DS9 Flashback: Dramatis Personae

Among the more dedicated Star Trek fans, writer Joe Menosky is known for his "big concept" episodes -- the most successful and well-received being The Next Generation's "Darmok." He also contributed a handful of episodes to Deep Space Nine, the first of which was "Dramatis Personae."

A Klingon ship returns from the Gamma Quadrant and almost immediately explodes! Though the Deep Space Nine is able to rescue one crew member and his personal log entries, the former quickly dies, while the latter is damaged and must be recompiled. It gradually emerges that a mutinous struggle for power broke out aboard the ship, and it appears to have been viral in nature, beginning after the Klingons explored a particular planet. That virus is now affecting the senior staff, with people acting unlike themselves and choosing sides against each other. A bored and aristocratic Sisko is being protected by a concigliere-like O'Brien, while an extra-fiesty Kira seeks to persuade a reverie-obsessed Dax to overthrow him. It's up to Odo, unaffected by the virus, to save them all.

This episode is quintessential Joe Menosky. He's developed an entire alien mythos here, in detail apparently greater than the episode actually requires, to lend a sense of authenticity to his story. This background is revealed by context, but there's never a big dump of exposition to fully acclimate the audience. It's similar to the myths that underpin the Tamarian language of "Darmok." It's even more like the premise of the Next Generation episode he'd write a year later, "Masks." Both episodes see main characters embodying personalities from an alien culture to act out a power struggle no one fully understands.  Neither "Masks" nor "Dramatis Personae" seems fully cooked. Both lack any meaningful subtext or moral that seems to make the story worth telling. "Dramatis Personae" at least has two things going for it.

First, Deep Space Nine is a series where the characters already have some natural conflict with one another. This lets the mystery sneak in gradually, grafting itself onto a minor actual conflict between Kira and Sisko at the start of the episode. From there, the episode is essentially posing an intriguing "what if" question: what if the friction between those two, between the Federation and Bajor, was dialed all the way up?

Second, and more importantly, the episode gives more people the chance to play. Most of the fun in a story like this is in watching the main cast act out of the ordinary. On The Next Generation, "Masks" gave only Brent Spiner this opportunity; here, the virus affects five main characters. But then, the down side here is that we're less than 20 episodes in. The actors know these characters far better than the audience at this point, and so it often seems like this story is more fun for them than it is for us. (Nana Visitor sort of confirmed as much when speaking of this episode in an interview, saying she so enjoyed it that she "came and watched scenes I wasn't involved with just to see what was going on.")

There is some entertainment value here, to be sure. It's amusing to watch everyone hold paranoid conversations about whose "side" people are on. Terry Farrell is fun, going broad with a version of Dax that's forgetful in the moment and permanently lost in her own reminiscing. Avery Brooks had not yet found the right balance for Sisko between buttoned-up Starfleet and his own quirky personality, and so he turns his acting up to 11 when given this chance to do something else. (Exhibit A: the way he tells us he's building "a CClocKK!") Rene Auberjonois finds joy in Odo sly efforts to play along with the rest of them.

But it just doesn't amount to much in the end. As the episode title implies, it feels like everyone is just play-acting here and that there's never any real jeopardy. The conclusion, that seems to involve flushing disembodied brain waves out into space, seems a bit trite and silly -- even by trite, silly Star Trek standards. It feels like the only meaningful scene we get is when Odo collapses and Quark quickly runs for help, demonstrating that there really is a friendship beneath their rivalry.

Other observations:

• Quark has a great line about Klingons equating pain with pleasure, and conceding "in small doses, perhaps" that's correct.

• The aliens of the episode are called the "Valerians." Coincidence, or had Joe Menosky heard of Valérian and Laureline (which became the disappointing Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets)?

• Director Cliff Bole gets in on the fun here too, filling the episode with a number of closeups far more extreme than you usually see on Star Trek.

• If you're looking to build your own Bajoran uniform costume, you get a great look at Kira's boots in this episode, when she puts her feet up on Odo's desk.

• The filling of Sisko's office continues. Just as he picked up the baseball a few episodes back, the Saltah'na clock he builds here would remain part of the set dressing for the rest of the series.

Entertaining performances add to a premise that isn't as inherently interesting as you'd think, but this episode still remains on the lackluster side. I give "Dramatis Personae" a C+.