“Invasive Procedures”
Written by John Shelpley and Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Les Landau
Season 2, Episode 4
Production episode 40512-424
Original air date: October 17, 1993
Stardate: 47182.1
Station log: The station has been evacuated due to a plasma storm. Only Sisko, Kira, Dax, Bashir, Odo, and O’Brien have remained behind to make sure the station stays safe until the storm passes. Quark also volunteered to stay behind, but was confined to the bar. So Odo and O’Brien are a bit surprised to find Quark in an airlock, supposedly saying goodbye to Rom. In truth, Quark was leaving behind a device to neutralize the security scanners on the docking ring.
A ship sends out a weak distress signal, and Odo and O’Brien go unseal one of the airlocks to let them dock, at which point two Klingons (T’Kar and Yeto), a Trill (Verad), and a native of Khefka IV (Mareel) all hold them at phaserpoint. The Trill activates a containment unit into which they force Odo. T’Kar seems to be the leader, and Verad is meek and stammering and doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the group.
They first take the infirmary, forcing Bashir to put the containment unit in a stasis chamber, then go to ops, where they disable the primary and secondary systems. Yeto then takes Quark—who thought they were coming to the station to purchase some liquid data crystals—to ops. Kira’s pissed at Quark and Sisko’s pissed at the whole thing. He asks T’Kar what’s going on, at which point everyone’s surprised to learn that the boss is actually Verad. He’s a Trill who wants the Dax symbiont, which he claims is rightfully his.
Verad spent his whole life trying to qualify for the joining, sacrificing everything. And in the end he was rejected. So he’s going to steal one. Dax is a perfect match, partly because Verad’s research says they’re compatible, but mainly because Jadzia’s stationed by the wormhole, and Verad and Mareel can go to the Gamma Quadrant and start a new life after it’s done.
Bashir refuses to perform the surgery. Verad then shoots O’Brien—and he seems quite thrilled that he was able to work up the courage to do it. And his point is made: Bashir agrees to do the surgery (after treating O’Brien’s shoulder wound).
Yeto takes Verad, Dax, and Bashir to the infirmary. Verad refuses to be put under, and insists on watching the operation and advising if necessary. Bashir does put Dax to sleep and then removes the symbiont from Jadzia and implants it into Verad.
In ops, after Sisko and Kira make an attempt to escape (Sisko is more successful against T’Kar than Kira is against Mareel), Mareel explains that Verad saw her at the “accommodation house” (read whorehouse) when he was posted to Khefka IV, and invited her to come with him when he was recalled to Trill. She’ll do anything for him after rescuing her from that life.
Verad arrives at ops—or, more accurately, Verad Dax. There’s a noticeable change in personality, in confidence, and, to Mareel’s dismay, in his interest in being affectionate with her. He also refers to Sisko as “Benjamin,” and they reminisce about old times. Sisko deliberately goes all nostalgic to show Mareel what’s happened here—and also, apparently, proving that “bros before hos” is a universal truism. The last thing he mentions is discovering the wormhole, which Verad remembers as one of Jadzia’s fondest memories—prompting Sisko to remind him that she’s now dying in the infirmary. When Mareel asks why he’s wasting time talking to him, Verad snaps back that he’s his friend, and then dismisses her to watch the others. However, Verad’s unwillingness to put the symbiont back where it belongs leads Sisko to declare their friendship to be over.
In the infirmary, Bashir treats Jadzia, after bullying Yeto into serving as his nurse. Jadzia awakens, but she’s devastated and scared without the symbiont.
Verad sits alone in Sisko’s office. Sisko tries to convince Mareel that Verad isn’t the same person, which she obviously knows but refuses to admit. Quark makes a particularly pathetic attempt to attack T’Kar, who fares much better against the Ferengi than he did Sisko. Verad orders Mareel to take the whimpering Quark to the infirmary.
The plan is for Verad to go ahead in their ship, with Mareel and the Klingons following an hour later in the last remaining runabout, making sure that no one can follow. Verad pays lip service to being grateful to Mareel, but he’s colder and completely unaffectionate toward her. He also tells her to wait for him at the rendezvous.
Quark has been faking the injury, and he and Bashir are able to distract Yeto enough so that Bashir is able to hit him with a hypo filled with sedative. They then remove the containment unit, and Quark is able to use his mad thief skillz to break it open and free Odo.
Verad realizes that Yeto isn’t responding, so he tasks T’Kar with getting him to the runabout. Mareel suggests a hostage, and Sisko volunteers, but Verad takes Kira instead. Kira’s fine with that. “If Odo’s free, there’s no way you’re getting off this station.”
Mareel admits to Sisko that she now knows that Verad has no intention of going away with her. The plan was for him to wait for her, yet he asked her to wait for him. He’s never lied to her before. Sisko urges her to help him save both Verad and Jadzia. Verad was obviously never meant to be joined. Reluctantly, she agrees, giving Sisko his combadge and phaser back.
Verad, T’Kar, and Kira arrive at the airlock, but the ship is gone—because Odo released the clamps. He and Kira take T’Kar down, while Verad heads for the ruanbout—to find Sisko waiting for him. Verad is convinced that Sisko won’t shoot him, which he believes right up until Sisko shoots him.
When Verad wakes up, the symbiont has been removed. He can’t remember any of it—the blending didn’t have a chance to complete, which means that Verad will survive, but he’ll be emptier. Jadzia, however, has been reintegrated with Dax—and she remembers everything.
The Sisko is of Bajor: It’s fun seeing Sisko play Mareel like a two-dollar banjo, but also manage to get the better physically of T’Kar—whom it later takes both Kira and Odo to subdue (and whom Quark utterly fails at subduing).
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Apparently being a prostitute on Khefka IV gives you the skills to beat the crap out of a lifelong terrorist. Right. (Sorry, didn’t buy for a second that Mareel could even hold her own in a fistfight with Kira, much less win one.)
