1x08 Dax

[8.5/10] Many of the best Star Trek episodes break down to a series of questions. Those questions can be practical, legal, philosophical, or personal. But what they have in common is the way they engage us as viewers, make us want to know the answers or force us to come up with our own. Captain Picard famously declared that every Starfleet officer’s first duty is to the truth. And the path to discovering that truth, the inquisitiveness at the heart of this franchise, represents Star Trek at its best.

The story engine for “Dax” hinges on those practical questions. Who are these strange brutes attempting to kidnap Dax? What crimes did Curzon supposedly commit? What exactly happened on their home planet thirty years ago, involving the death of a local hero, that spurred this would-be posse? And will a Bajoran adjudicator grant extradition so that Dax can be transported there and put to death for a crime her predecessor is accused of?

These queries fuel the episode. We open with a dramatic (and fairly intense) struggle. The other characters, and audience, are left to piece together what happened in Dax’s past to spur all this. And there’s a central issue to set the stakes, namely whether Sisko and company will be able to save off extradition so that their colleague can stay on the station and, more importantly, continue living. The answers to these questions aren’t obvious (beyond the fact that, of course, Dax is going to survive all of this), and the intrigue and breadcrumbs we get along the way keep this one interesting.

But the episode’s also full of legal questions. Who has jurisdiction here? Can Jadzia legally be held accountable for the actions of Curzon? Does a new Trill host accept the legal responsibilities for the symbiont’s past actions when knowingly becoming joined? What arguments might sway a no-nonsense Bajoran arbitrator in a courtroom setting (or the best approximation of one Quark’s can provide) to rule in favor of one side or another?

As I’ve talked about in my write-ups for episodes like “Court Martial” from The Original Series and “Measure of a Man” from The Next Generation, a legal dilemma often works like gangbusters on Star Trek. It provides clear stakes, a framework for big speeches, and a venue for wrestling with the thorny issues that are at the core of the franchise.

“Dax” is no exception. It’s fun watching Sisko grope for loopholes, ginning up delays by asking for confirmation of the warrant for Dax’s arrest, and enlisting Kira to run Bajoran interference since the would-be authorities clearly executed their plan with Cardassian help aboard a Bajoran station. The jousting over extradition rights and the hashing out of legal principles in the courtroom is a blast, in ways that show clever legal maneuvering rather than dry procedural nonsense.

And yet, beneath those legal questions are broader moral, ethical, and philosophical questions. How do we parse out the identity of a joined species like the Trill? How do we reconcile the separate existence of a host prior to joining with the lifetimes of experiences the symbiont brings to them? What makes them, and us, who we are? Is it memories, feelings, brainwaves, or biology?

More to the point, how do we grapple with crimes committed by a member of a joined species? Is it justice to let a heinous act go unpunished simply because a symbiont has moved onto another host? But is it fair to hold a new host accountable for actions that happened before they were born? How do we judge conduct when someone innocent and someone guilty are inextricable from one another?

These are tough questions, and smartly, regular DS9 scribe, Peter Allan Fields, and superstar writer from TOS, D.C. Fontana, elide having to answer them through plot developments. But watching Sisko and his counterpart raise these issues of fairness, debate comparisons to saltwater, and trade barbs about anatomy, personality, and memory is a thrill, in the proudest Star Trek tradition. It’s the sort of complex thought experiment that drives so much great speculative fiction, and mulling over these issues at the same time the judge does is thought-provoking.

But also like the best of Star Trek, “Dax” grounds its broader philosophical and spiritual queries in the sorts of personal questions that move our heroes and their foils. As much high-minded contemplation and legal wrangling as there is here, the episode implicitly asks whether Sisko is acting without objectivity given that he doesn’t want to lose his friend (see: the scene where he tells Kira and Bashir to find the “right” answers). At the same time, it asks whether Dax’s pursuer, Ilon Tandro, is just as blinkered on the other side of the courtroom in a blind crusade to avenge a father he never knew. The story examines how personal biases can affect where we stand on issues of legal and philosophical significance.

More to the point, it roots those experiences in the interactions between the characters. We see an intimacy and frustration between Sisko and Dax that emerges with a force for the first time. Benjamin can’t believe why the “old man” won’t defend herself here, and Jadzia has to stand her ground and help him understand why she both is and isn’t his old friend. It’s the first time in Deep Space Nine where you believe their connection, frayed though it may be, with all the attendant attachments and frustrations that close friendships bring.

At the same time, “Dax” asks bigger personal questions about its eponymous, but mostly-silent main character and the widow of the man she’s accused of murdering. Would you give your life to preserve the honor of someone you loved? How about to hide your own shame? Or to protect the legacy of a traitor whose larger-than-life myth did more good than the truth ever could? What does it mean to be the bearer of a legacy, especially when you knew the flesh and blood person who fell far short of their grandiose public image?

(And might I add, hello Hamilton fans!)

I love the story of Enina Tandro here. Her time in the episode is brief, and her appearance is a deft but mildly frustrating way to elide the arbitrator having to come down on one side or another on the knotty questions at hand. But I love the exploration of what it means to be the wife of a Great Man:tm: who wasn’t so great, and feel the constant pressure to venerate someone who disappointed you, but whose public image means so much to your people. For all I know, those scenes were all written by Peter Allan Fields, but to me, it feels like the insightful, interpersonal, humanistic writing that’s been the trademark of Dorothy Fonana’s Star Trek oeuvre since The Original Series.

And through that personal lens, she and Fields provide a satisfying answer to the most practical questions at the center of the episode. It turns out Curzon wasn’t a traitor, but rather his good friend (and now-lionized martyr) tried to sell their cause out all on his own and was killed for the trouble. There’s a poetry to the answer for “Dax”’s whodunnit, a confirmation of how the supposed injustice that became a rallying cry for this man’s people was, ironically, caused by his own unworthy character.

Likewise, Dax remained silent and placid despite the spirited defense Sisko waged because she knew the truth would wound the society Curzon had fought to build, blaspheme a friend he’d wronged, and shamed a woman he loved. There’s a nobility to Dax’s silence, to her stoicism, to her willingness to die for Curzon’s causes and connections, with all the complications of her remove from them.

“Dax” is an easy high water mark for Deep Space Nine’s first season. It’s rare in all of television, not just Star Trek, to see such a wonderful blend of questions great and small. It’s even rarer to have such vigorous and intelligent debates, and ultimately receive answers that are satisfying on both a narrative and personal level. This story is an early demonstration of the greatness the series was capable of, the inherent potential of Dax as a character, and the powerful questions the show would never stop asking.