The Ascent

DVD, DS9 S5 (The Ascent)

Jake and Nog, Quark and Odo - two of the best pairings in the history of the series, being chalk and cheese chappies that bounced off each other like racquetball or springball. There should be no surprise, then, at how good this would make an episode, but I feel this is an unsung hero of the series, a serious consideration for top ten of all time. Not because it's an exciting adventure, avoiding Jem'Hadar soldiers or Klingon warriors, not because it's a convoluted spying game, or a personal conundrum, a mystery or a time-travelling paradox - it is none of those things, but the simplest of tales, and made with these actors it becomes so much more. It's one of those that you watch and you truly don't know where to start: just praise it for all it does in any order, think carefully about the underlying meanings or point to the many, franchise-wide connections. Applaud the director and cinematographer, the composer, the writing… There is no place to begin discussing such a seminal work, except that I did have one teeny-tiny nitpick about one small aspect of it: the bomb.

I ought to get my one reservation out of the way first, and it is only a minor one, but then, and this is the point, so was the explosion. I remembered the sequence as the beam-out attempt failing and that activating the mechanism's countdown, but in fact that causes an immediate detonation and they funnel the main force of the blast into the Transporter buffers, so it's not even that I claim it doesn't make sense that such a small explosion should make the Runabout uninhabitable. I think it's Quark being so close to the blast radius, his head thrust towards it, when he should have taken cover. Granted, he gets thrown off his feet, but it was the one visual moment of the whole thing that made me question something. It does make sense, the transference of the energy sends ripples of explosions throughout the rest of the ship, so it stands to reason that most supplies and equipment, including the life support systems would be damaged beyond the repair capabilities of a crook and a crook-catcher.

Don't forget, these aren't Starfleet officers, a fact that makes their struggles even more heroic on the planet. O'Brien could have fixed the Runabout up in no time; Worf would have lopped branches off trees and made burning torches; Dax would have got a Tricorder working to find the best route, and piloted them down safely in the first place; Bashir would have found a way to boost their body heat; and Sisko would have planned out what to do better and pushed on in discipline for all he was worth. One character that was less help than usual was the Runabout itself - so often this season the little ships haven't been named so we don't know which is which, but this time, looking at the nosecone sticking up after the crash-landing, it appeared to be the Rio Grande. On one hand that was probably what saved them from being obliterated in a spatial explosion, since the Rio is the only true survivor of the complement over the years, but on the other, you'd expect the galaxy's safest Runabout not to have crashed. Put it down to Odo's piloting skills not being as strong as his detective ability (note how Quark grabs his own head with both arms, just like in 'Babel' when the two of them had to save the station!). Or maybe it had something to do with the new central console column at the back, something I don't recall being there before?

Even Odo's detective skills fail him this time, Quark rubbing it in with glee: Odo was mistaken about the Ferengi being wanted, he'd actually been summoned as a witness against the Orion Syndicate! There are a couple of points to make here: Quark shows untold bravery in what he's agreed to (maybe he didn't have much choice, but he must have told someone he was a witness), and he's excellent at keeping secrets, because all the while he doesn't correct Odo's assumption that he's to be put on trial (even though Quark's style is to avoid the 'big boys' and violent crime - as played out later in 'Business As Usual'), making him look forward to seeing Odo's face when they release him!

The other point about all this is that it's the first ever mention of the shady and powerful organisation that is the Orion Syndicate, and it's talked up so well that even without seeing a green-skinned member of the race (something they should have gotten around to on the series, and another item, like the Klingon forehead debate, to be dealt with on 'Enterprise,' another reason I connect that series to this in so many ways, along with Jeffrey Combs and Section 31), you get a feel for the magnitude of this organisation and that its crime is on a vast interstellar level, a totally different enemy to the Dominion. That would have been a story! If the Syndicate had had to get involved in the fight against the Dominion to protect their interests in the Quadrant it would have been like a gang war. The Federation was willing to accept help from the dodgy Romulans and it would have been just as compelling to see Starfleet forced to team up with a criminal organisation in an effort to oppose their greatest enemy yet, and it would have made a good moral story about accepting help at any cost (like 'Nothing Human' and the Nazi-type Cardassian Doctor on 'Voyager'). The Orion Syndicate would go on to feature on and off, mainly as background references, but notably in one of the 'torture O'Brien' episodes of Season 6 ('Honour Among Thieves').

