Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine
Episode
Particulars: S7EP23, “Extreme Measures”
Standalone
Thoughts: I included that link above mostly for my own amusement, but I do
honestly wonder if Christopher Nolan saw this episode and used it as part of
the inspiration for Inception. There’s
a lot of similar elements; a device that’s necessary to insert you into another
person’s mind, projections that attack you, multiple layers, and even a “kick”
of sorts. Obviously, the audience back in 1999 wasn’t thinking along those
lines—if anything, they were thinking of The
Matrix, which was released in March of that year—but it can be fun for a
modern viewer to watch and draw comparisons.
Focusing on the actual content of the episode…it’s not
bad. Not as strong as “Tacking Into the Wind”, but with a lot of interesting
material. The episode also makes the
smart move of focusing almost entirely on wandering through Sloan’s mind
instead of bouncing between it and other plots, so there’s less for us to keep
straight and more time to really work with the ideas. That being said, I think
there was more they could have done with it. Sloan doesn’t seem like a man who
would give up his secrets that easily, even when dying, so I feel like there
could have been more roadblocks. Then again, I like a good cat-and-mouse game,
and I’ve said before that genetically enhanced Bashir vs. secretive Section 31
would be fantastic if done right, so this may just be wishful thinking on my
part.
Or maybe the writers just didn’t have enough ideas for
mind games, because they dedicate nearly three minutes to O’Brien and Bashir sitting
in a corridor, too weak to progress. Furthermore, at least one minute of that
is used for (I swear) them talking about their feelings for each other. It’s a
conversation that I’m sure gets a lot of shippers excited, though I’m just
reminded yet again how baffling it is that O’Brien and Keiko have stayed
married. The constant repetitions of “I love
my wife” start to sound like O’Brien’s trying to convince himself of that
fact after a while. Anyway, it’s not necessarily a bad conversation, but it
doesn’t feel like it was needed in this episode.
Sure, give Bashir and O’Brien a setback, maybe even by making their brains
think they were injured, but I don’t think we needed three minutes of it, especially
when the camera remains static (thus making it uninteresting to look at) and
the whole thing gets resolved with very little fuss. In a plot like this, we
don’t need to take time out for character development. At least not in the
middle of the crisis.
All in all, the episode mostly works, even if its ideas
aren’t wholly explored and get wrapped up a little too neatly. But there’s
enough there to appeal to people who like psychology (or Inception), Siddig and Meaney do fine acting work, and its well-paced
and generally entertaining. Hard to ask for much more than that.
How it Relates to
the Whole: This episode’s major contribution is dealing with the changeling
cure, which will play a large role in the finale. It may not seem like much,
but given how full the other episodes have been with information, having
something relatively straightforward for once is kind of refreshing.
Other: *All
right, now’s the time to dig into the changeling virus and explain all the
little issues with it. According to “When it Rains…” Bashir believes Odo got
infected with the virus back in “Homefront/Paradise Lost”, when he was on Earth
and Starfleet Medical ran some tests on him. That makes sense, and would
explain how Odo managed to infect the Great Link, since he linked with them all
during “Broken Link”. Except…they turned him human in that episode. Wouldn’t
that suggest that, since he wasn’t a changeling anymore, that would have inadvertently
cured the virus? And since he got his powers back from the baby changeling in
“The Begotten” who had never linked with anyone, that shouldn’t have led to him
getting the virus back. Now, given how often Odo was linking with the female
changeling during the Dominion Occupation arc, it actually makes a twisted
sense that he wound up getting reinfected with his own virus, but all the stuff
I just discussed never seems to occur to anyone in-universe. I suppose it
doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things (and does unnecessarily complicate
the issue), but fans will notice things like this and, at best, scratch their
heads. There are slightly bigger issues surrounding the virus itself, though.
