Shadows and Symbols

DVD, DS9 S7 (Shadows and Symbols) (2)

Three wise men crossing the desert with one confused woman, that's an image in the sand if ever there was one, especially when it turns out the most confused of all is actually the leader, Captain Benjamin Sisko, striding out purposefully with no real idea of where he's going. It could have been the sensible course of action, a commander has to appear to know what he's doing, even if he doesn't - like Joseph said in the previous episode, you make your choice and hope it's the right one. Perhaps it was faith that The Prophets would guide him to their destiny. It may even have been that the good Captain was moving on autopilot - ever since Ezri came into the Sisko restaurant he'd had a happy, almost dreamy good humour, as if his wish for Dax to be there to help him had come true, and if The Prophets had granted even such an impossible wish as that, they really must know what they're doing. But he becomes more and more internalised, forgetting his son and old Father trailing behind (though Joseph does his best to keep up, intent on helping his son in his strange quest, to the utmost that his failing old body can manage), and becomes intently focused forward, like a man in a trance seeing sugarplums dance. Focus was the necessary component missing before this mission came to him, he had no obvious direction or solution, so now that he has a definite goal to achieve it suits his personality. Sisko has always been somebody that does; a doer; one who has something to do, Prophet Sarah confirming this.

Ezri's arrival (previously assigned to the USS Destiny, we learn, a ship she ended up commanding in a non-canon book trilogy), whether the influence of The Prophets or a happy accident, is a catalyst back to a semblance of normality for both her and Ben. He could very easily have rejected her, this Dax that comes so unexpectedly into his life, as Worf does at the end of the episode, storming off in dismay - the Captain has a mission to accomplish of vital importance and doesn't need to rake over the ashes of a friendship he'd thought dead, a failure to protect his dear friend, and her face could be a reminder of all that went wrong. Likewise for Ezri, Sisko was the previous host's greatest friend, and at this time of turmoil, a flood of confusion from the many different voices swamping her personality, his strong, solid frame of reference was exactly what she needed to become grounded, and what better for both of them than to set off on a mission together, assisting each other in work as they always used to do. Ezri is immediately likeable (and that baseball throwing arm would be an asset a couple of episodes down the road!), an achievement in itself because it could have been hard to accept her, as a viewer, replacing as she did one of the best-loved characters of the series. I think this is where Sisko's immediate acceptance of her, greeting her so warmly, helps us to allow her presence on the series: if it's good enough for the star of the show…

It's also as if Jadzia hadn't quite left, with Worf's very personal mission of honouring her memory through the completion of a difficult and dangerous mission in her name, a hearty reminder of her big-hearted place on the station and among these people. O'Brien and Bashir going along to pay their own respects says a lot, but not more than Quark himself taking his place among the valiant. Quark the bartender. Quark the profiteer. Quark the good Ferengi that cares only for himself. As we've seen over the course of the series, he isn't such a good Ferengi as he'd like to think, and in the eyes of the Starfleet people that's a credit to him. That he would risk his life, even with all the constant complaining and irritating everyone around him, perhaps to keep reminding himself he is a traditional Ferengi, shows how much Jadzia meant to him, and also how brave he can be when the need arises. I think it was as much to show the Klingons and Starfleeters what a Ferengi is capable of as it was to settle some kind of debt to the memory of the much-loved Dax. In typical style for the 'DS9' writers, it wasn't enough for him to simply be there, he had to play a role, and as unexpected as it was, his needling and niggling at Worf is what provokes truth to the surface, prompting the angry Klingon to blaze at Quark and the others about being grateful to him for allowing them to come, and that he loved Jadzia more than any of them and would have liked to complete the mission for her alone. With Martok's wise words he actually apologises for his outburst and accepts them as the great friends Dax thought them, a surprise, and a moving moment to hear an apology from Worf! None of which would have been worked out if Quark hadn't been there to get under his skin.

While 'Image In The Sand' was… I don't want to say muddled or disparate, but compared to this episode, that's almost how it seems now, with only the brief return to Weyoun and Damar as extraneous (now Damar's mixing women with his drinking, taking another step down in his colleague's estimation), but even that was tied into the Klingon raid, the Monac shipyards discussed as needing to crank out ships faster. Because this is, or becomes, tight as a drum before the end, the A, B, and C-plots (though all of equal stature, so more like A1, A2, A3-plots), three defined through-lines, had already been separated out and set up for resolution in Part I, so we begin the episode with no distractions or diversions (unless you count Odo and Kira cosying up, which still feels odd when you remember how spiky both used to be), and we see an artistry at work as three distinctly separate stories become, not intertwined, but solidly merged, all building to a crescendo at the same moment: the attack by the Rotarran on the shipyards; the standoff between Kira's flotilla and a fleet of heavily armed, powerful Romulan Warbirds; and Sisko coming under the devious diversions of The Pah-Wraiths in his moment of destiny. The Klingon attack shares no connection with the other two story-lines, but it plays out with the same momentum so as to enhance the jeopardy and rising stakes, where everything has to appear to be about to fall off a cliff before turning around at the last moment and soaring in wondrous flight, all three angles converging in Sisko's triumphal return to the station.

I expect an episode like this could be taught in film school because it is expertly woven together, and though there were minor additions I could make to improve tiny aspects of it here and there, the boldness of the storytelling is refreshing, and the structure brilliantly formed. It works because all three of the most important characters have their individual challenge - the 'DS9' videos from CIC in the 90s changed their design for the sleeves when they came to release Season 7, putting Sisko, Kira and Worf permanently on the front cover where before it would be a different character (or object, occasionally), for each video. It seemed a strange choice at the time, especially as it remained those three characters rather than mingling others in the mix. Now I can see it was a business decision: the videos were more likely to appeal if the most popular, or well-known characters, were on the front. But I also see that they could well have been influenced by this opening two-parter, since it really is each one of Captain Sisko, Colonel Kira and Commander Worf that have their personal battles to face. Interestingly, for Worf I would say his was not the obvious, the threat to his life in battle against Jem'Hadar ships, because that's his bread and butter, it makes him sing, it's what he was born for. No, his challenge is admitting, first to himself, then to Jadzia's friends, that he was jealous of those friendships and wanted her all to himself, sealing the rift and truly being an honourable Klingon.

For Kira, it was about how far she was going to carry her bluff in the face of ridiculous odds, her small Bajoran fleet outmatched many times over by the superior Romulan vessels. I knew as soon as Admiral Ross told her it was a fight she couldn't win, that that would only fire her determination. Bajorans had been fighting a war they couldn't win for decades before the Federation came along, that's what they're good at, that's what Kira knows, and it's good to see she hadn't lost her edge, because it's exactly the sort of thing you would have expected from Major Kira in the first few seasons when she was a lot more liable to fly off the handle - why, in the pilot, 'Emissary,' she bluffed the Cardassians in much the same way, firing all the torpedoes the station had, as warning shots in the hope that the enemy would think their intelligence was incorrect about how well-armed the station was! She may have become more of an administrator with less time at the coalface of combat, Sisko or Worf tending to take that role, but she hadn't lost her abilities, certainly hadn't grown soft, and with the added encouragement of Odo at her side, she faced down the green devils as they took up position on the viewscreen, and stood her ground.