Rules of Acquisition: Quark is informed by Kira that he’s finished on the station after he deactivated the security systems on the docking ring to allow Yeto and T’Kar to board the station armed. Yet if he thought they were there just to buy liquid data crystals, why would they need the security systems deactivated? In any case, Quark’s heroism at the end, helping Bashir subdue Yeto and breaking Odo free, is obviously an attempt to make up for it.
The slug in your belly: It’s established that Sisko met Curzon for the first time at Pelios Station, and they took a trip to the cliffs of Bole and served together on the Livingston. In the end, the Dax symbiont now has Verad to add to Jadzia, Curzon, Tobin, and the other hosts.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo disguises himself as a cart in the airlock, enabling him to surprise Verad and T’Kar.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Mareel worked in an “accommodation house” on Khefka IV. Gotta love those euphemisms….
Keep your ears open: “I know, I know. He couldn’t find a cup of water if you dropped him in a lake. But even if he is an idiot, he’s still my brother.”
“And you’d betray him in a second if it suited your interests.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him!”
Quark and Odo on the subject of the former’s affection for Rom.
Welcome aboard: Megan Gallagher makes the first of two appearances on DS9 as Mareel; she’ll be back in “Little Green Men” as Faith Garland and in Voyager’s “Body and Soul” as Jarytn. Future Voyager star Tim Russ appears as one of the Klingons, while Steve Rankin plays the other one, having played a dying Romulan in TNG’s “The Enemy” and a Cardassian in “Emissary,” and he’ll return as the infamous Colonel Green in Enterprise’s “Demons.”
But the big guest here is John Glover, one of the greats, playing Verad (and also Verad Dax).
Trivial matters: While “Dax” established the training and study that goes into being a candidate to be joined, this episode makes it clear just how difficult it is, and how many people don’t make the cut. (This will be turned on its ear a bit in “Equilibrium” in the third season.)
In your humble rewatcher’s Mirror Universe novel The Mirror-Scaled Serpent in Obsidian Alliances, it’s established that mirror-Tuvok was once a slave owned by a Klingon named T’Kar—both characters played by Tim Russ.
The first meeting between Sisko and Curzon at Pelios Station, and the woman named Anastasia, are seen in the short story “The Music Between the Notes” by Steven Barnes in The Lives of Dax.
Verad will be seen again in the TNG/DS9 comic book miniseries Divided We Fall, written by David Mack & John J. Ordover.
Walk with the Prophets: “Don’t call me Benjamin.” There’s a lot to like about this episode, but also a lot to dislike. We just did the station being evacuated last time, and to have an empty station again just feels repetitive. Also the fact that it’s just the opening-credits regulars who stay behind is tiresomely convenient.
Verad’s plan depends on the station being empty—there was no way they were going to pull this off if the station was fully occupied—and that plasma storm was defined from jump as unpredictable. So what would Verad have done if that storm hadn’t happened to come along? And how did he know he’d have enough time?
Quark’s role in this is also problematic. If he thought he was selling something, there’s no reason for him to deactivate the security systems. Kira baldly states that he’s finished on the station, and while he is instrumental in Odo’s rescue, I don’t think that’s really enough to justify his allowing four people to come in and take over the station, wounding O’Brien and almost killing Jadzia. The utter lack of consequences for Quark is especially glaring on a show that has already proven itself to be better than most about such things. Plus Kira losing a fistfight to a prostitute? Really?
Having said that, the episode has its good parts: Sisko and Kira both trying to get Mareel to talk to find out more that they can use, Sisko manipulating the joined Verad via his long association with the Dax symbiont, the sheer glee with which Tim Russ plays T’Kar (“Let’s go, ally”), and Megan Gallagher’s excellent use of facial expressions to show Mareel’s emotional anguish.
But the episode is owned by John Glover, who gives two great performances here, first as the meek, insecure, unstable Verad—seriously, you have no trouble understanding why he was rejected for joining the moment you meet him—and then a magnificent combination of his own earlier performance and that of what Terry Farrell’s been doing for a season-plus when he’s Verad Dax. It’s a tour de force, and makes the episode worth watching even for all its logical flaws.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a graphic novel based on the universe of his novel Dragon Precinct and its sequels. Art will be by JK Woodward, (the artist on the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic book). Please check it out and spread the word!
When I saw this episode I missed the first couple of minutes and assumed the station was still empty while waiting for the evacuated people to come back. What is a plasma storm anyway?
it is interesting learning more about the whole trill training program though.
This reminds me of “Rascals” and “Starship Mine” from TNG. An outside force that never should be able to take over the Station comes and takes over the station- as you said, it’s just too convenient. The unpredictable Plasma Storm and the less than bare bones skeleton crew just happen to work out in the invaders favor (there is no way they could have predicted either of those) to get some object and is thwarted becuase the crew, w hich only 15 minutes before was stupid enough to let themselves be taken over can pull it together to save the day.
Also, I don’t like the Quark can commit what is actually a pretty serious crime and goes unpunished and apparently entirely forgiven. I get that he is the schemer on the station, but it ends up just making Odo and the rest look bad that they can neither control him nor do they punish him.
I did however like the way Terry Farrell portrayed Jadzia, sans Dax. You get a great impression of just how weak and scared she is when she doesn’t have 7 lifetimes of experiences and the realization that she is about to die at age 28.
This would have worked a lot better had Quark told someone that Jadzia and Bashir would be off the station doing a survey mission and they were kidnapped and the rest of the crew (including Quark who feels guilty) try to rescue her before the 39 hour window expires. But unfortunately that’s not what this episode is…
I’m fond of stories that focus on the Trill because I think the idea of two sentient, joined species is pretty cool. It’s nice to get back to something that resembles sci-fi. This episode builds on some aspects of Trill society that were revealed in the season one episode “Dax.” In that earlier episode we learned that only a small minority of Trill are joined with symbionts and here we see how that affects Trill society. It is clear that Verad is mentally unbalanced; yet, one can infer that there are many non-joined Trill who are envious of the Trill who are. I’ve often wondered if the joined Trill dominate that society.
