DS9S01E04: A Man Alone

4 stars.

Brief synopsis: There's a murder on board Deep Space 9, and the prime suspect is Odo, who is also leading the murder investigation.

Comments:
This is a straight forward episode, very well written. So far Deep Space 9 has started well. The first two episodes (the season premier) was great, followed by a not so great but could've been episode, and then this one - another well crafted story. At the core of it is a murder mystery, and all the elements of what makes a good who dun it is there. Some misdirection, a couple of red herrings, everything pointing at the main suspect that you know is NOT guilty, no clue as to who the murderer is, before the reveal.

Where it loses out on being a really good story is that the reveal, while coming out of left field but still plausible, is arrived at too simply. The murderer has left some medical stuff in his room which Bashir finds, tests in his lab and voila the answer. It sounds a bit too easy, and Odo really didn't need to do much investigative work. Also, how is a non biologist so expert at this (without spoiling the episode that's all I can say)? The criminal doesn't seem to be that a genius, while the plot certainly is.

What is interesting is the mob mentality of the Bajorans, who are quick to turn on Odo once their own is murdered and he is the suspect. Is it simply because he is different, or that he was also working on the station during the Cardassian Occupation ?

Racism, remember, is one of the four things of Jahiliyyah that will be amongst the people till the end of times, according to Islam. And we see it all the time today. The same Americans that showed so much love to Muhammad Ali the boxer today questions his son with the same name for 2 hours at an airport simply because he is Muslim, or black, or both.

It is also disturbing how quick and easy it is to rouse a mob. I have had Serbian friends who talked to me about the Serbian civil war and how friendly neighbours turned on each other as communal unrest spread. Someone once told me minorities in Canada are living on the edge of a volcano - any time it may erupt. Hope that's not true.

I liked a few other things in this episode. Bashir pursuing Dax, and trying to master a puzzle while getting confused about Sisko's intentions to her. The frenemy relation between Odo and Quark. And Sisko finally laying down the law on Odo, after giving him wide liberty in the first couple of episodes.

DS9S01E03: Past Prologue

3 stars.

Brief Synopsis: A former Bajoran Underground member claims asylum on Deep Space 9. While he has renounced his past now that the Occupation is over, he still has a violent plan to get rid of the Federation and will test Kira's loyalties.

Comments:
One of the things I didn't touch on the first episode is the supposed "confrontation" between Kira (the first officer) and Sisko (the commanding officer). Officially Sisko is a Commander, and he requested a Bajoran official to serve as his first officer, so they gave him Major Kira Nerys. She is not Starfeet (although she fits in the chain of command under Sisko) and she is supposed to bring in the Bajoran point of view.

There WAS a "conflict" in the first episode, but I thought it was very contrived. It seemed to be more of a way to say "this is not your TNG Star Trek". The potential for conflict was actually more in this episode, but again I felt this time it was underplayed rather than overplayed.

Also, if she has to go over Sisko's head, why would she call a Starfleet admiral? She should have just gone to Bajor's officials and let them make things tough for Sisko. In the first episode Sisko is told he can do anything short of breaking the Prime Directive to expedite Bajor's entry into the Federation. I realize things are left murky on purpose, but Kira here seems to be torn between her duty and her former comrade only for some time - she makes her decision rather quickly. Also, to be rather shallow here, she looked better in the first episode with the longer hair. She looks more like a man in this episode. I am not sure if that is what the writers were going for, but this has the effect of automatically portraying Dax as the alluring female of the cast.

Odo seems rather sensible - he wants her to take Sisko's side. I am unsure why Odo has warmed up to Starfleet rather quickly. When the Cardassians left, why didn't he? Does he consider himself more sympathetic to Bajor? Exactly what is the past relationship between him and Kira? I guess that will be explored later, and it's good for these types of "hints" to be part of the episode - shows the writers have a long term plan in mind.

Odo also becomes a rat in this episode and spies on a supposedly criminal exchange. In the season premiere he was a bag. I hope they don't make this shape-shifting a running sketch. I mean, it's nice as an investigator if you can slip into places unsuspected. This is supposed to be a civilian station though (sort of, administered by Starfleet). What sort of oversight does Odo have? He seems to bully Quark at will.

The most interesting aspect of "Past Prologue" is that it introduces the many shades of grey in Star Trek, and the heated arguments between Sisko and Kira highlight how much of an asset conflict between regular characters can elevate a series, if used correctly. Moreover the Garak character manages to steal the limelight every scene he is in. Why I rated it 3 stars is that the character Tahna is hardly fleshed out. Why would he resort to something so drastic when Bajor has just become independent?

This is a straight forward episode, with hardly any philosophical questions being probed. There is one thing though. When the Cardassias were occupying Bajor, these sort of terrorist activities by the Bajor Underground was celebrated by the Bajorans. Now that Bajorans are in charge of their own planet, the same acts by the same people are looked at as terrorists. One man's terrorist, as they say, is another's freedom fighter.

Thus it's not the action that's sinful (or unlawful), it's just the context. This is why one of the main axioms of Islamic Law is that actions are rewarded/punished according to the intentions.

DS9S01E0102: Emissary

4.5 stars.

Brief Synopsis: Three years after his wife died at the hands of the Borg and following the Cardassian withdrawal from the planet Bajor, Commander Benjamin Sisko and a new crew of Starfleet and Bajoran officers take command of an abandoned Cardassian space station and make an incredible discovery that will change the galaxy and Sisko's future.

