Massaging the Truth

I haven't been enjoying the Bajoran political episodes of Deep Space Nine so much on my recent rewatch but I did like the 1994 episode "The Collaborator". It's a nice little introduction to political manipulation.

At this point, Kira (Nana Visitor) is in a relationship with Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim), a Vedek being a Bajoran religious leader somewhat analogous to a cardinal. Like Roman Catholicism, the Bajoran religion seems to be a major part of the government so the upcoming election to Kai, a rough equivalent to pope, is a big deal. Bareil is running for the office and so is the recurrent antagonist Vedek Winn, played by the late Louise Fletcher. She's great in the episode, too, with her trademark, venomous tone of courtesy. She has a juicy bit of dialogue with Sisko in the episode in which you can feel the contempt behind every word of phony politeness.

Her strategy to defeat Bareil is to tie him to a Cardassian collaborator, a man who worked with the Cardassians when they were occupying Bajor and using the people for slave labour. She does so while maintaining the superficial veneer of one only in quest of the truth for the good of all. The trail of breadcrumbs that Kira and Odo (Rene Auberjonois) pursue in investigating the link is just the right level of complex to seem credible yet easy enough for the casual viewer to comprehend.

At one point, they enlist Quark (Armin Shimmerman) for help in a scene that begins with some business that's a little funnier than it was intended to be if you know something about how Star Trek episodes were produced in the '90s. On almost any show or movie, you have actors with speaking parts and you have actors who only appear in the background or have brief bits of business with the main actors. They're called extras. On '90s Star Trek shows, there was a big difference between the paychecks for main actors and for extras and the productions were obligated to pay more money to anyone with a line of dialogue, even if it was just one line. So sometimes you'd see a character who really seems like they should speak but don't. This scene with Quark begins with one of his employees inexplicably communicating with him through pantomime. Ironically, he's reluctantly paying her wages in the scene.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available on Netflix in Japan.