I really like Tim Russ and Steven Rankin and the way they portray a pair of Klingon mercenaries. Those two are just dripping with contempt for non-Klingons. I love it when T’Kar easily fends off Quark’s attack and then sneers “pathetic.” Klingons and Ferengi appear to be utterly incompatible species. DS9 will explore Klingon-Ferengi relations throughout the series.
It is strange and a bit unrealistic that Quark gets away with a serious act of betrayal but overall, it’s not a bad episode.
Yes, John Glover = awesome. At this point I knew him as Daniel Clamp from Gremlins 2: The New Batch and as the voice of the Riddler on Batman: The Animated Series. He did a great job here, and pulled off playing meek and timid with less caricature than Dwight Schultz managed as Barclay. I was also rather fond of Megan Gallagher, though she’s played stronger characters.
Speaking of which, “prostitute” is a job a person does, not their entire identity. Mareel said she grew up on the streets of Khefka IV, which she implied was a rather rough place to live. It’s reasonable to conclude that she learned how to fight for survival well before she was old enough for sex work. And she may have needed to fight off aggressive johns or people who tried to assault her in the street.
Besides, she’s the only Khefkan we’ve ever met. There are a lot of humanoids in Trek with superhuman strength, such as Vulcans and Klingons. Maybe Khefkans are just naturally stronger than Bajorans.
I recall being troubled by the lack of consequences for Quark too, but he did kind of redeem himself. I think there’s at least one other episode, I forget which, where he does something just as bad and there’s not even a mention of how he evades the consequences.
As for why Quark needed to shut down security to sell liquid data chains (not crystals), presumably they’re illegal liquid data chains, some form of contraband or outlawed substance. Maybe the data on them is stolen or sensitive, something that could be used by criminals or terrorists. Maybe the technology itself has harmful applications, or is extremely rare and precious.
@1: While a “plasma storm” is really just an excuse to evacuate the station, the name suggests it’s pretty much the same thing as an “ion storm,” which would basically just be a stellar flare or coronal mass ejection — a mass of superhot, highly charged hydrogen plasma (plasma = ionized gas) thrown off by a star. Flares and CMEs present a radiation hazard to space vessels and their occupants and can damage electronics.
Something I never understood about this episode is, do the Trill symbionts have any sort of consciousness, or are they just organic memory/experience storage? If they were actually sentient, I’d expect the Dax symbiont to have been pretty pissed off about being removed from its proper host, and joined to Verad at gunpoint. But it didn’t seem to react that way.
Christopher: You’re making excuses. The episode did nothing to convince me that Mareel was some kind of super-strong fighter, except to have her successfully beat up Kira. The only thing we know about her is that she was miserable on Khefka IV as a prostitute. Sure, you and I can come up with reasons why that would be so, but the script never bothered to do so, and that’s a flaw in an episode that has too many others already. I only gave it as high as a 6 because of the acting.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Count me as a little skeptical that Mareel beet Kira – not so much because she’s a prostitute, since there is no reason a prostitute couldn’t also be a good fighter, but just that growing up on the streets isn’t quite the same as being in the military. That said, thats just a generality, and Mareel could just be a natural fighter. And maybe Khefka is really, really tough. Perhaps Kira underestimated her. It may not be likely, but it’s still possible.
Had it actually been established at this point in the series that Kira was a skilled hand to hand combatant? Her terrorist background wouldn’t necessarily have given her any meaingful training or experience at hand to hand combat. (Terrorists and guerillas are far more likely to fight with ambushes, bombs, and booby traps than at close quarters after all.) I know that later in the series, Kira becomes an awesome hand to hand combatant, but is it really fair to blame this episode for the character being written differently in later episodes? (Heck, for all we know maybe getting clobbered here convinced Kira to start actually training in hand to hand combat, which is why she is able to fight so much better in the later seasons.)
Is it explained why the Klingons are in with them? I can’t believe any Klingons would have any respect for Mr. Meek here. I can’t see them even hanging out with him, let alone consider him in charge.
@6: No, what we know about Mareel is that she grew up on the streets, and that the place where she grew up was the kind of place you want to “get out of.” That’s right there in her own dialogue. It paints a pretty clear picture to me. There was one reference to an “accommodation house,” which you’re assuming was a brothel — a reasonable assumption, but still not a proven fact. It was a subtle background element, hardly the only thing we were told or shown about her. But somehow that vague implication is preoccupying you beyond everything else about her character.
@8: Good point. Guerrilla fighting is generally about avoiding face-to-face confrontations.
@9: The Klingons were mercenaries. They may not respect weaklings, but they respect large sums of money, and they do what they’re told by the person paying them.
Kira and Mareel may have very similar backgrounds. Kira grew up in a labor camp and joined a resistance cell at age 12. She was an irregular resistance fighter and did not become a member of the organized Bajoran Militia until the end of the occupation. As we saw in the TNG episode “Preemptive Strike,” Bajoran resistance fighters occasionally dabble in prostitution, either to make money or perhaps to gather intelligence.
My personal favourite flaw in this heist plan is that they have to coerce Bashir into doing the procedure, they couldn’t afford to hire their own shady surgeon?
It’s all very well threatening O’Brian or whoever else is around but all Bashir has to do is knock himself out with whatever drug he chooses and there is diddly squat they can do about it. Sure they could try to counteract whatever drug he uses but they’ll have a hard time of it without their own doctor.
That’s Tim Russ? I *knew* he seemed familiar but I couldn’t place him. He’s probably my favorite part of the episode, actually. Verad was well acted, yes, but I just didn’t like him.
John Glover =Awsome Bad Guy. I was always a little put off by the way they portrayed Dax’s reaction to all of this . He has no objection to being placed in a new host illegally? They could have made the transition much more complicated and interesting.
@5 & 14: Trill symbionts are conscious beings, but a joined Trill blends the personalities of both host and symbiont, so the host’s attitudes affect the symbiont’s outlook. Since Verad’s belief in the rightness of what he did was so strong, that affected the way Verad Dax saw what had happened. Dax itself, for the brief time that it was between hosts, may have objected, but once it became part of Verad Dax, its personality would’ve become a merger of both personalities and so it wouldn’t have seen things the same way.
