The Assignment

DVD, DS9 S5 (The Assignment)

Of all the episodes this is one you could almost enjoy without the audio. I'm talking about Miles' furrowed brow and how it practically tells the story in the highly varied and adaptable way it reacts to events around him, as if it were a language unto itself - forget Klingon, forget Vulcan, the Okrand's of this world should be inventing a visually centred mode of expression in the style of sign language, inspired by the increasingly agitated lines on the Chief's forehead! And the Director gives us so many closeups, emphasising the personal trauma O'Brien's being put through, that I can imagine people going at the footage a frame at a time and crafting a detailed dictionary of forehead communication, leading to websites, tutorials, and ultimately Shakespeare 'in the original forehead edition.' There's a whole cottage industry waiting to burgeon, I'm amazed it's not become apparent to the wider world yet and a word in the Oxford English Dictionary (foreheaders, or maybe wrinklites).

This is, for those who haven't realised yet, the annual entry (sometimes more frequent), in the 'Torture O'Brien' genre, something that has been as much of a pleasure to watch as it is a trial for the man of the people to go through. What could be more traumatic for him than to have his family held hostage at brain point (the Pah-Wraith can switch off Keiko's brain like a light switch in a split second, which is why he asks the computer for a rundown of how long it would take every feasible method of knocking out the entity to work), and even worse, inhabiting his wife's body. The pair of them have had their brushes with hostage situations, in both a physical sense and a mental, dating back to 'TNG' ('Power Play') where the Chief was the one under alien control, to 'Whispers' in Season 2, which was a fake O'Brien, to 'Hard Time' when he was trying to return to normal after alien prison memories threatened to overwhelm his sanity, to… you can see the pattern: it was blatantly Keiko's turn to be the unhappy cause.

Rosalind Chao probably did her best Trek work here, giving her, as it did, a greater range to express than we usually see. It's so refreshing to return to the O'Brien household as we've done this season, and I suppose what made it possible is that the first half of Season 5 falls into a niche between war against the Klingons and war against the Dominion, so there was this period of around half a season to go back and update the situation on the station, to see how the families and friends are now. Not that Season 4 didn't do that, but there feels like breathing space had been allocated or it had just fallen out that way, so we could have some station-bound, family-themed stories, such as this and 'Par'Mach.' I don't think Chao ever had as much to do in an episode again, barring 'Time's Orphan,' and from this evidence (and we already know she's a strong actress from her first couple of seasons on the series, when Keiko was a much more integrated recurring figure), she was an untapped resource - she merges great evil with the homeliness of the good wife, chilling to the bone. Her hardest scene might have been the last one where she's back to normal with Miles, as she had to have such an overpowering resolve and certainty throughout the story, then she became vulnerable again, glad to be alive.

It was a bit of a longwinded and harmful way for Bashir to get away with murdering Keiko's beloved Bonsai plants, but if you look at it from his perspective, he got a pretty good deal this time - he ruins the plants, gets off lightly from fake Keiko, then gets to enjoy the Chief's birthday party, and never has to worry about the complications afterwards, Keiko was so relieved to have got through the ordeal that she'll never give a second thought to what he did! The Pah-Wraith (how I wish it had been given an individual name so it was easier to type without having to give its full title or variations on Not-Keiko), seemed to enjoy being in a corporeal form, lapping up every syllable of speech, every sensation of being alive, and busying herself with mundane tasks of life such as cooking, preparing the party, or combing hair. We don't know exactly where it came from, other than the Fire Caves of Bajor, so it's possible to imagine it was flitting around down there in the heat and took advantage of Keiko's proximity. Maybe it would have been a better idea to have Keiko part of some archeological/botanical dig, likening it to the opening of the Egyptian tombs, but we get the start of a wider Bajoran legend which could be filled out later.

That there could be evil versions of the Prophets, cast from the Celestial Temple, makes a lot of sense in mythological terms, as there are usually false gods and cast out enemies in the supernatural tales of the ancient past. It was a simple way to introduce another of the threads that wound the tapestry of the series, although I'm sure at the time they didn't have any idea where this piece was going to come in the puzzle. The point is, unlike some of the series', they threw down so many pieces that they had a number of options to work with as the overarching stories progressed. The sheer weight of characters, races and plotting meant they would never be lacking for toys to play with, even if they didn't take up every little piece they had available (e.g: Thomas Riker never being rescued from the Cardassians).

