The Quickening

DVD, DS9 S4 (The Quickening)

Just what was so important about a planet survey mission that Kira felt she had to go into the Gamma Quadrant to do it? Was it really worth the risk of running into the Jem'Hadar? Couldn't they have sent a probe to do the job? Coming off the back of 'To The Death' where they'd formed a short term alliance with the Jem'Hadar it might have been argued they didn't feel as much at risk, but it was made clear at the end that it was a one time only arrangement not to be repeated, and Kira spends a week hiding in a nebula rather than let patrolling Jem'Hadar ships know she's there. That raises another point: what did she do in that Runabout for a week? They should have shown us a montage of her doing push-ups, jogging a circuit round the ship (a good excuse to finally show the back end of the Runabout which they never got around to do doing on 'DS9'), reading Odo's criminal activity reports, listening to Bajoran music, and looking bored. Or maybe the nebula was so fascinating it took up all her time running scientific surveys? Except Kira isn't the science whizz, Dax is, so maybe their positions should have been reversed?

It's nice to see Dax let her hair down with Bashir, acting as his interpreter, reassuring him when he's beating himself up, and puncturing his bubble of arrogance when needed. Kira wouldn't have had the finesse to do all that. We see some of the enthusiastic first season Bashir coming through as he eagerly sets up shop to beat the terrible blight of the Dominion, but by the end he's been able to accept the slap in the face that showed his own mistake of believing he could do what no one else could and learned from it, another in a line of stories which slapped down his boisterous, happy-go-lucky attitude and tempered it with experience and a dash of wisdom so that it's fascinating to see his journey through the series, slowly becoming less ardent, but not losing his caring nature.

Rene Auberjonois did some of his best directorial work on this episode, my favourite shot being 'The Lion King' moment when Trevean holds up the baby, free of the blight thanks to Bashir, the camera sweeping over the throng and across to the Doctor who watches from a distance, standing in the breach of a massive wall as if he's bridged the gap, however small he may look compared with that thick construct, it only takes two hands to reach either side and bridge it, and that's what he did by saving the unborn children of the Teplans. I also love the way the episode ends with Bashir not ready to give up on the population still suffering and destined to die from the blight, he works late into the night (you can tell it's night by the subdued lighting and that no one walks past the Infirmary), the camera and us pulling back to leave him to it.

Towards the end of the episode I could imagine this being a story used to write his character out if they'd wanted to - rather like they did with Kai Opaka they could have had Bashir permanently set up on the planet to spend the rest of his days trying to cure the horrible disease and helping the people. The blight again brings out the true nature of the Dominion, just in case we were beginning to feel comfortable with them - a disease genetically engineered to make them suffer and die, and even worse, to be exacerbated by the emissions of technology so that advancement by the Teplans or assistance by other races would only make things worse - now that's cruel. Perhaps the most intense moment of the episode comes as Bashir's patients become affected by his equipment - one cries out, then another and another, until they're all writhing in pain, the lesions on their bodies rippling and pulsating with agony. They cry for Trevean to save them, those that can move run from the room and Bashir stands in the midst of the chaos horrified at his own conceited self-belief crashing down around him.

The effect of the blight being achieved by CGI is quite a fascinating step on the journey towards the digital medium that was slowly sweeping through television, and 'DS9' is one of those that benefited from the growing trend, just as 'Voyager' would take things even further. But the latter series could sometimes use CGI too much before it had reached its peak, the three-dimensional planetscapes seen in the last seasons didn't compare with many of the matte landscapes painted, this episode an excellent proof of how good they could be: we see various parts of the village at different times of day, well integrated into the real landscape in which extras are walking or a little girl runs up to the house to announce the arrival of Bashir. The mattes aren't the only thing that enhance the episode, the production values in general seemed particularly high, with large, detailed indoor and outdoor sets and so many extras!

I did feel some of them overdid it a bit - the man that walks round Bashir and Dax when they first arrive, pointing continuously; the man in the background that scrambles away when Bashir beams down alone - he's sitting on a broken structure and climbs away as if shocked by the transporter or Bashir. There's even a guy that spits in Bashir's path, the good doctor careful to look down at where he's putting his feet! If the extras got more attention than they deserved, at least the guest cast were not wanting in that regard either - Ekoria was such a good character, believable and someone we cared about because of her implicit trust in Bashir and kind, simple ways. Trevean wasn't so likeable, but that only made Bashir's achievement at the end shine the brighter that he could change the older man's perceptions. Bashir may have been bigheaded, he may have been thoughtless and arrogant, but he also knew that he'd been those things and learned valuable lessons. It helped that he did actually save the future of those people, so his confidence wasn't destroyed, it was simply knocked healthily.

The scene at the beginning with Quark in trouble for his merchandising scheme was really only an excuse to get the other actors into the episode, but it made sense not to have a B-story to cut to since the main plot was engrossing enough and insular, Bashir's isolation from home and from the people around him might have played oddly off of a jolly Quark story back on the station. I'd like one of those mugs Worf furiously tipped and I'd have loved to see the entire Quark advert they were going to come up with until Auberjonois shortened it to a jingle, but I've got absolutely no complaints about his direction, he did a very good job. There was never a moment I didn't believe I wasn't on an alien planet and Bashir's struggle was amply projected onto the screen.

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