3-11, 3-12. Past Tense.

Fort Apache: Sanctuary District, 2024.

THE PLOT

Starfleet has invited Sisko and the Deep Space 9 command crew to Earth to discuss current developments in the Gamma Quadrant. Sisko, Dax, and Bashir beam down to attend an official dinner in San Francisco. But a transporter disruption causes them to materialize at the correct destination... but more than 200 years in the past!

Early 21st century America is not a pleasant place to be. The economy is in bad shape, and Europe is in political and economic chaos. Problems of homelessness and poverty have become so vast that the system has effectively surrendered, dumping anyone with no home and job into a "sanctuary district." This is where Sisko and Bashir find themselves, in a poverty and crime-ridden ghetto. Dax, meanwhile, was fortunate enough to materialize out of sight and to catch the eye of a local media figure.

As Dax figures out where Sisko and Bashir must have been taken, Sisko makes an even more sobering realization. They have arrived mere days before a riot in the sanctuary, one which will end in a tragedy that will nevertheless begin the transformation of Earth's society. A large part of the reason for this transformation rests with a man named Gabriel Bell, whose adherence to nonviolence keeps the protesters from being viewed as the villains in the public eye. But when Sisko and Bashir are attacked by a criminal, a man is killed trying to come to their rescue. That man? Gabriel Bell...


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: For the sake of plot expedience, Sisko is revealed to be an armchair expert in 21st century history. Bashir knows nothing about this period of history, which allows Sisko to deliver reams of exposition throughout Part 1. This feels a bit labored, but it's necessary to give us the context to really invest in the action of Part 2. Sisko tries hard to keep from interfering with history. But when the brutish B. C. (Frank Military) forces interference on them, resulting in Bell's death, Sisko promptly steps into the role of Bell and rapidly takes charge of the hostage situation. Avery Brooks is at his best in these scenes, alternately manipulating and confronting B. C. and rather marvellously losing his temper at Vin (Dick Miller), the most argumentative of the hostages.

Dr. Bashir: A fantastic episode for Bashir. His horror at the treatment of the Sanctuary District residents is palpable. Seeing mentally ill homeless people wandering around the ghetto-like streets, he bitterly complains about a society that doesn't care. When Sisko reminds him that this is a very different time with very different resources, Bashir reminds him that the medical technology exists even in the early 21st century to help many of the people around them. The flipside of Bashir's moral outrage is his compassion. The best of many good scenes comes in Part 2, as Bashir observes the distress of one of the hostages and quietly engages her, calming her down and diagnosing both her underlying medical condition and how to help her. It's very hard to reconcile this character with the callow fop of Season One, but it does show just how far the character has come and how well the writers did at revamping him.

Dax: In contrast to the two men, who are hauled away to a ghetto when they are discovered, Dax is treated like a princess and taken to the equivalent of a palace. In part, she's just lucky. She materialized out of sight, so the police don't see her when they take Sisko and Bashir away. But there's also the other part, as writer Ira Steven Behr noted in interviews. "A beautiful white woman is always going to get much better treatment than two brown-skinned men," Behr observed, and it doesn't feel like much of a reach that the man who finds Jadzia is focused on helping her. For her part, she's not above flirting pretty heavily, and Terry Farrell has Jadzia giving a lot of nonverbal looks and cues to her wealthy benefactor that are more than a little flirtatious.


THOUGHTS

Past Tense was written and shot in the mid-1990's, but a lot of it seems quite prescient in 2011. Bad economy? A lack of jobs? People who had always been middle-class suddenly unemployed and slipping into poverty? There are even mentions of chaos and protests in Europe. All right, we don't have concentration camps for the homeless. But a lot of the context created for this episode matches up eerily well with today's situation. If things were to continue deteriorating for another 13 years, it wouldn't be a stretch to see a world much like the one glimpsed in this episode.

