2x03 The Siege (3)

[7.5/10] I’m a big fan of Michael Piller. In my book, his tour of duty as showrunner saved The Next Generation. He deserves to be venerated among the leading lights of the franchise for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is helping to launch Deep Space Nine. But he has a habit as a writer, of kicking off multi-part arcs with tons of moving parts, intriguing themes, and tantalizing teases, only to land them in a far more simplified and straightforward place.

That’s how I feel about “The Siege”, the conclusion to DS9’s Circle arc, with Piller receiving the writing credit. It’s a good episode! Everyone has something to do and little character moments to give them depth. There’s (mostly) clear objectives for everyone involved. It ably concludes the major threats and issues that have been percolating since season two began.

But it also flattens all the complicated concerns of Kira finding herself, Li Nalas’ arrival, competing factions within the Bajoran government and society, and the fraught relationship between Bajor and the Federation. Everything is tidily wrapped up here, without the thematic oomph or narrative complexity laid out in the season premiere. “The Siege” is an enjoyable hour of television, which capably delivers on the shows promises, but doesn’t live up to the arc’s potential.

To the point, I like the team-up of Kira and Dax fighting and working to deliver information on the Cardassians’ meddling to the Bajoran ministers. It’s a pairing we don’t get often, and the balance of Kira’s battle-worn pragmatism and Dax’s moving outside of her comfort zone of “gadgets and gizmos” gives them a strong dynamic. Their mission has stakes, and between Dax having to repair a decade old Bajoran dogfighter and Kira coaching her up on how to aim phasers without targeting software mid-firefight, there’s believable stakes and obstacles.

And yet, when they make it to the ministers’ chambers, there’s some token resistance from Jaro, and a betrayal from Winn (who’s enough of a political animal to know when her goose is cooked), but all it takes is Kira delivering the information to effectively end the coup in one fell swoop. There’s no indication of Jaro calling off his dogs or suggestion of why he wouldn’t try to bend this revelation to his advantage somehow. The details are just a cheat code that allows Kira to push the “stop coup” button. Given DS9’s bona fides, I’d expect to see the series explore more of the fallout, but for the moment, the resolution seems too easy.

The best you can say is that Jaro was relying on support from the military, and the combined efforts of Sisko and Li Nalas neutralized it (even if Jaro didn’t know about it at the time). Say what you will about the broader plot machinery and thematic work in “The Siege”, but Sisko and his stoways playing a cat and mouse game with the Bajoran military crew allied with Jaro is a fun series of set pieces.

Everybody has something to do. Dr. Bashir corners some foes in a cargo bay despite his lack of military experience. Odo morphs into a tripwire, in one of the episode’s more creative little sequences. Even Quark, marooned by his brother, hangs with the diehards in the vents, chowing down on combat rations with the faithful.

Hell, even though Quark doesn’t get involved in the action, per se, his little corner of the episode is one of the best. Watching him try to broker passage off the station for Bajorans who worked with the Federation, including by giving up Rom’s seat, only to find himself stranded when Rom turns the tables is a delight. There’s a number of endearing, human moments that take place during the evacuation, from Jake and Nog vindicating their unique friendship before time and necessity seem poised to separate them, to Keiko wondering why Chief O’Brien is so committed to staying behind and fighting the “Cardies” rather than staying with his wife and daughter. Amid the sector-shaking events of the episode, “The Siege” doesn’t forget about the smaller, more personal stories that add color and form to the larger adventures.

Granted, in the rush of trying to valorize Li Nalas as an inspirational figure, the episode glosses over the experiences of the Bajorans who cooperated with the Federation who want to leave. The episode uses their anxiousness to exeunt as an opportunity for Li to again use his stature for good, inspiring them to stay and fight for a free Bajor, freeing up the runabouts for the non-Bajorans who are ostensibly at greater risk from The Circle and its forces.

