6-24. Time's Orphan.

Molly O'Brien loses ten years to a time travel accident...

THE PLOT

Chief O'Brien celebrates his family's return to the station by taking them on a picnic to the planet Golana, a lush and peaceful world they enjoyed during Keiko's pregnancy. They are having a perfect day... Until young Molly (Hana Hatae), playing near a cavern, takes a fall - right through a mysterious device. Molly vanishes, leaving O'Brien to work desperately to figure out where she went.

The answer proves not to be so much "where" as "when." The device is a time portal, leading to the planet's distant past - before the Bajorans settled, when the only life was wildlife. O'Brien reactivates the device and uses a DNA sample of Molly to beam his daughter back. But he misses the correct time period, beaming back not the child he lost, but a feral young adult Molly (Michelle Krusiec) who has spent 10 years all alone in the planet's past.

This Molly behaves more like an animal than a human, barely interacting with the people around her. She keeps insisting that she wants to go home - to Golana. O'Brien tries to placate her with a holosuite recreation... But when it's time to leave, she goes into a violent rage - One that ends with her stabbing one of Quark's Tarkalean customers.

Leaving the O'Briens with the prospect of their already damaged daughter spending the rest of her life confined to an institution...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: As a father himself, he empathizes with O'Brien's pain. After Molly stabs the Tarkalean, Sisko is as gentle as he can be when he tells O'Brien that Molly will be sent to a facility for "evaluation." He knows as well as O'Brien does that this will turn into a life sentence - But he doesn't try to offer false hope, instead making clear that this is going to happen and that he has no alternative.

O'Brien: At this point, it should be funny just how often he ends up dealing with horrific emotional pain. But there's a reason the writers keep doing this: It works. O'Brien is so utterly relatable, and Colm Meaney so perfectly authentic, it becomes impossible not to empathize with him. No matter how many times O'Brien is dragged out for another round of mental torture, it continues to work - Something which gives a badly-needed boost to the mostly middling material found here.

Keiko: It would have been very easy for this episode to manufacture conflict by having Keiko blame her husband for not watching Molly or for failing to rescue her from her fall. Thankfully, writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle don't go this route. Keiko and O'Brien are supportive of each other throughout the episode. When O'Brien decides he must take desperate action to save Molly from a life in an institution, Keiko is a firm participant in the plan, refusing to allow him to take the risk on his own. Rosalind Chao, in her first episode in too long, remains a welcome screen presence, and she and Colm Meaney feel absolutely natural as a screen couple.

Worf/Dax: Worf and Dax take subplot duties by watching the O'Briens' young son, Yoshi. Worf determines that he must succeed at babysitting the child without Dax's help. At first, this seems like yet more Stupid Klingon Pride (TM). Then Worf explains himself, and both his words and Dax's reactions carry a ring of truth: "(Babysitting) is not important to me. It is important to you... You are judging me on my fitness to be a parent... I have proven myself to be a worthy husband to you, but you are not convinced I would be a good parent to your children." The entire subplot, including Worf's overly-urgent feelings of failure when Yoshi falls during playtime, feels authentic, and Michael Dorn and Terry Farrell are terrific in their scenes - which are just numerous enough to make an impression, without drowning out the main story.


THOUGHTS

Time's Orphan isn't a bad episode, but it is blatant filler with an exceedingly predictable story progression. From the moment child Molly is replaced by a wild-eyed adult, did anyone watching this believe for even an instant that the situation wouldn't be reset without consequence by the end? Knowing that I was watching a Reset Button Episode kept me from becoming truly invested in this from the start, since it was clear that nothing here was going to matter (or likely even be remembered) even a single episode later.

The weak plot is somewhat made up for by the strong performances of the regulars and of guest actress Michelle Krusiec. Krusiec does a commendable job with the damaged Molly, her feral qualities visible without being overplayed. The connection she slowly forms with her not-quite-forgotten parents is well played, and the moments of calm make the disturbed moments more effective by contrast.

Particularly strong is the scene in w hich Molly goes truly, dangerously wild when removed from the holosuites. Director Allan Kroeker does a great job of giving an immediacy to this sequence that is rarely seen in Trek action scenes. When she injures the Tarkalian standing between her and the exit, she stabs him with a broken bottle - an act of raw violence that carries the kind of punch sci-fi shootouts just can't equal. The devastation on O'Brien's face is vivid as he takes in what has happened and realizes that his daughter has just done something irrevocable.

Moments such as this elevate the episode in bursts... But there's just no getting around how predictable the whole thing is. It feels expendable - a sense only heightened by the knowledge that O'Brien will not have to endure a single consequence for the station regulations he breaks in the second half.

It's not a bad episode, and it is worth watching for the performances and the character material. But in an excellent season, this is a decidedly lesser episode.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Profit and Lace
Next Episode: The Sound of Her Voice

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5-12. The Begotten.

