Nits for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Image in the Sand
1. The Defiant on convoy duty:
I had two problems with this concept.
a> it seems unlikely to me that the Defiant would be pulled off from station duty for more than ten days to guard a shipment of "stem bolts".
b> it seems unlikely to me that the senior Star Fleet officer assigned to DS9 (Lt. Commander Worf) who is also the station's Tactical Officer and has acted as liaison between Federation forces and Klingon forces, the station's Chief Medical Officer (Dr. Bashir), and the station's Chief Engineer (Chief O'Brian) would all be taken off DS9 duty and be re-assigned to the same ship (Defiant) for more than ten days guarding a shipment of "stem bolts".
Why did they include Worf? To pick on Nog. Why did they include Miles? To explain to the audience (and Nog) that Worf is not accepting the death of Jadzia very well. Why did they include Julian? To tell the audience (and Nog) that Worf needs to be in battle.
In my opinion this was the single most glaring nit in the show.
Nit Value: 0.50
2. Benjamin Sisko's reconstruction of the face from the vision
Ben uses an interesting new PADD to reconstruct an image of the face he saw in the sand. That part was well handled.
However, the image we are shown on the PADD shows a woman with hair and ears (Ben actually selects an ear while we watch over his shoulder).
This is not consistent with the image we are shown of the face in the sand while Ben had his vision from the Prophets. That face was buried into the sand such that ears, hair and even the hairline was hidden under sand.
To remain consistent with the vision we saw Ben should have been looking at a face with no head behind it (i.e. no hair/scalp and no ears).
Why does the PADD show a face with ears and hair? To help the audience more readily identify her with the picture which Jake found in Joseph's storage room. Why link the face with the picture? So Joseph can give the Benjamin a clue to what the Prophets want him to do.
Although an obvious nit, I feel the need to make sure the audience readily identified the face with the picture was their primary motive for allowing it. So I haven't rated this nit as severely as it would seem to deserve.
Nit Value: 0.25
3. Joseph Sisko's reaction to the face.
Brock Peters overacts Joseph's reaction to seeing the face and being asked by Benjamin to identify it. There is no motive for this severe a reaction. Joseph himself explains to Benjamin that he wanted to tell Ben about his real mother but over the years it became harder for him (Joseph) to do it.
This does not adequately explain the severity of Joseph's initial efforts to avoid this explanation. Joseph behaves as if he had murdered the woman.
Why the severity of Joseph's reaction? To explain why Benjamin was never told about his real mother. Why avoid telling Benjamin about his real mother? Because Benjamin would have discovered the piece of her jewellery which Joseph kept, which had ancient Bajoran script on one side.
From my point of view Joseph's reaction didn't need to be played so severely. There are other, more reasonable responses Joseph could have given which wouldn't have dragged out so long in the episode. In effect this 'problem' padded the episode to make up the 45 minutes of air time.
Nit Value: 0.50
4. Benjamin Sisko's reaction to learning the mother he remembers was not his real mother.
Benjamin is hard on his father for his father keeping this knowledge from him (Ben). This does not seem consistent with the personality traits Benjamin regularly exhibits.
Given Joseph's severe reaction to the picture he is shown and the degree to which he tries to avoid any discussion of the picture I felt Benjamin would have been more understanding or at least more forgiving of his father.
Why is Benjamin hard? No obvious answer (or simply more padding).
Nit Value: 0.25
Summary:
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Nit Value for "Image in the Sand": 1.50
Wulf's Nitpicker Rating: 8.50
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10 - Nit Value = Wulf's Nitpicker Rating
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