Well, this is awkward.
I’ve completed my re-watch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now it’s time to start Deep Space Nine! I am much less familiar with this show, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 80-90% of the episodes. It’s been so long that I’m sure it will all feel brand new. My wife has never seen the show. She and I will go through, review every episode, and give commentary and a grade from A-F. There are SPOILERS for each episode below. Without further adieu, here’s:
“Second Skin”
Synopsis
Kira gets kidnapped by Cardassians. She wakes up with Cardassian skin and is told she’s been an undercover Cardassian agent for more than a decade. Her Cardassian “father,” Ghemor, is brought in and seems genuinely concerned for her and upset that she doesn’t remember him. As the days go on, she continues to believe that the Cardassians are trying to pump her for information, a feeling that is only confirmed as the Obsidian Order presses her for information from her alleged undercover operation. When her father finally comes up with a plan for sneaking her out, the true plan of the Obsidian Order is revealed. They were trying to trap the man who thought he was her father in a betrayal of Cardassia so they could arrest him and get information about more dissidents from him. Thankfully, Sisko and crew manage to save Kira and her Cardassian “father.”
Commentary
I thought this was a great character piece. It reminds me quite a bit of “Face of the Enemy,” the TNG episode in which Troi ends up as a Romulan. Here, though, Kira is not only placed in enemy hands, she also has very little control over the situation. Watching her deal with that, and try to figure out what exactly is going on, was rewarding.
What really elevated this episode, though, was the revelation that the Obsidian Order was using Kira, not to try to convince her to give up valuable information, but to nail her “father” on his political leanings. When Ghemor tries to help Kira escape, he is outed as a dissident and the Order is about to take him into custody when Sisko et al. rescue them. It’s a twist that I didn’t expect, because they’d sold the notion of it being Kira everyone was interested so well.
Grade: A “It was an excellent episode for both character development and overall plot.”
Wife’s Grade and Comment: A “I just thought it was really well done throughout. Good job. Also, double undercover agent Kira!”
“The Abandoned”
Synopsis
Quark buys a ship in a shady deal. What he didn’t know is that a baby is on board. As the station’s crew cares for the baby and speculates about his origins, he continues to grow at an alarming rate. It becomes clear the child is a Jem’Hadar. He sees Odo as his ruler, just like the other Jem’Hadar. Odo partners with the boy to try to teach him to control his violent impulses and overcome his genetic programming. All his efforts are in vain, however, and he ultimately satisfies himself with helping the Jem’Hadar return to his people, where he can live out the life of violence and other-hating he was designed for.
Commentary
Hey look, Star Trek can pull off a baby-to-adult transition without having to resort to the creepiness that was TNG’s “The Child.” I thought the best part of this episode was actually how it developed Odo. Odo was trying to go against the way his people had oppressed the Jem’Hadar and show that the latter were more than the product of their genetic modifications. Chalk that one up as a failure–for now, anyway. Who knows if the Jem’Hadar will have more to them later. But again, Odo’s own insistence on his not being somehow better than everybody else showed his coming to terms with his own place in the universe. He is an outsider, but one who still makes a difference wherever he is.
The problem with this episode is just how swiftly the Jem’Hadar developed. I guess they may have decided to go from baby-to-adult so quickly to try to show that developmentally, the Jem’Hadar change massively and perhaps the aggression manifests itself later, but I think the episode could have been more powerful if Odo had simply been interacting with an adult Jem’Hadar the whole time. That way, we’d have been able to get into more discussions of the Jem’Hadar philosophy, etc.
Still, this was a decent development piece for Odo, and whenever a main character gets some major character development, I am pleased.
Grade: B- “It’s like ‘The Child,’ but not creepy or terrible.”
Wife’s Grade and Comment: B “The sheer implausibility of the Jem’Hadar kid is hard to overcome, but it was a good look at Odo’s character.”
Links
J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!
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Star Trek: DS9– For more episode reviews, follow this site and also click this link to read more (scroll down as needed)! Drop me a comment to let me know what you thought!
SDG.
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