UP2 Presents: What You Leave Behind
We finally made it! Seven Seasons, 176 episodes and six Upees Award Shows (thus far). Smonskey, Chris, Hansen and Blair review the series finale “What You Leave Behind”.
Sisko leads the Federation/Klingon/Romulan alliance in the offensive on the Cardassian homeworld. Dukat and Winn journey to the fire caves to release the Pah’Wraiths, and Damar leads his people in a revolution in an attempt to overthrow their Dominion oppressors.
The last episode to leave us your thoughts.
Was this the best series finale?
Did the writers get it right?
Montage…Love it? Hate it?
What really happens to Sisko?
Don’t forget to get your Upees Season 7 ballet filled out. And remember, we will have a Upees Award show for the entire series which will air in December. Don’t forget to fill out your ballet for that one.
Finally, thanks to all those that listened and posted over the years. We loved reading your thoughts on our thoughts. Your loyalty and listener-ship was appreciated.
“Until next time”…
Might help if I spelled “Ballot” correctly.
So…get your “Ballot” in early!
Was this answer helpful?
LikeDislikeUpper Pylon 2 has been a fixture from episode 1 of the pod in my weekly routine; you guys have put together a solid, professional and fun review show that really helped me rediscover my love for this iteration of Trek.
Most of the time you agreed, but even you didn’t and came out on total opposite sides of a debate it was handled with the level headedness we expect in the 24th century.
Thank you guys, look forward to seeing more from you all. If this is the end of podcasting for a while I wish you well and you can be proud of What You’ve Left Behind! (C’mon someone had to say it)
This finale is one of the best. Just for story I will always love All Good Things just a little more but this is the only one that gives it a run for its money.
TOS never got an auspicious send off, Voyager felt rushed, and… well… we don’t discuss Enterprises last outing right?
O’Brian leaving does seem odd, as though he knew he was a character in a tv show about to end; it might have been more believable for that discussion to take place after the war ends and Starfleet offer him the place as his ‘reward’.
Other than that, some dodgy screaming from Jessica Fletcher aside this is a satisfactory and respectful closing chapter to a strong final season.
Live Long And Prosper to you and the other fellow UPEE GROUPIES out there.
Was this answer helpful?
LikeDislikeThanks for the kind words. We are proud of what we accomplished, had a great time recording the past few years and certainly formed some strong friendships.
We still have two more shows to go. Just make sure you wear your tux while you listen.
A ringa ding ding! Is there any other way to listen to UPees? 😉
Was this answer helpful?
LikeDislike1. Let’s make a pact. Don’t die. I’ve quite enjoyed Ezri in this final season, more than I thought I would actually, but this makes me think she watched Starship Troopers recently and remembered what happened after Johnny Rico and Diz hooked up. Incidentally, Diz is WAY hotter than Carmen AND a much better person. But anyway, this was a pretty icky start to the finale, and I say that as someone who actually quite liked their chemistry last week. Something just doesn’t feel right about these two waking up together here.
2. O’Brien is a tinkerer, a putterer, a fixer of broken things. Going to Starfleet Academy to teach just doesn’t seem like him at all. Maybe he wants a better life for his family though? I can understand that, but it seems a bit at odds with how he has pretty much been living the bachelor life for large parts of his time on Deep Space Nine. Maybe that’s the problem though? He doesn’t want to be a bachelor any more? They should have explained it better if that’s the case. I don’t think they gave us enough of this, and they could have been laying the ground work in the last few episodes. They just sprung it on us here.
3. A couple of episodes ago, Gowron was literally killed off for his bold attacks deep into Dominion territory. I know the Dominion have since retreated into their own space, but surely that’s still quite a decent amount of territory? Yet here we are not just taking the fight to them, but actually aiming for Cardassia? It’s a bold move Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.
4. Once, just once, I want a prophecy delivered in plain English. No riddles, no guessing games. You can literally see the future because you’re not linear. Just tell us what’s going to happen! Not today though. Today it’s just a case of your journey coming to an end, your mission nearly completion. Vague enough to make Sisko think we’re talking about the war.
5. Spelunking with Dukat and Winn. I don’t really see it catching on as a television programme if I’m honest. It does seem to have a few twists though. One twist I would have liked would have been Dukat still being blind, that was just wiped out all too easy. Did Dukat learn anything when he was begging? Did Winn even ask? I know that was done to stretch out the storyline to the finale, but they could at least have addressed it a bit more than this.
6. Weyoun announcing that they’ve wiped out an entire Cardassian city is quite possibly the most spine chilling thing in this whole season. In fact it’s probably up there for the series as a whole. It’s delivered so matter of fact, so calm, it’s utterly devastating. We’ve wiped out a whole city like it’s nothing, I don’t care, you will behave or I’ll do it again. Jeffrey Combs does such a brilliant job as Weyoun, I may have to go back and watch Enterprise because I’m wondering now if I was wrong about Shran being the best of his characters!
7. Damar flirting with Mila is spectacular. He really enjoys the attention, and winding up Garak just makes it all the sweeter. It’s a subtle, fun moment in an otherwise very tense situation.
8. It was great to see the kamikaze Jem’Hadar tactic make a comeback in this finale. It’s so effective and exactly what a testtube grown species would do to win. I don’t think there was enough of this throughout the series after it was introduced on their very first episode!
9. The whole Cardassian story is heartbreaking to watch. They rise up, and the female Changeling just orders them to be wiped out. They win in the end, but they still lose. Damar is a legend, and yet his death is surprisingly simple and almost comes out of nowhere. It’s terrific. Garak even gets to go home finally, but not really. They’ll rebuild, but it will never be the same. You only hope that it will be better. The blood wine wasn’t worth all that. But I hope they drank it back at the station anyway. Better surroundings.
10. Then we’re back at the station, then we’re enjoying the final song, then we’re at the firecaves, then it’s all over. The pacing of this episode really frustrates me. It seems rushed a lot of the time, but in places it’s very slow. There’s big gaps where you wouldn’t expect them. The montage comes and goes and there’s still a lot that happens after it. The war is over very quickly after the start of the final assault. The final showdown between Sisko and Dukat is very quick. And I really don’t understand why, we but seem to lose a lot of time in this finale. It’s about 1 hour and 11 minutes, aren’t we about ten minutes short? Where did that go? They could have used that better I would have thought, and maybe the pacing would have been better then.
There is a lot that I love about this finale. The music is brilliant, with a revisit of Minstrel Boy for O’Brien, the Visitor for Sisko, the melding of The Way You Look Tonight and the Deep Space Nine theme, it just works so well for me. The overall story arc is satisfying, especially what happens with Cardassia, but overall it’s very rushed. And I think it loses something because of that.
So… in what is bound to be a huge shock… I’m only giving this a four out of five.
And so, let me add my thanks to you all for this podcast. I went back and checked and we started this journey together in June 2015. It’s now November 2018 and a lot has changed in that time. The constant throughout has been this podcast and the rewatch that I’ve done along with it. I haven’t always kept up, but I’ve been close enough and I’ve enjoyed every minute. I was fortunately to come on the podcast a couple of times, I feel like all of you are good friends that I’ve spent many happy hours with discussing one of my favourite subjects, and I hope we can all keep in touch now that this particular journey is over.
Was this answer helpful?
LikeDislike