The Sound of Her Voice

DVD, DS9 S6 (The Sound of Her Voice) (2)

A golden opportunity was missed with this one - not in the story, with it's sci-fi portions, or in any other respect, just in terms of Jadzia Dax and how little she was used. I know in spirit Terry Farrell had left, off out auditioning and basically unavailable (at least Colm Meaney's back into the regular category now), but I wish they'd been more forceful in keeping her to the eleventh hour for these last few episodes. She had a b-story in previous episode 'Time's Orphan,' but, this being her penultimate appearance, I felt she really should have been a major part of it. They could have halved or cut Bashir's conversations with Lisa to allow Dax to talk, relaying all her hopes for the future to this woman, making it all the more tragic that both women were effectively dead: Lisa in real terms, Dax in the short term. This would have been a real gut-punch, especially to people re-watching the series, knowing her end was coming. Not that I have anything against Julian, it's just his chats were more about his brilliance, or Lisa teasing him about it (one of the best moments of the episode is when she pretends to be attacked by some creature, even used seriously as a pre-ad break cliffhanger, then talks in a troll's voice, pretending it's eaten her, just to get the Doctor's attention - that's the kind of person she is!). Keeping a woman conscious and alive by talking to her makes for a perfect dramatic framing device and turns the episode into one of the 'DS9' stage plays. I could genuinely imagine this as a play, as it's mostly people in rooms, talking. If, as Q says, the real exploration is within, then this is the perfect Trek episode, because it affords us the chance to see beyond the outer personas of these people, into their inner psyches.

Captain Lisa Cusak can get at the heart of these people thanks to her incredibly open and yet sharp mind, mischievous sense of humour, and general ability to keep her and everyone else's spirits up. And because she's a stranger, a disembodied voice, with no prior connection, even out of the circle of current events for the last eight years (or more…), it gives her licence to ask difficult questions without fear of causing offence. It's most noticeable in her interactions with Sisko, Captain to Captain, who has a hard time admitting that Kasidy Yates' presence aboard the Defiant is unsettling for him, Lisa telling him it's because it's uncomfortable mixing home life with his job. In a way, he does that all the time, as Commander of a station always on duty. But a station also tends to be quieter than a starship, and with Kasidy a roving Freighter Captain she's not always around. Is it commitment he's wary of, too? Having lost his first wife in the Borg attack perhaps he's subconsciously unaware that he wants to keep Kasidy away from him and the midst of danger in time of war. This is pure speculation and I'm travelling a little deeper into the ideas than they did, but it's clear that for Sisko, at least, work and home don't mix. We've seen him a little disconcerted before, such as when he's had dealings with Kasidy in an official capacity - unfortunately it was one of those times she let him down, by turning out to be working, distantly, for the Maquis. So his discomfort has basis in more than the personal. It's also the fact that she can undermine his authority because in their personal life they're equals.

He doesn't give Kasidy enough credit, however. She wouldn't undermine his authority, but it must be a little difficult for her, too, as she probably feels as if she's beginning to have to walk on eggshells. It probably started out fine when they were first on the convoy mission, Kasidy's role as liaison between the freighters and the Defiant the reason she's there now as they head home. But it was a long mission and everyone's tired, so the barriers have come down and Sisko isn't doing such a good job of keeping his personal feelings to himself. Not that he's ever been a Vulcan, anyway! I like the whole idea of having Sisko forced to work with Kasidy on his ship, but I would have liked things to go a bit further, perhaps get heated like in 'The Ship' when everyone's bubbling up with sarcasm and irritation. It might not have been so cosy to watch, but we never see things get out of hand, Kasidy upset only in a quiet way, restrained way, as seen when Sisko goes over to her at the wake. Then she's free to show her body language against Sisko, not constrained by trying to help him do a good job and or keep out of his way. Actually, it's good that things didn't get heated aboard ship as Kasidy was always a fiery personality and if she'd been more selfish she could have caused problems for Ben by acting up and not being professional about it all. But that's why we like her, she really does care about Sisko.

