“The Ship”
Written by Pam Wigginton & Rick Cason and Hans Beimler
Directed by Kim Friedman
Season 5, Episode 2
Production episode 40510-500
Original air date: October 7, 1996
Stardate: 50049.3
Station log: The crew is performing a survey of Torga IV, a planet in the Gamma Quadrant that may be a viable spot for a mining operation. (It’s also a good three weeks from the Dominion border.) The team includes Sisko, Worf, Dax, O’Brien, Muniz, and T’Lor. The runabout they came in is in orbit, and Ensign Hoya reports a ship coming out of warp and crash-landing on the planet. The team is beamed directly there—it’s a Jem’Hadar warship, which has landed upside down, but with no hull breaches. They go in through a hatch that’s normally used to land troops. Worf takes point while T’Lor stays behind to guard the hatch.
A tense, slow search through the darkened ship eventually leads to the bridge and several Jem’Hadar corpses dangling from the floor (now the ceiling). Dax’s scan reveals that they’ve been dead for hours and that every bone in their body was shattered. O’Brien guesses inertial dampener failure: as soon as they accelerated, their bodies were smashed against the bulkheads.
Muniz finds twenty-nine more bodies—no survivors. This is their first look inside a Jem’Hadar ship, and Sisko feels it’s urgent to bring it home. (He also wonders what it was doing so far from Dominion space.) The runabout won’t be able to tractor the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant, so Sisko has Hoya call for the Defiant. Kira heads out immediately.
Worf, Dax, and T’Lor bury the bodies—altogether 42 Jem’Hadar and one Vorta—while O’Brien and Muniz work to get the thrusters working so they can get the ship out of the ninety meters of rock it’s submerged in.
A Jem’Hadar ship enters orbit and destroys the runabout and all three crew members on board. Seconds later, a platoon of Jem’Hadar unshroud and fire on the away team. T’Lor is killed and Muniz is wounded before they are able to get inside the ship, as that’s an easier location to defend. To everyone’s surprise, the Jem’Hadar don’t follow them into the ship.
O’Brien treats Muniz’s wound as best he can, but T’Lor had the medkit, and his body is still on the surface. They do have one portable generator, and O’Brien and Dax use it to get power running on the bridge. They also find a virtual-reality-style sensor device with two headsets. Dax and Sisko hypothesize that this is the equivalent of a viewscreen—the two headsets are for the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar First.
Sisko is contacted by Kilana, the Vorta in charge of the Jem’Hadar platoon outside. She wants to meet face to face to discuss the situation. They meet outside. Kilana wants the ship back, as it’s theirs. She finds Sisko’s claim of salvage rights to be quaint and pointless, as she also has them surrounded, though she does offer him food and drink. She also offers to bring them back to DS9 unharmed if they let her have the ship, and generally tries to play helpless, saying it’s her first mission outside the Dominion.
While they talk, a single Jem’Hadar boards the ship in secret. He ambushes Dax and O’Brien, but the wounded Muniz manages to shoot the Jem’Hadar. As soon as Worf hears the shots being fired, he alerts Sisko. Kilana and her Jem’Hadar escort beam away, and they go back in.
The Jem’Hadar was armed only with a blade, and brought in a sensor device that did something and then shut down. The away team is confused, as the Jem’Hadar should be able to storm the ship easily—there must be something on board so valuable they can’t risk even bringing a rifle on board.
Dax does a full structural scan, so they have a proper blueprint of the ship. Meanwhile, Muniz’s wound isn’t getting any better. O’Brien wants to take care of his man, but Sisko orders him to get the ship up and running, otherwise they’re all screwed. Later, Worf and O’Brien get into an argument over Muniz—the former thinks he should prepare for death, but the latter refuses to give up.
Kilana offers another parley, and she even says she’ll come alone and unarmed, but not insist on the same for him. With a phaser rifle in hand and Worf as backup, Sisko goes out again to meet. She apologizes for sending the Jem’Hadar in, but she needs to protect their property. She offers to let them keep the ship as long as they can go on board and retrieve the item of value they have on board. Sisko counters that he’ll bring the object to her, but she refuses to allow that. They’re at an impasse, and Kilana beams away.
The Jem’Hadar start bombarding the area around the ship with concussion shells to rattle them. O’Brien works to get the ship’s weapon up and running while Dax, Sisko, and Worf search for whatever it is Kilana wants.
The good news is O’Brien gets the weapon working. The bad news is the turret is stuck, so they can only fire in one direction. The worse news is that Muniz is deteriorating and delirious (he thinks the concussion charges are fireworks at carnivale).
Tensions mount as the bombardment continues, to the point where O’Brien and Worf almost come to blows and Dax gets even snarkier than normal. However Sisko yells at everyone and they get back to work. O’Brien manages to get the power working, and they figure out how to operate the bridge. Unfortunately, the engines can’t shake the ship loose, and they damage the engines in their attempt. The Defiant won’t arrive for another 36 hours, so they have that long to effect repairs.
O’Brien checks on Muniz, but he’s dead, the fifth person on this mission to die. A hatch starts to drip and melt and turns out to be a Founder—one that can’t hold its shape. It’s dying, right in front of Sisko and Dax. That’s what Kilana wanted, and why they won’t board the ship: they can’t risk killing one of their gods.
After the Founder turns to ash, Kilana beams onto the ship alone. Her Jem’Hadar have all committed suicide because they allowed a Founder to die. Kilana says Sisko should have trusted her, but he couldn’t, and besides she lied to him and withheld information. Kilana was concerned that Sisko would take the changeling as a hostage, but Sisko says he never would have done that. He just wanted the ship.
Sisko, both angry and sad at the same time, says that Muniz, Hoya, T’Lor, the other two on the runabout, and all the Jem’Hadar would still be alive if they’d just trusted each other.
The Defiant arrives and tows the Jem’Hadar ship back. Dax sits with Sisko in the mess hall. Starfleet Command is very pleased, and is awarding them all medals. Sisko is having trouble writing his report to Starfleet because he can’t stop looking at the casualty list. Muniz and Jake share a birthday; Sisko performed Hoya’s wedding ceremony; Rooney, one of the runabout crew, was a fantastic trumpet player. Dax points out that they died fighting for something they believed in. Sisko says that doesn’t make it any easier, and Dax says nothing should make it easier.
O’Brien sits in the cargo bay with Muniz’s body. Worf enters, saying that O’Brien’s performing ak’voh, an old Klingon tradition where you guard the body of a fallen warrior to keep predators away until the spirit is released to Sto-Vo-Kor. By way of apologizing for his earlier arguments with O’Brien about Muniz, Worf sits with him and says that they will both keep the predators away. O’Brien says that Muniz would have liked that.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? It takes two days for O’Brien to figure out how to get the ship up and running. But he does it. Because he’s just that awesome.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko doesn’t fall for any of Kilana’s rhetorical tricks to try to get on his good side. He doesn’t even flinch or react when she brings up Jake—an obvious ploy to get an emotional response. It’s especially refreshing because most TV characters would overreact emotionally to the mere mention of their child by an enemy, but Sisko is smarter and more grounded than that.
The slug in your belly: Tellingly, when people start to lose their tempers and Sisko yells at everyone, O’Brien and Worf are somewhat chagrined. Dax, though, is completely unrepentant for her snark and remains snotty to Sisko even as she goes off to carry out his orders.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf’s story of the Klingon tradition of ak’voh has the ring of bullshit. Way back in “Heart of Glory,” it was established that the body is just an empty shell, and the passage of the soul of a warrior to Sto-Vo-Kor is pretty much instantaneous so there’s no need for anyone to stand over a body to guard against predators because that tradition implies that the predators could have the body once the soul was done with it. Having said that, it could be a very old tradition that changed with time—and it’s also possible that Worf made it up so he could sit with O’Brien and help him mourn his friend while still maintaining his innate Klingon-ness.
