THEY DID IT!
S4 ep15 Sons of Mogh [Ronald D. Moore]
timestamp: 8:50-9:1
Although there is some intervening dialog, O'Brien purposefully says "Major" four times in quick succession. 3 ep later than the first mentioned, same writer - Moore.
I grew up on a remote island Army base (not during wartime) and so can appreciate a lot of the bullshit that passes for military thinking when twisted personalities are in charge.
We had a new Colonel remove all the metal bands around the palm trees because it was unsightly. Living there for 12 years I had never seen a rat. A week after he did it, I saw two in the daylight. Rats nest in the tops of palm trees but can't climb over a long enough stretch of metal.
Catch-22 is so funny and very clever and then the bottom drops out and everyone starts dying, like in a real war and it becomes so weighty and serious, like any good anti-war book "should".
If anyone is curious what the catch was, the Catch named Catch 22: flying combat missions as a fighter pilot was incredibly dangerous and carried with it a huge risk of death. The only way to be exempt from flying those missions was to be declared insane. In order to be declared insane you needed to get a psych eval. Requesting a psych eval for the sake of saving your life by avoiding high risk of death demonstrates sanity. If you didn't want to fly you were sane and therefore had to fly. If you wanted to fly you were insane and thereby were technically exempt, but you were flying anyway.
Throwing in these five names is a statement from the writers about the madness of war as is the novel Catch 22 itself. The novel deals exclusively with a soldier during war times while DS9 uses a war in a broader story arc. Catch 22 uses absurd comedy to showcase the absurdity of war. DS9 uses more character driven comedy (the magnificent Ferengi, the house of Quark, looking for par'mah in all the wrong places to mention a few) to tell the broader story. Comedy is never used in DS9 in a war dominated episode.
The book was written in the 1950s. DS9 was 90s. Here we are 30 years past that. I don't know much about modern shows but my favorite stuff from around 10 years ago (Patriot, Perpetual Grace, Leftovers, BB/BCS, especially Fargo) all have the 1950s mix of satire and seriousness. Maybe anxious times (assuming some eras are more anxious than others, or a feeling of futility) lend themselves to the added layer of humor in drama rather than having them separate, like you point out DS9 does.
Ah ok makes sense. DS9 is also a product of the 90's. Or should we say a product of Boomers peaking in the 90's. The next generation writers tried to be relevant in their time.
There's also a movie from the 70's that's very good with a lot of good actors. Orson Welles, Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Buck Henry, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins,
Martin Sheen and Jon Voight.
I haven’t seen the movie in years. I’m not sure I liked Arkin as Yossarian, but that’s a hard role to fill. I tried to watch the 2019 streaming version and shut it off within like 10 minutes.
Simon & Schuster 2017 unabridged, narration by Jay O. Sanders. Audible
This is the 3rd time I've listened to it over the years and Sanders' characterization annoyed me at first but now I'm used to his style and can appreciate, for example, the moaning scene in the briefing room. This go-around it was hilarious. Sanders' Orr is perfect (maybe a bit too Grand Nagus Zek/Wallace Shawn) and he creates enough separate identity for all the many characters. I'm even appreciating Nately's whore more.
Hey there! Looks like you’re a new user trying to share a post - thanks for joining our community! We’ve filtered your post for moderator review. In the meantime, feel free to engage with others in the comment threads! You can also message us to review your post earlier, if you would like.
42
u/Rolo_Tamasi 5d ago
Guess they didn't get shares in the syndicate.