5-10. Rapture.

Sisko becomes obsessed with a Bajoran lost city.

THE PLOT

The Cardassians have repatriated a painting of B'hala, a Bajoran city lost roughly 20,000 years ago. The painting is the only proof of the city's existence, with partial coordinates inscribed on one of the spires of a building in the painting. This prompts Sisko to try to puzzle out the location. He scans the painting into the station computer and enhances a reflection in the work to find another coordinate on another spire. Then he uploads it to the holosuites to work with it directly.

When he saves the program, the poorly-maintained equipment results in a plasma burst. Sisko is knocked unconscious, and wakes in Medlab with odd neural readings. Dr. Bashir tells him that he expects everything to reset itself in a few days, and to "enjoy the show" of more vivid sights and sounds in the meantime.

Meanwhile, the station receives word from Admiral Charlie Whatley (Ernest Perry, Jr.) that the Federation Council has granted Bajor's petition to join. There will be a signing ceremony, after which Bajor will finally become part of the Federation. But Sisko remains obsessed with the puzzle of the lost city - and when he experiences a vision, then follows it and actually finds B'hala, the entire situation becomes a lot less predictable!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: Avery Brooks' performance as this transformed Sisko is odd. I do think he goes a bit over-the-top in parts of the show. But that very quality actually works for the episode, particularly when there is a real sense of poetry to his delivery of his longer speeches, notably as he describes his first vision to Kira: "I was there. I could smell the burning bateret leaves, taste the incense on the wind. I was standing in front of the Obelisk. And as I looked up, for one moment, I understood it all. B'hala, the Orbs, the occupation, the discovery of the wormhole, the coming war with the Dominion... And for one moment, I could see the pattern that held it all together."

Major Kira: Her friendship with Sisko has converted her from believing that Bajor needs to stand alone to actually wanting her home planet to join the Federation. She is delighted that Bajor's petition has been granted, and looks forward to the signing ceremony. It is appropriate that she is the one to find Sisko in the midst of his first vision, as she is the one member of the command staff who will believe it is real and not a delusion. She defends his right to follow his visions at the risk of his health, believing the Prophets will protect him from harm.

Kasidy Yates: Her first appearance since last season's For the Cause, and it's a very welcome return. Kasidy holds no apparent bitterness over her prison time, and once it's clear that Sisko welcomes her back she seems happy to pick back up where they left off. She is taken aback by Sisko's welcome including a trip to Bajor to find a lost city, but she goes along with it. When Sisko's visions put his health in jeopardy, she argues strongly against his refusal of medical help, urging him to think about what he's doing to her and to Jake.

Kai Winn: When Sisko finds the lost city, Winn approaches Kira with an apology for never having truly believed the captain was the Emissary. Kira expresses surprise that Winn would have the courage to admit to ever being wrong. This prompts an angry response from Winn, who reminds Kira that she also suffered during the Occupation: "Perhaps you forget, Major, the Cardassians arrested any Bajoran they found teaching the word of the Prophets. I was in a Cardassian prison camp for five years and I can remember each and every beating I suffered. And while you had your weapons to protect you, all I had was my faith and my courage." Louise Fletcher puts just enough steel into it to let us know that Winn has added Kira's doubts as to her courage to all the other ways in which Kira has thwarted her, and is likely planning a suitable reckoning.


THOUGHTS

Bajor-centric episodes have become such a rarity that they are always welcome, and Rapture is a particularly good one. It feels like an important episode. I don't know that events necessarily move forward. It's more, as Sisko says when describing his vision, that it feels as if a pattern is being drawn together. We revisit Bajor and its relationship with the Federation, winn and her relationship with Kira and with Sisko, Kira and her admiration for Sisko. 

All of these threads are not only touched on, but elaborated on. Winn may be a villain, but we are reminded that her spirituality is not mere opportunism. Her faith matters to her and has seen her through horrible times - and by detailing how she weathered the Occupation, we are encouraged to have some respect for her as a person, even if she is someone to distrust and even fear. 

Season Four's Accession was the last episode to touch on Sisko's role as the Emissary. There, events pushed him to directly claim a title that he had previously tolerated as a burden. Here, we see him really acting in the role. Even before the accident, he shows a strong interest in the lost city of B'hala. After the accident, we see him touring the station, speaking with individual Bajorans about their problems and worries. Even Bashir responds to Admiral Whatley's questioning by stating simply that Sisko is the Emissary.