Comments: 
This was a power packed series premiere. The opening sequence is the famous battle at Wolf 359 vs the Borg, and Sisko has to watch his wife die before his very own eyes, while saving his son Jake. This is one of the few reminders that while Starfleet stories we have enjoyed via Star Trek are those of exploration and first contacts, at its heart Starfleet is basically a military organization. Here we see armed ships in space fighting an alien threat and Starfleet is basically Federation's space armed forces.

This was also in my thoughts as the story continued with Sisko taking in charge of Deep Space 9 for Federation. Even though Deep Space 9 was now a Bajoran property, they wanted Starfleet to administer it, presumably to align themselves with the Federation (and thus stave off the Cardassians). While that was fine, why is a military organization taking over a civilian spaceport? Thinking back, I realized that many of the deep space 9 ports in Star Trek history were always administered by Starfleet. Is it because these were Starfleet bases (which can't be because civilian ships were docking there, not just Starfleet)? So unlike today's airports for example, which are operated by civilian authorities, in the Star Trek future the space ports and shipyards and others are always operated by Starfleet.

It's interesting because it sort of implies that while we have an utopia (Gene Roddenberry's creation) in Earth, some of the civilian infrastructure has been handed over to a military institution. The US Army has heavily influenced Star Trek's Starfleet structure (from the class of the ships to command structure) so are they saying the US Army will have a bigger role to play in the nation's future? Perhaps under President Trump, that's not a far off possibility.

I thought the scenes of Bajor being in disarray (and by extension Deep Space 9) was very realistic. It reminds one of the chaos in Afghanistan following the Russian retreat, and the disorder in present day Libya after the fall of Gaddafi. It also reminds one of what a fantastic job some transitional leaders (such as Mandela) had done. What is needed after an occupying force leaves is another strong figure the population can follow. This is why Bangladesh and India who had Mujeeb and Nehru for some time after independence, did well while Pakistan suffered with the early death of Jinnah.

The meeting between Sisko and Picard was interesting, if only for the barely disguised hostility on Sisko's part as he meets the man he holds responsible for his wife's death. Religion enters the story for the first time as Sisko meets with the Bajoran Pope - the Kai, and then Sisko has a vision courtesy the Orb. More on my thoughts later, but first let me go to this one particular scene.

Miles is going to take up a new job on Deep Space 9, and is leaving the Enterprise. He wanted to say goodbye to the Captain, but decides otherwise. Yet Captain Picard personally comes down and wishes him well and has a few words with him. This clearly means a lot to Miles.

Picard displays one of those traits of successful leaders. They make the people under them think that they matter to him, and they genuinely care about these staff members. People who served under President Obama, for example, were genuinely fond of him and would walk on fire for him, because he took the time to learn about them and stand up for them. If you remember a famous description of the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), by a visiting Makkan, that he has been to the courts of the Caesar and the Najjashi, but he has not seen people so devoted to their leader like the Muslims. This is what good leaders inspire among their people, and it's because these leaders care.

Back to Bajor's religion. Once Sisko and Dax discover the wormhole, Sisko has a communication / vision / religious experience with the wormhole's resident aliens who are worshiped as Gods / Prophets on Bajor (hence the Emissary).

I thought the communication with the wormhole aliens took up a bit too long in the episodes. It is clearly important, and it also emphasizes to Sisko that he has to let the memory of his dead wife go, but it actually didn't need to be that long. It's also interesting, religiously speaking, to think about aliens who do not live in Time like us humans.

From an Islamic perspective, Time is God's creation, and we live in it and God isn't bound to it. We also know that God, in addition to being a Creator, is also Continuously Creating, so He could make aliens that do not live in Time like us. We also know for sure that there are beings of energy (not matter) living with us right now, called the Jinns, AND that some people used to worship the Jinns. So the concept of these aliens living outside of Time and being worshiped by the Bajorans isn't that far fetched. This just shows to me that while other religions have a problem with science (indeed the future as depicted in Star Trek the Federation isn't very religious - almost all humans are atheists) but the traditional friction between science and religion as it occurs in Western history isn't the Islamic experience.

The final scenes of the episode show Sisko taking charge of Deep Space 9 by the wormhole, which will help Bajor become a major commercial stopover point. Picard is back. and this time Sisko is far more cordial, having moved on from his wife's death.

Over all this was a brilliant two part beginning to a new series. The potential for Deep Space 9 had been raised quite high, and the writers seem prepared to take on the TNG world and take it somewhere new.

Star Trek Deep Space 9

I recently decided to start watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 from the very beginning. I have always liked Star Trek over Star Wars, but I hardly watched more than a few episodes of Deep Space 9. It was always the "weird one" to me. In my ranking of Star Trek series, TNG has always been first, followed by Voyager. I have always been indifferent to TOS (blasphemy, I know) and Enterprise was, well, stupid. As for Deep Space 9, I liked the episodes that I watched, but never watched the whole series.

Recently I downloaded a few of the top DS9 episodes and watched them on my travels. I was surprised to find that the writing was really good, edgy, and somewhat different than the usual Star Trek. Whereas TNG was always bright and sunny, DS9 didn't hesitate to delve into the dark side of humanity. With the series available on Netflix, I decided to watch the episodes from Season 1 and onwards on my daily commute to and from work.

My reviews might be slightly different from the usual Trek reviews. I am more philosophical (at least on blogs) and my reviews will explore some of the religious and current world implications of the episodes. So think of these as some type of Muslim/religious viewpoint of a review of DS9 - which is arguably the Trek that most explored religion (albeit Bajoran).