killed Bell if society hadn't forced him into that position. B.C. was not inherently a killer, and Behr was determined that the episode not become all about Sisko and Bashir trapped with a cold-blooded murderer. Behr says he is especially proud of the character of B.C., who he feels illustrates the notion that "if you treat people like animals, they become animals. If B.C. had not been homeless, what would he have been? We created his backstory, stuff that would never appear on the screen, and decided he probably would have been a garage mechanic or something. Even though he's obviously a threatening, scary character, and he's on-the-edge-crazy all through both shows, we didn't define him as a murderer." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

And, well, with the mass of dead bodies on the streets at the end, it is probable that all involved were killed horribly with or without Sisko's involvement. Its just that Sisko insured that everyone heard the speeches of hundreds, if not thousands of unemployed homeless people forced into ghettos.

Point is, most, if not all of the people inside are having to become tougher and tougher around the edges, and wouldn't have if they lived in a society that gave half a damn about them. Hearing that galvanized people due to the fact that the police overreacted and gunned down desperate people asking for help.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I actually really liked the concept of the encampment. The first episode was fine too because it handled the characters discreetly, but the second episode was just horrible.

More time fleshing out the hostage takers and hostages probably would have made the episode more effective, akin to how the film John Q did so. Milk some tension off of the fact that the woman is hypoglicemic, and finding a chocolate bar in a slum is a bit hard to do. Have someone point out that the people living in the Sanctuary Districts don't get the best medical care, and there have been people hospitalized or dead, etc. The drama becomes, will they get her killed because she's a hostage with a medical condition and they're acting as the bad guys? It gives more of a ticking clock to their situation. Show the pot boiling over, while also showing the camaraderie happening between the homeless prisoners and the people who work there. So that when the SWAT team comes in and guns all the hostage takers down(thankfully non-fatal to Bell/Sisko), we see just how bad this world has gone.

Well I agree. I'd be happy if they chose that path and did it competently, but I'm not being too picky I think.

A considerable point, if not major, crucial, or critical, is this terrorist leader. His ambitions are a bit simple; he wants to go to Taz Mania. Fair enough, that reminds me of Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay when Blockbuster is introduced as someone that simply wants his own island. It's cute. But in this second episode, Sisko just strolls in and starts making decisions. Like wut? lol. This terrorist guy is in this murky state between hardened criminal that's willing to kill people and disenfranchised misanthrope that doesn't want to move back in with his parents. Then what's funny on top of that, is that Sisko fumbles with the temporal PD when the real martyr dies prematurely, then proceeds to employ the "person looking for job" as the diplomatic terrorist leader that's making demands to close down the encampment with the hostages at gunpoint as leverage. I see like an 80% + chance that in real life this poor guy would be incarcerated severely for adopting this crisis.

According to the writers, the whole point of Tasmania guy was that he was pretty much forced into that situation by life, and that if things were slightly better, he'd be happily working at a car garage somewhere.

According to Behr, the presentation of the character of B.C. in this episode is the key to the overriding theme. In "Past Tense, Part I", B.C. kills Gabriel Bell in cold blood, but in Part II, it is never mentioned that he is a murderer. The reason for this, according to Behr, is that B.C. would never have killed Bell if society hadn't forced him into that position. B.C. was not inherently a killer, and Behr was determined that the episode not become all about Sisko and Bashir trapped with a cold-blooded murderer. Behr says he is especially proud of the character of B.C., who he feels illustrates the notion that "if you treat people like animals, they become animals. If B.C. had not been homeless, what would he have been? We created his backstory, stuff that would never appear on the screen, and decided he probably would have been a garage mechanic or something. Even though he's obviously a threatening, scary character, and he's on-the-edge-crazy all through both shows, we didn't define him as a murderer." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

And, well, with the mass of dead bodies on the streets at the end, it is probable that all involved were killed horribly with or without Sisko's involvement. Its just that Sisko insured that everyone heard the speeches of hundreds, if not thousands of unemployed homeless people forced into ghettos.

Point is, most, if not all of the people inside are having to become tougher and tougher around the edges, and wouldn't have if they lived in a society that gave half a damn about them. Hearing that galvanized people due to the fact that the police overreacted and gunned down desperate people asking for help.

Right. Again, I agree in concept that it's actually timeless and applies to today, maybe more now than ever with the epidemic of homelessness that's going on all over.

[Deledrius]

You really think our government couldn't slowly try to set up Sanctuary Districts? Hell, they were trying to do that very thing at the time of the shooting!

Not only that, but these days people are constantly talking on the news about whole Sanctuary Cities!

[Yukaphile]

Literally caging people up in whole cities?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You really think our government couldn't slowly try to set up Sanctuary Districts? Hell, they were trying to do that very thing at the time of the shooting!

I'm not worried about it.

While this episode has reminded me about stuff going on, it's the opposite condition to some extent. We have a homeless camp running on public ground that has become a bipartisan issue. The progressive councilmembers are trying to delay the city from disbanding it in an appeal to public treatment of homeless persons.

[Darth Wedgius]

Literally caging people up in whole cities?

I believe that was a joke. Sanctuary cities is a term for cities that have chosen to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, where sanctuary districts uses the term "sanctuary" to make prion neighborhoods sound more palatable.

[Darth Wedgius]

The Supreme Court has recognized freedom of movement as a constitutional right though it is not specifically enumerated so it rests on stare decisis, basically judicial precedent. There's complicated history there that I'll leave out. It doesn't apply to people convicted of a crime and serving their sentence, obviously, and vagrancy can be considered a crime, but I don't recall the people in the sanctuary districts being tried, sentenced, or allowed to leave when their sentence is up.

San Francisco is relatively generous to the homeless, and that may contribute significantly to the number of homeless they have. An experiment to just give people housing vouchers has had mixed results, with SWAT called, human feces in the stairwells, and the occasional call to pick up a resident dead from an OD. So I can see some voters having an urge to throw up their hands in dealing with homelessness, declaring the problem insoluble, and just going with whatever route gets the problem out of their hair.

But a sanctuary district would not only lump all the homeless and destitute with those, including people who would do an honest day's work for a life, it would miss that the vast majority of homeless in the U.S. are temporarily homeless. Put those into a sanctuary district and you're just more-or-less ensuring they stay homeless and a drain on resources.

Decisions in politics are not always made rationally, of course. But it's hard to see an upside to pushing so hard for a sanctuary district that you get it past the supreme court and state governments when it ends up costing the tax payer more.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yup.