Weekend Trek “Chrysalis”

I made a note the last time those genetically enhanced characters visited the station that one, played by Faith Salie, caught my eye because I only know her as a voice on NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!  And then she had no lines.

Well, she gets to talk in this one!

OK, so, I wasn’t much of a fan of the previous episode to bring Jack, Patrick, Lauren, and Sarina to the station mostly because the whole plot hinged on Bashir being an idiot.  As for the three characters who could talk, well, they were all different shades of obnoxious.  Now, they’re back, and…they’re still all different shades of obnoxious, but at least Lauren spends most of the episode standing up and not lounging around as the nymphomaniac that she supposedly is.

This time around, the point of the episode is for Bashir to treat Sarina in a way to bring her out of her catatonic state.  There’s an explanation for why her genetic enhancement put her that way, basically with the idea that her mind takes in more information than her brain can process, and that means she just sits there.  Bashir had been thinking about it, and he did find a way, but that requires a machine that doesn’t exist (O’Brien can fix him one, but the other three can), and before you know it, Sarina is walking around and talking.

Now, this by itself could make for an interesting episode.  Show this young woman learning how to deal with people and becoming an independent person.  I could get behind that.  Too bad that’s not what this episode does.  Instead, it starts with Bashir being a wee bit lonely as everyone has someone except for him.

Wait, Ezri seems to be on her own.  He could talk to her, couldn’t he?  Nah!

So, instead of just allowing Sarina to learn about the world around her, the episode goes a different route when Bashir falls in love with her.

Um, no.

What is it about these characters that makes Bashir an idiot?

Now, I could point out that Sarina is an attractive young woman, and she seems to be sort of responding to Bashir’s general Bashir-ness.  But she’s not going to be another new regular member of the cast like Kasidy Yates or Vic Fontaine.  She’s a guest star making her final appearance, but that’s not the problem.  The problem is she’s Bashir’s patient, and that’s a major ethical violation for Bashir to make even if he did hand off her care to another doctor when he felt himself feeling romantically about her.

By the by, the fact that it is O’Brien and not Ezri that notices this problem makes things a little weirder.

Regardless, Sarina only acted the part of the ideal woman for Bashir as a thank you for his help, and that’s kinda messed up too, but then she leaves, as do the other three, and I hope I never see the lot of them again.