DS9 Stories/News: Of Trek and War (1)

Source: http://www.goth.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14138&f=20

This is based on an idea from DarklyInclined, who was wondering how I might rate the rather protracted Dominion War featured in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine versus the one-season Xindi conflict (a subset of the much larger Temporal Cold War) as shown in Star Trek: Enterprise. I thought I’d also open the topic up to other wars in Trek, since those two weren’t quite the only wars shown in all of the series.

This will be a lengthy post. I’ve been working on it for a while now. I tend to write essays instead of simple replies; apologies in advance. Non-Trekkies who don’t really give a shit might want to head for another thread. For those Trekkies not well-versed in the subject matter, I will include links to pertinent data where applicable. Those who do choose read this, please bear with me.

You could make it more fun by taking a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage anytime I bash Rick Berman & Brannon Braga (two of Trek’s longtime writers/producers, both of whom were blamed for Star Trek’s demise and the early cancellation of Enterprise, if not the near-total downfall of UPN itself) or anytime I mention Ronald D. Moore and Ira Steven Behr (two longtime Trek scribes who later moved on to Battlestar Galactica on SyFy) in a positive light. You’ll be happily plastered by post’s end.

Which did you think was done best: the Dominion War from DS9 or the Xindi conflict from Enterprise (or a different conflict featured in one of the other series, like the Klingon/Federation Cold War from TOS or the brief war against the Klingons in DS9 that served as a prelude to the Dominion War)?

Or, for a much more broad, open-ended question (if it suits you): do you think Star Trek handles a mature subject such as war well or poorly?

Dominion War

If you really don’t care about my lengthy diatribe on the Dominion War vs. the Xindi conflict (maybe because you didn’t live your entire life in your parents’ basement and you actually did have a social life), just skip past this and post your response already. Otherwise, feel free to keep reading.

Eh..?

I’ll open the discussion with my response…

…

I think Deep Space Nine handled the Dominion War fairly well. They didn’t just rush into it head-on. The writers gave it a great build-up, slowly tip-toeing into it, mentioning the Dominion here and there throughout Season Two (the Dominion were first mentioned in “Rules of Acquisition“, a Ferengi episode, no less!) before introducing us to their foot soldiers, the genetically-grown Jem’Hadar, in the Season 2 finale. Even after that, the Dominion didn’t quite take center stage yet, opting instead for a Cold War against the Alpha Quadrant powers, during which they covertly started two wars involving the Klingons – a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians (which the Maquis would get involved in) and renewed hostilities between the Klingons and the Federation. After destabilizing the Alpha Quadrant’s major powers, the Dominion finally invaded. Brilliant tactic! By then, the Federation was so shell-shocked from having to deal with wars on all borders (save the Romulan Neutral Zone) that they barely had the resources to fight the Dominion, a nigh-unstoppable force compared to the Federation.

Jem’Hadar

The Dominion seemed militarily superior in all respects: non-stop construction of warships while the Federation was still trying to convert aging exploration vessels into battleships; they could grow Jem’Hadar at an exponential rate (and even tailor-make them for warfare in that part of the galaxy) while Starfleet couldn’t recruit new officers fast enough; the Dominion were united while Starfleet was divided between the pacifists and the war-mongers (usually represented by a shadowy “rogue” group of Starfleet Intelligence called Section 31, a sort of Starfleet “Men in Black” that utilized very dirty tactics like assassinations, cover-ups and even genocide to preserve the Federation; this was the series’ attempt at exploring a darker side of Starfleet that I, for one, appreciated). Good mix of drama, tension and action all around, plus it was an interesting examination of the Federation through darker lenses than we’re used to.

