STAR TREK:
DEEP SPACE NINE:
Season Seven:
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Star Trek DS9 Season 7
Image in the Sand / Shadows and Symbols(Star Trek - Deep Space Nine episode production codes 551 & 552)written by Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler
And this episode also contains another good example of Bajor benefiting from not being an official part of the Federation. This time it's not about putting on a show for the Dominion, but for the Romulans. Colonel Kira has all the proper legal freedoms to challenge the Romulans today, where she probably wouldn't if Bajor had joined the Federation. Either way, it's nice to see the Federation learn something from Bajor about standing up for important values in the face of their regulations and chains of command. Perhaps that merely would have come about in a different way had Bajor been a Federation member. We can only speculate. Costumes are worth noting in this story. Newly promoted Colonel Kira gets the most revolting thing she has ever been asked to wear on DS9, particularly as it looks more like a joke than any kind of uniform for the person in highest authority on the station. Moving more towards her uniform from the pilot episode would have been a much better idea. On the plus side are the desert Starfleet uniforms that feature here, which actually look like something that would successfully keep people cool in a harsh and hot environment. Ezri Dax also makes her debut in this story, and is remarkably adept at skipping over most of the problems associated with the "regeneration" process of changing actors on Doctor Who and other sci-fi shows. She mostly just gets a bit of nervous babbling, which is delivered in a charming fashion. Though there are reportedly a few distasteful moments, these are smartly kept off screen. And the makers of Matt Smith's debut on Doctor Who could learn a lot from the way Dax's change of taste is portrayed on screen. This is the way it should be done. However, not all parts of this particular changeover are great. One of Ezri's babbling sessions reveals that it was not her choice to become the next Dax host. Instead it seems that her entire life has been victimized to have that circumstance thrust upon her. This brings Behr and Beimler under my scrutiny once more. ...Wwww...WHY did they think this was a great idea? What would have been so wrong (or less interesting) had Ezri chosen this lifestyle freely? She would certainly still have been able to find the actual experience surprising and a little overwhelming, without making it a victimization. It would have changed... what... one moment of babbling? Curious where these writers park their brains, and a little disturbing. Well, anyway, I do mostly enjoy the Ezri variant of Dax, as she eventually turned out. While she may end up with a bit more than her fair share of stories throughout season seven's rotation, she ends up as a worthy addition to the cast this year, and perhaps one with the most obvious potential for doing new, interesting stories.
And thankfully, there are only a few moments in this story that miss the mark for me.
The three main plots all have enough space to breathe and tell us interesting
things about the characters' journeys, and they all have a chance to reach satisfying
conclusions, and it seems the story really did focus on DS9's regular stars
here far more than the recurring guest stars. Season Seven was off to a pretty
good start....
Something that sneaks up on you and only reveals itself at the end
of this tale is the philosophical principle (specifically one
of the chief emotional pre-cursors) that caused the creation
of the Prime Directive as someone's idea of a good thing in
the 1960's. It's the simple question of involvement, and whether
it is best to be more involved or less involved.
No matter that there are no major interstellar
political organizations deciding courses of action for themselves
here.... in fact, it's probably all the more poignant because
it arises purely out of family dynamics. It's so much more
relatable that way, and believable too.
I like the minimalist way that the scenes at the end are written
as well. The mother's lines are so powerful because she displays such a
sharp contrast in this last scene to her behaviour in the rest of the episode.
Here at the end, she says so little,
and she's asking a question instead of being
sure of herself - showing for the first time that she places
greater faith in Ezri's judgment of the situation rather than
in her own. And the mother's question becomes the one
that haunts Ezri, the one she asks of herself afterwards.
What we don't quite get here, and what the resolution absolutely
explodes with inside my own head, is the quantum complementary
solution to some of the most basic interactivity questions
in the universe - namely:
Is this my fault? How much of this am I responsible for?
What should I have done? What can I do now?
Am I helping or interfering? Should I stay uninvolved?
The people around you are responsible for creating their own
messes, and you don't have to take responsibility for that.
However, there are countless doubles of all of them making
slightly or wildly different choices in alternate timelines.
Because you are choosing your way through those timelines
as you live,
you have lined up with the specific versions of all those people
that best complement what you need next for your own growth.
So there is always something in it for you, some message pointing
things out to you, some opportunity for you to learn to do better.
No need to get all paranoid about hidden messages, because your
emotions will guide you to the items most strongly related to
your own issues. And I think we each do best
when we put blame aside, stop worrying about past responsibilities,
and just focus on what we can do presently that would best help.
We won't always get the best answer each time we ask, but if we
go through that process with openness, balancing our
courage and compassion as best we can, the process will take
us closer and closer until we've got any problem solved.
I got all that out of "Prodigal Daughter"? Well, I had a lot
of that inside already, and this episode triggered it to come out.
Live long and prosper, Star Trek!
Article written by Martin Izsak. Comments on this article are welcome. You may contact the author from this page:
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