DS9 Spoiler: Hawthorne's Deeply Spaced Review: "Duet"
Jen Hawthorne
Review by Jen Hawthorne <j...@athena.mit.edu>
============================================
Well, here it is at last: my review of Duet, to be shortly followed by
my review of "In the Hands of the Prophets". Sorry it's so late, but I
was out for a good part of a week with a nasty stomach bug (I'm better
now) and then got busy with job hunting, and then briefly lost track
of my videotapes of the episodes and had to relocate them before I
could proceed (they'd been accidentally loaned to a friend -- it's all
your fault, Kate.) Anyway, that's it for my lame excuses: now, on with
the review. Note that I have completely avoided reading any Net
discussion or other reviews of either of these episodes, so if I'm
repeating things that have been hashed to death on the Net already, I
apologize in advance.
One-sentence opinion summary: Wow. Now *that's* gritty.
There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned.
Ye who enter here, all hope abandon of remaining unspoiled.
ART: "I don't get it...why didn't the Jews at least *try* to resist?"
VLADEK: "It wasn't so easy like you think. Everyone was so starving
and frightened and tired they couldn't believe even what's in front of
their eyes. And the Jews lived always with hope. They hoped the
Russians can come before the German bullet arrived from the gun
into their heads..."
ART: "But why didn't they try to take just *one* Nazi with them?"
VLADEK: "In some spots people *did* fight...but you can kill maybe
one German before they kill fast a hundred from you. Then it's
everyone dead...and this way it was also everyone dead, nu?"
-- Art Spiegelman, "Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began"
"They win anyway," Tris snapped. "Nothing we do within this
circle will result in any net change. We're still prisoners, whatever
we do...We're *beaten*. We're *taken*. There's nobody left *out
there*. We're here forever, and you'd better start getting used to
the idea. "
"I've heard that song before," said Miles. "Use your head.
If they meant to keep you forever, they could have incinerated you at
the start, and saved the considerable expense of operating this camp.
No. It's your minds they want. You're here because you were Marilac's
best and brightest, the hardest fighters, the strongest, the baddest,
the most dangerous. The ones any potential resisters to the
occupation would look to for leadership. It's the Cetagandans' plan
to break you, and then return you to your world like little inoculated
infections, counseling surrender to your people.
"When *this* is killed," he touched her forehead, oh, so
lightly, "then the Cetagandans have nothing more to fear from this,"
one finger on her fist, "and you will all go free. To a world whose
horizon will encircle you just like this dome, and just as
inescapably. The war's not over. You are *here* because the
Cetagandans are still waiting for the surrender of Fallow Core."
-- "The Borders of Infinity", Lois McMaster Bujold
I'm going to start off this review by saying what I'm *not* going to
talk about: I'm not going to try and suppose which ethnic or religious
groups were being alluded to in this episode, and I'm not going to try
and draw any broad allegories to analogous real-life situations. I
probably *will* make specific references to the Nazi concentration
camps during the Holocaust for the purpose of illustration, but I'm
very much aware that the Holocaust is not the only example of this
kind of thing either historically or in the present day -- it's just
the worst one and the best documented. I'd draw examples from the
Serbian camps, or the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein, or any
of several dozen less publicized but equally brutal situations except
that I'm just not that familiar with them. So please don't get on my
case.
As a side note, if anyone is interested in reading an absolutely
masterful and deeply affecting account of life in a Nazi concentration
camp, I can't recommend highly enough the book from which my first
quote was drawn, "Maus", parts I and II, by Art Spiegelman. Don't be
put off by the fact that it's done in comic book form; keep an open
mind and try it. The second volume won a special Pulitzer Prize in
1992, so I'm not the only one who likes it.
So, now that the disclaimers and plugs are out of the way, what did I
think of the episode?
Well, I thought it was the best thing they've done since "Past
Prologue", and I find it interesting that both that episode and this
one dealt heavily with the implications of Kira's terrorist past. I
also thought it intriguing that these two strong Kira stories were
both written by women, although the teleplay for "Duet" was done by
Peter Allan Fields, and certainly the very strong script is at least
as responsible for the episode's success as the story underlying it.