Seeing her in command of a ship is great in itself, especially a Bajoran one, as we see so few of them in the series, and I don't think we'd ever had a Bajoran Bridge before. I do wonder what the mood was amongst the Bajoran militia serving under her, the ship she's on remaining calm and almost detached. I couldn't help feel that maybe the young helmsman, or whatever he was, should show some jitters, maybe some of the Captains of the other ships should have contacted her on a secret channel and showed signs that the little fleet was on the verge of breaking up in the face of such impossible odds, some sense of the rising tension within the ranks. Not to say that Nana Visitor doesn't control the dial on the tension with her performance, because she does, with even Odo close to becoming a naysayer behind her, as the danger reaches critical he interjects more and more that it might be time to back down, and how far is she going to take it, not in accusatory tone or trying to influence her to give up, but as a warning. He's like a ship's computer when it reports that shields are down to 40%, now 20%, now 5%… He was a support, but he didn't want to see her die, though the impression is he was with her to the end, whatever happened, a true friend. Actually, the Bajorans too, acted with distinction, never questioning Kira's orders or showing a sign of fear, acquitting themselves with honour. It was their job, they are soldiers after all, but never once was there an indication of no confidence in the Colonel's brazen tactics, when the Romulans could have swatted them away like flies.

Knowing the extreme nature of the Romulans, much like the Bajorans' historical foe, the Cardassians, while they could probably have disabled all the Bajoran ships and gone on their way to Derna, they were far more likely to have been ruthlessly efficient in eliminating the threat entirely. It would have been an end of the alliance against the Dominion because I can't imagine the Federation would have stood by and allowed the Romulans to massacre their ally, and so it would most likely have become an uneasy truce to avoid war between them, they'd have parted ways to pursue victory against the Dominion separately, their interests sometimes coming into conflict and the Founders picking off each side as they had been doing before. So Kira's last stand could have spelt absolute destruction for the Alpha Quadrant. Is it right to risk that much for so little? The trouble is, if the Bajorans had backed down this time they'd have lost their planetary pride, they would have sunk back to the days of the Occupation and have shown that they could be bullied, weakening their status and their standing. Because they aren't a Federation world, they stand alone (as Sisko told them to in Season 5, a choice that saved them from annihilation when the Dominion took over the station at the end of that season), and have the autonomy to decide what can and can't happen in their space. Ross must have eventually recognised what he was dealing with, his qualms about allowing the Romulans to pull such a stunt against Bajor causing him to back her play and save the day, massacre avoided at only the cost of some severely rumpled Romulan feathers, a very acceptable bargain, considering they must have known how far they were pushing it in terms of their alliance with a historic enemy, the Federation.

Kira has to convince others that she means what she says, but Sisko goes through a more ambiguous trial, having to make a difficult choice about what is reality on the desert world of Tyree. It was almost too good to be true that we got a mini sequel within the episode to one of the greatest 'DS9,' and indeed, all of Trek, stories ever told, when he returns to the character he experienced from the previous season's 'Far Beyond The Stars' again, in the world of Benny Russell. It is this, above all the action and visuals, character interactions and developments, that puts it over the top as a great story. It's unexpected, just as the reality of Dax returning in some form, but it's real. This time, rather than being a vision from The Prophets, it's a false vision sent by The Pah-Wraiths to prevent his opening the Orb of The Emissary and releasing the one he knows as Sarah into the Wormhole where she can set things right and cast out the evil of the Kosst Amojan. Having one of the few actors play a role in this world, that didn't appear in the original episode, is icing on the cake, Casey Biggs the one to get out from under makeup this time, his Damar mask off to play Dr. Wykoff at some kind of mental hospital where Benny has been continuing to write his stories of DS9 and Captain Sisko up until the point he's about to open the Orb. Denied paper, he's nevertheless written all over the walls of the isolation ward (I wonder how long it took production assistants to write all that!), but is given a chance to go free if he paints over it all. It's a stunning moment as the urge to give it all up is strong, but somehow he chooses to keep writing the story, thus giving Sisko permission to open the Orb, fulfilling the plan of The Prophets.

