A freak accident alters Captain Sisko's senses, leaving him with visions from the Prophets of Bajoran past and future. Guided by what he's shown, he locates a long lost ancient city, persuading Kai Winn in the process that he truly is the Emissary. But the visions pose an increasing risk to Sisko's own life, and he refuses any medical intervention to eliminate them. Plus, what he sees also threatens the treaty Bajor is finally about to sign to join the Federation.
Personally, I don't find "Rapture" vastly better (or worse) than most Emissary-themed episodes of the series, but many fans feel differently. One reason might be that this is a case where the writers actually planned ahead and knew where the story was going, which enables you to go back to watch this episode and see the connections. Sisko sees "locusts" swarming toward Cardassia, and then coming to destroy Bajor if it joins the Federation now -- a direct connection to the Dominion's actions later in this season.
Another reason might be the family drama at play in the episode, which is strong. Kasidy Yates returns from her prison sentence, and is immediately accepted back by Benjamin. You could ascribe many reasons for this: a better future understanding of what it means to have "paid your debt to society," Sisko himself being a forgiving and understanding man (who is in love), or the general dopamine high of the visions he's having. In any case, it's great that Kasidy is just right back in the mix... and forcefully arguing against Benjamin by the end of the hour, to abandon his visions and be with the son who needs him. It's not a huge episode for Jake Sisko, but Cirroc Lofton is once again great in father-son moments that count. Avery Brooks seems to really bring out his best as an actor.
As for Avery Brooks himself? Well, this script asks a lot of him. The distant and serene sort of haze he ambles about in for most of the episode isn't entirely convincing. When he walks the Promenade, spouting platitudes to anyone in arm's reach, it has the feeling of a huckster working a crowd -- even though we're meant to accept what Sisko says as absolute truth. Brooks is stronger in other moments, though: likening his emerging sense of the universe to looking into Jake's face as a baby, or his increasing fanaticism as he's determined to hang onto the visions at any cost. His best moment is the raw anguish Sisko feels when he awakens to find the visions gone.
This actually might be one of Kai Winn's best episodes in the series; it's certainly the one that gives her the most nuance as a character. She's always been a heel to this point, with Louise Fletcher expertly delivering insults with a smile like she's handing out chocolate-covered cobras. But when Kira tries this time to mount her high horse, Winn responds with a truly convincing monologue about what she did in the Occupation, which seems just as valid and noble and full of sacrifice as anything Kira did with the Resistance. Between this scene, and Winn's acceptance (at last) of Sisko as Emissary, this could be a turning point for her. Her ultimate tragedy is that it isn't, though, and we get a hint of that here: when she says she "doesn't know who her enemies are anymore," it's implicit in that statement that she's seen all our main characters as enemies up until this moment. You can't really walk away from an extreme like that all in one step.
Around the periphery, Kira gets several interesting moments. She and Worf both get to voice support in the power of faith. That faith initially makes Kira support Sisko's choice to die for his visions... but later she believes that Jake's intervention to save his father might also be the hand of the Prophets. Earlier in the episode, Kira also speaks to her own journey of five years, going from being very much against the Federation's presence on Bajor to supporting their Federation membership. She also comes close to a moment of pure horror when she realizes she interrupted Sisko during an actual vision from the Prophets.
But while the character drama throughout the story is pretty strong, the mechanics of the plot are rather weak. The "reflection in the waterfall" puzzle is cheesy in its transparency, a "mystery" that could not possibly have endured for centuries. The homage to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with Sisko sculpting his dinner, doesn't really work. There's also just not much tension in any of this unless you're watching it for the second time. You know for certain that Sisko isn't actually going to die this way. Plus, it takes the "aha!" moments of knowing about the coming Dominion war -- or Julian Bashir's secret at this point in the story -- to appreciate what's going on here.
About Julian Bashir. (Spoiler here in this paragraph, if you're watching Deep Space Nine for the first time.) A few episodes from now, we'll find that the real Bashir is in a Dominion prison, replaced by a changeling impersonator. When exactly this change happens is unclear, but as the uniforms switch in this episode to the First Contact style, and real Bashir is found in the previous style, it has to be the changeling from at least this point forward. This the writers did not plan ahead for, with actor Alexander Siddig not finding out about the swap until that episode was about to film. Still, it's interesting to imagine what the changeling could be playing at here: he's willing to let Sisko die for the potential tactical win, saving his life in the end perhaps in the hopes he'll sow more discord, rooting for the chaos his visions might sow between Bajor and the Federation, or just generally gathering intel on just how "real" Bajor's gods really are.
Other observations:
- After a good amount of filming on location in recent episodes, this one goes back to the good ol' "Star Trek caves" to portray the lost city of B'hala. It's not the most convincing environment, though the big obelisk the set department adds is a nice touch.
- Regarding that change to First Contact style uniforms: it happened here because this was the first episode scheduled to air after the premiere of that movie in theaters. Doctor Bashir gets a sly line calling attention to the change. No mention is made of any repairs needed on the Defiant resulting from the movie, though. Show runner Ira Steven Behr was a little miffed that First Contact included the Defiant -- the canonically anti-Borg ship -- just to beat the crap out of it, so he declined to acknowledge any of that on Deep Space Nine.
- Although this episode brought Kasidy Yates back to the show, this would be her only appearance in season five. Actress Penny Johnson played a recurring character on The Larry Sanders Show at this time, and not available to Star Trek as much as the writers had hoped for.
- Speaking of not appearing: it had been planned to have First Minister Shakaar present for the big treaty signing, as he logically would be. But when the writers realized there wasn't really anything interesting for Shakaar to do in this story, he was written out. It was one of a handful of episodes around this time in which the writers gradually learned they just weren't into that character much anymore.
- Odo appears only briefly in this episode, struggling with Worf to figure out where to house a bunch of visiting admirals and starship captains. Surely the starship captains could just stay aboard their own ships, right? It's not like the commute to the station for official events would be hard. And wouldn't they rather stay "at home" rather than "at a hotel" if it's practical?
- It's a quick moment, but I like that among all the ways Jake feels betrayed by his father throughout this episode, the one that seems to hurt most is that now he trusts Kai Winn.
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