An investigator from Internal Affairs comes to the station, and Julian Bashir is in his sights. Sloan is convinced that Bashir's genetic enhancements allow him to compartmentalize his mind so completely that the Dominion has turned him into a sleeper agent without his even knowing it. And a look back at Bashir's career -- the choices he's made, and the big secret he kept for years -- provides abundant circumstantial evidence to support the accusation.
This episode was rather controversial among devout Star Trek fans at the time it first aired. It introduced the idea of Section 31, an amoral secret police operating inside the Federation. It was an idea that some fans thought that Gene Roddenberry would have emphatically rejected -- and they may well have been right. But the idea that "it's easy to be a saint in paradise" is one Deep Space Nine has explored before. How does one maintain a paradise? Section 31 is certainly one plausible answer to that question. And it was such an enduring idea, flexible and modern over decades, that it kept showing up in Star Trek, becoming a plot point in Enterprise, Into Darkness, and Discovery.
Oddly, the episode started out as a comedy. Staff writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle pitched a story mocking bureaucratic red tape: Bashir saves an entire planet, goes to leave, and finds his runabout ticketed and towed. He winds up navigating a Kafka-esque Trial to get home. Show runner Ira Steven Behr quickly reformed the idea into one about a covert Starfleet organization. Give Bashir a chance to be a spy outside of a holodeck! (Ironically, the final version of the story takes place almost entirely in one.)
This episode shows how two chefs can prepare very different meals from the same ingredients. There are aspects of this episode that feel quite similar to a variety of Next Generation stories: "Future Imperfect" (Riker's in a holodeck and doesn't know it), "The Mind's Eye" (Geordi has been turned into a sleeper agent), "Frame of Mind" (Riker is being manipulated into doubting his reality), and "The Measure of a Man" (a lawyerly captain sticks up for one of his officers). But "Inquisition" really doesn't feel much like any of those episodes.
Part of that is the sense of paranoia, which is really amped up here. Bashir is deprived of sleep and food to set him off balance. His room gets searched -- not completely tossed, but with just enough out of place to be noticed. Sloan's questioning starts sweetly, but turns dark after O'Brien warns Bashir to expect trouble. Julian's own innocent behavior comes off suspicious, like when he's digging under his couch when security walks in on him. Guards threaten him with vengeance for friends they lost in the Dominion war, and Odo's not around to offer a sense of safety.
Another key difference is that this episode is steeped heavily in the history of the Deep Space Nine episodes before it. Numerous past episodes are referenced, and in totality, Sloan is able to paint a quite damning portrait of Bashir through his own past behavior. Things even get a little bit meta, as Sloan becomes a critical Star Trek fan pointing out plot holes in those episodes. Why did the Dominion leave the runabout orbiting that Dominion prison camp? Was it really the best idea to share classified information with a group of mentally unstable people?
Perhaps most significantly, the bad guy here doesn't just have a scheme -- he has a point. Sloan remains villainous in his disregard for individual rights... but he makes a powerful argument for "the ends justify the means." Bashir lied to get into Starfleet, but how many lives did he save once there? He's also a clever villain, crafting a scenario to test Bashir that slowly peels his friends away, and gives him ample opportunity for self-doubt. And it's logical in the end that it turns into a recruitment pitch; Bashir has shown a devotion to the greater good before, and that's what Section 31 is all about (in Sloan's own mind).
The episode is open-ended, suggesting that Sloan will be back in the future. And by this point in the run of Deep Space Nine, you can be confident that any pieces put on the board like this will be played sooner or later.
Other observations:
- There's a lot of dry Star Trek conference humor in this episode, from Odo's quip that doctors always schedule theirs on resort planets, to the recurring theme that people traveling to conferences are in serious danger of being abducted by bad guys.
- This is the second episode directed by Michael Dorn. Like the first, there isn't a lot of flashy camera work or staging here, but he shows that he can get great performances from the actors. Alexander Siddig and guest star William Sadler are both excellent.
- At the end of this episode, Bashir, Sisko, Kira, and Odo engage in a discussion about what it means that Starfleet has a nefarious organization like the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order. Bashir asks if "when push comes to shove, we're willing to throw away our principles in order to survive?" Sisko does not have the answer... yet. The very next episode puts him at the heart of this very ethical dilemma.
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