DS9 Spoiler: "Invasive Procedures" [dhg]
david gerstman
Review by David Gerstman <d...@lamp0.arl.army.mil>
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The recently completed DS9 trilogy will be hard to surpass in
terms of its overall quality. The creative teams in charge,
though, don't seem to have been daunted by the challenge the
last five episodes of DS9 have presented. As many have
noted, the quality of the show since "Duet" has been extremely
high and consistent. "Invasive Procedures" did not disappoint.
The title, for one thing, had multiple meanings. I guess
that's why it was pluralized.
More importantly we got the best view of Dax yet. Ironically
it didn't come in the episode which carried her name. Anyway,
let me get a few carriage returns out of the way and avoid
giving away too much too soon.
As the one review I've received has noted the one part that
disturbed me is Quark's dalliance with criminal, not merely rogues.
His shenanigans have endangered the station in "The Passenger",
"Move Along Home", and now here. It's beyond mischief, its evil.
The only justification for not jailing him is if he's a well mean-
ing rogue. If Odo doesn't do more than imagine him behind a force
field he's hardly worth much as a security officer. Another thing,
if Odo and O'brien were suspicious of Quark's appearance in the air
lock why not do a visual inspection?
Despite this misgiving the beginning worked very nicely.
For one thing, there were several references the just concluded
adventure. Nice bit of continuity. (What's this with Rom jokes.
Last year it was "Rom's so stupid he couldn't fix a broken straw."
now it's "Rom's so stupid he couldn't find a glass of water if
he fell into the lake." Wasn't Rom the one whose ambition nearly
had his brother killed in "The Nagus"? (Without Quark catching on
that he was involved!) Didn't Rom outwit his brother in "The
Siege?" Which one is really slower?)
Reviews recently talk of how much better Avery Brooks is
as Sisko this year. I don't really see that his performance has
changed much. I know the character didn't come accross as well
last year, but was it the actor or the writing? He, of course,
provided an excellent center for "Invasive procedures." His sly
manipulation of the villains was essential in turning the tables.
In fact didn't he perhaps encourage Dax to betray Varad? (Who
was really speaking when Varad betrayed his intent to escape
alone?) The scene where Sisko and Varad were discussing their
past was a lot of fun. (The "Cliffs of Bole?" Then there was
a reference to a "Livingston." I didn't catch the rest. But
I suppose they were similar references to the folks who often
appear in the credits. Alas they never discussed their battle
with the Bowmen of Rob :-)
Dax was great. Though her description of the process for
choosing host raised a lot of questions. Here we have a procedure
which requires highly qualified individuals compete to have a
venerable (and venerated) creature joined with them. For Trills,
this joining is the height of their society's accomplishment (not
unlike hitting the game winning home run in the bottom of the
ninth to win the World Series!) Yet in order to qualify for this
honor there's a bureaucracy which decides if one is fit. Seems a
bit mundane. Furthermore, the Trills clearly
reproduce (we learned something about families in this episode,
both Jadzia's and O'brien's!) but what of the Symbiants? Do they
have any way to reproduce, or will they just die out one by one?
Quark's overreacting was a lot of fun. Not nearly as
neat as Fizzbin but just as effective. But the other top notch
performance was that of Siddig El-Fadil. Here he was faced with
a double dilemma. As a doctor his first duty is to "do no harm."
and here he must perform an operation which will kill Jadzia,
else many more people will die. Making this doubly hard is that
Jadzia is the object of his unrequited love. He handled his
Klingon very well. I don't know if his outburst was borne of
frustration or if it was calculated but it worked to get the
Klingon where he wanted him. Though he'd been looking for a
way to turn the tables, and maybe already had a plan, Quark
expedited matters, even if the ruse was a bit transparent.
(In Dramatis Personae I found that Dr. Bashir's manipulator
seemed a bit out of character. On the other hand maybe the
scheming is part of his makeup, and it was only enhanced in
DP.) Another part of the Doctor's performance that was nice,
was the gentleness of the way he treated Jadzia; it may be that
he's generally a skirt chaser, but in this case perhaps his
feelings are a bit more sincere, even if destined never to be
answered.
Overall, though the characterizations all worked quite
well, the action didn't suffer. Invasiv Procedures, all around,
was quite a good show.