Rules of Acquisition: Bashir asks Quark to get him some Regalian fleaspiders, the venom from which can be used to create a drug that will help with Kira’s circulation during her pregnancy. He didn’t know he’d need an import permit until Quark and Bashir are both arrested by Odo. Complicating matters is that Quark also brought in with the fleaspiders a Regalian aphrodisiac, also without a permit.
Victory is life: The only thing that saves the away team’s ass is that there’s a changeling on board the ship, and neither the Vorta nor the Jem’Hadar will risk doing anything that could harm one of their gods.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Unlike the last female Vorta we saw, Kilana has the sex appeal turned up to 11: she’s wearing jewelry and makeup and her outfit emphasizes her cleavage. Her entire affect is obviously intended to play on stereotypes of male humans responding to weak and helpless females.
Keep your ears open: “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me ‘sir’? I’m not an officer.”
“No, you know more than they do.”
O’Brien acting like true enlisted personnel, and Muniz sucking up.
Welcome aboard: F.J. Rio is back for his third and final appearance as Muniz, following “Starship Down” and “Hard Time.” Kaitlin Hopkins plays Kilana; she’ll return on Voyager’s “Live Fast and Prosper” as Dala. Hilary Shepard plays Hoya; she’ll be back in “Statistical Probabilities” and “Chrysalis” as Lauren.
Trivial matters: For the second time, the script was written with the intent that the Vorta be Eris from “The Jem’Hadar,” but just as with “The Search, Part II,” Molly Hagan was unavailable.
The Jem’Hadar ship will be used again by our heroes in “A Time to Stand” and “Rocks and Shoals.”
Muniz teasing O’Brien about Ireland having hills but no mountains is a cute callback to one of Colm Meaney’s then-recent movie roles, as Morgan the Goat in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain.
Kilana mentions reading Weyoun’s report on Sisko, which must have been made during the events of “To the Death.”
Hoya is the first female Benzite we’ve seen, and the first Benzite not to be played by John Putch (as two different Benzites in TNG’s “Coming of Age” and “A Matter of Honor”). She’s given a backstory in the Starship Creator videogame and the second edition of the Star Trek Customizable Card Game.
This episode is DS9’s third of four trips to Soledad Canyon for location shooting, following the prison camp in “The Homecoming” and the Breen mine in “Indiscretion.” They’ll return (along with the Jem’Hadar ship) to the canyon in “Rocks and Shoals.”
Walk with the Prophets: “We will both keep the predators away.” Let us speak of the phenomenon of the “redshirt.” The term actually comes from Star Trek, as the original series was well-populated by security guards (who wore red) who would wind up being killed.
But the phenomenon—having expendable characters whose purpose is to be less characters than people whose death moves the plot along without anyone actually caring who they are—is far older than that. Arguably the most famous classic redshirts are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakepseare’s Hamlet, who have very little personality of their own (at least until Tom Stoppard came along to fix that), but are there to show how nasty Claudius is and how clever Hamlet is.
Television exacerbates the redshirt phenomenon because, of course, you have your regular characters, and they can’t die, so if you need someone to get killed, you drag in a guest star.
The original series actually wasn’t as bad with the redshirts at first. Kirk actually took the time out to mourn the security guards who died in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and the one in “Friday’s Child,” not to mention the character of Tomlinson in “Balance of Terror,” whose wedding was interrupted by the space battle that would get him killed.
But mostly it was just a cheap way of establishing danger that got worse as the series went on, to the point where the two guards who were beamed into space in “And the Children Shall Lead” were barely acknowledged by Kirk except as an inconvenience. Even “Friday’s Child” was problematic in that Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Random Redshirt Dude all beam down—guess which one gets killed when he whips a phaser out? Hint: it’s not the three guys who are listed in the opening credits.
It hasn’t gotten any better with the shift to the 24th century, as we see in episodes like “The High Ground” and “Descent” and “Civil Defense” and “The Adversary,” where we see people get killed but have no idea who they are, nor given any reason to give a good goddamn.
And it’s something that I’ve always found offensive and despicable and awful. There’s no such thing as a faceless soldier, no such thing as an innocent bystander. The people on the bus that Obadiah Stane picked up and threw at Iron Man, the people in those buildings that Superman and Zod crashed through, the eighteen people in the saucer section of “Q Who,” they were all people, with loved ones and families and friends and jobs that would miss them.
Yet the characters act as if they know who has billing. Tasha Yar dies, and there’s a funeral service. Several characters die when the Defiant is rescuing Dukat and the Detapa Council, but they’re forgotten by the time the ship gets back to the station.
Perhaps the worst offender is “Caretaker,” the pilot episode of Voyager. When the ship falls down the rabbit hole into the Delta Quadrant, the first officer, the chief medical officer, the conn officer, the chief engineer, and the head nurse are all killed. Yet by the end of the two-hour episode, nobody seems to even give a damn about any of them. The characters of Cavit, Stadi, and the other three who weren’t even given names, are never even mentioned after the pilot episode. In the finale, when Harry Kim talked about how wonderful the journey is that they’ve been on, I was disgusted, since that journey was commenced with an event that murdered five people.
Imagine a TNG episode in which Riker, Crusher, La Forge, Ro, and Ogawa were all killed. It might, y’know, get mentioned a few times.
As a writer and editor, it’s something I’ve tried to combat as often as possible. You will rarely find faceless victims in my fiction, and in my Trek fiction I’ve tried to address the redshirt phenomenon head-on. (Notably, I endeavored in two pieces of Voyager fiction, “Letting Go” in Distant Shores, and the Voyager portion of The Brave and the Bold Book 2, to expand on some of the characters who were killed in “Caretaker,” make them into people someone might actually give a damn about.)
All this is by way of saying that, when Trek does address the redshirt problem head-on instead of just using the trope in the most standard way possible, it can be really excellent. While “The Ship” isn’t on the same level as TNG’s “The Bonding”—which remains the best screw-you to the redshirt phenomenon Trek has done—it does a fine job of making us give a damn about at least some of the people who die.
Five people are killed in this tense episode, one in which the characters spend a very long time sweating, both metaphorically and literally. The Jem’Hadar constantly bombard the area, filling the place with noise that makes everyone nuts, the Vorta is practically wearing a neon sign that says, “I’m manipulating you, and I think so little of you that I don’t care that you know it” (which matches how Weyoun acted in “To the Death,” the only other Vorta we’ve met in the course of their daily existence as opposed to a covert mission), and they have to stand around and watch Muniz die.
Muniz is, of course, the most effective redshirt death because we’ve seen him twice before, and he’s been charming as all heck both in his banter with Stevens in “Starship Down” and with O’Brien in “Hard Time” and at the top of this episode. It’s a good camaraderie that makes the guy incredibly likeable, so when he dies, it’s a lot easier to give a damn.
At first, he seems to be the only one of the five deaths we do give a damn about. Part of that is an artifact of the situation. Sisko and the others don’t have time to mourn T’Lor, Hoya, and the others because they’re too busy trying to keep themselves from joining them in deadness, but Muniz is dying right there in front of them, so they can’t help but be aware of it. Indeed, Sisko’s the one who has to keep reminding everyone that they need to go off and do their jobs and stuff and not just change Muniz’s bandages and stand over him looking concerned.
But then we have the penultimate scene, where Sisko can’t write his report because he can’t get past the casualty list. An effort is made here to make Hoya and one of the other runabout crew—who didn’t even get dialogue—someone who matters. It’s not a hundred percent successful, but even the effort is appreciated. These are supposed to be people, after all, and they should have someone mourn them when they’re dead.
The plot itself is fine. I like how religion basically warps everything, as Kilana’s actions are twisted and limited and screwed by the fact that the Founder on board the crashed ship is a deity to her and her soldiers. While Sisko’s statement that everyone would’ve survived if they trusted each other is nonsense—T’Lor and the runabout crew were dead before anybody knew what was happening—Kilana actually saying there was a Founder on board might have at least saved Muniz and the Jem’Hadar, and possibly also the Founder. (I also like the fact that the notion of salvage rights was completely foreign to Kilana.)