It wasn't perfect -- I haven't seen a DS9 episode yet that was, though
"Past Prologue" came darned close -- but it had many, many things
going for it, including a strong story that was worth caring about, an
excellent script with some dialogue that was so on the mark I couldn't
bear to synopsize the episode without including it, a stunning
performance by the main guest star, and a real, believable conflict in
one of the main characters that was handled with a sure touch in the
story and portrayed with some very nice acting (for the most part) by
Nana Visitor. The story and script were strong enough and handled
well enough that carping about some plot problems seems almost petty
-- but hey, I'm a reviewer, being petty is part of the job description
;-)
I'll start with commentary on the central themes and points of the
show, which were ones that have, of course, been dealt with before in
a variety of mediums, but which in my opinion can stand to be examined
over and over again since they continue to be as relevant to the human
experience now as they have been for thousands of years. When a great
wrong has been done, to one person or to an entire race, what can
anyone do to make up for it? You can always kill the perpetrators;
you can even torture them to death if you can bring yourself to do it.
Maybe they even "deserve" to die that way. But in the end, all you
have is one more dead body to burn or bury. Nothing has been changed.
The dead are still dead. All you are left with is the assurance that
the responsible dead won't be around to repeat their acts, which is
possibly worth something, but there will always be new villains
springing up to take their place. Maybe if you're strongly religious
you can believe that by killing them you've sent them to some eternal
damnation, but you can't know that for sure (besides, according to
most Christian sects God's mercy is supposed to be limitless). And if
by some horrible chance you should get the wrong person, and torture
to death some innocent, well...welcome to the ranks of the villains.
The only true way to "win" anything back from such a situation is to
survive, and not only survive, but survive whole. If the survivors
let themselves be killed after the fact, or let themselves be twisted
and corrupted by bitterness and despair, then the villains still have
their victory.
So from my point of view, that's part of what this episode was trying
to say. The Cardassians may not have succeeded in completely
destroying Bajor or her people, but unless Bajor recovers and its
people manage to unlearn some of the harsh lessons they were taught by
the occupation, in a certain sense the Cardassians have still
destroyed them. This is not to say that they should be unchanged by
what they went through -- just that it's important that they learn
lessons of courage and wisdom and not hatred and vengeance. In Kira,
I saw a microcosm of what her whole planet is struggling with: how to
come out of such a terrible event as the occupation whole, not only in
body but in spirit as well. We're already seen a little of this
struggle in "Battle Lines", in Kira's difficulty in accepting her own
potential for violence; here we see it even more clearly because while
violence has some positive uses, hatred doesn't. In "Duet" Kira came
very close to allowing her rage and desire for vengeance to blind her
to a truth she didn't want to see, and in her blindness nearly helped
kill an innocent person. In essence, she came close to stepping over
the edge and becoming a villain herself. It's an unfortunately common
pattern: The Croats ally with the Nazis to kill the Serbs in World War
II, and now some fifty years later the Serbs are murdering and
imprisoning Croats; Saddam Hussein gasses the Kurds, and the Kurds
retaliate with terrorism in Iraq and around the world; the Israelis,
the victims of the Holocaust, now oppress the Palestinians in turn.
It's the quintessential vicious circle. I very much appreciated
"Duet" for the fact that it showed this vicious circle in a humanistic
light -- how can anyone not sympathize with Kira's desire for
satisfaction? -- and yet showed what it almost led her to. And for
showing, as well, at least one Bajoran realizing that even justified
hatred is still hatred, still wrong, and then trying to break the
circle and possibly make a pathway out for both her own people and
their Cardassian oppressors. It's a hopeful message, in spite of the
ending which makes it clear that such a path will not be at all easy
to travel. It's also clear that without the support of the rest of
the staff, Kira might well have been denied the chance to face and
deal with the damage that she was doing to herself by hanging on to
the past. The past should not be forgotten, especially such a
terrible past as Bajor's, but at some point things have to move on,
and I think this episode did a very good job of saying just that.
