“Second Skin”
Written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Les Landau
Season 3, Episode 5
Production episode 40512-451
Original air date: October 24, 1994
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Kira gets a call from the Bajoran Central Archives. A woman there is doing a study on the Elemspur Detention Center and wants to ask Kira a few questions. Kira’s happy to help, but she was never at Elemspur. However, the archivist has a detailed record showing that Kira was detained at Elemspur for seven days—something Kira herself has no memory of.
And then the camera pans up to a woman we’ve never seen before looking on mysteriously. That isn’t foreshadowy at all!
Kira and Odo go over the records. Kira’s quite sure the records are fake, as she remembers that week, and the weeks around it, clearly. The entire Shakaar resistance cell was hunkered down in the Dakhur Hills with no power cells for their phasers, very little food, and constantly hiding in caves from Cardassian sensor sweeps. She was not in a detention center.
Three people were listed as cellmates of hers, and one is still alive. They contact him, and he recognizes her, saying he last saw her being dragged out of the cell by Cardassians. Fed up, Kira boards a transport to Bajor to figure out what’s going on. Also boarding the transport: the mystery woman who watched Kira take the call from the archives.
Bashir meets Garak in the replimat, and the tailor laments that he’s only left the station once in the past three years (in “Cardassians”), though he loves to travel. However space, he cautions, is dangerous.
As if to prove Garak’s point, the archivist calls DS9 saying that Kira never arrived for her appointment. No one’s seen her since she landed on Bajor.
Kira is awakened with a hypo administered by the mysterious woman. Looking in a mirror, she sees herself as a Cardassian. She’s, to say the least, livid, not aided by the very calm reasonable tone adopted by the Caradassian in the room, an Obsidian Order agent named Entek. He insists that she’s a Cardassian deep-cover agent named Iliana Ghemor, and this is her extraction. He’s not interrogating her or hurting her, he’s just welcoming her home. Such long-term operatives have their memories altered so they won’t be discovered, so he doesn’t expect Kira to believe that the truth until the memory block is removed, but that could take time.
And it’s a good thing he doesn’t expect that, because Kira is a most recalcitrant prisoner. But Entek insists that ten years ago they kidnapped a Bajoran terrorist and replaced her with Iliana. Also the room she’s in isn’t a prison: it’s her room, the one she grew up in. He leaves for her a recording of a statement Iliana made before going on her assignment.
Dax and Odo do a thorough investigation of the area around Elemspur. Only one witness thinks he might have seen Kira, and Dax found an electrostatic charge, indicating she might have been beamed away (or also possibly indicating that she was disintegrated by a phaser or disruptor on the high setting).
Entek introduces Kira to Iliana’s father: Legate Tekeny Ghemor. There’s no love lost between Ghemor and Entek, and Ghemor is particularly pissed at being kept waiting in his own house. However, he’s overjoyed to see his daughter again. Kira, though, insists that her father died on Bajor fighting Cardassians. Ghemor asks that she consider herself a guest in the house until her memories return. To punctuate the point, he brings her breakfast—which interrupts Kira’s search for the Obsidian Order surveillance device, which Ghemor happily tells her is in the corner by the window. It’s also not active, as he’s a member of Central Command. He even made her Bajoran food for breakfast, knowing that was what she’d be used to. Ghemor talks about his daughter, wishing she’d become an artist rather than an agent of the Order, but she wanted to serve Cardassia; tellingly, Ghemor muses that Cardassia could use fewer agents and more artists.
Ghemor compares her stubbornness to that of her mother, but Kira insists her mother was an icon painter who died when she was three, not an inquisitor at a Cardassian university. Kira’s also impressed with how talented Ghemor’s act is.
Garak has heard from friends in Cardassia that Kira is being held by the Obsidian Order. He shares this with Bashir, who shares it with Sisko, who drags Garak into Odo’s office. They’re mounting a rescue mission, with a disguised Defiant (O’Brien’s modified the shield so they’ll look like a Kobheerian freighter), faked transit documents, and the very reluctant cooperation of Garak, who only goes along because Sisko threatens to give in to those Bajoran ministers who want Garak kicked off the station, a request they’ll relent on if he proves useful in rescuing a major in the Bajoran Militia from Cardassian clutches. (“Commander, this is extortion,” Garak says, to which Sisko’s smiling reply is, “Yes, it is.”)
