- 30-second episode preview (AVI, 2Mb)
- Sisko finds himself in the middle of the Ennis and Nol-Ennis war.

Synopsis:

Sisko, Kira, and Bashir are stranded on a war-torn world where it is impossible for the combatants to die.

Kai Opaka, Bajor's spiritual leader, pays a surprise visit to the station -- her first journey away from her home planet. Sisko, Kira, and Bashir escort her on a tour of the station, and although the Kai seems preoccupied, she expresses her desire to go through the wormhole. Sisko accommodates her request, and she travels with the three officers in the Yangtzee Kiang, through the spectacular anomaly and into the Gamma Quadrant. However, though she acts impressed, she still seems distant. But, as they prepare to return, Kira suddenly picks up a narrow band subspace signal. Despite the unknown origin, Opaka encourages Sisko to investigate. They discover a small, meteor-pocked moon, around which orbits a network of artificial satellites, one of which fires an energy blast at the Runabout, severely disabling the vessel. The Yangtzee Kiang crashes violently on the moon's surface. Sisko, Bashir, and Kira free themselves from the wreckage, pulling out Opaka's limp body. Bashir works to revive her, but with no success. The Kai is dead. Before they can absorb the impact of this tragedy, a group of battle-scarred humanoids brandishing weapons appears, capturing the officers.

While Dax and O'Brien prepare to leave the station in search of the senior officers, Sisko, Kira, and Bashir are taken into a large cave, where the leader of the group, Golin Shel-la, explains that he and his people, the Ennis, are suspicious of strangers, because they are at war with a brutal enemy, the Nol-Ennis. He explains that both sides in this war are kept prisoner on the moon by the orbiting satellites, and that he fears his enemy will assume that Sisko's group, by their mere presence in the Ennis camp, has allied with Shel-la. They have no doctors, but many wounded, to whom Bashir gives assistance, as well as to an injured Kira, who is still suffering from the loss of the heart and soul of her home planet. Suddenly, the sound of weapons fire -- three Nol-Ennis, with their leader, Zlangco, make a surprise attack on the camp, killing Shel-la and other Ennis. Kira leaps into the fray, using a phaser to bring down part of the cave ceiling on the attackers, causing Zlangco to retreat. The officers barely have time to check the dead and wounded when a silhouette appears in the cave entrance. It is Kai Opaka -- come back to life!

Bashir examines Opaka, who is just beginning to grasp her situation. The doctor determines that her physiology has been radically altered, and that there is some kind of bio-mechanical presence on the cellular level controlling her metabolic processes. Then, amazingly, Shel-la and the other dead Ennis begin to stir. They are coming back to life. Bashir finds that their bodies have gone through the same type of alterations as Opaka's. Sisko learns from Shel-la that the Ennis and the Nol-Ennis had been fighting the war for untold generations on their home planet, and when their world's mediators could not arbitrate a cease-fire, the two sides were banished to the moon. As part of the punishment, they have been condemned to fight for eternity -- they can never truly die. Sisko suggests a resolution -- once his group is rescued, he will transport both sides away from the moon in order to end the battle, and he convinces Shel-la to attempt a truce with Zlangco.

In the Gamma Quadrant, Dax and O'Brien search for the officers in a Runabout, frustrated at the lack of clues. O'Brien then comes up with a way to detect the specific magnetic resonance patterns that Sisko's vessel emits, and tries to create a device to perform that function. Meanwhile, at the Runabout crash site, Sisko meets with Zlangco, who has agreed to listen to his proposal. But Zlangco is very distrusting, and once Shel-la states that he would never allow one Nol-Ennis to leave the moon alive, another battle between the two groups begins -- and this time, Sisko is in the middle. Just as he is about to receive a potential death blow, Bashir knocks him to the ground. The doctor has discovered from the Runabout's computer that they cannot afford to die here -- not even once.

O'Brien's plan has worked. He and Dax have located the moon. Wisely avoiding the satellites, they try to get a communication through the defense-net. On the surface, Bashir explains that artificial microbes restore a person's body after death, but that body then becomes permanently dependent on those microbes for all cellular functions. The worst part is, anyone with these microbes would die if taken away from the moon -- including Kai Opaka. Then, Dax and O'Brien make contact with Sisko, but they can't beam up anyone until they figure out how to get a transporter signal through the net. While they work on that, Sisko and Bashir return to the cave to tell Opaka and Kira the truth about the Kai's condition. But she has already decided to stay on the moon. Here, she has found the answer to all the prophecies of her life -- to teach people who know only how to die, how to now live. O'Brien then signals that he has a way to divert one of the satellites, and he can beam up the officers within minutes. Sisko tells the returning Shel-la that the Ennis cannot leave the moon, but Bashir suggests he can disable the program in the microbes, which would allow them to finally die when their time comes. But Shel-la unfortunately sees this as the ultimate opportunity to finally wipe out the Nol-Ennis for good. Stunned, realizing there is no hope, Sisko, Kira, and Bashir beam up when O'Brien signals ready, leaving Shel-la to lunge into another battle, and Kai Opaka remaining as their only hope for peace in an endless war.