No surprise this is a Behr and Wolfe script. They brought together two people for the best antagonistic friendship ever, even more than Spock and McCoy, upon which, it can be suggested, it was based. It works even better than that did because these are not two people at the opposite end of the spectrum, not even in the same organisation. McCoy and Spock had the emotional/dispassionate divide, but because Odo (the Spock archetype), isn't restricted by emotionlessness, he can dig in and jab at Quark, the petty thief with a heart of gold (even if it is Latinum-plated!), and get as irritated and frustrated as Quark can, which makes it a more level playing field, and a ping-pong effect of insult and snide observation. Quark claims Odo's ten-year attempt at catching a 'nobody' makes him the bigger loser, but in 'Things Past' they established Odo's predecessor, Thrax, was in command nine years ago. Just an observation - Quark was probably exaggerating in the heat of the moment. The lip-smacking/buzzing scene has to be one of the funniest in Trek, but I noticed throughout this episode, even while they were getting laughs or smirks from me, it worked on more than just a humorous level because they're true to their alien cultures. Quark would complain about the tiniest of noises in the Runabout because his ears are so sensitive (just as he could stand outside O'Brien's quarters and fill the eavesdropping Bashir in on what was being said in 'Looking for Par'Mach'), and when he's worried about losing his hearing in one ear, he would say that a one-eared Ferengi's only half a man!

Odo never missed an opportunity to annoy Quark, always getting so much satisfaction out of it in the series, but in this one it's those little niggling scenes or petty arguments on overdrive, the scale of an entire episode for it to run gloriously rampant - every little expression or impression Odo does now and again comes out in this one - the self-satisfied smile or that head-wobbling sarcastic way of talking as he nettles his opponent, the gravelly growling and personal insights, they're all there. He's perfectly serious when he needs to be, since he's basically the commanding officer of the journey, and that makes Quark rise up and take responsibility in answer, to spite him when the need arises, whereas you can imagine he'd just keep complaining if one of the others were in charge. Quark's strongest motivation, what gives him a final boost of strength, is knowing how all his Ferengi-ness will be for nothing if he dies on that planet: Rom will get the bar, Nog will be completely 'corrupted' by Starfleet (interesting, so the inference is he thinks there's still time to show Nog how wrong hew-mons are, and get him to return to his people's ways! And don't forget he's the one who comes with a tray of root beer to welcome his nephew home, despite how much he despises, or claims to despise, Starfleet, there's still a big part of him that cares about Nog - that scene again recalled 'The Circle' and Kira's packing scene to me!), and worst indignity of all, his bones will lie unsold.

It's a sign of Odo's great affection that he says in his final log (even though it's in a world-weary, somewhat offhand manner), that Quark would want to have his remains auctioned off - it shows that he's thinking of his friend even though he's typically dismissive of Quark's seemingly failed attempt to save them. This leads to his half-joking shame when Dax lets him know Quark saved his life, but more tellingly, and this is what I got from the final scene on the biobeds (I thought we'd never see a sickbay on the Defiant, but I think that's where they are at the end, though I always used to think it was at DS9 - it's also a pleasure to get a good look at the Defiant's Transporter room, so rarely glimpsed), is that Quark is saying 'you don't owe me anything' in his repeat of how he hates Odo, and Odo's saying the same in turn. It's an unspoken friendship, and will always be that way because that's how they want it. They aren't mushy or sentimental, they distrust and often revile each other (Quark says earlier he's so glad that when he sits on a chair he knows it's not Odo now that he can't shape-shift), but they have a core of warmth for each other.

Quark will give Odo advice, like in 'Crossfire' when he's in full frustration at Kira and Shakaar, and Odo lets Quark have a break now and again (in 'His Way' when he allows him to get away with some smuggling deal as a private thank you for what he did in getting him and Kira together, though he'd never confirm it). Now that they're alone with no other ears around, they're remarkably open (just like the others in 'Let He Who…') - Quark's one of those who knows all about Kira, and gets at Odo for being such a stick in the mud when he's got what he always wanted: he's a solid, like everyone else, but he can't be happy because that's his nature, or so Quark claims in his capacity as 'counsellor'! But he doesn't know Odo's deepest core, maybe Odo doesn't fully know himself, yet, but when he gives final directions for what to do with his remains, it is to send his ashes back through the Wormhole in his bucket. He may as well end up where he began, he says, but we know from later in the series that it's more than that. It's another sign of his unspoken wish to return and be accepted by his people again.

