“It Didn’t Work for the Deerslayer, and It Doesn’t Work for the Emissary, Either”

Anyone remember that climactic scene in the 90’s remake of The Last of the Mohicans—a movie I otherwise love, by the way—when Daniel Day-Lewis’ Hawkeye actually manages to keep a straight face while oh-so-earnestly telling Madeleine Stowe’s Cora, “You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you!”

Yeah, that’s just peachy, Natty Boy. She should improvise and keep herself primed and pretty for you. Now there’s a reasonable set of instructions.

It’s my understanding that to “stay alive, no matter what occurs,” you’d need to be immortal.

And neither Cora nor Kasidy is.

Evidently, in the original script for “What You Leave Behind,” Benjamin Sisko was supposed to die and never return ... but Avery Brooks, who thought such would play into racial stereotypes about a black man abandoning his children, dug in his heels and forced a rewrite.

That, if true, is quite unfortunate.

You shouldn't alter a critically-important element of the storyline simply because you're afraid of how it might be wrongly interpreted, or because a single representative of that minority cries foul. Any reasonably intelligent regular viewer who watched events transpire on Deep Space Nine knew Sisko's departure had everything to do with the Prophets' claim on him and nothing to do with a black man's unwillingness to be a presence in the lives of his wife and children.

Ridiculously undue concern with whether those utterly lacking in perspective (or perceptiveness) understand that insults the intelligence of those who do. Star Trek should not be dumbed down for the masses; the writers should have evolved beyond invertebrates and stuck with the 24th century story they'd been developing for years, rather than spontaneously catering to Avery Brooks' 21st century sensibilities. They'd already demonstrated Sisko to be a great parent: He devoted himself to Jake, and their bond is unquestionable. For all Deep Space Nine's purported gritty realism, they dropped the ball big time here.

Oh, and ... like it or not, despite their efforts to please everyone, they missed an inconvenient truth: Sisko did abandon his unborn child. This vague "I'll be back ... maybe even yesterday" crap isn't exactly reassuring to those still living in the world where tomorrow actually follows today. In addition, he doesn't promise, "I'll be back as a husband to my wife and a father to my children," nor does he even imply it. [A desperate Kasidy simply jumps to that conclusion.] Such would be difficult considering that, from what I saw in "What You Leave Behind," the Prophets rescued his soul from the Fire Pits in the instant before his physical form, like Dukat's and the Kosst Amojin text, turned to ash. And since the Prophets don't create bodies for themselves, but instead inhabit the faithful when necessary, I don't imagine they're going to remake Sisko's for him.

His insipid and uninspiring resurrection in the non-canonical Deep Space Nine Relaunch aside, it's pretty apparent Sisko isn't coming back in his role as incarnated Emissary, and almost certainly not as someone with whom you can ... hmm ... play catch and pitch woo.

This man knew he had a destiny to fulfill, was specifically warned by the gods who created him that another marriage was a tremendously bad freakin' idea, and obdurately chose to get hitched (as well as get another woman with child when he forgot to take his monthly contraceptive: By the way, where was Brooks’ indignation when a black man was metaphorically forgetting to put on his condom, I wonder?) anyway. It's the very definition of heedlessness and irresponsibility. Then, when the time came to pay the piper, the writers had to back off and enormously dilute the tragic stupidity's impact.

This is yet another example of Sisko essentially escaping the consequences of his actions, as he did during and after "For the Uniform" and "In the Pale Moonlight." Brooks doesn't like that Sisko's been called home, and called to task, so they overwrite and override it?

Pathetic.