We’re continuing on in our watch party of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. This week’s episode is Babel.
Babel is a very pleasant surprise. It is the best episode of the season so far. We’re only four episodes in, so that is not a very high bar, but I liked this one.
I’m very much enjoying this project, even if I’m not enjoying each episode of DS9. This entire process has been very interesting, and I’ve discovered a very weird side-effect of writing these blog posts about TV shows. Writing a review/commentary about what I’m watching, or knowing that I’m going to be writing about what I’m currently watching in the moments that I am actually watching, enhances my enjoyment of the show.
Normally when I watch TV or movies, the judgment process is fairly simple. Did I enjoy it? Yes or no. Enjoyment is a catch-all description that generally ties in things like emotional investiture, excitement, discovery, intrigue, suspense, living vicariously through exploits on the screen, etc. Am I having fun?
It also depends a lot on the thinking that goes on in my head when watching films or episodes. “I’ve never thought of that aspect before” always gets a higher rating than “that is clearly wrong” or “that would never happen,” for instance. How much it makes me think is generally a positive, usually because if I’m thinking about the plot or premise, then I have bought into it. I’m buying it. I’m suspending my disbelief.
There is always some level of enjoyment just based upon how well the actors, directors, editors, effects teams, lighting, set crew, etc., all did their jobs too. I’m not involved in the creation of anything, and I’m certainly not an expert, but I have had some professional training in the production of video media, and I appreciate it when someone’s care for their craft, their artistry, their creativity, and their professionalism come through on the screen.
To get back to the point, however, when I’m writing about these episodes I’m much less concerned about my simple pleasure/enjoyment/engagement, and I pay a little more attention to the other stuff. I don’t know if this will raise the ceiling of my possible enjoyment of the show, but it has certainly raised the floor of my level of enjoyment.
Primary Plot
Babel’s plot is relatively straight-forward. The episode starts out focusing on Miles O’Brien, who I always appreciate as a character, but Miles is quickly incapacitated with an inability to communicate. He can’t speak anything but nonsense and he can’t understand anyone else either, but the rest of his mental faculties are largely unaffected.
The reason for the strange symptoms turns out to be a gift left by the Bajorans for the Cardassians when the station was built. It is a small MacGuffin that inserts a genetically engineered virus into the replication patterns of anything that is replicated by the replicators (Star Trek). The intent was to conduct biological warfare against the Cardassians by the Bajoran freedom fighters, and O’Brien accidentally hooked it up and triggered it when he was repairing things on the busted-up DS9.
Secondary Plots
There really aren’t any secondary plots in this particular episode. Everything is focused in one direction, and everything is moving towards a common goal. It was very refreshing, and I think it helped amp up the buy-in on this episode (spectacularly stupid writing notwithstanding—we’ll get there).
We do get a lot of character development, however, on characters you’d rather least expect.
The doctor gets a lot of screen time in this episode. He’s fine. He’s neither impressive nor a distraction, except for one scene in which he tells Commander Sisko that he only has 12 hours to find a cure or O’Brien, and everyone else, is dead. It’s just another one of those things he brings up to Sisko in a nonchalant conversation standing around in the med bay after Sisko asks him how he’s doing. There’s no urgency portrayed by the doctor, no furiously fiddling with gear or looking studiously at a screen trying to pick through important pieces of info… Just, information dump. Tech Sgt. Fred Kwan would have been right at home in this scene. Terrible writing #1 (probably directing too).
Major Kira does have an enjoyable little part, coming up with a plan to obtain information on a cure from the party they believe may have engineered the virus. She heads down to Bajoran to make this happen, and at first, Sisko is adamant that she not leave the station. She tells him she doesn’t plan to set foot on Bajoran, and he’s suddenly just “Ok, sure.” Drops the subject, doesn’t ask for more info, doesn’t back down, doesn’t catch on to her plan, just, “fine, whatever” and drops it, moving on. Terrible Writing #2 (also probably directing).
The characters that really shine, however, are the two you might least expect to have much to do in a pandemic episode: Quark and Odo.
We get to see Quark work behind the scenes at taking care of Quark first. Make Quark Great has to be his motto. If something is not good for Quark, it is not done. No rules or regulations have any sway over him. He’s strictly out for self-improvement, generally via profit. He will avoid confrontations with those who can harm him because being harmed would not be good for Quark.
