Facets

DVD, DS9 S3 (Facets)

It gave the actors a chance to play someone completely different, and it gave viewers the chance to find out new things about Jadzia: she isn't always the confident, calm and all-round sorted person we see on the outside. Personally I found myself a little underwhelmed with some of the acting of the hosts this time. Nana Visitor excelled as Lela, the first host of Dax, portraying an old woman, squinting and hunched, her clipped, but friendly tones wise and reassuringly old. Seeing Leeta from the perspective of just this season I would agree that her appearance is rather unexpected and shoehorned in. It is a surprising deficiency that in all the recurring characters developed up to the third season there are so few females. Kasidy had only been in one story, and Kai Winn was the last person Dax would turn to for assistance ("You want to use my body for some sacrilegious ritual? Blasphemy!"), so Leeta was hurriedly drafted, not even having been given a name on screen in her previous episode. It's still good to see more of her from the perspective of hindsight.

O'Brien as Tobin was okay, but both he and Bashir (as Torias) didn't have meaningful scenes in which Jadzia learns something from or about them, yet there wasn't enough lightness to provide enough fun either so their depictions seem a little shallow and the accents and mannerisms are only so-so. Quark was very good as the female Audrid - we get to see Quark speak in a gentle, motherly way about children and nurturing! For me Joran, hosted by Sisko, is the standout performance, even above Odo/Curzon. Brooks plays the subtle menace, the damaging psyche that attacks mentally even when it can't physically, also providing one of the great shocks when the forcefield is off and Jadzia has to beat up Sisko with those Klingon martial arts we're always hearing about! The episode could well have been about Joran were it not for the fact that 'Equilibrium' had already made a sterling effort in that direction.

Meeting Curzon, like Jennifer Sisko, was one of those people you never expected to be presented with. It isn't quite Curzon, these are after all, only memories, there's no necromancy going on to resurrect dead people and it's all within the traditional confines of Trek, with it's sci-fi, but not quite unexplainable situations. What could be more sci-fi than the episode starting with someone asking her friends to borrow their bodies for a while! Dax lays to rest her own internal doubts as to her worthiness for joining, and it's a shame there wasn't much more to be done on her internal problems after this - she'd dealt with Joran, and now Curzon, the other hosts were all pretty decent and ordinary. Dax has often been one of the lesser used characters in these first three seasons possibly because she's difficult to explore simply. Her emphasis would move toward action in future.

Another character with an assured future was Nog, who gets to wear the uniform for the first time, though it's only one made to order for Rom by Garak. His entry into Starfleet Academy is inspiring because of who and what he was. The question of what happens if you shut down a holoprogram while sitting down is answered (you fall down), Nog's training program reminds me of Tom Paris teaching Kes in 'Voyager', and Rom shows the same fierce protection over his son as he did towards keeping the family together in 'Family Business'.

The memories seemed to have the power to take over the host. When Quark wants to speak, Audrid notifies Dax and then lets him talk. When Joran is in Sisko he takes over until Dax knocks some sense into him, and Curzon claims that Odo is as happy with the joining as he, and that they both don't wish to separate. How much input Odo had in the decision is unclear, though he apologises to Dax at the end so he must have some guilt over it. Curzon was an overwhelming personality, but Odo is so concerned with justice that it seems a stretch to accept he wanted to stay like that ('stretch' brings up another point - why didn't Curzon try out his new-found powers more?). It led to a lovely closing scene in which Dax and Odo share common ground now that she retains the memory of Curzon's shapeshifting.

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