[DS9] Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Inquisition"
Timothy W. Lynch
WARNING: Everyone expects the spoilers for "Inquisition."
(Okay, so it's obvious...)
In brief: A questionable fifth act, but a riveting first four.
======
Written by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Directed by: Michael Dorn
Brief summary: An Internal Affairs investigator suspects that Bashir
may be a Dominion operative.
======
"Inquisition" came as quite a relief to this viewer. After side trips into
pasts real and imagined, mob infiltration, and film noirish dead
barflies, DS9 has finally gotten back to a story dealing more directly
with the present day -- and not a moment too soon.
One of the biggest strengths of the show is turning past weaknesses
into strengths. For instance, when last season's "By Inferno's Light"
aired, a lot of people wondered how the Dominion could possibly be
so stupid as to leave Garak's runabout in orbit where it could be used
for an escape attempt. "Inquisition" suggested a reason: Sloan's
suspicion that they'd left it there specifically to let an operative escape
turned out not to be true in this case, but it certainly fits with past
Dominion strategies (such as having Eris escape in "The Jem'Hadar"
all those years ago). I'd feel better if I'd known the earlier holes were
deliberately left there to be exploited later, but making good use of
them later is definitely a lot better than nothing.
"Inquisition" also struck up a good sense of mood from the very start,
thanks both to some solid writing and a great directing job from
Michael Dorn. Even the initial scene, with Odo noting Bashir's late
hours, felt vaguely sinister -- and, in keeping with the idea that we're
never supposed to trust a Trek investigator, I doubt there's anyone out
there who felt that Sloan was on the up-and-up for even a moment.
Little details, like Bashir getting the wrong breakfast ("I hope you're
enjoying my scones, Worf") and the evidence that people had gone
over his quarters served to put both him and us ill at ease.
Eventually, of course, the accusations began flying -- and despite the
usual tradition that investigators are up to no good, Sloan made a
startlingly good circumstantial case. Rather than directly questioning
Bashir's conscious loyalty, which would have made it obvious his
case was going nowhere, he suggested that Bashir was a Dominion
agent but had compartmentalized that little fact away -- in effect, that
he was an unconscious Dominion plant. That felt eerily plausible;
even though much of Sloan's evidence predated Bashir's abduction by
the Dominion, his pointing out that Bashir has lied all his life was on
target (and strong), and he made good use of events ranging from
Bashir's treatment of Jem'Hadar in "Hippocratic Oath" to his work
with the genetically enhanced mental patients in "Statistical
Probabilities" earlier this season. Sloan's arguments didn't convince
me outright that Bashir was definitely an agent for the Dominion, but
he did plant a worm of doubt, which is often all that's needed, both
for strong-arming people and for good drama. I had enough doubt
that as the episode went from bad to worse for Bashir (leading even
Sisko to wonder if Bashir were an unwitting agent), I started to
wonder if Thompson & Weddle were actually going to take the least
expected route of all, and show that Bashir actually *was* an agent.
When Bashir was abruptly beamed out of prison and taken aboard
Weyoun's ship, I wondered the same thing. Weyoun seemed so
sincere (well, by his standards, anyway) and so sure of himself that if
Bashir *weren't* an agent the only other option was that the abduction
had been staged. We were kept guessing for quite a while,
particularly with Weyoun serving and mentioning Bashir's scones --
but once Kira and Worf rescued Bashir in mere minutes, it seemed
fairly clear that the whole thing was a setup to make Bashir doubt
himself further. While interesting, that sort of mind-altering game is
also something we've seen a few times before (most notably in
TNG's magnificently done "Frame of Mind"). Although the way in
which Bashir figured out his shipmates weren't real was nicely
handled and nicely foreshadowed, I wondered just a little if we were
going to be stuck with an episode that in the end meant nothing.
The fifth act, as is perhaps befitting Sloan's true nature, neither
confirmed nor denied my suspicions -- it did, however, leave me
rather disquieted in a whole host of ways. The eventual revelation that
Sloan was an operative of "Section 31", an autonomous behind-the-
scenes Starfleet division conducting black projects, was a very mixed
bag to me. On the one hand, as Odo says, it would be a little
surprising if the Federation didn't have such an organization, as it
seems to have survived in the face of every other power having such a
beast. Sloan was also a marvelous example of the ends-before-means
attitude that is so typical of many conspiracy stories.