Besides, Dax had been through many hosts before, and might’ve considered them somewhat ephemeral. It had already had a couple of short-lived joinings in its life, and a couple that were ended by other than natural causes. So maybe it was philosophical about the change.
Keith – I’m a bit surprised that although you mentioned the “cliffs of Bole” you didn’t call attention to that as a subtle (or possibly not so subtle) reference to Cliff Bole.
After the extravagance of the three-part opener, it’s understandable that they go with a simple “bottle episode” (That’s an episode using only pre-existing sets and a minimal cast, for those that don’t know) right after. Yeah, it’s unfortunate that they had to use the “evac the station” excuse again, but those are the limitations of a TV show.
Anyway, John Glover is awesome (in this episode and in general). This is my first time through the series, so I already know him from Smallville (and as the reader of The Dresden Files: Ghost Story audiobook). Anyway, this was filmed so long ago that I had trouble recognizing him (my brain kept pointing to Willem Dafoe, but I knew that wasn’t right).
A few thoughts on this episode:
1. It would’ve been better had they dispensed with the plasma storm and just attributed the empty station to the evacuation from the previous episodes. The storm doesn’t really contribute anything to the episode other than provide a convenient excuse as to why only the regular cast were left on board the station.
2. I spent much of the episode thinking that Mareel might also be a Trill, but one of the TNG variety with forehead ridges. Then I looked up Odan; the makeup’s similar (ridges in a kind of Y-shape), but on Odan they’re much less pronounced. So that put paid to that idea!
3. The episode could’ve benefitted from a good epilogue. It could’ve covered Verad’s fate (even just a station log voiceover stating that he’d been handed to the Trill authorities, or something, would’ve been nice), and potential punishment for “Karma Houdini” Quark. His little deception at the end was as much about saving his own skin as saving Jadzia’s, and in my view it doesn’t make up for letting Verad and his crew on board in the first place.
When I watched this episode with friends, we joked about Dax’s line: “Neither of my parents or my sister underwent symbiosis. And they lead happy and productive lives. Only one Trill in ten is chosen to be joined.”
“Yes,” Andrew said, “they make big rocks into little rocks!”
My favorite part of John Glover’s performance is when he shoots O’Brien. I love how he has been wanting this, needing this and planning on doing something to attain a symbiont for himself, that he feels that he so rightfully deserves. But when he is shocked and glad that he was actually able to pull the trigger, so to speak, it not only convinces him that he is up to the task but that he was right all along. That single act proves, to him at least, that he is right and deserving of the symbiont that the Trill commision so narrow-mindedly stole from him. To his way of thinking, of course. The rest of the episode is alright. it has it’s problems and while I usually love the bottle episodes like this and Duet the best, this one should have waited for a little while later in the season if they weren’t going to establish the Station’s emptiness as being right after the the events of the three parter. That way, it would have made more sense for Verad to come and do his thing because he knew the station was empty and had to put his plan together quickly, rather than somehow predict an unpredictable plot device, I mean, Plasma Storm.
Show getting slightly better in the second season but still not even near full power yet. Also prefer bald facial hair Sisko — so much cooler and badder than whatever is going on there.
@@@@@ 21 I definitely second the preference to bald facial hair Sisko. He’s almost a completely different character.
Avery Brooks was primarily known as Hawk from Spenser: For Hire at this stage in his career, and he wanted Sisko to be different from Hawk, hence the different look with hair and no goatee. By the fourth season, he gave in to the inevitable. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
He apparently also gave into that ineviability when he made American History X as he looked exactly the same. I believe that might have been made during the run of this series, however so that makes sense.
@23: I thought it was the studio who wanted Sisko to look different from Hawk, and that Brooks wanted to stick with the bald/goateed style.
Christopher: It’s been 20 years, and it was never anything I cared that much about, so you could be right. *laughs* Either way, though, Sisko’s look in seasons 1-3 was a deliberate attempt to move away from the Hawk look, regardless of whose idea that attempt was. :)
Matt: The funny thing is, during the first three seasons of DS9, Brooks appeared in four Spenser TV movies (Ceremony, Pale Kings and Princes, The Judas Goat, and A Savage Place), for which he shaved his head and grew the facial hair. But they were all filmed in 1993 and 1994, before the decision to Hawkify himself for season 4 of DS9 in 1995.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quark probably was punished for his misdeeds here. But not too much. As we have seen and will see, he has “friends” in high places on Bajor as well as strong connections to non-Federation types. Quark has needed resources. Sisko was wise not to incarcerate him for long or at all. I’m sure there are other means of controlling Quark.
I’m sure Jadzia Dax proposed leniency. She must have forgiven him; she plays tongo with him in “Rules of Acquisition.” To the rest of the crew, Quark becomes persona non grata for the rest of the season.
This episode marks a turning point for Quark. He unintentionally endangered the one person who befriended him. He never does so again. He seems to go out of his way to make sure his illegal activities often don’t involve death, violence, and physical/mental harm (beyond buyer’s remorse).
Yeah, this episode really rubs me the wrong way. It’s an elaborate setup that seems to happen simply because the plot wouldn’t work without it. And I share many folks’ frustration with the lack of repurcussions for Quark. Again, it mostly just feels like ‘he’s a title character so of course everyone will just shrug off what he does.’ And then there’s the ease with which they all get captured. And the way that after repeated escape attempts their captors never really do anything to restrain them. And their reliance on Bashir to perform the operation. And so forth.
But the thing that really bugs me is the way Dax just shrugs off the murder of its previous self. Reading some of the explanations has helped justify that (lack of) reaction a bit; I can now plausibly explain to myself how the symbiotic process works such that this plot works. But I certainly got none of that from the episode itself.
@28: Well, since Dax had Jadzia’s memories within it, it wouldn’t necessarily have considered her dead the way we would. It would see Jadzia as a part of itself that lived on as long as it did.