But what makes the episode work are the stakes. People are dying, and the people who aren’t dying are seriously losing it. A particularly nice touch is that we have the two friendships that are of the longest vintage here: O’Brien and Worf, dating back to TNG, and Sisko and Dax, dating back to the latter’s prior host. Yet O’Brien and Worf come to blows, and it’s convincing—both are acting in character, but more so, and it grates—and Sisko and Dax snipe at each other, too.
And it ends magnificently, with Worf sitting by O’Brien. For the second episode in a row, he apologizes, not by providing an unconvincing “I’m sorry,” but by acting in a manner that shows his contrition far more convincingly. O’Brien appreciates it as much as Kira did.
Warp factor rating: 9
Keith R.A. DeCandido reminds everyone that his latest Star Trek book The Klingon Art of War officially goes on sale today. You can get the book at your local bookstore or order it online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, or directly from the publisher. He’s talked about the book on the podcasts Trek Radio, the G & T Show, and SciFi Diner. He’ll be doing three signings for the book in May: at Singularity & Co. in Brooklyn, New York on this coming Friday, the 9th; at Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Thursday the 15th; and at the Enigma Bookstore in Queens, New York on Saturday the 17th.
In the Jewish tradition, the body of someone who dies is watched and accompanied by a person at all times until it is buried. From what I understand, if there is a soul or spirit it is assumed to be gone after death, but the body needs to be watched over out of respect for it.
So Worf’s explanation of Klingon tradition, even if it contradicts what came before, rang very true for me.
— Michael A. Burstein
I also thought of the Jewish concept of the “reader” upon seeing the end of this episode. I don’t know if the Rozhenkos’ religion was ever established, but I’d wondered if they might have explained the idea of the reader to Worf in Klingon terms at some point while he was growing up. But yes, it’s also possible that he simply made it up in order to apologize without seeming apologetic.
All in all, this was a very gripping episode that stuck with me for a long time after I first saw it.
-Andy
Have to agree that Voyager was the worst about the “Redshirt Phenomena.” You mention the pilot, but the finale was equally bad in the opposite direction. We throw the Prime Directive out the window, alter decades of history, and have lord only knows what affect on dozens of different cultures because if we don’t Seven of Nine will die. That’s worth it, though, because Seven is in the opening credits. Whereas changing history so that Voyager never gets thrown into the Delta Quadrant in the first place, saving the lives of all those who died along the way including Janeway’s first office…ooh, can’t have that because there’s no telling how it might affect the timeline in the Delta Quadrant.
Sorry to hijack the comments with something only tangentially related to the episode, but the Redshirts have always bothered me as much as they seem to bother you.
Folks bothered by what happens to redshirts ought to read Redshirts by John Scalzi.
— Michael A. Burstein
It’s a very, very strong finish and there are certainly some highlights along the way, but I think most of the plot is fairly mediocre. There’s no reason for setting up a mining center in the GQ (most writers – television and print – tend to forget just how many resources are out there; they shouldn’t have to go into the middle of enemy territoty for mining product). We never learn why the Jem’Hadar ship malfucntioned and crashed, beyond plot reasons. It all feels like a contrived setup for the real meat in the final act. Perhaps the episode would have worked better as flashback, like “In the Pale Moonlight”.
Very good, but more an 8 than a 9.ö
I’m surprised the recent Abrams Trek movies weren’t mentioned, because they’ve upped the ante with mass Redshirt and civilian deaths, rivaling other dreck like Man of Steel. The casual deaths of crewmates in the different series and movies has always bothered me a little. And producers need to realize that people are mostly laughing at Star Trek, not with it when it happens.
Anyway, this is a great episode. And I think it’s the first time I ever felt sympathy for a Founder.
Two quibbles, one sort-of quibble, and one thanks:
1) I thought it was the trumpet, not the saxophone.
2) Why would she have dressed to impress the humans? Unless she got all dolled up upon realizing that human Starfleet personnel were on the planet, she would have been out and about with make up and cleavage for…the Jem’Hadar?
3) You say that the Founder on the ship was the only thing protecting our plucky heroes, but (assuming I can trust the Vorta) it sounds like the Dominion wouldn’t have even checked in on the ship had the ship been changling-free. Of course, assuming the Vorta will be Vorta, you are probably right (although, once the Founder dies, they should have attacked)
4) I agree about the fate of redshirts. It’s painful to see how often they are ignored. I enjoyed Redshirts, and while I can’t stand the thought of reading a Voyager novel, I’ll make a greater effort to see how different authors treat the extras.
Overall, it was a great episode. I could easily see Picard (and maybe even Kirk) reacting just as Sisko did – watching this you realize that the best captains have certain traits in common, one being a certain command empathy.
And to think they chose this story for the show’s 100th episode. A gutsy story with real stakes, and brilliant character tension. The Ship deserves every praise it can get, to the point of generating an equally brilliant follow-up next season (and shot on the same location).
It all comes down to direction and atmosphere. Unsurprisingly, they would hold on to Kim Friedman to direct another two superb episodes this season, Nor the Battle to the Strong and Blaze of Glory.
Sometimes, minimal plot works best. Put these characters in a siege and let the tensions flare. Best way to generate conflict.
At least, they took the time to introduce Muniz the previous season. I recall they tried the same strategy with the female Bajoran engineer in the first season, who would try to murder Bareil. She only showed up for a single line on Duet, prior to that finale.
Also worth pointing out, even though Michael Piller was still a creative consultant on DS9, giving notes on the scripts (and would soon write Insurrection), this was the first year of Star Trek without him at the helm, as he’d left Voyager months before. I’m glad Trek was able to survive beyond Piller’s tenure (DS9’s best seasons were under Ira and Voyager’s 3rd season was a major improvement over the first two). He spent 7 years on all three series as showrunner (1989-1996), and definitely left his mark.
@3 Voyager was an offender in the Redshirt department, but they had something even worse: Disposable shuttlecraft. Unless they used replicators to build Shuttles, there’s no way the Voyager crew could explain losing so many of those.
There’s a scene in the 1938 movie The Dawn Patrol (it’s one of my favourite movies of all time). Basil Rathbone is the commander of British airfield in World War I France. His adjutant is writing a letter to the mother of an airman who has been killed in action and is pondering over the use of the word “courageously”, and Rathbone replies “No matter how you write it, it will break her heart just the same.” I always wondered whether the writers here had been inspired by that when they wrote the scene with Sisko trying to write his letters.
I thought this was a superb episode, particularly in the way it added depth to the characters watching them coming close to cracking under pressure. These days, of course, with shows like Game of Thrones and Sons of Anarchy, it is almost becoming commonplace to see characters whose names are in the credits being killed off, but for the time I thought it was an interesting way to get around things for the dying redshirt to be someone we had seen before and therefore had some investment in. As you say, it is something Star Trek seldom addressed, and so kudos to DS9 for tackling it head on in this one.
There’s a scene in the 1938 movie The Dawn Patrol (it’s one of my favourite movies of all time). Basil Rathbone is the commander of British airfield in World War I France. His adjutant is writing a letter to the mother of an airman who has been killed in action and is pondering over the use of the word “courageously”, and Rathbone replies “No matter how you write it, it will break her heart just the same.” I always wondered whether the writers here had been inspired by that when they wrote the scene with Sisko trying to write his letters.
@9
It’s very likely that was the case. Ira Behr always used movies from that era as inspiration for DS9 stories.
Though, according to Chakotay in one episode of Voyager, there is archeological evidence that Klingons did once have funerary rites, which suggests that Worf’s ak’voh ritual might be legit, just extremely old.
Though, if animal predation is an issue, it’d probably have to be ancient. Even Klingon cities probably aren’t that wild.
I admit, I’m not all that impressed with this episode on a rewatch, for multiple reasons:
The actions of the Dominion personal confuse me soo much – the Jem’Hadar could’ve easily mounted a full assault on the DS9 crew by beaming aboard or storming the ramp (even if they don’t use their guns, they should still be capable of taking it); the changeling couldn’t be bothered with acting on its own (by making its position known to the Jem’Hadar, by sabotaging the crew, or by simply slinking off the ship); and Kilana at least could’ve blown the ship sky high after the Founder had died – after all, there was no reason to hold back anymore.