Section 31

While Deep Space Nine’s executive producer, Rick Berman (Roddenberry’s hand-picked successor), wanted the Dominion War to last only three or four episodes tops, DS9′s lead writers – Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore (themselves chosen by Berman for their outstanding work on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, both of whom would later helm the Battlestar Galactica reboot and create its prequel series Caprica) – conned him into allowing the Dominion War to play out until its “natural” end, which came during the final episode of the series. Say what you will about the Dominion War as a storyline and how it diverges from Roddenberry’s utopian vision of the future or about Deep Space Nine as a series, I think the Dominion War worked successfully (mostly), given its purpose as a method of deconstructing Roddenberry’s notions of the Federation as a utopian society. Ira Steven Behr re-imagined Deep Space Nine as a darker, grittier version of Roddenberry’s vision, and given how the series was written before that (set aboard a Cardassian space station by Michael Pillar – the brain behind some of the best TNG episodes ever, including “The Best of Both Worlds” – who imagined the series as a “frontier town in space” filled with broken individuals, former terrorist “freedom fighters”, orphaned aliens and unscrupulous bartender/merchants), the series worked well as such. The Dominion War, while I admit it was rather protracted (and ultimately weakened the hell out of Season 7, when the writers had to figure out a quick way to end the war in only one season after building the story arc to be a lengthy epic), worked overall as the ultimate test of Roddenberry’s dream.

When such a dream – the notion of humankind striving to better itself through peace and cooperation – is threatened by outside forces, what will humanity endure to protect it? The approach to this was very realistic, from the major portions of the story (“Operation Return“, the re-taking of DS9 after it was taken over by the Dominion) to the humdrum day-to-day stuff (Sisko’s grim ritual of posting casualty reports from the war every Friday). Ultimately, the war took a bitter toll on everyone involved, especially Captain Sisko; he would later commit acts that many Trek fans consider cardinal sins against Roddenberry’s lofty ideals – specifically helping a former Cardassian spy murder a Romulan senator in cold blood and blame the Dominion for it in the masterpiece episode “In the Pale Moonlight” – just to bring a quicker resolution to the war by bringing the Romulans into it. By the series’ end, the Federation is saved, and all the major goals of the series – bringing an end to the Cardassian threat and putting Bajor on the fast-track to membership in the Federation – have been met, along with the added bonus of creating a tentative peace between the Federation, the Klingons and the Romulans. Additionally, Ira Steven Behr was able to inject a bit of Judaism into the story through the Bajorans and their Emissary (messiah figure), Benjamin Sisko, whose story arc Behr based loosely on Moses.

DS9 Stories/News: O Captain, My Captain: A Look Back At Deep Space Nine’s Ben Sisko

Source: http://www.racialicious.com/2012/03/15/o-captain-my-captain-a-look-back-at-deep-space-nines-ben-sisko/

By Guest Contributor On March 15, 2012, Kendra James:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine  is like The West Wing. But in space. With a Black president. Kind of.

That’s normally how I find myself trying to describe the show to the uninitiated, as I firmly believe that it’s the Trek series you have to use when trying to get people into Trek canon, especially people of color. Deep Space Nine (DS9) causes a strange division in the world of Trekkies. I’ve always found (non-scientifically; I just spend a lot of time at cons) that people either love it or loathe it. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to show it to my kids.

DS9 has your aliens and spaceships, and characters do occasionally say things like “set phasers to stun,” but the Trek cheese-factor is more often than not outweighed by the political storyarcs covered over six out of the show’s seven seasons, its criticisms of 20th century history, race relations in America, and lead actor, Avery Brooks, who stars as Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko–the first and only African-American captain to lead a televised Star Trek franchise.

In both the original Star Trek series (TOS) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), the existence of the United Federation Of Planets provided a perfect excuse to ignore (human) race and racism completely. The Trek franchise has always featured black actors and actresses, well developed Black characters, and TOS even featured the first televised interracial kiss in the episode “Plato’s Kiss.” Both shows dismissed racism on Earth as being as outdated as using money, instead highlighting racial politics between alien species rather than humans.

This model may have continued through DS9 had they hired any other actor to portray Captain Sisko. However, Brooks–a Shakespearean-trained actor, graduate of Oberlin College, and the first African-American to earn an MFA in acting and directing from Rutgers University, where he has also worked as a professor–brought much of himself to the role, and that included an emphasis in the importance of the African-American experience. Even nearly three hundred years in the future. Whether Trek fans were ready for it or not, DS9 brought the topic of race closer to home.

