Trek-a-Week #26: Captive Pursuit

Trek-a-Week
Jul 20, 2017 · 9 min read

Ben:

I had a really, really difficult time picking what Deep Space Nine episodes we’d watch for Trek-a-Week. Like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine is long — a full seven seasons — and like TNG, it’s good. But unlike TNG — or any of the other series besides Enterprise — it has ongoing continuity. It was a genuine challenge to find a handful of good episodes that work as stand-alone stories. Given these challenges, I didn’t devote a lot of thought to what would be our first episode; I was just happy find a group of DS9 episodes that’d work on their own.

Watching Captive Pursuit now, though, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well it works as an introduction to DS9. In addition to getting a good handle on the main characters, the last quarter or so of the episode gives us a taste of the moral ambiguity that’s a hallmark of the series and that eventually becomes the centerpiece of its most beloved episode, In the Pale Moonlight.

Right from the get-go, Deep Space Nine is striking in how different it is than the two series that came before it. The basic premise — a space station rather than a ship — is of course the most obvious departure, but the whole look and feel of the show is different. It’s darker — literally — and more cluttered. The environment the characters operate in is not a federation-designed space and as such it has a foreign, almost-gothic feel to it. The most prominent example of this is the space station’s distinctive — and kind of ridiculous — rolling “gear doors.”

We’ve also of course got a whole roster of new (or mostly-new) characters. The only ones we get much of a real handle on in Captive Pursuit are Sisko and O’Brien (who is effectively a new character since in TNG he mostly just stood around the transporter waiting for something to do) and it’s O’Brien who’s center-stage here. I like O’Brien. He’s sort of the Geordi of DS9, but in a more down-to-earth way. He’s got more of a “garage mechanic” vibe than Geordi. Case in point: how O’Brien and Tosk almost immediately become bros, bonding over engine repair talk. While I love how the episode is a textbook character study of a character (O’Brien has to make an important decision while under extreme pressure), I found the O’Brien/Quark “change the rules” conversation ham-handed and way too on-the-nose.

Captive Pursuit is structured in an odd way: the first three quarters or so of the episode is pretty much a straight SF action story — then toward the end of the episode things get turned completely on their heads. This all begins after the reveal about “the hunt.” In a more conventional plot, what would follow would be a successful rescue of Tosk and defeat of the Hunters. But in Captive Pursuit we get the twist that Tosk doesn’t want to be “rescued” at all; he wants to continue his role as Tosk — the hunted.

HUNTER: Have you nothing similar in your own society?
SISKO: Centuries ago, people on my world engaged in bloodsports, killing lower species for pleasure. A few cultures still do. But even they wouldn’t consider hunting a sentient being.
HUNTER: But he is sentient only because we have made him sentient. He has been bred for the hunt. His entire reason to exist is the hunt. To make it as exciting, as interesting, as he can. Obviously, you do not comprehend.
SISKO: I comprehend just fine. I have no tolerance for the abuse of any lifeform.
HUNTER: Abuse? We honour Tosk. They are the symbol of all that is noble and courageous. They train and condition themselves all their lives for this event. They’re proud of their role in our culture.
SISKO: I can’t judge what is right and wrong for your world. But on this station…

Should you “rescue” someone doesn’t perceive themselves as a victim? In doing so, are you applying your own value system to an entirely different culture, tacitly implying the superiority of your own culture/value system? Taking actions for a group’s “own good” has too-often been used as a justification for the vilest of actions. Robert E. Lee: “The painful discipline (slaves) are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things.” And yet, who can argue with Sisko’s simple statement that he will not countenance hunting a sentient being for sport on his station?

The other significant bit at the end of Captive Pursuit is the Sisko’s role in aiding O’Brien’s getting Tosk off the station. Sisko’s delivery of “ Constable. There’s no hurry” to Odo is priceless. And while this bit and Sisko’s “ I guess that one got by us” during his feigned dressing-down of O’Brien at the end are played at least a tiny bit for laughs, it’s striking how out-of-place this behavior would be coming from any previous Star Trek lead. That’s only one of the many ways this first DS9 episode is letting us know that these nine episodes will likely be quite different from what’s come before — and I’m really looking forward to it.

A few things:

  • It’s convenient that the computers in Star Trek continue to give out information about important stuff like where all the weapons are to pretty much anyone who asks. You’d think they’d have discontinued this policy post-Space Seed.
  • It’s great to see Trek writers finally acknowledge in-universe the very, very obvious fact that holodecks would totally be used for VR porn.
  • “ Glass jaw. Now I know why you wear a helmet.” Classic Miles O’Brien.
  • After watching the beautiful HD Blu-Rays of Next Generation, going back to SD streaming for DS9 is like watching TV through gauze. I’m sad that we’ll likely never get a HD remaster of Deep Space Nine.

