[Rewatcher’s note: Sorry for the delay in getting this one up, but getting home from Dragon Con 2013 proved problematic. If you want to know the whole sordid tale, read about it here, here, and here. At least DC13 itself was fantastic. Anyhow, we’ll be back on track with “Playing God” on Friday.]
“Shadowplay”
Written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Season 2, Episode 16
Production episode 40512-436
Original air date: February 20, 1994
Stardate: 47603.3
Station log: Dax is investigating a strange particle field in the Gamma Quadrant near the wormhole. Odo is going along as part of his ongoing search to find out more about where he comes from. Their gossiping—well, okay, Dax’s gossiping and Odo’s snotty commentary on same—is interrupted by the field itself, which is made of omicron particles, which are extremely rare. They’re focused on one small valley on a planet. Odo isn’t picking up lifesigns, but the field could be masking them, so they beam down.
They find a city, at the center of which is a plaza that contains a large device that seems to be the source of the particles. However, Dax’s examination is cut short by being held at phaserpoint by a man named Colyus, who is the protector of the village.
On the station, Kira informs Quark that his expected meeting with his cousin Kono won’t be happening. Kono is wanted for robbing a museum on Cardassia V, though Quark insists there’s no proof that he was coming to the station so Quark could help him sell the stolen merchandise. Kira makes it abundantly clear that Odo being off-station does not mean an easy week for Quark.
Sisko tells Jake that it’s time he got a job. Jake talks about asking Nog for a job at Quark’s, but Sisko would prefer he work for O’Brien (as he and O’Brien already agreed to last time), as it’ll look so very good on his Starfleet Academy application. Jake very very very reluctantly agrees. The next day, Jake reports for work, with Sisko giving the boy his very own combadge. What Sisko doesn’t know is that Jake doesn’t actually want to go to Starfleet Academy.
Colyus interrogates Odo and Dax rather clumsily. Odo proves that their intentions are good by beaming up to the runabout, and then back down again. Colyus admits that he was hoping they were bad guys because 22 people have disappeared from the city, starting last fall, the most recent six hours ago, and he has no idea how or why or anything. There’s been no crime in the village worse than petty theft, but these kidnappings have him stumped. He accepts Odo’s offer of help.
Odo and Dax meet Rurigan, the oldest person in the village, whose daughter is the latest victim. Dax scans the place where she disappeared while Odo talks to last person to see her, Rurigan’s granddaughter Taya. However, Taya is scared of Odo because of his scary face, and she’s not very forthcoming at first. But as they talk, she becomes less scared; he explains the difficulties of being a shapechanger. Taya also informs Odo that nobody ever leaves the valley, which surprises him. He also promises to do everything he can to find her mother.
Bareil makes a surprise visit to the station. Ostensibly it’s to speak at the station shrine, an invitation extended to him by Prylar Rhit, but it was mostly an excuse to visit Kira. She attends his speech at the shrine and disagrees with everything he says. Kira is then surprised to learn that Bareil not only follows springball (“Religiously, if you’ll pardon the expression”) but plays it. They go off to play a game in a holosuite.
Odo questions Rurigan, who reveals that he’s dying. Odo also wants to know why nobody has ever left the valley, what’s more that it never even occurred to Colyus to search outside the valley. Taya takes Odo and Dax out of the village to a tree, which is the farthest anyone has ever gone away from the village, all the while telling her stories she’s heard about changelings. Dax is using Colyus’s scanner, but once they pass a certain point, the scanner just disappears. Taya picks some berries and moves to hand them to Odo and Dax, but her hand and the berries also disappear at the same point where Dax’s scanner did.
Dax examines the device in the center of town, and confirms that it’s a holographic projector. The town is entirely made up of holograms. One of the components is failing, however, and that’s why people have been disappearing. Colyus is devastated, and more than a little skeptical, but Odo and Dax are able to prove it to him, and eventually the rest of the village.