Hans Beimler's script keeps a potentially static episode moving forward with startling momentum. First, we are worried that Sisko may imperil his position. Later, we see that his life may be in jeopardy if he doesn't give up his visions.  Scenes with Jake and Kasidy, who beg him to turn away from his path, emphasize how Sisko's death would affect those around him. Finally, the future of Bajor seems to hang in the balance, as Sisko gets his final vision and lurches to warn the Bajorans of what he has seen.

Beimler and director Jonathan West don't go the obvious route with this vision. Sisko gazes into the Orb of Prophecy, but we don't see any of what he experiences. There's no light show, no apocalyptic imagery. Instead, we cut to the Federation and Bajoran delegations, and hear from Sisko what he has seen - a garbled account that is probably just a fragment of what he truly experienced. We don't know what it means, but we are encouraged to take the warning seriously.

We end the episode with everything much as it was at the start. Bajor has not joined the Federation, but Sisko still believes it will in the future. Kai Winn still does not trust the Federation, and her doubts have likely been deepened by this experience. Winn and Kira still don't trust each other, though each believes she has the other's measure. Sisko is still the Emissary, now more than ever before. Not a thing has changed - And yet it doesn't feel like time has been wasted. There's a sense that things aren't quite as they were before, or at least that the pattern connecting the disparate strands here is a little clearer than it was before.

That, and the almost surprisingly compelling experience of watching an episode that sounds a bit dull on paper, make this a must see. Another excellent episode of a thus-far very good season.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: The Ascent
Next Episode: The Darkness and the Light 


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4-17. Accession.

Akorem Laan (Richard Libertini),
the new Emissary of the Prophets.

THE PLOT

When a 300 year old Bajoran lightship comes through the wormhole with one Bajoran aboard, Sisko has the man beamed directly to the infirmary. The man is Akorem Laan (Richard Libertini), a revered poet from Bajor's past who disappeared more than 200 years ago. Akorem was swallowed up by the wormhole, and has only returned to Bajor now. He declares himself to be the Emissary of prophecy - the very role into which Kai Opaka thrust Sisko, and which the captain has reluctantly filled ever since.

Sisko is all too happy to step aside to allow Akorem to be The Emissary... Until the new Emissary's first public appearance, that is. Akorem may be a revered poet, but he is still a man from the distant past. He is shocked that modern Bajorans no longer follow their d'jarras, a strict caste system that was in place in his time. His first speech is almost fanatically devoted to this single topic, insisting that every Bajoran should return to his or her d'jarra - a thought which doesn't rest easy with all Bajorans, and which would disqualify Bajor from admittance into Starfleet!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: "I'm just a Starfleet officer again. All I have to worry about are the Klingons, the Dominion, and the Maquis. I feel like I'm on vacation!" Be careful what you wish for. Sisko doesn't waste a second in relinquishing the "Emissary" title to Akorem. But once he does, he is left as little more than a bystander as Akorem's desire to reinstate the caste system wreaks havoc. When it leads to the murder of a Bajoran Vedek for having been born to the wrong caste, Sisko realizes he must reclaim the title he was so eager to escape. Being the Emissary may not be something he enjoys, but it is his responsibility, a duty he cannot shirk without consequences.

Major Kira: Her religious convictions keep her from questioning Akorem after Sisko steps aside as Emissary. She tries to explain to Odo that having faith means "no explanation is necessary." If the Emissary says something must be done, it is her place as a Bajoran to accept him at his word. In one of the best moments in the episode, one that recalls similar exchanges in last season's Destiny, she tells Sisko just how much the Emissary's word means."Maybe you never realized this, Captain, but we would have tried to do whatever you asked of us when you were Emissary - no matter how difficult it seemed." Sisko's wordless reaction is the perfect cap to an excellent scene.

O'Brien/Keiko: The "B" plot is about the return of Keiko, and its affect on O'Brien. He is certainly happy to have his family back, but it's been a year and he has developed certain routines for his leisure time that don't include her. At the same time, she's been spending time on her work, something which doesn't include him. O'Brien quickly misses his playtime with Julian, and his constant presence is a distraction for Keiko. The solution is obvious, and more time is devoted to this side plot than is called for, but Colm Meaney plays all of this as authentically as ever.


THOUGHTS

Accession is a very early script by Jane Espenson, a writer who would move onto a truly splendid career, writing for series as disparate as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Once Upon a Time, and Game of Thrones. This script isn't up to the very best work she would eventually do, but even in this early work there is the attention to characterization, the intelligence, and the thoughtfulness that would make her so successful.