We also get to see what he has going for him. He is sneaky, and he has backdoors and tools to access what he needs in the station. He has some kind of thumb drive devices he can insert into computer terminals to bypass access restrictions, giving him unlimited access to information in the ship’s computer. What does he do with this info? He finds out which replicators on the station are working (his establishment’s replicators are broken) and then cuts himself an access card to get into an unused room with a working replicator where he produces all the foodstuffs needed for his business.
Odo, of course, catches him at this and confronts him. These two are going to be primary adversaries throughout most of the show, I think, and I’m looking forward to it. They are going to have a love/hate relationship and be constantly engaged in a low-stakes squabble.
Odo ends up assuming control of the station as everyone else succumbs to the virus (more on the amazingly crap-tastic writing there in a bit). One ship is trying to break quarantine and is trying to literally break away from the station, but in doing so is actively breaking the station. Sisko had commanded them to be released, and then a tractor beam would be placed on the ship before they could get away, thereby preserving the quarantine and DS9’s hull integrity, but the locking clamps were stuck to the forces applied on them by the ship trying to leave.
The ship is also doing itself no favors, overloading its reactor or engines or something in its struggle to break free. It is going to explode, and probably take the entirety of DS9 with it. Sisko was trying to ineffectively “leadership” his way into a solution for that when he succumbed to the virus and could no longer communicate.
So, it is Odo. Odo is all that remains, and Odo can’t do it alone. There’s only one other creature left cognitively unimpaired on DS9, and that is Quark (thanks to his superior Ferengi immune system, so he says). Quark and Odo must team up to save DS9, and thereby save Quark.
In another humorous little scene (it is impossible to tell if half the stuff Quark says is meant to be serious from his point of view, or if he’s just yanking chains), Quark convinces Odo to let him beam Odo to the stuck docking clamps. It’s the only way to get there fast enough, and Quark has witnessed the process dozens of times. Odo is alarmed that he has never actually done it before, but has no further time to object as Quark does as he said. Odo releases the ship and it pulls away just in time and explodes. The station is saved, quarantine is preserved, and there is sufficient time for Kira’s maneuver to capture the biologist to force a cure. The day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after, until the next episode.
Other Thoughts
Star Trek isn’t SF. I’d like to get back to that discussion. The writers have no concept of anything at all. In fact (warning, big, crap-tastic writing reveal incoming), the writers don’t believe in science, genetics, or evolution, but more importantly, the WRITERS DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN STAR TREK!
This bio-engineered super virus that was formulated to attack and kill Cardassians by the Bajorans does infect the Cardassians. It also infects humans. It also infects every other alien on the station. All the little background extras aliens all get sick from it too. Why? Because even to the writers, aliens on Star Trek are just humans in a rubber suit. There’s no concept of cross-species transmissions of the virus, and even though it was developed to work on the Cardassians, it also miraculously works on every species ever.
Except for Odo and Quark.
Why? Because plot armor. There’d be no one left to save the day without it, and we wouldn’t have that fun scene where they had to work together.
There’s no reason to suspect that Odo and Quark wouldn’t eventually succumb, either. It could be argued that they just hadn’t developed symptoms yet, but would inevitably succumb too if the cure was not given to them soon. But even if that is the case, that still leads us back to the amazingly, mind-numbingly terrible, non-scientific writing of a disease that just affects everyone the same. We aren’t talking about a disease that that is jumping species but is just infecting members of the same Taxonomic class (mammals, for example).
We’re talking about infecting multiple species, each one of which is not in the same Domain as any of the others. They share no common genetic descendants, unless Star Trek is going to go with the “seeded” story of the origins of life in the Universe. Even then, it isn’t going to happen. It might be conceivable of one miraculous fluke where a disease might be able to jump from one alien species to a human or vice versa, but everyone? C’mon, man!
Final Grade: C
All bad writing aside, the episode is well done and very enjoyable to watch. The bad writing really tanked it, though. I could have seen this episode making a push for solid B territory without that.
Odo may not have succumbed because he’s not humanoid. And just FYI, though it doesn’t negate your point, there was an story that established the “seeding.” Funny thing is It never even occurred to me that there’d be a cross species transmission issue, and I think that’s because it’s just a trope of Star Trek, that all humanoid species are really the same deep down because socialist utopia, unless maybe it helps the plot.