Kira totally kicks Bareil’s ass at springball. She reveals that she and her brothers played at the Singha Refugee Camp. They had nothing better to do. After a post-game meal, they smooch. Between liplocks, Kira jokes that she has to thank Rhit for inviting him, and Bareil reveals that it’s probably his last act as a prylar, as the vedek assembly is not happy about the debts he’s accrued playing dabo. Kira cuts off the smoochery when she realizes that the person who invited Bareil to the station owes a big gambling debt to Quark, and runs off. She catches Kono trying to return to the station, and they find him holding bones from the Cardassia V museum. Kira also thanks Quark for getting Rhit to invite Bareil to the station—she’s found his presence diverting. After she goes off with him, Quark mutters that it wasn’t diverting enough.
The only way for Dax to fix the holographic generator is to shut it all down. The villagers are scared and angry, but they come around to the notion that people are going to keep disappearing until the system fails, and then there’ll be nothing left. If they shut it down, then there’s at least a chance that Dax can restore the system to full use and all the “missing” villagers will return. Taya says she can’t wait to see her mother again, and also admits to Odo that his face isn’t so scary once you get used to it.
No one objects, so Dax turns it off. The people disappear, the village disappears—but Rurigan is still there. He’s a refugee from a world that was conquered; he came to this world and re-created his home village. Rurigan thinks the whole thing is over now, but Odo convinces him that the village and the villagers are just as real as he is.
Jake comes home and admits that he likes working for O’Brien—and then finally drops the bomb that he doesn’t want to join Starfleet, and he never has. Sisko, to Jake’s relief, is completely okay with it as long as he finds something he loves and sticks with it. However, Jake will continue to apprentice with O’Brien.
Dax fixes it. Because she’s just that awesome. Rurigan asks that the villagers not know that Rurigan is different from them. Dax turns it back on, and the entire village is reconstructed, complete with the 22 missing people. Taya is very happy to have her mother back. Before they depart, Odo turns into a top for Taya.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The holographic generator Rurigan used is pretty powerful, but it’s obvious it hasn’t been maintained, hence the breakdown leading to disappearances. Dax manages to make it better, faster, stronger.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Jake finally admits to his Dad that he just doesn’t want to join Starfleet, thus continuing the de-Wesley-Crusher-ification of the character. Sisko, to his credit, is fine with this.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira has a good day: she messes with Quark not once, but twice, and she gets to go all kissy-face with Bareil after owning him at springball and loudly disagreeing with his speech.
The slug in your belly: Pairing Dax with Odo is comedy gold in the teaser, as her tendency to gossip about folks on the station is met with the brick wall of Odo’s utter lack of interest in foolishness.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: After lots of sexual tension between them in the season-opening three-part story, Kira and Bareil suck face. Wah-HEY!
Rules of Acquisition: Quark makes an excellent matchmaker, but fails to close his deal with his cousin Kono. (Said cousin will never be heard from again, though we will meet another of Quark’s cousins, Gaila, in due course.)
Plain, simple: Garak has apparently been lecturing Bashir on interrogation techniques, which he eagerly looks forward to implementing when Kira asks him to keep an eye on Quark.
Preservation of matter and energy is for wimps: After twice asking Odo to shapechange for her, Taya in the final moments of the episode at last gets her wish and sees Odo change into a replica of the top she was playing with earlier in the episode.
What happens on the holosuite stays on the holosuite: Kira and Bareil play springball on the holosuite. Which isn’t a euphemism. Entirely.
Victory is life: Rurigan’s world was conquered by the Dominion, the second time (after “Sanctuary”) we’ve met people who were so conquered, and the third (after “Rules of Acquisition”) reference to this Gamma Quadrant power.
Keep your ears open: “I liked everything about it except the content.”
Kira’s review of Bareil’s speech.
Welcome aboard: Philip Anglim is back as Bareil, veteran comedic actor Kenneth Mars plays Colyus, and the late Kenneth Tobey, whom executive producer Ira Steven Behr has said is one of his favorite actors of all-time, plays Rurigan. Noley Thornton, last seen being incredibly cute as Clara Sutter on TNG’s “Imaginary Friend,” comes back to be incredibly cute as Taya.
Trivial matters: This is the second time Odo has heard tell of legends of changelings told in the Gamma Quadrant, the first being in “Vortex.”
The original title for this episode was “Persistence of Vision,” a title that would eventually be used for a second-season Voyager episode.