O’Brien’s behavior also got on my nerves – he’s the man with the most ground combat experience, from what I recall, and was pretty good at holding up under such conditions (cf. the Armageddon Game) – so why is he falling apart all of a sudden? That the rest of the team doesn’t seem to hold up much better doesn’t help – a man like Worf starts getting snippy after a short time of bombardment? (Or at least, it felt like a short time to me – perhaps the showrunners where going for a longer timeperiod, but if they did, I didn’t catch it.)
The tension within the team just felt really forced to me, not developed naturally – and once you know why the Dominion wants access to the ship, as is inevitable on a rewatch, the suspense is pretty much gone from the plot. After that, it just felt to be a boring exercise, going through the motions.
Pretty much the only really good thing about the episode seems to be the redshirt treatment; and as far as I can tell, most of that could’ve been achieved in other episodes if the writers were better at portraying the regular cast as caring about their deaths, even if we had never met the redshirts in question before (though the latter sure doesn’t hurt for station personal, just to show that there actually are more people working there).
This is probably the right time to point out that “Sisko yells at everyone” is the name of a great Youtube montage video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvYiSDJujA
One of my favorite episodes. I recently rewatched it myself and thought it held up well, even though I know what’s on the ship they want back. Great performances by our principal cast here.
Bobby
Michael and Andy: Interesting. They never did establish formally that the Rozhenkos were Jewish, but I’ve always assumed they were (mostly because they reminded me so much of members of my ex-wife’s family), and I like the idea of mixing of an old Jewish death ritual with a Klingon one.
DemetriosX: They weren’t “in the middle of enemy territory,” they were three weeks from the nearest Dominion outpost.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This episode really captured the tone, in my opinion, for DS9 over this and the following two seasons, and it did so magnificently. The theme of the casualty lists especially when the (SPOILER) War begins is quite excellently played out, and I think that we see why Sisko is the perfect captain for this arc. Although I love Kirk and Picard, Sisko is a family man who has strong ties not just to Jake, but also to his crew. DS9’s crew was in many ways Sisko’s extended family, and although I would have liked more “Lower Decks” style peeks into DS9’s staff, Avery Brooks (as always) does an excellent job of showing Sisko’s deep connection to his crew.
@12 I agree about O’Brien. He has been prevoiusly shown as a battle hardened veteran; this did seem slightly inconsistent.
@1 That’s immediately what I thought of! There’s an excellent book called Jewish Themes in Star Trek which delves more deeply into this, but there are many Jewish ideas (along of course, with ideas and themes from many other cultures and religions) in Klingon culture, and especially in Worf’s story. In fact, I believe the Rozhenkos were originally going to be portrayed as Orthodox Jews.
The explanation I always preferred for the slight continuity error regarding the Klingon corpse is this: Worf is what Jews would call a ba’al teshuva (lit. master of repentance), i.e. someone from a background unafiliated with his heritage who on his own decided to become more “observant” of Klingon customs and rites. Because much of Worf’s learning was done on his own, presumably using the Federation’s version of the internet, (I doubt there were many Klingons in Russia for him to learn from), he is bound to make mistakes as he continues the process of learning about his heritage. As someone who has learned a lot more about Judaism in the past several years, I can say that I used to have misconceptions about my own heritage that I inadvertently spread; I’m sure it is much the same case for Worf.
Honestly, when I first saw this episode, I don’t think I recognized Muniz as someone we’d seen before. It takes me a while to learn to recognize faces or remember character names, and I think at this point I had to watch the show over the air from a station 50 miles away because it wasn’t carried locally anymore, so I couldn’t see the faces that clearly anyway. Maybe it would’ve helped if Muniz had been in more than two prior episodes.
Voyager in its early seasons was also pretty good at establishing recurring characters for a while before writing them out or killing them off. We got to know Seska a bit as an ally before she turned out to be a spy. Brian Markinson’s Durst was killed off in his second episode. Mr. Hogan was a recurring presence for half a season before getting eaten by a cave monster in “Basics.” And so on.
@1: You just made me realize the writers missed an opportunity here. Worf was raised by human parents who were probably Jewish themselves. Why couldn’t he have told O’Brien that the tradition was taught to him by his adoptive parents? The problem with the way Worf was written is that they tended to make him a pure Klingon stereotype. They established a backstory in which he was raised by humans, but hardly ever did anything with it. Heaven forbid he be the product of two cultures and talk about his human family and their heritage — everything has to be Klingon, Klingon, Klingon.
@8: Of course Voyager used replicators to build shuttles — or to build the components that the engineers assembled, as we were shown explicitly in “Extreme Risk.” It always surprises me that people treat the shuttle replacement as a credibility problem. It should be self-evident that replicator technology would let them make any material goods they needed so long as they had enough energy and raw materials.
@12: Even if the Jem’Hadar had stormed the ship unarmed, the Starfleet crew was armed, so they couldn’t risk the Founder getting hit by a stray phaser shot. And the Founder couldn’t act on its own because it was wounded and dying.
And O’Brien was falling apart because his friend Muniz was dying slowly before his eyes.
All these people got killed because Sisko had to have this artifact of pure military intelligence on a political entity the Federation is not officially at war against yet. Aside from TOS, I am not sure where in the franchise this plot would not have been driven by an ethically compromised rogue aspect of the Federation instead of our CO protagonist, except for DS9. How many Alpha Quadrant lives did these five deaths save in the upcoming Dominion War?
@18: You have a point about the costs of the military mentality, but I believe the captured Jem’Hadar ship does get used later on.
@5 On the matter of resources: well yes and no. While our planet and many of our neighboring bodies are resource rich that is mainly due to chance on the part of our local stellar nursery and out of what part of that dust cloud our planet was created in. There could be the possibility that our planet would end up iron or uranium poor if it was created in a different area. Thusly there may be minerals we haven’t seen since we haven’t been anywhere else in this galaxy.
@18: Those five deaths might well have saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. Remember in Call to Arms how Weyoun was surprised that DS9’s shields were standing up to Dominion weapon fire? It seems likely that studying this ship is how the Feds learned how to resist Dominion weaponry, which in turn enabled DS9 to hold off the Dominion fleet just long enough to get the minefield up.
Redshirts:
Douglas Adams got so worked up about this lazy writing practice (it was the ’70s private eye series Cannon that he specifically mentions) that in Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy he famously (or infamously) created the character of the Whale, made us care about him and then killed him off in less than two minutes. The original radio version is the best I reckon.
And of course, Sam Rockwell’s character in Galaxy Quest is intensely nervous as his character he played in the TV series was never named.
Interestingly the final cut of The Wrath of Khan cut the scenes that established that the dead engineering cadet that Scotty brings onto the bridge was his nephew. As a result, that scene is made more powerful, in my opinion, and is a reminder of the fate of the ‘extras’.
@17
I had no idea I was being this accurate with the replicator theory! Of course, that still leaves the issue of how Voyager got its hands on extra power and raw materials when they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, without starbases at hand. But I guess we can revisit that issue when Krad begins the Voyager Rewatch (one I’ll definitely need to do after DS9).
Eduardo: The likelihood of my doing a Voyager rewatch is vanishingly small. That doesn’t mean there won’t be one here on Tor.com, but by the time I get to “What You Leave Behind,” I’ll have been doing this for four years, and I don’t even like Voyager all that much……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@23: The universe is full of enormous fusion reactors radiating immense amounts of power for free. They’re called “stars.” And raw materials of all kinds are freely available in the millions upon millions of asteroids that can be found around nearly any star. The amount of water and minerals available on the surface of the Earth is a tiny, tiny fraction of what’s available in the asteroids, moons, and cometary belts of the system.
So there’s no reason why a starship capable of interstellar travel should ever have a shortage of power or raw materials. There are limitless amounts of both those things throughout the galaxy.
