I just finished watching DS9 Season 5 Episode 5 ‘The Assignment’ and as much as I loved it, I couldn’t believe the treatment they gave Keiko. It was a tense episode and I enjoyed seeing O’Brien getting psychologically tortured and I laughed at first at the treatment of Keiko but by the end of the episode I felt really bad about how she was portrayed.
The whole dragon lady dynamic is fun for a while but it gets old fast and you start feeling bad for the character.
I also loved the part in the episode where it’s O’Brien’s birthday and everyone instead sings ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’ … it’s a whole musical rights issue where someone has to be paid for the performance of the song ‘Happy Birthday’ which is why they didn’t use it … yet another torturous addition to the life of O’Brien.
The cold shouldered wife bit had already started in TNG, but got dragged out rather painfully into DS9. By season 5, her role was reduced and she sorta fades into the background. A shame, as she’s a solid actor.
The music issue has since been dropped, but only more recently.
I am too lazy to look it up a the moment, but I know I have seen a video where someone breaks down their relationship and proves that Keiko makes more positive/affirming statements to O’Brien than negative ones over the course of TNG and DS9.
I’m not sure how meme-before-meme-was-a-word started exactly… maybe because the actor was really good at it when it came to being more negative? I’m not sure.
Certainly, the two never seemed to have much on screen chemistry despite both being great actors in their own right.
Their relationship dynamic doesn’t get enough credit. The married couple that isn’t Brady Bunch perfect, shown warts and all. Just too bad they weren’t very believable together.
I disagree, I found their relationship to be very realistic in the sense that they seemed like they were staying together just because they were always together.
Not every hero character gets the happy ending, sometimes there’s just a mildly unpleasant home life and a person who just lives for work.
Certainly, the two never seemed to have much on screen chemistry despite both being great actors in their own right.
It seems like Star Trek of the era had a real blind spot for directing actors. If you weren’t an extremely self-assured performer coming in, you would have to be a regular to cobble together enough takes and screen time to develop (or maybe just get the audience to accept your quirks/limits), especially with a setting that requires a little imagination to inhabit. Even then sometimes people never did quite sell their roles, and much like the Star Wars prequels, I think the direction had a lot to do with it. I think some actors just need a type of direction that was not forthcoming at the time, though I put it on the entire braintrust and the expectations of the era, rather than individual directors.
Rosalind Chao never made me believe she was doing anything other than reading lines, and it made it that much easier to dismiss the relationship or focus on the shriller scripts.
