Ensign Ro
This episode really laid the political backstory groundwork
for the spin-off Deep Space Nine series, introducing the Bajorans
and bringing back the Cardassians who had only appeared once
before in season four's "The Wounded". We also get a new
semi-regular character in Ensign Ro Laren,
played very nicely by Michelle Forbes.
The story sports some archetypal strengths that are deftly used
to great effect, elevating the tale to the highest ranks.
These include an engaging political thriller mystery plot,
with a bit of action, changes of location, and production value,
plus a soul-searching core with plenty of questions about
how our new semi-regular guest star will interact with the rest
of the crew. A full palette of the sort that I can get excited about.
However, I've seen this one enough times to notice a few things
that might still have deserved a bit more ironing out.
Armed with hindsight from Deep Space Nine, one may be tempted
to wonder how someone from Bajor, a planet that has not yet
joined the Federation, can be eligible to enlist in Starfleet.
One possible key to this is that many people of Bajoran heritage
like Ro Laren have been forced to emigrate to other worlds.
Ancestrally, Ro is Bajoran. Her official citizenship no doubt
comes from some other world that HAS joined the Federation,
assuming of course that this isn't just a political continuity error.
The type of large-scale political non-interference that we
saw come to the fore in "Redemption" is now present once again
here in this episode, this time informing the decisions of what
Picard is prepared to do or not do with relation to various Bajorans
and Cardassians. I think it is good that we see at least three
different variations of present-day Bajoran political background,
stemming from different locations, and Picard has to deal
differently with each of them.
Guinan seems to take over Troi's role as counselor with regard to
getting Ro to open up - very nicely demonstrated in the scene
where Ro blocks Troi and Crusher's efforts to be friendly.
You've gotta love the way McFadden and Sirtis play the moment
for its humorous potential.
But balancing Guinan's supremacy is the very nice beat where
Picard gets to go on the dangerous away-team mission to meet
the lead suspect, and Troi gets to join him, armed.
This allows her to later provide insight on the meetings
and to have her character's usefulness shine as it typically
should. Nice. Now if only she would wear a proper blue uniform
and provide some balance to the primary colours of the crew,
everything would be peachy. (And considering how strict Riker
is about Ro conforming to dress code, you have to wonder about
all the variations Troi constantly gets away with. Leading
by example would do her a lot of credit.)
One thing that remains confusing is the political geography
of the Valo system. We meet or learn of Bajorans frequenting
all of the first three planets (the innermost, I assume), and yet a ship
traveling from the first planet to the third will come close
to a Cardassian border at some point. Huh? Surely everything
within the orbit of the third planet is in non-Cardassian territory,
including the entire trajectory of today's ship. Cardassian
territory should start somewhere completely outside the Valo system.
Or even if the Cardassians have claimed the fourth planet,
their territory should start closer to the fourth orbit,
far away from the third. I don't think the writers thought this through.
All in all, none of these minor nits ever impaired my enjoyment
of this tale, which is quite gripping and has a nearly perfect
political thriller emotional ride.
This is without doubt one of the fifth season's stand-out episodes.
Not surprising, as it helped spawn another successful 7-year series.
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