While somewhat flat on the Gamma Quadrant side of things (the villagers really do seem the same as every other generic community Trek shows us), I really enjoyed the father/son dynamic between Ben and Jake Sisko, and the playful plot with Kira trying to keep Quark in check while Odo was away.
Bareil is still a creep. He abuses his position of authority to get in Kira's pants, which is just… ugh. I realized that that's why I don't like him. Starfleet forbids officers from "fraternizing" with subordinates, because the imbalanced power dynamic creates opportunities for abuse. But Bareil is more like a teacher trying to bang his student than a superior, which is even worse even though their ages are similar.
It's not a great episode, but even though pretty much every turn is easily predicted from miles away I found it better than "Meh". The actors cast to play the villagers really were well chosen, and they turned out darn great performances despite not having much to work with in the script. (I always make a point of acknowledging when actors' work surpasses the quality of the script they're working from, because it never fails to amaze me how good acting can often make poor writing passable, if not good.) A more complex story about that village, with very few B- and C-scenes back on the station, would have been worthwhile just to see more of those performers.
The ingredients are all there for a good episode, but this one leaves me pretty bored. The villagers are charming thanks to the actors cast, but they're also very clichéd and feel like ones we've seen in far too many Trek episodes. There is some genuine emotion involved in the revelation of what they are and what defines a life. Odo is quite wonderful here.
Far more interesting is Jake's story on board the station as he tries to let his dad know that he's never wanted to join Starfleet. I just love the father/son dynamic these two have, it's always done so well. Bareil is back too and he's still a bit too creepy, but fortunately nowhere near as much as his previous appearances.
Much like the people disappearing in this episode, so is my attention span.
That's a nice little A-plot. You learn more about Odo. That's nice. He's a good guy. That girl is great. The A-plot is a mystery/crime story. What's behind the mystery is fascinating. It's another sentient holograms story. This is not new to this franchise. The connected philosophical questions have been discussed before. But ultimately this story isn't strong enough to fill the whole episode. It's also too inconsequential. We'll never see those people again.
That's why they had multiple B-plots. One is one of Jake's coming of age stories. Another story is about Kira's romance with the Vedek. Both stories show that DS9 will continue to tell stories that began in earlier episodes. Star Trek usually fails to tell romantic stories. Kira's story ain't exactly passionate either but it's at least not total cringe. It's also great that Jake won't end up like Wesley whoose only goal was to become an imitation of his late dad and all the officers around him. He needs to find his own paths in life. And we'll watch him along his way. All the B-plots feel very much like soap opera material though. The Quark C-story isn't different. It's filler material. Perhaps we could even call the whole episode a filler episode. That's always a damning thing to say though.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-02-13T21:00:36Z
[5.8/10] I hesitate to use the term “filler episode”. Even stories without major contributions to the ongoing plot can be vital contributions to the fabric of a series. Some of Star Trek’s finest outings are episodes without much in the way of stakes or lasting impact on the world of the franchise, but which still use the characters and setting to grasp at some profound human truth.
But “Shadowplay” feels like a complete filler episode. It shouldn’t! Significant things happen here! Odo makes a human connection with someone! Kira and Vederk Bareil admit their feelings for one another! Jake tells his dad he doesn’t want to join Starfleet! These are theoretically monumental developments across the board. And yet, the whole vibe of the episode is so low stakes and lackadaisical that it’s hard to care about anything that happens.
The A-story, and I use the term generously, sees Odo and Dax beaming down to the planet of the week and helping with a colony’s unexpected missing persons problem. It’s a fairly standard Star Trek mystery, one which naturally intrigues Odo in his role as a detective, and there’s plenty of places to go with it.
The catch is that despite twenty-eight citizens going missing, nobody seems particularly worried about it. Granted, there’s an explanation for the man who secretly created this holographic simulation seeming nonplussed about it. But everybody else seems pretty placid about so many of their friends and family members disappearing, even the “protector” who’s supposedly investigating the loss. Maybe the main colonist programmed them to be serene, but it leads to a soporific effect on the audience when the whole cast appears to be pretty chill about the instant crisis.
That extends to the little girl who becomes the emotional lever of the episode. After a lecture from Dax on how he stays too closed off to close relationships, Odo finds a certain kinship with a little girl in the colony. It’s not a bad emotional throughline. Showing that a gruff character has a softer side when they’re kind to children is a cliche, but one that exists for a reason. It’s endearing to watch Odo assume a protective air about this child, even if she too seems not especially bothered by the fact that her mom’s gone missing.
