337. EquilibriumFORMULA: Invasive Procedures + Sins of the Father + The Collaborator
WHY WE LIKE IT: Cooking with Odo.
WHY WE DON'T: That Trill doctor's knack for mispronouncing everyone's name.
REVIEW: The episode starts out pleasantly enough with Sisko cooking for his favorite crew, a great idea that gives us a cute moment between Kira, Odo and a difficult-to-whisk bowl, and then Dax starts to get ugly. So it turns out the Dax symbiont had been given to a psychotic musician before Curzon and those memories suppressed. Like all good repressed memory stories, they have to surface and cause havoc, don't they?
Havoc comes in the form of powerful hallucinations that come and go "in camera" without warning, and those are nicely done, with Joran played by that mask magician. A neat way to cut on effects and still show something eerie. The music also lends to the atmosphere and Joran's simple piece if fairly memorable. And the quest to find answers will bring us our first look at Trill.
Trill has a secret, of course, though it's all revealed in Agatha Christie fashion again, a plot device DS9 may be overusing at this point. It's a secret kept by too many people to really stay a secret for long, nor is it really as dramatic as they make it sound. If more people can be joined, it doesn't invalidate the initiate program, it validates it. There SHOULD be fierce competition if there are more hosts than symbionts. Just tighten up security a bit. And why wasn't rejection that much of an issue with Verad in Invasive Procedures? So the plot leaves me a little cold. The Guardians who live in the caves with the symbionts do interest me however, as they seem to be somewhat telepathic. It's never explained, like a zen mystery, but perhaps there are those who are sensitive to symbiont telepathy.
Though the epilogue doesn't really resolve anything, it's interesting to think about what the Joran host has brought to the Dax character subconsciously and what it might bring in the future now that is has been fully integrated. Jadzia's collection of forgotten composers certainly seems related. Maybe even her violent Klingon side. Curzon's drumming out initiates? Everybody's always talking about how unusual Curzon was, so maybe it's all connected.
LESSON: Dax has a killer sleight of hand!
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: A good Dax episode and Trill has something to offer, though it's perhaps front heavy with Dax being nasty and lighter in the back when they have to info dump the Trill conspiracy on us.
Comments