@24
Too bad. Would have been a welcome insight into what went wrong and what worked.
@25
This is why I could never be a writer/producer on a Star Trek show. I easily miss these details. Exact sciences were never my strength. Even with a basic knowledge of astronomy, most writers working on this particular universe ought to have input from the likes of Shankar, Okuda or Bormanis. I know I’d need it.
@23 – Pretty much every other episode of Voyager featured the crew investigating a planetary system or nebula for resources or Neelix away trading with some Delta Quadrant civilisation or other for necessary supplies. The problems with that series were many and legion, but that wasn’t one of them! It’s a shame that krad won’t be doing a rewatch to complete the set, but on the other hand it would require him to sit through every single Harry Kim focussed episode, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
The character of Muniz is a good example of something DS9 does that no other Trek series does- reoccurring minor characters (as a side note, the other Ronald Moore series- BSG does do this much better). We care about Muniz because we’ve seen him for a few episodes and he’s actually had a couple of lines here and there. He isn’t engineer #321, he’s an actual guy. I never understood why TNG never did this- it’s an even smaller community than DS9 and you spend an awful lot of time away from everything else- you’re going to have the same group of people again and again and again. While I’m sure there is some production reason for not using the same extras over and over again, it allows the audience to get that much more invested in the characters. As a result the death of this minor character has far more impact on the audience than the hundreds of ships that get destroyed in later seasons of DS9.
I’m also disappointed that KRAD won’t be doing a Voyager recap precisely because he hates it. Whomever does it though, I really hope that they keep a running total of accumulated damage and expenditures during the 7 season run. Somehow for a s hip that is entirely cut off from everything and gets seemingly blown to bits every other week, the paint looked awfully good and everything seemed to work really well by the time they got back to the Alpha quadrant. In reality, that ship should make Galactica from Season 4 of BSG look pristine…
Oddly, I find most fun to read Krad re-cap the episodes he hates. It seems they are written with the maxim “better to laugh than cry” in mind.
@24, KRAD, you just made my day.
I was born in the mid-80’s, so I grew up with 24th Century-era. TNG, DS9, and VOY are what I think of when I think of the franchise (I don’t really care for TOS and still dislike ENT).
But VOY is my least favorite of the 24th Century-era shows. It had such a great premise and potential — and it bungled it completely for a variety of reasons.
For the VOY haters, I recommend SF Debris; he’s just as critical of the many, many failings of VOY
Well then, its a good thing I’m doing a simultaneous Voyager rewatch as we go through DS9, overlaying the episodes (and the movies) by air or release date. I have to admit, as much as I like Voyager, I find myself watching those episodes to get back to DS9. So I guess the verdict is in, reinforced by this powerful episode: Deep Space Nine is Trek’s best series. To the episode, then.
Watching this episode this time impacted me a lot more than when I watched it back in ’96. I’m still mourning Muniz, (yes Hoya and the others, too, but admittedly Muniz more because he was so real, like a friend.) The entire episode shows so much grit and realism, and I too really appreciated the middle finger to the redshirt phenomenon. I disagree, krad, about TNG’s “The Bonding” being stronger. This episode has haunted me since it aired back in ’96, and now will even more so.
I guess I’m in the minority who thinks Voyager is on par with DS9. And Enterprise, for that matter. I didn’t watch them when they were originally broadcast, but when they all showed up on Netflix I’d watch a DS9, then a Voyager, then an Enterprise, and so on. (incidentally, I was doing this while following along with the KRAD’s TNG rewatch) Going into it I had the impression that generally DS9 was loved and Voy and Ent were disliked-to-hated by the general fandom, so it was interesting to watch them all together.
I generally follow the “accept the premise, accept the bit” philosophy of entertainment. I’m not bugged too much by continuity flaws, resets at the ends of episodes, or even characters behaving out-of-character. Sometimes I am, but for the most part I roll with it. Even if rolling with it means rolling my eyes.
I didn’t take any notes, but my general feeling is that they all had similar amounts of clunkers to greats. When I finished all the series I decided that Voy and Ent weren’t as bad as I was led to believe and DS9 wasn’t as good.
“Voyager” had its moments–end of season two and most of season three, a few bits thereafter. But it was, on the whole, pretty bad.
I don’t want to blame it all on Garrett Wang, so I’ll just say Harry Kim was a symptom of a wider problem with VOY–the acting was just awful. Much of that was bad writing and bad direction, I’m sure (Mulgrew’s “Red” on “Orange is the New Black” is a consistent scene-stealer). Compared to DS9, in which every regular, after Terry Farrell’s first season or so, was excellent, and most of the guests stars brilliant, VOY’s cast and guests were wooden, lifeless, and dull.
A friend of mine who also rewatched VOY recently said he liked it, but admitted he was a bad judge of actors and acting, and mostly appreciated the stories. And he has a point; some of VOY’s best episodes (the Hirogen two-parter, for example, and the two-parter where they went back to 1998 with Sarah Silverman, which is my favorite time-travel Trek ever) rank among the stories best in all of Trek, I think. But the acting … I just can’t get past it.
To bring it around to topic, think of “The Ship,” which is full of one-off guests and 3rd-string characters. But there are no false beats, no lines that fail to land. Even the best Voyagers had Harry Kim.
@28: “The character of Muniz is a good example of something DS9 does that no other Trek series does- reoccurring minor characters”
No other series? TOS had Nurse Chapel, Kyle, DeSalle, Kevin Riley (briefly), and bit players like Angela Martine, Mr. Leslie, and the like. TNG had Chief O’Brien, Nurse Ogawa, Mr. Mot, Ensign Rager, etc. VGR had Carey, Hogan, Ayala, Vorik, Tal Celes, etc. ENT had Cutler, Rostov, Kelby, Commander Williams back at Starfleet, and the oft-mentioned Chef.
I don’t want to make this into a discussion about VOY, but I agree @33 that Voyager had weak acting, with the exception of Robert Picardo, who was delightful as the Doctor. DS9’s ensemble, on the other hand, had, in my opinion, the strongest actors of any Trek show, which, along with its storyline and writing, was a major driver of its success. The Ship is an excellent example of this; I just don’t know if VOY’s cast could pull off such a powerful episode.
Not to take away from the episode or all the other positive points, but there were two parts that kind of fell flat for me.
1)Despite some of the explanations here, I still found it hard to believe that the Jem’Hadar/Dominion didn’t have some way of getting onto the ship without hurting the Founder or knowing where it was.
2)Sisko’s lament about not trusting each other didn’t quite gel…I think it would have made more sense if it were two parties who were misunderstanding each other but I really can’t see any conceivable way that they could have trusted the Dominion, so it just seemed like kind of a weird thing to say.
But…otherwise agreed, especially on the Redshirt issue. I often find myself silently mourning all the various casualties of big battle scenes in movies like that that occur becuase Rule of Cool says we need super huge explosions all the time.
@36, Yeah, even Stargate had the Redshirt problem — or at least SG-1 and Atlantis did (seriously, the deaths of the Russian SG team members was practically a running gag). There were exceptions, of course, when recurring low-level characters bit it (ex. Janet Fraiser, Peter Grodin). By the time they got to Universe, they did manage to rectify it somewhat.
@36: Yeah, that’s why I don’t enjoy battle scenes very much, because of all the casual mass death going on unremarked. I hated it in TNG’s “Where Silence Has Lease” (I think it was) where the Enterprise blew up what its crew believed to be a Romulan Warbird (not knowing it was an illusion) and Geordi cheered out loud like his team had just scored a goal. It’s not a video game, damn it, over a thousand people just died (or so it seemed). Blowing up spaceships — or knocking down whole cities like Metropolis in Man of Steel or San Francisco in Star Trek Into Darkness — is not a cool spectacle, it’s a horrific tragedy. And it shouldn’t be treated as something casual or fun.