As a 2-part piece of television drama, Past Tense works very well. It's not perfect. There isn't quite enough story to fill two full episodes, and Part 2 has some very visible padding. The Kira/O'Brien scenes are particularly weak. The "comedy" of their search of different time periods is thin and obvious, and these scenes clash horribly with the bleak tone of the overall story. Worse is the sheer volume of technobabble O'Brien spouts to justify the time travel. There's also a frankly horrible scene in Part 1 in which Jadzia attends a "rich snob" party. The two snobs who chat with Brynner (Jim Metzler), Jadzia's rescuer,are horribly overwritten, and the acting of the two bit players is gratingly artificial.

That scene stands in stark contrast to the main body of the episode, which is filled with performances that are very sharp and feel heavily rooted in reality. The scenes in the Sanctuary District are marked by a gritty, filmic quality that's rare in Star Trek. Talk about job searches, hunger, and desperation is easy to relate to. The directing is very good, both by Reza Badiyi (Part 1) and by Jonathan Frakes (Part 2). Frakes' direction is more dynamic, but that's largely because his half is more action-heavy. Badiyi's half is largely about setting up the world in which the story occurs. Music is sparse, largely confined to the action sequences, which emphasizes the almost documentary-like nature of the early Sanctuary District scenes.

This is a very message-heavy episode, and that message is delivered with all the subtlety one expects of Trek - which is to say, none. If things are bad, no one can entirely blame you for ducking your head and telling yourself that it's not your fault. But if everyone does the same, then nothing will change. Is it heavy-handed, even perhaps bordering on trite? Perhaps. But it's still a worthy message, one that seems even more relevant today than when this episode was made. The brief exchange between Sisko and Detective Preston particularly lingers in my mind:


PRESTON: Change takes time.
SISKO: You've run out of time.


Overall Rating: 9/10

Previous Episode: Fascination

Next Episode: Life Support

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3-09. Defiant.

Commander William Riker (Jonathan
Frakes) - or so it appears...

THE PLOT

The station gets an unexpected visitor: Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Forced by Dr. Crusher to take some long-overdue vacation time, Riker has stopped by Deep Space 9 on his way to Risa. He quickly bonds with Kira, who responds well to his warmth and confidence. Kira gives him a tour of the station and of its new starship, the Defiant.

...Which is when everything suddenly turns upside-down. Riker turns his phaser on Kira, stunning her. He creates a fake warp core breach so that Sisko will let him get clear of the station, then takes the ship into warp. It isn't long before Sisko discovers that his visitor wasn't Will Riker at all. It was Thomas Riker, Will's clone from a transporter accident. Now a member of the Maquis, Tom is taking the cloaked and heavily-armed Defiant direct into Cardassian space - leaving Sisko no choice but to partner with Starfleet's one-time enemies to stop him!


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: The relationship between Sisko and Dukat is an increasingly fascinating one. They are not friends, and with the backstory of this series they never could be. But in many ways, they are reflections of each other. Both fathers, who share a moment in this episode discussing the challenges of balancing military careers with raising young children. Both frequently at odds with their own governments, Sisko frustrated at Starfleet's inaction regarding Cardassia's treaty breaches, Dukat frustrated at the secretiveness of the Obsidian Order. Sisko has a moral center that Dukat lacks... but I think it's a very small and thin shade of gray that separates them. As in The Maquis, you can see Sisko recognizing a lot of himself in his Cardassian counterpart, and not necessarily finding comfort in that.

Major Kira: Draws a distinction between her own background fighting the Cardassians and what Thomas is doing now. She fought the Cardassians because they invaded her home, while she sees no similar justification for Tom. "You don't live in the demilitarized zone," she spits at him, adding that his actions will lead to more deaths than if he had simply done nothing. She criticizes his tactics, recognizing them not as those of a terrorist but rather those of a Starfleet officer. For all of that, she sympathizes with his intentions, closing the episode with a promise to get him out of the Cardassian labor camp... though as I don't believe that Frakes guest starred again, I'm guessing that promise goes unrealized.