One of those characters that was a piece in the puzzle (and another one nobody could have guessed how he would end up), was Rom, though his inclusion at first seems just another excuse to get a reference to waste extraction in, a theme running through some of these early season episodes! His B-story of life in 'Ennngineerrrringggg' where they drink 'Rrrrraktajinoooo,' was slight in story terms, but he has a bigger part to play in the A-story, leading to his promotion to the day shift and acceptance by O'Brien. Rom is the brains behind figuring out the entity's plan, and the legwork behind much of the Chief's tasks. If he hadn't had the tight-lipped Rom to depend on, I don't know if he could have achieved what he had to. Rom once again reminds us that he isn't as dozy as he sounds, that it's almost become a role that he plays, though he is eccentric and isn't the best at social interaction. That's probably why he's thought of as cute, and is getting on well with some girl on the day shift, though he also mentions Leeta, marking the next step in their part in the series.

Leeta hadn't become a character on the level of Rom just yet, that would happen over the course of this season, but their association is believable since when we saw them both they were united against Quark, striking for better conditions. It gives Rom a reason to know about the Bajoran myths, when his early characterisation was entirely hostile and distrustful of any alien influence, profit being his only goal, the one that held him back. Now he's doing what he was created to do, he's fulfilled, with career goals, intense loyalty to the Chief, and most importantly using his natural skills in service of his community. Maybe when he started out, as Quark said, he got all the worst jobs, he served with people that had no reason to accept him (so much for Starfleet multiculturalism - I assume the lead guy on the swing shift had had a tough night or was in a bad mood, and maybe he was thinking Rom was going to make his life much harder than it was, based on the Ferengi's overzealous attempts to immediately fit in, his shyness making a mockery of him, that's probably why they reacted so drolly to him). But he reaped his reward by promotion and earning the trust of the Chief. If only it had been Rom training with O'Brien in the early seasons instead of Jake, he'd be running Engineering by now!

It's good to see Jake, along with the others at the party. I can't remember the last time he and Keiko shared a scene - he's probably grown a couple of feet since then. They used to be in a lot of episodes together when she was his teacher, so it was fun to see that teacher/pupil impression continue when he gets so excited about the prospect of the Fire Caves, and she shows interest in his enthusiasm. Odo's the one to express doubts about the Bajoran legends, and there's no Kira around to take her people's side (swanning off with Shakaar yet again). We don't know if the Pah-Wraiths are considered mythical to the Bajorans, or as real as the Prophets and the Orbs. The Constable continues to prove he hasn't lost any of his real abilities, even if he can't change shape any more - his investigative nose and shrewd judgement traces the sabotage to O'Brien, not impressed by their comradeship or familiarity. Like Sherlock Holmes, when he's disproved all the possible causes, he puts his mind to the impossible: the Chief wouldn't be sabotaging his own station, would he? I doubt O'Brien's felled ox blow would have knocked him out if had he been a Changeling, so that's something else for him to tally up against the Chief, after Kira went all protective of 'Miles' recently!

It's a wonder anyone ever has to go for a medical checkup, if O'Brien's trick is anything to go by. He asks the computer to give Keiko a full medical bioscan to see if that will unearth anything he can use against the entity, but if it's that easy why do people ever report for their annual physical - the doctor could ask the computer to scan a person without them even knowing! I suppose a bioscan is only part of a physical examination, and doctors would want to test all kinds of things, like stress on the body, stamina, etc, so Kirk or Picard or Sisko couldn't get out of it after all. Sisko did get a bit of relaxation in this time, which I'm sure his doctor approved of, even if the Chief didn't. Thing is, O'Brien's always been quite a dour, moody person, easily aggravated, so his display of apparent ungraciousness at his birthday do wasn't seen as anything majorly amiss, he was just being the Chief. The only pleasant time he has is when he first meets his wife at an upper docking pylon. Why do we never see people flooding out of an airlock in the upper pylons? We're always shown hoards of people exiting onto the Promenade, and even into outer corridors, but I can't recall a scene of entry by pylon. Instead it's the romance capital of the station where everyone takes someone to view the beauty of the Wormhole, in seclusion, without the hint of a grumpy Captain stumping past from his ship!