O’Brien mentions that his father wanted him to be a cellist, getting him into a prestigious music academy and everything. We saw him play the cello in the TNG episode “The Ensigns of Command.”
Kira mentions that she has brothers. They’ll be seen as little kids and given the names Pohl and Reon in the flashback portions of “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night.”
Rene Auberjonois will guest star on an episode of Enterprise in its first season, “Oasis,” with a similar theme, with Auberjonois this time in the Rurigan role.
Walk with the Prophets: “Why should it matter to you if a hologram cries?” This is a really magnificently constructed episode. The A, B, and C stories are all thematically linked, all on the subject of deception, of subverted expectations, of things being not what they seem.
Odo and Dax, both people whose appearances mask what they actually are—for Odo, he’s always deceptive, because his true shape is a puddle of goo; for Dax she is far more than the young woman she appears to be—find themselves in a village full of people who don’t know that they’re not flesh-and-blood.
O’Brien bonding with Jake over their mutual fear of disappointing their fathers, with O’Brien assuring Jake that his father will be proud of him no matter what. More fundamentally, though, is the assumption that Jake will of course go to Starfleet Academy, spoken of by Sisko as a fait accompli until Jake finally works up the courage to tell him the truth. Sisko’s “since when?” upon Jake’s revelation reveals that he had no idea, but also that Jake hid the truth because he thought it might disappoint his father—just as Rurigan hid the truth from those around him, and initially from Odo and Dax.
And Quark, the master of deception, trying to get Kira off his back by distracting her with a pretty face. More revelations here—that Kira returns the attraction to Bareil (up until now, it was only clear that he had the hots for her, not the other way ’round), that Bareil plays springball, and that Kira isn’t very easily distracted. (Okay, that last one isn’t really a surprise or a revelation.)
Everything is so well played here, from Kenneth Tobey’s quiet fatalism as the dying Rurigan to Kira’s and Bareil’s growing attraction that is magnificently played by Nana Visitor and Philip Anglim to Cirroc Lofton’s beautifully played anguish at the prospect of Jake disappointing his father to Avery Brooks’s casual portrayal of Sisko’s love for his son that he transitions from surprise to disappointment to support in the blink of an eye to Kenneth Mars’s delightful turn as Colyus.
But the episode’s spine is Rene Auberjonois and Noley Thornton. Odo’s bond with Taya grows organically and impressively, with Odo never losing his trademark gruffness and cynicism, but still winning Taya over. In particular, I love the scene where Taya says that if she could shape-change she’s have tons of friends, and Odo quietly disabuses her of that notion, explaining that he used to shape-change for people who only pretended to be his friends. (One suspects this is a particular dig at Dr. Mora…) And the speech at the end that Odo gives to Rurigan is magnificent, espousing the very Trekkish notion that life doesn’t have to be traditional to be real, that all that matters is if someone else loves them and cares for them and wants them to be safe. It’s a particularly compelling speech coming from an animated puddle of goo living among humanoids, and Auberjonois beautifully sells it.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido doesn’t believe that anybody ever reads the bio. If you do, say so in the comments, please.
Yup, this is a pretty solid one (pardon the expression) all around. Well, the stuff back on the station didn’t wow me, and it was pretty blatantly just a case of the writers concocting a lame excuse to advance the Kira-Bareil relationship. But the stuff on the planet was good. It was an effective mystery for a while, the people disappearing, and at the time I never saw the explanation coming. And the subsequent discoveries and speeches and changes of heart were all pretty well-done. And Odo and Taya were a great pair, and you gotta love Noley Thornton.
This was a very well-done episode, and it irks me that “Oasis” shares so many of its plot points while having Rene A. as a guest star.
Keith, I always read the bios on this site. It lets me know what else the contributors have done and are currently doing, and they frequently contain some funny bits.
Huh. Never thought to click the link as if it went anywhere beyond some vanilla platitudes. Thanks for the (not so) subtle hint.
I certainly do! Not 100%, but most of the time…
Huh, I’d totally forgotten this episode. There’re more strong episodes in season 2 than I thought.
Also, I read the bio!
I wonder whatever happened to Noley Thornton.
I read the bio. It’s like a little bonus to the rewatch. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it has important info, and sometimes it makes me jealous at all the cool places and cool things that krad does. It’s like the mint on your pillow when you’re staying at a fancy hotel.