Odo bonds with an infant Changeling.

THE PLOT

The time has come for Kira to give birth to the O'Brien's baby. She has opted for a traditional Bajoran birth, with Miles and Keiko at her bedside. The birth is complicated by the delayed arrival of the final guest: Shakaar (Duncan Regehr), whose duties as First Minister to Bajor have interefered with his ability to be there for Kira. Once Shakaar finally arrives, the delivery is further complicated by the increasing competition between Shakaar and O'Brien, each of whom is territorial about his place at Kira's side.

Meanwhile, Odo receives an unexpected delivery: An ornate container Quark obtained from a Yridian dealer. Its contents? An infant Changeling. Odo obtains permission to work with the child, to try to teach it how to shapeshift and establish communication with it. But when Odo's progress is too slow, Dr. Mora (James Sloyan), the Bajoran scientist who unlocked his own shapeshifting skills, arrives to push him to deliver results - bringing with him all of Odo's old resentments about being used as a test subject.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: Initially willing to leave the Changeling child in Odo's care.  Still, when Stafleet becomes impatient over the lack of progress, he's the one who delivers the message that Starfleet will take over if Odo gets no results. I'd tend to suspect that Sisko is the one who alerted Dr. Mora to the situation with the new changeling, as well.

Major Kira: The episode's "B" plot is mostly played for comedy, with the competition between Miles and Shakaar allowing for some amusing broad moments. But the subplot also parallels the main plot, as is made evident when Kira meets up with Odo at the episode's closing. She talks about how she never wanted a child, echoing Odo's own words to Quark earlier in the show, but how much carrying the O'Brien's child meant to her and how she wishes now that she could just hold the baby one more time. As ever, when these two characters are on screen, it's a wonderful moment - a perfect note on which to send this show off to credits.

Odo: Instantly entranced by the infant Changeling. He is parental as he talks to it, assuring it (like many parents before) that he will "not make the same mistakes" that were made by Dr. Mora in raising him. But it isn't long before, as it has for many parents before, reality shatters Odo's ideals about being the perfect parent out of necessity for simply raising the child. Odo's bond with the young Changeling brings out a new facet in Rene Auberjonois' performance, and Odo's emotional journey throughout the episode rings true at every point.

Dr. Mora: James Sloyan returns as Odo's discoverer/surrogate father for the first time since Season Two's The Alternate. Sloyan remains excellent, and Rene Echevarria's script balances Mora's roles as scientist and parent. As a scientist who successfully prompted a Changeling to grow, he is impatient with Odo's overly gentle tactics. As a parent, he is proud when Odo's efforts finally bear fruit. Despite his protestations to Odo, he does feel some guilt at his harsh tactics, and when Odo finally acknowledges that Mora's efforts made his life possible, the scientist's relief at hearing this is evident. 

Shakaar: Returns to watch Kira give birth to the O'Briens' child. I question the priorities of using the character here and not in the previous episode. Here, it would have been easy to have redrafted the Shakaar subplot so that he was too busy to come, while the last episode seemed to cry out for his participation. In any case, while there's some mild amusement in his rivalry with the protective O'Brien, there really isn't much interest, and I find myself mainly waiting for the producers to realize how substantially the Kira/Shakaar romance has failed so that it can be cut off. 


THOUGHTS

The Begotten is another excellent episode in a season that's already met its quota for excellent episodes. Odo's story is pushed further along. We see him experiencing what it is to be a Changeling again by working with this young Changeling. The end result might have felt like a cheat... but it doesn't, in part because it's been foreshadowed in earlier episodes, but mainly because that result comes with a real emotional cost.

Speaking of emotion, I'm going to veer into discussing another, lesser Trek series for a moment. A few weeks ago, I reviewed the Voyager episode Real Life. That episode has some superficial similarities with this one, as it showed the holographic doctor experiencing what it was like to have a family. The endings to the two episodes are particularly similar.

Real Life had Voyager's strongest regular responding emotionally to a quite decent child actress. The Begotten has one of DS9's strongest regulars responding emotionally to a lump of gelatin. And yet the emotion in this episode is so much more genuine and compelling than it was in the Voyager episode, it becomes ridiculous to seriously compare the two. This one is clearly on another level, because the way Odo and Mora react to that lump of gelatin convinces in a way that the saccharine manipulations of Real Life never did.

Rene Echevarria's script focuses on Odo's reactions in a way that is authentic to his character. The scene in which he is truly happy and shares that happiness with - of all people - Quark is a gem. Of course Odo would bring his joy to his nemesis, his unspoken friend, and of course Quark would react with suspicion to this strange behavior. When it becomes clear why Odo is happy, Quark drops his pretense and is genuinely happy for him. For a second, they are genuinely friends - Until a security alert tears the rug out from underneath Odo.