Yes, CLB, one can certainly retcon it that way, and IMO not implausibly. But the writers didn’t put that in the episode. IIRC this really bugged me at the time, and wasn’t explained sufficiently to make the drama work.
@30: Actually they did put it in the episode. Verad Dax says in as many words, “But she’s not going to die. She’ll live on, in me.”
Armin Shimerman was also unhappy about the lack of repercussions for Quark, according to Memory Prime. He felt it belittled not only his character but Odo’s as well.
I’m almost a little surprised the Trill don’t have some ridiculous rule about how a symbiont can never go back to a former host, kind of like how they’re not allowed to re-unite with a spouse who’s moved on to a new host. I could just see in the next episode a messenger arriving from the Trill stating Dax had broken the unspoken rule by taking on a new host, then going back to the old one (length of time spent in the new host and having been removed by force originally notwithstanding), and is now a permanent outcast from the Trill home world.
I don’t have the problem many of you do with the situation being written to let them take over the station. Maybe I’m a little to ‘handwavy’ (It’s a word if I say it’s a word). I remember hearing it’s often ok for coincidences, acts of nature, and acts of stupidity to get your characters into trouble, but you should almost never use them to get characters out of trouble.
Maybe Kira should have won her fight, but once again not a big deal to me. Terrorism (or resistance fighting) would rarely involve hand to hand combat and so the other woman is tough. That’s not mutually exclusive from being a former prostitute.
Don’t get me wrong, not a great episode because it’s still mostly an episode where the ‘Enterprise’ gets taken over and then taken back which has been done to death, but I’d give it a 7 for the dual performance and the fleshing out of Trill culture.
@31: I stand corrected.
@33 So you’re saying Jadzia should be sentenced to death because she was a victim of a crime?
@36: Quasarmodo clearly called it a “ridiculous” rule, not a desirable one. The comment wasn’t saying it “should” be the case, just that it would’ve been consistent with the other arbitrary and illogical rules the Trill were later shown to have.
bguy and everyone else wondering about Kira’s ground combat skills — we just saw those skills three episodes ago in “The Homecoming” during the rescue of Li Nalas. So yes, her combat skills were established, and yes, I remain unconvinced that she got so roundly thrashed by Mareel.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“He even looks different, doesn’t he?”
The biggest thing I noticed that nobody else mentioned was Verad’s dynamic hairstyle. He starts out with boyish bangs in the front, almost like a ceasar. At 15 minutes in, right before he shoots O’Brien, you can see the start of a change, though there couldn’t have been time for him to comb it. Finally after the surgery he’s rocking the 90’s businessman/power cut with a full part, until the end of the episode.
For the record, I find Kira being so easily beat up a bit hard to swallow as well.
Another problem with the station evac thing is that they all seem to be on duty at the same time. Does that mean they’re all sleeping at the same time? Or does the attack happen coincidentally at that time when their shifts all overlap?
Yes, pretty much the only thing that saves this is the acting all around. I particularly liked the scene of Quark picking the lock.
But in all of this, it strikes me that the Jadzia character was essentially raped. And Terry Farrel’s line reading of “he’ll always be with me now” is dead on, hammering that point home. That said, I wonder what kind of psychological recovery Jadzia will need as a result of this incident. Cause there aren’t really ANY consequences of this episode, including Quark.
krad: Some prostitutes are pretty damned though. And if Verad didn’t completely join with Dax, and doesn’t keep any of the memories, that might mean that Dax doesnt’keep any of Verad’s memories, so he’s not part of the host of hosts.
Ah, John Glover, he’s my Rober Knepper moment, I didn’t even recognize him on my own rewatch, and it was just months ago!
Quark’s scheming could have been easily solved by some creative writing; making him involutarily responsible for what happened, and not a bloody accomplice.
@@.-@ – Chris: Yes, Schultz’s Barclay was more caricature, but I wouldn’t fault that on him. The tone of the episodes and how the characters were conceived (Barclay as comic relief of sorts, Verad as a threat we don’t see coming) might have to do with the differences in portrayal a lot more.
@17 – LazerWulf: I don’t think this qualifies as a bottle show; they had to bring in five non-regular speaking parts.
@27 – Jonathan: When has Quark shown to have highly placed contacts on Bajor?
@43/lordmagnusen: Bottle shows often have multiple guest stars. “The Drumhead” is the classic TNG example of a bottle show, and it had a half-dozen guests. What defines a bottle show is that it’s filmed on the show’s standing sets, “bottled” in a finite area rather than going afield to new sets or locations. (One of my favorite examples is the Leverage episode “The Bottle Job.” Not only is it a bottle show taking place wholly on the show’s standing sets, but the main featured set is a bar, and the story involves the alcoholic main character falling off the wagon and back into the bottle. So the title has at least three layers of meaning, one of which is metatextual.)
Quoth lordmagnusen:
Except Jadzia specifically said that she remembered everything at the end of the episode.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@44 – Chris: Yeah, I wasn’t sure, I stand corrected now. That’s a funny Leverage episode concept, there.
@45 – krad: Yeah, I know that, my point is that that line grated on me a bit, because Verad doesnt’keep any memories… while it could mean there’s an assymetrical quality to the joining (for the slug it’s plug and play, for the humanoid it takes longer), Jadzia Dax or Ezri Dax never ever mention Verad again in the show. But that’s not this episode’s fault.
I don’t quite get the idea of grading the episode down because Kira gets beat in a fight involving a female from the streets who is physically bigger and stronger than she is. Not only does that seem like a minor quibble, it’s not even that implausible.
I liked this episode because for what seems like the first time in several episodes O’Brien is not saving the day by conceniently pulling some feat of engineering out of his wormhole.