Jake and Nog, then. They were the main source of each other's stories, and since Nog left for Starfleet Academy, it did impact the amount Jake had to do. I can imagine at the time people would have been upset when Nog was apparently shunted off the series, but as in most things they should have trusted the writers to know what they were doing (he was even in at least four episodes of Season 4, his 'off season,' so you can tell they really wanted to use him!). Just as they began the series with unfinished characters like Bashir, who learned and was tempered by his experiences to become the kind of person you'd expect on a Trek series, so they took the long view of what they could accomplish, and Nog is one of the most famous of those seeds that was planted. I like the way characters were brought in or taken out for a while, like Kasidy Yates, Commander Eddington or Kai Winn, because it showed they weren't relying so much on who they had as much as they were keeping them back, ready for when they could make the most impact. Absence makes the heart grow fonder they say, and that was true of Jake and Nog.

To begin with, that is. Jake discovers his short friend has taken on a whole new bearing, his Ferengi tenacity channelled into extreme levels of discipline and self-improvement. He's gone off to a military school and returned with a new regimen of training. In short, he isn't the same Nog that nervously went off to the Academy in 'Little Green Men,' and Jake isn't the only one to see that. I like to think Rom was influenced by his son's decision to do something new and unexpected, inspired to stand up to Quark and become his own man, join O'Brien's work crew as a junior engineer, just as Nog was inspired by his Father's lack of prospects, so they've both inspired each other in different ways, but to the same result: greater confidence and meaning in their lives.

Despite this, Rom's so taken aback at Nog's new personality (including putting his Dad on report for an untidy toolkit!), he confides in Sisko that his son may be a Changeling! It's a very Rom way of thinking for him to come to such a conclusion, but Sisko puts him right, and in a bright mirror of their attitudes in the early seasons, they both discuss the good their opposite number's son is doing for theirs. Think back to those distant episodes when Sisko was uncomfortable with his son hanging out with a Ferengi, Rom equally scolding Nog for following hew-mon ways, but he's changed so much himself, swigging that very human drink, root beer (how I wanted some reference to Quark and Garak's double-meaning 'cloying' conversation about it from 'The Way of The Warrior'!), and trying out their food, too. It's a lovely moment when Rom joins Sisko at his meal - the highest-ranked man on the station finding common ground with just about the lowest.

I did think they were going to come up with a way of sticking Nog and Jake together to make them realise they needed each other, but instead it's put much more bluntly: the Captain comes to turf Jake out of his quarters threatening his newfound independence, then pretty much orders Nog as his commanding officer, and Jake as his Father, to settle their differences. It's a prompt way to get the situation sorted without going into the usual territory of trapping them in a lift or giving them a task to complete. Perhaps if they'd been the A-story that might have been the route taken, but they were the B-story, and one that, despite humour, didn't clash with the life or death struggle going on for Quark and Odo. Both stories are a reflection of the other, about two very different people getting along and working together to a successful outcome, and that's as much a morality play as any other, more obvious, Treks.

So it has everything - the essence of what makes Trek, Trek in it's ideals and style. It uses the races it created and those that populate it to craft a relatively simple tale, and even though it's not an action adventure, in the mould of defeating an enemy, the difficulty comes from within (their own frailties), and without (the challenge of the environment). And I haven't even lauded the look and sound of the production. It's complimented by a stirring soundtrack, that even has the subtlest of details - on the Defiant's arrival, the Klingon opera tag plays a few bars, perhaps signalling Worf's command. Attention to detail in the extreme. And they went to a REAL mountain! It looks incredible, Allan Kroeker, in what was, if not his first, one of his earliest episodes as Director, a man that would go on to helm some of the best of this series and 'Voyager,' makes some beautiful observational shots in the open air. We see water trickling towards camera; vast peaks of the mountain bathed in a crisp, blue sky; cold trees and rocks, pointing to the cold, frosty faces of Quark and Odo, bruised and frozen, struggling on through the elements. There are some incredibly evocative images, mainly of Quark pulling Odo along on a stretcher while also heaving the transmitter over his back, like Frodo and Sam in 'The Lord of The Rings,' he struggles onward until he can't go any further. Then Odo's gritty determination fires him as the former Changeling with a broken leg, crawls agonisingly along the ground, pushing the transmitter as he goes, his stubborn disposition refusing to give up, leading Quark to take up the burden again with his last buried strength, creating the most affecting image of all: the lone Ferengi, half-dead, slowly pulling the bulky transmitter along the rocky ground as wind and storm whips into him.