I understand what Deep Space Nine’s doing here. It’s a scene to show Li’s leadership abilities, the way he’s reluctant in this role, but also effective. Yet, it’s hard to look at this scene from the vantage point of 2022, shortly after the United States left Afghanistan, and not view it through the lens of fearful Afghanis wondering what will become of them when the Taliban retakes control and seeks to punish those who “collaborated” with American forces. Not every episode can do everything, and there’s a lot going on in “The Siege” as is, but it’s a layer of complexity the story elides which seems all too relevant to modern eyes.

Still, what they do tackle is fun. Our heroes luring their foes into a holodeck and trapping them makes for good tactics. The simple fact of Sisko, O’Brien, and Li sneaking around while The Circle takes over has an extra sense of coolness to it. And “The Siege” plays the Goofus and Gallant routine with Krim, the Bajoran general Sisko touched based with in the prior episode, and Colonel Day, a much more overzealous young officer. Day is a true-believer who’s hungry for glory and not afraid to elide the chain of command in service of aggression, whereas Krim is a more measured strategist, who refuses to underestimate his enemy or ignore important reveals. It’s a simple juxtaposition, but an effective one.

The difference matters when, spurred on by Sisko, Li chooses to try to talk to General Krim about what he knows of the Cardassian involvement rather than aiming to make a futile charge, a move that succeeds. There’s the sense of cooler heads prevailing here, Sisko trying to avoid any casualties, Li using his heroic status to change minds rather than shoot and fight. It speaks to the values of Star Trek, of trying to understand your foes, find diplomatic solutions to problems, and make the hard but right choices over the convenient but wrong ones.

The catch is that this doesn’t really move the ball in a meaningful way from the points made in “Homecoming” two episodes ago. Li is reluctant. Sisko encourages him to use his legend to help his people. Li does. The end. Sure, it’s a little more action-y this time around, but given the “living for your people is harder than dying for them” message, this episode doesn’t do much to dramatize it for the character any differently than they did in his first appearance. The Circle arc doesn’t really develop its core themes or advance the intricate political and diplomatic plots it spun up. It merely recapitulates the ideas and ends on a note of “everything’s solved now.”

The only difference here, of course, is that Li dies. Colonel Day, aggrieved that his mission failed and his subterfuge was found out, tries to shoot Sisko, with Li diving in to take the phaser blast instead. Charitably, it’s probably intended to be another dose of poetic irony, with Li having chosen to take on the mantle of a living public hero for the good of Bajor, only to find himself dying at the hands of his countryman anyway. But in practice, it feels like a convenient way to write Li out of the show rather than deal with the complications his continued presence would create, something which adds its own ironies or resonance.

The one element that advances the ball here is Kira. She lost Kai Opaka before. Now she’s lost Li Nalas. Once again, the leaders she believes her people need desperately have met untimely ends when Bajor seems to need them most. The irony there of course, as hinted by both Sisko, Kira’s vision, and her heroics in this episode, is that she might be the person she’s been looking for, however much she fails to see herself that way.

Still, in the end, “The Siege” ends on a note of “all is well and normal.” Jake and his father have a warm reunion together. Federation citizens pour back onto the promenade. Sisko and O’Brien share a Jebediah Springfield-esque moment of valorizing Li Nalas the folk hero, regardless of the real man, because it’s what will help Bajor the most. None of it’s bad. It’s all just a little tidier than the complex issues and tangled plot threads this season started with offered to us.

What I like about Deep Space 9 is that, more than any other Star Trek series, it eschewed simple answers and neat resolutions. Even before it would become more formally serialized, the show’s stationary setting allowed it to build on ongoing conflicts and dynamics that were trickier, albeit not impossible, for more mobile series. What happened in one episode could easily have ripples down the line, because the people and places often stayed the same, which allowed for a richness in the layers of diplomatic and interpersonal relationships that are more challenging in single-serving stories.

Michael Piller made his bones on those types of stories in Star Trek. And for that matter, he’s damn good at them. But the demands of episodic television mean settling everything you set up by the end of the hour, or at least the end of your three-parter. The resolution to The Circle arc, the rise and fall of men like Minister Jaro and Li Nalas are all satisfying enough, with a beginning, middle, and end that leaves them sturdy and sound. But it’s missing that extra layer of unfinished business, the added complications and ripples of these events, that would only firmly take hold once Piller stepped aside.