Why did it take three years to manifest? Why did Bashir not see any traces of
the virus in Odo’s system before now (as suggested by “Chimera”)? What does
this mean for Laas and the new Great Link it seems that he wants to forge for
himself? And above all, why on earth does O’Brien think that Section 31 would
have come up with a cure for a virus they created? Unless they thought this
thing was going to mutate and become dangerous to humans, they’d have no reason
to create a cure, since they want the changelings dead. Obviously, this last
one exists because we need it to progress the plot, but I really think we could
have done with an in-universe explanation here. Section 31 seems like it should
be less sloppy than that.
*An odd thing to note; when O’Brien and Bashir first go
into Sloan’s head, O’Brien calls Bashir “Jules”. The subtitles say that’s what
he says, and even with them off, it doesn’t sound like “Julian”. O’Brien has never called Bashir that before, and in
another story, it would indicate that something was off. As it stands, it’s
just a weird beat.
*I like the fact that the writers justified their use of
the DS9 sets in Sloan’s mind by having one aspect of Sloan say that he wanted O’Brien
and Bashir to be comfortable while they were poking around in there. That’s the
sort of thinking things through that I like to see. I just wish it could have
been used on more important things, like the changeling virus or Bashir’s
genetic engineering.
Best
Line/Exchange: While the most memorable conversation for me is the “You
like me more” discussion I mentioned, I don’t consider that the best exchange. Instead,
I picked a related moment at the end of the episode, that actually appeals to
the plot continuity side of me. Though because it comes at the end, I’ll have
to warn for SPOILERS;
(O’Brien and Bashir
have snuck into Quark’s after hours and are celebrating their success)
O’Brien: Ah-ha!
(pulls out a bottle of something from
behind Quark’s bar) Here we go. I knew Quark was hoarding a bottle of the
good stuff.
(He hands Bashir
the bottle as he’s getting some glasses. Bashir looks at it)
Bashir: This is
older than I am!
O’Brien: What?!
(he looks at the bottle and huffs as he
opens it and pours two glasses) I’m drinking with a child.
Bashir (chuckles
and picks up his glass): To aging. Gracefully.
O’Brien: Very
funny. (raises his glass) To Odo.
(They clink glasses
and drink it down. Based on Bashir’s face, he’s not used to that sort of kick)
Bashir: Wow.
O’Brien: Wow is
right. (he pours two more glasses) Tell
me something. If you’d had more time to read the data in Sloan’s mind, do you
think we would have brought down Section 31?
Bashir: Well,
we’ll never know now, will we? But one thing’s for sure; Sloan knew he had the
perfect bait. That I wouldn’t be able to resist it. But there was one thing he
failed to consider.
O’Brien: And what’s
that?
Bashir: You. (he raises his glass) To Miles Edward
O’Brien.
O’Brien (chuckling
himself and raising his glass): To friendship. (another clink and drink. O’Brien exhales in satisfaction and sets the
glass down, while Bashir winces again) Well I’d better get home. Keiko’s
holding dinner for me.
Bashir: This
late?
O’Brien: Yeah,
well, she’s a hell of a woman.
Bashir: That’s
why you love her.
O’Brien: That’s
right. That’s why I love her.
(He moves out of
frame. Bashir sits at the bar for a second, fiddling with a dart, then O’Brien
pops back into frame)
O’Brien: You wanna
come?
Bashir: Sure.
(As they leave,
Bashir throws a dart from halfway across the room and lands a bullseye)
Leaving aside the comedy and general pleasant camaraderie
of this scene, there are a lot of callbacks here. In order, there’s a bit of a
visual callback to Odo and Quark doing something like this in “The Begotten”; a
subtle reference to Bashir’s age, which in conjunction with the main plot of
this episode calls to mind “Distant Voices”; Bashir realizing that calculations
can’t always account for the human element, the lesson he eventually learned in
“Statistical Probabilities”; O’Brien and Bashir discussing and acknowledging
their friendship, something Serena commented on in “Chrysalis”; and the final
gag ties in to “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” I appreciate the scene on those
grounds alone, though I also like the fact that it kind of proves my point
about Keiko. Though I think we should chalk that one up to schadenfreude.
No comments:
Post a Comment