Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2.17

Playing God

Arjin, a Trill host candidate, comes to Deep Space Nine to be mentored and evaluated by Jadzia Dax. Chief O'Brien deals with an infestation of voles aboard the space station. Jake admits to his father that he's in love with a Dabo girl.

Jadzia's initial evaluation of Arjin is that he isn't a good candidate to be a host. He seems to just be telling her what he thinks she wants to hear. Together they go into the wormhole, aboard the Mekong and pick up something on the outer hull of the runabout that Jadzia describes as space seaweed.

Jadzia studies the thing attached to the Mekong once they get back. It seems to be a proto-universe. It is expanding and threatens to destroy Deep Space Nine. There is some debate over what to do about it. Ultimately, despite not knowing what will happen, Sisko decides that it needs to be returned to the Gamma Quadrant.

Thoughts

There was a little too much tech talk in this episode, tech talk  that didn't really explain what was going on with the proto-universe. It sounded like meaningless jargon to my ears. I'm also not sure what exactly happened after they dropped it off in the Gamma Quadrant.

The part of the story that involved Jadzia evaluating Arjin didn't feel like much of anything at all. She acted tough. He sulked. They got over their differences and the episode had a happy ending.

This is definitely not an episode that feels like it had any stakes or potential consequences. Similarly, it is not an episode that I would recommend to anyone. It isn't awful it's just not very good.

Notes

Geoffrey Blake played the part of Arjin. This is the only episode of this show in which he appeared. He's been in a few movies I have watched. The only one of those movies that I have seen in the past 25 years is Men at Work (1990).

This is the fifth of five episodes of this show that Jim Trombetta wrote. The previous one he wrote was 2.15 Paradise. He also wrote one episode of Voyager.

This episode was directed by David Livingston. This is the sixth of 17 episodes of this show that he directed. The previous episode he directed was 2.11 Rivals.