Sorry, JohnC, but this violated the badass rule: a badass can only be convincingly defeated by an equal and opposite badass. Kira has been well established as a badass at this point, a guerrilla fighter of 15 years’ standing. Mareel is a prostitute. The episode did nothing to convince me that Mareel would be able to take Kira down, beyond the script requiring it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@48/krad: And I still don’t understand why you assume a woman who works as a prostitute couldn’t also be a capable fighter. Heck, you’re a writer, but you’re also a karate instructor. So why can’t Mareel also have skills that don’t fall under her job title? As I said in comment #3, given the harsh conditions that Mareel grew up in, it seems entirely reasonable that she would’ve had to learn to fight in order to survive. That would be true whether she was employed as a sex worker or anything else. “Prostitute” is a job, not an identity.
It’s possible, but it’s also much more likely that she wouldn’t be a good fighter because most people aren’t. Yes, I train in the martial arts, and what I know from that is that most people can’t cut it. Most of our students wash out after a certain point. I started training with five other people. None of them made it past blue belt.
I’m not saying its impossible. But nothing in the story convinced me that Mareel was a fighter, especially given that they hired Klingons specifically to be muscle.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@50/krad: But Mareel is from a rough, hellish, lawless environment, so it’s not implausible that only the strongest would’ve survived.
And nobody’s saying she has to be as strong as a Klingon — just that she’s capable of holding her own against Kira.
Again, some prostitutes are pretty damned though, since they need to survive in pretty rough environments. She was not a museum curator or a needlework scholar, being a prostitute is a job that does not make also being a good fighter something unheard of.
Most people from tough hellish lawless environments also can’t fight. Because most people can’t fight. Christopher and lrodmagnusen, you guys are basically making excuses after the fact, but it doesn’t speak to my main point: the script didn’t convince me that Mareel was any kind of badass, certainly not more of one than the characters we’ve been following closely for two-plus years at this point.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@53/krad: Maybe, but as a rule, fiction is not about “most people,” it’s about the exceptional ones. Look at all the shows where the main character’s computer-savvy friend or IT-department colleague just happens to be the most brilliant hacker in the history of civilization. See also Rom. He started out being portrayed as a moron who “couldn’t fix a straw if it was bent,” but he ended up being this intuitively brilliant engineer, because stories need their characters to be exceptional whether it makes sense or not. And there are plenty of shows with characters who are implausibly able to handle themselves in a fight without proper training — e.g. just about any action show where the lead has civilian friends who inevitably get drawn into the action.
Exactly. In this case, it is plausible that Mareel could fight, but there are tons of shows were people who really shouldn’t be able to hold their own against professional fighters.
I think the problem with the Mareel debate is that many people are seeing it simply as “can a prostitute be good at fighting” as if that’s the only thing she is, the only thing she’s ever done. It’s just the only real data point we’ve been given but she could’ve taken martital arts lessons every day of her life as well. She hasn’t necessarily always been a prostitute and not everything else she does has to be because she was one (e.g. it doesn’t have to be “she learned to fight to protect herself from unruly clients,” she could just like martial arts). Yes, I realise most of this discussion was years ago but I just like chipping in.
From a more out-of-universe perspective, I did get the impression that they need to give Mareel presence and threat because IIRC there are quite a lot of situations where they could easily have overpowered her if she was merely as imposing as Quark. Showing her beating Kira gave her a “don’t mess with me” flag that was intended to get the audience to accept the crew not trying it again (e.g. wasn’t there a bit where it’s just Mareel and the DS9 crew in a room? Even with her beating Kira, I still think they could easily have overwhelmed her there).
I do have to say, the highlight of the episode for me was Sisko clobbering the Klingon.
P.S. Also “he couldn’t find a cup of water if you dropped him in a lake” is actually a really awful metaphor. Well, unless he’s constantly carrying a cup around with him.
@56/Tropxe: It’s also worth restating a point I made near the start of this discussion — that we don’t really know for certain that Mareel even was a prostitute. All the episode said was that she worked at an “accommodation house” and that she “used to help [Verad] relax.” Sure, that can be taken as a euphemism for sex work, and that was probably the writers’ intent, but the line is ambiguous enough that we can’t rule out other interpretations. She could just as easily have been an entertainer at a club, a waitress at a tea house, maybe a massage therapist at a spa. Heck, maybe she was a martial-arts instructor and she helped Verad relax by teaching him the Khefkan equivalent of t’ai chi. Surely sex work can’t be the only conceivable job opportunity for a woman who grew up on the streets.
In what is unfortunately his one and only Star Trek appearance, John Glover excels as Verad both pre- and post-joining. Verad’s characterisation is interesting as I get the impression that he was a good and decent man before his unhealthy obsession with being joined overwhelmed him. He is quite a tragic, almost pitiable character, really.
Megan Gallagher, a sorely underrated actress, deserves a great deal of praise as Mareel as well. It’s quite funny that, between this episode and “Starship Mine”, Tim Russ’ first two Star Trek appearances involved him playing a mercenary who caused trouble for the regulars while the main setting was evacuated.
I agree about Quark’s role. Armin Shimerman dislikes this episode, saying in the excellent DS9 Companion: “I worry when Quark doesn’t get punished for really sizable crimes. It makes the character less important since his acts trigger no consequences, and it makes Odo look a little foolish, in that he’s the law keeper and he can’t get this little troll punished.”
@46/lordmagnusen:
I don’t think it’s firmly established that Verad didn’t keep any memories of the experience. Yes, he says, “I don’t remember any of it,” which would seem to indicate that he has no memories of the whole thing. But immediately after that he specifically mentions not remembering the confidence or the knowledge he gained from the joining. And given the fact that he seems well aware that his plan has failed, it’s logical to assume that he has some recollection of events. (If he truly remembered absolutely nothing, he should still think his plan is plausible. Indeed, how would he know there was anything to remember, to even make that statement? And the fact that he mentions feeling lonely means he must have some memory of the joining.) Thus I would say that Verad does remember the events, but he does not remember the parts he most cared about. Thus, to him, the memories he retains amount to nothing.
