DS9 Flashback: Shadowplay

Deep Space Nine was still experimenting to find its own format during season two. Sometimes, this took the form of following a single storyline for an entire episode (where The Next Generation would more often mix an "A plot" with a "B plot"). But in the episode "Shadowplay," the experiment went the other way -- the episode tries to juggle three separate storylines that never intersect with one another.

Exploring the Gamma Quadrant, Dax and Odo come upon a village where inhabitants have been disappearing without a trace. Meanwhile, Kira grows closer to Vedek Bareil during one of his visits to the station, and Jake Sisko begins an apprenticeship with Chief O'Brien, all the while struggling with how to tell his father that he doesn't want to join Starfleet.

If you squint through a rather pretentious lens, you can imagine that the three disparate storylines of this episode can be united under one theme. (In one interview, episode writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe did just that, claiming they're all about the "unreality of appearances.") But really, this episode is just three stories built around character pairings that seem interesting on the surface, but which mostly lack the depth to dig much below that.

Dax and Odo haven't really been paired in an episode before this, and in the teaser it seems like this could be a fruitful combination. Dax wants to gossip about Odo's love life, while the shapeshifter remains characteristically closed off. Ultimately, though, the storyline that follows isn't interested in these two; it's far more concerned with the pairing of Odo and a young child from the alien village, Taya.

This works to some extent. We've seen how Odo's own childlike nature plays off children before, both generally with Jake and Nog, and specifically with the daughter of the criminal Croden in "Vortex." They even got a good child actress here to play Taya; Noley Thorton was already a Star Trek veteran at this young age, the faults of her terrible Next Generation episode ("Imaginary Friend") not being hers. Still, neither this relationship nor the overall mystery of the disappearing villagers is as intriguing as the tantalizing mentions of "changelings" and "the Dominion" peppered into the plot.

Perhaps this part of the episode doesn't fully gel because it wasn't the original intent. Wolfe's first pitch was the put Dax and O'Brien together in an alien holographic prison. They'd escape from it once, only to later discover they were in fact still in the prison and would need to escape again. The whole episode would conclude on an ambiguous ending noting that there would be no way to ever truly know whether you'd escaped or not. Showrunner Michael Piller steered the staff away from this idea, in part because of similarities to the Next Generation episode "Ship in a Bottle" and in part because he imagined an intriguing story in the premise of a real person forming a close relationship with a hologram. (Still, the "mind prison" idea would resurface more than once later in the series.)

The Kira/Bareil storyline also shows potential and flaws. I think here, the problem is that Philip Anglim is rather lacking in charisma. Nana Visitor is a powerful actress; Anglim either isn't capable of working at her level, or has made a bad character choice in making Bareil more stoic than compelling. There are sparks between Bareil and Kira on the page -- he's progressive and she's orthodox (as shown in her original support of Vedek Winn). There are also commonalities to them -- they both spent time in Cardassian prison camps, and neither is particularly keen to talk about the experience. It's just that on the screen, I feel little of either the friction or bond between them. Still, the idea is fun at least, that Quark's attempt to distract Kira with a romance both fails (she isn't distracted) and succeeds (this becomes a long-term relationship).

I actually find the Jake storyline to be the most compelling of the episode, though it's the one that gets the least screen time. There's something easily relatable in a teenager struggling to tell a parent something they know won't go over well. It's harder still for Jake in this case, because it's not as though he knows yet what he does want to do with his life -- he just knows he doesn't want to join Starfleet.

Following up on what was setup in the last episode, Jake does try an apprenticeship with O'Brien, but what he really ends up learning is that he needs to be true to himself. (O'Brien's story about his father hoping he'd become a cello player is not only on point, it calls back to when we actually saw him play the instrument on The Next Generation). The final scene of the subplot, when Jake comes clean to his father, continues the great work done so far on their relationship.

Other observations:

• This episode both spends money by filming on location (in Star Trek staple Bronson Canyon), and saves money by shooting most of the alien village on a set that was built for The Next Generation (and reused several times).

• Bashir gets a fun little moment when he explains that Garak has been lecturing him on surveillance. Garak has reached the level of being an important presence on the show even in episodes where he doesn't appear.

I really can't point to one fundamental flaw with the episode -- though perhaps that's because of its inherently fractured nature. I just feel like the whole isn't particularly engaging. On the strength of the Jake plot, I nudge "Shadowplay" up (just barely) to a B-, but I'd still call it forgettable installment.