[DS9] Gary's Ranked Reviews: 08 "The Siege at AR-558"
Gary Torborg
written by Gary M. Torborg
Copyright 1998 - All Rights Reserved
This review contains spoilers for
Deep Space Nine: Season 7, Episode 8:
"The Siege of AR-558"
Gary's spoiler-free season 7 rank:
Rank Episode Title
[1 The Siege of AR-558]
2 Shadows and Symbols
3 Once More Into the Breach
4 Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
5 Afterimage
6 Image in the Sand
7 Chrysalis
8 Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Previous season best (#1) ranked episodes:
Season Episode Title
1 Duet
2 Necessary Evil
3 Improbable Cause
4 The Visitor
5 In Purgatory's Shadow
6 In The Pale Moonlight
Series-to-date rank: top 10 episodes of the series:
(new additions marked with brackets as appropriate)
Rank Season Episode Title
1 4 The Visitor
2 1 Duet
3 2 Necessary Evil
4 3 Improbable Cause
5 3 The Die is Cast
6 6 In The Pale Moonlight
7 6 Rocks and Shoals
[8 7 The Siege of AR-558]
9 5 In Purgatoryís Shadow
10 6 Far Beyond the Stars
The Siege of AR-558. In brief: the gritty, realistic war story we've
been waiting for all season - and this season's number one so far.
I would imagine that writing a truly good war story would be very
difficult, simply because so many other similar stories have already
been told. For the third straight week, the Dominion War has been
either the focus of the entire episode or a large and significant part of
its backdrop. For the second straight week, we have an episode whose
underlying story has indeed been told many times before. In
"Treachery..." two weeks ago, the elements of the Vorta and the
Founders were the issues. Last week we saw an aged Klingon hero go
out in a blaze of glory against the Jem'Hadar. One can only presume
that the aftermath of Kor's success against the Jem'Hadar resulted in
either a hasty Jem'Hadar retreat or a glorious ambush by the Defiant
and the Federation fleet.
This week, we have our intrepid Defiant crew getting right into the
thick of things - and by accident at that. It was known going in that
this mission was going to be dangerous, because the Fed crew
stationed at AR-558 was almost constantly fighting off Jem'Hadar
themselves. What wasn't expected was that the Defiant crew would
actually get caught up in the battle themselves. The setup was
plausible and well acted, as we learn (not right away, mind you) that
the Feds have commandeered a Dominion communications array, and
are in the process of getting it working to listen in on the enemy. In
the process, the long overdue overhaul of the troops stationed there
makes them all trigger happy and paranoid.
Quark's presence is nicely explained here, because it really *does*
make sense to provide the occasional "creature comforts" to troops
stationed in a dangerous strategic location. Thus we have Dr. Bashir
bringing the "tape" (as he called it) of Vic Fontaine music. Thus we
have Ezri Dax, as a counselor, to help the troops deal with their
stressful situation. Thus we have the Defiant with its regular crew
complement rather than a Runabout, because the ship is going into
dangerous territory. And thus it is that we have the character with
most of the real best lines in the episode, Quark, appearing here too.
But, Quark wasn't the only one with great lines. In fact, one of the
things that really made this work was the fact that nearly every
character had a large number of really good and appropriate lines to
say. Shortly after the opening title, Sisko realizes that they're being
shot at by Federation phasers and yells out his identification and a call
to cease fire. The reply speaks volumes as the Commander (formerly
first officer) of the outpost yells "you heard him; cease fire, dammit!".
Right there, you know we're in for some grit. As Tim Lynch, the
Jammer, and I have all previously mentioned, a steady diet of nothing
but this kind of storytelling would not be welcome, but this was
nevertheless a welcome return.
As plot oriented as this was, DS9 has once again focussed on its
strength successfully, which is to say, its characters. Two weeks in a
row we have had an impressive guest cast, though the most interesting
character was the understated performance by Bill Mumy as Kellen.
There will be, I'm sure, some debate about whether or not the
remainder of the guest cast was "stock war movie cliche" types, but I
really don't think that was a big issue here, because I don't honestly see
how this type of story could be told any other way. As my Dad put it
after seeing the episode, if you're going to tell a *realistic* war story,
you're going to have to have some characters like these and some
situations like these.
The "situations" my Dad referred to involve characters doing things
they would not normally do, things that aren't their specialties, but
things they were forced to do unexpectedly. For instance, Dr. Bashir
had to actively participate in the ground attack, despite being sent there
for medical aid to the troops. Ezri Dax, sent to AR-558 as a counselor,
had to take on the role of engineer, borrowing heavily on her previous
host, Jadzia, for the knowledge needed to expose the Jem'Hadar mines.
Quark was there to bring libation to help the troops relax, and wound
up guarding the makeshift hospital and taking out a Jem'Hadar soldier
himself - a soldier that surely would have killed both him and his
wounded nephew if not for Quark's quick reflexes and good ears.