Entek insists on interrogating Kira. Ghemor is not happy, as her memories haven’t returned yet. That concerns Entek, as it’s been two days, and memories usually come back in a couple of hours. Entek can’t wait any longer. Ghemor reminds Kira that he’ll be in the next room, but Entek insists he won’t hurt her, she’s one of their own. Ghemor snidely tells Entek that he’ll be in the next room to remind him of that in case he forgets.
Kira spews some magnificent bullshit in response to Entek’s questions (she wasn’t allowed in Ops, there are 30,000 Starfleet personnel assigned, etc.). Entek decides to show her something that will convince her: the corpse of a ten-years-younger Kira Nerys, cryogenically stored in case it was needed. Kira insists it’s fake, but then Entek tells her a story about her youth, which Kira insists she never told anyone. But Entek knows it also, because he put it in her head.
Then he asks the most important question: if she wasn’t Entek’s operative, why would he be playing this game?
Kira tires to escape, but she trips a silent alarm, which alerts Ghemor. He says that he won’t let the Order harm her no matter what. He also urges her to listen to the recording Entek left for her, which she does. She sees a patriotic Cardassian who wants her parents to be proud of her, and who believes that the terrorism on Bajor needs to be stopped.
The Defiant is in Cardassian space, and being hailed by two Galor-class ships. There’s heavy Maquis activity in the area, so they’re boarding all ships. If they get too close, they’ll be identifiable as a Starfleet vessel rather than the Kobheerian freighter they’re pretending to be. Garak, however, is able to get them out of it with an Obsidian Order code that he’s obviously been holding up his sleeve for a while.
Kira is devastated by the recording, as she’s finally starting to believe this might be true. But she still can’t answer any questions. Before Entek’s interrogation gets any more intense, Ghemor interrupts. Entek insists this is Order business, and that they have autonomy, but Ghemor reminds him that it’s his house, and the Order’s autonomy is at the sufferance of the Central Command. Entek says that the next session will happen in Order facilities.
When Kira starts to break down, overwhelmed by the possibility that she really is a Cardassian agent, Ghemor realizes he has to get her away from Cardassia rather than let Entek get his hands on her. Kira doesn’t understand why he’d do that, but Ghemor insists that she’s his daughter. He’d do anything to protect her, even if it means losing her all over again. Ghemor brings a Cardassian named Ari who can get her out of Cardassian space. (He also gives her a piece of his wife’s jewelry, a bracelet he wishes his daughter to have.) Ari, Kira realizes, is part of the dissident movement, and so is Ghemor.
Then Kira puts it all together: they’re not after Kira, they’re after Ghemor. They likely suspect his dissident leanings, but they can’t have any evidence, as he’s too well protected. But if they catch him smuggling his daughter out of Cardassia, that’ll be all the evidence they need. Entek enters the room and confirms it, with two assistants, all three of them holding weapons. Ari is killed, and Entek announces that they’ve broken the dissident movement and exposed a traitor in Central Command.
But then Sisko and Garak come in armed, joined by Odo. Entek and his agents reluctantly drop their weapons. The three of them rescue Kira as well as Ghemor, amidst more than one pithy comment by Garak, with Garak shooting Entek on the way out the door. (“A pity. I rather liked him.”)
Back on the station, Kira is restored to her original face, with Bashir assuring her that she’s totally Bajoran, and the alterations were surgical. Ghemor has accepted sanctuary on a neutral planet, and he hopes to one day find his real daughter. He also insists that she keep the bracelet, since Kira’s the closest thing to family he has left right now.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko magnificently manipulates Garak in much the same way he manipulated Quark in “Emissary.” He’s just as unapologetic, and even more blunt than he was two years ago.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira handles her imprisonment with gusto, not budging an inch with either Entek or Ghemor. It isn’t until she sees the recording of Iliana that she starts to lose it, but she also instantly figures out Entek’s plan once she realizes that Ghemor is a dissident. The one thing we don’t know is how Entek knew about her childhood memory, but he could’ve gotten that out of her with truth drugs before her “official” waking up in the Ghemor house. (We’ve seen Cardassians use such in the past, notably in “Chain of Command, Part II.”)
The slug in your belly: Dax is all set to take Kira anti-gravity sailing in the holosuite when the plot kicks in. It’s part of her ongoing plot to get Kira to loosen up, and it’s to Kira’s credit that she’s trying even though she thinks it’s dumb.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo poses as a bag that Sisko tosses casually to the floor when he and Garak burst into the Ghemor house. Entek glances at it as it lands near him, and then he forgets about it, allowing Odo to change into his humanoid form and disarm Entek from behind. It’s one of the more clever uses of Odo’s shapechanging.