And let’s not forget the thousands of innocent technicians and maintenance workers Luke Skywalker killed when he blew up the Death Star — not to mention all the prisoners on the detention level. (I can’t believe the detention cells were empty except for Leia, otherwise Luke and Han would never have been able to pass off their routine-prisoner-transfer ploy with Chewie. The detention cells must’ve been pretty full in order for a Wookiee to go unremarked.)
Kind of unrelated but there’s this commercial that I can’t STAND, for some insurance company (the most memorable thing about is that the song ‘we’re only human’ plays throughout) showing all these ‘dumb’ accidents happening to cars, like big logs falling on them, a speeding car hitting the door off of one, etc – that in and of itself already freaks me out because who is to say somebody couldn’t have been in those cars! But the whole thing is supposed to be ‘funny’, like, ‘haha, humans are so dumb, we make dumb mistakes, that’s why you need car insurance’.
But the worst part is the scene where this ferry is taking off and the car isn’t totally on the dock, so the car is about to fall into the lake and the person is screaming and screaming to no avail for them to wait. And every time I see it, I freak out and think OMG WHAT IF MY KIDS WERE STILL IN THE CAR SEATS and then usually think about it all night long and try to plan a way to get them if I ever find myself in that (unlikely) situation.
I could be a bit paranoid though.
@38, Have you ever read Michael Reaves and Steve Perry’s Death Star? It examines some of those issues and gives viewpoints to how any one could serve aboard a station code-named Death Star.
And I know the EU dealt with that in other areasons. You had some seeing Luke as a mass murderer and others seeing the DS crew as legitmitate military targets.
@38
Geordi was still young and naive, back then. It’s the same as his “Come back fighting, hoowee!” moment in The Last Outpost. He didn’t realize the consequences of his actions.
It wasn’t until the third season that we saw a more developed and conscious Geordi.
@40: As a matter of fact, Death Star is the only Star Wars novel I’ve read in the past couple of decades. I came across it in the library and was curious because of its authorship and subject matter. I can’t say I remember much about it, though.
@41: I have a hard time believing that anyone raised within the 24th-century Federation and trained in Starfleet Academy — particularly during the early 2360s, which seemed to be a particular golden age of peace — wouldn’t already have learned that killing people is bad. That was purely a failure of the 20th-century people who wrote, produced, and directed the episode.
That was purely a failure of the 20th-century people who wrote, produced, and directed the episode.
@42
It could be. I’m not excusing it. Contagion was a product of the Maurice Hurley era, after all.
Then again, we don’t know if Geordi’s reaction was scripted or not. It could have been a poor case of improv from LeVar (I recall Joe Scanlan stopped directing TNG because he couldn’t control the cast).
@42, Yeah, it’s not among my favorite SW novels either (even though Reaves is #5 on my Top 5 Favorite SW Writers List).
But I liked little details like getting into the mindset of the superlaser gunner and showing his reaction to the order to blow up Alderaan. It’s not what I was expecting.
I’m curious Chris, do you make any type of allowances for the type of story trying to be told? I mean, I get that death and destruction are not generally laughing matters, but sometimes a show or film is not meant to be some deep dramatical endeavor. Sometimes it’s simply a vehicle for mayhem and explosions and cool action sequences. Granted, you might not like those kinds of films/television, but surely you can understand why every individual death isn’t given equal weight with named characters in those works?
On a continuity note, I’m glad that the Jem’Hadar ship isn’t forgotten and will return next season. It’s all too easy to introduce an element or technology and then forget about it (one of the reasons I like Stargate was that they averted this given the SGC’s whole MO was collecting alien technology).
I also assume study of its tactical systems was how Starfleet manages to adjust their shields to stop polaron weaponry by the end of the Season 5. It’s never outright stated, but I assume this was the implication.
@45: A story doesn’t have to be mournful and depressing, no, but that doesn’t mean I want to see my heroes cheering with joy when they see hundreds of people die in front of them.
Indeed, if a story is meant to be light and fun, does it need to have people dying at all? Personally I think it’s more fun to see heroes outwit and outmaneuver adversaries than to see them shoot or blow up adversaries. One of my favorite film action franchises is Back to the Future, in which the heroes don’t kill anyone at all (although the fate of the Libyans in the first movie is ambiguous).
@46: Actually, my memory of Stargate is a little rusty, but I do remember them coming across some advanced technologies that the series then forgot about. Like that one alien species — the Retu? — that could turn invisible (which was really just a way to have nonhumanoid aliens without needing to spend a lot of money on visual effects). I think they offered their secrets of invisibility to the SGC in exchange for something, but that was never really followed up on.
@46, I haven’t seen “Show and Tell” in a while, but I don’t remember the Reetou offering anything like that. Their invisibility was part of their biology and not tech.
But that episode’s one example of what I was talking about. The Transphase Eradication Rods, which the Tok’ra provided to scan for cloaked Reetou, remained part of the SGC’s arsenal from that point forward. The TERs were used to scan for cloaking devices in later episodes like “Fair Game” and “Rite of Passage”.
Yes, I just watched that episode of SG-1 last night on my rewatch of that series with my girlfriend. The Reetou rebels were going to invade and destroy earth in the hopes that they could eradicate all the hosts for the Goa’uld. The invisibility was part of their biology. But SG-1 wasn’t nearly as bad as Star Trek with the so called “red shirt” problem. They were military and had to keep fighting whena comrad went down and were shown trying to get help to them or get them off the field of battle or bringing in medics while they continued to fight and evacuate a people. There were instances, such as the previously mentioned almost running gag of the Russian team buying it, but they weren’t as bad.
And really, I kind of don’t think about it. There needs to be more attention paid to those lost, yes, I absolutely agree. But with the constraints of television and other things, sometimes it’s just not possible. Be glad that they do it at all and in such good ways such as with this episode. That is kind of an excuse, sure, because television and film has done this for decades and will continue to do so.
This may sound weird, but for most of this episode I expected that Muniz would turn out to be a shapeshifter, and that he was the reason the Vorta and Jem’Hadar wanted the ship back so badly. I thought the banter between O’Brien and Muniz was played up a bit too much to be natural — it just felt like set-up for a big revelation that, hey, he wasn’t human after all. Anyway, I guess that’s why this episode didn’t have a big impact on me: the emotional resonance of Muniz just didn’t hit me because I was distracted.
When Sisko and Kilana are basically having a mutual cry-fest I felt like slapping Sisko. Excuse me, who started this war in the first place? Hint- not the Federation. Also, why exactly does he regret not trusting Kilana? What reasons would he have had to do so? She’s the enemy, moreover the enemy who didn’t trust or know enough about Sisko to figure just telling him the truth would be the best course. As for the death of a Founder, really Sisko, why the tears? This is a Founder, one of the ones who declared war against the Federation, one of the ones directing the war against the Federation, yet somehow this death is above all the others here and elsewhere.
While I like this episode on the face of it, it doesn’t really hold up for me. There was no real reason for the two sides to fight–Sisko should have agreed to return the ship to the Dominion, but insist on contacting Starfleet first to arrange for safe passage, rather than trusting the Gotta to ferry his crew back to DS9.
Sisko’s actions really don’t hold up to scrutiny here. Remember: they are in the Gamma Quadrant, which he himself was told–explicitly–the Dominion would consider any trespass through the wormhole as an act of war.
Most fans long to Sisko’s mining of the Wormhole as the precipitating event of the Dominion War, but I rather think it was his insistence to keep invading Dominion space to “explore the Gamma Quadrant” and his complete hostility in episodes like this one that convinced the Founders that the Federation was a threat that needed to be countered sooner rather than later.
@52/Arsene Lupin: It’s a mistake to equate the Gamma Quadrant and the Dominion. The Dominion was in the Gamma Quadrant, but it did not occupy the space immediately around the wormhole — remember, it was more than a year before explorers in the GQ even began hearing rumors about a power called the Dominion. That proves that the wormhole is well outside their territory, and the Dominion therefore had no right to forbid passage through it or exploration of other parts of the quadrant.
