Chrysalis

DVD, DS9 S7 (Chrysalis) (2)

Certain stories go well together, episodes that can be watched concurrently, as a pair or a group, linked thematically or by continuity, and this one would work very well viewed as a double bill with 'Statistical Probabilities' from the sixth season which introduced us to the genetically modified 'Jack Pack' of Jack, Lauren, Patrick and Sarina. Problems then for budding genetically enhanced Dr. Bashir, but a new problem, in a different way, this time. You'd think the brilliant young physician would have learned from his past mistakes, but like Kirk in 'Star Trek II' he 'feels young again,' everything old new again, thanks to blossoming heart-shaped eyes at Sarina, his pet project gone right. Because the good Doctor has had plenty of those mistakes, failures that came about because he either wasn't good enough, or was too good. I'm thinking particularly of 'The Quickening' in which he arrogantly believed he could come up with a cure for the Teplan blight laid upon the people by the Dominion. Or the saving of Vedek Bareil's life, only for him to be little more than vegetable. Moments and events that changed Bashir, tempered him, made him warier, less green. But thanks to love he's chattering away like the eager young man he was when we first met him, annoying O'Brien as he did then, but in a different way. This time it's his incessant chatter about his patient, Sarina, and how great she is, to the exclusion of all else. You get the impression O'Brien isn't upset with Bashir, because of such things as him forgetting their darts night, but for his friend because he sees where this is going.

There are a few themes throughout, but most are lightly skipped over: the Federation's policy towards the genetically enhanced, for one, something that is becoming ever more relevant because we can do some of this genetic tinkering and soon could have the power to do even more. In Trek it's generally been a simple matter of such things being bad, Khan Noonien Singh always referenced as the poster boy for its evil (even though, technically, his was eugenics breeding rather than the more specific manipulation of the human genome), because it should be obvious that holding the power to decide how anyone is coded at the most basic level is a further terror to what can be done, regardless of the potential for good. Who knows what the right answer is, but this episode doesn't give it, or attempt to address it. But that's fine, such things were touched on in 'Statistical Probabilities' and 'Dr. Bashir, I Presume,' and as Sisko says, they aren't there to debate policy. Another theme might be the parallel with 'Sleeping Beauty,' the story of a prince rescuing a damsel in distress, trapped in a deep sleep in a tall tower. Julian didn't have to heave himself up Sarina's enchanted locks to reach her, but it was almost as much of a struggle to fight through the 'deep sleep' she was in.

The theme that stands out most for me, is that of parting. Having to break away from the constraints of the family to fulfil a life's potential. This does have some play, and it is the Doctor who acts with double standards: vehement in his request to Sarina's friends to help him reach her, even though it will mean she will no longer be one of them, appealing to their selflessness that it will be better for her. Yet he doesn't see that he's doing the same thing, holding her back from a galaxy of possibilities now that she's free from her catatonic state of consciousness, almost driving her permanently back into her inner shell by his overwhelming affection and desire to be with her as much as possible. He suffocates her, and it's because it's what he wants, but he's at a difficult time, or if not difficult, a lonely time: the loss of Jadzia has affected them all, and Ezri's admission that he might have been her intended if things had worked out differently, did knock him a bit. Then there's the war and the uncertainty of all it brings. And in the immediate, the night he meets the Jack Pack again is when no one else is around to play with, O'Brien sharing time with his family before they go on a trip to Bajor (showing that they are living on the station because they're said to be back before the end of the episode, something I was wondering about), and Kira and Odo off to have fun at Vic Fontaine's, leaving nothing for him to do but go to bed and read, and whenever he does that I associate it with Section 31's Sloan showing up, and he didn't need that kind of excitement!

