4-19. Hard Time.

A tormented Miles O'Brien, in the prison of his own mind.

THE PLOT

An older, unkempt Miles O'Brien is in his prison cell when the door opens and he is told that he has completed his sentence. It is time for him to go. "Go where?" he asks, stunned at the thought of leaving. That, he is told, is not the jailers' problem, and he is yanked out of the room...

...And back to reality, where he learns that he has been implanted with memories of a twenty year prison sentence after being arrested for espionage by the Argrathi, whose planet he was visiting. None of his prison experiences actually happened, very little actual time passed... but he still carries those memories.  His time in prison wasn't real, but it was real to him.

This makes his return to Deep Space 9 very difficult. He has been alone for twenty years, he tells his friends, with no one but himself for company. But that's a lie. Within those implanted memories was a cellmate, the friendly Ee'char (Craig Wasson) who helped him to adjust to and survive the hardships of prison life. O'Brien is keeping a secret, even as he does everything in his power to isolate himself from his old comrades.  It's a secret that might just drive him to self-destruction...

CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: When he learns that O'Brien is reneging on his agreement to visit a counselor three times per week, he sits O'Brien down, relieves him of duty, and insists that he see the counselor on a daily basis. He is compassionate throughout, but he draws a firm line with O'Brien: There's an agreement in place, and he will honor it if he wishes to return to work. If he still fails to live up to his side of that bargain, Sisko threatens to have him confined to the infirmary - and this being Sisko, he probably means it.

O'Brien: Miles O'Brien must be the unluckiest man in Starfleet. He has experienced war, alien possession, a Cardassian tribunal, and even the death of another version of himself. And now he gets one more burden added to his Job-like list of experiences: twenty horrific years in prison which he then learns never even truly happened!

I love the way the episode explores the effects of this sentence on O'Brien. It's little details - like the hoarding of food, or the sleeping on the floor, or the attempts to get the replicator to manufacture the food he had eaten in prison - that make his emotional torment feel so genuine. Colm Meaney is exceptional. The first Act sees him detached, not quite believing in the life to which he has returned. As time passes, the detachment fades, but is replaced by anger and finally pressing guilt. Meaney hits every beat with the same authenticity that has been the hallmark of his performance throughout his Trek career.

Dr. Bashir: Though the episode is a showcase for Colm Meaney's O'Brien, it is also a strong one for Alexander Siddig's Bashir. At first, Bashir tries simply to be a supportive friend to O'Brien. When O'Brien refuses to see his counselor, however, Bashir begins to push him to keep his appointments. And when O'Brien reacts badly to that prodding and keeps snapping about wanting to be left alone, Bashir does something that has to be very difficult for him: He goes to Sisko and declares his friend to be unfit for duty.

THOUGHTS

A Trek regular is falsely accused and imprisioned, only to discover that the prison sentence he's been living was all an elaborate illusion and he is now free to return to his old life as if nothing had ever happened. Because nothing ever happened. The end.

...And if this was an episode of Voyager, or even TNG, that would almost certainly be the whole episode. Instead, that's the teaser. The episode is concerned with something far more meaningful: the effects the experience has on O'Brien and on those who care about him. He returns to Deep Space 9 having to struggle to reconnect with his life. He has twenty years of memory, enough time to forget that his wife was pregnant, enough time to need to drill himself on his own equipment and to need to work under supervision for a couple weeks while he re-learns his skills.

More to the point, he cannot simply shake off the emotional baggage of his twenty year sentence. Even knowing it wasn't real, it was real to him - the things he experienced and the things he did. "Don't you get it?" he snaps at Julian. "I'm not your friend. The O'Brien that was your friend died in that cell!" The revelation of O'Brien's most difficult memory, the one that explains his strong desire for isolation, is predictable enough. I knew where the episode was going as soon as we first saw Ee'char. But it's all convincingly portrayed, and flashbacks of O'Brien and Ee'char are used just enough and at just the right points to accentuate O'Brien's struggle without overshadowing it.

Now, I don't expect we'll see any future scenes with O'Brien seeing a counselor or mentioning his twenty years of hell. Still, simply by giving us an episode that's about the consequences of an experience rather than just about the event itself, Deep Space 9 shows its willingness to tread territory other Trek shows have generally shied away from.   This is done with a skillfully crafted script by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, directed with an eye for light and shadows by the always-reliable Alexander Singer.

In the midst of O'Brien's monologue near the end, there's even a tidy little slap at the utopian vision of future humanity, one that probably offended many Trek purists but that I confess delighted me:


"When we were growing up, they used to tell us humanity had evolved, that mankind had outgrown hate and rage. But when it came down to it, when I had the chance to show that no matter what anybody did to me, that I was still an evolved human being? I failed. I repaid kindness with blood. I was no better than an animal!"