While I suspect that direct tone is one of the reasons DS9 isn’t as popular as its’ predecessors–along with the heavy emphasis on backroom politics instead of “seeking out bold new worlds”–if you didn’t like TNG chances are you’re going to love a show that goes out of its way in the first episode to distinguish Sisko from the already-established Captain Jean-Luc Picard. In the premiere we learn Picard (while under control of the alien species The Borg) had killed Sisko’s wife.

In a meeting between the two, Sisko speaks to Picard in a tone he’s likely never heard from a non-superior officer before, and Sisko’s dislike of the man–and the stationis made apparent. With that, Sisko distinguishes himself immediately in the DS9 pilot as one of the few people with the mettle to speak openly to Picard and to not simply fall under the spell of influence the captain was often written to command. While the scene was likely included to make the segue from TGN to DS9 as smooth as possible, Picard does not exist to emerge as the hero of the scene or to bring Sisko back in line, so to speak. Because Sisko is given his outrage, his choice to accept permanent assignment there later is that much more genuine.

The meeting also introduces what would be one of the series’ most important subplots:  Sisko is a family man in a way that neither Picard or Kirk ever were. He’s a widower with an 11-year old son Jake  (Cirroc Lofton), a situation that was one of the reasons for resisting his assignment to the station.

In William Shatner’s documentary The Captains, Brooks said it was important to him to portray a black father on television that plays an positive role in his son’s life.

“I read the pilot, and said well, this is very interesting to me,” Brooks said. “A man dealing with loss, having to raise a child–indeed a male child–by himself, and be brown as we spin this tale in the 20th century about the 24th century.”

The depiction of the black father continued to be an important dynamic to Brooks through the show’s finale, like when he initially thought they were going to have Sisko abandon his son and unborn child. Upset by this decision he’s quoted as saying, “ The Producers told me, ‘Look we thought you’d be thrilled…The difference, of course, is you have Sisko with another child on the way. You still have Sisko with a young man [Jake Sisko] trying to find his way…That wasn’t fair.” [Shortened for Spoilers].

This view on “Parenting While Black” is unique in sci-fi fantasy television. More often than not in these shows, black parents die off or abandon their children early on in their lives, leaving them unhappy, lonely and hungry for revenge. Brooks’ efforts helped Lofton’s character largely avoid the fate of others like  Robin Wood and Kendra Young (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Charles Gunn (Angel), Bonnie Bennett (The Vampire Diaries), and Walt Lloyd (Lost).

Even with an intergalactic war raging around them later in the series, Sisko is always there for Jake. They’re often shown having dinner together and Sisko is always eager to read over and help edit Jake’s stories and articles. He supports Jake’s decision to become a writer instead of going to the Starfleet Academy, even though that’s perhaps what he would have preferred. Episodes like “The Visitor” (guest starring Tony Todd as an older Jake Sisko) and “In the Cards” (where Jake tries to acquire a 1950s baseball card to cheer Sisko up during a stressful week) highlight the strength of the bond and loving relationship between father and son.

With a highly educated and vocal African American actor in the lead it’s no wonder you get get seven seasons of a series that takes his cultural experience to heart; Sisko is specifically written to acknowledge the implications that the color of his skin bring.

Not only are there references to Sisko’s New Orleans heritage, soul food, his love of baseball (particularly players Willie Mayes and Jackie Robinson) and bits of African art we see decorating his quarters, but we see him enter a relationship with an African-American woman, Kasidy Yates, enabling them–and the viewers–to discuss the cultural history of racism, of which Sisko is still acutely aware. In one episode his crew becomes infatuated with visiting “Vic’s,” a holosuite program set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino and lounge,  and Kasidy asks him why he doesn’t want to join his team’s Rat Pack cosplay.

Sisko: You want to know … you really want to know what my problem is? I’ll tell you: Las Vegas 1962, that’s my problem. In 1962, black people weren’t very welcome there. Oh sure, they could be performers or janitors, but customers? Never.
Kasidy: Maybe that’s the way it was in the real Vegas, but that is not the way it is at Vic’s. I have never felt uncomfortable there, and neither has Jake.
Sisko: But don’t you see? That’s the lie. In 1962, the civil rights movement was still in its infancy. It wasn’t an easy time for our people, and I’m not going to pretend that it was.
Kasidy: Baby–I know that Vic’s isn’t a totally accurate representation of the way things were, but… it isn’t meant to be. It shows us the way things could’ve been – the way they should’ve been.
Sisko: We cannot ignore the truth about the past.
Kasidy: Going to Vic’s isn’t going to make us forget who we are or where we came from. What it does is reminds us that we are no longer bound by any limitations–except the ones we impose on ourselves.

