"Past Prologue"

Episode #: 3

Character Focus: Kira, Garak

Familiarity: I remember Lursa and B'Etor being in this and that's about it.

Episode In (Very) Brief: A Bajoran terrorist and/or freedom fighter, depending on whose side you are on, and acquaintance of Kira, asks for asylum aboard DS9 despite being pursued by Cardassians. Meanwhile, Bashir befriends the station's only Cardassian resident, Garak.

Rating: *** out of ****

This one was pretty good. I'm a sucker for Bajoran freedom fighter stories especially when they deal with the grey area of determining if what said freedom fighter was doing was something righteous or barbaric. It is what makes Kira such a fascinating character and the episode does a great job of testing her loyalties upfront. And, unlike TNG, we aren't sure where she stands so the drama is effective. There is a really great scene with her and Odo that might be one of the best scenes thus far in the series young history.

Less effective is the series need to throw TNG stuff in just for shits and giggles. I didn't need to see Lursa and B'Etor and even the actors agree they really shouldn't be there. It obviously would not be the last time. Picard is all fine and dandy but spare me the "look, look its all connected" stuff. Let the show breathe on its own.

And the showrunners do let the show run on its own by having yet another scene entirely between tertiary characters, this time between Garak and Lursa/B'Etor. I've got to hand it to the writers for doing this and allowing the wide world of DS9 to breathe naturally. I was initially kind of aghast that they did it in "A Man Alone" with Keiko and Rom but now I see that it adds breadth to the universe, something they just couldn't really do on TNG outside of maybe with Reg Barclay and Guinan.

And speaking of Garak, this is a fine entrance for the character. Andrew Robinson is laying it on a bit thick (he jazz hands it at one point) but that seems to be in character as he is trying to seduce, for lack of a better word, the gullible Dr. Bashir. Still, it is nice to see yet another character that you can't quite trust all the way on a Trek show. Per co-producer Peter Allan Fields, "We needed a Cardassian who didn't act like one, so I finally put him in a tailor shop, and nobody hit me, so we kept him there," (Deep Space Nine Companion, Page 22). I'm a big fan of Bajorans and Cardassians and this episode is full of 'em and shows them on every side of the law which is why I think the episode, though purely episodic and still TNG-like as most season 1 would be, is pretty darn good.