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DVD, DS9 S7 (Afterimage) (2)

A portal has opened up and it takes me back to Season 1 in this first proper episode after the wrap-up of Season 6's finale, the first Ezri Dax episode, and the first in which she meets many of the station's inhabitants for the first time. It even begins the first day after she arrived in the previous episode, so what did she do that day? Was it late and she had to be hustled off to quarters to settle in? Did Jadzia's friends just stare at her as she smiled at them and never said a word? Did they all suddenly recollect important tasks that couldn't wait? It's dramatic licence, because they wouldn't want to miss showing us a new character's initial meeting with the rest of the cast, and we wouldn't want to miss it. The episode is the natural next step for the character after she made her debut with the Siskos, and was a requirement to introduce her to the environment she'd be living in for the rest of the season. It didn't have to be this one, but if she didn't get the preliminaries over with right away we'd be left wondering how the others would react, and after a couple of epic episodes it's good to concentrate on a smaller character story, and who better to take the limelight than the new Dax. Which brings me back to Season 1, which for her, it is the equivalent of, each character having gone through the process of exploring this old Cardassian 'monstrosity,' its nooks and crannies, in a physical and metaphorical sense, to discover where they fit in to this microcosmic society.

Except everyone else has the advantage of several years' head start on young Ezri, and the part of her that is more than familiar with the place, old Dax, is turning her head upside down, literally, at times, with the memories of its past lives overcoming her personal tendencies and preferences to alarming levels. And Captain Sisko thought such a time was ideal for her to stretch her counselling training to the maximum by taking on the worst patient on the station? Just rewind to Season 2's 'The Wire' and recall how venomous and personal plain, simple Garak was when he was under the stricture of the physical, his mind as sharp as a dagger between the mental ribs, with a tongue sharper than a serpent's tooth, and then it was experienced Dr. Bashir dealing with him, a friend who knew him as well as anyone could at that time. To ask Ezri to take on the Cardassian tailor's issues was sending the lamb to the slaughter, or Red Riding Hood to visit the wolf with a basket of twee cookies, hoping he might like one. The resurgent claustrophobia Garak is suffering from isn't so bad that he behaves abominably. Not at first, anyway. He puts up his standard wall of congeniality and apparent helpfulness, seeming to take on board the simplistic pokings of this inexperienced assistant counsellor who pops her hand in the tree trunk to feel around for the honey and never even dreams of the vast swarm of bees that remain concealed, their stings quivering in anticipation. If she wants to take some honey, let her, as long as she goes away.

Ezri is a Starfleet officer, and that means she wants to do her job properly, so one cursory visit isn't going to be enough, as accommodating as Garak appears, ready to take on board her advice. But it doesn't really help him, the underlying problem too severe for some child's prattlings to solve so simply, and even a later visit to a Holosuite, and its ability to display the vastness of an ocean stretching to the horizon, isn't enough to set Garak right. It is only when Ezri starts to bother him, maybe gets too close to the real cause of it all that he turns on her, releasing the bees, the wolf, the bear and every other animal instinct within to carve her ego up like jelly. And you get the sense that when he tells her to get out before he says something unkind, he really means it! The episode is one that doesn't have a lot of strength in its setting, doesn't show DS9 in its glory, nor has any real stakes, except for Ezri's career path, nor do we know her well enough to really care if she stays or runs back to her USS Destiny, at least on the surface level. But it does do the job of making her a sympathy case, because she's so off-balance and childlike that Sisko's request to exercise her training, though harmless at the time, becomes like throwing her to the wolves. He even gets in on the act, instead of being understanding and supportive when she's rattled by her inability to help Garak, the truth of his words cutting deep, the Captain also lays into her saying she's unworthy of the Dax symbiont. His anger is motivated by care, though, and it works, shaming her into going back to Garak to at least apologise that she couldn't help.

That's when things turn around, I sense he's ready to hurl more insults if this is her idea of persistence, but guarded and more interested in keeping his control. And it is this last conversation that proves most helpful and shows Ezri to be a good person that genuinely wants to help. Both Garak's stinging comments and Sisko's equally biting suggestion of running all the way down to the dark symbiont caves on Trill where she can stir mud for the rest of her life, don't do as much for her as helping Garak realise the real reason for his panic attacks: immense guilt that his work decoding Cardassian transmissions, which he was doing to help end the war and save his home, even though it abandoned him, is actually killing his people. He is killing his people. And he's helpless to do anything else against the power the Dominion holds over Cardassia, its future destroyed however the war ends - it will be used to fight the Founders' war until every last Cardassian has been sacrificed, the Dominion wouldn't hesitate to use its ally up to the bitter end of all its resources, people, places, everything. The plaudits must be heaped upon Andrew Robinson for such a towering performance, probably only equalled by his ranting and raving in 'The Wire,' and not since 'In The Pale Moonlight' have we seen his shop play host to such vehement emotion. Which strikes me, was this Sisko's revenge for what Garak turned him into to get the Romulans into the war? Send the new girl over to wind the Cardie up, tweak his chain and get his dresses in a tizzy?