It’s a small scene in a 45-minute episode, but the fact that it’s acknowledged is important and more than you get from most genre shows. Sisko is initially displeased with his crew’s little Mad Men fantasy, and he’s allowed to express it, no matter how uncomfortable it might be for the viewer.

During season five, Brooks also tackled nostalgic racism from behind the camera, as director of the episode “Far Beyond The Stars,” which spends an entire 45 minutes dealing with race relations in mid 20th-century America. “Stars” reimagines Sisko as a science fiction writer named Benny Russell working for a racist and sexist New York magazine in the 1950s where racism is present, but more deceptive and innocent, casually rolling off the tongues of people Benny considers friends and colleagues. The magazine refuses to publish his stories about the character Benjamin Sisko, a black starship captain.

When Benny’s editor finally does agree to publish his stories he insists that the stories must be revealed to be the dreams (not the reality) of a poor Black man in their present time–because everyone knows the idea of a black sci-fi hero is that unrealistic. With that, the episode also reminds the viewer that despite the inclusive attitude the Trek franchise has embraced, science-fiction is still very much a white man’s world. For every Octavia Butler there are five Joss Whedons. More pointedly, for every one Captain Sisko, there’s a Captain Picard, Captain Kirk, Han Solo, John Carter, and … well, you get the picture. With Sisko in the lead, DS9 is self-aware and capable of criticising the flaws of its own genre, and that’s something to appreciate.

I’m struck by how much more I understand this show at the age of 24, compared to when I rewatched it at 17, and before that when I originally watched from 1993 to 1999. I was only 11 when the finale aired (and grounded for a good deal of the season, but that’s another issue entirely) and while I vaguely understood the significance of Sisko, I admit to taking his presence–the presence of a starring Black man–on my screen as normal. I like to think that Brooks would have appreciated that, knowing that part of his reasoning for accepting the role of Sisko was his belief that “brown children must be able to participate in contemporary mythology.”

In some ways the 1990s were better landscape for a kid of color to get into science fiction and fantasy. Not only did I have Sisko, there was Carl Lumbly as  M.A.N.T.I.S; Wesley Snipes was Blade; Spawn aired on HBO and was made into a film; Cleopatra 2525 starring Gina Torres debuted in 2000; my favorite book series, Animorphs, starred Black and Latino teens; and Will Smith was king of the summer sci-fi box office.

When one looks at the scope of white genre heroes this isn’t a large number in comparison but, because Sisko was always there, I didn’t feel as if I was lacking for anything. It never occurred to me that the physical and cultural representation I was seeing was unique not only within the Trek franchise, but on television in general. Because, let’s be real: It’s already been 12 years since DS9 ended, and sometimes it’s nice to watch Avery Brooks as Sisko and remember that, yes, we can do that, too.

DS9 Stories/News: Men I’ve Loved: Benjamin Sisko

Source: http://www.amaya-radjani.com/2011/09/men-ive-loved-benjamin-sisko.html

Command never looked so good

My friend Ankhesen, a devout Trekkie, introduced me to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine earlier this year.  Over the summer, I Netflix’d the entire series; seven years’ worth of episodes and had a mammoth sci-fi/fantasy marathon.  This marathon included the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, Thriller & Night Gallery, but more on those shows later.  Anyhoo, I’m a fan of TOS & TNG, but never gave DS9 any thought until Ankh showed me a few episodes.  And I fell madly in love with Captain Benjamin Sisko and bought the entire 7-season series for a great price at Cheqoot.com.