Something we have seen a lot of this season are the Runabouts, though usually unnamed. I just assume that if it survived, it was the Rio Grande. It's been a long time since we last viewed the full footage of a little ship being raised for launch and then taking off, but it wasn't something you could do with the Defiant or O'Brien's plan might have been less successful. The Defiant would make a bigger target, but Worf wouldn't take kindly to his home being hijacked (that's why it was stolen in Season 3 - Worf wasn't around then). How did O'Brien know the burst of energy would take out the Pah-Wraith before it took revenge and killed Keiko? I suppose he didn't, it was his last chance to save her, and he was banking on the fact that it was fully focused on its own malevolent glee at the impending annihilation of its enemies in the Wormhole, and didn't believe O'Brien would or could, do anything on the Runabout. It was a plan of genius, but if it had come down to a choice between the station's inhabitants and his wife's life, or the Wormhole's inhabitants and his wife's life, my feeling is that he would always save Keiko above anyone else. I think, faced with a similar situation, Sisko could sacrifice his son, but he's in a greater position of authority and responsibility, where the Chief's main care is his family.

I'm not saying the guilt wouldn't lay heavily upon him and he might regret his actions, but he wouldn't think too much about it when it came to the safety of Keiko and Molly. The visual of the blue energy crackling from the station, the actual physical structure I don't think having ever been used as a plot point before (unless you count its laboured move to stake a claim on the Wormhole in the pilot episode), was as angry and dramatic as you'd expect from an evil entity's intentions. Sometimes you have to wonder if keeping the Wormhole stable is such a good thing. If it wasn't for that, they'd be safe from all but the already infiltrated Changelings of the Alpha Quadrant. But they're stuck with it, the Prophet's realm making it more than a mere tunnel to travel across the vastness of space. If the Prophets had been eradicated would the Wormhole have continued to exist? Would it have become unstable? Was there a possibility it would remain open, yet be impassable by current technology? An episode that asks questions, or inspires viewers to such thoughts has done its job. It functioned well, very well, in fact, just like O'Brien and Rom.

As a window onto the O'Brien household it's not in the same league as the first two seasons, which had regular visits into their family life, but we get little Molly back, and actually in danger for once (bad Keiko deliberately combs her hair roughly as a warning to O'Brien), something that would be taken much further next season. It's the Chief that carries the weight of the story, though, and Colm is excellent as a man under duress who must pretend to be normal in the most excruciating circumstances (having evil Keiko kiss him in front of Bashir after she's thrown his wife's body off the Promenade, for example). O'Brien is not good at acting, he's a simple man who isn't trained in keeping his moods in check. When he's happy everyone knows it, when he's grumpy, likewise, but the incredible strain put on him is something he can deal with from his time as a soldier. The time constraints give his scenes with Dax (in which I read his ironic interest in her anomaly in two ways - he's worried she'll find out about the modifications, and one little anomaly at 3am isn't something he has any interest in when he has so much work to do), and the others a grinding desperation as he waits for soonest opportunity to get back to his job, while not raising suspicion from his lack of interest.

When things begin to get to a head the episode takes off, O'Brien initiating a personal countdown from the computer, coming up against every obstacle, single-mindedly doing whatever is necessary, so that you think he's going along with the plan, his solution even more masterful for being unexpected, while also being a logical way out (much like Jake's bringing down of the cave in the previous episode). It's helped by a strong score, apparently the first of Greg Smith's, not a name that ever sunk in as Jerry Goldsmith or Dennis McCarthy did. I look forward to seeing if he was partly responsible for the notable improvement in 'DS9' music in the last three seasons, when it seemed to take a deeper turn of recognisable themes (the Klingon opera for Klingon stuff, etc), beyond the usual Trek episodic wallpaper, or whether he didn't have much to do with it before. I've never paid that much attention to who was scoring before, I just knew the scores went from good to great around this season. One last item to add: I never noticed the blink-and-you-miss-it knowing smirk Rom gives Odo when he's in the holding cell. Because he thinks Odo's just pretending, making the Constable snort in disgust. So small a moment, but so funny.

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