Plain, simple: Garak still has some friends on Cardassia, which is how he finds out about what happened to Kira, though he’s only willing to go along on the rescue when he’s blackmailed by Sisko. He gets most of the episode’s best lines—calling Kira ravishing in her Cardassian face, snarking off Entek, his dismissing his use of an Obsidian Order code as something he overheard while hemming trousers, etc.—and pretty much saves the day.
For Cardassia! We learn that the Cardassian dissident movement, previously seen in “Profit and Loss” and TNG’s “Lower Decks,” has at least one high-ranking legate in its ranks, though it no longer has him by episode’s end. The tension between Central Command and the Obsidian Order is on full display here, with representatives of both believing their organization to be the core of Cardassian values and the other to be full of bastards.
Victory is life: Garak’s shop hours have been curtailed somewhat as the Dominion threat has been bad for business.
Tough little ship: The Defiant’s shields are modified by O’Brien (off-camera, as Colm Meaney isn’t in this episode) to make it look like a Kobheerian freighter on long-range sensors. However, this doesn’t explain how they went into orbit of Cardassia Prime without anyone noticing, and one wonders if Sisko bent the rules and used the cloaking device once they got to Cardassia.
What happens on the holosuite stays on the holosuite: Kira believes that anything you can do in a holosuite could be better done in the real world. Quark tries to convince her of the joy of holosuites, but he only gets as far as “I could—” before Kira interrupts with, “You could, but you’d live to regret it.”
Keep your ears open: “I’ll go along on your fool’s errand, but I want one thing to be perfectly clear: I have no intention of sacrificing my life to save yours. If it looks like we’re in danger of being captured, if there’s any sign of trouble at all, you’re on your own.”
“Mr. Garak, I believe that’s the first completely honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“How perceptive of you, Commander.”
Garak and Sisko, both speaking truth.
Welcome aboard: The great Gregory Sierra plays Entek (I don’t know what I love him most for, his role on the first couple of seasons of Barney Miller, or his supporting roles in Sanford and Son or Soap*), and the great Lawrence Pressman makes the first of two appearances as Ghemor, returning to the role in “Ties of Blood and Water”; he’ll be back in a different role as a changeling disguised as a Federation ambassador in “The Adversary.”
*This makes Sierra the second ex-Soapstar to play a Cardassian, the last being Robert Mandan in “Cardassians.”
Plus, of course, Andrew J. Robinson returns as Garak and Nana Visitor does double duty, also playing the image of Iliana on the recording.
Trivial matters: The Ghemor family will continue to be important in the post-finale DS9 fiction. Two Ghemors will lead post-war Cardassia at various times, and the real Iliana Ghemor causes serious problems for the crew (in several different universes) in Warpath, Fearful Symmetry, and The Soul Key.
Your humble rewatcher showed Entek (giving him the first name of Corbin, which actually came from this episode’s script, though it was never spoken onscreen) through the first couple of decades of his career as an Obsidian Order agent in the Lost Era novel The Art of the Impossible. He also appeared in Andrew J. Robinson’s Garak-focused novel A Stitch in Time and Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods.
Thought was given to making Entek a recurring character, but it was decided to have Garak kill him to remind the audience that, as entertaining as Garak is, he’s not a good guy and not a nice guy (Ghemor’s speech to Kira at the end regarding Garak had a similar design).
Thought was also given to keeping it vague as to whether or not Kira was a Cardassian agent in disguise, and dealing with the issue of identity, and that she is Kira Nerys now regardless.
The original pitch for this was to have O’Brien discover that he’s been a deep-cover Cardassian agent all this time (just as his shipmate Boone was in “Tribunal”), but it was changed when the producers realized they’d have to explain how he and Keiko had a human child.
Kira will turn out to have been mistaken about her mother’s fate, as she’ll learn in “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night.”
Garak refers to the Defiant cabins as “claustrophobic.” It will be revealed in “In Purgatory’s Shadow” that Garak is actually claustrophobic.
Bashir and Garak discuss the former’s trip to Klaestron IV, the same world whose inhabitants accused Dax of murder in the episode “Dax.”
