DS9 Flashback: Past Prologue

The first regular episode of Deep Space Nine continued to define how the series would be different, but The Next Generation still cast a long shadow over its new spinoff.

When Bajoran terrorist Tahna Los seeks asylum on the station, Major Kira feels her loyalties torn between the new Starfleet alliance she values and the old friend who helped win Bajor's independence. A web of intrigue is quickly woven around Tahna, involving the Duras sisters (who are aiding his next plot), a Cardassian commander (who seeks to capture him), and the "plain and simple" tailor Garak, who may be a secret spy tangled up in all of it.

Part of the mission statement of Deep Space Nine was that the problems would come to our heroes, and the consequences would persist after the final credits rolled. "Past Prologue" does play off these notions. It introduces the idea of Bajoran terror cells still actively fighting for an independence they don't see as fully won. It avoids a happy ending; while the first draft script reportedly ended with Tahna Los renouncing his terrorist ways, the finished version leaves Kira no outs and forces her to betray her friend to do the right thing.

Most importantly for the long-term trajectory of the show, the episode introduces one of its most indelible characters. The creative team wanted to have a recurring Cardassian character on the show, but it was reportedly co-producer Peter Allan Fields who figured out how to do it. Garak couldn't explicitly be a spy, Fields reasoned, or he'd just be thrown in jail immediately. He pitched the idea of a "plain, simple" tailor, and reportedly guided a lot of the writing here, even though his name isn't on the finished episode.

The master stroke was casting Andrew Robinson to play the part. With a long career as a character actor (notably including the killer in Dirty Harry), Robinson felt he knew Garak immediately: "If a smart guy like Garak says that he's 'plain and simple,' you realize that he's not plain and not simple." Told only that he would have to honor some of the trademark Cardassian stiffness, Robinson chewed the scenery with a delicious performance that was all subtext.

In this first appearance, a large part of that subtext was a very particular take on Garak's sexuality. As my husband put it when we watched this episode's opening scene of Garak approaching Bashir: "Is he hitting on him?" Yes, according to Andrew Robinson. In many interviews given over the years, Robinson says he started out playing Garak with an "inclusive" sexuality, neither gay nor straight, using sex as a tool to disarm and unsettle. Ultimately, the actor says, the writers "didn't want to go there, and if they don't want to go there I can't, because the writing doesn't support it."

But even as Deep Space Nine was setting up characters and elements that would play for weeks and years to come, the writers just couldn't quite let go of the familiar. How else to explain the bizarre and unnecessary appearance of the Duras sisters, Lursa and B'Etor, from The Next Generation? Their weird intrigue here doesn't amount to much, and doesn't even make sense -- they provide explosives in exchange for money, but it seems implausible that an on-the-run terrorist like Tahna Los would be able to get his hands on any.

It's not the only part of Tahna's character that doesn't track. There's no discussion of his religion, yet it seems like he should have been made explicitly atheist for him to plot to destroy the wormhole where his people's gods were just discovered. At least a cliché romantic past with Kira, which was reportedly in the first draft script, was wisely excised from the final version. And the nationalist elements of his character, taking isolationism to a terrorist extreme, feel quite realistic. (Sadly, this material seems even more topical today in 2017 than it did in 1993.)

Other observations:

• Not only does the episode set up a great character pairing in Bashir and Garak, it also does so with Odo and Kira. When the Major is trying to reconcile her guerilla past with her administrative present, she goes to Odo for moral guidance.

• Andrew Robinson isn't the only guest star "all-star" in this episode. The captain of the Cardassian ship is played by Vaughn Armstrong, who appeared throughout The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise in a record 12 different roles. (Most were in various makeup, though Enterprise fans have seen him without, as Admiral Forrest.)

• When Kira goes over Sisko's head to a Starfleet admiral (only to get wonderfully chastised for it later), that Admiral is played by Susan Bay, the wife of Leonard Nimoy.

• This episode aired just a few weeks after The Next Generation aired its famous (and outstanding) "Chain of Command" two-parter. There are some nods to Cardassian torture thrown in here: O'Brien's cautioning Sisko not to hand a prisoner over to them, and Bashir pointing out the scars on Tahna's chest.

• Garak interrupts Bashir before he can finish one of McCoy's trademark "I'm a doctor, not..." phrases.

• Kira sports a new, shorter hairstyle in this episode. Nana Visitor requested it herself, arguing that Kira wasn't the sort of person who would want to spend any time styling her hair in the morning -- she'd just want to wake up and go.

There are a few too many ingredients in this stew, and Lursa and B'Etor in particular almost spoil it. Still, the morality at play is more complex than The Next Generation. That and the introduction of Garak make this an an important step in the series finding its way. I give "Past Prologue" a B-.