‘THE PASSENGER’ (DS9)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This ‘DS9’ episode is okayish. It’s not dreadful but it wasn’t that inspiring either. This is an example of when ‘DS9’ was in ‘TNG’ stages aboard a space station. The big saga arc it had would develop later on.
In ‘The Passenger’, Kira and Bashir make their way back to DS9 in a runabout. On the way, they respond to a distress call from a Kobliad freighter. There they find Caitlin Brown as the security guard Ty Kajada.
Bashir tries to save the life of James Harper as Rao Vantika, who is on the verge of death. Kajada tries to stop Bashir opening his prison cell door as he was the one who started the fire aboard the spaceship.
Just as Bashir and Kira are about to beam themselves, Kajada and an unconscious Vantika back to the runabout, Vantika awakes, grabbing Bashir’s throat. He growls to Bashir “Make…me…live!” Then dies!
Huh! A strange request to make if he died instantly after that. Maybe there’s more to it than that. Anyway, Bashir and Kira take Kajada with them back to DS9 where she receives her medical treatment.
The Kobliads are an unusual alien race in terms of make-up for ‘DS9’. They look human but have a strange ridge on their foreheads. The Kobliads make a few appearances in ‘DS9’ and in a ‘TNG’ episode.
Once Kajada wakes up in sick bay, she demands to see Vantika’s body who is kept in stasis in the morgue. Despite Bashir telling Kajada that he’s dead, she’s so convinced that he is still alive somehow.
It seems that Vantika faked his death many times and Kajada has been obsessed in her adult life to hunt him down. Bashir is certain that this is the final end for Vantika. Kajada is not convinced about it.
It also transpires that Vantika was heading to DS9 to collect a shipment of deuridum, which is a compound the Kobliads desperately need to survive. Odo interrogates Quark about this in his bar too.
This episode also features James Lashly as Lt. George Primmin of Starfleet Security. He’s come to DS9 to help Odo with investigating this shipment of deuridium. Something Odo’s very unhappy about here.
Odo even offers his resignation to Sisko when he talks to him about it in his office. Sisko tells Odo that he’s exaggerating and tells him that he’s in charge whilst he and Primmin are working together in this.
As the episode progresses, Bashir and Dax come to the conclusion that Vantika’s consciousness may be hiding in Kajada’s brain without her knowledge. They discover it using a small disc chip they found.
It does seem to be the case that Vantika is alive and using another body when he contacts Quark in his bar during closing hours. He tells Quark to arrange the mercenaries involved in some kind of hijack.
Quark does so as he and the mercenaries he’s acquired meet to talk about the hijack of the upcoming deuridium shipment. Their meeting gets eavesdropped by Kajada who interrupts them in the process.
This happened when she fell off from the second floor of Quark’s bar. Apparently, she was pushed. But does that mean Vantika in somebody’s body pushed Kajada when she was in Quark’s bar early on?
Eventually, Quark and the mercenaries meet up with the real Vantika who happens to be in the body of…Dr. Bashir! Ah, so that’s what that “Make me live” scene was about as Vantika strangled Bashir. 😮
I was shocked and surprised when it was revealed Vantika was inside Bashir’s body once I saw this episode for the first time. It was unexpected. I became anxious as Bashir was possessed by somebody.
It was a great villainous performance on Alexander Siddig’s part. I enjoyed it when he as Vantika in Bashir’s body tried to gain control of the freighter carrying a deuridium shipment with his mercenaries.
Sisko and the DS9 team attempt to stop Vantika in Bashir’s body when they trap the freighter using the station’s tractor beam. Vantika in Bashir threatens to destroy the freighter as well as Bashir’s body.
Thankfully, Jadzia Dax disrupts Vantika’s control of Bashir’s body by using a pulse in the tractor beam. This works well as a confused Bashir lowers the frieghter’s shields in order to be returned to DS9 itself.
The episode ends with Bashir having Vantika’s consciousness out of him. Kajada destroys Vantika’s stored consciousness inside an energy device. Like I said, this episode was quite okayish to watch here.
‘The Passenger’ (DS9) rating – 7/10
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