@6: Thornton’s last acting credit was in 1998. Apparently she decided to pursue a career behind the camera instead.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Noley_Thornton
I’ve got fond memories of this episode. I remember reading a quote from Mr. Auberjonois saying that when filming the final scene, he had to go on set alone and spin for hours and hours. At the time I thought it was a joke on his part, but since I’ve learned about how long it can take to film scenes… I still think it’s probably about 50% joke.
I, too, was annoyed that Enterprise not only recycled this episode’s plot, but that it recycled one of its principal actors, to boot.
And I read the bio!
-Andy
Yes KRAD I really read your bio. I like this episode it’s one of my favorites because it’s cute without making my teeth ache. Everyone is having a good day. I also like that Jake is a regular kid who is a military brat but decides he doesn’t want to join his parents business, and his dad is fine with that.
I read the bio. But I usually don’t talk about it.
When Krad reviews Playing God, I wonder how long it will be before he uses the word snotty or snarky (or both) to describe Arjin? He does love those two words; you could make a drinking game out of it.
BTW, this rewatch’s bio was prompted by a comment made by YA author Diana Peterfreund, who was on a panel with me at Dragon Con, who was stunned to learn that I was the one who wrote the rewatches. She didn’t make the connection. I mentioned that I talk about my other work in the bios, and she scoffed. “Nobody reads those!” So I’m trying to see if she’s right. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I always read the bios, krad. I consider them part of the rewatch synopsis, and it would be weird for me if they weren’t there. :)
This is another episode that immediately springs to mind when I think of DS9’s early days . Its such a delight from start to finish. A nice light episode that’s well written and acted and doesn’t beat you over the head with some deep profound message. Always a treat to watch this one.
I read the bios!
This episode is so charming. I have a bad tendency to discount the first three seasons (except for standouts like “Duet,” “Necessary Evil” and “Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast”) and think of seasons 4-7 as better, which is unfair. I still think the show kicks into a higher gear starting with “The Adversary,” but early DS9 contains far more gems than I give it credit for.
DS9 got a lot of mileage out of these “team-up” episodes over the years, where two characters left the station to have more typical Star Trek “explore weird planets” stuff. We just had an O’Brien/Bashir episode and a Sisko/O’Brien episode, and now this one. Dax and Odo hadn’t had that much interaction at this point, so pairing them up made this one interesting.
The hologram twist would seem to foreshadow the later seasons of Voyager, when every other episode was about holograms run amok.
@krad – I think someone else has made the same remark in the bio about people not reading bios before (actually, I thought it was you who did that – Google confirms you did it for the Emergence rewatch, along with a joke about nobody reading them in response to crzydroid in Time’s Arrow I and Christopher in Time’s Arrow II). The only change is your request for a show of hands. I remembered because that was when I noticed there can be useful info in the bios rather than the my presumption of repetitive history.
As far as the episode, though, I was less impressed. I found it heavier on the cheese than I like and the convincing of Rurigan to be less than convincing. I liked the story, but I thought the dialogue was a bit off.
Nice little episode and I remember enjoying the mystery. I also particularly liked the moving away from ‘everyone in the universe wants to join star fleet’ vibe that TNG inadvertently set up. And the scene with Sisko pere et fils is charming.
Didn’t read the bios until about a year ago, do now.
I too read the bios, so stop being so insecure Keith.
This episode is as Chris put it, very solid. It feels very Star Trek-ky to me. There is a planet with a mystery and our characters have to figure out what the mystery is and solve it. We’ve seen that show 4839087 times by now. But where DS9 excels is truly in the relationships. Unlike TOS and TNG where everyone is in Starfleet and there is a pre-existing relationship due to the command structure, DS9 has far more differences to it. Much of the cast is NOT in Starfleet, and while the Bajoran Militia (Odo and Kira) are under the command of Sisko, their loyalty is not to Starfleet and the Federation. The civilians (the Ferengi and Garak) are under the authority of Sisko because they’re on the station he runs, but he doesn’t command them and they don’t have to follow any sort of code of behavior (except for basic laws). Also, all of the characters have ongoing story arcs, which allows for variations as they personally change and are thrown together.