The Begotten ends with a major event for Odo, but to the episode's credit that event is actually less memorable than Odo fretting over the Changeling child. It's achievement is that its standalone story resonates. Excellent writing and acting fuse to make for another excellent episode.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: The Darkness and the Light
Next Episode: For the Uniform


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5-5. The Assignment.

O'Brien's family is threatened by an unexpected source.

THE PLOT

O'Brien is waiting with chocolates and a string of excuses for killing the plants when Keiko returns from a trip to the Fire Caves on Bajor. The chocolates are appreciated, the excuses unneeded... because Keiko's body has been taken over by a Pah-wraith, a spirit of Bajoran legend.

After demonstrating its ability to kill or cripple Keiko in a single second, the wraith makes its demands. O'Brien is given thirteen hours to make a series of adjustments to station operations. It's a tight deadline, allowing no room for distractions, deviations, or attempts to warn the command crew. If he finishes the work, he is promised his wife's safe return - but when Dax notices that system specs are "slightly off," O'Brien is trapped with a tight deadline and a search for a saboteur - Himself!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: Though his role is decidedly a supporting one, we do see his trust in O'Brien throughout the episode. Even at the end, he doesn't greet O'Brien with an immediate arrest - He just tells O'Brien that he has "a lot of explaining to do," with evident faith that the engineer will be able to explain his actions.

O'Brien: He gives into the wraith's demands, but he never stops trying to find a way to thwart it. Even as he performs the initial adjustments, he asks the computer to calculate how long it would take to render Keiko unconscious in various ways. He knows that for any method to stop the wraith before it can harm his wife, it has to be effective in less than a second - an interval that even a phaser set on "stun" isn't safely within. As the wraith's deadline gets nearer, O'Brien becomes steadily more desperate, finally abandoning his own hopes of covering his tracks in order to do what is needed to save those he loves.

Keiko: The wraith has access to Keiko's knowledge of O'Brien's personality, and recognizes that the only way to keep him from telling Sisko is to reinforce the threat against his family. There are several instances of this throughout the show, but the most memorable has Keiko contacting him in a meeting to show that she is with their daughter, alone in their quarters. Rosalind Chao, who is often pushed into the fairly thankless "main character's wife" role, seems to enjoy sinking her teeeth into some villainy, and the way she shifts from the cheerful wife to the icy enemy - sometimes with as little as a sideways look - is highly entertaining.

Rom: Last season's Bar Association saw Rom leaving his brother's bar for a position in Engineering. That finally sees some follow-up here. Refreshingly, Rom is where you'd expect somebody new to be: At the bottom, working the night shift in Sanitation. When a member of the swing shift is out, Rom is selected to temporarily replace him and, though the other members of the team show little interest in talking to him, he does his work well enough to catch O'Brien's notice and be enlisted as an ally in meeting the pah-wraith's tight deadline. Rom's technical knowledge is such that he quickly puts together the purpose of the adjustments, something that the wraith has hidden even from O'Brien - leading to O'Brien's own final plan to ensure his family's safety.


THOUGHTS

The Assignment is the annual "put O'Brien through the wringer" episode, something that's been a tradition ever since Season Two's outstanding Whispers. Colm Meaney's ability to be completely relateable and sympathetic in virtually any situation makes him a natural for these episodes and, far from degenerating into tedious formula, these O'Brien episodes are routinely very good-to-great.

On the sliding scale of "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes, it is closest in quality to Season Three's Visionary. It's a good plot-driven thriller, well-constructed and very entertaining. But it lacks the paranoid edge that made Whispers so memorable even before its ending revelation, nor does it have the emotional punch of Hard Time. 

But it is a good episode, nicely anchored by Colm Meaney's Everyman persona. Effective moments include "Keiko's" birthday dinner for O'Brien, in which she invites all of his co-workers and mingles with them effortlessly and charmingly, dashing any hopes that the others will notice anything "off" about her. In fact, they shower her with praise for every aspect of the party, rubbing further salt into the pah-wraith's message that she's in control and no external party is going to rescue O'Brien from completing his assigned sabotage.

The Pah-wraith is defeated a little too easily, with O'Brien concocting a last-minute scheme that works perfectly and with no complications. Still, if the ending isn't great, neither does it fall completely flat. The Assignment remains a satisfying episode, and leaves me looking forward to seeing O'Brien get run through the wringer again next season.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Nor the Battle to the Strong
Next Episode: Trials and Tribble-ations 


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4-25. Body Parts.

Quark has a vision of the Afterlife.

THE PLOT

A trip to the Gamma Quadrant leaves Keiko injured. Dr. Bashir is able to easily stabilize her, but her fetus' lifesigns begin dropping. Bashir is left with only one option to save both mother and child, and he takes it - Transferring the baby from Keiko into Major Kira!