I also feel that this episode was one of the few times where DS9 has
lived up to its stated intention of being grittier than TNG -- and
with absolutely minimal violence, which is even more impressive. This
episode was full of difficult questions without easy answers or neat
happy endings, and dealt with some very dark, raw emotions in a
powerful and (generally) understated way. This fits my definition of
a gritty story much more than one with a lot of gratuitous explosions
or series regulars being framed for murder, and I appreciated it. I
have come down hard on a few DS9 episodes for failing to get deeply
enough into the meat of the story, and I am pleased and impressed to
see one where they didn't back off at all, but instead dug down and
carried through to the end. Although I enjoy the occasional fluff
piece like "Move Along Home", there is no question that episodes like
"Duet" have much more of an impact and infinitely more emotional
staying power.
As far as plot goes, I was happy with it while I was watching it the
first time -- riveted to the screen, in fact, trying to figure out
what exactly was going on -- but on rewatching it I started to have a
number of questions. The central implausibility is also the one most
central to the plotline, namely that Amon Marritza could impersonate
Gul Darheel successfully enough to almost fool the Bajorans. I would
have thought, given Kira's (and Bajor's) obsession with Gallitepp,
that the death of the camp commander would have been a *big* news item
on Bajor. Even if their information sources were controlled by the
Cardassians, every underground has ways of getting the news. That the
Bajorans could have been ignorant of Darheel's death for six whole
years strains my disbelief. It would have washed better if they had
gotten the reports of Darheel's death, but if the death was somewhat
mysterious, leading to the Bajorans suspecting that Darheel had only
faked his own demise to evade Bajoran assassins. Also, while I
probably wouldn't recognize, say, Josef Mengele or any of the major
Nuremburg offenders, I'd bet that any Jewish person who was an adult
from that time period *would*, as would anyone involved in the German
military. And yet supposedly Marritza worked at a *military academy*,
where Darheel would probably be studied, and wore Darheel's face for
five years without anyone commenting on it?? I don't believe it for a
second. (Again, if Marritza had been *really* clever, he'd have
undergone *two* rounds of plastic surgery; one to make him look like
Darheel, and then another one a while later to make it look like
*Darheel* had plastic surgery to hide his identity.) And why did the
DS9 staff go to all the trouble of obtaining (possibly falsified)
Cardassian photographs from Gallitepp when there were living survivors
within easy reach? Wouldn't it have made more sense to bring them in
and see if they could identify the Cardassian? Also, the ending
bothered me a bit. While I think I see what they were getting at
dramatically, it just didn't work for me. Okay, so Marritza got
stabbed. The infirmary is *right there*, for crying out loud; the
first thing Kira should have done was shout for help and it would have
been there in seconds, and given the level of the Federation's medical
science Marritza almost certainly could have been saved. I mean, you
could argue that he survived the attack and we just weren't shown it,
except that the implication was plainly that Marritza had been killed.
Furthermore, I remain unconvinced that Marritza's plan would have had
the effect on Cardassian/Bajoran relations he was after. If he'd
gotten up on the stand as Gul Darheel, you can bet the Cardassians
would be there in minutes with proof that the real Darheel was dead,
and would have claimed that Marritza was a Bajoran
spy/sympathizer/brainwashed victim trying to make Cardassia look bad
through fabricated stories of atrocities. I think Bajor would come
out of such a trial with a serious black eye for putting the wrong man
on trial, *especially* if they managed to execute him before it was
revealed! If I were the Cardassian high command, and I found out they
had the wrong man on trial, I'd be very inclined to let the Bajorans
execute him, and *then* present proof that they killed an imposter.
It would be a real public relations problem for Bajor, and would cause
any further stories of the atrocities at Gallitepp to be less
credible. That's pretty much exactly the opposite of the effect
Marritza was after. (Or, if you want to be *really* paranoid, of the
effect Marritza *claimed* he was after. Maybe the whole thing really
was a Cardassian plot...Naahh.) Mind you, it doesn't weaken the story
to have Marritza's plan be less than sound, but it certainly makes
Marritza look less than clever. (Good-hearted, maybe, but not
amazingly bright...)