Specifically the relationship that is highlighted and developed here is Jake and his father. It’s very scary for any child to tell a parent that they want to do their own thing and Jake’s angst about doing it is very understandable. Sisko’s response is so wonderful (albeit stereotypical parent) that it really sets Jake’s character free for later seasons.
There are bios? I guess I’m unobservant; couldn’t find them.
This was a charming episode, minus the yucky Bareil-Kira romance. I’m a Odo-Kira ‘shipper all the way (the only pair in Trek I ever liked as a pair other than Sarek-Amanda).
@21: The bio is right under the “Warp factor” rating at the end of the review, above the links to the index and other posts. Although I usually overlook it myself, even though I know by now that it’s different every time.
Whad’ya mean, I don’t read the bio?! I read the bio every time! :)
Very nice episode. I can’t be the only one, though, to find Bareil deeply, deeply unpleasant. Can I?
I rarely read the bios, but happened to read this one, mostly because it was shorter than the normal ones which I scan over. I usually just assume they contain boilerplate stuff. I see now from looking back at previous bios that they are far more interesting than I thought! Will make a habit of reading them from now on.
I read the bio. Not always, and sometimes I have to be reminded, but I do read them and have followed the links several times.
The rewatch for “Playing God” is done, but I didn’t upload it before everyone at Tor.com went home for the weekend. (Seriously, what’s up with that? I mean, since when do Chris, Emily, Bridget, Irene, Leah, Katharine, and the rest have lives and stuff? The cheek!!!!) So we get a three-rewatch week next week. “Playing God” will go up Monday, with “Profit and Loss” on Tuesday and “Blood Oath” on Friday.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I always read the bio. And the rewatch. :-)
— Michael A. Burstein
I read all bio’s once, then check to see if they change, those that do I read most times.
I sometimes read the bios, but I often forget, which is a shame. But, when everybody in the comments mentions it… :)
CharlesO@24 – no, you are NOT the only person who finds Bareil deeply unpleasant. I swear, after his first scene, I just wanted to take a shower. Something about him – the cadence of speech, the way he always seems to be leering, the way he stands just a bit too close…he sets off all my creepometers. Their interaction had a tiny bit more chemistry when they were talking about his speech and springball (at least he seemed like he was trying to crack a smile) but…honestly, I think he’s creepier than Bashir. And for whatever reason, I found their sucking face really awkward to watch.
I really like Kira though. I like a person who is honest and straightforward ;) I think I would react a lot more like her than like Dax with regard to Quark and the Ferengi in general.
As for the A plot…it was nice. It actually kind of seemed like a TNGish episode – exploring what it means to be real or alive or what have you. I could totally see Data befriending and charming the little girl (probably because I’m thinking of that one episode where he has the radioactive waste with him).
Man, here I thought I had a chance to catch up, but you went ahead and posted yesterday ;)
I’m a little late with reading this rewatch because I was offline for all of last week, but I do read the bios.
This is one of those great episodes that manages to further the characters and their relationships casually, through the “day to day” stuff, which I like. It’s one of the reasons (but admittedly not the only one) that “Lower Decks” on TNG was so good. I also really like the fact that the big revelation from Jake didn’t take up a whole damn episode like something of this magnitude would done with Wesley Crusher.
But krad, you hit the nail on the head: this episode really comes to life in the scenes between Odo and Taya. Odo is a whole budle of emotions at once: vulnerable, compassionate, firm, gruff, gentle, and all of it convincing behind prosthetics. Kind of like the journey we see Carl make in the film Up.
Also, yes, I too read the bios.
@24: Bareil is definitely the creepiest guy around.
Hello, I’ve been more of a lurker reading these rematches as I slowly make my way through these episodes. The only reason I wanted to comment is that this is one of the few times while watching a Trek that I have been brought to tears. Odo’s profound gift to Taya (up to now we’ve only seen him shape shift for duty, not for any other reason) and Taya’s pure joy in seeing it, both beautifully done by the actors, touches some deep emotional chord in me. I talk to a lot of people who didn’t like DS9, but this type of character driven story is why I treasure it and set it apart from the others.