So he was vulnerable, and the challenge of curing Sarina had been on his mind already, something to focus on, and when his brilliance (with the aid of the enhanced ones' technical excellence to improve the equipment he needed to perform the operation), leads to her coming out of herself, it's a success and a wonder that is as much about his own achievement as it is about how wonderful Sarina turns out to be. She in turn is undyingly grateful and wants to please Bashir, setting off an uneven chain of events that isn't to her best interests. Bashir does things by the book, unlike Melora (in 'Melora'), where he treated her at the same time as being too close, he hands off Sarina's care to another (Dr. Girani), we've never even heard of before, let alone seen, and who wants to be treated by the B-Doctor of DS9 when the best doc is clearly going to be Dr. Brilliant Bashir? So that wasn't in Sarina's interest. He should have chewed a bag of nails and got on with it instead of allowing himself to fall head over heels. Admittedly, the scene where it happens is a wonder, the unsure Sarina suddenly thrust into the excited chatterings of her friends, who show their joy by bursting into song - Trek doesn't often do musical interludes, but when it does they tend to be terrific, whether it's the hippies in 'TOS,' Picard's haunting Ressikan flute recital, or the EMH and Seven of Nine performing a duet, and the Jack Pack didn't fail to live up to the high musical standards (as you'd expect from enhanced people), a beautiful audible image of Sarina's journey from first tentative attempts to break out of her chrysalis, to the emergence of a big, beautiful butterfly of song.

The complicated navigation of the interpersonal is something Bashir has often had to deal with as being the main eligible bachelor of the station he's had his fair share of romance, and still had more to come in this field, so it's hard to blame his eagerness to hold onto the bond between him and Sarina. But it wasn't just the catatonic life that was Sarina's chrysalis, it was her family, the one she's been with for as long as she can remember, and now Bashir becomes part of that last little bit of life necessary for her to discard before she can move on. For once Bashir's House of Horrors came good, and worked in reverse instead of killing or maiming his victim… I mean patient, only it became a horror for him as he saw what he'd walked into. But he's good enough to back out and let her go, the episode allowing a rare shot from an upper pylon as he watches her shuttle leave, something that adds to his sense of loneliness and poignancy, but the important thing was he didn't manipulate her, didn't do all in his power not to lose her, but what was best for her, a true Trek ending. I also like that it didn't go down the route of the treatment failing, or she began reverting back to her old state - it happens, but only in appearance because she wants to remain in the comfortable position she knows, happiest when she could just sit and hear her friends getting on with their latest bonkers scheme, not having to do anything or get involved. Instead it's about realising untapped potential, not choosing to let it be stifled. It may be tragic for Bashir, but it's not the tragedy of death, but voluntary parting.

The story is quite a basic one in some respects, and as such there isn't a lot to broach an opinion on. I'm so glad they brought back the gang again, but I don't feel it was the resounding success their first appearance was, they were a little muted compared to the wackiness of before, more time was apportioned to Sarina and Bashir, though getting to see them all in Starfleet uniform was enjoyable, especially with Patrick, the mentally youngest of the group, acting as a haughty Admiral with the line: "That's a stupid question," the stock response to every enquiry. I did expect more to be made of Lauren's eye on Nog, but after his scene where he asks Bashir to come to the Infirmary he doesn't play any part, something that was a little bit of a waste. O'Brien, too, had much better stuff to do in the first episode (though his line, "I can't break the laws of physics," is an obvious, but fun callback to Scotty!), there more to give a little advice to his friend than take a good sized role in proceedings. You do get a stronger impression of the station's extended familiars this season, and in this episode alone we have Ensign Jones, this background extra that's in so many episodes through the series, actually get a line when he meets the Jack Pack in a corridor; Broik, the Ferengi waiter at Quark's gets a callout, which we pretty much never see; even M'Pella, the tall Dabo girl, is front and centre in the Dabo scene; while Morn is of course still wandering the station at 3am when Bashir's call to come to the Infirmary comes through!

Why did the 'mutants' get given the Cargo Bay again? Were Quarters too good for such deviants, or was it a kind gesture by Sisko so they'd have a familiar place to stay? I did like that they moved the furniture around to recreate how it was before, and it's good to hear of Dr. Loews again, whom we saw in their previous episode, still looking after them at the Institute. I do think genetics should have been dealt with in more detail, perhaps the romantic story could have been dialled back to accommodate more interesting topics. But even though it doesn't hit the highs of 'Statistical Probabilities' (except in the 'Do-Re-Mi' musical scene), it is a joy, perhaps even more because it is so fleeting: the last Bashir would see of the Jack Pack and Sarina, the last we'd see of them on the series, but another small thread tied up neatly in the grand scheme: not every episode has to do with the war, as this and 'Take Me Out To The Holosuite' prove with delight.

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