Day 43: DS9, The Collaborator

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S2EP24, “The Collaborator”

 Summary: Two days before the meeting that will decide who will be the new Kai of Bajor, Kubus Oak (Bert Remsen), a Bajoran man who assisted the Cardassians during the occupation, arrives on the station and is immediately placed under arrest for his crimes. While Kira and numerous others are disgusted by his return, Vedek Winn, one of the major contenders for the Kai position, seems to be trying to orchestrate his release. When confronted by Kira, Winn explains that Kubus has information on the person behind the massacre of a large group of resistance fighters…and he’s implicating Vedek Bareil, the other big contender and, by this point, Kira’s boyfriend. Kira, naturally, heads out to find the truth, but the evidence isn’t looking very good. And as one might expect from DS9, the truth turns out to be far more complicated than it initially looks.

Standalone Thoughts: While this episode is a fine example of DS9’s grey morality and complex characters, I’m personally indifferent to it. I guess it’s because, while there’s payoff to things that were set up back in Season One, we haven’t been doing a lot to really explore the ideas and keep them fresh in our mind. We haven’t been hearing about the, for lack of a better word, campaigning to become Kai, except occasionally in passing. So this episode finally comes up, and our response is “Oh, yeah, that thing.” The episode tries to paint the election as important, but the show hasn’t really made it important.

It doesn’t help that the writers seem to be choosy about what they’re carrying over from past episodes. They clearly want to do something with the relationship between Kira and Bareil, but it’s just coming across as rushed. There were hints that they were meant to be together in the first three episodes of this season, they bantered and kissed in “Shadowplay”, and now, seven episodes later, they’ve progressed to overnight stays and a sexual relationship? I guess it’s hard to tell how much time has really passed between now and then (I tried looking up how stardates work, and Wikipedia blatantly states that the intent with them is to make it hard to connect it with actual dates), but it still feels like an abrupt shift in their relationship. A few mentions of Kira spending time with Bareil probably could have solved this problem.

On the other extreme, the whole conflict about the provisional government and The Circle doesn’t come up in this episode (though the events of “In the Hands of the Prophets” do). Surely Winn backing Minister Jaro during that time should lower her own prospects of becoming Kai, but that doesn’t even seem to be considered. It doesn’t seem right to pick and choose the bits of canon to bring up in an episode like this; that’s fanfiction’s job. Seriously, though, it does have a negative impact on the story, at least in my eyes.

Finally, there’s just enough soapboxing on display to rub me the wrong way. While it’s nowhere near as blatant as “Duet”, the repeated mentions of collaborators and how horrible they are once again feels like it’s really drawing parallels between the Cardassian-Bajor situation and what happened in Germany during WWII. Despite the way the episode tries to throw in shades of grey, there’s something in the tone of the discussions about collaborators that suggest the writers have their own opinions on the matter that influenced the way the episode came out. Hence my irritation. Tone down the blatant parallels, guys; you’re much better at this when it’s not the focus of the episode.

How it Relates to the Whole: A new Kai is finally elected in this episode, which will be relevant here and there in upcoming episodes, but really come into play in later seasons. As development goes, this is a pretty big one, though we’ll have to see how long it takes before the writers really know what they’re doing with it. We also get the first real hint of possible attraction of one character for another, though it’s hard to be certain if that was the actual intent at the time, or if I’m reading into things knowing how it all turns out. Either way, it’s a well-played moment.

Other: *Bareil teases Kira by saying he didn’t think she’d wake up till noon. It’s meant to be cute banter between couples, but I can’t help but overthink it and wonder if such a thing would even be possible. Kira’s in the military and has duty shifts on the station; surely she’s not actually allowed to sleep till noon. Granted, she could have been using some personal leave time, or got permission to rearrange her duty roster for the mid-afternoon to evening periods, but it still seems like sleeping in till noon is not a luxury she’d really have. Then again, I’ve never been in the military, so I could be entirely wrong on this score.

*Odo blatantly sees Quark using data rods to hack into systems, and doesn’t even threaten Quark about it. Makes me wonder if Odo’s known all along that Quark can hack into DS9’s systems, but allows it because he’s got countermeasures in place to keep Quark from doing any real damage. It doesn’t seem in character for Odo to not comment on it, though, so I’m not at all sure what to make of this.

Best Line/Exchange: While this line is deliberately portentous, it’s a line that works in retrospect;

Odo: The one thing I’ve learned about humanoids is that in extreme situations, even the best of you are capable of doing terrible things.

Obviously, Odo’s right, and it’s meant to be foreshadowing for the reveals over the course of the episode. But the way the line is delivered and the scene is shot, there’s almost a sense of foreboding, as though the episode is suggesting that Odo’s words are meant to be about Kira. While I don’t remember if Kira ever really crosses that line (though given what’s coming and the grey morality of DS9, it’s not out of the realm of possibility), what’s really interesting is how that line will ultimately reflect back on Odo himself. I don’t know if the writers intended that, but as I say, it’s interesting to look back on.