Episode Review #1: DS9 – Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night and Inquisition

I had some spare time this afternoon so I dug out my DS9 Season 6 DVD to watch “Inquisition”. Of course one episode led to another and I had lots of spare time, so I watched “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night”.

Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers! Read further only if you’ve seen the episode, because: 1. There are lots of spoilers and 2. I’m not gonna give you a summary, just some of my random thoughts about each episode, so it helps if you’ve seen the episode.

“Inquisition” was a great episode for Bashir fans. I have to agree with a certain poster on the startrek.com boards that he is HOT!

Drooling aside, this episode introduces Section 31, the secret part of the Federation, like the Federation’s version of the Obsidian Order. So this is the Federation’s darker side, after all this talk of freedom and the ends don’t justify the means, along comes Section 31 whose agents operate in secret, answer to no one.

Episodes like this make me wonder what Gene Roddenberry would have thought of DS9 had he lived to see it. Some people say that DS9 clashes too much with the Utopia Roddenberry envisioned for the future. I’d have to agree with that, but at the same time I don’t think Roddenberry would really expect perfection in the future, and DS9 is far from perfect, yet still striving toward it.

Something about this episode I think Roddenberry would have liked though, it makes you think. It makes you challenge your beliefs, see just how much they mean to you. The Original Series made you think, it challenged your beliefs. DS9 does the same thing, except DS9 uses a less than perfect world, while the Original Series used Utopia. I’d think Roddenberry would appreciate the *fact* that this episode makes you think, although I’m not sure what he would think of *how* the episode gets you thinking.

One episode leads to another and I ended up watching “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night”. I can see that Nana Visitor must have had fun getting to explore Kira’s character like this. I think it was in the DVD commentary that I heard that the writers originally wanted to have Kira in a relationship with Dukat. Eh… no, totally not in her character. Now as for her mother sleeping with the enemy… Woah, there’s something we can have fun with!

At the end when Sisko asks Kira why she saved her mother, even though she was a collaborator, I really wanted to hear Kira say something different. I wanted her to mention seeing her mother crying over the message from her father, and then at that moment Kira realizes that what she had told her mother earlier about enjoying sleeping with the enemy wasn’t really true, Meru wasn’t sleeping with Dukat because she liked him, she was sleeping with Dukat because the alternative wasn’t all that great.

I’m not going to argue over what else Meru could have done, or if Dukat really kept his promise to take care of her family. But this does bring up an interesting question of how far you go to aid the enemy and how much do you have to get in return to do it? Kira’s attitude is that you don’t aid the enemy at all, and yet I find that a little shortsighted. If Dukat really was keeping his promise and Kira was growing up healthier because of his aid, then Meru’s collaboration helped a future leader of Bajor to grow up healthy and strong. And if Meru refuses, maybe Kira doesn’t survive her childhood, and maybe without her later on in the Dominion war Bajor ends up being taken over by the Dominion. Not to mention Kira’s work in the resistance…

When you get down to it, Meru had two options. Collaborate, “play house” with Dukat and help her family (or at least Dukat told her he was helping her family and she believed it), or refuse and let her family starve, get herself tossed into ore processing, and let someone else collaborate with Dukat. And there’s no gaurantee that the next collaborator will be helping any other Bajorans through their actions, the next collaborator may truly enjoy playing house and could not care less about anyone else.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that in a situation like the occupation, I don’t have any issue with playing along with the enemy to gain some advantages that I can use to help “the good guys” win their battle. Play along with the enemy by day and gain their trust so I can smuggle weapons to the resistance at night. Of course Meru never did this outright, but by keeping her family alive she did provide at least one more resistance fighter for Bajor. I just wish Kira would have acknowledged this in the end. But it is kinda complicated to explain, so I understand that maybe the writers simplified her reasoning to “She’s still my mother” and hoped that the audience would figure out everything I just said.

Live Long and Prosper…

~TrekkieGirl

***Disclaimer: Star Trek and all the shows and characters and etc. are owned by CBS/Paramount. No copyright infringement intended. This blog is a collection of TrekkieGirl’s opinions and commentaries on the show, conventions, and other Star Trek related topics. TrekkieGirl writes about Trek for fun, not profit.***