Thomas Riker: Seems driven by a couple of forces. As Kira recognizes, he is determined to distinguish himself from Will Riker. At one point, he dismisses a prudent course of action, stating that while it may be "what Will Riker would do," it's not what he's going to do. There is genuine moral outrage also at work, however. He is clearly appalled that Federation citizens are dying and that Starfleet is doing nothing to stop it. His theft of the Defiant has a clear goal, and the ending seems to prove him right. Jonathan Frakes is very good playing the angry, slightly embittered Thomas - quite a contrast with the off-putting stiffness of his early scenes in this episode (probably intentional, to show Thomas' discomfort passing himself off as Will).

Gul Dukat: This episode sees him once again put at odds with forces within his own government. We've already had indications that he isn't fully trusted by Cardassia. Now we see him making enemies out of the Obsidian Order as a whole. At the same time, Dukat has to be building up some resentment from the repeated shows of disrespect. Here, we see the Obsidian Order representative praising Sisko's strategic sense - in such a way as to make it clear that her real goal is to put Dukat in his place. I have the feeling that all these insults are things a man like Dukat will not forget, and certainly will not forgive.


THOUGHTS

It's been a fair while since The Maquis introduced the guerrilla conflict against the Cardassians. That strand was quickly sidelined with the introduction of the Dominion, and it is only now that it finally gets followed up (probably at least in part to refresh that strand for the debut of Voyager). As with The Maquis, the script prominently pairs Sisko and Gul Dukat. Add in that it's a script by Ronald D. Moore, and it's little surprise that the resulting episode is a good one.

It's a tight, fast-paced piece. Moore reveals Tom Riker and has him steal the Defiant by the end of the first Act, leaving the bulk of the show for the chase. Of course, there's no budget for a true action piece. Instead, we get a strong character piece that doubles as an effective strategic thriller. The structure of the episode cuts between two pairs of characters: Sisko and Dukat, Tom Riker and Kira. We see them reasoning against each other, and it's made clear that both character sets are formidable. Nobody among our four leads does anything glaringly stupid. Tom loses because the odds against him are such that he can't possibly win - and even there, Sisko's compromise with Dukat means that his act probably wasn't in vain.

It's a well-directed episode, with plenty of atmosphere gained from tight compositions and smart lighting choices. Deep Space 9 is the darkest Star Trek show, in lighting terms as well as tone. Floodlit sets are a rarity. Instead, this series plays with shadows and tinted lights. Characters converse in tight frames, usually with one character in the background of the other so that you see both faces during urgent conversations. Even in a large set, there is claustrophobia in those tight frames, and with reason - Sisko and Dukat are effectively conspiring out of earshot of Obsidian Order forces in the same room as them, while Kira is pushing Tom to look at his own demons and motives. The production choices and script feed each other, making for a polished and effective end product.


Overall Rating: 8/10

Previous Episode: Meridian

Next Episode: Fascination

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3-08. Meridian.

Dax enjoys the attentions
of Deral (Brett Cullen).

THE PLOT

Sisko has succeeded in convincing Starfleet that exploration of the Gamma Quadrant should continue, despite the threat of the Dominion. He is commanding the Defiant on an exploration mission when a planet appears, as if out of nowhere. The planet is Meridian, and its friendly inhabitants explain that their world alternates between two dimensions: the corporeal one of the Gamma Quadrant and a second, incorporeal one. They enjoy a seemingly idyllic existence, aging only when in corporeal form before passing into decades as pure thought, always returning to the physical world with everything exactly as they left it.  Naturally, there is a catch. Their time in the physical world is growing ever shorter. Soon (relatively speaking) the planet's shifts will become too unstable to exist in either dimension.

Back on the station, Major Kira catches the eye of Tiron (Jeffrey Combs), a wealthy associate of Quark's. She evades him by pretending to be Odo's lover. But if Tiron can't have the real Major Kira, he's willing to satisfy himself with a holo-image. He contracts Quark to create a custom program of Kira. Before Quark can do so, though, he must get Kira into a holosuite - something that will be easier said than done!


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: Though we know Dax isn't going anywhere, Sisko's goodbye to Jadzia is still quite affecting. There's a genuine tenderness that's built up between these two characters by this point, and both actors play the dynamic well.

