Plot – Can you imagine anything drearier than a paper on Dr
Bashir’s latest medical breakthrough? I’m still astonished that they managed to
dramatize some of those into actual episodes…and that they turn out to be some
of the best of the entire run (The Quickening, Inter Arma). Hearing about his
dry and dusty conference on prion replication sounds thoroughly tedious and it
would take all of Jake’s prowess as a journalist to turn it into a suspenseful
documentary. How wonderful then that the Klingons have invaded a medical
outpost on the border and they are near enough to attend and help out. Surgery
Under Fire sounds so much more dramatic…
Character – Every year (except the last one, strangely) I
feel like there is a breakout episode for Jake. Anybody who cringed at the
though of DS9 going down the route of having a kid on board probably had a bit
of egg on their face at this point. Episodes like The Visitor, Shattered
Mirror, Nor the Battle and Valiant really go to show the benefit of allowing a
child character to grow up in a hostile environment and find his own path in
life. Jake thankfully chose not to pursue a career in Starfleet, which makes
him pretty damn sensible in my book and given his mother died precisely for
that reason it is far more than just cowardice and laziness on his part. Writing
is his bag, and specifically journalism is career and it is exploited a couple
of times a year to dramatic and sometimes comedic effect. Nor the Battle is
probably the best Jake episode as played by Cirroc Lofton. I would say The
Visitor, of course, but the plaudits there belong to Tony Todd. This is a
chance to see exactly what this character is made of, throwing him into a
genuinely horrific situation and making him face up to his own fearfulness and
bravery. Lofton is more than up to the task and shows himself to be an actor of
some skill in some very difficult scenes. I think the moment Jake realises he
is in a completely new environment is when his shirt is grabbed by a man who is
taking his painful last breath and he steps back, his shirt saturated in fresh
blood. The look on his face when he steps into the makeshift mortuary of fresh
bodies is one of numbness and disbelief. Jake running away from Bashir in
trouble seems like a very sensible thing to do in the circumstances (there are
literally explosions going off all around him) and this isn’t an act of
cowardice but self-preservation. I guess the line between those two things is
pretty thin. I really like how Jake has the guts to write up his experiences at
the hospital honestly, including admitting how frightened he was and how saving
the day was a complete fluke. That’s real bravery. Facing up to what you might
consider the uglier side of your personality and admitting openly that you’re
not perfect. As a character in the Roddenberry universe, that is real courage.
I’d like to highlight some of the characters who aren’t the
regulars this week because there are some really interesting things happening.
There’s the Bolian orderly who has been at this game for so long now that he
has developed a sick sense of humour to see him through. Kirby is a sweet nurse
who develops quite an affection for Jake and tries to see him through. It would
have been nice had this been a little romantic subplot, but it’s there
unrequited in the subtext if you want to see it. The best scenes belong to the
two characters who behave in a distinctly un-Starfleet way. The unnamed Ensign
(he isn’t given a name despite his importance to the story, and that almost
feels deliberate on the part of the writers to punish a man who turned from his
duty) who shoots himself in the foot just to escape the front lines is the
perfect encapsulation of what is essentially a young man with his whole life
ahead of him being forced into a combat situation for some obscure reason.
There’s a good chance that had he not blown his foot away that he would be
dead. Which is the better option? Cowardice or death? The episode doesn’t
comment on that directly, it just states how he will be professionally
punished. He strikes me as one of the most realistic characters that Star Trek
has ever presented, and he doesn’t even have a name.
Performance – I’ve heard complaints that the character of
Burke is crazy over the top, which is an interesting angle to take given he has
had his stomach sliced open and he is holding his guts in place. Let’s see how
calm those same critics would be in the same situation.
Great Dialogue – ‘Back home, pregnancy is considered a rental’ ‘Rental?’‘Decapitation has its virtues. A nice clean blow with a sharp bat’leth’ ‘The brain lives on for five, ten seconds at least. In theory, your headless corpse could be the las thing you see’ ‘You’re so negative.’
Production – In order for this episode to work the hospital
sequences needed to be as realistic as possible and so director Kim Friedman
goes for a messy, unco-ordinated, handheld approach with activity going on
everywhere, people being carried, operated on, dying and screaming in every
direction. It’s extremely well done, more like an episode ER underground and
they have the skill of doing this every week behind them. In the middle of all
this madness you have Jake, a centre of still panic, out of his depth and
unsure what to do with himself.
Seeing bloody, savaged bodies strewn about on the misty
battlefield in the brilliant sunlight really is new territory for Trek. I’m
surprised they managed to get this sequence through. It perfectly encapsulates
why war is hell. And utterly pointless. And terrifying.
Best moment – But DS9 didn’t have the chemistry and the good
humour that the other Trek shows had, I hear you say. Check out the ‘Quark-tajino’
sequence after the credits. ‘Why does pregnancy always make men hysterical?’
It’s that exact same delicate thread of humour that you have TNG and VOY,
albeit with a little more bite. And the scene where Odo talks about attempting
to change into a hawk, forgetting that he doesn’t have ability to shapeshift
anymore. And the scene where Dax talks about being a parent countless times.
God, I love these characters. How the episode stresses the relationship between
Sisko and Jake despite the fact that they only share a single scene together,
is impressive.
The moment Jake finally loses his composure at all the
nurses who are joking about how they are going to die…surrounded by bodies
still gives me goosebumps. You can see perfectly why they have developed this
twisted sense of humour, because it helps them get through this hell. But from
Jake’s point of view, who is suffering trauma and guilt, it looks like they
taking the piss out of all the pain and suffering that is haunting him. There
are some complex things going on in that scene. That’s followed up with a
sequence of Jake, traumatised and terrified, bursting into tears. I wish Trek
would venture into real trauma like this more often, because it shows up the
franchise’s usual reset on feelings when characters face ghastly situations
that would genuinely test them.
A reason to watch this episode again – The really
interesting thing about this episode is what happens when you take an
idealistic Star Trek character and place them in a situation that is distinctly
un-Star Trek. It’s a hospital full of the dead and dying, cowards and
psychopaths, blood and guts and Klingons banging on the door and ready to slice
open anybody who gets in their way. It’s claustrophobic, gusty and terrifying
and simply not the sort of thing that TNG or VOY would dip their toes into. In
walks Jake full of bluster and he’s put through trials of anxiety and terror
and facing up to his own fear. That alone is enough of a pitch to get excited
about but with some terrific direction, top notch performances and moments
where I genuinely questioned whether they would get out of this alive and you
have a classic episode of DS9 (let’s not call it Trek). I love the dirtiness of
it; the moral dubiousness of some of the characters, the graphic nature of the
surgery scenes and the claustrophobic horror, even when the episode goes
outside in the blistering sunshine. This isn’t the episode that makes Jake a
man (who knows what that even means) but it’s the episode that shows him just
how brave the people are who chose the path he didn’t, and that his chosen
profession may lead to some frightening experiences. Lofton is superb and has
fantastic chemistry with Siddig – I wish the writers had returned to that well
more often. Trek can’t be like this all the time otherwise it starts becoming
something a little twisted and nasty, but a handful of times each season DS9
took the punt and tried something quite different from the norm. Here they
really hit gold.
***** out of *****
1 comment:
When are you getting back to posting Big Finish reviews??
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