‘THE SOUND OF HER VOICE’ (DS9)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
I couldn’t remember this episode at all before revisiting it on DVD. Now that I’ve seen it again, it’s clearly not one of the most memorable episodes. Quite frankly, it’s a rather disappointing episode. 😦
That’s not to say the concept behind the episode is bad. It’s intriguing, but the execution of the episode especially in terms of its climax was rather downbeat and it could have been handled better.
In the episode, the Defiant crew led by Captain Sisko are travelling home from an escort mission. They have Penny Johnson as Kasidy Yates aboard with them since she was acting as a sort of liaison.
Eventually, the Defiant crew receive a distress call from a Starfleet officer stranded on an alien world by herself called Captain Lisa Cusak (voiced by Debra Wilson). We never see her in this ‘DS9’ episode.
It’s funny how Debra Wilson is credited in the episode’s credits after the title sequence yet we never see what she looks like. I was expecting the DS9 crew to actually meet Captain Cusak in this episode.
I did check to see what she looks like on Wikipedia by the way. 😀 Anyway, Cusak’s ship was destroyed and she’s calling out for help. Chief O’Brien attempts to establish a comm-link with Cusak.
Thankfully, the comm-link is established and the Defiant crew discover that the planet she’s stranded on has a high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Cusak will die from exposure to it.
She’s keeping herself regularly dosed with ‘triox’ medication, but her supplies are running low. Dr. Bashir tells Cusak to cut her dose supply in order to survive the six days for the Defiant to get there.
As the Defiant makes for the planet, Cusak asks for the Defiant’s crew to keep a constant conversation with her in order to keep her alert and to make her feel less isolate. This is fair enough.
However, I couldn’t help but feel that the conversations Cusak had with the likes of Sisko, Bashir and O’Brien tended to drag whilst I watched the episode. She didn’t even have a conservation with Worf.
I get the conversations Cusak has with the Defiant crew are meant to motivate them when they’re feeling downhearted during the Dominion War. But aspects of these conversations are not resolved.
For example, Sisko finds himself confiding in Cusak that he’s uncomfortable about having his girlfriend Kasidy Yates aboard the Defiant. I’m not sure what the reason is behind that discomfort. 😐
Maybe it’s to do with Sisko risking Kasidy’s life during a mission in the same way he risked his wife Jennifer’s life when being attacked by the Borg in ‘Emissary’. That sadly led her to Jennifer’s death. 😦
I wish that was the case but it’s never explained to us. Even when Sisko talks to Kasidy at the end in saying that they should talk about their relationship, we never get to hear what the ‘problem’ was. 😐
Cusak, on her part, advises Sisko against mixing his professional and personal life. I’m not sure what Cusak meant by that since surely Sisko would have to do that anyway when he interacts with Kasidy.
Cusak also helps Bashir and O’Brien during their downhearted moments. They share with her that they have been letting the stress of their work and the ‘ongoing’ war isolate them from their friends.
To make a long story short, the Defiant crew arrive at the planet and go down via a shuttlecraft to get past a strange energy field surrounding the planet. They find Cusak who’s been dead for 3 years.
It is a bit confusing when it’s theorised the energy field caused the communications between the Defiant and Cusak to travel through time. I find it unfair Cusak never got to meet the Defiant crew. 😦
There is another subplot going on in the episode where Quark talks Odo into planning a date with Major Kira for their one-month anniversary. This is so he can sell rare crystals for profit to someone.
Jake observes what Quark is doing in order to write a story about criminals. I found the Quark/Odo story far more entertaining than the episode’s main plot which features the Defiant crew and Cusak.
I can’t say ‘The Sound of Her Voice’ is an inspiring ‘DS9’ episode. The Cusak story tended to drag for me and I was more interested in whether Quark was going to get away with distracting Odo on DS9.
‘The Sound of Her Voice’ (DS9) rating – 5/10
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