Deep Space Nine 5x19 "Ties of Blood and Water"

rating: ***

the story: Kira reunites with her would-be Cardassian father.

what it's all about: A sequel to "Second Skin, "Ties of Blood and Water" is another example of the producers finally coming back to the momentum of the third season as they used the fifth to reclaim ground lost in creative policies instilled by the studio in the fourth...I think maybe this will be the last time I talk about that...

Like "The Darkness and the Light" earlier in the season, Kira finds herself once again confronted with her complicated past, but this time, and actually the first time in the series, events fans have witnessed for themselves.  "Second Skin" was a classic in vein of "Duet," the first episode Star Trek fans in general really took notice of Deep Space Nine, in which Kira was forced to confront the complexities of Bajoran relations with Cardassians, who had for decades oppressed them.  It introduced a man tricked into believing Kira was his daughter, in much the way Next Generation's classic "The Defector" was about how the state sometimes lies to force individuals to expose themselves. 

This Cardassian's return wasn't strictly necessary, but it's welcome all the same.  This time he and Kira are on much more equal footing, although once again they become pawns in Cardassian politics.  (Strange; in the first two seasons it was always Bajoran politics, but this was another shift seen in the all-important third; it was just as well, because as with any politician Cardassians just love to hear themselves talk.)  The timing, for once, is absolutely perfect in the fifth season, because Dukat has just revealed that he's aligned the Cardassians with the Dominion, and thus made them bad guys again.  This has the effect of making Kira's paternal figure, Tekeny Ghemor, all the more sympathetic, as he now seems, aside from Garak, to be the last of the good guy Cardassians.

Really, "Ties" is a throwback to the storytelling of the early seasons all the way around.  Once more Kira is forced to grapple with her conclusions, as Dukat throws conflicting information at her, and like so many times before (notably, "The Collaborator") she's forced to sift through it.  It's good work, and it's the last time this sort of story happens in the series (successfully, anyway; Kira has another such adventure next season in "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night," which clearly tries way too hard to follow the tradition), another nod to the massive shift about to take place with the advent of war...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This is one that will make most sense to Deep Space Nine fans.
• series - See the above.
• character - Kira says goodbye to a dear friend.
• essential - We also see the return of Weyoun and thus another major bridge to the future...

notable guest-stars:
Lawrence Pressman (Ghemor)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Thomas Kopache
William Lucking

Deep Space Nine 5x11 "The Darkness and the Light"

rating: ****

the story: Kira is targeted by a vengeful Cardassian.

what it's all about: When this originally aired I wasn't terribly impressed with it, thinking someone tried a little too hard to play up the drama of the scenario.  Then I started thinking of it as more of a horror experience, which is rare enough in Star Trek.  I can think of fewer chilling scenes in franchise lore than the Cardassian preparing to carve Kira up to take the baby growing inside out of her. 

The baby, of course, belongs to O'Brien, and his wife! which is an extremely odd creative solution the producers came up with at the end of the previous season to explain why Kira looks pregnant even though she doesn't seem the type, because Nana Visitor was and short of dropping even temporarily one of the show's best characters, this seemed like a good idea.  Except for this episode, it's actually a pretty lousy idea, one of the worst the series ever had, but a pregnant Kira ratchets up the drama of this particular story considerably.  It contrasts nicely with the notion that she finally has to confront an innocent Cardassian who became a monster because of things she did during the Occupation.

"Things she did" means that Kira was a terrorist.  In the '90s being a terrorist was an acceptable thing to be for a character who was supposed to be unambiguously a good guy.  That's why Voyager had all those Maquis terrorists, too.  Post-9/11, this is hugely inconceivable, of course, and as a result these are creative decisions that continue to be the unspoken elephant in the Star Trek room.  In fact, until "Darkness" there had really been no question as to whether or not Kira's prior actions were justified.  The more I thought about this, the more I realized just how important this episode really is.

The Maquis, when they debuted, had a thousand reasons given to them, and all the moral ambiguities spelled out.  The Bajorans were given the relatively simple story of the Occupation, and the need to reclaim their world from the Cardassians, at any cost. As Star Wars has shown, and especially Rogue One, selling terrorism as entertainment isn't as hard as you'd think, even after 9/11.  It's called resistance when it's the good guys, right?  Well, innocent people still die, and that's still tough to deal with. 

The messy Bajoran/Cardassian past was something Deep Space Nine used to great creative success from the very start, including the acknowledged classic "Duet," in which Kira meets a Cardassian who pretends to be a war criminal just so someone among his people will be punished for their crimes.  And yet, as late as the third season, "Shakaar" glorifies the "resistance group" Kira belonged to and never considers for a moment that some evil was done, too, regardless of whether or not it was for the greater good.