Major Kira: When did Major Kira get replaced by someone who would have any problem at all telling one of Quark's creepy colleagues exactly what to go do with himself? Kira's claim of Odo as her lover is amusing enough, and Odo's reaction is priceless (and probably significant)... but Major Kira isn't someone who tends to fall back on passive-aggressive strategies. She'd be far more likely to just shoot down Tiron's hopes for her, with threats to shoot him down far less metaphorically if he didn't get the message and back off. At least the real Kira is back in time to threaten Quark by the episode's end, while Nana Visitor's comic timing proves to be almost as adept as Armin Shimerman's, making the subplot more enjoyable than it has any right to be.

Dax: The season's second Dax-centric episode. While Equilibrium focused on her past and on Trill society in general, this episode gives her a more emotional focus. We've already seen how much she enjoys flirtation, through her teasing non-romance with Julian. It's evident that she enjoys Deral (Brett Cullen)'s interest from the start. When things go further with him, she embraces that wholeheartedly. She does focus both of their attentions on the work at hand, in finding a way to stabilize the planet's dimensional shifts. But she also jumps head-first into a full relationship, even willing to sacrifice her Starfleet career (or at least put it on hold for 60 years) to be with him on Meridian.

Quark: "The things I do for money." Well, at least Quark's aware of how low he sinks in this episode, desperately trying to find a way to get Kira's voice and image for Tiron's porn program. Given that we know Kira has been in Quark's holosuites before, I'm surprised he didn't have her image already stored - that would seem to be the sort of thing Quark would do as a matter of course. But then, if he had done so we wouldn't have a comedy subplot. This is Quark at his least wily and most slimy, which is to say it feels like a gross simplification of the complex character from other episodes. But Armin Shimerman has such natural comic timing that it's impossible to mind too much.


THOUGHTS

Meridian is an episode with a very bad reputation... yet I have to confess, I kind of enjoyed it. No, it's not a very good episode. But compared to the momentum-breaker that ended the last run of quality, this is surprisingly entertaining and watchable. I'd even call it pleasant.

It is an example of an A plot/B plot structure that utterly fails to work. The best plot/subplot combinations have both stories feeding each other, either thematically or structurally. Here, there are two unrelated strands. There is no thematic connection between the Meridian story and the Quark/Kira story. There is certainly no plot relevance between the two. They are simply two separate stories, neither one of which is really up to carrying an episode on its own. It's less a case of A plot/B plot structure than it is of B plot/B plot. A major limitation.

But it's still pleasant enough. I genuinely enjoyed the scenes on Meridian. It's always a relief to see genuine location footage in a Star Trek episode, and Jonathan Frakes directs with his usual confidence. I found Dax's dalliance with Deral to be enjoyable, though I think the writers chose the wrong ending. The episode would be a stronger character piece if Dax were to decide, after her talk with Sisko, that it made no sense to throw her career away over a brief dalliance, however pleasurable and romantic. That could have provided a more genuinely emotional resolution than the sea of Technobabble that made it "impossible" for Dax to be with her lover. Still, the romance is passably well-realized for a Trek romance, and is anchored by a quite good performance by Terry Farrell.

The Kira/Quark plot is pure comedy relief, and like most Trek comedy plots, it's hit and miss, with many of the scenes running far too long for the scattered laughs generated. There are some good moments, courtesy of the good comic timing of Armin Shimerman and Nana Visitor. Particularly funny is Kira's threat to make Quark "eat" the holo-imager after he attempts to surreptitiously scan her. Also funny is the final program, when unveiled for Tiron... Though I'm sure the damage this would do to Quark's reputation will mysteriously never materialize within the context of the show.

Neither very good nor very bad, Meridian does live down to its repuation in that it breaks an extremely long run of extremely high quality episodes. But it honestly isn't half as bad as I had expected. I even enjoyed it. I certainly wouldn't rank it as one of DS9's worst. A harmless filler episode on its own, that perhaps suffers from coming at the tail end of a run of very good to great shows.


Overall Rating: 5/10

Previous Episode: Civil Defense
Next Episode: Defiant


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