No, Starfleet Intelligence needed the decodes Garak was providing, the reason it was so important for him to keep at it, and the reason the pressure was proving too much. But for the explosion of anguish, this would have very much been an inoffensive, but slightly dull Season 1 episode, with even some of the characters fulfilling those early roles: Sisko's the most obvious. Apart from his temper snapping in the face of Ezri's easy surrender he's quite passive in word and deed. Maybe it's having a Dax on the station again, like old times, or the calm following such stormy days, not to mention the old, familiar problems of station life beckoning to a man that has had far worse to deal with in recent months, but he seems positively happy to be back on DS9. Quark is back to being behind the bar and chatting to the other denizens of the station, and the other characters that have changed so much over the years, don't have as much exposure. I mentioned the nooks and crannies, and Ezri's wandering round the station, seeing its shadows, and symbols of Jadzia's life: coming into Sisko's office by the lesser used side door; popping into the Bajoran Temple where 'she' died; talking to Morn on the upper Promenade; corridors; quarters (we even see a rare view looking in from an external docking port when Garak tries to leave the fast way, probably not seen since 'Empok Nor'!), revisits the places I associate with early episodes when they were working out what the station was and how it fit together, before the larger scale of Quadrant-wide events defocused attention from the ins and outs of internal sets.

The fact she's trying to find her place on the station is another Season 1 facet, seeing how she bounces off the others: Kira, Quark, Bashir, Worf. The episode doesn't have the same kind of history and common ground that it has developed for all the other characters so that when they share scenes there's more going on than words spoken or situations faced. But there is something between them and Ezri, partly because Jadzia is within her, partly because Nicole deBoer was able to get right into it. It's not her fault that it was a difficult time for the writers - though it might have been a breath of fresh air creatively, the legwork still had to be accomplished, getting her to a place where she could contribute to the series, not be a mere press generator to up the interest in the series' seventh season. So some of the episode, I wouldn't say falls flat, but doesn't sparkle, merely occurs, getting Dax to a point she needs to reach. The others had a good few episodes for us to see that, we were exploring the station for the first time with them. This time we're in the know and waiting for her to catch up, but deBoer's performance is engaging, doesn't frustrate or annoy as she goes around putting her foot in it with people. If she fits in awkwardly then she should be told that she's come to the perfect place for misfits - it is their very 'misfittedness' that makes them fit, from Worf, a Klingon who used to have an identity problem, Sisko who didn't want to be at this remote outpost, Kira a former terrorist, Quark a businessman that had no desire to stay at such a forsaken, profitless place, Odo who didn't even know what he was, let alone who…

All these people, and more, have found purpose and position within the bulkheads of an alien structure hanging in space, the disparate finding convergence. The episode could have been better (another Season 1 trait), and it's not quite the uplifting story of finding harmony as two people work together to repair themselves and become productive, dancing or singing into the light over the course of the episode, it isn't as sophisticated or nuanced as that, but it is saved by the power of its ending, and the lead-up to it. Because although it appears to be all about Dax and her quest to regain her footing after the joining by doing those things which are unique to Ezri, it's also about others facing up to their own difficult situations. Garak didn't realise it was guilt that was driving his claustrophobia. Worf goes full thug, slamming Bashir up against the wall of his own Infirmary in his quest to have Ezri blocked out of station life when the Doctor shows her affection. Even Bashir himself is momentarily pained when she insensitively goes round telling people like him how Jadzia felt about them - he would have been 'the one' if Worf hadn't come. She's a bit thoughtless - it's one thing reminiscing with Quark about their nights playing Tongo, and quite another to drop such a bombshell on Bashir. And Sisko doesn't know what to say when she reveals Worf is intimidated by him! Yes, this is the episode, it's such a memorable thing to learn, and I'm surprised it was so late in the series as I'd thought it was earlier we heard this, but Sisko is thoroughly bemused. I feel like it's something Jadzia said.

It could be said that Worf has the toughest challenge to overcome, but then he wouldn't want it any other way, would he? He's a Klingon warrior, no quest is too tough, and the tougher the better. Except when it comes to the personal, and the honour of Jadzia's memory, which has become twisted up inside his head as not allowing anything to do with her, including the symbiont she carried, to have anything to do with the station. I always thought Trill laws prohibited new hosts from taking up where their previous host's life left off. So they shouldn't become friends with those they knew before (though that's demonstrably untrue since Jadzia took on the friendship of Ben from Curzon), don't take on the debts, or any other continuance from that life (though Ezri remembers Quark owes her from their last Tongo game!), and generally don't interact with that past. Yet it is part of her past now, inheriting eight pasts, and it would be impossible for Trill to avoid all contact with previous hosts' friends or family in a normal society so they must have found a way to coexist within the tight rules imposed. The only thing we really learn here is that they aren't allowed to get involved, but they can talk to past husbands or wives, and Ezri desperately needs to talk to Worf. It's just very hard for him to accept something which is, and is not, partly his wife. The disappointment and rejection Ezri has to endure about Worf doesn't help her, and serves to bring her down much harder with the other issues she has to deal with, whereas if he had been accepting she might not have been so ready to flee.