Walk with the Prophets: “Treason, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” Until the end, this is a perfect episode. There’s intrigue, there’s suspense, there’s politics, there’s questions, and, best of all, both Nana Visitor and Andrew J. Robinson get to compete to see who’s the snottiest, the former when Kira’s failing to be convinced that she’s a deep-cover agent, the latter just in a normal day for Garak. I particularly enjoy the deeper look into the Central Command/Obsidian Order dynamic, as we continue last season’s deeper look into internal Cardassian politics.
Until the end, there isn’t a wrong note hit, from Gregory Sierra and Lawrence Pressman’s not-even-a-little-veiled hostility to the Defiant crew bluffing their way through Cardassian space to the fast and furious one-liners from Garak to Nana Visitor’s superb interactions with everyone she’s onscreen with. It’s really a tour de force for Visitor, not just for what she does while slathered in Cardassian makeup, but for how she’s paired up with a wide variety of people—Dax, Quark, Odo, Sisko, Ghemor, Entek—and shines in every single scene, from her comfortable friendships with Dax and Odo to her casual contempt for Quark to her more aggressive contempt for Entek. Best of all, though, is the way her relationship with Ghemor grows over the course of the episode, as the very thing that Entek wants—for Ghemor to really believe that this is his daughter—has a profound effect on Kira. When she finally does lose it—beaten down by the lookalike corpse Entek showed her and Iliana’s recording—it’s Ghemor’s lap she falls into, and even through her agony, she’s genuinely touched that Ghemor would do whatever he has to to see that she’s safe. By the end, Ghemor is still speaking to her as if she’s his daughter, but by this point Kira’s responding in kind.
But the end kinda blows it a little. Not Entek’s plan as such. As stated, it’s actually rather a good plan, a clever way to get Ghemor to expose himself. But what doesn’t make any sense is that there’s an Obsidian Order agent out there who looks exactly like Kira and has her exact voice. It’s ridiculously convenient and an absurd coincidence. Kira mentions to Ghemor at the end that she “resembles” Iliana, but it goes much deeper than that. Visitor gets points for making Iliana’s speaking patterns different from Kira’s, but the whole setup still cuts off the air supply to my disbelief.
And, of course, there’s a part of me that wishes they had gone the whole way and had Kira be a deep-cover agent. But that was probably too much to hope for, and it’s not like the character wasn’t already the strongest character in the ensemble, so why mess with a good thing? I also wish they had kept Entek around, as he was an excellent character well played by someone in Sierra who’s been a top character actor for as long as I’ve been alive.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the episode as a whole is brilliant, brilliantly scripted, brilliantly directed, brilliantly executed.
Warp factor rating: 9
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be signing at the Enigma Bookstore in Queens, New York on Saturday 2 November at 7 PM, alongside fellow scribes David Mack and Aaron Rosenberg. There’ll be giveaways and a special exclusive preview of The Klingon Art of War.
You said pretty much what I was going to say — it’s a good episode, but predicated on the existence of the kind of implausibly exact doppelgangers that you only find in TV-land, and that undermines it. It might’ve helped a little if they’d processed Kira-as-Iliana’s voice to alter its pitch or timbre, but even that wouldn’t have completely sold it.
Although I don’t agree this problem only cropped up at the end. It was evident much earlier than that, as soon as we realized that Tekeny was sincere about believing that Kira was his daughter. That was what proved that there really was an Iliana Ghemor who was, aside from the Cardassian features, an exact double for Kira.
I also had a problem with the lack of explanation for how the OO was able to fake the “proof,” such as knowing the story Kira had never revealed from her past, or having an exact-duplicate body available. Sure, these things can be rationalized after the fact — you explained the memory, and the corpse could’ve been quick-cloned using the tech seen in “A Man Alone” — but the lack of in-story explanation makes them feel like narrative cheats.
Maybe the recording was faked by replacing the original message and the resemblance was close enough for a desperate father to believe he was actually with his daughter.
This is one of my favorite episodes even if having a Kira look alike is really conveniant. It also adds another layer to Kira because it gives her a look at what life is like for Cardassians on Cardassia.
Couldn’t Kira’s secret memory have been planted by Entek for the very purpose of “proving” his story? A single memory she never told anyone would seem simple enough. For me, the real problem is the idea that an agent could be planted in such deep cover. This is especially true for Starfleet personnel, but ought to apply to Kira, too. These people get regular physicals; sooner or later, some doctor is going to notice that this person is not the species they purport to be. It was certainly easy enough for Dr. McCoy to confirm that Arne Darvin was a Klingon.