This is the moral ambiguity of the series in a nutshell.  Kira's group is targeted by a Cardassian played by Randy Oglesby.  He'd later portray one of the key Xindi in Enterprise's 9/11-themed season, the one who makes the big moral breakthrough in that arc, deciding it's not worth supporting his people unconditionally no matter how evil he's been told humans are.  In "Darkness" he's a Cardassian who was scarred in one of Kira's acts of terror, and wasn't even a soldier but civilian.  Kira still tries to argue that he played a part, that basically because he was Cardassian...he was guilty anyway. 

All this plays beautifully into the rest of the series.  Presenting a Cardassian who seems to be evil with a capital E is in some ways a preparation for the looming entrance of the Cardassians into the Dominion, and thus the start of the Dominion War.  But even the enemy can't be clear-cut in this series, since Odo's people are the Founders, who run the Dominion, and every appearance of the Jem'Hadar to this point had presented them in a sympathetic light (although this changes in a few episodes), despite their debut marking the definitive villainy of the Dominion...

This is a hugely complex episode, and it reflects extremely well on the complexity of Deep Space Nine itself.  It's a classic that reflects the past and future of the series, and you can't ask for much more than that.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The difficult subject of terrorism enacted by main characters examined for the first time.
• series - Reflects backward and forward.
• character - One of the truly necessary Kira spotlights.
• essential - Uncomfortable in all the right ways.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby
William Lucking
Aron Eisenberg

Deep Space Nine 3x24 "Shakaar"

rating: ***

the story: Kira is reunited with a friend from the Resistance, who will become a significant part of Bajor's future thanks to a power play from Kai Winn (just not in the way she thinks).

what it's all about: Bajoran stories at their heart were always a mix of church and state, and so in that regard they may actually be the most fundamentally American stories of the whole franchise.  The trick was always to find a balance between these impulses, which had already created compelling figures and arcs earlier in the series, but had failed to find a truly likable figure, outside of Kira, with which to rally stories around.  Well, "Shakaar" finally finds that figure.

Dipping into Kira's past (and present), which some might consider a cheat since until this episode the title character somehow didn't exist at all, despite a lot of heavy drama surrounding Bajor in the early seasons (the Bajorans will always be the Kazon of Deep Space Nine; Voyager fans will know what I'm talking about).  Putting that aside, he comes at an opportune moment.  Kai Winn had just vanquished the other likeliest contender to her personal little Game of Thrones in "Life Support," where the perennially bloodless Vedek Bareil finally ran out of luck with the writers.  She used a lot of political reasoning then, too, just as she attempts to use here, but Kira won't let her get away with it this time, which is actually kind of ironic, since Winn actually enlists her into the cause, given Kira's past association with the man hogging all the valuable farm equipment Winn wants to use to bolster her public image, I mean support Bajor's future (of course!).

Duncan Regehr is instantly a more charming actor than just about everyone else (besides Michelle Forbes and Nana Visitor) who's ever played a Bajoran in Star Trek.  It's good, too, because he was last seen in the franchise playing a thankless role in one of the worst episodes ever, Next Generation's "Sub Rosa.  But a lot of the story falls, as usual, on Kira, who is once again asked to mediate a difficult situation (it turned out horribly in the first season, but apparently Winn never heard about that).  Eventually it becomes a full-blown Bajoran Western.

It's good stuff.  It works on every level that usually falls apart in Bajoran episodes, and even manages to give the poor world a break, a happy ending for a change, when Shakaar is elected to the role of first minister, which Winn had attempted to usurp and thereby control everything for her people.  It's the easiest Bajoran episode to recommend, so of course it comes from the third season.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This belongs more to the fantasy TV genre of perfect political figures than to Star Trek.
• series - It works wonders for the Bajorans.
• character - Once again Kira proves to know what's best for her people.
• essential - It's the episode any fan should watch who would otherwise groan at the prospect of a Bajoran adventure.

notable guest-stars:
Duncan Regehr (Shakaar)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Sherman Howard
William Lucking

Enterprise 4x17 "Bound"

*

Of interest to lovers of green people everywhere!

Okay, so this is the Orion Slave Girl episode.  The Orions previously appeared in the original series (via Orion Slaves Girls), and popped up earlier in the fourth season during the Augments Trilogy, but this is the attempt to turn the Orions into Enterprise's next Andorian project, explaining more about a culture that stood out a long time ago but hadn't been seen since.

You learn, basically, that those Slave Girls are actually in control of their husky males.  A matriarchy of hookers.  Who would've guessed?  (Other than Barney Stinson.)

There's token attention paid to Trip and T'Pol's complicated relationship, but that's basically what this one is about.  Whether or not you find this as another excuse for Star Trek to feature scantily clad females is entirely up to you.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.