To someone coming in and not knowing who Benny Russell is it would seem a bizarre departure, but again, it all makes sense in the context of the story and the series, with every nuance they could add pulling together the wider 'DS9' history (poor Jake has bad experiences with non-corporeal entities since Onaya sucked the life out of him in 'Muse,' he was host to a Pah-Wraith in 'The Reckoning,' and now he gets thrown on his head by touching the Prophets' Orb!), or the even wider Trek lore, to be used at their leisure and for the furthering of a grand story. And it is grand, played out with Klingon, Romulan, Bajoran and Federation ships, the scale audacious and the use of all the elements so well constructed that an illusion of events that seem Quadrant-wide is upheld as never before in previous Treks, a huge scale presented down to an intimate level. It's not about vast battle fleets, they are merely the backdrop to personal drama, they provide the spectacle, but aren't the theme or the end goal. It's not a 'ride' as so many films are, including the Kelvin Timeline series of the last nine years, a journey, yes, but not a spectacular, effects-driven ride designed to exhilarate. Trek is meant to be thoughtful and show a positive future where people overcome, and that is exactly what Sisko, Kira and Worf accomplish, while allowing the continuation of past story threads and the dangling, loose ones leaving us excited to see the resolution: what further tasks does Sisko have to do, and is Sarah talking about the tomorrow of the series, beyond the tomorrow, or maybe even yesteryear…

As strong as the story is amid all these big moments, the height of it all comes at the very end after all the excitement of completing the tasks and setting right what was wrong: the victorious Klingon battle is won, the standoff has been successful, and The Prophets are no longer silent. It's the return to the station for the Captain and Ezri that fulfils the promise of the first two episodes, Sisko greeted with open arms and welcomed with tears of gratitude from the Bajorans. But even this isn't the best moment. That comes right at the end when Ezri breezes past all Jadzia's old friends, carried along in the procession and the joy of the moment, nonchalantly greeting them without really thinking, lost in seeing the station through new eyes, a place both alien and familiar to her, then she suddenly realises where she is and who these people are, turns and looks back lovingly at this group that means so much to her, and smiles, the episode closing on that look, a warm flourish to end with. It leaves the questions hanging of how she'll integrate into station life, the awkwardness of meeting old friends for the first time, the dichotomy of all this both impossibly old and new, and just rests on that moment ready to take up the issues in the next episode.

Ezri's addition to the cast was both a shot in the arm for the writers, a new toy to play with, when they could easily have done with one less character on the series - just look at how many recurring cast had become staples, they really weren't in need of someone new, but they made the addition, and for the most part it worked out well. I do sometimes wonder what great stories the other main cast members might have had, since she tended to garner a greater share of the story time, and so in that respect she was something of an intruder. But then so was Worf when he was introduced in Season 4, and he went on to be one of the best characters on the series, an improvement on the development he'd already had in 'TNG.' It wasn't Nicole deBoer's fault that the series didn't run for another two or three seasons, and she made her character likeable and different from what we'd seen before. For a start we get every previous host mentioned as she's finding it hard to judge what are her own preferences or the influence of the symbiont's experiences through the other hosts, and that's an interesting approach. It both reminds us of the biggest secret of Trill society, and also shows what can go wrong if someone hasn't had any training or preparation. In Season 3 we learned that there are many more Trill that could be joined than the authorities admit, because there wouldn't be enough symbionts to go round and they'd become commodities to be bartered with and abused. At the same time, the joining is a difficult process and Ezri wasn't ready, a case of necessity to save the symbiont, a ripe topic to explore.

It seems harsh of Worf to react in such an angry way, refusing to believe that a Dax would return to the station, storming off as soon as it becomes known who she is. But I can understand his position perfectly - they've just been in the midst of battle for the memory of Jadzia, and after all they've gone through, they return home to an imposter, or someone that is writing over the memory of his beloved. There's a reason past hosts aren't supposed to track down and be friends with those they knew from former lives, because it causes much confusion over identity. Ezri needed Sisko in this turbulent time of transition into a new way of being, but that doesn't stop it from being unfair and hard on Worf who always found change hard to accept anyway. That everyone is so instantly curious and bemused by it all must have been tough for his set ways, as if his mindset was being attacked. There had to be some kind of negative connotation to Ezri's appearance, otherwise she'd have nothing to overcome (aside from her internal identity crisis), but it was far too soon for Worf to be able to accept such a massive and intrusive betrayal of the order of his world.