As a side note to the plot, it struck me on rewatching that there's
something a bit odd about the time scale given in this episode for the
operation of the Gallitepp camp. Either the camp was liberated by
Kira's resistance group well before the Cardassian pullout, in which
case the commander of the camp would have a *very* good reason to
remember Kira's group, or the camp was run by someone other than Gul
Darheel for at least its last six years. Remember, the Cardassians
just left Bajor, but Gul Darheel has been dead for six years and
probably was not commanding the camp when he died or the camp
survivors would certainly have known of it. Or possibly the
Cardassians voluntarily shut down the camp before the pullout, which
is the most interesting possibility. Could it be that even some of
the Cardassian high command were disgusted by what went on at
Gallitepp? Yes, I know Darheel was given a medal for distinguished
service, which seems to imply approval, but it's never said he got the
award for running the camp, and besides, he could have been of a
politically powerful family and gotten the award through nepotism
rather than because most of Cardassia approved of the way the camp was
being run -- if they even knew. It seems to me that this latter
interpretation could lead to the idea that places like Gallitepp were
the extreme worst case under the occupation, and things were not
generally that brutal (not good, necessarily, but not like that.)
This is not any sort of implied apology for the Cardassians, mind you,
just the thought that perhaps a lot of what happened on Bajor was in
fact inspired by politics, and a need for Bajor's resources, and not
simply out of a general Cardassian love of killing and cruelty. And
yes, it does make a difference, not to the victims of places like
Gallitepp, but to what it implies about the Cardassian Empire. I
would like to know more about Cardassia and the structure of the
Empire -- for instance, is there an Emperor, and if so, who is it? --
and more about the other planets in the Empire and the races living
there. I understand that showing us Cardassia in a more sympathetic
light might lead to them being made to seem nicey-nice, or at least
honorable, like the Klingons, but I feel it should be possible to make
them a believable and realistic culture without removing their ability
to be menacing and reducing their status as bad guys. As long as they
remain straw villains, they'll never be all that interesting, and that
is another good thing "Duet" did -- showed us a different sort of
Cardassian. ("Past Prologue" did this too, with Plain and Simple
Garak.)
I admit to being a little bugged by Kira's talk of sending Marritza
back to change Cardassia from within, just because it sounds too much
like Spock's attempts to stir revolution in the Romulan Empire. It's
entirely possible that the Cardassian Empire isn't such a terrible
place to live, provided you aren't Bajoran. It wouldn't be hard to
believe that the Cardassians became vicious in their handling of Bajor
because of the Bajoran terrorist actions, much the way Israel is
getting pretty nasty dealing with Palestinians for the same reason.
An occupied planet without an active resistance might not suffer so
much. The Roman Empire survived hundreds of years, after all, and did
a lot of good things within the borders of the countries it conquered
(built roads and aqueducts and so forth). Empires aren't necessarily
evil by definition. I would believe that justice demands Cardassia
face up to what it did to Bajor, but it's just too easy to say that
the the Empire is by definition rotten in all things and in all ways.
In terms of character, the focus in this episode was so strongly on
Kira that most of the other regulars were barely to be seen. Even so,
there were a few interesting things there which are worth commenting
on, so I'll deal with those first so as to get them out of the way
before I dive into a (probably lengthy) discussion of Kira.
Sisko, of course, got the most time after Kira, and what he got was
understated but quite nice. So far I've liked Sisko best when I have
seen him trying to deal with the difficult types who surround him on
DS9; in addition to having a rather rough-edged crew to ride herd on
(at least as compared to the Enterprise gang), he's trapped between
the Cardassians on one side and the Bajorans on the other, and of the
two it looks as if the Bajorans, the Federation's supposed allies, are
being the bigger problem. Sisko was civil to both Marritza and Gul
Dukat, even when Dukat was being provocative, and he also managed to
prevent the united attempt of the Bajoran administrator, Karal, and
Kira to usurp his authority in the matter. It is much more difficult
to operate effectively under these conditions than it is to command
the Enterprise with a talented and tested crew composed entirely of
your own staunchly loyal people. Sisko struck a good balance between
being sympathetic to the concerns of both the Bajorans and the
Cardassians and not allowing either of their agendas in the matter to
influence his own. He also showed good instincts in not wanting to
let Kira handle the investigation (more on this when I talk about
Kira) but was willing to stand up to the promise of friendship he made
to her earlier and give her a chance. Again, it's a nice balance
between addressing the practicalities of the situation and making some
room for the personal concerns of the individuals involved.
