Because when I hear the word "Clan leader of rugged harsh territory and people." I always picture this guy.
and this girl as well.
Rating 6 / 10
Next Time
Of course there are!
"My own special variety" Odo
I can't think of anything particularly pithy to say about this line. I just think it is a splendid retort!
Dodgy looking alien cadaver of former baddy scientist. I wonder where this plot may be boldly going?
Synopsis
It's the alien possesses one of our heroes story. Bashir commits crimes against acting, and Adrian Chiles shows up. God are "Daybreaks" ratings that bad?!
Review
Bashir is yet again boasting about his medical skills, and just how fricking awesome he is. This is just in case we forget that he is supposed to be an overbearing swaggering great cock of a human being, for about the fifth time this season. (They crank the asshole scale to 11, by having him banging on about "destiny fated him" to be a great healer*, and that he even impresses himself sometimes. What a cockend) God, or the prophets intervene to shut him up with a distress signal from a Kobliad ship which is breaking up. They rescue security chief Ty Kajada (who looks and sounds like Na'toth of Babylon 5. I can't imagine why! (-;{). There is another occupant in one of the cells. Kajada implores Bashir not to save his life and to leave him to a fiery fate, as he is an extremely dangerous criminal. Bashir refuses to just leave him there, and the dying man implores him to "make me live" before croaking on there the spot.
On DS9 Kajada wants to inspect the body of Vantika (the dead criminal). she is paranoid about being doubly sure he has kicked the space bucket. He was some mad scientist who used various incredibly dodgy methods to prolong his life anyway he could, and has the habit of faking his own death to evade capture.
Odo warns Quark not to have eyes for a shipment of rare deuridium ore bound for DS9, in the manner of him having eyes for Jadzia. This is where we meet Adrian Chiles lookalike, Leutenant George Primmin, a Starfleet security officer who appeared for this episode and the next. Primmin was essentially a prototype version of Michael Eddington, a qualified Starfleet security officer who would conflict with the unorthodox approach to law enforcement by Odo. This was a good idea, and brought some good conflict scenes between Primmin and Odo, and Odo and Sisko, where Odo even threatens to resign in a scene very reminiscent of "The Search" where he felt his position was being undermined by Starfleet. Admittedly it works better in the context of the whole Dominion thing, what with the increased security and other issues we shall look at when the time comes. So perhaps they shelved this plot for later, when it was more dramatically in context, and why Primmin disappeared so quickly.
Whilst Dax surmises Kajada is so zealous about the threat even a dead Vantika poses, because she has been so consumed with apprehending him for so long. Primmin complains to Odo, that namedropping the deuridium shipment (that is very valuable as the dying Koblaid species need to survive.) in front of everyone in Quarks bar was a risky idea. Odo tells him to fuck off and mind his own Starfleet business as he's chief here. Sisko warns a put out Primmin that he shouldn't be seen as lording the Starfleet spiel over their Bajoran hosts, and that no-one watches "Daybreak" anyway.
"Should have stuck with Christoyne on the wun shoaw! Having to pretend to be interested in whimsical TV links on roundabouts in Swindon, and bat colonies, sure boyts being on deep spoyce noyne!"
Odo realises someone has purged a load of computer files through a complex but indirect means. Kajada says Vantika has pulled this stunt before. Sisko doesn't accept that Vantika has somehow survived his death, but he may have an accomplice who wants to steal the valuable ore. Things get more mysterious when they discover someone snuck on board Kajadas ship and pinched some files pertaining to the humanoid brain. A cloaked figure threatens Quark in his deserted bar. He claims to be Vantika! Quark had pre - agreed to help him gather up some mercenaries to er... borrow the ore freighter, thus why he was nearby when the ship was damaged.
