Overall Rating: 6.0
This episode poses a very disturbing existential question - is it truly possible to engineer a sentient being...and if you could...would they have a soul? I am not completely satisfied with the answers provided, but earlier Trek incarnations would likely have done worse.
Plot Synopsis:
Quark monitors his bar while a customer rides a hellacious winning streak. Mardah - linked to Jake Sisko in a late second season episode - waylays him with flirting and convinces him to take one more spin, which bankrupts him. Jake marvels at her evilness and she reveals that his father has invited her to dinner leaving Jake rattled. Meanwhile, a pleased Quark is approached by a rather questionable female businesswoman offering to sell him salvage from the Gamma Quadrant. Against his better judgment and with the help of some well-placed oomox, Quark agrees to the transaction, only to discover a baby in a damaged stasis pod amidst a gigantic pile of useless wreckage.
Bashir monitors the child's condition as he rapidly ages, demonstrating remarkably fast cognitive development and a biological dependency on an enzyme his body lacks. When the child becomes violent and storms the Promenade looking for a fight, he is unveiled to be a Jem'hadar. Odo arrives to enforce security and the Jem'hadar boy immediately shows him deference. Seeing this, Odo pleads with Sisko to allow him to take custody of him and try to teach him how to live as something other than a lab specimen or a ruthless killer, and Sisko acquiesces reluctantly, but warns Odo that Star Fleet won't wait forever to get information about their mortal enemy.
Meanwhile, Mardah does indeed show up to dinner. Sisko starts off wanting to hate her for spoiling his young son (heh) but as it turns out, he gets the shock of his life when she informs him that the cork has long since been popped on Jake's innocence. He's a Dom'jot hustling, love poetry writing, woman pleasing young man and Sisko had no idea! He finds himself unable to tear himself from her presence and asks her to tell him more about his long lost son. :)
Odo tries various methods to get the Jem'hadar child to think more like the rest of his friends on the station. He shows him footage of his people rampaging through the Defiant, insists the boy can channel his aggression in more productive ways, and even creates a holographic simulation where the child can fight to his heart's content without actually hurting anyone, but it's all for naught. The Jem'hadar in him is too overwhelming...he "knows" that he is superior to all other life except Odo and the other Changelings, and when he finds out that Star Fleet is going to take him for further study, he affects an escape with Odo's help and returns to the Gamma Quadrant to be with his people. Odo very reluctantly admits to Kira that her reservations regarding how dangerous the Jem'hadar boy had always been were on target.
Writing: 7.0
There are several very well crafted speeches delivered by Odo, a very touching scene between he and Kira which will appear in the highlights below, and some more fantastic father/son story telling revolving around Jake and Benjamin Sisko. We'll talk about the message this episode's main plot sends below, but on the writing front, the dialog is pretty typical DS9 fare and the characters are deliciously likable...every last one of them (with the exception of the Jem'hadar boy, of course). It's not an episode that jumps out and grabs you, but there's nothing wrong with the script.
Acting: 6.0
Bumper Robinson was exceedingly flat and uninteresting in his portrayal of the teenaged Jam'hadar. A more nuanced and entertaining Jem'hadar would probably have sold the episode better. On the other hand, Avery Brooks and Rene Auberjonois were clicking very nicely this week, and I thought Cirroc Lofton and Nana Visitor did well with their lesser roles also. Jill Sayre (Mardah) was pretty unconvincing though. I've seen how a woman in love acts and talks and what appears on screen is definitely not it. It looks very forced...and maybe I am just being priggish, but I hate it when people pronounce the word "the" with the uh sound and not the ee sound when it precedes a vowel sound. An actor should know better - don't they train these folks on stage voices anymore? All in all, it's a fairly average acting job when you put the pieces together.
Message: 5.0
I believe that sentience is not simply a product of intelligent computing power. It is a Star Trek concession that physicalism is truth...Data's character would be impossible, otherwise. But it's not just a question of whether you can engineer sentience - that spark of life that makes humans unique on this planet. If it were, I would have given the episode a higher mark, and we'll discuss why that is shortly. The second problem I have here is that the antagonist is genetically engineered to have massive cognitive abilities, but somehow no sense of free will or power to change. Engineering sentience is bad enough...but now we're engineering personality, which all modern psychological research indicates is a complete mix of nature and nurture. It is existentially scary to imagine a world where our personality is pre-determined...it's a very small leap from there to a predetermined destiny governed by pure physics. I don't buy it. It doesn't match with our observations of the real world, and, frankly, I think it's very dangerous (morally) to go down that road.
