Dax (DS9)

This creatively named episode is about Dax. It was about time this show did an episode about Dax, actually. I said before that the Dax-Bashir thing (which they try to make work again in the cold open here) doesn't work because the writers started doing it before they developed either of them as characters. So far Dax has been plodding along through these scripts, rattling off some technobabble here, talking about past lives there, but generally being one-dimensional compared to the rest of the cast, with the exception being Bashir himself.

So it is really good to see Dax in the spotlight, as much as she is here. But actually its an episode about the other characters grappling with Dax, more than anything else. And that's kind of hard to care about, because, once again, the legwork isn't done. Eventually, Kira and Dax are going to be friends. But the show just started, there's no evidence they're friends yet, and yet, Kira is working her butt off trying to save Dax who doesn't want to be saved. Bashir wants to save Dax, but it feels like it's more because he wants to sleep with her than because he cares about her, and Odo wouldn't be Odo if he didn't care more about justice than people.

So, in the end, it feels like Sisko is getting out and pushing every other character, including Dax herself, to care about this damn Dax plot. It's a lot of work for him! It feels like a lot of work for the audience. Meanwhile, the intellectual core of the plot is muddled. The characters have to keep reminding us that it's an extradition treaty not a trial, but Odo saves the day by overturning the evidence of the trial, rendering the extradition trial which took up the whole episode wholly irrelevant.

Sisko and company are arguing about the question of whether Jadzia Dax can be held accountable for Curzon Dax's crimes, and that's a legitimately interesting question, but there's two problems. One, there really ought to be sufficient precedent here that it doesn't merit a hearing. The idea that its under Bajoran jurisdiction who believably might never have encountered the Trill before sort of skirts this, but it's just hard to believe its not open and shut at this point. But the second problem is that the episode never resolves this question, either legally or morally, a real problem for the question that's supposed to be at the heart of the episode.

What is at the heart of the episode, in the end, is what Dax herself thinks about this question: that no matter what her legal responsibilities, her honor binds her to keep Curzon's promises, to save Curzon's lover's reputation. I wish this worked better than it, in fact, does. But it stands to reason that, for a Trill, self-preservation is not purely self-interested. Jadzia Dax shouldn't want to die, because she shouldn't want to cut Dax's life short. And later in the show she (or possibly Ezri) expresses that sentiment. But the fact that here she's willing to put an old lover's reputation over her symbiote's life strains credibility.

So the episode is plagued with high-level problems, even though all the pieces are still fun to watch. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the high-level problems are not going away. Dax is never quite integrated into the cast. Because her backstory is so alien and so not tied into the rich history and politics of the station and the wormhole, all the episodes that focus on her for the rest of the series feel out of place, like TNG episodes cut out and put into Deep Space Nine. I don't count a single Dax episode among my favorites, even though I like the character. I think she won't really feel like part of the show fully until Worf shows up.

Random observations: 

- O'Brien is away on Earth celebrating Keiko's mom's 100th birthday, so he's not in the episode. No one cares why Jake's not in the episode, apparently.

- Speaking of people who are 100 years old, I love the old Bajoran judge lady in this episode. It's great when a bit part has a real character, and the writing shines with her. DC Fontana's last Star Trek teleplay, apparently.

- I kind of like that Odo has no problem going away to a random planet to play cold case detective. Odo is passionate about his work, and Rene Auberjonois lets just a little bit of glee shine through Odo's curmudgeonly veneer to let us know that he loves his job. It's nicely done.