On the other hand ... First, it left unexplained all the very things that
had been so well raised to link Bashir with the Dominion (particularly
the runabout silliness in "By Inferno's Light"), thus letting those old
frustrations rise back up again. Second, it's been done to death: as
my wife put it, "Hey, let's hop on the conspiracy bandwagon!"
Third, there were aspects of Bashir's incarceration that feel weird if
they were entirely staged -- Sisko's revelation about Sloan's son, for
instance. Fourth, it also felt like the easy way out, there being so
many interesting stories that could come out of Bashir *actually*
having worked for the Dominion.
Fifth and foremost, however, this may finally have sounded the death-
knell to the original Roddenberry idea of a Federation which has
outgrown all the problems humanity currently faces. Many of
Roddenberry's ideas, particularly late in life, were far too contrived to
work (such as the idea that people in Starfleet could never disagree
with each other), but the basic idea of the Federation being "the good
guys" who have limits is, in my opinion, one of the core tenets of
Trek in any form. Saying "well, there's also this group over here
that's been setting independent policy for 200 years" is well in line
with a lot of current conspiracy-minded series (B5, X-Files, etc.), but
strikes me as pushing Trek a little further than I'm prepared to take it.
(Among other things, the eventual goal and/or result of Our Heroes
discovering said conspiracies is usually to bring down some or all of
the government, and I can't see DS9 showing us a huge revamp of the
Federation.)
This does *not* mean, though, that I'm dead set against the idea.
Trek has done marvelous work in the past dealing with various people
in Starfleet who considered themselves above the law (TNG's "The
Pegasus" coming to mind as an obvious example), and it's entirely
possible that DS9 will do so again in the next year-plus. My real
concern, I think, is that this adds another gigantic ball to the myriad of
balls already in the air. With only a little over a year left to go in the
series, I'm left to wonder if this is going to be dealt with well, or even
at all. Yes, the last scene certainly suggests further developments will
come along in due time -- but so have all kinds of last scenes in Trek
over the last eleven years or so, many of them without much if any
followup. (Examples? Hmm, let's see ... TNG's "Conspiracy" is
one of the biggest examples, but more recent ones include Sisko's
illegal behavior in "For the Uniform" last season.) I'm hopeful that
we will get to see more of this (particularly if they can get back
William Sadler, who was terrific), but just as hopeful that it'll be done
right, because it's all too easy to do conspiracy stories badly.
Shorter notes:
-- I appreciated seeing Bashir's bear Kukalaka again; he even got to be
a plot point this time. :-)
-- Bashir's search under the couch for his pen certainly made him look
a little suspicious to Sloan's aide right at the outset -- or at least, it
would have had she been legit.
-- "Wait, let me think ... was I alone in solitary?" Nicely sarcastic
there.
-- Lots of nice incidental dialogue here; the discussion about lost
friends was good, for example, as was Bashir's description of what
the river was *really* saying to O'Brien.
-- Alexander Siddig felt just a little off in a few spots, particularly in
lines like "You have no right to do this, Sloan!" Perhaps that was just
in comparison to William Sadler, who was marvelously understated.
-- Minor directing goof: when Sloan is getting ready to take Bashir
away, it looks suspiciously as though his aide hands him the same
padd twice. :-) (It's possible that she handed him two different ones,
but I thought he was only holding one when he turned away...)
-- I also rather liked Sloan's final point to Bashir that those patients he
saved wouldn't agree about the ends not justifying the means. On
some levels, he's right -- at least in that case.
All in all, then, "Inquisition" had a compelling first four acts and a
fifth I'm just not at all sure about, and may not be for quite some time.
It's certainly the most interesting show we've had on DS9 since "Far
Beyond the Stars", and has more potential for wide-reaching
consequences than anything since "Waltz". Here's hoping.
Summing up:
Writing: I don't know if Sloan's final revelation is an easy out, too
big a challenge, or something really good -- but the setup for it
was usually very nice.
Directing: No major complaints at all; a lot of nice imagery and
atmosphere.
Acting: Sadler was wonderful; Siddig was usually good.
OVERALL: 8.5, for now -- depending on how the implications are
dealt with, it might come up later.