Odo's broken leg is the most dramatic physical effect that he's had to go through since becoming a solid. He's certainly allowed his passions to take more control this season, and now we see the culmination of years of frustration and anger, not just at Quark, but directed at him because he's there. In the same way, Quark gives as good as he gets, insulting and challenging, they both spit out epithets like bullets until they come to blows. This isn't something that could have been done in earlier seasons, it's a situation developed from the way Odo is now, and that Quark is now, being a man that lost all his race's pride in himself, lost his possessions and only had the bar left to keep him going. So they've both lost the essential parts of their lives, both outcast from their people, and they know exactly the rawest nerve to stab. Add hunger, cold and hopelessness, and their ragged anger is totally believable, and another thing that, had they been Starfleet, wouldn't have happened (though it came close in 'The Ship' between Worf and O'Brien - another link to that episode is when Quark removes the transmitter from the Runabout's bulkhead, Odo querying his action, just as Worf ripped a console from the wall of the Jem'Hadar warship, much to Jadzia's disgust!).

Anyone that claimed 'DS9' was a station-locked series should check out this season before opening their mouths again: in the first nine episodes only three have actually been set on the station, and one of those was Terok Nor, the station of the past. This ninth episode features a subplot aboard DS9, but the majority of it takes place on an alien world, so it's been a wholly refreshing mix of stories and locations, and makes the series look terribly expensive - this episode on its own had the feel of a feature film, and if it had been made in cinema screen ratio would easily have passed muster. But it's also excelled in the small details - I kept making observations about little things and links to other episodes, like familiar extra Ensign Jones in the background (I think it's he that walks between Nog and O'Brien in the corridor where the pair chat about Nog's duties, Nog making light of the laborious or mundane tasks he has to do - everyone gets a little screen time, another reason why it feels so complete); Sisko's baseball's used once again as a visual metaphor (he rolls it to Nog across his desk to when speaking as a friend rather than a commanding officer, taking it back when formality returns); Fizzbin, the game Captain Kirk made up on the spot to fool gangsters in 'A Piece of The Action,' has since become a widely exported (presumably, since Quark's playing it), genuine card game; the supercool silver weather suits debut (later seen in 'Timeless' on 'Voyager'); Jake's story is called 'Past Prologue' (did it feature a renegade Bajoran terrorist, I wonder?); the list is almost endless.

This would have been the perfect time to have shown the back room of the Runabout, as seen on 'TNG' ('Timescape') - Quark complains about the cramped accommodations, but according to that series, he could have had a full-sized Tongo wheel in the back there, with room to cartwheel round it! Either the Rio Grande is built differently and the aft section is used for cargo or whatever, or Quark's just enjoying any opportunity to irritate Odo. Don't forget, this was a voyage of several days, so even a big room would seem smaller the longer you were confined to it. Maybe. To Nog, even the cockpit would have been a huge space - if you watch when he visits Sisko's office there's a small tumpty or footrest, a solid stool thing for him to sit on at just the right height. Did Sisko place it there specially, knowing the cadet would visit? It makes him look funny, his head at the same level as the table, Sisko leaning back above him in a relaxed, but commanding position. I reckon the Captain bought it for him as a 'welcome back' present, since you can see the very same piece of furniture in Nog and Jake's quarters later on! The whole scene in the Captain's office reminded me of when Nog came to make an official bribe, the thing that started off his whole adventure in going to the Academy, a nice return to that time in the style of the meeting.

You could probably count the number of episodes focusing on Quark and Odo on one hand. Judging by the superbly executed, wholly satisfying display of both their alienness and their strengths that are played up there weren’t enough, and this episode is probably the best argument to support that. It gave them a chance to let their hair down, (literally for Odo, only this time the producers couldn't complain that Auberjonois had done something out of character as he did in 'Crossfire' to evoke some kind of Japanese painting, or something!), to use these people in ways that they'd done before, but not to this extent, and to take advantage of the vast scaffolding of friendships and traits to blow it out of the park - thoughts, feelings, idiosyncrasies, all blended into an engrossing mixture with so many truthful moments. If Quark’s heroic status is ever doubted, this shows what he's made of. If it had been anyone else urging Quark on he might not have summoned the Ferengi tenacity that saves them in the end, even though verbally he's given up. It's the best elements of Seasons 1-4, enmeshed together to create the best material possible. Odo and Quark's antagonism; Jake and Nog's unconventional friendship; a 'Generations' crash onto a tree-lined planet. Yes, 'Generations' is the closest analogy I can get to explaining how I feel watching this episode. It has what that film had, condensed into half the time. A true beauty, a jewel, I wish all could be this amazing - just as 'Descent' proved to be a drop in quality and one of the weaker two-parters of 'TNG,' 'The Ascent' lived up to its name, and soared.

*****