Before I express my admiration and lust love for the sexy Captain Sisko, I should provide you some context. Deep Space Nine is the best of the Trek shows I’ve seen, and Ankh assures me that it’s the best of the entire lot.  The writing is top notch, as is the acting, directing, editing and set designs.  There are also strong female characters; these women fight, command starships & freighters, govern planets, and act as spies.  One is a former terrorist and another is an intergalactic warlord. The show tackled issues of racism, sexism, faith, religion, slavery and corruption, as well as other hot-button topics.  It’s a very dark show; the series spends nearly five years on an epic war with the Federation and its allies battling a hardcore violent faction known as the Dominion (which is run by a badass changeling chick I call Gertrude).  You see the Federation get their asses kicked on a regular basis; Starfleet vessels are routinely destroyed and people murdered.  The series finale contains a grisly scene in which three men are standing amid a pile of rubble and dead bodies.  DS9 is not idealistic like TOS & TNG; you see real shit happening in this show and there are parallels as well as portents to our own society.

Sisko; seasons 1-3

The only real drawback is the costume/wardrobe department, who should have had their asses kicked from here to Jupiter for the hot fire mess that was DS9’s apparel.  They had a real opportunity to do some really fantastic things with character attire, but failed miserably.  I can only assume that the producers chose to put the money into the writing & directing and left a bare minimum for wardrobe.  There is absolutely no reason for anyone in the 24^th century to look this damn hideous:

…

Jake typically looked like a pack of crayons

I mean, for real.  But I should point out that it was usually the human outfits that were ugly.  They got things right with most of the other races (especially the Klingons).  There was also the ridiculousness of Starfleet officers clearly being off duty and still attired in those hot-ass uniforms. As if!  You see Captain Sisko (who is also an architect and chef) cooking elaborate meals while still wearing his Starfleet uni.  *snorts* I call bullshit.

…

DS9 introduces us to a wonderful cast of characters that include Ferengi, Klingons, Trills, Breen, Romulans, Bajorans, Cardassians, and changelings.   The star of the show, however, is a man named Benjamin Sisko, captain of the space station.  Captain Sisko is portrayed by the excellent actor Avery Brooks.  The show starts with Sisko as a grieving husband and loving father who is duty-bound to take over a raggedy Bajoran space station.  He has a wonderful relationship with his son Jake; there are plenty of hugs, kisses and adventures between them.  It’s rare to see a black man in such a positive role, and I relished every second of it.

Sisko is an honorable, ethical guy who is devoted to his son, dedicated to his career as a Starfleet officer, and is the voice of the Prophets, the Bajoran gods.  He has a commanding presence and is highly respected by everyone he encounters, especially his enemies.  I liked him a lot in Seasons 1-3, but fell in love with him at the start of Season 4.  This is when the war between the Federation & the Dominion heated up and the show’s writers kicked the storytelling into high gear.  It is also when Avery Brooks, who spent the first three seasons with hair on his head and not on his face, decided to go bald and goateed; a look I find intensely attractive.  It gave his character a powerful edge; an extra marvelous oomph! that made me pay close attention every time Sisko was on the screen. Which, for the most part, was nearly all the time.

Sisko; seasons 4-7.

But the captain isn’t perfect; he sacrifices much for peace, including his own happiness and self-respect.  He violates orders, lies, cheats, bribes others, and is an accessory to murder, among other things.  He even becomes a Klingon to accomplish a mission (but this is NOT a bad thing; Klingons are fucking awesome).  But this made Sisko more appealing to me because he’s flawed just like any other person.  It gave him a depth that I haven’t seen in any other Starfleet captain and made DS9 that much better.

Sisko also has some of the best lines in the show.  Here are a few of my favorites:

“So, I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all…I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would. Garak was right about one thing: A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it.”  –In the Pale Moonlight, Season 6

“Brag all you want, but don’t get between me and the bloodwine!”  –Apocalypse Rising, Season 3  (He’s a Klingon in this episode)   

“Haven’t you seen a Klingon before?”

“Kasidy Yates, where are you going?”  –For the Cause, Season 4  (Kasidy is Sisko’s boo)

“It’s not every day that you meet the girl you’re going to marry.” –Emissary, Season 1

“You betrayed your uniform!”  –For the Uniform, Season 5

“He played me all right. And what is my excuse? Is he a Changeling? No! Is he a being with seven lifetimes of experience? No! Is he a wormhole alien? No! He’s just a man, like me – arrgh! And he beat me!” –For the Uniform, Season 5

“Go on! Shoot me!”

“Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth. On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see Paradise. Well, it’s easy to be a saint in Paradise.”  –The Maquis, part 2, Season 3

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Captain Benjamin Sisko is The Man.  More television shows should be bold enough to have characters like him, and write shows with as much depth and realism as Deep Space Nine.  It would certainly be a massive improvement to the dreck that inundates current TV.  Heaven knows I’d start watching it again.

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Celebrity Guest Pictures (16)

Korinas was an operative of the Cardassian intelligence body, the Obsidian Order. In 2371, she represented the Order during Benjamin Sisko and Gul Dukat‘s search for the USS Defiant, which had been captured by the Maquis. She was unsuccessful in concealing the secret Keldon-class warships that the Order had constructed illegally in the Orias system. (DS9: “Defiant“)

Korinas was played by Tricia O’Neil.

Tricia O’Neil (born 11 March 1945; age 67) is an actress from Shreveport, Louisiana, who portrayed three Star Trek characters in the early 1990s. Perhaps her most notable role was that of Captain Rachel Garrett, the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise-C, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation third season episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise“. She went on to make a second appearance on The Next Generation as the Klingon scientist Kurak in the sixth season episode “Suspicions” and also appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the Cardassian operative Korinas in the third season episode “Defiant“.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

O’Neil began her career in show business as a model and magazine cover girl before she pursued acting, first in television commercials. Performing since the 1960s, she made her Broadway debut in the original musical Two by Two in 1970. For her performance as O’Neill in this production, O’Neil won a 1971 Theatre World Award. The following year, she appeared in her first motion picture, a blaxploitation western called The Legend of Nigger Charley, with TOS guest actor Fred Williamson portraying the title role. She was subsequently cast as a regular on the NBC soap opera How to Survive a Marriage, which ran from January 1974 through March 1975. Among her co-stars on this series was F. Murray Abraham, with whom she worked again in 1976 when she was a stand-by on the Broadway play Legend. O’Neil’s second film was The Gumball Rally, the popular 1976 racing comedy starring Michael Sarrazin.

DS9 Stories/News: Learning to Love Star Trek, Part 39: “A Man Alone”

Source: http://scifiblock.com/features/blog/learning-to-love-star-trek-part-39-a-man-alone.htm

By Robert Ring, Mon, 10/04/2010 – 21:31

“Learning to Love Star Trek” is a weekly blog series by Sci-Fi Block Editor in Chief Robert Ring, begun January 1, 2010. In this series of blog posts, Robert is endeavoring to determine whether he can make a Star Trek fan out of himself through an exposure to a combination of episodes from Star Trek the Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Update: TNG has now been replaced with Deep Space Nine) . Click here to read his introduction to the experiment.

I realized while watching “A Man Alone” that there’s something fundamental about Deep Space Nine that appeals to me. Sure, I like this series, and I’ve given reasons for that in my write-ups for the two episodes I’ve watched so far, but this one comes along and its plot does nothing special. It’s a murder mystery. However, it still had me more engaged than 90% of the Star Trek I’ve watched so far. I think the reason for this is that DS9 is so character-centric. The other series have great characters, for sure, but their stories have thus far seemed mostly to revolve around ideas (although TOS seems to be gradually moving in the direction of its characters now that I’m nearing the end of its first season). So, this episode did not have much of a great overarching impact, but the details here and there and the ideas brought up are both relatable and involving, because they are attached to the characters.

Odo is the focus here. An evil smuggler, named Ibudan, is on DS9, and Odo wants to kick him off, but Sisko won’t allow it, saying he hasn’t broken any laws. Soon Ibudan is murdered, and while Sisko claims he doesn’t believe Odo had anything to do with his death, he orders him off the case. In the meantime, word gets around about Odo’s conjectured involvement in the crime, and soon it seems everyone visiting the station has it out for him. Eventually, after Odo experience some persecution and a near beat-down at the hands of a mob, Julian Bashir solves the murder. It was actually Ibudan murdering a clone of himself so as to frame Odo. Hey, Odo told us this guy was mean.