Odo gets to play detective again, and once again shows why he's so
highly regarded as a security chief; not to run down TNG or anything,
but I'd take Odo over Worf any day. It's also interesting to note
that he seems to be coming to rely on Bashir a fair bit as a useful
source of information for his investigations. Odo also dealt very
well with Gul Dukat, making it obvious how he managed to survive as
security chief when the station was run by the Cardassians, and
showing that he can put his knowledge of Cardassian psychology to good
use in dealing with them. (He should be a good source of information
for Sisko on this point, actually, although admittedly Odo hasn't
shown much practical grasp of *human* psychology so far, so maybe
not.) Dax got to act as the voice of wisdom and experience, which is
entirely fitting; she also knew where to go to find Kira and was aware
that the major needed some talking to. Quark and O'Brien got
throwaway bits, and Jake wasn't around at all.
As for the guest stars and their characters -- well, I'm open-mouthed
in admiration over the job done by Harris Yulin as Amon Marritza. His
performance was first rate, both as Marritza himself and as Marritza
pretending to be the maniacal "Gul Darheel". Even during his first
tirade, there was something about the delivery that made me think that
something else was going on; I'm impressed that the actor managed to
bring that through so clearly. I also am very impressed with the way
the character was written; Marritza may not have done a perfect job in
planning his scheme, but he certainly carried it out well. He knew
exactly who he was after -- Kira -- and what he needed to do to push
her buttons. Yulin also somehow managed to give the impression that
much of the ranting he did as "Gul Darheel" were direct quotes of
things Marritza actually heard while working under the man, which made
it even worse to listen to on rewatching, thinking that there had been
a Cardassian who truly held those opinions. Furthermore, I also got
the impression that Marritza was nearly as disgusted with the actions
of Kira and her terrorists as he was with Darheel's behavior; he
wasn't just condemning the cruelty of his own people, he was
condemning the vicious acts committed by *both* sides of the conflict.
Marc Alaimo did his usual fine, oily job as Gul Dukat. I'm finding
that I appreciate Dukat as a recurring villain; he' s not just a
stupid vicious tyrant, he's cunning and effective. Dukat wasn't
actually trying to hide anything in the matter; he really was just
trying to get one of his people freed. Nevertheless, he went out of
his way to make as much trouble for the station as possible, given the
opening, just for the principle of the thing; this also nicely
confused the issue, as for a while I figured Dukat was in on the plan,
whatever it might turn out to be. Furthermore, he was willing to back
down and cooperate when it was in Cardassia's best interests, even
though it galled him. Given the strength of the character and of the
portrayal, I hope we continue to see Gul Dukat popping up every now
and then to make trouble.
I was unfortunately less impressed with the final major guest star,
Tony Rizzoli as Kainon, the bigoted Bajoran who stabbed Marritza.
Kainon came off as a paper-thin throwaway character. It may not be
entirely the actor's fault, as I thought the character's motivation
stunk. While I see the point the writers were trying to make, I think
it would have been a lot stronger had the attacker been one of the
survivors of Gallitepp or a relative of one of them. Yes, it's a
trifle cliche, but it makes for much better closure than to have
Marritza stabbed by some random petty crook Bajoran with a membership
in the Bajoran version of the Ku Klux Klan. It would be also more
poignant that way, as the audience could again sympathize with the
attacker's motivation while still seeing the resulting damage; I doubt
anyone felt any sympathy for Kainon, the random bigot. As a final
point, having it be one of the survivors would explain what the scene
outside Odo's office with the Gallitepp victims was for, which
otherwise seems to have little point to it.
So what about Kira?
