Weekend Trek “Shadows And Symbols”

Perhaps a bit appropriately, Jimmy and I didn’t get another TNG chat done before this weekend, and that means I got what turned out to be a Deep Space Nine two-parter to open the final season.

Two parts seems a wee bit rushed, but I do have a new character to cover.

Three plotlines more or less happen here, and while none of them are exactly bad, I did feel like all three could probably have been spread out a bit more.  Well, maybe not the Worf plot.  Worf wants to win a big battle in Jadzea’s name to get his late Trill wife into Sto’vo’kor, the Klingon heaven, and that means Bashir and Quark are going along for Jadzea and O’Brien is there for Bashir and possibly Worf.  While Martok is probably the friendliest Klingon ever, Worf is less than pleased to see them.  And OK.  Quark I get.  He doesn’t really bring any value to the mission and he tends to complain loudly in a way that doesn’t endear him to the Klingons.  Bashir to a certain extent too.  His being smitten with Jadzea the whole time was a regression of the character, and Worf’s general jealousy of the two wannabe suitors makes sense.

But why the hell is mad at O’Brien?  The Chief actually does something during the mission!  He’s the guy manning the station that will shoot off the weapon to cause the solar flare that will destroy the shipyard!  He seems to have basically built the thing!  He’s helping!  The mission wouldn’t work without him!  Oh, never mind.  Martok talked to Worf, Worf apologized, and the mission was a success.  Quark even got a handclasp from Martok.

As for the Kira plot, well, she decided to see if she or Senator Cretak have a bigger pair.  The answer is Kira.  Obviously.  And Admiral Ross is still the most helpful Admiral in Star Trek history.

So, that leaves the Sisko plot, where Ben is looking for that last Orb of the Prophets with Joseph, Jake, and Ezri Dax in tow.  He’s successful despite some flashes of Benny Russell being treated in an insane asylum by a doctor who is basically Damar without the make-up.  There’s some concern for Joseph from everyone but Ben, but it works out fine.

But I do want to address Ezri.  A friend described her before I got to see this episode as a “hot mess,” and that seems to be about right.  Granted, he didn’t elaborate, and I can see what that means really quickly.  Past episodes have basically revealed that not every Trill gets a symbiote, and there’s a training period and all that sort of thing.  There’s usually a period where the previous host might even get to know his or her successor.  But then there’s Ezri, and she had none of that training.  She got the Dax symbiote as an emergency as the ship she was on as a ship’s counselor was transporting the symbiote to the Trill homeworld, and when it started dying, they had to put it into the only Trill on the ship, namely the completely unprepared Ezri.

That…is a rather interesting concept.    Jadzea would just know the different things past hosts knew while also more or less understanding what she was and what was her versus what was the Dax symbiote.  Ezri was probably a highly competent Starfleet ensign, and then she got this symbiote and now her life is very different in ways she never anticipated, prompting her to run her mouth in confusion as she doesn’t really understand anything that’s going on around her.

I can get into that.  Plus, it’s clear Worf alone is less than pleased to see another Dax.  Sure, most of them are confused or mystified, like they forgot symbiotes can do that, but man, she seems like an interesting character in her own right.  True, I would rather that Jadzea had been kept around for one more season, but this is an interesting twist on the Trill concept.  And with the wormhole open again, Kira’s promotion, a revived Sisko’s return, and a new Dax, this could make for a great final season.