Overall, I was a little less enthusiastic about this episode, mostly because a) we knew Kira wasn’t really Cardassian and b) the plot holes mentioned above. Garak goes a long way to redeeming it though.
I’m not bothered by the plotholes because the point of the episode is to show the consequences of how the Obsidan Order (obviously) faked the situation, not the mechanism of how they did it. I think it’s safe for the audience to assume that corpses and video recordings can be altered or completely faked. (Kira never ran a medical scan on her “corpse,” and Ghemor didn’t watch Iliana’s recording at the same time as Kira, so there easily could have been two recordings, one real and one faked.)
Giving us long explanations on how the Order was able to convince Ghemor that Kira was his long-lost daughter would take away from the emotional punch of realizing that Ghemor really believes, and that Kira is being used, and that after all is over, he still has feelings for Kira. I don;t need them to take 5 minutes away from that to show me the secret OO cloning lab or whatever.
I’ve read Fearful Symmetry, but it’s been a long time, and there’s something bothering me. How did Entek come up with the plan to have Iliana replace Kira? FS established that Kira played a key role in the bombing incident that killed Iliana’s fiance Ataan Rukhal and disfigured Silarin Prin (clever, by the way, for Pocket Books and Olivia Woods to establish a link via FS between “The Darkness and the Light” and Iliana Ghemor’s past), but why have Iliana specifically replace Kira? I’m thinking Dukat could have had something to do with it, but I’m not sure.
After snotty or snarky, Krad’s favourite thing to say in a review is “cut off the air supply to my disbelief”.
“Two Ghemors will lead post war Cardassia at various times.” Really? I only recall one: Alon Ghemor. Who’s the other?
I have less problems with the doppelganger aspect than the rest of you as my partner has an exact doppelganger who people that have met my partner have confused with him.
And I have a good friend who doesn’t look much like me, different hair types and styles, different body shapes, different faces, but we have been confused by people we worked with when we worked in different sections of the same department of the same organisation. And not just momentary confusion, but whole conversation confusion, which was very confusing for us at first until we worked out what was happening. In our case the things we do share are speech patterns and phrases, enough so that her mother has thought I was her when I answered the phone.
@5: It wouldn’t have taken five minutes, and it didn’t have to interrupt the dramatic moments. It could’ve been a few added lines of dialogue in the same final scene where Bashir explained that she was the real Kira. “But he knew something I’d never told anyone.” “Your bloodstream shows residue of Cardassian truth drugs.” “And the corpse?” “A biosynthetic replica, very convincing.”
Okay, maybe the editor decided they didn’t have time for that extra exposition. But I don’t think it’s playing fair with the audience to put in red herrings without justifying them at the end.
@@@@@ #6 J25: Entek just wanted to plant an agent within the resistance, and used the similarity between Kira and Iliana to do it. He leaked the information about Gul Pirak’s compound to Kira’s cell, so that they would attack, Ataan would would be killed, and Iliana would be driven to the Order, so that he could have her replace Kira. The plan was just to get resistance secrets that they could then use later. So Entek gave a small amount of intelligence to the resistance in return for the much larger amount of intelligence he would get out of them.
Dukat’s involvement only came when he saved Kira from Entek’s plan (he’d been keeping an eye on her in sentimentality to Meru) and set her free with fake memories. He then took Iliana-as-Kira for his own purposes, and told Entek to fake a corpse-clone from a blood sample.
I also was starting to be convinced (and even kind of hoping) that Kira really WAS a Cardassian, and then chose to continue to be Kira Nerys to honor or memory or some such….that could have taken the plot in some interesting places! I also was wondering about the memory, but figured a similiar thing – they extracted it somehow, as we’ve seen in other episodes that such technology exists. Also, wonder what happened to the real Iliana :( It seems like after this snafu, the Obsidian Order would just want to have her killed to do away with all the loose ends…
Another one of those episodes that reminds me just how good Nana Visitor was in this role. Good stuff. I also echo the compliments for Andrew J. Robinson as Garak.
Bobby
I’m a little unclear on the status quo. First, Garak says there’s no business because of the Dominion, but then, in the same scene, Bashir says ships are coming and going from the station all the time. Are ships still coming and going through the wormhole, despite the Dominion threat, or is there another reason for the station to be bustling with activity?