NEXT WEEK:
Sisko has to make some hard choices.
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu <*>
"How many lives do you think you've saved in your medical career,
Doctor? Do you think any of them give a damn that you lied to get
your medical license?"
-- Sloan, on ends vs. means
--
Copyright 1998, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
author*. Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note.
Chris Blaise
>-- Minor directing goof: when Sloan is getting ready to take Bashir
>away, it looks suspiciously as though his aide hands him the same
>padd twice. :-) (It's possible that she handed him two different ones,
>but I thought he was only holding one when he turned away...)
Also look for Bashir's temporal Starfleet badge. The security
offers took it away from him he was thrown in the brig and stayed gone
until the fight on the Dominion ship when it magically re-appeared.
Once Worf and Kira showed up however, it rightfully disappeard.
Chris
Robert Oliver
Chris Blaise wrote:
>
> >-- Minor directing goof: when Sloan is getting ready to take Bashir
> >away, it looks suspiciously as though his aide hands him the same
> >padd twice. :-) (It's possible that she handed him two different ones,
> >but I thought he was only holding one when he turned away...)
>
> offers took it away from him he was thrown in the brig and stayed gone
> until the fight on the Dominion ship when it magically re-appeared.
> Once Worf and Kira showed up however, it rightfully disappeard.
Just a simple holodeck glitch :)
--
Steeltown: A Big Country web site
http://www.mint.net/~roliver/bc-mint.htm
A Guide to the Star Trek Universe
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6053/
Charleson Mambo
In article <3531195B...@mint.net>, Robert Oliver <rol...@mint.net> wrote:
> Chris Blaise wrote:
> >
> > >-- Minor directing goof: when Sloan is getting ready to take Bashir
> > >away, it looks suspiciously as though his aide hands him the same
> > >padd twice. :-) (It's possible that she handed him two different ones,
> > >but I thought he was only holding one when he turned away...)
> >
> > Also look for Bashir's temporal Starfleet badge. The security
> > offers took it away from him he was thrown in the brig and stayed gone
> > until the fight on the Dominion ship when it magically re-appeared.
> > Once Worf and Kira showed up however, it rightfully disappeard.
>
> Just a simple holodeck glitch :)
>
>
> --
>
> Steeltown: A Big Country web site
> http://www.mint.net/~roliver/bc-mint.htm
>
> A Guide to the Star Trek Universe
> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6053/
TANJ!!! I should've read the whole thread first.
Are there no original ideas left?
Charleson Mambo
--
To send me email, first get rid of "SPAM"
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Charleson Mambo
In article <353106e...@news.paonline.com>, chris_at_blaise_dot_com
(Chris Blaise) wrote:
> >-- Minor directing goof: when Sloan is getting ready to take Bashir
> >away, it looks suspiciously as though his aide hands him the same
> >padd twice. :-) (It's possible that she handed him two different ones,
> >but I thought he was only holding one when he turned away...)
>
> Also look for Bashir's temporal Starfleet badge. The security
> offers took it away from him he was thrown in the brig and stayed gone
> until the fight on the Dominion ship when it magically re-appeared.
> Once Worf and Kira showed up however, it rightfully disappeard.
>
> Chris
Hmm.
Holodeck artifacts! Yeah! That's the ticket! : )
Maggie Burns
>>[...] in keeping with the idea that we're
>Was he ever on the up-and-up about believing Bashir was a Dominion agent?
>I had a hard time believing that if Sloan thought there was a security
>threat on DS9, he didn't make a beeline for Odo. Starfleet's distrust of
>Odo was the original idea behind sending Eddington there. With as much as
>Sloan made of Bashir's genetic enhancement, I didn't know whether it was
>because he felt threatened by it, or he was in love with the idea of having
>some sort of superagent with superior intelligence and physical coordination
>and wanted to see what Bashir was made of.
This occurred to me--probably Sloan had no suspicions of Bashir whatsoever and
just wanted to put him through the worst possible pressure to see how he
reacted and stood up to it. Seems like it would work! Also trying to get
Bashir to join gave him a reason to stand there and explain it to us, which
was necessary from our point of view.