Meanwhile, Quark is diagnosed with Dorek Syndrome, a rare but incurable Ferengi disease. His doctor gives him less than a week to live. Faced with the prospect of paying off his considerable debt, Quark opts to sell his desicated remains on the Ferengi futures exchange. The full set is purchased, allowing him to go to his grave debt-free. 

Predictably enough, it turns out Quark isn't dying after all. The entire set of events was set in motion by Quark's old adversary, Liquidator Brunt (Jeffrey Combs) of the FCA.  When Quark listed his remains on the market, Brunt was the buyer.  Now he has come to collect on his contract: "Fifty discs of vacuum-desiccated Quark available within six days." If he doesn't collect, the contract will be declared broken - leaving Brunt free to strip Quark's family of all property and status.  To save his reputation, Quark has only one choice: Kill himself!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: Another episode in which he appears only briefly. Still, his brief appearance does show his shrewdness in dealing with people, as he finds a way to help Quark in terms that translate into Quark assisting him.

Quark: His imminent death snaps into focus just how much his fellow Ferengi see him as a failure. He remains in debt, his fairly petty successes and failures never really balancing the scales. His brother formed a union, his nephew has joined Starfleet, and his own business acumen is eclipsed by that of his mother - a female, who practices business despite it being forbidden by their society. Even after he learns that he is actually healthy, he remains vulnerable to Brunt's accusations that he is too much of a "philanthropist," not true enough to Ferengi ideals. 

Liquidator Brunt: Jeffrey Combs remains a malicious delight as Brunt. What makes him work so well is that Combs isn't playing him as a comedy character. Brunt is a proper villain, a genuine threat to those within the influence of Ferengi society. He is as smart as he is ruthless, using the rules of his society to crush any opposition. His dislike of Quark isn't motivated by personal vengeance - As he observes, Quark's encounters with him have been annoyances to him more than injuries. No, he is a fundamentalist with regard to Ferengi culture, and he sees Quark's flashes of decency as signs of a cancer within their society. The trap he sets for Quark is masterful, allowing Brunt victory whichever path Quark chooses: Either Quark dies, removing the cancer; or he breaks the contract, allowing Brunt to make a public example of him.

Garak: With Quark determined to honor the Rules of Acquisition, even at the cost of his own life, he has one obvious place to turn for a quick assassination: our friendly Cardassian tailor. Though his role in this episode is fairly small, Andrew Robinson deftly steals every scene in which he appears. Particularly fun is the scene in which Garak uses the holosuite to demonstrate to Quark various methods of dispatch. He becomes exasperated at Quark's squeamishness: "You don't want to be vaporized because you need a body. The disruptor ruined your clothing, the knife was too savage, the nerve gas smelled bad, hanging took too long... For a man who wants to kill himself, you are strangely determined to live!"


THOUGHTS

One of the remarkable things about Season Four is that even its Ferengi episodes have been pretty good. Little Green Men was one of the most successful pure comedy Treks in the franchise's history, as well-crafted as TOS' The Trouble with Tribbles. Bar Association was not on the same level, but managed to take a potential "bad comedy" storyline and wring some decent drama out of it. Finally, this episode takes another potential "bad comedy" situation and uses it to move the character of Quark along from where he has been from the show's inception to a new point from which he can take any number of possible directions.

With the other Trek series, that would be a meaningless statement. After all, Worf can sustain a major spinal injury and have that all forgotten about come the following episode. But DS9 has a pretty good track record of actually following up on events. This episode itself is a direct followup to Bar Association and Family Business.This gives me optimism that Quark's epiphany about the Rules of Acquisition and his new relationship with Ferengi society will have consequences in future seasons.

The episode itself is suprisingly good, a decidedly unpromising teaser followed by a story that gets more and more complicated as it goes. Quark is boxed in by Brunt, but also by his own values. He can survive fairly easily, but to do so he has to accept a situation that goes against everything he has believed in his entire life. His struggle to come to terms with such a choice provides a wonderful opportunity for Armin Shimerman to show his dramatic range along with his comic timing. Avery Brooks directs, and he's once again on form behind the camera, leaving memories of Season Three's Fascination mercifully far behind.

The Kira/O'Brien "B" plot is a fairly obvious case of "writing in" Nana Visitor's pregnancy. Still, it works well enough thanks to the sincerity of the three actors. Visitor, Colm Meaney, and Rosalind Chao all project a basic decency that makes them very easy to watch, even if the situation feels desperately contrived. Even so, the Quark plot was far more interesting to me than the O'Brien plot, and it's a good thing that Kira and the O'Briens take up relatively little of the episode's screentime.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: The Quickening
Next Episode: Broken Link


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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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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.

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Next Episode: Rules of Engagement


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