After so many Garak/Bashir dialogues, it’s great fun to see Garak interacting with the other characters. The Garak that snaps at Sisko is totally different than the one playing mind games with Bashir.
Kira and Troi should have compared notes: “They made you a Romulan? They made me a Cardassian!”
As far as the doppleganger thing goes, I posit that in the next Star Trek movie, they should replace Zoe Saldana with Thandie Newton and the audience won’t notice for at least half the movie. But I do agree that there has to be a limit to the reason for disbelief. One can’t just say, “The point of the episode was A so B doesn’t really matter.” That is true in some cases, but I would only take that so far before it becomes insulting. But on the whole, this is a very good episode. I can’t really add anything to what has already been stated by KRAD and everyone else. It’s good. I do kind of wish they would have actually made her a deep cover agent or, at the very least, kept the doubt going for a few episodes (though, I guess that would make Bashir a terrible doctor; not knowing whether it was surgical alterations or she really was Cardassian) but other than that, very solid episode. I really need to catch up on my DS9 novels, however.
@15: I don’t see much resemblance between Saldana and Newton. Although I have had trouble telling Natalie Portman and Kiera Knightley apart. I never figured out until years later that Padme and her decoy in Attack of the Clones were two different actresses.
@CLB 16… there’s actually a story that during the filming of Episode 1 that Knightly and Portman’s mothers were both on the set and neither one could tell which one of the women (in full makeup) was their daughter.
As far as the Defiant not being spotted, this is the same issue I had with the Rio Grande when Kira/O’Brien perform the rescue mission on Cardassia Four- they are running with an altered sensor profile, but nobody seems to bother to look their way. We have established that in the Star Trek universe that long-range visuals are relatively easy to use- if Maquis activity is that high, why not make everyone at least submit to being visually scanned…
As far as extra dialogue goes, this is something the star trek writers have always had issues with, regardless of series. They get so focused on the main cast (even the extended cast in DS9) that they forget there are hundreds of other crewmen on board. It would be very easy to have a throw away line from Data or Dax or whomever (depending on show) that Ensign so and so in whatever science department did an analysis and found this- it at least makes it seem like there are other people on board. I get that Dax is the science officer, but she’s not the only officer in the sciences department. Likewise, in this episode, they pass up a 2 second opportunity to close one of the plotholes they created, even if Bashir doesn’t extrapolate.
It’s the little things that make a series that much better….
@17: The thing about long-range optics, though, is that the greater the resolution you get, the smaller the piece of the sky you’re looking at. So it’s a tradeoff between how well you can see something and how much of the sky you’re covering. We have telescopes good enough to spot asteroids that might hit Earth, but we still haven’t found all of them after decades of searching because they take up a very small portion of the sky and we can’t spot them unless we’re looking in the right place.
Although, granted, if a ship is coming in disguised as a Kobheerian freighter or whatever, then space traffic control would know its trajectory from its transponder, and it would therefore know where to focus its sensors to get a visual scan and confirm its identity. So I guess that doesn’t really explain it. You’d think a police state like the Cardassian Union would employ such security measures — or certainly would’ve adopted them after the runabout spoofed them in “Homecoming.”
Thandie Newton and Zoe Saldana look a lot alike to me. There was also a story about one of their mothers mistaking one for the other, but Kiera Knightly and Natalie Portman would have been a far better analogy, I agree. I also didn’t know that Padme and her decoy were two different people but really I only saw the movie once so that’s probably why I wasn’t thinking about it. I have seen plenty of examples of dopplegangers in my life, people that look just like people that I know. But they don’t look THAT close and we’re of the same species so I’m not sure what the odds are of someone looking that close to someone else from two different planets and evolutionary paths.
@19: But it’s not just about looks. How often do two people who look uncannily alike also sound uncannily alike right down to speech cadence and intonation?
Great review! I do wish Entek had been kept around, although this might have got in the way of Robinson’s use of him in A Stitch in Time and later books. Minor point, but I thought Entek was first called Corbin in print in A Stitch in Time?
Igorlex: possibly. The first name “Corbin” came from the script in any event….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I think Stitch was Corbin Entek’s earliest print appearance, he was Garak’s class mate and, later on after his demotion, handler – certainly it’s the earliest use of him recorded on Memory Beta. After The Crimson Shadow I reread it, and I completely didn’t connect the Entek in it with this barely remembered character (though Robinson does comment on his eyes, and certainly they stand out!). His appearance does suit Robinson’s book, where I think only Tolan, Lokar, Palandine and Garak’s Bajoran suitor/assassin don’t have any real tv connection. Of course Alon Ghemor’s place in Trek lit, as well as many other cardassian characters (including Dukat’s prenom), owe their foundational importance to Stitch.