Not that Sisko is really constrained. While he has Kasidy in the back of his mind all through the mission, he demonstrates the kind of decision-making that a Captain must make when the rescue is endangered by lack of speed. The Defiant won't get there in time to save Lisa, O'Brien saying it will shake itself apart above Warp 9 (I wanted Sisko to shout, "Then fly her apart!" a la Sulu in 'Star Trek VI'!), unless they drain the phaser reserves to use that power to hold her together. Worf strongly advises against making the ship vulnerable in case they come up against Jem'Hadar, even though the odds are remote, and Sisko must make his choice. He chooses to take the risk in order to save Lisa and it pays off, or it would have if not for the cruel sting in the tale. It's not really a cruel twist, it's a melancholy realisation that they couldn't have saved her no matter what, because she actually died three years before: classic sci-fi. We've grown to care about this woman with her strong and vibrant character, a tribute to the writers for crafting such a strong personality devoid of physical characteristics, and for she's allowing us to know our characters even better, so it's fitting that Sisko refuses to bury her in a cave on an alien world, far from home, in favour of taking her back for burial among the new friends she's made. The mission wasn't futile, as while they were racing to get to her, they were also talking all the while, getting to know her, baring their souls. She gave them something they might never have had, and in return her last hours were shared in good company. She was privileged to hear of a future she'd never see, but most importantly she didn't die alone and forgotten, and in that short time developed friendships and left people to mourn her.

When you think about it there must be other starships out there that get lost and are never heard from again. As in previous centuries on Earth's seas, the vast ocean of space is full of unknown dangers, and yet the spirit of exploration is at the heart of Trek, what it's all about. There must be other starships going off on long missions - the USS Olympia would have been lost with all hands and without trace if not for the Defiant stumbling upon the signal. But for all the sadness of Lisa's predicament she died in blissful ignorance of the hopelessness of the situation, keeping that hope burning even though it seemed the rescue would be tight - did they factor in the energy barrier surrounding the planet? It was all well and good rushing to the rescue, but if they'd warped up on time and then had nothing left to play with to work out a way through, it would have been all for naught. I wonder if their experiences in 'Children of Time' helped in some way. Initially they didn't know about the barrier sending the signals from the past, but after the truth was known it must have resonated with that previous experience where another energy barrier caused time travel, the Defiant crashing into the past to spawn a colony of descendants. This one is probably the slightest time travel in the history of Trek, with only three years and only audio transmissions travelling, but it's no less effective for that.

The attention to detail is, as ever, very good, with the remains of Captain Cusak covered by a Starfleet uniform from the 'TNG' era (though I couldn't tell if it was the Season 1 'go faster stripes' version!), since her ship set out on its eight year mission eleven years before the episode, which would put it one year before the Enterprise-D began its own. I could see a TV series set aboard the USS Olympia, especially with such a well-written and fun character in command as Lisa, and it would be fascinating to delve into the Beta Quadrant, ironically the least-mentioned part of our Galaxy, even though both the Klingons and Romulans are supposed to have territory within it. It could make for an interesting series, not as 'far' as the Gamma or Delta Quadrants, close enough for Starfleet to be sending ships there, but still years from home, with no chance to pop back to Earth if they were having problems with story ideas!Another episode this reminds me of is last season's 'In The Cards,' in which Jake and Nog inadvertently end up giving joy to everyone after the war has been getting them all down. There's a similar morose exhaustion in this episode, and again all it takes is one person to give a different perspective, take people out of themselves, and for that they were always going to be grateful to Lisa.

Both stories in this episode aren't what they seem. Lisa isn't actually alive, and Quark doesn't actually beat Odo, but it's a surprising glimpse of the true friendship between Quark and Odo - even though they aren't on the mission to rescue Lisa they also show a side of themselves that we don't tend to see: Odo's sense of justice allows him to bend the rules and allow Quark to get away with a profitable crime, and Quark has Jake to confide in about how much he feels Odo owes him for the understanding and advice that helped him win Kira. It was a fun pairing to have Jake in on one of the Ferengi's schemes, explained by the fact that Jake needs inspiration for a crime novel he's writing and comes to Quark to get it - he couldn't have a better teacher! It's great to see Jake and Quark in a story full stop, albeit a b-story, as they were both characters that had got a little lost in the shuffle during the war, to one extent or another. Once again we see the irony of Nog, Mr. Starfleet, having been the one to aspire and reach for that, while Jake is the one of the pair to end up hanging around Quark's Bar learning from his friend's uncle, the master of nefariousness. It's just one of those delightful turnarounds the series was so good at, and because it's a station-bound story with no relevance to the war, it feels like a Season 1 or 2 tale, and I like that they could still do that in spite of the 'big events' all around. They were important, but they could also play a part as backdrop to our characters, it wasn't the other way around, with the characters at the mercy of the overarching story as so many serialised narratives are.

