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.

Facets

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Dax asks her seven most convenient friends to join her in the Zhian'tara; the Trill Rite of Closure. Literally... JOIN her. "I'd like to borrow your bodies for a few hours."

Because who WOULDN'T want Group Therapy- all by themselves?

A Guardian telepathically sieves out the past hosts into volunteers to interact with Jadzia:
Kira as Lela, the first Dax Host- a legislator or suffragette, or something.
O'Brien as Tobin, Brilliant Braintrust, Nervous Nelly, Spirit Guide author.
Leeta as Emony the limber, limber gymnast. Rrwowr!
Quark as Audrid, tenderhearted soccer mom. Jadzia needs more gal pals.
Bashir as Torias, Died Young, Left Good-Looking Corpse. With a worm in it.
Sisko as Joran the whack job.
Peter Davison as The Fifth Doctor.
And Odo as Curzon.

The forcefulness of Curzon's personality and Odo's innate malleability is an unprecedented combination. Curzondo is a hard-living, hard-tranya-drinking, Benson-employing, selfish jerk that Jadzia fears she cannot stand up to.

Odo never ingested things before, due to the mess. Once Curzon departed, Odo must have had to expel more liquid than six Denevan racehorses.

Meanwhile, Quark wants Nog to take after Jake. At least the Not-Joining-Starfleet part of Jake.
But as their newest cadet reminds him: "Uncle, he wants to be a writer. There's no profit in that."

"Facets" is more fun than Voyager's similarly titled and themed 'Faces', for those into sci-fi navel-gazing. Plus it's easier to re-watch than 'Sybil'!
Avery Brooks' creepy Joran was the second attempt. The LESS creepy version. Yikes.

Invasive Procedures

*** (3 stars out of 5)

The sky outside Deep Space Nine looks like the sky outside my house: ominous and rumbling.

Quark waxes nostalgic for his dear departed brother, Rom. Departed temporarily because of the plasma storm, that is. "He couldn't find a cup of water if you dropped him in a lake," Quark sighs.

Poor lost cargo ship Ekina really, really needs help.  They're overloaded with guns and Klingons and LIES! They force Odo to get in a box, and Bashir to put the box in stasis. (And no more whining about how Odo breaks the laws of physics whenever he changes in mass. Odo only has to follow ODO's LAWS! Odo AM the Law! Sorry, just a little Judge Dredd moment, there.)

The leader of the cutthroats is that duplicitous scoundrel Lionel Luther's Identical Trill cousin Verad. Or a descendant of Gremlins 2's Daniel Clamp. Either way, a Trill, and he wants the Dax symbiont for himself at the cost of Jadzia's life. Did I say cutthroats? It's really more of an abdomen slitting...

Jadzia's parents and sister weren't chosen for joining; only one in ten candidates are. Washout Verad wasn't willing to settle for a life of slug-less mediocrity, and there's a nice, convenient Gamma Quadrant to run to afterwards. Verad shoots O'Brien to make Bashir co-operate with the operation. How did this gentleman fail the psyche evaluations, I wonder?

Verad's GF Mareel worked at an 'accommodation house' on Kefka IV. Verad was her client, who took her off that world when he was recalled to Trill. (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't sleep overnight  somewhere called Kefka. Don't want to awaken as some Gregor Samsa bug.)

Verad Dax is now a proud, confident Trill, with two lifetimes of history with Benjamin Sisko. But no stories of the Cliffs of Bole and too many helpings of Andorian Redbat will erase the fact that Verad Dax only exists at the cost of Jadzia's life. Also, he's aloof with Mareel to the point of jerk-holishness.

Facing the prospect that this is entirely his fault for inviting this vampire inside, Quark attacks a Klingon, fakes a fatal earache, and teams up with Bashir to pick the lockbox and free Odo. It might not seem like much comeuppance for putting half a dozen lives at risk, but maybe having a Klingon 'doctor' your most erogenous zone is punishment enough. Yeeouch!

Tables turned, Sisko gets the Dax slug back by stunning Verad. (Actually risker shooting him in the torso, I would have thought. Wouldn't a head shot be less risky to that wacky little brain slug?)

"Invasive Procedures" made me notice that Dr. Bashir is manning up. Snapping 'Your mama' at Quark last episode, now barking orders at an armed Klingon? Brave move, buddy. I've still got a bit of a man crush.