Kira got some really effective screen time in this episode, and Nana
Visitor did quite a good job with it, for the most part. I was very
pleased to see Kira being angry and stubborn *without* screaming or
being strident; it was a big improvement. I'm still not entirely
happy with the Kira-gets-choked-up scene with Sisko; I continue to
think that Kira gets teary-eyed far too easily for someone with a
terrorist background. Having Kira breaking down or riding the edge of
breaking down so much is a big mistake, I think; had they held off,
they could have written a really striking episode in the second season
showing Kira really breaking down and bawling for the first time, but
they blew their chance.
We also got to see a main character actually *change* in a major,
visible way in this episode, which was something of a shock. (Can
they *do* that on Trek?? ;-) At the start of the episode, she clearly
intended to hold every Cardassian at Gallitepp equally responsible for
what happened there; by the end she has come to realize that just
being present doesn't make a person guilty. She has also had to
reaffirm her commitment to Bajor's future by letting go of some of the
horrors of the past, and it seems that from her final comments to
Marritza before he was killed that she has become open to the
possibility of a true peace between Bajor and Cardassia in the future
(not the near future, perhaps, but eventually). She has also learned
the important lesson that anger and hatred, even righteous anger and
justified hatred, if indulged, leave the former victims little better
than the villains.
One very interesting, and rather subtle, character point that struck
me while thinking about this episode is Kira's reaction to "Gul
Darheel"'s portrayal of her people as weaklings who couldn't -- or
wouldn't -- fight the Cardassians for Bajor. I think it entirely
possible that a lot of Kira's confrontational attitude could stem from
deep feelings of guilt and helplessness over how completely her people
were ground down by the Cardassians, and her hidden conviction that if
the Bajorans had stood up and fought, they could have freed
themselves. (This applies to Ensign Ro, too, as far as I'm
concerned.) When she told Marritza, "You were only one person; you
couldn't do anything," she was in a very real sense absolving not only
Marritza, but herself and her people as well. There is a very real
and very damaging tendency for victims of violence to blame themselves
for what happened, and I think that this episode implies that it's
that which lies at the root of a good portion of Kira's character.
The way that Kira dealt with the issue of the investigation into
Marritza's true identity was also very revelatory. First, she called
Sisko's bluff, if bluff it was, on the comments he made in "Progress"
about his friendship with her; given that I felt at the time that he
was presuming too much on too short an acquaintance, I felt that her
comment was entirely appropriate (though kind of hitting below the
belt.) It's not enough for Sisko to claim friendship; he has to do
something to show it, and to his credit, he came through, even though
it wasn't necessarily the best idea. Not only was it a good
characterization bit for both of them, it also showed a sense of
continuity that Trek often lacks, which I very much appreciated.
As for Kira's handling of the investigation itself -- well, in my
opinion, Sisko was exactly right to doubt her ability to deal fairly
with the prisoner, because she did not in fact manage to do so. Her
comment early on about "It may not be policy, it may not even be
legal, but it's *right*!" showed a level of fanaticism dangerous in
someone in Kira's sensitive position. And as for the investigation
itself, all of the real work was still done by Odo (with help from
Bashir), and the crucial insight that something odd was going on was
provided by him as well. Clearly, Odo should have been handling the
matter, but equally clearly, he was willing to support Kira in her
attempt to face the prisoner and what he symbolized to her. In
addition, toward the end, Kira still clung stubbornly to her belief
that the prisoner was Gul Darheel, even in the face of mounting
evidence to the contrary. Had she in fact been handling the
investigation entirely on her own, Marritza would probably have wound
up on Bajor on the executioner's block. I don't, however, consider
this a *problem* with the story -- instead, as I've said in other
reviews, I like the fact that the DS9 crew are allowed to be fallible.
I also liked the fact that the rest of the crew were careful of Kira's
feelings at the same time that they tried to keep her from making a
grave error.
