This is a smaller story in many way than a lot of what happens in Trek, but it is also a very touching story. The only part I am not sure I entirely buy is how upset Sisko was at losing crew. His character goes back and forth from being probably the most pragmatic captain in all of Starfleet to being super upset by losing come crew when the only way to save them was to trust an enemy who repeatedly violated his trust. I guess we are supposed to see how much he cares about each of his crew which is a good thing for a captain, but the idea that the capture of a Jem'Hadar warship was a waste of their lives is just silly.
The episode opens with the captain leading an away team surveying for valuable mineral deposits. Miles is teaching creman Muniz about rocks/taking a rest while pretending to be teaching. The two clearly get along well and the fact we have never seen Muniz before should have been a hint something bad is going to happen. The group comes together and we see Worf and Dax are there along with a few other unnamed crew. They get a call from the runabout suddenly, a ship has come out of warp and is crashing towards the planet. They get beamed to the crash site and find a Jem'Hadar ship sticking out of a wall of rock with no life signs. They get inside and find that all the crew died from an inertial damper failure before the ship crashed. A little while later Worf and Dax return from burying the dead soldiers only to get a call from the runabout again, an undamaged Jem' Hadar ship has appeared and before they can do anything the runabout is destroyed. They don't have long to mourn, Jem'Hadar start beaming in all over and they flee onto the crashed ship. Muniz is hit along the way and although he puts on a good show, he is clearly badly hurt.
While trying to figure out what to do next they get a call on the coms from the vorta in charge of the Jem'Hadar. She wants to meet with Sisko and he agrees, but while they talk a Jem'Hadar beams onto the ship and places some sort of sensor. O'Brien is nearly killed by him but Muniz manages to save his life. The Vorta again tries to talk to Sisko, but this time he brings a gun. It seems there is just one object on the ship she wants badly, but won't say what so he doesn't agree to let her come get it. When she figures he isn't going to negotiate they start shelling the ship, but not so hard as to damage it. Muniz dies during this which really makes O'Brien feel terrible. They try flying the ship out of there, but it doesn't work. They do however find a changeling hiding on the ship, but it dies before they can do anything. The Jem'Hadar commit suicide and the Vorta comes over to say how sad she is things couldn't have been worked out.
Review: A pretty straightforward episode, but one that tells us a lot about how our main characters react under stress. Might have benefited from a B story, but the main story is good enough to still be above average for Trek.
7 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment