Dax and Worf are sent to rendezvous with a Cardassian defector who brings invaluable intelligence on the Dominion. But when Jadzia is critically wounded in a skirmish with the Jem'Hadar, Worf must choose between saving her life and completing the mission. Meanwhile on the station, Quark is on a tongo hot streak, and O'Brien is determined to see him lose. He thinks Bashir will be just the man to serve up that loss.
Although there are many things Star Trek does well, there are a few things it more often falls short at. This episode happens to contain several of these things... and to its credit, it does them all far better than usual.
One of these things is portraying marriage itself. Dax and Worf may be the first marriage between main characters on Star Trek, but they're not the first married couple in the franchise. We saw a lot of Miles and Keiko O'Brien between this series and The Next Generation, and while their relationship certainly got better over time, it started out trafficking in the TV tropes of a nagging wife, an infantilized husband, and a lack of communication.
In marked contrast, it's apparent throughout this episode how much Dax and Worf truly love each other. There's room in the relationship for the things they both enjoy: Dax still plays tongo with Quark (as Worf cheers her on from the balcony), their bed is made up with furs like some Klingon epic poem. They're both attentive to each other: Dax falls silent when it's time for Worf to pray, while Worf agrees to the relaxed honeymoon of Dax's dream without complaint. They banter playfully with one another, teasing in jest and not out of spite. In every way, it looks like a healthy and happy marriage.
Another thing Star Trek hasn't always done well is creating outdoor planet locations on an indoor set. In particular, forest and jungle sets in the past have basically looked like a single run to the local hardware store to empty out the garden center. But the jungle that Dax and Worf traverse here looks great. There are vertical levels in the set, selling the idea of uneven terrain. The vegetation is extremely thick (so much so, in fact, that the production reportedly had trouble getting all the shots they wanted even in their own studio). The select use of lizards and snakes, combined with the soundscape of birds and insects (and, in a key scene, a pair of mating... somethings) makes the place feel alive. Even the lighting is great, convincingly cutting through the canopy in tiny shafts.
The third thing that this episode gets better than past Treks is the balance between a dramatic A story and a comedic B story. Script writer Ronald D. Moore specifically cited the disastrous juxtaposition of "Life Support" as a lesson, and inspiration to here end the B plot halfway through the episode, before the jeopardy of the A plot escalates. That "Quark rules at tongo" subplot also itself gets more serious in the end, as Quark's table talk to throw Bashir off his game exposes unresolved feelings, not voiced for many seasons, that they both have for Dax.
That's not the only example of characters being true to their pasts. When Dax is injured, she goes straight to humor, just as she did when injured in "Rocks and Shoals." Worf's reaction to her wound recalls the story he told in "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." -- his fear that when he lets his guard down, people get hurt. Sisko's reprimand of Worf in the end comes with acknowledgement that he would have done the same in Worf's place.
This is also among Terry Farrell and Michael Dorn's best performances on the series. Farrell is always able to play Dax as playful and flirtatious, and does again here as the episode begins. But she really sells the seriousness of the injury (aided by some fantastic makeup), and the scene in which Dax seems to be accepting her own death, telling Worf to leave (yet crying when he does) is heartbreaking. Dorn shows Worf's softer side throughout the episode without it feeling like an inconsistent take on the character. The slow push-in as he tells Sisko what happened, linking it to a revelation about his wedding day, is one of the character's best monologues.
Other observations:
- The episode serves up a fun blend of established lore (the nasty anticoagulant disruptors of the Jem'Hadar) and the new (a bunch of new tongo terminology).
- Forget how annoying Quark's winning streak might be; the way he slow-rolls his winning hand against Dax in the opening scene is a horrible breach of gambling etiquette. On the other hand, he does at least earn points for calling the word "hew-mon" distasteful.
- In another moment of great set work, we see Dax and Worf exit the runabout and enter the jungle in a single push-in shot.
- Originally, the B-plot for this episode involved the return of Rom's ex-wife, with Nog and Leeta helping him avoid being swindled. This apparently got far enough in scripting that actors Max Grodénchik, Aron Eisenberg, and Chase Masterson performed some version of it live on stage at various Star Trek conventions. The plot that ultimately replaced that was suggested by show runner Ira Steven Behr. He'd overheard two guys in a bar, one pledging to coach the other in a strong man competition, and judged from their endless talk that "these guys were never going to do this thing."
- The stakes are real here: exposing every changeling infiltrator in the Alpha Quadrant would be a monumental intelligence win; also, because Dax is unconscious when Worf returns to her, we know she would have died had he not doubled back.
- If perhaps you're watching Deep Space Nine for the first time, beware of a major SPOILER here in this bullet: by this point in season six, Terry Farrell already knew she'd be leaving the show. According to her, she was so moved by this script that she asked for her character to die here. She'd previously asked not to be killed off, but felt that if she was going to go that way, the story potential here would make it worthwhile. "[I]t would have been so much more for Worf's character to play in the long run, because he would have let his wife die, but completed the mission. Oh my God, what an awful thing to live with."
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