The wounding of Nog was one of the most interesting plot
developments in the show. Not perhaps the episode's high point, but a
very daring character change for Star Trek. "Major" characters have
been wounded before, but have always been patched back up enough
to be able to return to duty undiminished. The most notable example
is Capt. Picard on TNG who was assimilated by the Borg and returned
after Dr. Crusher's micro surgery ("Best of Both Worlds"), and was
later "mortally" wounded only to have Q intervene on his behalf
("Tapestry"). Major characters have also been killed off before, the
two most notable examples being Tasha Yar in TNG, and the more
recent Jadzia Dax in DS9. It strikes me as being easier to actually kill
off a major character than leave a character permanently disabled after
being wounded in battle, which makes Nog's situation even more
interesting. Provided that DS9 doesn't drop the ball on this one, we
could actually see the first real example of a non-fatal debilitating
injury to a character since Capt. Pike was shown to be badly injured in
TOS' "The Menagerie". Star Trek's track record on this is not
particularly good, but one can only hope that a truly decent followup is
made on this point.
One of the episode's higher moments (or set of moments, I suppose)
were the exchanges between Quark and Sisko as well as Quark and
Nog, where we see simultaneously an outsider's viewpoint of the War
and its total senselessness, and an insider's point of view as Quark
must deal with his nephew going "off to war." Quark's lines were all
spot-on for the character and the situation, which is one of this season's
more pleasant surprises. His exchange with Nog about how the
Ferengi would have negotiated an end to the war before fighting even
broke out? Check. His assessment of how "hue-mahns" change
character when their creature comforts are taken away? Check.
Worrying about Nog enough to confront his nephew's commanding
officer? Check. And, of course, the lynchpin of the whole set of
exchanges: Quark's "are you happy now?" remark after Nog's
wounding.
Check.
Sisko is another character that fared very well in the episode. Though
not much new is learned or developed, we do see some more examples
of just how desperate Sisko is becoming. As first shown in last year's
number one episode, "By The Pale Moonlight," Sisko has gotten to the
point where he will stop at nothing if it means gaining some headway
against the Dominion, and conscience be damned. I am referring to his
use of the Jem'Hadar subspace mines as weapons against the very
same Jem'Hadar. Nothing is quite as low down and dirty in warfare
than using the enemy's weapons against that same enemy, and mines
are a particularly nasty weapon. With all the recent hype and hoopla
about the mines planted in Eastern European countries, I am rather
surprised that the Trek writers didn't shy away from such a
controversial topic. Nevertheless, it was put to good use here, and in
particular, in a chilling scene where the mines are then exposed - often
*very* close to troops in the immediate area.
One of the several things this episode had going for it was suspense.
The tension was unbelievably thick in places, notably in the
aforementioned "mine exposure" scene and in the moments leading up
to the great battle scene. In the latter, Bashir's use of playing Vic
Fontaine music over loudspeakers to "break the tension" was not only
quite effective but also *extremely* spooky. About the only thing that
would have made things even more surrealistic is if the Vic Fontaine
music would have *continued* playing as the primary soundtrack
behind the battle.
The episode's high point was, to me, the battle itself. Star Trek has
had its share of them, but relatively few of them were ground attacks
like this one. There is, I suppose, an assumption on the part of many
Sci-Fi writers that a space-faring race would have little use for a
ground War and seldom if ever get involved in one. Deep Space Nine
has done an admirable job in two episodes of showing that, sometimes,
ground fighting is inevitable (the other being "Nor The Battle To The
Strong"). The acting and directing were very well choreographed in
the chaos and frenzy of the battle. The soundtrack was superb. The
battle was also one of the most protracted in Trek history, spanning
over one full act in the episode, a long one at that. The battle was very
realistic, very graphic, very violent, and contained, in itself, the great
Quark scene where his keen ears detect the Jem'Hadar, whom he takes
out with a phaser blast. It also had a moment of great tension as the
Jem'Hadar soldier prepares to finish off Sisko, a scene we see from
Sisko's point of view.
Jem'Hadar battles show that they aren't particularly good at ground
attacks ("Rocks and Shoals" being another example), but that didn't
detract from the scene here. The sacrifice of so many of the guest
characters was a little trite considering Trek's past, but again was not a
problem enough to matter much. The ending of the show was a little
abrupt and rushed, but the line about "they're just children" was well
taken even if a little too close to being expected at that point. Overall,
we have a superb episode that realistically shows what can happen
during a War where things or places have to be "held." The minor
flaws the episode has are not enough to drop the show below top-ten-
of-the-series material. A steady diet of this would be monotonous, but
this episode was also *long* overdue, and I hope to see at least one
more before the War is finally over.
One more note: our local TV station airing DS9 did something most
unusual with the episode. During its second airing, the "TV-PG" icon
in the top left corner was partially covered up with a "TV-14" icon
much larger in size, with a "V" moniker below it. Presumably, the
station got some calls regarding the graphic violence in the episode,
perhaps the most ever scene in televised Trek.
Next up: Dukat as Jim Jones?
---
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