It's interesting to me how Kira seems to see everything connected with
her planet in terms of *symbols* -- she keeps saying things like "The
Kai's always been a symbol of hope", and "The survivors of Gallitepp
have been a symbol for Bajor of the evils of the Cardassian
occupation" (that's a paraphrase.) I wonder if the Bajorans in
general are a very symbol oriented culture, or if this is just the way
Kira deals with things. I don't actually approve of it in any case
(not that anyone asked me ;-) because I think it's a mistake to try to
deal with living beings as symbols; people are people, not icons, and
should be treated as such. (When you start treating people as icons
you get ridiculous situations like people getting on Michael Jordan's
case because he enjoys gambling. Big deal! I enjoy gambling too,
especially slot machines. That doesn't make me an addict or in any
way evil -- and in Jordan's case it doesn't affect his ability to play
basketball. It's total silliness.)
To a certain extent, Kira's behavior reinforced the view I have of
the station's personnel as people who were assigned here when this
place was a minor, dead-end post, and now have found themselves in a
situation that in many ways they aren't suited for. Although they're
a talented bunch, they're not the creme-de-la-creme like the
Enterprise crew; they're a group of imperfect people trying to make
the best of an imperfect universe, and I like it a *lot*.
The one thing I wasn't entirely happy with in the way Kira's character
was drawn in this episode was how fast and complete her turnaround was
at the end. I can see her letting him go, no problem; I just can't
see her getting all, well....*mushy* over him. So he's not Darheel --
that doesn't make him a saint. Remember, Marritza's a good actor; it
would be reasonable to me that she would still treat him with residual
anger and mistrust. After all, he did try to use her and deliberately
played on her emotions to manipulate her. Her sudden esteem for
Marritza, which approached veneration almost, just didn't ring true.
I'd have preferred something more subdued. In an episode that was
beautifully understated for much of the hour, this bit stuck out
unpleasantly. (In fact, combined with the death of Marritza at the
hands of Kainon, it almost makes the ending...well...maudlin.)
As a final note, I wonder a bit if some parts of "Duet" weren't
inspired by the real life story of one John Demjanyuk (spelling of the
last name is certainly wrong, sorry.) Demjanyuk was a naturalized
American citizen who in 1986 was extradited to Israel to be tried for
war crimes; there was some evidence that Demjanyuk was the a camp
guard at Dachau known as "Ivan the Terrible", who was guilty of some
truly vicious atrocities. However, there is also some evidence that
while Demjanyuk did in fact change his name from Ivan to John, and was
in fact a concentration camp guard during the war, that he was a guard
at Sobibor, not Dachau, and so may not in fact be Ivan the Terrible.
Demjanyuk has since been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to
execution is Israel; he is appealing. When I first viewed this story
on "60 Minutes", I was particularly struck by one person who was
interviewed who basically said that being a camp guard at Sobibor was
bad enough that Demjanyuk should be executed anyway, whether or not he
is in fact Ivan the Terrible. As far as I know there's still no
absolutely definite proof of the man's true identity.
Short Takes:
============
-- They didn't include an official spelling for the name of Kira's
resistance group in the press release, so I spelled it the way it
sounded: Shankar. As in Naren Shankar, a Trek writer and the show's
science consultant. Now he's got both a planet and a terrorist
organization named after him.
-- When Kira was staring out the window on the Promenade, just before
Dax walked up, an interesting looking alien went by. He had pointed
ears and a gold and black outfit. I could *swear* I've seen that
alien, or one very much like it, somewhere before, and not on Trek.
Maybe in an old B-movie. Does anyone know from where?
-- In the crowd scene outside Odo's office, with the camp survivors,
we saw the first black Bajoran I can remember seeing. Good. Maybe
someone picked up on the Net's comments that the vast majority of the
humanoid aliens seen on Trek seem to be Caucasian under the latex.
-- The Bajorans are really into this capital punishment thing, it
seems. How does the Federation feel about that? I got the distinct
impression they weren't big on it as a means of punishment. Wasn't it
said, way back in the Cage, that the only Federation law that carried
the death penalty if broken was General Order Four (I think), the one
prohibiting contact with Talos IV? It's especially incongruous that
such a "peaceful people", as Kira characterized her race, have
socially sanctioned murder in their legal system. (This isn't a
political statement, honestly; just a comment.)
-- The stabbing incident at the end was given away in the previews.
Boo hiss! They really should stop that.
Next week: The Scopes trial comes to DS9.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved, but I'm
not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.