Except the Dominion didn’t control the entire Gamma Quadrant, and the section they were in in this episode was very far from Dominion space. Hell, it was two years before they even heard rumors of the Dominion after tons of ships went through the wormhole.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
First, a brief disclaimer: I am not a Trek Literalist: I view the TV shows as largely metaphorical. In other words, Kawamori canon: I view the events depicted in the show as depictions of the Trek universe, not as the literal truth of that universe. Which means, from my perspective, that there’s plenty of wiggle-room to debate just about anything.
Anyway….
The maps we have of Federation space suck. All of them. There are simply too many inconsistencies and contradictions to map out local space well–and attempts to do so always result in really nonsensical geography. Like DS9 placing all of the core Federation worlds, Earth included, only a few LY from Cardassia and Bajor.
It’s a mess. An unequivocal mess.
And it’s even worse when we try to map out the Gamma (or Delta) quadrant, because the TV shows never even tried to map out those regions for us. It’s problematic to say that the absence of the Dominion in the early seasons says anything about the Dominion’s borders when that absence is due to the Dominion not existing when those episodes were filmed.
But even if we assume that the wormhole exit lies far outside of the Dominion’s borders (although I prefer the theory that it’s actually deep inside their borders, which explains both why it took so long for us to see the Jem’Hadar *and* how easily they were able to find the Founders’ Planet) my point still stands.
When the Dominion destroyed the U.S.S. Odyssey, they explicitly stated that any further traffic through the wormhole would be an act of war. It doesn’t matter what territory the Dominion does or does not control. When the first Starfleet ship went back into the Gamma Quadrant after the Odyssey’s destruction. Going back to the Gamma Quadrant in open defiance of the Dominion was a very, very stupid move. The moment the first Federation ship sailed back through the wormhole, the Dominion really had no choice *but* to declare war.
The scene with Sisko and Dax in the Mess Hall was not in the original script. It reminds me of Nor the Battle to the Strong when after the episode was underrunning they added the scene with Jake and the Starfleet officer who shot himself in the foot; they later realised the new scene was the emotional core of the episode. 52: They’re called the Vorta. And I’d say it was more like a year KRAD before we heard rumours of the Dominion in Rules of Acquisition.
Someone earlier remarked about how the escalating tensions among the crew seems a little forced. I agree with that, but in the context of a 48 minute episode or whatever, I think they handled it fairly well, and I’m glad they did. One of the things about the Star Trek television shows especially TNG and DS9 that always annoyed me are how efficiently and cold-bloodedly the cast will deal with life-threatening situations. There’s usually some sort of clock winding down to zero, and the cast is just going through the motions and narrating what they’re doing at the same time as if they are conducting a classroom exercise in simulation.
I’m appreciating the discussion about the red shirts. Although I have enjoyed the Abrams Star Trek reboots, life seems to be rather cheap in the alternate universe. Entire planets get destroyed and forgotten about after a few moments of somber close ups. I really like how this episode focused on those lost in performance of duty, and how it affected those who served with them.
I have to disagree with the suggestion that claiming rights to the Jem Hadar vessel was not worth the cost. Obviously, the Jem Hadar constitute a mortal threat to the Federation. Intelligence is always valued higher than a few lives in these kinds of contexts. We thought a cold war for years trading lives for knowledge. Federation officers and crew swear an allegiance to duty, and this, in my opinion, was well worth the risk and the ultimate cost. The Jem Hadar ship was more than just a military acquisition. Part of the federation’s mission is about acquiring knowledge and understanding. The potential for learning about the Jem Hadar through their ship is almost incalculable.
Finally, @22. Thank you for pointing out that the dead crewmen in Wrath of Khan that Scotty brings up to the bridge was in fact his nephew. I always found that scene kind of gratuitous. Really, Scotty is going to take the time to bring a dead guy all the way up to the bridge and freak everyone out in the middle of a crisis? The fact that he was related to the boy makes Scotty’s action understandable given the personality of that character.
@38CLB, I remember the first time I saw Star Wars and how shocked I was at Luke’s glee when he shot down his first fighter. All I could think about was that there was a pilot on board. The whole Death Star complement didn’t even occur to me. Isn’t that weird?
Also, the picture above of the Benzite woman doesn’t show her with the breathing apparatus. Do Benzite females not need that mist? I confess, I’m reading these re-watches before actually seeing the episodes so it may have been explained without my knowing it.
@58/CathWren: I think the behind-the-scenes excuse for dropping the Benzites’ breathing apparatus is that they developed an alternative technology for adapting to an oxygen atmosphere, like maybe some sort of injection or implant. Star Trek Online says they used genetic engineering.
KRAD, I like the part about “there are no faceless soldiers”. I too often feel there are too many disposale characters, especially in movies and TV shows (it’s also worth noting that in the 80’s, the hero would kill off hundreds of henchmen without batting an eye and yet we should root for them. Nowadays, the bad guys kill off hundreds of good guys, to show how bad they are).
Sisko’s final scene in this episode was effective in a way. He cared about the people that died. He’s almost crying about how senseless the deaths where. Yes, it was important to bring the ship back to Starfleet, but the deaths where still completly unecessary.
I also liked the characters where allowed to get angry at each other. AND: Dax’s hair is pretty messed up. Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a scene convincing.
No more faceless, nameless, unmourned red shirts.
I liked this episode too but I would have given it a 7 or 8 because I felt the scenes with Quark and Bashir were just filler and put in the episode to waste time. These scenes didn’t add anything to the plot and I don’t remember hearing about their legal dilemma in subsequent episodes.
Worf seemed to be acting very out of character in this episode. He was raised on Earth by human parents and is very familiar with human nature. It makes no sense for him to berate O’Brien for hoping for Muniz recovery. He should know that it is very common for humans to use hope to make themselves feel better when things are hopeless. And I do not remember him demeaning humans in other episodes for not giving up on injured colleagues in TNG or DS9.
You could make a case that Worf was acting irrationally due to the stress of the situation but I have watched many episodes with him in strenuous conditions and he is generally very respectful of his Starfleet colleagues.
@62: Worf did indeed seem to be out of character and more of a jerk here, but I guess it served to ratchet up the tension level and conflict between him and O’Brien, and then giving Dax an excuse to berate them both and then Sisko to go off on her. But it also makes Worf’s “apology” at the end all the more effective.
The stuff back on the station with Quark/Odo/Bashir is needless filler but otherwise excellent show for the tension, mystery, action, and acting.
Enjoyed the tension in this episode and thought the characters were shown unusually stressed. They’d already been surveying for awhile per O’Brien and Muniz’s banter about the former being tired at the beginning of the episode. Really the only misstep I thought was the “if only we’d trusted each other” lament. The Dominion initiated contact by destroying the ship in orbit. I was really impressed by Sisko’s refusal to get rattled by the Vorta woman, hopefully the Federation has them pegged as the political officers and there’s plenty of history of how they tend to operate.
I think if the line had leaned into the Dominion’s obligations if they really wanted to be trusted by saying “if only *you* had trusted” it might have felt more reasonable.
@64/Remillard: By that logic, Kirk should’ve killed the Gorn in “Arena” because they struck first. Instead, by showing mercy, he created trust that allowed UFP-Gorn relations to become peaceful in the future (as indicated by the fact that the Federation was allowed to colonize Cestus III after all by DS9’s time).
What happened in the past is beside the point. What matters is what you can do in the present to prevent further death and destruction in the future. Often when misunderstanding or mistrust leads to conflict, the only way to end that conflict is to start building trust that didn’t exist before. This is why forgiveness exists. It’s the only way to put an end to past conflicts and build new relationships going forward.
In general, yes. However I think that sort of mercy requires a certain distance, either in time or lessened coercive threat. In Arena (assuming I’m remembering correctly, it’s been a long time), Kirk certainly tried to kill the Gorn throughout the first few acts. It was only after he’d trapped the fellow with the gunpowder trick and now was in a position to grant that mercy that he did so. Effectively he threat was lessened by his cleverness and he was able to gain that distance to consider mercy.