I always appreciate seeing Deep Space 9 return its focus to Bajor, something which has become much less common since the introduction of the Dominion threat. This episode starts out feeling like wheel-spinning. After all, we know that Akorem will not remain as Emissary past this episode, and we know that Sisko will reclaim the title with no lasting consequences. It all seems like a setup for an hour of filler - and insofar as this episode is unlikely to affect later ones, it could probably still be classified as such.

But the details make it richer than it might be otherwise. The d'jarra draws on the caste systems of countries such as India and Pakistan, among others, and just enough information is given about it to make it fit with what we already know about Bajor's past society. That the d'jarras were abandoned only fairly recently, with the Cardassian Occupation, makes it plausible that Akorem could persuade a large percentage of the population to return to this system... something that would be implausible if it had been abandoned centuries ago. The script also namedrops Kai Winn, whose suspicion of Starfleet and previously established fundamentalist tendencies likely make her happy to embrace Akorem as the Emissary.

It's a good episode, but not a great one. The main thing that limits it for me is that we see very little of how this impacts the average Bajoran. We see how it impacts Kira, as she prepares to give up her life and career to follow her d'jarra. I would have liked some other Bajoran characters in this episode, though, to show a variety of reactions. We hear that Shakaar won't give up his position and return to farming, for example. But we don't see him, even though this would have been excellent episode for him to make an appearance. We could see him and Kira in conflict, with the religious Kira accepting of the new Emissary even as Shakaar rebels. I'd be a lot more interested in that as a "B" plot than the issues of the O'Briens.

The O'Brien strand is definitely the episode's weakest element. It doesn't really seem to fit with the "A" plot, and it takes away screen time that the main story could have used to feel more fully developed. It's not really a badly-done plot, though it's given at least two scenes more than it needs to make its point. But it would have been better placed in a different episode, perhaps one with a lighter overall tone.

My issues with the "B" plot and with the lack of really seeing the effect of the new Emissary on the Bajoran population keep this from an excellent score. Still, this is a solid episode with some tantalizing hints for the future. The Prophets inform us that they are "of Bajor." More than that, they pronounce that "the Sisko" is also "of Bajor." This is a statement that I suspect will get followed up in the future.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Bar Association
Next Episode: Rules of Engagement


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3-15. Destiny.

Sisko struggles with his role
as the Bajoran "Emissary."

THE PLOT

With the treaty between Cardassia and Bajor in effect, two Cardassian scientists come to Deep Space 9 in an attempt to establish a communications relay within the wormhole. If successful, this will allow the station to maintain contact with ships and colonies in the Gamma Quadrant - not only a boon for logistics, but also a potentially considerable advantage against any hostility from the Dominion. But Yarka (Erick Avari), a Bajoran Vedek, urges Sisko to stop the experiment, insisting that a Bajoran prophecy spells out doom should it continue.

Sisko dismisses Yarka's claims. Given that the Vedek assembly has also ignored him, Kira is inclined to do the same. But gradually, elements of Yarka's prophecy begin to come true. First, an additional Cardassian joins the scientific team, matching up with his claim of "three vipers." Then an unusual comet appears, its tail resembling the "sword of stars" in Yarka's prophecy. As the coincidences mount, even Sisko has to wonder if this effort truly is cursed.


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: We have already seen Sisko's discomfort with his role as the "Emissary" of Bajoran legend. It's not just that Sisko doesn't believe in the Bajoran prophecies - He desperately wants not to believe, to the point that he tries to shut out the evidence as it comes. In the scene in which Kira confronts him with all the elements of the prophecy which have already come true, she ends by noting that one of those is his presence as the Emissary. Sisko turns away, his face a picture of denial, doubt, and general insecurity. He sees himself as simply a Starfleet officer.  He cannot reconcile his view of himself with the Bajoran insistence on imbuing his very presence with special meaning.

Major Kira: Kira gets her third strong episode in a row. With most characters, I'd start to feel a sense of overkill. But Kira has become so complex that each episode is able to show some new side to either her character or Nana Visitor's performance. Here, we focus on the contradiction Kira experiences between her religious beliefs and her status as first officer to a man her religion insists is an icon. As an officer, she believes in pursuing any project that will help cement peace between Cardassia and Bajor. As an officer, she agrees with Sisko that there is no reasonable cause to suspend the experiment. As a Bajoran, however, she believes in prophecy. She may initially distrust Yarka's interpretation, but as elements seem to come true, she cannot ignore her beliefs. And finally, as she reluctantly admits to Sisko, she cannot help but view her commanding officer as "The Emissary," however much she may not wish to.

