Day 107: DS9, The Darkness and the Light

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S5EP11, “The Darkness and the Light”

 Summary: Just after Kira gets word that a member of her old resistance cell was murdered, she receives a garbled message that merely says “That’s one.” While Odo looks into the matter, there’s a second murder, and then a third, each with a message being delivered to Kira. Angry, stressed, and dealing with the final weeks of her pregnancy, Kira works with Odo and the others to get to the bottom of this. And the Prophets help the person who’s responsible when Kira finally tracks them down.

Standalone Thoughts: This is another episode that primarily works because of the atmosphere. Unlike “The Assignment”, though, the atmosphere on display is tension mixed with sadness. Not only are we nervous on Kira’s behalf, but we feel for her as she loses people she cares about. On that note, bringing back familiar faces from a previous episode (“Shakaar”), was a great move, because we recognize them and subsequently makes any harm done to them have more of an impact on us. And naturally, it helps that Visitor plays the part very, very well. It was probably never destined to be a great episode, but all of the parts combine to make it a relatively good one.

It does fall apart a bit at the end, though, when the atmosphere goes full-on horror. Sure, the lighting and mood are still effective, but the villain is of the “babble something pretentious sounding” variety, and that can very easily go wrong. Still, enough actual conversation occurs that I’ll credit the episode for once again throwing shades of grey on the situation, even if it’s only slightly touched on in the episode itself. Plus, the resolution to the conflict was set up at the beginning of the episode in a fairly subtle way, so the writers get a few more points for that too. And all those points add up to an episode that’s not the best, or even the most memorable, but definitely far from the worst.

How it Relates to the Whole: I don’t think this episode has much of any impact on subsequent episodes, especially given the ending. That’s fine; after all the setup in “Rapture”, there probably wasn’t anything left over for this episode.

Other: *Since I keep going on about Dax’s lack of consequences, I figure I should give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that today, we learn that she was beaten at Tongo because she got cocky and now owes someone money. It all happened offscreen, but at least it’s something.

*While the death of one of Kira’s fellow resistance members isn’t all that graphic, the charred remains of the body we see afterwards certainly is. It may not be gory, but I’m still surprised they were able to show that much. Or maybe that’s just me being a little squeamish.

*I like the fact that the crew calls on Nog to help them try to identify who made the threatening recordings because of his hearing ability. Sure, the writing has to draw attention to that fact, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that they’re using him in a clever way.

*I also like Kira’s monologue where she details the first mission she ever went on. Visitor plays the scene well, and it gives us more insight into Kira, including the significance behind her Bajoran earring. It’s also probably one of the most important scenes in the episode, since it sets up the climax, so I’m glad it managed to work as well as it does.

*At one point, some data gets deleted from a computer. And all I can think of is, “And there’s no way to recover that data? This is the 24^th century, and there are ways to recover that data here in the 21^st century!” Just goes to show how much computers have entered our lives at this point, I guess.

Best Line/Exchange: Since this is yet another episode with very little dialogue that stands out in a way that isn’t either spoilery or cringey, the best I’ve got is;

Sisko: Prepare the Defiant, I want to leave in ten minutes. See if we can pick up her ion trail.

Worf: It will be difficult. Our sensor logs show Major Kira masked her engine emissions with a polaron field. The runabout’s particle…

Sisko (interrupting): I know what the difficulties are! You have your orders, dismissed!

I chose this because a) it cuts off the technobabble while providing just enough to explain why it’s going to be hard to track Kira, and b) it shows Sisko at his best. Quick thinking, ready for action, and not about to waste time when something needs to be done. I figure it’s good to take a moment to appreciate that aspect of him every now and then.