Odo is the kind of man that takes justice into his own hands, regardless of the law. And for once he agreed with Quark that he owed him for helping him to achieve happiness in his life. He wouldn't have gone along with it if it had been a directly dangerous or damaging crime, but because it's just Quark earning illegal profit he lets it go. He sees how Quark really feels for once, as the Ferengi talks of how he listened to and advised Odo even when Kira had Shakaar (he could be referring to 'Crossfire'). Kira's in on it, too, though Odo keeps the truth about how he came to the idea of celebrating their first dinner together, to himself. A wise man! They both look down on Quark from on high, like the ancient gods of Greece, observing the mere mortals as we see Quark excitedly go off to claim his fortune, and it turns into a compliment from Kira about how she keeps finding out new things about Odo, so everyone was a winner. I'd have liked to have seen the Nausicaan business partner on the station, as we don't see them often, and I wonder if the viewscreen conversation was stock footage, as the Nausicaan doesn't say anything, but seeing Quark go off triumphantly was a good way to end his story. This Nausicaan must be more intelligent than most members of the race we've seen, as he changes his comm signature as soon as Quark's ended the message. My first thought about this guy coming to the station with Odo on duty would be Quark fearing for his life, as the Nausicaan might think he'd been crossed, but instead, Quark just thinks of Odo arresting him.

We see a good deal of the Defiant on this mission. Some areas are well known, like Engineering, Crew Quarters, the Mess Hall and the Bridge. But we also see what could be Bashir's Sickbay, or perhaps a side office from it (they've obviously done some redecorating since the ship first came to DS9 as originally it barely even had a Sickbay), following last episode when we also saw Sickbay. We're given the barest of glimpses of the Shuttlepod Bay as Shuttlepod Chaffee (not named in the episode), exits the Defiant from beneath in exactly the same way as they went on to launch Shuttlepods from the NX-01 in 'Enterprise,' so there's some degree of connection once again (I've always felt that series had the most links to 'DS9,' though not in quality, and it's a shame the 'DS9' writers hadn't been in control of it). I'm not certain, but Sisko's mention of a Shuttlepod, may be the only reference to them on Trek prior to 'Enterprise.' I love the design of the tiny vessel, it's engines matching the style of its mothership. It's so cramped inside that we don't get a good view of the cockpit at all, the camera forced up against the three officers' faces, with no room to manoeuvre. Maybe they didn't even build any consoles and just had the actors sit in a shell? The only time I can remember the 'pod being used before was when we first met the Defiant in 'The Search,' Odo taking the unconscious Kira aboard to escape, but that could have been an escape pod…

The Defiant may not be quite as cramped as the Shuttlepod, but I love how the sense of isolation that O'Brien speaks of is emphasised by the camera pulling away from him in the confined space of his quarters. It wasn't all doom and gloom, though, Lisa bringing some light into their lives - I especially enjoyed their views correlating on Counsellors aboard starships, both having doubts as to their validity, even though O'Brien admits to liking some of them personally (I wanted him to mention Deanna Troi by name!). It's a pertinent topic as they'd soon be getting one on the station (or a new one if they'd already had one before). On the other hand, if O'Brien had talked to a counsellor he might not have become unable to talk about losing his friends to them. It sounds like he'd agreed to talk to one by the end of their conversation, but it could be that he meant he'd open up to his friends. Either way, that became redundant when they discover Lisa's death, and the Chief had his opportunity to speak openly and honestly in front of his friends. The Irish wake was a lovely scene, but it's always sad to see the camera linger on Dax and Worf as O'Brien talks of a day when they may lose one of the people in this circle and that the others shouldn't have to mourn alone. Worf's comment about the wake being almost Klingon gave me another flashback to 'The Ship' where he and O'Brien overcome their differences by watching over Muniz' coffin on the journey home. It's good to see the tradition of using a torpedo casing as coffin, (first begun for Spock in 'Star Trek II'), continue, but sad that it would be used again all too soon.