We know that's true because that's exactly what does happen - when Worf 'Klingons up' and visits her quarters to explain himself and admits that Jadzia would have wanted him to treat her better and to stay if she wishes. We'd already had a wringing, affecting pull on the tear lever from Garak's flying off the handle, and this, in its quiet way is almost as powerful. Worf is a man of few words, preferring deeds to speak for him, but words are needed, so he does what the honourable must do and lives up to his code. What makes the episode, though, is that he also performs in deed, there at Ezri's party for her promotion to Lieutenant, seeing eye to eye across the crowded room and raising a flagon to her, even after he's said it will not be easy to be around her for a while and that he needs space, so I didn't think he'd be there, the last place he would feel comfortable. But he does it anyway, and when Trek is at its best is when characters are demonstrating self-sacrifice. Only Worf could make the final piece of her puzzle of where to be and what to do, fit, and he graciously did to the betterment of the station, a better man than most. The party is also the opportunity for the others to show their appreciation and acceptance when they too have had an effort to adjust, with Odo and Kira inviting her round for dinner and that sort of thing. While the majority of the episode's direction didn't stand out to me, the elegant choreography of all those people coming up to Ezri at the party in one continuous shot gliding around, was one scene that did!

As much as I'd have preferred an episode that came in firing on all cylinders, really getting into the meat of Ezri on the station, working every situation to the best dramatic advantage, and foregoing a pedestrian mind mangle in favour of more direct problems and solutions, I can't deny that the resolution provided through Garak and Worf, if not completes her arc, at least wedges her firmly onto the series, ready to be used. And she did get use, overuse if truth be told, in the same way Worf had so much to do when he joined in Season 4, or when Seven of Nine did the same on 'Voyager,' only natural for a new character to be given the most time, even to the detriment of other characters, though they would have been used to sharing the screen time thanks to so many recurring characters being bolstered into the ranks of almost regular cast members. That's another thing: there weren't to be many more episodes featuring Garak, this is probably the last that could be said to be one focused so firmly upon him, so it is disappointing that it wasn't another great spy story with Bashir, or something which allowed us to see his skills in practical use again, rather than an object for Ezri to find her confidence through. But no series is perfect, though there are few things I could complain about in this final season, and it's far from the last time he'd be heavily involved in the unfolding saga.

If I wouldn't complain about them, then I can at least point out some inconsistent items on the agenda. I've never understood the need for people to go into the Holodeck wearing the costumes they'll be playing in - it happened all the time on 'TNG' and the others, either they'd show up in costume, or leave like that (Picard in 'Generations' probably the most fun, in full naval uniform marching onto the Bridge having been called away!). From a technical perspective there's no issue, they aren't holographic outfits, but why not wear a holographic skin over your uniform? Or why not create a pattern that the Replicator can beam into being, and why ask Garak to make them for you? Was it just O'Brien and Bashir wanting to give him some work in these difficult times for business, or do they prefer the accuracy and beauty of a real tailor's work to the mechanical manufacture of clothing through the computer - that's a point, could it be that even in the 24th Century skill in design and craft is something that can't be equalled by a computer and needs a living hand to work its genius? Maybe connoisseurs of holographic entertainment prefer the reality of homemade garments, and since they don't use money they don't need to worry about paying people like Garak… But he must be reimbursed somehow.

It can only be authenticity, and while on that subject, what about Sisko's point to Starfleet questioning what Ezri could learn to bump her up to a full counsellor and a Lieutenant, that she doesn't already know from three hundred years? It works, they 'fell' for it, but how do other Trill in Starfleet or other organisations use this advantage? Are all Trills allowed to skip through the ranks because of being joined? Wouldn't that have created exactly the bartering system the Trill were trying to avoid in the first place when they maintained the false notion that only a select few could ever be joined successfully? Seen in that light such a wangle from Sisko seems to have far-reaching consequences, unless of course it had all been worked out before in other cases, and it was more a case of pleasing a successful Captain than listening to his logic. And still in the vein of authenticity, Worf says a part of him is glad that Jadzia isn't gone forever, living on through Ezri, but what about the whole battle to get her into Sto-Vo-Kor, doesn't he have faith that he will see her there, or is he merely referring to temporal remains? Regardless of such things, overall, this becomes a better episode than it seems to be through much of it, and an essential introduction for the new character.

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