In contrast, the Dominion had just shot down their ship, assaulted the crew, the Vorta very clearly attempting to play Sisko’s profile, infiltrating the ship during negotiations, all in a matter of hours. That distance is not there for our intrepid Starfleet crew. They know something hinky is going on since they could be overrun at any moment which drives the story tension to discover the reason why, however at the same time there is no reason to believe the Dominion to be good faith actors. Essentially to achieve that distance, the burden was on the Dominion to withdraw. They have the coercive force and have used it. If they had chosen to withdraw (and I don’t really consider shelling and deliberately missing to be a withdrawal) and then perhaps our crew does something sideways, I could credit a plaintive joint bemoaning of lack of trust on both sides.
The only angle Starfleet took here that might be considered bad faith actor is the insistence on salvage rights. However, again due to the attack and subsequent shelling it also appeared to be their only shelter so it’s hard to give that angle much credit in my mind. If there was a secondary shelter nearby, they would have justified belief that the Jem’hadar would kill them.
Lockdown Rewatch
a good episode but once again you have to question the Starfleet decision making in allowing ships to enter the Gamma Quadrant without heavily armoured back up. Why are they surveying such a potentially dangerous area of space with an unescorted runabout? we know how dangerous the Jem Hadar are by now, a Runabout is going to have no chance, and indeed it is blasted to pieces within seconds. Seeing as we have seen The Defiant used for such tasks as ferrying Jadzia home to Trill when a little unwell it makes no sense to leave it at DS9 and take a Runabout.
Did anyone notice that when first exploring the “upside down ship” that the went up? Seems to me they were already at the bottom and should go down.
As I recall from TNG’s Tinman, Worf comments that the Romulans claim all in their vision. So by your logic the Federation should immediately stop any and all exploration beyond their borders. After all, it doesn’t matter who controls that space. The Romulans claim it and that means we shouldn’t antagonize them.
Nations, and people, cannot operate that way. From what we are told in this episode, and looking at the gamma quandrant as a two dimensional map, the Dominion is north of the wormhole. This planet is three weeks travel south of the wormhole.
Where do you draw the line? If North Korea claims the entire Atlantic to the US border, does the US immediately, and without complaint, withdraw all ships from the North Atlantic?
@70/costumer: It took me a while to figure out that your first paragraph is quoting comment #55 by Arsene Lupin and that you’re shooting down its argument rather than making it yourself. Maybe you should clarify that it’s a quote.
But I definitely agree with you. The Dominion has no right to start a war just because someone passes near their space. That’s like shooting a random passerby on the sidewalk in front of your house and claiming that it was self-defense against a break-in. It’s not defense, it’s an excuse for aggression.
Thanks, Christopher. I always forget to apply the quote function. I’ve had to go back and edit several posts to make it clear when I’m quoting.
@72/costumer: That’s why I usually just put quotation marks (inverted commas, for our British readers) around what I quote. Simpler that way.
“While Sisko’s statement that everyone would’ve survived if they trusted each other is nonsense-“
Yeah, that just made me scratch my head. The Jem’Hadar destroyed the runabout on sight, charged in guns blazing against the away team, and their first “diplomatic gesture” turned out to be a ruse to let one of them sneak inside the ship. And that’s not even counting the fact that the Dominion have spent the last few years manipulating the entire Alpha Quadrant into destroying itself. Sisko had no reason whatsoever to trust them, and claiming otherwise feels like some misguided “both sides are to blame” message.
The last time I watched this episode, I found myself thinking about what this situation must have been like for the Founder. It must have been terrifying. First, he’s the only survivor of a terrible accident, and then he’s trapped on the ship with people his race see as enemies, wounded and unable to call for help.
I know I’m super late but I have some thoughts, even if no one will see them.
1) I like that the comments praise the episode for subverting the “Faceless Redshirt” trope by showing our heroes react and mourn the deaths of “Muniz, Hoya, and the rest” without any sense of irony or self-awareness. Nothing really to say it just amuses me.
2) A common thread in the comments is disappointment that the show falls too much into the “Planet of the Hats” where all Bajorans have the same religion and all Romulans have the same personality. But when Worf sits with O’Brien the first reaction is to run back 8 years to a different show and say how it’s inconsistent with the early depiction of Klingons. Which one is it? You can’t have both.
Why can’t there be more than one funerary rite? Maybe the death howl is Klingon Orthodox and the ak’voh is Southern Klingon Reform or Lutheran or something. We know Worf is Orthodox because he does the howl for K’Ehleyr and Jadzia, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t know about the other ritual or be unwilling to help O’Brien. Especially for a friend.
3) Regarding Voyager and supplies, the whole premise of the show was that they were on the other side of the galaxy away from the support and resources of the Federation. The early episodes made a point of showing that, by turning a cargo bay into airponics, and having Neelix in the galley instead of using replicators. Tom Paris kept running betting pools and trading duty shifts using replicator rations as currency. If they had free unlimited power why wouldn’t they use it? You don’t ration something you have unlimited access to.
Bringing that back to DS9, in this very episode Sisko and co are investigating the planet for a mining colony. Why? Why have a mining colony at all? Wouldn’t a Federation mining colony just be a big-ass solar array connected to a big-ass replicator? Then you push a button and get unlimited whatever you want.
I see your comment! So there!
1) I said right there in the rewatch entry that it wasn’t 100% successful.
2) Fair point.
3) Voyager totally half-assed that notion, and abandoned it before too long. But you can go talk about that in my Voyager Rewatch that ran from 2020-2021…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@76/SlashVohaul: Replicators aren’t magic. They need a stock of raw material to make things from. The popular belief that they convert energy to matter is untenable; by E = mc^2, you’d need twice the United States’s annual energy output to replicate a single sandwich from pure energy. So you still need mining to gather the raw elements that replicators convert into finished items.
76. SlashVohaul
Never assume no one will see your comments. A lot of us spend a lot of time on these boards. If you are signed up, as you seem to be, you’ll get notice in Conversations if you click above and to the right under your name. Any post you’ve commented on will let you know if there are new comments. New discussion and insights are always welcome.
Pretty good episode. Nothing special or amazing about it.
Also it was the 100th episode. I wished they had done something a bit more action packed.
I think that there’s often a difference between what people think that they believe and what they actually believe, and folk religion often serves to paper-over that difference. So, Klingon orthodoxy may claim that the soul leaves the body immediately upon death and that the body is irrelevant, but actual rank-and-file Klingons in practice may not want to just abandon the bodies of their comrades and loved ones like so much garbage; so they make up some excuse about their soul lingering before going to Sto-Vo-Kor and hence you get the ak’voh.
Anyways, I remember thinking that Worf was behaving like a dick in this one, but I can better see his perspective on the rewatch. Even so, I think it’s a testament to the strength of his friendship with Miles that the two of them were able to sit together at the end.
Worf isn’t solely apologizing. He’s also creating space for O’Brien to apologize for his earlier racist remarks about Klingons being bloodthirsty maniacs.
@42: Worf was raised in the Federation and I don’t think he holds to “Killing people is bad.” As for other cast, I think they’ll say that killing people who are going to kill you is acceptable, and also a win. But there is an incident in NCC-1701 novel “My Enemy, My Ally”, where the Starfleet officer directing a fight pauses to tell his group “Don’t enjoy this too much.”
About who could trust whom, the Dominion shot first today. They could have hailed and said, “We’d like our ship back and any survivors, and by the way we have superior firepower.” Would Sisko choose to fight to keep the ship? Maybe, although it looks like certain defeat. Maybe he’d be content with tricorder scans. I take the point that they’re going to need knowledge about Dominion military design.
About Klingon death custom, I expect you only sit with the body of someone you care about, and I think the Klingon captain in “Heart of Glory” isn’t very interested in the strays he’s supposed to collect. But they aren’t interested in each other, either. However, it’s a stretch to say, as I’m going to try to say, that the answer is that their faction of Klingon believes that their spirits can fend for themselves and don’t need the corpse guarded, and so the captain is just respecting their beliefs – as well as saving time. In that story, there is simply no Klingon death ceremony, except for the yelling.