Some oddities stood out in the episode, such as why Sisko moved his coffee cup towards Kasidy when he's called to the bridge? Was it for her to finish, as I suspect, or did he want her to put it in the Replicator for him, a sign he's domesticated her? I'm sure it was the first, but it wasn't clear from the scene so you can get both readings from it! I also thought it strange that in all the years Worf's known the Chief, both on the Enterprise and the station, he's never been to an Irish wake and knows nothing about it, but when you think about all those people they must have memorialised over the years, especially for so many under him he'd have known as Chief of Security, it seems amazing the Chief never got Worf along to one. I also felt it was amazing that with all these conversations covering both personal and galactic, no one ever mentioned the date, or any date that would cause Lisa to question why it didn't add up. And was there no record of when the USS Olympia launched its mission? I'd have thought that details about her and her ship would be the first things they'd check up on! I enjoyed the reference to tri-ox, which had been used as far back as 'TOS' (McCoy gave Kirk a shot for the atmosphere of Vulcan, for example), but it also made me think that if the air is thin and she needs this tri-ox, maybe talking so much wasn't very helpful as it would deplete her oxygen much quicker. Still, it wouldn't have made it last three years, so it didn't make any difference, and the episode would have been very different if she hadn't been conversing with them!

The cave set in which they find Lisa once again displays the ingenuity of the Trek production staff. It's just the same old rocky set they'd always used, but this time we have a rainstorm beating down into it, which I'm sure wasn't an easy effect to achieve, especially at this point in the season when you're working on your penultimate episode. I'm always amazed how they could re-imagine such a standard layout to create such different effects. I also enjoy hearing about classes of planet, this example being a Class-L, a type we've seen before (in 'The Ascent' Odo and Quark crashed on this type of planet). Other enjoyable things included another Trek reference with Lisa mentioning an Andorian whose antennae used to follow her around the room on Andor (she definitely says Andor, not Andoria, so perhaps that's the older designation?), Odo and Kira dressing up in period 1920s French garb, Kasidy complaining about the paperwork (she makes Starfleet sound a lot less fun!), and Morn being spun round on a barstool to prove how safe they are to a sceptical Odo. I can't say I really noticed that the usual stools all had backs to them, but there are such layers of detail to this series, it's unbelievable. The effects work, from Odo reforming out of a couple of barrels having spied on Quark in the Cargo Bay, to the Shuttlepod passing through the energy barrier, are all particularly slick, and the episode doesn't put a foot wrong in its production.

I thought it strange how Sisko just jumps straight into conversation with Lisa once he's decided they're all going to keep her company in that way, in the middle of Engineering with everyone else standing around him. I suppose he didn't know how personal Lisa was going to get at that point… I'd have liked to have seen the scene where Sisko explains over dinner how he can't work with Kasidy around! I wonder how well she took it, or whether she'd already suspected it enough to have accepted the situation, as evidenced by her question to O'Brien over whether he minds her presence. It's not often we see a civilian coordinating with a starship, let alone serving aboard it, so Kasidy was walking in an unknown world, even though she's a Captain herself, and could probably imagine what it would be like if she had to have Sisko on her ship while she was commanding - that might have made for an interesting mirror to hold up in another episode. Something else I wondered at was people referring to Saturday and Sunday. It could just be the Universal Translator doing its work, and they were actually saying something completely different, or perhaps the Federation standard week is comprised of the Earth standard week, and everyone follows that. I don't recall us ever hearing of the Bajoran terms for the different days, or even if they have the same number of days, what with their twenty-six hour clock.

At the end, as they all toast Lisa, it feels like the ripple of the final curtain to come for them all - how they'd all be going their separate ways by the end of the series. Here, they take time to celebrate their friendship, and even though it was probably more a ripple for the season finale it still has a further resonance of the absolute conclusion, just as in the previous episode O'Brien says he'll get a transfer rather than be parted from his family again - the inklings of the dissolution of the series and its characters, 'a generation's final journey begins,' to steal the last tag line of a 'TNG' production. I strongly credit Rick Kolbe, who did an excellent job directing the episode, totally getting what was required for such a sensitive, talky piece. I wonder if Kira and Odo should have been at the wake, though? Dax never showed herself on the Defiant and she's in full attendance (even if she would never be one to miss a party), so we must assume she spoke to Lisa (unless she was simply accompanying her husband, Worf). But Odo and Kira definitely weren't aboard the Defiant, so they never encountered Captain Cusak, but the way the group is talking it feels like all the main cast should be together for that moment. Except they had their own celebration to hold, and it wasn't really necessary for everyone to be at the event, it was just the sentiments that made it more than just a memorial for one Starfleet officer, but a casting out of the series as a whole, a gauge or reminder, a signpost to the end, and it feels strange that not everyone is present.

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