In the second episode of the fifth season of Deep Space Nine, I can’t. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Jesus christ, Deep Space Nine.
There is indeed a great deal in “The Ship†that I love, and I imagine y’all knew that. Mysteries! Tense stand-offs! Closed-room thrillers! Existential dread! I most definitely loved this episode, but I’m going to open this review a bit differently.
Muñiz should be alive.
I get that this is the whole point of this episode, that sometimes tragedy befalls Starfleet members on missions that do not justify their deaths. Indeed, “The Ship†is the most explicit condemnation of these kind of pointless deaths in the entirety of Star Trek, and it’s one of the main reasons I think the writing for this episode is so strong. Without Sisko’s monologue at the end of this, it’s not the same story. Without the lack of trust, without a senseless bit of death, this is an entirely different tale.
And yet, Enrique “Quique†Muñiz is now the most visibly brown, most visibly Latinx character that Star Trek has ever given us. He uses Spanglish. His Spanish is beautiful and poetic and sometimes, UNTRANSLATED. He is the closest I’ve seen (aside from maybe Chakotay, though there are obvious complications there) to someone who looks like me. Even worse, he’s immensely and immediately likable as a character. Why? All so the tragedy of his death can hit us harder. All so that his death can motivate other people. Now, this is a common aspect of commentary on character deaths. You’ll see it when people discuss fridging or when characters of marginalized identities are killed to further the storylines of all white characters.
So, things are complicated here. Worf and Sisko aren’t white. Does the same criticism hold? The problem I see is that there are no other Latinx characters anywhere on this show, and just from an audience perspective, it pinned Muñiz for death as soon as he interacted with O’Brien. Here’s a character that never existed prior to this episode and he’s got speaking lines and we like him and he is visibly different in every possible way from every other character, and perhaps now, you get the point. So: the writers make Muñiz’s death obvious and expected, which sucks some of the tension out of an otherwise brilliantly plotted episode. And then, it shows us that the writers were finally willing to tackle the characterization of a culture or a people that had been absent from this show, but only gave it to a character who was never meant to survive beyond the closing credits.
It irks me. A lot.
Which is unfortunate because, as I said, this is otherwise one of the most vicious episodes of the show. It’s biting and scary and relentlessly creepy, especially since the writers were willing to take all of these characters to such an uncomfortable place while still committing to the story they set-up. It would have been so much easier for everyone involved if Sisko and company had figured out what was hiding on the Jem’Hadar ship, but that’s the point. The unknown is what tears down the trust these two parties have for one another. Of course, there’s a long history invoked by this conflict; it’s not as if Kilana or Sisko had a reason to trust one another before they ever spoke a word. Sisko tried to take possession of a crashed Jem’Hadar ship, and Kilana wanted it back. They were going to mistrust one another anyway.
But it’s the escalating mistrust that leads to the hopeless, senseless tragedy here. Even if Kilana was genuine was returning the Starfleet personnel to DS9, she still lied. Even if Sisko would have given over the Founder if he knew what it was Kilana wanted, he still refused to budge from his position.
So was it all worth it? Every Jem’hadar character dies by their own hand after they fail to protect the dying Founder on the ship. Five Starfleet officers, including Muñiz, die. And for what? So that the Jem’Hadar don’t get their god back? So that the Federation can possibly gain an edge on the Dominion? At the end of this episode, Dax tries to make the point that the five deaths that occurred during this mission might later save other lives. In the long run, there might be justification. But death rarely has that affect in the immediacy of the event. Instead, all you feel is loss and nothing else. “The Ship†refuses to turn away from this uncomfortable realization. Even though I’m not pleased with Muñiz’s death, I can also recognize how this episode is otherwise quite powerful.
The video for “The Ship†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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