Just rewatched this one, and nobody else noticed this: Dax diagnoses and repairs the broken reactor that’s been causing the problem – but everyone fulsomely thanks Odo.
Tarquina: That’s a really good point……..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I thought it was a bit strange that Odo and Dax just straight up told the villagers they were holograms–or at least that they never (on screen) considered not telling them. It reminded me of Data having to decide what to tell his ‘mother’ in Inheritence. I guess since Data’s decision not to tell her the truth has been considered the more humane one, it struck me as odd that they would go the other way here.
That being said. This was a strong episode.
Bareil has creeped me out from his first appearance. Ew. I’d rate this episode a bit lower mainly because the Kira/Bareil bits felt shoehorned into it (and just didn’t work for me, because of aforementioned creep factor and utter disbelief Kira would fall for him.) OTOH, the two other plots are lovely, and Odo shines.
Rene and Noley were ADORABLE in this episode.
You know, this episode was the biggest character piece that they could have done with Odo thus far. The parallels between this holographic society and Odo’s own unsure origins really resonated. When he made his speech about “who is to say they are not alive” really worked due to his own perceived alieness and isolation. It really stood out as Odo’s finest moment to date.
The de-Wesley-ification of Jake is not a thing, as from the start of the show it was obvious he was a normal child and not a technical prodigy. We didn’t know he didn’t want to join Starfleet, but he did behave like a normal kid.
And how could Diana Peterfreund not notice it was you writing these, if your name is all over the place, and it’s not “Peter Smith” or something like that? I always read the bios, even while reading these old rewatches I didn’t catch at the time, because the bios help put me in the mindspace Keith was when he wrote the rewatch.
@20 – MikeKelm: I think you hit there with the relations… TOS and TNG were “The Starfleet Show”, we were told (especially in TNG) how life existed outside of the fleet, and how the Federation this and that, but we only saw Starfleet officers and the occasional guest star… but with DS9, it was deeper, and showed us the universe was much, much larger and diverse. That’s another reason why I always say it’s the best trek show.
@31 – scinatfilm: Building upon Mike’s comment about relationships, and yours about the “day to day”, the main reason I credit DS9 with being the best show in ST, it’s because they followed a more serialized storytelling format, and we actually got to see these characters and their relationships (both with others, and with the universe at large) grow and evolve.
lordmagnusen: Talk to Diana. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
KRAD, the Skreeans weren’t conquered by the Dominion, but the T-Rogorans were who were the conquerors of the Skreeans. “Magnificently played by Philip Anglim” is something I never thought I would read. Kes gave a similar speech to Janeway about the Doctor in Eye of the Needle, that just because he was a hologram didn’t mean he deserved any less consideration, akin to Odo’s speech at the end. 29: Shadowplay was broadcast the same week as Thine Own Self.
I enjoyed this episode very much. Odo/Jadzeia where comedy gold in the teaser (Terry Farrell’s “you don’t say” face is priceless) and their story was interesting, too.
I can’t stress enough how much I enjoy the relationship between Ben and Jake. The two have a great chemistry together and I like the unconditional support Benjamin has for his son. It’s almost rare to see a good parents/children relationship in the main cast of Trek, it’s quite sad.
Bareil/Keira however… Bareil is just so very unintetesting, I find it hard Keira would fall in love with him. Anyway, he was only used as a plot device and Keira got to show she’s a very valuable addition to the station security by not being one to be decieved that easily.
This was a great episode, particularly Odo and Taya.
But one thing that always confused me is the reaction of Colyus to Odo having himself beamed up to the runabout and then back. Colyus seems very surprised and gesticulates about as if looking to see where Odo has went and even comments how the beam out is interesting because of the recent disappearances. It’s as if he’s never seen a matter transport before, which is of course believable as not every society has them. But then seconds later Dax asks him if he checked for transporter signatures and he responds that it was the first thing he did.
Did I completely misread his reaction to Odo’s transport or is just an oversight?
@44/rx2: It didn’t look to me like Colyus was bewildered, just alert and defensive. He didn’t “gesticulate” — he drew his weapon and looked around as if for an enemy. He was on edge about the disappearances and afraid that someone was taking his people, and so his reflexive first reaction was to put up his guard and look for an attacker.
