Officially, “The Ship” is the100th episode of DS9. It clocks in at 98th here because I combined “Emissary” and “The Way of the Warrior” as the two hour movies they originally aired as rather than the split episodes they are in syndication. This means we are moving steadily towards the end of the DS9 run of reviews and likely trek reviews in general, at least for a while.“The Ship” would have served as afar better season premiere. It is one of the more intriguing of the fifth year because it helps change the way Trek presents war. Often, conflict is highly sanitized in Trek. Phasor blasts cleanly disintegrate their targets with no mess. Usually said targets are aliens for whom we have no attachment, but the good guys do not get off easy, either. Seventy-three crewmembers died onscreen in TOS, most often anonymously and without comment from the series regulars. The Next Generation was not much better.
The situation is ironic considering one of the best episodes of Trek in general, “A Taste of Armageddon,” involves war becoming so clean ad bloodless, people are willing to fight one just as quickly as they would agree to run an errand. It should have been a lesson for trek in general, but I do not think anyone in charge noticed. Deep Space Nine changes the tone with a number of episodes before, but especially during, the Dominion War storyline.
Half the command staff is on a mission to a remote planet in the Gamma Quadrant to explore the possibility of establishing a mining operation when they find a crashed dominion ship with a large crew of dead Jem Ha’dar aboard. Theydecide to salvage it for any intelligence value. Another Dominion ship arrives and attacks as the crew attempts to salvage the downed ship. Several are killed and another, Munoz, is severely wounded.
The crew takes shelter inside the ship, but the Jem Ha’dar do not follow. Their Vorta leader arranges a meeting with Sisko in which she offers to take them back to Federation space if they will leave the ship alone. Sisko does not trust her, so he refuses. The rest of the episode becomes a standoff with the ticking clock of Munoz’s wound being mortal without treatment.
But all is not as it appears. Unbeknownst to Sisko, there is a Changeling in hiding on the ship who is also severely wounded. Both heand Munoz eventually die from their wounds. The Jem Ha’dar commit suicide in response for their failure to save their god. All the deaths are pointless. If only the two sides had trusted each other, everyone would have survived.
The mission is successful. Starfleet is thrilled to get the crashed ship. They do not fault sisko for his decision, but he does. Everyone’s blood is on his hands because he made the wrong decision.
There is alsoa poignant moment at the end in which O’Brien is keeping vigil over Munoz’s casket. Munoz had saved O’Brien’s life from a Jem Ha’Dar shortly before he died. His sacrifice gnaws at O’Brien. Worf comes by and tells O’Brien he is honoring an old Klingon tradition of protecting a fallen comrade on his way to their version of Valhalla and asks to join him. Many fans note that Klingons have disregarded the corpses of their fallen comrades as empty shells and consider this scene a mistake. I think they are wrong. Worf tells O’Brien a fib to make him feel as though he is returning the favor by protecting Munoz just as he had done. The scene is two old comrades in arms from the Enterprise looking out for each other.
I think that scene and Sisko’s angst make the episode. There is an effort to create a last stand at the Alamo vibe to the story, but it falls flat for me in comparison. It is the aftermath of war, when losses are counted and second guesses torment, that mean more emotionally than the war itself. “The Ship’ might have earned five stars if it could have made both aspects equally compelling.
Rating: **** (out of 5)