If there was something missing from the episode, it's a final scene between Sisko and his Dad, as this is the final appearance of Brock Peters on the series, much of which he spends trying to keep up through soft, yielding sand that makes climbing uphill more difficult than ever, and he is an old man, going off for his nap during the journey on the Runabout (handy to be able to beam up at any time if you get too tired - that's my kind of hike!), to remind us that even in the 24th Century, old people are old. It could be that the beautifully designed Starfleet desert gear was intended to mask Peters so a stunt double could do most of the sand dune climbing, the hoods kept up most of the time. But they are superbly designed with just a ribbon of colour to denote the wearer's division, and smart, comfortable white walking boots that match the coolness of the underclothes and hood. I don't believe we'd ever seen the like before, and I'm pretty sure they weren't used again, so the episode was happy to spend money! When Sisko is at first digging up the Orb, then burying it again in the grip of the false vision, the sand really wasn't helping him, so soft that he was barely able to make a hole, especially with the small spade he was using. I like that the episode distinguishes between true and false visions, because it would be all too easy to either dismiss such things entirely (as would be the general Trek way), or suggest that all such mystical experiences are good. Instead it gives the impression that such things must be weighed and considered, questioned to validate them because the alternative of following every impression or feeling that comes along could be disastrous!

With this being Joseph's last episode, it was also the last we'd see of his restaurant, though the final time we go there is in the vision of Sisko as he speaks with his 'Mother,' the Prophet he calls Sarah after the woman she inhabited. And that's exactly what we find out: that his birth was ensured by The Prophets for the very purpose (among others), that he's just carried out, the reversal of the Kosst Amojan's attack on the Celestial Temple, and the blooming back into life of the Wormhole. Sarah was corporeal, but had been inhabited by a Prophet, which is why she inexplicably left Joseph so shortly into their marriage. While there are many tasks left for the Sisko, she is well pleased - you had to get the story to a point where everything is good and happy, in order for evil to creep back, then to build to the next confrontation that would be the crowning of the series, or the capping of it, the end of a seven year epic beginning with tiny steps. Although I could hardly call these first two episodes tiny - Sisko got to be Benny Russell again, saw his unknown Mother again; Kira got to return to her terrorist routes, blockading the wrongdoers; and Worf got to dress as a Klingon and fulfil his heritage. Maybe what he said about it being the best mission it could have been wasn't entirely accurate (I can't imagine he didn't wish for at least some hand to hand combat and bloodletting!), but it was all about Jadzia and they honoured her well.

Though the episode isn't about the effects, that's what always stayed with me from the time I first saw it, the harsh beauty of the desert environment we see the Siskos and Dax traverse, the shiny, smart interior of Kira's Bajoran Bridge, and especially the close-up glory of a brilliant sun, and the aftermath of the successful act of destroying it, taking out the shipyards in its enveloping blast. You can see the individual panels come apart from the ships docked in their construction cradles, ripped through by the solar wave, and while I'd have liked a 'Return of The Jedi' leap out of the flames by the Bird of Prey, warping away as the facility is disintegrated (always terrific to see a ship escape an exploding star by the skin of its hull, the best example being in 'Generations'), it's only a minor loss. I also appreciate their decorum in not showing Ezri being sick on the Runabout's nice, shiny panels. Nowadays we'd have to see all its 'glory,' but there's generally something a little more refined about Trek in those days. The last thing I take from the episode is Sisko's question to Sarah: why did it have to be him? It reminds me of a similar scene in 'Zulu' where the young soldier is pitifully asking why did it have to be us, and the staunch old Colour-Sergeant says: "Because we're 'ere lad, and nobody else," and the same answer stands for Sisko. Because it could be no one else. Something we can all take to heart.

****