I get the impression that while Colyus was aware of transporter technology, it wasn’t something that anyone in his community actually had, because they were a small community that didn’t need to travel far. So he knew it existed and knew how to scan for it, but it wasn’t something he’d encountered up close before. Like how a small-town sheriff might react if the feds came in with cutting-edge military drones or whatever. He’d be surprised to see one, and possibly suspicious if a drone might explain a crime that was baffling him because there were no footprints or tire tracks leading up to the crime scene.
I remember when I first saw this episode, I was relatively young and I watched Star Trek mostly for the action. Years later when I got the entire series on dvd, I was dreading this episode. I only remembered that I hadn’t liked it, but not why.
This time, I was totally blown away at how good it was. The scene at the end where Rurigan admits tearfully that he loves his granddaughter even though she is a hologram had me moved to tears in kind. It was also incredible to me how Odo simply being who he is, with all his gruffness, was so thoroughly able to win Taya over. Kudos to the acting that turned a good episode into a great one!
Read the bio.
Thank you, Michael!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
At least this seven year old bio is still accurate :)
I like Bareil. He’s one of my favorite guest characters. (But I also like Neelix, so apparently there is something wrong with me.) This episode is the first time we (and apparently Kira) find out that he grew up in a refugee camp, and that shared experience, as well as Kira’s religious devoutness which lends Bareil a certain glamour in her eyes, goes a long way in explaining why she is drawn to him. His serenity is also a great balance to her tempestuous nature. Is there tie-in fiction that expands more upon his backstory?
Noley Thornton is certainly adorable in this episode. I also just rewatched TNG’s “The Bonding,” which emphasized that if you are going to have a little kid be central to your plot, it really helps to cast one who can act as well as be cute.
I don’t LIKE LIKE Neelix, but I don’t hate him.
A little nice Fridge Horror (term stolen from TV Tropes, of course) in this one. Dax doesn’t say anything about techs coming back every so often to check the colony’s “reactor”.
What happens in another 50 years when the device starts breaking down again? Not to mention a group of Jem Hadar or some other invading species later on down the line strolling up on, so to speak, this colony of holograms. I guess that’s a quick end to the village if the old man’s not still around by then.
Nice fun things to think about. :D
Lockdown rewatch: love this episode touching and moving, Plus we get another Dominion hint. By this point Odo was becoming one of my favourite ever Trek Characters his relationship with Taya being a particular highlight. Also the stuff on the Station is good too, Jake and Sisko, Kira and Quark, All good. Excellent episode.
As with many of the best Trek episodes, we are left with many things to speculate about:
– Seeing Rurigan alone in an empty waste made me wonder how he has survived all this time. Does the hologram device also imply a replicator to give him food? Do holographic fires provide enough heat? Have the holographic people been bringing in real food for themselves that only Rurigan makes use of? I would think they’d realize he’s real quite quickly because of those points.
– On the same point, what happens when Rurigan dies, specifically to his body? Have they buried other holograms before? Maybe their culture does sky burials, complete with holographic birds.
– Are the holograms going to the bathroom? Will they now not do all the annoying little human things?
– Wouldn’t there be a Moriarity effect now that they know they are holograms? I would think it would effect their programming desire to never leave the valley, though who knows what they could do about it. It would have been interesting to revisit this community of ‘hard light’
@54/kalyarn:
Just as they were programmed to never leave the valley, and didn’t even think not leaving the valley was strange, I’d imagine there would be many things they’d have been programmed not to think are strange. Maybe they simply didn’t go to the bathroom at all and were programmed not to question why “food” goes in, but not out. In their company, maybe Rurigan ate and pretended to enjoy holographic food that had no true substance and wouldn’t get “digested” at all. In that case he could secretly eat real food and go to the bathroom in private. As to what happened after the villagers discovered they were holograms, it would make an interesting follow up.
I didn’t enjoy all three equally but was glad there were A, B, and C plots for a change. The conventional A/B structure often feels artificial to me, kind-of Love Boat, even when they relate to one another. (Yes, I know fiction is artificial by definition, but it’s usually best when you get lost enough to forget that.) Odo and Taya’s interaction, the A story overall, and its guest actors were a big favorite so far on our rewatch.