Also, an ironic thing, in a completely unrelated (and I do mean *completely
unrelated*!!!) pitch to one of the two who wrote the episode, I wanted to have
one of those usual unfriendly Federation investigators that we all know and
love (I think mine was Judge Advocate General or something) and was told that
we can't have that, can't have internal friction, can't have the Federation
fighting against itself. Very funny given this episode! It's a long
tradition in Trek that any kind of "internal affairs" people are inherently
the enemies of our heroes, the free-thinking rule-breaking people.
Good episode.
Maggie
Timothy W. Lynch
tcw...@netcom.com (Laurinda Chamberlin) writes:
>tly...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
>>WARNING: Everyone expects the spoilers for "Inquisition."
>>(Okay, so it's obvious...)
>>[...] in keeping with the idea that we're
>>never supposed to trust a Trek investigator, I doubt there's anyone out
>>there who felt that Sloan was on the up-and-up for even a moment. [...]
>Was he ever on the up-and-up about believing Bashir was a Dominion agent?
Oh, I think so. Granted, he should also have wonders about Odo, but
(1) Bashir was readily available for kidnapping and Odo wasn't, and
(2) Odo has all kinds of non-Starfleet resources that might make
kidnapping him more dangerous. I really wouldn't want a vengeful Odo
after me; a vengeful Bashir I can live with. :-)
>>Third, there were aspects of Bashir's incarceration that feel weird if
>>they were entirely staged -- Sisko's revelation about Sloan's son, for
>>instance.
>This was part of a sequence where Bashir was confronted by people who had
>lost family or friends to the Dominion, which would have put acute pressure
>on a guilty man.
Yes, but not the same person who was interrogating him. This gave
Bashir a reason to believe he was being framed, not a reason to think
he might really be guilty.
>> Fourth, it also felt like the easy way out, there being so
>>many interesting stories that could come out of Bashir *actually*
>>having worked for the Dominion.
>I don't know about that. I think the most interesting conflict for Bashir
>is the tension between his duty and the higher obligation to his identity
>as a healer.
And I think having that tension result in him arguing the Dominion's
case is not unreasonable; it worked in "Statistical Probabilities",
and some of his mental equals *there* were considering betraying the
Federation. I think it's somewhat frighteningly plausible.
(Interesting points on your part, though.)
>interrogation do to his perception of Garak? Speaking of whom, why didn't
>Sloan hold that friendship against Bashir, as long as he was holding
>everything else against him? Garak's allegiance to the Federation is based
>only on necessity and the principle "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
I was a little surprised not to hear Garak mentioned as well; perhaps
they didn't want to remind Bashir that one of his good friends is a
trained assassin who's *very* good...
>Hum. If there's anything we should have learned from this show so far, it's
>how sneaky spies can be in lying. My theory about Section 31 is that it
>is a byproduct of a badly worded section (31, no doubt) of the Federation
>charter. What if it merely says that certain elite Starfleet Intelligence
>operatives may use their own initiative in times of emergency? A measure
>designed to prevent paralysis of the Federation in a crisis could be
>interpreted cynically by those like Sloan who seek to satisfy their own
>paranoia. Oh boy, war! Let's dust off Section 31 again! And they'd have
>the support of folks like Satie and Leyton.
A nice idea, but I'll be surprised if this is the way they take it.
There are all kinds of genre precedents for the "running without
sanction" approach (B5's Bureau 13 being an obvious analogue right
down to the digits, though there are lots of others). Your way gives
them something of an easy out.
>>-- I also rather liked Sloan's final point to Bashir that those patients he
>>saved wouldn't agree about the ends not justifying the means. On
>>some levels, he's right -- at least in that case. [...]
>Oh, this was a wonderfully specious argument on Sloan's part! Let me throw
>out a much more pertinent analogy: do you think those 100s or 1000s of
>people whose lives Bashir had saved would care if he had done so *without
>a medical license*?
>I have no doubt of it.
I'm not so sure. Their families might have, but I'm honestly not sure
if I would care whether the person who'd just saved my life had a
medical license or not. (All other things being equal, though, I'll
take the one with the MD. :-) )
Tim Lynch
The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse
In article <6gpet4$j...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
Timothy W. Lynch <tly...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>WARNING: Everyone expects the spoilers for "Inquisition."
>(Okay, so it's obvious...)
[snip,snip]
Warning: This is idle speculation, not to be taken seriously. The Lone
Biker has no real inside information, it's just attempting to read between
the lines.