See? This is why I like DS9 so much. The plot is just about as basic as you will find in an episode of a Star Trek series, but it’s what they do with the characters within the plot that makes it enjoyable. Primarily, it tests Odo’s judicial philosophy. When arguing that Ibudan should be kicked off the space station (because the guy truly has done some deplorable things), he touts the virtue of upholding justice over the law, saying, “Laws change, depending on who is making them. But justice is justice.” It reminds me of the faux super-conservative newspaper article at the end of Chapter X of Watchmen, where the writer asks, “[I]s it not more noble to follow the course of right and justice; to serve the spirit of the law rather than its every dot and comma?” Both Odo and this fake columnist have a point, but the problem, I believe, is that when you step outside the law, anything can happen. So, societies make laws and agree to adhere to them, almost as a compromise. We know they’re imperfect, and we try to adjust and fix them as we go along, but it’s the best way we have of assuring that everyone is treated fairly and equally.

Now, apply this to The Next Generation’s “Justice,” of course, and you get a different perspective on the matter. But I don’t have the time or energy to go there right now.

Odo gets to see the other side of his philosophy when the mob comes after him. As a clearly frightened Odo locks himself in his room, the others stand outside waiting for him until finally Sisko and DS9 security come to break them up. One individual in the mob uses the same term — justice — when Sisko asks what they are after. And justice truly is what they want, but their anger has blinded them to the dangers of a society in which justice is not arrived at through a previously agreed-upon system. I’m hoping that at some point in the season this experience will be shown to have become a part of Odo, an experience that has allowed him to view his own mindset from a different angle. Either way, though, for the time being we get a perfect thesis/antithesis scenario.

It’s the meditation ball game!

Jadzia Dax suddenly becomes extremely interesting in this episode. “She” is, of course, a Trill in a woman’s body, but at this point it seems the character is more fundamentally a sexless Trill than anything else, despite Jadzia’s physical body. It’s great how they set her up to be a former (male) friend of Sisko’s and also a current potential romantic interest of Bashir. This subplot really calls into question the concepts of friendship and romantic love as they relate to gender. Through both Sisko’s disinterest in Jadzia as an attractive female and Bashir’s interest in her despite her formerly inhabiting a male’s body, the very nature of the character suggests that romantic love in its most basic form should not be dependent upon gender. However, just as it is easy to see why Sisko has no desire for a romantic relationship with his old buddy in a woman’s body, it is also easy to see why Bashir’s knowledge of her gender temporality does not affect his attraction to her. So, maybe this is actually proof that romantic love is inherently and inevitably influenced by one’s physical characteristics — Bashir cannot ignore the woman’s attractiveness, and Sisko cannot ignore the fact that she used to be a guy. I suppose the question that remains is whether this predilection for attraction to a specific sex (and romantic revulsion from the other) is the result of society or biology (homosexuality, I should note, would be equally applicable to this question, as that, too, could be the result of the same societal or biological influences playing on different genetic/psychological make-ups).

A few more, miscellaneous thoughts on this episode:

• When Odo is being chased by the mob, he looks way too scared as he keeps glancing behind him. Since he’s the station’s constable, I would have expected him to act a little more John Wayne about it all. Run for cover, sure, but don’t cower and keeping looking over your shoulder like an old lady.
• When Odo explains to the Ferengi (I forget which one specifically) why he chooses not to enter into romantic relationships, he says, “There’re too many compromises,” with a pretty defensive tone. Then he goes into a surprisingly prolonged and detailed explanation of why these compromises are too much. Sounds to me like he’s had a bad personal experience with this.
• The kids on Deep Space Nine, especially Sisko’s son, dress even dorkier than Wesley Crusher.
• The facemask pull-off at the end of the episode is incredibly lame. Anything that reminds viewers specifically of Scooby Doo probably doesn’t belong in Star Trek.
• Bashir looks and sounds a lot like a young Gaius Baltar. That amuses me.

I gotta wrap this one up, but I’ll end by restating that this episode demonstrates what I view as a superior style of storytelling over The Original Series and TNG. The plots almost – almost — don’t matter. It’s what we learn about the characters that is the most rewarding. Since the focus in this series is so much more heavily swayed to the characters and their personal dilemmas than to plot, we get, in my opinion, a vastly more engaging show.