DS9 -Treachery, Faith and the Great River

Plot – Forget Enterprise and its sex-driven decontamination chamber or Voyager and it’s lusty Pon Farr episode or even all those episodes set on Risa and other sex planets (Justice remains memorable for that reason alone), Treachery, Faith and the Great River opens on the most outwardly erotic moment in all of Star Trek where Kira is receiving a massage from Odo and it looks like we have intruded at precisely the wrong time. The notion of him turning his hands into gooey massage fingers only tempts you to open your mind to all the possibilities of having a relationship with a changeling and suddenly makes sense of Kira’s recent change of style. She has an incredibly relaxed, feminine look in season seven!

The B plot might just be my absolute favourite of any Star Trek episode. They have ridiculous number of these inconsequential subplots to choose from and I do have ten or twenty that I hold in high esteem but very often they can turn out to be a lightweight distraction from the main event. The very cute and very funny O’Brien/Nog subplot in this episode provides much welcome relief from the god worship, assassination attempts and suicide elsewhere in the episode. Thematically it has nothing to do with the Weyoun/Odo plot but it is just so warmly played and gets more and more complicated and awkward for O’Brien that I fell in love with its sheer futility. What shines is the excellent characterisation of Nog, who is portrayed as both a shrewd Ferengi and a competent Starfleet officer and brings together those two roles to both bamboozle and ultimately get the Chief out of a very sticky situation. If anybody is confused about the wave of grief that Aron Eisenberg’s death rippled through Trek fandom needs only watch this episode to understand why the audience were so charmed by him. And this is nowhere near his best episode this season. What a transformation the character went through.

Cleverly, the episode sets Odo up for a no-win situation in the finale. Whichever side wins, Odo thinks he is going to lose the war. Even more cleverly What You Leave Behind gives him a wonderful way out of this situation that doesn’t cheat.

Character – What I love about Combs turn as the defective Weyoun is that he is written for in an entirely innocent manner and Combs plays him that way so that no matter how much Odo is distrustful of him and how many ways the narrative plays with the idea that this could all be a trap I was on his side throughout. Entirely due to his lack of guile. The moment he asks if Odo might be able to conduct his debriefing is very touching, because he is genuinely terrified of the treatment that he will receive at the hands of Starfleet.

How does Rene Auberjonois continue to find such thoughtful and exciting ways to play Odo? How do the writers continue to drive fascinating stories out of him? I suppose when you character starts the show as a complete mystery and then turns out to come from a race that has dictated the fate of an entire Quadrant and tried to impose that same order on this Quadrant you have lots of dramatic avenues to explore. Here he has to walk a fine line between being a good security officer (Weyoun has a huge amount of Dominion secrets that would be invaluable to the Federation), a moralistic individual (he protects Weyoun because it is the right thing to do and he has formed a connection with him), an awkward religious participant (he outright refuses to give in to Weyoun’s belief that he is a God until the closing moments when it is the only peace he will give him), a smart analyser (he is involved in some heavy politics here and has to try and untangle the affair very carefully) and a tactical genius (a runabout versus a Jem H’adar ship and the runabout survives?). It’s fantastic characterisation and Auberjonois takes on each of these roles deftly. Watch Auberjonois as Odo discovers about the changeling disease. He literally withers in his seat. He was never an actor who was afraid of playing the part for all the raw emotional power and he has six seasons of perfection behind him in this respect and delivers one powerhouse after another in the shows final season (wait for Chimera and Tacking Into the Wind).

Performance – It is a fact that the amount of Jeffrey Combs that you can squeeze into an episode is an earmark of quality. The more Combs, the more quality. Is there anybody on this planet who doesn’t love his rakish and charming performance as Weyoun? Please put your hand up if you do because I want to see the one person who is brave enough to admit that, and then avoid their critical opinion. He ducked in and out of Star Trek before he took on this character but this was the final, perfect fit for Combs. A character that brought all his charm, humour, menace and likability. This is probably his finest performance in DS9, which is saying something, since he plays both the defective Weyoun (who is imminently affable but highly suspicious) and the latest Weyoun (who is far less moral and fare more willing to commit acts that would have him executed). When both are talking over a viewscreen I completely forget that they are the same actor playing two different characters. That’s how good he is.

Production – I was extremely impressed by the CGI on display here. It’s not gratuitous, but essential to the story’s success. It’s always notable when the effects team create fresh set pieces to drink in and the runabout hiding amongst the ice fragments that are systematically blown to pieces ranks high as some of the finest DS9 effects work. The tiny block of ice that bounces off the runabouts hull is completely unnecessary but a lovely touch.

Why is it that Cardassians always like committing espionage in dark caves? It’s a lovely call back to Improbable Cause (I swear it is the same cave from four years previously) so I’m not complaining and it makes for a suitably intense and dramatic setting for the teaser.

Best moment – Two moments spring out at me as particularly fun. Weyoun and Damar talking about the death of the formers predecessor and the latter’s involvement is gorgeously acted. They both know the truth but one cannot openly accuse another because there is no proof. This is setting some of the best developments of the latter half of the season. Also, the scene where the bad Weyoun decides to cross the line and order the death of his predecessor and a God and almost gets caught. It’s knife edge tension and its all in the acting.

‘Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you believe the Founders are Gods is because that’s what they want you to believe? That they built it into your genetic code?’ ‘Of course they did. That’s what Gods do. After all, why be a God if there’s no-one to worship you?’ This is the level of sophistication in the dialogue that DS9 commanded in its latter years. I could write an entire discourse on this exchange. I won’t, but I could.

I wish they hadn’t done that – The oddest thing about this episode is just how much people talk about developments and don’t show them. There is an incredible amount of backstory, exposition and setting up of future events but little actually happens within the episode that isn’t on a character level. That’s fine, this is top dollar character material but it is fascinating that for all the plot Treachery, Faith and the Great River seems to wield, practically all of it happens off screen. That’s true of the subplot too, but that’s the funny part of it. Nog is committing so many bizarre transactions behind O’Brien’s back in which we are witness to the penalties and they get increasingly difficult for him to find excuses for.

A reason to watch this episode again – Rene Auberjonois and Jeffrey Combs playing character material in a single location. Not sold? Goodness, why not? Okay, how about more Jeffrey Combs, bold visuals, the first sign of Damar’s defection, the first shocking view of the changeling disease, Vorta back stories, a moody score, a hilarious comedy subplot featuring Aron Eisenberg at his most delightful, a shocking moment of suicide and a touching ending. This is everything DS9 does brilliantly and set in season seven it is at a point where the show has learnt how to hone all of its strengths. Every scene is an acting masterclass. The only reason this isn’t getting full marks is because I cannot imagine a casual viewer switching this on and getting much from it because at this point DS9 is so firmly entrenched in its own mythology. As a fan though, this is absolute gold. The look on Weyoun’s face when Odo gives him his blessing is priceless. It’s a culmination of years of character development for both characters delivering exceptional payoff. It still brings tears to my eyes and television very, very rarely does that.

****1/2 out of *****