@59/scottmiller: When Verad said he couldn’t “remember any of it,” he wasn’t talking about recent events on the station (since he experienced them directly), but about the memories of Dax’s past lives that came with the symbiont — the memories of being Jadzia and Curzon and all the others back to the beginning. Those memories are physically stored in the symbiont’s brain. When the host’s brain is connected to the symbiont’s brain, it’s able to access those memories. But once the symbiont is removed, those memories are no longer accessible, just as if you removed a hard drive from a computer. The only memories he retained were the ones in the host’s own brain, which include the new memories he formed during the events of the episode. He remembers what it felt like to have that knowledge and confidence, but he no longer has access to the actual knowledge and personality traits that enabled him to have that confidence.
@60/CLB: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. The discussion I referenced above (and even krad’s review) seems to take Verad’s statement at face value, thus raising the question of why Jadzia suffers no memory loss but Verad does. But if Verad had truly no memory of the entire episode, then he would have woken up confused and asking what happened, not lamenting his loss.
Has any of the fiction covered the origins of the joined Trills? I doubt it was a case that long ago some Trills found a symbiote and said “hey let’s slice open Bob’s stomach, put the slug in, and see what happens.”
The novels Unity by S.D. Perry and Worlds of DS9 Volume 2 (specifically the Trill: Unjoined segment by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin) do a lot to address the origin of the symbiotes, also tying them to the aliens from the “Conspiracy” episode of TNG.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’ve never read the novels, but I could see a way for the Trill symbiosis to occur.
We gotta take the existence of touch-telepathy as a thing that exists first though, it doesn’t occur in the real world (although there are certain fungi and parasites -such as toxoplasmosis which is in cat poo and makes its infectees obsessed with cats- which can alter behaviours), but its existence in the Trek verse is well established.
Now, we know that the Trill slugs live in the caves and do their reproduction in pools of water. They are long lived and have a degree of intelligence, but are bereft of opposable thumbs. I could see situations where humanoid Trills wandered into a cave and had a symbiote glom onto them. Giving a boost of intelligence and creativity, absorbing memories in return. Lather rinse repeat a few times, and one of those wanderers from a cave finds themselves getting memories from a previous life. They’d be latching on externally at first, vulnerable position but beggars cannot be choosers and at least this way the symbiot gets access to opposable thumbs.
Eventually after a few rounds of acceptance, prestige, perhaps even creating symbiote monopolizing dynasties (perhaps this is where the taboo of re-association comes from), and the occasional century of burn the witch, the wheel of fate and time lands on having a symbiote as a sign of prestige,the symbiotes are still external and doing that voodoo that they do via touch telepathy.
Get to the Trill version of the late 20thC technologically speaking and some bright spark is bound to wonder, now they have things like sterile operating theatres and so on, what would happen if they put the slug on the inside? Less vulnerable and safer for both slug and humanoid, and making the whole thing less vulnerable is bound to be high on the agenda if having a slug is prestigious. I can imagine a few decades of experimentation and learning how to use tissue rejection drugs, surgical techniques, and stuff like that, but eventually the practice is refined and they settle on an internal slug inserted medically instead of the slug just having to latch on like a leech.
That would be how I would justify it.
@64/random22: My theory is that the Trill and the slugs evolved together as intelligent species, and for a long time, the slugs entered the Trill’s bodies naturally. That put an upper bound on the size of the symbiont, which fell away with the invention of modern surgery. Symbionts gradually became larger, until surgery was the only way to put them into their hosts’ bellies.
Glad I’m not the only one who found problems with this episode. To me, “Invasive Procedure” is one of, if not THE, most wall banging missed opportunities in all of “Star Trek.” Here we have an episode were we finally see Dax and Jadzia separated, and we can find out what each is really like independently and what each contributes to the personality we know as Jadzia Dax…. and instead, Jadzia spends 90% of the episode unconscious, her only line unjoined being “I feel so alone;” and meanwhile, Verad Dax is just Verad with Jadzia’s memories and less stuttering. Does Dax contribute anything to its hosts, other than “confidence?” If so, that would still be a fascinating implication to explore, partially because it’s a bit horrifying. But they didn’t. In the end, they just used Dax and Jadzia’s separation as a plot device. It’s been said that Ezri Dax was developed more in one season than Jadzia in six, and this episode is the absolute pinnacle of that.
The only thing I do like about this episode is Maureel’s forehead, which resembles Odan’s from the TNG Trill. Since her species isn’t mentioned (her home planet is, but plenty of people grow up on foreign planets in the 24th Century), I can head-canon that Maureel is one of Odan’s brand of Trill, and there’s some continuity after all.
I don’t think the symbiotes have much in the order of stand-alone personality.
This episodes plot holes are bigger than the worm hole outside of DS9. How very convenient, that the whole station has been evacuated (I guess less extras means lesser production costs…). What if Julian or Jadzia had been evacuated, too? Or had been on vacation? Had they just hung around to wait for them? This really doesn’t make any sense at all.
About Quark not getting thrown off the station… Data once overtook the whole flagship of the Federation Starfleet (and posed to be a security threat in a few other episodes) and it was never mentioned ever again. That’s just how it goes with the top billed cast. *shrugs*
@66. Warp10Lizard: The Ezri Dax character had to have warp speed development because everyone knew season 7 was going to be the last.
@the Mareel > Kira debate: I really don’t mind the idea of Mareel beating up Kira because to me the explanation is not totally implausible. “She grew up on tough streets”, is good enough for me. Also, as ChristopherLBennett pointed out, her employment at an accommodation house is just that, a job. Someone’s job, especially one born out of necessity doesn’t necessarily define them.
This is going to be a bit cheeky, but she did beat up Kira, so I guess that means the streets of Khefka IV are REALLY tough! Again, it’s perhaps shaky ground, but it still holds up for me.
