Day 7: DS9, Dax

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S1EP7, “Dax”

 Summary: A group of aliens (we’re never given the species name as far as I can tell, though they come from the planet Klaestron IV) attempt to kidnap Dax, leading the crew on an extended chase. When they are finally stopped, their leader, Ilon Tandro (Gregory Itzin) explains that they were extraditing Dax to their planet to put her on trial for treason and the murder of his father, an important general. However, said murder and treason was supposedly committed by Curzon Dax, the previous host (the Trill species consists of a bunch of symbiotic worms implanting themselves in Trill bodies, with the memories of previous hosts carrying over and somewhat impacting the lives and personalities of the new host), which means that Jadzia Dax would be killed for something she technically didn’t do. Not wanting to lose his science officer and old friend, Sisko manages to convince the aliens that they have no extradition treaty with Bajor (DS9 is technically a Bajoran station), and therefore, they need to have a hearing to decide if Bajor will accept Dax’s extradition. While Sisko pleads the case before arbiter Els Renora (Anne Haney), Odo goes to Klaestron IV to try to gather more evidence, and Dax remains tight-lipped throughout it all. In the end, it all boils down to one question; how much of Curzon is left inside Jadzia?

Standalone Thoughts: What really stands out about this episode is how little Dax actually does in it. Generally, in ensemble shows, every character gets at least one episode a season where they’re the star, and when you’re first establishing the show, that’s more important than ever. Sisko had “Emissary”, Kira got “Past Prologue”, O’Brien took “Captive Pursuit”. Even “A Man Alone” was clearly supposed to be Odo’s episode, though character development was lost in the disjointed nature of the story. An episode titled “Dax”, therefore, seems like it should have been a prime opportunity for Jadzia to become more than the spouter of technobabble and Bashir’s crush. Instead, she spends most of the episode standing or sitting silently, a blank look on her face. It does make some sense from the perspective of her character, but it feels like a missed opportunity. What little character development we do get, meanwhile, come from secondhand accounts during the hearing, and it’s not always encouraging. When Dax finally takes the witness stand, we learn that she has something like four degrees, all of which she earned before she was in her thirties (and before she was joined with a symbiote). That’s skirting dangerously close to Mary-Sue territory, but still doesn’t give us much of a sense of who Dax is. We’ll have to see if one of the remaining episodes this season gives her another chance.

Other than Dax, though, everyone else is in good, even excellent, form. After the first two episodes, we stopped seeing Kira and Sisko butting heads, and while there was some justification for that (the episodes weren’t about them, and when we did see them interact, there were generally crises going on that forced them to focus), I was a little concerned that it had been resolved. While there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever clash again the way they did earlier, we see in this episode that the writers didn’t forget about it. In order to keep Dax from being extradited, the two of them tag-team Tandro, with Sisko showing Kira a lot of respect and Kira proving that Bajor and the Cardassian occupation are still very important topics to her. It’s a sign that they’ve been learning how to cooperate, and I appreciate that. The fact that it’s another fantastic example of manipulating events to get your way makes it even better. And then, later, on, Odo does something similar to Quark so they can hold the hearing in his bar, and it’s equally entertaining. I’m starting to think my love for characters manipulating situations came directly from this show.

While the character beats are the high point here, the main body of the episode (the hearing) is fine too. We learn a lot more about how Trill work, and it plays out a lot like a tennis match, with both sides deftly handling their cases and each having minor victories and defeats. That being said, while the hearing isn’t bad, it’s also a bit bland. I think this is a decent episode, but I think that’s the goodwill of the material of the first act carrying over to the rest of it. It’s a good episode to watch for character development and learning more about the Trill, but not a lot about its going to stick in your memory.

How it Relates to the Whole: Given that most of the episode revolves around Dax and her past lives, it’s not surprising that some of what we learn here will become relevant going forward. I can’t remember how much of what we later learn about the Trill directly builds off this episode, but there’s at least one story which will put this episode in a slightly different perspective. It also gives us more of a sense of Sisko’s character, both in regards to his temperament and his command style. He’ll go as far as it takes to get the result he wants, but he’s willing to admit defeat when necessary. Or, in Trekkie terms, he might believe in the no-win scenario, but he doesn’t think that’s a scenario that comes up all that often. Really, for an episode about Dax, I’d say Sisko gets the most development here. I’ll gladly take all the character development I can, but it’s a little odd when you think about it.

Other: *The episode opens with a very small Chekov’s gun. O’Brien isn’t in this episode, and while I’m not sure if that was intentional or because Colm Meaney had something going on, the writers figured out how to make his absence felt. During the hunt for Dax’s kidnappers, the group realizes that the minor power imbalance they’d noticed was actually a sign that their tractor beam had been disabled, something that O’Brien might have picked up on. It’s a small thing, but I like the attention to detail.

*Speaking of the chase/hunt, I love how efficient everyone is as they try to track Dax. Information is delivered efficiently, everyone is competent, and they have multiple backups for when one of their plans fail. It’s a subtle sign that the station and crew are coming together.

*Bashir’s playboy nature continues, complete with a line that is a very blatant sex reference. Somehow, you don’t expect to see that in Star Trek, Captain Kirk’s reputation as a ladies man notwithstanding.

*Bashir also gets a small beat when he tries to come to Dax’s rescue where he hesitates upon seeing that the person he’s attacking is a woman, and therefore gets cold-cocked by her. It’s a little cliché, but it does seem to fit with what we’ve been seeing of him, so I guess it makes a certain amount of sense.

*Els Renora is a lot of fun. She’s a woman who wants everything to be handled properly, but also doesn’t have the patience to sit through a lot of pointless arguments and will cut people off with just a hint of exasperation or sarcasm. She’s what we want to be when we get older, and so I very much appreciate her presence in this episode.

*The climax of the episode revolves around legacies and how they can hide the truth, and it raises some interesting points. However, I think it falls a bit flat at the end by not really giving us a sense of what the consequences are going to be for admitting that truth. Then again, it fits with the so-so nature of the whole episode, so I guess that’s appropriate.

Best Line/Exchange: There’s a lot of great dialogue in the various manipulation scenes, but the line that stood out the most for me was a relatively small one;

Odo (speaking to the people he just captured): Extremities where I can see them.

Because in a world populated by a wide variety of creatures, of course not all of them are going to have hands. It’s a tiny bit of world-building that’s slipped in seamlessly, and that’s why I love DS9’s writing.