Day 113: DS9, A Simple Investigation

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S5EP17, “A Simple Investigation”

 Summary: Odo has a run-in with a mysterious woman at Quark’s, and something about her intrigues him. He’s even more intrigued when she winds up in his office after trying to hack into the security system. She says her name is Arissa (Dey Young), and that she was trying to get in contact with a man who could help her find her long-lost daughter. When her contact turns up murdered, Odo finally gets the truth out of her; she works for a member of the Orion Syndicate, and now she wants out. Odo does everything he can to protect her, partially because it’s his job but mostly because he’s growing increasingly attracted to her. But as we all know, detectives falling in love with their clients very rarely ends well…

Standalone Thoughts: I’m not particularly fond of this episode, which is weird because it’s clearly in the same vein as a different episode that I loved, “Necessary Evil”. Both episodes feel like obvious riffs on mystery stories, but while “Necessary Evil” mostly drew from the atmosphere and trappings of mysteries, “A Simple Investigation” seems more like it was inspired by some of the classic clichés, and I think it’s substantially weaker for it. You’ve got a pair of hired killers who banter with each other in incongruous ways (mentioning how they’ve ruined the carpet after they’ve killed someone), dialogue that sounds like flirtation between a hard-boiled P.I. and a femme fatale, a mysterious woman wandering into Odo’s office for help, then turning out to not be what she first appears to be…it could be good, but the script kind of feels like it’s trying too hard. The fact that the line deliveries feel somewhat stilted and out of place only makes it worse.

It also doesn’t help that Odo’s developing feelings for Arissa aren’t very well explained, other than “this is what happens in a lot of mystery stories”. Sure, she says he has “bedroom eyes” when they first meet, but I don’t feel any chemistry between them, and I don’t see any special reason why she would be appealing to him. Since the second third of the episode seems to be building up to them getting together, lack of interest on my part means we have a big problem. Honestly, it’s only in the final third that I started getting invested, mostly because things finally returned to the realm of sci-fi and seemed more like the sort of thing you’d expect to see on DS9. It’s not enough to save the episode, but at least it means everything ends on a somewhat high note.

How it Relates to the Whole: Although there’s a callback to a previous episode (“Our Man Bashir”), and the return of a potential enemy mentioned in a different episode (the Orion Syndicate from “The Ascent”), I don’t think this episode will really have an impact on future events, except perhaps to come up in passing if Odo ever talks about relationships. And given how dull this episode is, that’s probably for the best.

Other: *Bashir’s decision to let other people play in his “Bond” holoprograms is nice, but I have to wonder what made him decide to share it with others, since he seemed really invested in keeping it a secret in “Our Man Bashir”. Maybe he thought it was a good way to spend time with his friends, which explains getting Dax and O’Brien involved, but that still doesn’t fully explain trying to get Odo involved. Though we know Odo has a thing for detective stories, so that might have something to do with it too. I don’t know, it’s a fun bit of business but an inexplicable one as well.

*And speaking of the “Bond” holoprogram, why does Odo suddenly change his mind and run off? There’s no real explanation given for it; he just seems really antsy, then gives his regrets and hurries off. This is before he runs into Arissa, and he doesn’t seem to be chasing after a criminal, so what was that all about?

Best Line/Exchange: Most of the dialogue in this episode isn’t particularly good, so the best I could come up with is this;

(Odo has interrupted Bashir’s “Bond” program to ask for advice on how to pursue Arissa)

Odo: What if I…(sighs) what if she…

Bashir: Rejects you? She might. But you can’t go through life trying to avoid getting a broken heart. If you do, it’ll break from loneliness anyway. So you might as well take a chance. If you don’t, she’ll move on and you’ll never know what you might have had. And living with that is worse than having a broken heart, believe me.

(Someone knocks on the door of the car. Bashir rolls down the window)

Bashir: We’re nearly finished, darling.

(O’Brien, in the role of Falcon, sticks a gun to Bashir’s head)

O’Brien (in a gruff voice): Car trouble, Mr. Bashir? (In a normal voice) Hi, Odo.

There are two aspects to this that make me like it. One is of course the humor involved in O’Brien taking advantage of Odo’s interruption to turn the holoprogram to his favor. The other is the fact that Bashir is giving Odo some reasonable advice. Though one has to wonder exactly how Bashir knows “living with that is worse than having a broken heart”. I thought you were the playboy type…

After the Fact Update: The summary for this episode in the DS9 Companion says that Odo backed out of the spy program because he didn’t feel comfortable seducing a woman as part of the story. I suppose they included that as an ironic juxtaposition for the rest of the episode, but if that was the intent, then it didn’t come across. Also, I once again prove to go against popular opinion, because the writers really liked how the romance in this episode turned out. It’s baffling to me, but at least I’m used to this sort of thing by now.