458. Tacking Into the WindFORMULA: A Time to Stand + Reunion
WHY WE LIKE IT: Damar's new Cardassia.
WHY WE DON'T: Sorry Gowron, but you turned out to be an idiot.
REVIEW: It's weeks later and the Gowron situation has become untenable. Worf knows it, Martok knows it, and Sisko knows it. Gowron is systematically destroying Martok's career and reputation by sending him on stupid, unwinnable missions, and it's put the entire quadrant in jeopardy. Ezri's take on the Empire is that it has grown corrupt and deserves to die. She makes a great point about its hypocritical nature, one that strikes a chord with Worf. He challenges Gowron in the Klingon tradition (get rid of bad leaders), which he might as well do since he helped him rise to power in the first place. The ensuing fight is dramatic enough, but a an obvious stuntman is used in too many shots. You just can't fake those googly eyes. And so the mantle passes to an honorable man - Martok - perhaps for the first time since Gorkon. Sorry to see Gowron go, to be sure, but it won't be the last change of regime we see before the end, and the Klingons were probably due.
The more interesting story is Kira and her gang's theft of a Breen weapon. The heist job itself is well done, with a good Mission Impossible feel and good, tense scenes. Given his difficulty with faces, Odo can really only impersonate another changeling, can't he? But the scene is directed in such a way as to make you believe the Founder Leader really has shown up to screw with their plans. Most of the tension is internal to the cell, however, as it becomes more and more obvious that Rusot is defying Kira's instructions on purpose. He learns his lesson about pushing Kira when she quite literally "hits a nerve", but it's not until their Mexican stand-off aboard the ship that Damar has to make a choice. He makes the right one, in part because he recognizes the need to reforge Cardassia if it is to survive. Fascists like Rusot are products of another era. Damar's family being killed, and Kira subsequently making him see that it's just the sort of thing Cardassians used to do, has had the right effect. Is Damar suddenly a "good man"? What he has always been is a patriot. How he expresses that patriotism, which Cardassian values he chooses to represent, that's what's changed.
Since it HAS been weeks since the last episode, Odo's condition has naturally degenerated. He's hiding it from Kira, and she's hiding the fact that she's known all along. Garak, just as much on an ethical journey as Damar, is perhaps wonderfully awed by this show of love from the two of them. Back on the station, Bashir hasn't come close to finding a cure for the disease, but O'Brien hatches a plan to lure a Section 31 operative they might capture and learn the answers from (leading into the next episode).
LESSON: Resist all you like, you must eventually recognize the need to change.
REWATCHABILITY - High: The Klingon story is well-reasoned even if it means losing an iconic character, but it's the Cardassian resistance thread that keeps the viewer truly engaged.
Comments
Damar sees himself as unfit to lead compared to another (Dukat.) But in the course of things becomes far more fit to lead than Dukat. And clearly is the better choice.
Gowron sees himself as better fit to lead compared to Martok. Instead he becomes increasingly unfit to lead while Martok is clearly the better choice.
But MAN, does she speak truth in this episode. She sums up all the poor writing of the TNG/DS9 Klingons in one little speech, and it just makes so much sense. Honor really has become just a word; as my wife said, the Klingons have become a whole race of Marty Mcflies; call 'em chicken, and you can get 'em to do anything. But their practices are dishonorable to the extreme, no matter what they say- only Worf, who learned about their values from the outside and embodies those pure ideals as he learned them, has been untouched by the corruption-in-practice of daily Klingon culture (though DS9 has done a pretty good job of corrupting him already; he's still a step ahead of the pack, but hardly the man I'd've described as 'too good for the Klingon empire' in TNG days).
I'd really love to see a post-reform Klingon Empire on the new series (rather than the 'actually, they just became worse than ever after Martok died' of Star Trek Online); one that actually LIVES by an honor code and practices their warrior-ways without treachery or corruption.
Of course, I don't think 21st century writers are CAPABLE of writing that (they don't seem to be able to understand or write characters with an actual different belief system to their own, hence why things like honor codes and religions for most characters are treated like weekend hobbies on TV, rather than the driving core for an entire way of life that affects every decision and even leads character to- *gasp!*- abstain from things the culture approves of, or hold different beliefs from those that are popular without intending anything sinister from them!), so they'd probably turn out exactly like 21st century humans except with more blades and fancy words... but nonetheless, if a writer that could break out of his own headspace, and actually write a consist alien perspective or a character that genuinely and with integrity follows on a moral code that the writer himself considers outmoded or didn't adhere to, I'd really like to see it in practice.
Either way, my jaw was on the floor after Ezri's speech; Moore really nailed the flawed portrayal that we'd sort of been glancing sideways at and subconsciously justifying as 'an exception rather than the rule... just like last time, and the time before that' for the entire run of TNG and DS9.