I would also recommending adding The Never-Ending Sacrifice to the trivial matters section, since it provides comprehensive background to the events of this episode, including the wider dissadent movement and the trials the Ghemors endure (and indeed i guess it should be recommended with most other Cardassia-focused episodes!)
I’d like to vote for this episode as the best “Keep Your Ears Open” section yet. LOVED that conversation.
I actually like that they didn’t explain Entek’s knowledge of Kira’s childhood memory, since it adds to the mystique and clout of the Obsidian Order’s spy skills. I also don’t put it past them to be able to subtly alter the recording of Iliana, to the point where it sounds to Kira like her voice and still seems recognizable to Tekheny as his daughter’s voice. And the power of Tekheny’s wishful thinking to enhance the resemblance shouldn’t be underestimated.
The Defiant being able to sneak up on Cardassia is full of plot holes, though. Oh well. Totally worth it for an excellent episode.
I really liked the “twist” at the end that they were really trying to expose Ghemor. For the rest of the episode, I had had a hard time swallowing that the Obsidian Order really expected Kira to believe she was an agent.
Although I started thinking that it would be funny if the twist turned out to be that after they sent their agent in to take the place of Kira, they captured the wrong Kira and ended up killing their own agent, and that’s the body they had. Meanwhile, it was the real Kira that lived.
When “Iliana” looks at the mirror (around the 34 minute mark) the music sounds awfully like Bernard Herrmann’s for the film Vertigo. This may not be coincidental, since the film and this show share some common plot elements (a woman is convincingly made up in another’s image; a man has an emotional state in her taking on the role of that woman). That was a nice touch.
Sorry, I meant “emotional staKe” not staTe.
@14 – Chris: BTW, Knightley is not in AOTC, she’s in TPM, and adding to their resemblance, her lines were overdubbed by Portman.
I think the name Entek sounds like a Japanese computer company. Sisko does his head turn thing when he says “yes, it is”, the equivalent of Picard’s face-palm thing on TNG. Couldn’t Kira just tear the prosthetics from her face? But then the episode would have been over a lot sooner. Was Joret Dal a dissident and did the movement lose Ghemor when he was forced to relocate? Garak, Quark and Keiko have all suffered job-wise because of the Dominion. Nana Visitor is claustrophobic and found the Cardassian prosthetics unbearable; apparently after a 20-hour shoot she physically started removing the makeup herself.
@29/David Sim: In-story, it wasn’t prosthetic makeup. As Kira overtly says at the end, “The alterations were surgical.” Star Trek has almost always presented its alien disguises as the result of quick-healing cosmetic surgery, going all the way back to Kirk’s Romulan ears in “The Enterprise Incident.”
The chemistry between Kira and Ghemor was really poignant there at the end. I am watching the series for the first time and so far this is my favorite episode, because of some first rate acting and my fascination with the Garak character.
The thing that blows the whole episode for me is Kira, who has just seen her own face get turned Cardassian, and who has either had Cardassians implant a fake memory or extract a real one straight into/out of her brain, suddenly having a crisis of faith because of some video footage. Especially when she’s already seen Bashir and O’Brien blow themselves up on Candid Camera.
There is never a reason to believe that Ghemor isn’t part of the Wacky Obsidian Order Scheme. If I were Kira, I’d have that necklace destroyed–it’s probably bugged.
Its not the episode itself that I really liked, I did, what I really like is how trek novelists took the whole Ghemor/Kira arc and really ran with it post DS9 finale.
I generally liked this episode, but as has been noted, the duplicate thing slightly stretches plausibility.
Were I fortunate enough to do a rewrite of the episode, I would solve it with something like this: Iliana Ghemor was an Obsidian order operative who was assigned to replace the leading Bajoran resistance fighter Kira Nerys. For months and months she trained to learn all of Kira’s mannerisms and patterns, and even underwent surgery to look Bajoran. Just before leaving and undergoing her mental-conditioning, she said goodbye to her father Legate Ghemor, while disguised as Kira Nerys.