Katherine:

Somehow the jump from TOS to TNG seemed natural. They are both shows with a captain leading the Enterprise on a mission to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life. The characters are majority human and they seem united in the challenges they encounter in each episode. Deep Space Nine — I promise to call it “DS9” from here on out — feels immediately foreign. Obviously the setting is very different, being a sedentary space station instead of a mobile space ship, which results in a subtle shift in the locus of control. Whereas the Enterprise was able to fly to the place or action of its choice, it feels like DS9 is just sitting there waiting for events to happen to it.

The other really noticeable difference for me is the overwhelming presence of non-human characters. Worf’s make-up for TNG is absolutely amazing. So I’m not sure if the success of that character influenced the choice of so many aliens being part of the cast on DS9. In addition to the captain, played by Avery Brooks, an African-American actor whose calm but firm AME pastor-style delivery is incredibly refreshing, there is Kira Nerys, a Bajoran woman, Jadzia Dax, a combination symbiot and Trill female (I do not even profess to understand this yet), Quark, a Ferengi bartender complete with huge ears and uneven teeth, and Odo, a changeling whose hair and features are smoothed to an eerie lump with few of the creases that define a normal human face.

I can’t imagine how long it took everyone to get into makeup for each episode. The overall effect is a fantastical, almost campy set of characters that make me focus more on their odd appearance than on the theme of the story. Captive Pursuit, however, is an interesting tale of how interactions with foreign cultures can sometimes result in a clash of moral values. It begins when a ship passes through the wormhole — this is why the space station is anchored here, to monitor the comings and goings through the portal and the associated traffic of trade ships which amounts to five or six a week, plus the 300-or-so residents of the station — that is identified as being from the Gamma quadrant, nearly 90,000 light years away. The occupant is confused and startled but is convinced to allow them to pull in his ship which is in danger of collapsing.

O’Brien, the Chief of Operations on DS9, is immediately sympathetic to the alien, identified as Tosk, and goes to meet him on his ship. O’Brien’s character seems similar to Geordi’s in that they are both interested in the mechanical workings of spacecraft and the have a pragmatic, easy-going nature. The character of Tosk is another feat of sci-fi make-up artistry, covered completely in scaly lizard skin with snake-like nose and eyes. He is wary of O’Brien but the persistent friendly advances of the officer seem to win Tosk over to trusting him.

Captain Sisko welcomes Tosk and hosts him on the station. There is some speculation of Tosk’s intentions, as he will not sufficiently answer any of their questions, and he is eventually caught by Odo looking at station security diagrams, presumably to try breaking into the weapons locker. He’s put in the brig and O’Brien subsequently feels guilty for having lured Tosk on board in the first place. His anguish is put on hold when another ship like Tosk’s comes through the wormhole and three aliens force their way aboard. They’re clearly after Tosk and in a showdown with captain Sisko they explain that he is their prey and that, in their culture, “Tosk” are a life-form bred specifically to be hunted. Presumably the more clever and equal the prey are, the more exciting and challenging the hunt is. Sisko is clearly repulsed but acknowledges that he “can’t judge what is right and wrong for your world.”

So here’s the real meat of this episode: the crew has encountered new life but the alien culture includes principals they considered reprehensible. Where is the line between respecting the differences in another way of life but fighting against practices you oppose? As captain, Sisko comes down on the side of respecting foreign customs and not interfering. He must keep the peace, however distasteful it seems. O’Brien is outraged and decides that if Tosk asks for asylum, they will be bound to protect him. But Tosk refuses, saying only that it would be a dishonor and that he lives “to outwit the hunters.” Imagine the astonishment of people who liberated slaves, only to have them stay with their former masters, or legal advocates who fight to release the wrongfully imprisoned, then watch helplessly as they struggle to succeed in life outside jail. O’Brien can’t expect Tosk to understand anything other than the life that he and generations before him have known.

The best O’Brien can hope for is to be a friend and example to Tosk. He decides to help him escape, and in the process Tosk shoots down the hunters who pursued him onto the station before boarding his ship for home. One hopes that O’Brien’s sincere friendship towards Tosk will be remembered and that the alien’s experience on DS9 will give him a new perspective that he can take back with him to eventually germinate into resistance and a new way of life. Not only are we siding with O’Brien’s rebellious actions, Sisko, who must officially tell O’Brien that he is in trouble for ignoring the Prime Directive, clearly sides with him, too.

All of this moral ambiguity, this darker view of humanity — I am meaning all life forms here, aliens included — gives DS9 a different feel from the hopeful striving of the prior two series. The opening scene of this episode, which has no relationship to the main story, shows a prostitute (maybe just an “escort”?) complaining of trouble with Quark, the Ferengi bartender who is depicted, so far, as a completely unscrupulous character. Despite all the elaborate alien costuming, DS9 feels more like a typical television show in which some of the recurring characters themselves act as antagonists. Life here in the DS9 future is not as utopian as TOS and TNG sometimes portray.

Next week: Duet

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Trek-a-Week

Written by

Ben and Katherine are watching an episode of Star Trek each week in 2017 and writing about it.

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