Dax thinks Kajada is right that Vantika managed to "transfer" himself from death. He has a tidgy mind control thing that works by bullshit science altering brainwaves (look does anyone really care about the minutia of this?) so he can possess them. Bashir thinks Kajada has been "possessed" (though if she had, why would she say he could cheat death? Encourage them to at least entertain the possibility? Vantika could just do what he wanted undetected?). I must add that this was the original idea in Morgan Gendell's original draft (and it perhaps would have been a more sensible "host"). But honestly you never fall for Kajada being Vantika for a minute. Odo says they should cut her out the loop in the investigation. That she'll be forced to show her hand and reveal herself. But Kajada just does her own unofficial investigation and is incapacitated in the attempt. It turns out Bashir is Vantika (yeah, I was surprised as well. Not!), he leads the mercenaries on a runabout to seize the freighter. We know Bashir is now evil, because he starts speaking slowly in a deep voice. Now I don't know if this was bad direction, or just Alex Siddig being thrust into such an unusual take on his normal role (Alex is a good actor in my opinion, and he played Bashir very well.) but his performance as Vantika is just... bad. It is so forced and laboured. He threatens DS9 to release their tractor grip of the freighter, or he'll attempt to escape, killing Bashir (which is a bit weird for someon so determined to be essentially immortal) and spreading yucky deuridium all over the Bajoran system (because it's not like a star system is very big volume wise, relative to a small cargo ship or anything) Dax suggests sending an EM signal through the tractor beam that would reawaken Bashirs personality and they stall him long enough to do just that. Vantika fights the Bashir personality, but he prevails and lowers the shields where they beam him out and stun him with a phaser (not because he's dangerous. Sisko just likes to take time out to enjoy himself!) They manage to extract Vantikas personality from the doctors, and it gets trapped inside a futuristic ashtray thing for all eternity, which of course Kajada has to arbitrarily vapouris much to the shock of the regular crew, because obviously the laws of due process aren't that big a deal. In short; the DS9 team are triumphant once more.
Mistakes and Questions
There is no background music in the opening shot of the runabout flying through space, or one of the exterior station scenes. A first I believe. It certainly feels weird to listen to.
Bashir says medical tricorders find it difficult to register death. Obviously because that ability isn't all that useful to a doctor anyway. But he then registers a death with one in this episode. Then he does in "Battlelines". Need I go on!!
Kira and Bashir beam onto a burning ship with toxic gasses in the atmosphere that is also venting into space rapidly. Note to the runabout manufacturers. There are things called spacesuits (or at the very least breathing apparatus) which are very useful in an oxygen poor /deficient environment (i e: most of the bloody universe), why not equip your ships with them.
Odo says Dax has 10 lifetimes of friends to choose from, before shacking up with Quark. Shouldn't that be 7 lifetimes?
Bashir says humanoids only use a tiny bit of the brain. This sounds suspiciously like that old urban myth "you use only 10% of your brain" which is not true at all. You use all your brain.
The thing Vantika uses on his fingernail to transfer his entire neural capacity to another is tidgy. In "Our Man Bashir" transferring the neural capacity of a humanoid nearly flooded the entire stations computer capacity to the max. Awesome bt of design that!
Betty's Thought for the Day.
Bashirs comments about him being fated to be a great healer, or being touched by destiny to be the great doctor he is would be shot down in flames in the fifth seasons "Doctor Bashir I Presume?" I won't spoil the revelations in that episode. But it is certainly an interesting contrast to what he says here!
Summary
There is nothing inherently that bad about this story, though it isn't all that great either. It's a pretty statndard "alien possession of the week" affair. It's pretty entertaining as it is, and the whole Odo / Primmin conflict is probably the strongest part of the episode (nice payoff when Primmin saves the day using Odo's unorthodox methods!), and sets up a plot thread that would be more effectively used later on down the line. It is a bit let down by the laboured acting in the "Bashir is possessed" scenes, and some of the contrived sciencey bits. But it is an enjoyable if fairly forgettable episode.
Rating. 6 / 10
Next Time
"Move Along Home". The low point of season 1. We watch some daft looking aliens play a boring game. Our main heroes hopping about singing stupid rhymes. And you can act like a complete bastard, because it's only a game after all.
Bashir is still trying (and failing) to get in Jadzias pants. He is even upfront enough to suggest he has ways of keeping her up all night, bleaugh. Fortunately this nonsense is put in to start the plot ball rolling. Some men hide behind a grille spying on her, they confirm it is Dax, and as Jadzia is eager to get penisbrain off her case - she leaves - and they pounce in a corridor taking her hostage. Bashir attempts to rescue her but fails miserably. Poor lovestruck fool. He may be a complete jackass in season one, but the writers seem keen to compound his boorish buffoonery at times. They almost manage to escape on a ship, but the tractor beam is fixed (the abductors sabotaged it) before they can jump to warp, and they are reeled back in.
The lead abductor is an alien from Klaestron IV named Illon Tandro, which when I hear it; makes me get that Lady Gaga song "Alejandro" on the brain. Seems Allitandro; allitandro - Ally andro ally ally tandro .... thinks that Dax killed his old man General Tandro who was the victor of a civil war on his planet. You see Curzon Dax - who had the slug before Jadzia did - mediated in this war. So Tandro thinks Jadzia Dax should carry the can for his old man as she is essentially still Dax, even though she wasn't born when her "victim" bought it. Sisko is of course horrified at this whole thing. In a nice reversal of "A Man Alone", Sisko refuses to believe his old buddy could kill, even though Odo points at several times in the episode; that Curzon does seem implicit. There is one bit where Sisko says if Trill law concerning the complicity of current hosts to previous ones crimes shores up Tandros reasoning, then unreason it. The impartial face of justice doesn't always seem that way if it is your mate on the receiving end! It also doesn't help that Jadzia has become so reticent about the whole thing. What is she hiding?