Overall Rating: 10/10. 

Previous Episode: Rules of Engagement
Next Episode: Shattered Mirror


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3-26. The Adversary.

Sisko enjoys a long-overdue promotion.

THE PLOT

Krajensky (Lawrence Pressman), a Federation ambassador, arrives with news: There has been a coup on the homeworld of the Tzenkethi, a race whose relationship with the Federation is already strained. Without information about which faction is now in control, Krajensky asks Sisko to take the Defiant to that sector in order to "raise the flag" in order to discourage potential moves against nearby Federation colonies.

The Defiant is twelve hours from the border of Tzenkethi space when a transmission is received from a colony world. The colony is under attack. When the transmission cuts off suddenly, it appears everyone's worst fears have been realized. Sisko orders an immediate report to Starfleet, and that's when another horrible discovery is made: Communications have been tampered with, the control mechanisms blocked by force fields. There is a saboteur on board the Defiant, and it could be any one of them. Quite literally...


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: Is promoted to full captain. He appreciates the promotion and the good wishes of his crew, but he insists it doesn't actually change anything. "I have the assignment I want, the crew I want," he says, which means that rank isn't that important. Once he discovers there is a saboteur, and that the saboteur is a changeling, he focuses on dealing with the situation at hand. Every step he takes to counter his opponent is sensible within the situation, though the sight of security locking non-essential crew behind force fields is still disturbing.

Odo: Given that Eddington's arrival on the station almost caused him to quit, it's surprising how well the two security men work together here. It makes me regret once again how little we've seen of Eddington this season, as it would have been nice to have seen this working relationship evolve. Odo refuses to take a phaser to hunt the saboteur, telling Eddington that in all his years working security, he has never needed a weapon and has never taken a life. "I don't intend to start now," he declares - and this being a season finale, I knew as soon as he said it that the episode would end with him being forced to cross that line.

O'Brien: His friendship with Dr. Bashir has evolved to a point where the two men are almost like brothers. It is that level of loyalty O'Brien feels he is breaking when he tells Sisko that he saw Bashir in the conduits. He doesn't really believe Bashir is the saboteur (though his relief is visible when the doctor's innocence is confirmed), but he still feels like it's a betrayal to briefly make his friend into a suspect. At the episode's end, when there are two Odos facing off in Engineering, O'Brien refuses to be distracted from his efforts to regain control of the ship.  "I have more important things to do than play Choose the Changeling," he declares, sealing Engineering and then focusing on his work.


THOUGHTS

There are many reasons why Deep Space 9 is my favorite Star Trek spinoff. Its darker tone appeals to me.  I also love the way it keeps building on its own continuity, making events from episodes not simply pay off down the line, but resonate through multiple episodes and even seasons.

"No changeling has ever harmed another." This has been repeated all season long, ever since Odo first encountered his people in The Search. It's become an axiom, echoing through episodes such as The Abandoned, Heart of Stone, and The Die Is Cast. We've been told this is true in the season opener. We've seen its truth in the changelings' rescue of Odo in The Die Is Cast and in their multiple attempts to get Odo to join their Great Link.

It is the way in which this has been established as Fact, even as Divine Law, that makes the ending so devastating for Odo. Add in his own, perfectly in-character declaration of pride in never having killed, and the way in which this particular cat-and-mouse game plays out becomes all but inevitable. Since that axiom is the only absolute law established among the changelings, we also realize what Odo must realize: With this act, he has likely forever closed the door on any chance of joining Changeling society. Which, as The Die Is Cast revealed, has been his one great wish.

If the Odo material was all this episode had going for it, this would still be a very strong episode. But The Adversary is superbly executed on pretty much all levels. It starts off already looking like it will be a strong suspense/action piece. Then, at every Act break, the stakes are raised. It appears the Tzenkethi are attacking Federation colonies; the Defiant has been sabotaged by a changeling; the ship is out of control, and Sisko may be forced to destroy it to avoid starting a war. It's as if the characters are caught in a vice that just keeps slowly, steadily tightening. Kudos to writers Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe for such a superbly-structured script.

And also to director Alexander Singer, who amplifies the tension with judicious use of tight shots and sudden bursts of action. As the tone of the episode darkens, so does the overall lighting. As the tension increases, the camera frames the characters ever more tightly. Nor does it truly lighten at the end, the foreboding atmosphere maintained as Odo reports the changeling's final message:

"We are everywhere."


In the Hands of the Prophets, The Jem'Hadar, and now this episode. It must be said: Deep Space 9 definitely knows how to close out a season!


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Facets
Next Episode: The Way of the Warrior


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3-18. Distant Voices.

Dr. Bashir, age 100+.

