"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" Duet (1993)

User Rating:

8.7/10   

Director:

James L. Conway

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator: "Star Trek")
Rick Berman (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993)

Original Air Date:

13 June 1993 (Season 1, Episode 18)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

A Cardassian suffering from Kalla-Nohra, a disease that indicates he served in a labor camp, visits DS9. Kira is determined to convict him as a war criminal.

Plot Keywords:

Stabbed In The Back | Labor Camp | Holding Cell | Clerk | Assumed Identity

Cast

Avery Brooks	...	Commander Sisko
Rene Auberjonois	...	Odo
Alexander Siddig	...	Doctor Bashir (as Siddig El Fadil)
Terry Farrell	...	Lieutenant Jadzia Dax
Cirroc Lofton	...	Jake Sisko (credit only)
Colm Meaney	...	Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman	...	Quark
Nana Visitor	...	Major Kira
Harris Yulin	...	Marritza
Marc Alaimo	...	Gul Dukat
Robin Christopher	...	Neela
Norman Large	...	Kobheerian Captain
Tony Rizzoli	...	Kainon
Ted Sorel	...	Kaval

Quotes:

Marritza: I am alive. I will always be alive! It's Marritza who's dead! Marritza, who was good for nothing but cowering under his bunk and weeping like a woman. Who every night covered his ears because he couldn't bear to hear the screaming... for mercy... of the Bajorans...
[breaks down into tears]

Brilliant knock off of "The Man in the Glass Booth"

This is one of the finest episodes in the entire Star Trek franchise.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the movie and play "The Man in the Glass Booth", this would appear to be the source material for this episode. It is one of my favorites of the series and comes off better than the movie of the source work as well. The play is about a Jewish man who assumes the identity of a concentration camp commandant and presents himself to be tried for crimes against humanity. In the play it turns out that the man is not the commandant but a former prisoner who worked for him in return for favorable treatment, hence his guilt. This is very similar to the character in this episode even if he is not Bajoran (to complete the analogy to a Jew in a Nazi camp) but a weak "good Cardassian" who compliantly assists the actual war criminal who, like Gul Dukat, never harbored any sincere remorse (for Dukat this is settled in the episode "Waltz") over his acts against the Bajorans. This weakens it a bit since there is no element of guilty betrayal of one's own kind involved. In fact, the idea of a Cardassian with such qualms seems quite improbable based on every other Cardassian in the series and the apparent structure of the their society. The episode was good enough that I can suspend disbelief that far. It was also a pivotal moment for Kira Nerys who begins to turn from the one-sided viewpoint of a pure and embittered resistance fighter to a broader view necessary for her development on DS9.

Unlike one other post I did like the series most of the time. There was a singular challenge in writing DS9 because it had to develop mainly on a single location and opportunities to credibly just bump into the next neat story and fresh characters were more limited than with the other series, as there was little actual trekking involved. DS9 is also the favorite of D.C. Fontana among the four Star Trek series she worked on. That should lend some respectability to the enjoyment of DS9. I will concede there are many dud episodes. In all the Star Trek series I look askance at the improbable and very anthropic inter-species mating that goes on. It was most pronounced in DS9 where it was not confined to curious single episode encounters (like Riker's ludicrous attempt to preserve the universal right to passionate boinking for the misfit of a voluntarily de-sexualized alien world in STNG (thin cover for a vague take on GLBT issues, and so much for the prime directive, again) or Dr. Crusher's close brush with inter-species lesbianism, boldly almost going where the original series could never have gone, even if Kirk did almost kiss Uhura, under telekinetic duress). In the case of DS9 the main purpose seems to be blatant pandering to a hoped for female audience by creating female-friendly relationship based story threads (i.e. soap opera). It is also used to create dubious parallels between Cardassia/Bajor and Japan/Korea during their respective occupations as in the episode "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night" exploiting a burst of publicity at the time of Japan's institutionalized rape of Korean "comfort women" to develop another, granted interesting, collaborator theme way too close for comfort for Major Kira. (Straight from today's headlines, holy Law and Order!, or yesterday's as in Dukat's turn as a cynical ersatz Jim Jones in cosmic Jonestown in the episode "Covenant") From that we move on to the ultimate nonsense that the lizard-like Cardassians can actually make babies with Bajorans! But at least we now know, thanks to Dr. Bashir and Ezri, that a Trill's spots go all the way down. But it was fun right down to the semi-apocalyptic conclusion where Sisko faces the the anti-Chr..er.. Dukat in the final conflict. Did anybody else notice a little bump in the canon from opening episode where the wormhole aliens say "He is corporeal, He is linear, let's kill him" to the final season when his mother IS a wormhole alien (sort of) and they had it planned all along?