There is unfortunately going to be a big blob of Trill themed exposition here. This story is essentially designed to flesh out this whole Trill symbiont; slug; x amount of lives concept for us the audience. The mystery story which we shall return to after this interlude, is put in to build a story narrative around the extradition hearing scenes, which are there to look at the whole philosophy of a joined species. So here we go.
This part of the episode is divided into two parts. The whole Trill concept is the main bit, and Sisko's relationship with Curzon, and by extension Jadzia, is the other part. The Trill were first introduced in the TNG episode "The Host". They were a secretive race who - unknown to everybody else - had a slug like thing inside them that was the brains behind the outfit. The host body (a forehead of the week) was essentially little more than a receptacle for the slug. So if you stuck the slug into another host (even a human), then sluggo would subsume the body it took over, so that they would be the same person in a different body (as happened to Riker, when he became host to a slug that had once been in the body of a Trill ambassador who ended up playing tonsil tennis in a turbolift with Doctor Crusher. Cue ensuing awkwardness, and more so when the next host was a woman!) All of this (even the original makeup, as they felt it detracted from Terry Farell's good looks, hence the more refined spots.) was retconned for DS9. The Trill V.02 were not recluses, and everyone knew that they had the slugs. Sisko obviously knew about Curzon, they are said to have been buddies for over 20 years (hence why he calls Jadzia "old man"). Hell even the Klingons knew! The symbiotic relationship was on more equal terms, the host had the slugs own personality and previous hosts memories, but they augmented that to their own personality. Only the select few were joined, not all of them. This episode serves the purpose just like "The Nagus" a few episodes down the line does. It sets up the retconning of the Trill (or the Ferengi for that episode) for the purposes of the show.
As I said the episode is a "trial show" (every US TV show has to have one of these episodes. It's the law or something.) and the hearing scenes are designed to flesh out the Trill concept. The Trill race is quite a clever, high concept idea for a TV show. You have this humanoid host with a long lived slug symbiont. Thus what looks like a human is actually a really alien (and saves the creators of the show from splashing out on alien effects too) being. Now this is a fairly counter intuitive concept to both pull off and describe (this has been by far the most challenging review I have written). I tend to agree with the Agony Booth review for "Let he who is without sin." (Christ the daggers will be out when this pile of shit gets the Betty treatment!!) that the writers had trouble pulling this off onscreen. As reviewer "Albert" said in that review, Terry Farrell didn't really ever seem like a 300 year old in a 28 year old models body. The writers are clearly struggling to articulate the whole Trill thing in this episode. D.C Fontanna, who wrote this episode is one of my favourite Trek writers. She perhaps did more than anyone else to "humanise" the Trek universe, to delve into the back story and make it a more "real" place. But even she is struggling a bit here (I hear this script went through several rewrites.) The logical arguments about whether Jadzia can be guilty for a past hosts crimes, and the nature of how separate the host / symbiont's personality is are difficult to put across because we have no real precedent in real life. It also doesn't help that neither Curzon or the slug can speak independently in the hearing either, if we want to play the blame game in this case. I'll be here all day rattling off all the minutiea of the case so I'll surmise. The gist of Tandros argument is that although Curzon and Jadzia are different Dax is Dax, and as it takes two to tango with a joined Trill the symbiont is at best accessory to murder, or at worst guilty of the deed itself. Sisko counters it is ridiculous a woman can be extradited for a crime committed before she was even born (technicalities eh?) Some old Bajoran bag they shipped up to arbitrate chips in and says why don't they extract the slug from Jadzia - who on her own is blameless - and just extradite that instead. But as Trill physiology read the script, they can't as the host dies 93 hours after being "slugged" if it is removed. Tandro shoots back, the relationship between host and symbiont is like salt and water, you put one in the other and they combine to create a new combined substance Sisko points out that the circularity of this argument is self evidence of the fallacy of the point he is trying to make. Boil the water and recollect the salt, and pour that in another liquid, you get something else; Ding! A totally new identity.
Now as I said, this case is so outside of everyday experience that it impossible to say whether Tandro has anything more than cigarettes and hush (look you try putting spurious Lady Gaga references into this review!) to his case. I'm also not a barrister or anything, so I can only draw on my own knowledge of legal matters (known by the term "none at all"). Jadzia alone is obviously blameless. The symbiont physically can't carry the can alone (and I thought it takes two to tango anyway). Curzons popped it. So I suspect that if this were real life that his [Tandros] case would be dismissed.