Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2.15

Paradise

Sisko and O'Brien are on a runabout, looking for a planet that is suitable for settlement when they come across one that already seems to be populated. They decide to beam down, despite getting some weird readings. Once on the planet they discover that all of their technological devices no longer work.

They are greeted by some of the locals, who are also human. Alixus, the leader, explains to them that they are stuck there and that they may as well get used to it. Alixus and the others have been there for 10 years. Sisko and O'Brien don't accept what they are being told and start to look for ways to get a message out.

Sisko gets punished after O'Brien is caught trying to get a message out. Sisko refuses to bend and accept Alixus' argument that the best for them to do is to become part of the community on the planet. 

Kira and Jadzia, back on Deep Space Nine get concerned when they don't hear anything from Sisko and O'Brien. They go looking for them and find the runabout that took them to the system where they are marooned.

O'Brien renews his efforts to find the source of the field that seems to be rendering all technological devices useless. He finds it just in time. He frees Sisko from the box in which he is locked. Alixus admits that she was the one behind the dampening field. She claims it was for the best. Sisko and O'Brien feels otherwise. They assume that the people will want to leave now that they can but instead they discover that the people would rather stay.

Thoughts

Alixus and her son do something that causes the runabout on which Sisko and O'Brien arrived to take off and leave the orbit of the planet. What she did is never explained. How did she even get to it with all technology dampening field turned on?  

There is something to this episode that I like but I didn't find Sisko's willingness to martyr himself to be terribly compelling. He seemed just as rigid to me as Alixus. The society that Alixus is running seemed very much like a cult to me. 

Notes

Quark, Odo, Bashir, and Jake are not in this episode. 

Gail Stickland played the part of Alixus. This is the only episode of this show in which she appeared. She was in one episode of Darkroom, 1.06 Siege of 31 August. She was also in Uncommon Valor (1983).

Corey Allen directed this episode. It is the third of four episodes of this show that he directed. The first two were 1.05 Captive Pursuit and 2.02 The Circle. He also directed a few episodes of TNG, the first of which was 1.01 Encounter at Farpoint.