There’s a similarly endearing parental relationship, hobbled by the sense of being underdone, in one of the episode’s B-stories. Commander Sisko sends Jake to apprentice with Chief O’Brien in the hopes that it will help pave the way for Jake to enter Starfleet Academy. (Benjamin says “Starfleet Academy” the same way the principal from Daria says “Lawndale High.”) Jake struggles at the task and admits to Chief O’Brien that he doesn’t really want to join Starfleet. Miles tells him his own “went against what my dad wanted” story and encourages Jake to explain his wishes to his father.
There’s something there! As Miles’ parallel backstory affirms, there’s a litany of “I don’t want your life” stories between fathers and sons out there. Ben continues to be a model parent here, accepting his son’s confession with grace and acceptance, rather than disappointment, and encouraging Jake to follow his dreams wherever they take him, knowing he can count on his father’s love and support. Jake’s hesitancy is relatable, and Benjamin’s acceptance is wholesome.
The problem is that we’ve never had much of an inkling that Jake doesn’t want to join Starfleet before, or outside of one glancing mention in the last episode, that Benjamin wants his son to join the service. So while the basic outline of this one is nice enough, it’s not rooted in anything previously established about the characters. Instead, the conflict comes out of nowhere, so the resolution, while pleasant on paper, loses a lot of its impact.
Still, even that’s better than the bizarre Kira/Vareil/Quark storyline. There’s nothing wrong with this being a slice of life episode where Kira relationship with her Vedek beau advances. I’m not particularly swayed by the attraction. Their chemistry’s not entirely absent but hardly crackling. But on the surface at least, you can appreciate the two of them stealing a moment away and finally making good on their flirtation, despite a certain rudderlessness to the whole thing.
And yet, “Shadowplay” tries to tie it with Quark attempting to get away with some extra crime while Odo’s off the ship and Kira’s temporarily in charge of security. I take the intended irony/joke to be that while Quark’s trying to further his criminal enterprises by dealing in purloined Cardassian goods and luring Bajorian religious leaders to gamble, his skullduggery inadvertently led to Kira’s unofficial boyfriend coming aboard thereby taking her off the table for Quark. It’s a strange tone to take to a story, which seems muddled at best with how we’re supposed to feel about this situation and why.
That just leaves Odo’s business back on the planet. It turns out the reason all the colonists are disappearing is that they’re holograms, and the particle emitter that sustains them is breaking down. Odo and Dax discover this, and explain it to the town, who are understandably agog at the revelation.
It’s a solid twist. Once again, it’s hard to care about any of it given that no one in the episode seems to, but there’s a fascinating idea at the core of a town made up of artificial life forms who don’t know they’re artificial. (TNG played with similar ideas just a few weeks prior.) There’s pathos in the reveal that the dying old man Odo met earlier is the colony’s creator, who made this place out of a sense to spend his twilight years in the beautiful community he remembered, not the one disrupted by the Dominion. You can understand the human impulse despite the sci-fi extravagance, which is a good sweet spot for Star Trek to rest within.
But these reveals come so late in the episode that there’s no way to really explore them. They’re just sort of tossed out at the end for the audience to chew on, without any Starfleet officers or colonists truly having to grapple with it. The only bit with resonance is Odo’s insistence that the colonists are still real despite their holographic status, with the subtext that he cares for the little girl he’s bonded with and that help makes her real and worth saving in his eyes. (Hello fans of Voyager’s doctor!) It’s undercooked, but it fits with the theme of Odo making a close connection with someone, which motivates his actions.
Hell, it’s worth it for a little more backstory on Odo, which I’m always here for. It’s communicated that Odo’s reluctant to make friends because, once again, he’s used to people seeing him as a party trick, and stung by the sense that what appeared to be friendships in the past were really people just using him for his gifts. It’s a tidy explanation for his reluctance to open up which builds on what we know from his conversation with Lwaxana Troi, and it makes his willingness to turn into a spinning top for the little girl meaningful, because it’s a sign he knows she won’t reduce him to just that.
Still, so much of this material plays like listless filler. The energy is low, the stakes are minimal, and the conflicts are random and neutered. I can’t tell fans to skip this one, because things that happen here matter. But for such a theoretically eventful episode, “Shadowplay” feels surprisingly empty and thin.