>My real
>concern, I think, is that this adds another gigantic ball to the myriad of
>balls already in the air. With only a little over a year left to go in the
>series, I'm left to wonder if this is going to be dealt with well, or even
>at all. Yes, the last scene certainly suggests further developments will
>come along in due time -- but so have all kinds of last scenes in Trek
>over the last eleven years or so, many of them without much if any
>followup.
I would have thought this was obvious.
Sisko: "He doesn't strike me as a man who takes 'no' for an answer."
Bashir: "No sir."
Sisko: "The next time he asks, you *will* say 'yes'."
You're right, there's a little over a year left of DS9. Which is why this
is the perfect prelude to "Star Trek: Section 31". Look for it in the
fall of 2000. Starring Alexander Siddig, et. al.
>(Examples? Hmm, let's see ... TNG's "Conspiracy" is
>one of the biggest examples, but more recent ones include Sisko's
>illegal behavior in "For the Uniform" last season.) I'm hopeful that
>we will get to see more of this (particularly if they can get back
>William Sadler, who was terrific), but just as hopeful that it'll be done
>right, because it's all too easy to do conspiracy stories badly.
No doubt all handled off-screen by Section 31, or they will be in the new
series...it's entirely possible that the Dominion war will continue past
the end of DS9.
>OVERALL: 8.5, for now -- depending on how the implications are
>dealt with, it might come up later.
Would a new series do the job?
Laurinda Chamberlin
tly...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
>tcw...@netcom.com (Laurinda Chamberlin) writes:
>>tly...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
[...]
>>>-- I also rather liked Sloan's final point to Bashir that those patients he
>>>saved wouldn't agree about the ends not justifying the means. On
>>>some levels, he's right -- at least in that case. [...]
>>Oh, this was a wonderfully specious argument on Sloan's part! Let me throw
>>out a much more pertinent analogy: do you think those 100s or 1000s of
>>people whose lives Bashir had saved would care if he had done so *without
>>a medical license*?
>>I have no doubt of it.
>I'm not so sure. Their families might have, but I'm honestly not sure
>if I would care whether the person who'd just saved my life had a
>medical license or not. (All other things being equal, though, I'll
>take the one with the MD. :-) )
Are you telling me that you wouldn't be rushing out the door to a licensed
practitioner to double-check the job? Hmm.... :)
--
Laurinda She walked by herself, and
all places were alike to her.
Andy Kim
>(Okay, so it's obvious...)
>
>In brief: A questionable fifth act, but a riveting first four.
>
>Bashir's conscious loyalty, which would have made it obvious his
>case was going nowhere, he suggested that Bashir was a Dominion
>agent but had compartmentalized that little fact away -- in effect, that
>he was an unconscious Dominion plant. That felt eerily plausible;
This was extremely effective, and this also reminded me of a short Sci-Fi
story that I read when I was young.
[Going tangent]
I was too young to remember the author or the title, but it left me with a
lasting impression. The story goes like this (my memory is spotty):
The earth is in a war with an alien species. Although the earth was on the
defensive, the war was on a stalemate because the alien attacks could not
quite penetrate earth's shield. The earth intelligence obtained an
information that an alien operative(possibly an android) has landed on
earth with a mission to set off a bomb that would be devastating to the
earth either by disabling the shield or wiping out everyone or somesuch.
Gradually the intelligence narrows its search to our narrator who is just a
regular Joe and becomes the prime suspect. He denies the allegations and
argues that he is being framed, but the case agains him keeps building up.
One day, he comes back home and his family who had been on his side all
along starts acting strangely. The investigators found a crash landing
site of the alien ship in his neighborhood. When he was led to the site,
he saw a body of himself there lying dead. For the first time throught the
whole story, he doubted himself that just maybe he may be what they accused
him to be ... That thought turned out to be the keyword that were
programmed to set off the bomb implanted inside him. The bomb goes off and
the end of the story.
Hell, it was like 20 years ago that I read this. If I read it again, I may
be able to poke a plot hole or two, but I remember feeling very impressed
after finishing it. Does anyone know what this is? I am curious to see
how it aged for me.
Anyways.
-ak
--
Andrew Kim | If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets.
and...@panix.com |