THE PLOT

It's just a couple of days before Dr. Bashir's thirtieth birthday, and he's feeling very grumpy. He sees this milestone as marking the end of his youth and the beginning of the long trudge toward middle age and, eventually, death. He expresses these sentiments to Garak before being interrupted by an associate of Quark's: a Lethean (Victor Rivers) hoping to purchase an illegal biological substance. Bashir flatly refuses... only to be assaulted by the Lethean in sickbay later that same day!

When Bashir wakes up, he discovers that none of the computers are working. He is unable to contact security or any of the Ops staff. When he ventures out, he finds the station all but deserted. A cowering Quark informs him that the Lethean is going to find them and kill them. As Bashir presses on, he discovers that he is now aging rapidly. By the time he meets up with the command staff, he looks closer to sixty than thirty.

That's when O'Brien receives an audio signal: The voices of Dax and Sisko, discussing Bashir's condition. The doctor is in a coma. None of the others are actually there - They simply represent different facets of Bashir's own personality. The doctor is stuck in his own mind.  If he can't get himself out, he will be dead in a few short hours!


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: Within the delusion, he represents Bashir's professionalism and dedication to duty. Both confident and competent, the projection of Sisko seems the most likely to truly help Bashir succeed in his fantasy-like quest. No surprise, then, that the Lethean kills him mere seconds after Bashir reaches him..

Dr. Bashir: Has always been an overachiever, outstanding both as an athlete and as a doctor. The worst voices in his subconscious nag at him for quitting tennis to become a doctor, and there are hints that he deliberately botched a question in his exams to avoid being first in the class - which actually fits with his discomfort at being nominated for a prestigious medical award. Still, his dedication to medicine is very real, and he would not trade his current life for the life of a pro athlete. He also has a strength of will that generally remains hidden beneath his slightly arrogant demeanor and his sense of humor.

Dax: Represents Bashir's confidence, and as such is the first of his projections to be struck down by the Lethean attack. What better way to stop his efforts to save himself than by destroying his confidence? Bashir admits that even though he no longer pursues Dax sexually, he does still have feelings for her - He just values their friendship too much to trade it for a brief encounter.

Garak: Though Bashir likes Garak, he still doesn't entirely trust him. Hence, Garak is a shadowy figure in his dream world. The projection of Garak taunts Bashir and distracts him more often than he actually helps, deflecting his efforts with sudden birthday parties and games of tennis. When the real Garak hears the full story, he is anything but offended. Instead, he takes these signs of Bashir's mistrust to mean that "there's hope for you yet, Doctor."


THOUGHTS

More than just a good characer piece, Distant Voices is also a strong continuity piece. Remember that Bashir's character got off to a very poor start, with early episodes of the series making him boorish and obnoxious. He was effectively rebooted for Season Two, with his worst elements discarded in favor of a stronger focus on his desire for friendship with O'Brien and his dedication to his work. Gone were his pursuit of Dax and much of his overt arrogance. This was a good move for the series. In a subtle way, by shifting emphasis from character traits that didn't work to ones that did, the writers were able to transform an often insufferable man into someone genuinely likable.

The consequence was that many of Bashir's early characteristics all but disappeared. This episode folds those traits back into the whole. We are reminded of his pursuit of Dax, and told that he stopped chasing her because he came to care about his friendship with her. He didn't really care about being first in his class; he feels that Deep Space 9 is where he belongs. Judging from the girl singing a suggestive rendition of "Happy Birthday" to him in Ops, he certainly retains appreciation of a pretty face and figure. It's just that these elements are no longer the ones that define him. By touching on these near-forgotten elements of his "false start" in Season One, Bashir's continuity becomes more cohesive, and his character becomes that much richer.

The episode is stylishly directed by Alexander Singer, who transforms the standing sets of the station into a surreal, Alice in Wonderland-like world for the doctor to roam about in. As someone who enjoys dreamlike episodes, I certainly appreciated the offbeat nature of both the story and the visuals. There is something genuinely eerie about seeing the station so basically deserted. Finally, it should be noted that the Emmy winning aging makeup is quite effective, even almost twenty years after the fact.

For all of these virtues, the episode doesn't quite connect with me the way I would like it to.  It works as a character piece; but as a piece of drama, it doesn't quite reach its potential. The narrative fails to provide much sense of momentum. Bashir wanders from one set piece to another, but it's only late in the episode that there's any feeling of urgency to his efforts. More of a sense of conflict, of Bashir really being beaten down by the Lethean, would make his triumph at the end feel more meaningful.

A worthwhile episode for the atmosphere, acting, and character work. But with one more rewrite, this could really have been something special.


Overall Rating: 6/10

Previous Episode: Visionary

Next Episode: Through the Looking Glass

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