I intimidate Worf (I couldn’t resist a krad style heading for this comment =P):
Further, on the subject of the fights in this episode and beyond, I love how Sisko is depicted as a total badass. He slugs Q a good one in “Q-Less.” He basically has his way with the Bajoran assassin in “Dramatis Personae.” In this episode he pwns T’Kar. In “The Search” he fends off multiple Jem’hadar and similarly does the same in “The Way of the Warrior” against the Klingon boarding party. He also wins an arm wrestling contest against a Klingon in “Apocalypse Rising” which is quite a feat considering Klingons are much stronger than humans. Also in that same episode Sisko massacres the Klingon who bragged about killing a friend of his. And one of my favorites is “In the Pale Moonlight” when he is fully prepared to beat Garak to a bloody pulp before Garak convinces him to calm down and listen to the logic of the scenario. I’m sure I am missing some others too.
Obviously he’s the main character of the show and has plot muscles, but oftentimes a show is more compelling when the protagonist isn’t the toughest person in the room. However, I love how Deep Space 9 pulls no punches, pardon the pun, and truely depicts Sisko as the most action oriented of the Star Trek Captains (although Kirk would give him a run for his money).
Kira was no match for Mareel. Kira even got the first shot on mareel but it did not even hurt her. After that Mareel gave Kira a combination of hits to the head and she was in a lot of pain as we all see in the next scene. Kira was in a lot of pain and you could tell after that Kira wanted no part of Mareel again.
@49 Christopher: I don’t think krad could take Kira, despite his training. ;)
@72 Yeah, I’ve seen what happens when self styled martial arts masters take on a dirty street fighter. The former tends to take their teeth away in a bag. Martial arts is all about formal set movements, in street fighting or a scrum anything can happen and formal training doesn’t tend to help a lot.
I can see how Kira might lose here too, it is Season 2. A year or so of peace where Kira has been more of a paperpusher than anything else, she has gotten a bit stale and lost her edge. Maybe after this Kira upped her training regime in the holosuites, but a year of peace and treading decks on a space station would rob anyone of their edge.
@73/random22: Yeah, but as I’ve said before, Mareel’s rough past makes it entirely plausible that she’s an experienced street fighter.
Thoughts from TNG: “The Host” and now here…
…isn’t the Trill “kangaroo symbiont pouch” a little strange? Like, does it just seal back up when not needed?
Funky.
There should have been an ending like Little Green Men (which coincidentally also had Megan Gallagher as a guest star) where even after Quark freed Odo from the box, Odo still should have taken him to a holding cell for the part that he played in all of this.
1: It would have been funny if the events of The Siege and Invasive Procedures had happened back to back. 2: Don’t forget that Tim Russ played another mercenary in Starship Mine. 9: Maybe T’Kar and Yeto were willing to take on any job that hurts the Federation?
12: Yeah, Verad should have hired his own doctor to perform the procedure. 15: I kept waiting for the Dax symbiont to try to influence Verad into returning it to Jadzia and was surprised it never did. 23: I’ve heard that Avery Brooks wanted to go bald from Day 1 but the producers didn’t want two bald ST captains at once.
27: I still think Quark should have got some punishment similar to Garak’s in Broken Link. 28: They only made one proper escape attempt before Mareel helped them. 31: Do you think that was Verad talking or the Dax symbiont? 33: You might call that a re-reassociation.
38: You would know Krad, because you’re the martial artist (is that the correct term?). 39: That’s meant to show Verad’s greater confidence. 43: I don’t blame you for not recognising John Glover because he looks so different nowadays. “5 non-regular speaking parts?” Who’s the fifth? Unless you mean Verad and Verad Dax?
57: Is it possible that Mareel’s strength could be indicative of her species since she’s the first (and only) Khefkan we meet? 61: She probably had lost most of her memories and that’s why she feels so lost without the symbiont? 68: Having just the senior staff aboard does feel a bit convenient.
71: Kira may have been sore (in more ways than one) after Mareel wiped the floor down with her, but she does try to appeal to Mareel to do the right thing. 73: I think it’s a bit early yet for Kira to be getting rusty (even Shakaar wonders that in his first appearance).
@76 – David: The producers didn’t want Brooks bald because it was the look he sported as his Spenser For Hire franchise character, Hawk.
I’m currently rewatching DS9, along with these wonderful rewatch posts, I’m really enjoying it! I was wandering if the USS Livingston and the Cliffs of Bole are homages to longtime Star Trek directors David Livingston and Cliff Bole… It would be awesome!
Marco: The Bolians, and the Cliffs of Bole, were indeed named after prolific Trek director Cliff Bole. As for the Livingston, opinion is divided on the subject — some say it’s named after Robert L. Livingston, one of the people who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776, others say it was after David. Or, y’know, it could be both…..
Also responding belated to MaGnUs’s comment: It wasn’t just the look that Brooks “sported” as Hawk, but was still sporting in periodic Spenser TV movies that they were doing while DS9 was on the air, and that Brooks was filming during summer hiatuses. By the fourth season, however, those movies had stopped, and he was able to change his DS9 look with impunity.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The problem with Mareel trouncing Kira is that it is juxtaposed, in the same fight scene, with Sisko comprehensively owning T’Kar, a Klingon. I think the two outcomes together push suspension of disbelief too far, in an episode that’s already demanding a lot of suspension of disbelief. Personally, I would have found the scene more convincing if Kira had won her fight while Sisko lost his. Or indeed, if they’d never had the fight at all: I don’t recall it moved the plot forward in any meaningful way, and in retrospect feels a little like filler.
@81/Marcellus: “The problem with Mareel trouncing Kira is that it is juxtaposed, in the same fight scene, with Sisko comprehensively owning T’Kar, a Klingon. I think the two outcomes together push suspension of disbelief too far, in an episode that’s already demanding a lot of suspension of disbelief.”
It seems to me that Mareel’s performance and T’Kar’s performance are totally independent variables, since there’s no reason why one would have any influence on the other. Both individuals and species can vary from each other a great deal. As I’ve said before, Mareel’s species might be stronger than Bajorans for all we know, and it makes perfect sense that someone who grew up on the streets as she did would be able to fight. And maybe the reason T’Kar’s a mercenary is because he just wasn’t good enough at hand-to-hand fighting to make it into the Defense Force. There’s always a low end to the bell curve.