O'Brien: Strikes up a fractious relationship with Gilora (Tracy Scoggins), the Cardassian engineer. She treats him dismissively until he finally has enough and snaps at her, which - all too predictably - causes her to develop feelings for him. This subplot is pretty standard stuff, though Colm Meaney's performance when he finally recognizes Gilora's interest and tries to defuse it is very enjoyable, and Scoggins is quite fetching, even buried under a mountain of alien makeup.

Dax: Her friendship with Sisko allows her to snap him out of his doubts when he begins wondering if the Bajoran prophecies truly are real. During a rare moment of indecision, Sisko wonders if he should expel the Cardassians, as Yarka urged. Dax asks him what he would do if he had never heard of the prophecy, then tells him that he has to choose whether he will be guided by religious prophecies or whether he will make his own decisions. It's all the urging Sisko needs to return to himself for the episode's final stretch.


THOUGHTS

Destiny is the first episode to deal in any depth with Sisko's ambivalence about his role as "Emissary." That's somewhat surprising, given that we're now in the second half of Season Three. Still, seeing this background strand brought to the fore is extremely welcome, particularly in a script that deals with it in a complex way. We see Sisko's frustration at being thrust into a role he doesn't want. We see Kira's difficulty, trying to deal with Sisko as her commanding officer (one with whom she often argues) while at the same time viewing him as a religious figure. And we see the complex role of prophecy itself, with the metaphoric language open to so many different interpretations as to make firm predictions meaningless.

Ultimately, as both Dax's scene with him and the ending of the episode indicate, Sisko is probably best advised to simply make his own decisions based on his own good judgment. Any other option would involve second-guessing himself. In a crisis, that could lead to disaster.

The script is well-structured, and makes good use of the ensemble. Only Bashir and Jake really get left out (and for the latter, at least, that's nothing new), while even Odo's small role is used to bring out Sisko's central dilemma. Good use is made of continuity, from mentions of the aliens inside the wormhole to the use of the Bajoran/Cardassian treaty. At this point, the show is starting to really coalesce into an ongoing narrative, an element of the series which seems to grow stronger and stronger as the series progresses.

Another major strength of this episode is the effects. The visuals of the comet, its impact on the wormhole, and Sisko's flight through the wormhole while shielding the comets... These are wonderful visuals, dynamic and beautiful at the same time. That some of Deep Space 9's best effects are couched in such a smart script is a particular joy, as it shows that intelligent drama and outstanding effects do not have to work against each other.

All in all, another first-rate episode in a season that's shaping up to be the series' best yet.


Overall Rating: 9/10

Previous Episode: Heart of Stone

Next Episode: Prophet Motive

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1-1, 1-2. Emissary

THE PLOT

After literally decades of resistance, the Cardassian occupation of the Bajoran homeworld has finally ended. The provisional Bajoran government has requested a Starfleet presence on Deep Space 9, the Cardassian space station orbiting their world, to help make the transition... well, possible.

Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), a veteran of the battle against the Borg at Wolf 359, has been assigned to command the space station. It is not a task he relishes. Left widowed after his encounter with "Locutus of Borg," Sisko has focused his attention on raising his young son, and prefers duties that give him time for that task. He finds Deep Space 9 a less than ideal environment.

Nothing he sees when he arrives changes that impression. His first officer, the Bajoran Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), resents his presence almost as much as she resents Starfleet's. The Cardassians have left the station in disarray, and it is all his Chief of Engineering, O'Brien (Colm Meaney), can do to get everything on-line and functioning. With Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Opaka (Camille Saviola) talking about Sisko having a "destiny," and a new (surprisingly stable) wormhole appearing near the station, Sisko finds that he has walked into a political and religious minefield.

And with the implications of a stable wormhole granting access to a distant quadrant of space - and back again - the Cardassians, led by former station commandant Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo), suddenly find themselves with a renewed interest in the territory around Deep Space 9...


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: Avery Brooks doesn't look right with hair. He needs to start shaving his head immediately. That said, Sisko has much that is interesting, right from the get-go. He's resentful of Picard, more than a little jaded with the Federation, and already contemplating taking an early retirement. He's quite willing to bend the rules to make his job workable, offering Quark a deal to stay that effectively allows the Ferengi to operate outside Starfleet regulations ("We're just here to administrate"). The episode does over-sell Sisko's relationship with his son, but otherwise manages to create an interesting central figure who has some shades of grey unusual for the lead of a Trek series.

Capt. Picard: Patrick Stewart does some terrific acting in the scene in which Sisko reveals exaclty where they have met before.  His bearing instantly changes when he learns Sisko was a veteran of Wolf 359, and he spends the rest of the scene trying (and never quite succeeding) to regain his natural authority. There isn't much else for him in this episode, save for a nicely subdued farewell to Chief O'Brien, but Stewart plays what he's given as well as ever.

