Prodigal Daughter

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Trill businesswoman Yanas Tigan runs the sector's sixth largest pergium mining company with a duranium fist. Not literally, but she does have a heart of stone. Or latinum, anyway. No, if she had a heart of gold she would have sold it.


And Yanas holds despot status over her worn-out children: hardworking foreman Janel, struggling artist Norvo, and Ezri. You remember Ezri, don't you? Ninth Dax host? Mentally addled psychologist?

Well, her horrible family doesn't live in paradise. They live in a big glass house dangling over a precipice, and today we throw some stones.

Their world (either Sappora VII or New Sydney or both, depending on how you take the vagaries of the script) is one of those polluted-looking crap-piles like Farius or Finnea Prime that 21st century audiences find familiar but which are always strange to see in the enlightened 24th Century. Incongruous obsession with money and power. Dysfunctional families. Hard hats.

I'm not saying you can't wear hard hats. Hard hats are cool. But, well, it's all very primitive, isn't it? Are we saying that the Trill AREN'T Federation members? Then why is greed such a motivating factor in their lives? Hasn't egalitarian technological and social harmony reached them yet? How many Federation planets really start to suck if you look too close?

Oh, and incidentally, who killed O'Brien's cat Chester's former owner's widow Morica Bilby? As if anyone cared.

"Prodigal Daughter" is very well played, if you like back-stabbing daytime drama (and I suspect if they added clones, robots, and flying cars that would be ME). Doesn't seem like Star Trek, but it's well played.