The thing that saves this episode from getting a horrible score (aside from more wholesome family goodness brought to you by the Siskos) is the uniquely DS9 twist on the Trek conceit regarding engineered intelligence. A TNG episode like this would have ended with us coming to some new peaceful and enlightening understanding with the Jem'hadar child. TNG once put forward the idea that an artificial intelligence created by the ship's computer had to be benevolent because it was based on the digitally recorded dreams and experiences of a good crew. The soul, it seems, in the minds of Trek writers, is created by man. An arrogant and dangerous mentality, if you ask me. I rather wish that life form had come back and attacked the Enterprise. :) Odo is undoubtedly a good man...a TNG episode would have ended with Odo having a much bigger influence on the boy. Here, though, the engineered killing machine stays a killing machine. If sentience can be engineered, at least the DS9 writers leave open the possibility that the soul cannot be.
Highlights:
KIRA: Hello, Odo.
ODO: Ah. Let me guess. A house warming gift.
KIRA: That's right. Something to brighten up your new quarters! (she holds up her Bajoran plant as an offering)
ODO: And I suppose you'll want to see...my new quarters.
KIRA: Everyone wants to see your new quarters, Odo! It's called curiosity! (Odo clears his throat uncomfortably and lets Kira in)
ODO: It's not quite finished.
KIRA: (confused) What is it?
ODO: I created this so that I could learn what it was like to take on other forms.
KIRA: I thought it had to be something like that. You don't need a whole set of quarters just to sit in your bucket.
ODO: I don't use the bucket anymore. Oh, I've kept it to remind myself of what I once was, but now...when I need to revert to my gelatinous state, I can do it anywhere in this room! In here...I can learn what it is to be a changeling. I can bring in new forms to become. And I can do it in private.
KIRA: (suddenly worried) Oh...I didn't mean to intrude...maybe I should leave...
ODO: No, no...you are always welcome here, Major. (Kira relaxes slightly)
KIRA: So...where should we put it! (referring to her plant - Odo takes it from her and jauntily drops it into his bucket, turning to Kira for her reaction. Kira smiles warmly, completely satisfied with that choice). Perfect! (awww! :) )
DAX: You are positively glowing!
SISKO: Am I?
DAX: I haven't seen that look on your face since...
SISKO: Since Jake stopped wearing diapers. I never thought I'd say this, Old Man, but...I miss taking care of Jake when he was a baby. Holding him in my arms...singing to him...feeding him...
DAX: Hearing him cry all night, changing his diapers, worrying when he was sick.
SISKO: I haven't forgotten. But I'll tell you something...there are times when I would give anything to go back to the days when I could make Jake happy just by lifting him up over my head. (it's stuff like that this that makes this show awesome!)
SISKO: So...tell me about yourself, Mardah.
MARDAH: What do you want to know?
SISKO: Anything. How about family?
MARDAH: There's not much to tell. It's a pretty typical story. My parents both died during the occupation. I was raised by my neighbors but left when I was thirteen. I have a sister but we haven't spoken in years.
SISKO: Why not?
MARDAH: Pretty much what you'd expect. They were less than pleased when I told them I had a job as a Dabo girl. Then I told them what I thought of some of their choices. And we haven't spoken since.
SISKO: I see.
MARDAH: It's amazing...how some people will judge you based on nothing more than your job. (long...awkward...silence...Sisko looks a little guilty)
JAKE: So Dad, did I mention Mardah is a really good writer?
SISKO: You don't say?
JAKE: Yeah, in fact Mrs. O'Brien says she should try to get some of her stories published...
MARDAH: Oh, Jake, they're not that good.
JAKE: C'mon, Mardah, you don't have enough faith in yourself!
MARDAH: They're nothing compared to your poetry.
SISKO: Hold on...he writes...poetry??
JAKE: Well...sort of...it's not really anything serious...
MARDAH: Now who doesn't have enough faith in himself? He writes some of the most beautiful things I've ever written. It's what won me over. Well...that and the way he plays Dom'jot.
SISKO: He plays...Dom'jot?!?!
MARDAH: Oh, your son is quite the little hustler!
SISKO: A hustler??
JAKE: You know maybe I should go check on dessert! (he gets up and slinks away)
MARDAH: At first I thought he was just another teenaged boy...but when I got to know him, I realized there was much more to him than that.
SISKO: I'm beginning to realize that myself! So...tell me more about my poetry writing, hustler son. (LOL! - they grow up so fast, ey, Benji? :) )
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