On the way to Bajor, Iliana’s ship was attacked by Cardassian dissidents—unbeknownst to Legate Ghemor, dissidents from his own cell. Tragically, Iliana died, before she could replace Kira Nerys. The Obsidian order, suspecting Legate Ghemor’s links to the dissident movement, declined to inform him of his daughter’s death, and instead allowed him to continue thinking that his daughter had successfully killed and replaced Kira Nerys. In a disgustingly morbid twist, the Obsidian Order also held onto Iliana’s body, which, as you recall had been surgically altered to resemble Kira. The body Entek had transported into the room was actually Iliana’s body. Legate Ghemor was looking at his daughter’s corpse without realising it.
When the Obsidian Order was ready to move on Legate Ghemor, their only choice was to take the actual Kira Nerys, since Legate Ghemor knew his daughter’s deep cover mission was to replace Kira. This, I think, would have perfectly explained the strange plan. In fact, it’s my headcanon.
I don’t get why there is so much controversy around the look-a-like plot point. If the Cardassians have the technology to surgically alter a Bajoran to look like a Cardassian, why wouldn’t they be able to slightly alter an individual’s looks to more closely resemble another’s? This is only bolstered by the fact that they chose an individual that slightly resembled the daughter in the first place.
On top of that, it had been a while since the father had seen his child. I’m old enough to have been separated from people I once knew well, and ran into them later on in life. I don’t know about you, but most people I’ve run into after 10+ years looked and sounded a little bit different than my last known memory of them.
As far as speech pattern goes, speech pattern is influenced by those around you. People in different areas of the world develop certain accents and inflections consistent with their area or household. Considering that the daughter’s memory had been altered and that she had spent significant time in another environment, its not hard to believe that she had developed a completely different speech pattern than she started with. That only leaves the tone of the voice itself in question…and that too can be altered.
The father could easily buy this story. He hasn’t seen his daughter for 10 years and he would give anything to have her back in his life. He wants to believe, and has no reason not to. Any inconsistency in her behavior could be explained by the memory loss. Any inconsistency in her appearance could be explained by the 10+ years of aging and surgical alteration that she has undergone. And unless there was hidden interaction with Kira/Iliana that wasn’t shown in the episode, he was only around her for a few minutes here and there over the course of 2 days. He honestly hasn’t had enough facetime to realize anything is amiss, much less start to suspect a double cross.
The doppleganger thing never bothered me because I believe that everyone has a double somewhere. Cardassia has enough spies that they could find an officer in Federation space somewhere to fit a criteria. And any differences would be written off by Ghemor as the result of his “daughter”being undercover for so long: he would initially have no reason to think he was being lied to and then he would have every reason to desperately want to believe his daughter has come home.
Always thoroughly enjoyed Nana Visitor’s performances, I’m sad that I’ve not really seen her in anything since. I’ve looked at her TV appearances on imdb and although some of those shows made it here, they weren’t shows I watched.
Lockdown rewatch. I remembered this as being one of my favourite episodes when watching back in the 90s and this rewatch confirmed that memory, a superb episode with one little caveat at the end I will come to. First and foremost putting Nana Visitor out front and central of an episode guarantees a top performance whatever the material, marry that up with a great script and storyline and you have an instant classic. Not only that but we have numerous great moments from Treks best ever recurring character in Garak, his BS explanation of where he picked up the Obsidian order codes from results in one of the most hilarious expressions from Odo in the background. The one little caveat in the end of the episode is where Garak kills Entek… but leaves the other two Obsidian Order agents alive who he must know will report his actions back to the order? This seems unlikely for the pragmatic but also ruthless Garak. But this is a minor quibble in an excellent episode. 10 out 10 for me for this one.
Totally random bit of info: Three times in four episodes, Sisko “barges” in where he’s unexpected. In “The Search, part 2;” although it’s a simulation; he makes the conscious (unconscious?) decision to barge in on Borath and Nechayev. In “Equilibrium,” he barges in on Dr. Renhol prepping for surgery to remove Dax from Jadzia. And in this episode, along with Garak and Odo, he “barges” in to save the day.
It’s interesting to imagine how much different the rest of the series would have been if Kira actually had been Iliana Ghemor. Sure she could return to the station, but I suspect that her past would inevitably become an issue later on.
Garak: “… I want one thing to be perfectly clear: I have no intention of sacrificing my life to save yours.”
I found this line interesting given that Garak did exactly that in the Dominion’s mind-game simulation back in 3.02 “The Search, Part II” — a very different situation in several regards, but still.