Major Kira: Has spent her entire life fighting for Bajoran independence from the Cardassians. As a result, she sees Sisko's arrival, and the Federation's, as simply a new occupying force. Sisko gains her respect over the course of the episode - a process that's arguably a bit too fast, and something I would rather have seen played out over a good chunk of the first season. Still, she retains an inherent brittleness, which is something that could be used to good effect.

Dax: The lovely Terry Farrell is Jadzia Daz, the Trill scientist who is also an old friend of Sisko's. Farrell's performance is actually a bit uneven here, with her lack of substantial acting experience perhaps showing in some of technobabble-heavy scenes she is given. She does have a natural screen rapport with Avery Brooks, however, and a natural good humor which eases over some of the bumps in her acting. Beyond which... How to put it? It's a lot easier to forgive an actress a few bad line readings when she looks like Terry Farrell.

Quark: Armin Shimerman, who was the principal Ferengi in that race's disastrous debut in The Last Outpost, does much better in playing the Ferengi merchant, Quark. In an early interrogation scene, he carries himself in a manner reminiscent of a small-time mobster in a police procedural, right down to his dress sense and his baiting of Constable Odo ("If I'm a thief, you never proved it. For four years"). Shimerman doesn't get a lot to do in this episode, but he registers strongly on screen, gets several humorous moments, and is given a strong role to play in the series' development as a community leader whose shady doings will be overlooked - to a point - in exchange for his aid in maintaining the station's economy.

Dr. Bashir: Siddig El-Fadil (aka, Alexander Siddig)'s first appearance as Dr. Bashir is not an entirely auspicious start. For a character who would become quite fun, and an actor who would prove himself not only on this show, but in other work such as Kingdom of Heaven and Syriana, this is a rather disappointing debut. Siddig overplays Bashir's nervous stammer in his early scenes, and Bashir's enthusiasm for "the frontier" is over-written in these scenes as well. He does do well in the only scene in which he is called upon to act as a doctor, coming to the aid of a severely wounded woman during the climactic attack, and summoning up a natural authority that has been entirely absent in his performance up to that point. Thankfully, that one good scene is good enough to raise hopes that the weaker elements of both character and performance will recede over time.


THOUGHTS

And so begins the darkest, grimiest Star Trek series, certainly the best of the spinoffs and, on its best days, the only Trek series that can lay claim to being as good as the original series. I've long felt that the later Trek movies made a mistake following the popular, yet shallower, Next Generation cast. The Deep Space 9 cast and setting had, in my opinion, more weight on which big-screen movies could balance. And they wouldn't even have had to have Worf making multiple inexplicable trips from DS9 to justify his presence.

I was all set to write a review talking about how startling it is that such a comparatively rich series came from rather generic Trek spinoff beginnings. But you know something? A lot of what made this series great is there in the pilot. The characters have shades of grey. The commander doesn't want to be there (something, disappointingly, that is resolved within the pilot, when I'd have preferred that to be an ongoing element as well). Further, he's willing to bend rules and turn a blind eye to Quark's past goings-on and even potentially to his present ones as long as the Ferengi doesn't go too far. Kira has a huge chip on her shoulder, and obvious problems with authority. Both station and planet are given enough history within this pilot to make them interesting, and not every issue is resolved. For instance, the provisional government's instability is never resolved within this pilot. Beyond that, the wormhole itself will clearly open up new complications. This is a darker and grittier Trek, and the potential is clearly there even in this opening installment.

The standalone plot is passable, if less than remarkable. The discovery of the wormhole and Sisko's opening of communications with the intelligence therein are rendered in a visually interesting manner. I enjoyed the intercutting between Sisko's perspective - a barren wasteland - and Dax's persepctive of a lush garden setting. A reflection of their mental states, perhaps, with Sisko's bitterness and closed-off nature contrasted with Dax's embracing of everything life has to offer? I also thought the production team showed some imagination in Sisko's communications with the nonlinear entity. Some of the bits in that "conversation" went on a bit long, but the cutting between settings that were part of the commander's memory, and the use of different figures from his past to express different attitudes, was intriguing.

It's not perfect, but this pilot holds up very well. It's far better than the 2-hour pilots for Next Generation or Enterprise (and neither of those were bad, by the way). It's not as good a story as The Cage was for TOS... but with strong moments for every character, it's probably a better pilot to an ongoing series.


Rating: 8/10.

Next Episode: Past Prologue


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