Prodigal Daughter

DVD, DS9 S7 (Prodigal Daughter)

For a story to set itself up as a sequel, even an indirect sequel as this one is, automatically leads to comparison to the first episode. This one doesn't come off too well in that. On the one hand it tries to cram in a lot, but comes off lacking in most departments, relying on quiet conversations and little character study. It should have been refreshing to have a jaunt away from the station, away from the cares of the War, but on the contrary it leads us to a depressing tale of stifled young lives, and a family on the verge of breakdown. Not the sort of thing usually covered by Star Trek, and probably for good reason. It becomes a bit too heavy in the soap area, becoming kitchen sink drama carried mostly by characters we've only just met.

There could be many reasons for this - they obviously wanted to fill out Ezri's backstory while they had time; maybe they wanted to give the actors, who had been working on the series for almost six and a half years, an episode to have a break on, as they sometimes do. It gives Ezri a chance to come through more, and makes a different pairing with O'Brien. I felt the characters weren't used to their strengths however, and the Orion Syndicate slant seemed a convoluted way to get the two strands working together. Plus it seems questionable that the Chief would lie to Sisko and go off on a self-regulated mission to find Bilby's wife. Sure, he felt he owed the man, but I would have found it much easier to believe that Starfleet Intelligence had once again co-opted him into it, perhaps to investigate the Tigan's, than for what they went for.

And the really interesting stuff was all in the undercover work O'Brien did - we hear about all kinds of interesting things, such as him getting beaten up by a couple of Nausicaans, and rather than concentrate on Ezri's family, necessary so you would care about the murder, they would have been better off crafting a similar tale to 'Honour Among Thieves'. But they had to focus on the family for that reason, and the point of that was to learn about Ezri. We do learn about her, but not enough to justify painting themselves into a literary corner.

It could have been a money-saving episode (though the elaborate house set and employing a whole load of new characters while still having to pay the regulars whether they appeared in it or not (Quark, Worf), probably didn't do much to save money!), and I'm sure they justified it, but it was too bleak a tale, that ended in an uncharacteristically downbeat way, didn't use most of the cast, and criminally, didn't have enough drama to earn that right.

It wasn't all bad. I lost track of the number of references, whether it was original series era, with Saurian brandy (in the same type of bottle Kirk drank from), or several mentions of Andorians, or more recent continuity such as the Orion Syndicate (though the representative shows just how difficult it is to appear subtly menacing when you're wearing a hard hat!) and Bilby, there was a huge checklist of stuff. But they, and the excellent sets, and matte painting didn't do enough to make up for the pedestrian pace and sense of dissatisfaction that ran through the episode like a name through a stick of rock.

**