Timothy Lynch's DS 9 Episode Reviews:

Review Date: 4/24/93

WARNING: This post, containing heavy spoiler information for DS9's "Battle
Lines", is protected by an automatic defense system.

Well, *that* was very nice. Good to see DS9 back on form.

"Battle Lines" is easily the best show we've had since "Dax", and possibly
since well before that. It worked on nearly every level.

I'll start with the thing that worked least: the pacing. Even it was quite
nice overall; the only thing that I felt slowed the show down was a few of
the Dax/O'Brien bits on the runabout during the search. Their main problem
was that they broke some of the tension -- even as serious as they were and
as serious as we saw the situation was, having O'Brien and Dax trade
technobabble in the runabout was jarringly set apart from Sisko et al. being
trapped in a true hell-on-earth.

This isn't to say that those scenes were worthless. Some weren't -- for
instance, O'Brien's babble about the "differential magnetomer" was priceless,
and also very much in keeping with the presentation of O'Brien as an impulse
thinker. (Remember, he had the same stream-of-consciousness reaction in
"Captive Pursuit" when talking to Quark.) On the whole, though, the runabout
sequences could have been excised without much being lost.

The meat of the story, however, all took place on the moon, and was all
wonderful. When I referred to the preview for "Battle Lines" last week, I
said the moon was the Gorge of Eternal Peril. I was wrong. What it was was
the Norse Valhalla -- but as a curse, not a reward. (For those not familiar
with it, Valhalla was where Norse warriors went upon death if they were
worthy enough fighters. There, they feasted and celebrated every day, then
went out and hacked each other to bits every night fighting glorious battles.
The next morning, it all began again.)

The idea really does strike me as a horrible punishment, and it's easy to see
how the Ennis and the Nol-Ennis could become so obsessive and single-minded
after a few decades of it. The key points here wasn't the two factions
themselves, but the regulars' reactions to it.

Sisko's reaction was the least pronounced, perhaps because he felt the need
to hold the others together. Given his own violently raging interior,
however, it would be interesting to see a bit more of how he felt being
there. He certainly took to the one battle he was in well enough.

(Also, his reaction to Bashir's amused mention of a jailbreak seemed
perfectly in character to me, and perfectly in line with the idea that he was
trying to hold himself together so he could keep everyone else in line. When
things are that tense, the last thing you want is for some joker to remind
you of a sore point.)

Bashir finally got some good reactions for Fadil to work with. The
idealistic doctor was in for the shock of his life when he met the Ennis, and
was both written and played to near-perfection. There was the usual cheerful
patter to keep himself sane, such as his "jailbreak" point with Sisko and the
"Nice work, Julian" after fixing the computer -- but it was really more of a
front this time than usual. Even Bashir seemed to realize the seriousness of
the situation and to tone himself down. And that final look of disgust when
he realizes how the Ennis would pervert even death given the chance drove the
point home even further. Bashir got some much-needed time and material here;
let's see more of it.

That leaves Kira (and Kai Opaka, but she was primarily there for Kira; and
besides, I'll cover her shortly :-) ), who also was the beneficiary of some
nice material. (Given that Hilary Bader's only Trek credit before this was
the aptly-named "The Loss", I have to marvel at the better work here.) While
some of Nana Visitor's performance in *showing* those reactions could have
been a little bit better, we got to see a vulnerable, confused side of Kira
that we haven't seen at all since "Past Prologue", and barely saw even then.
Mike Shappe said in an early article he wrote on DS9 that Kira was "a
character in need of an epiphany like the one Sisko had in the pilot", or
words to that effect. I agree, and I think this was it. Kira's inner
strength (not the fire, but the stability) was based on a delusion that she'd
become a "grownup", and seeing herself reflected in the Ennis shattered that.
The reaction, to be truthful, reminded me of nothing so much as Scrooge's
reaction to the visions shown by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but that
could perhaps be because I've seen Stewart's "A Christmas Carol" show five
times. :-)

Then there's Opaka. I don't know why, exactly, but I really found myself
liking her a lot. So does everyone else, clearly -- Sisko and Kira were
almost *competing* for her attentions on the runabout. She's like Guinan in
some ways -- her calm acceptance of nearly everything, for one. While her
main purpose was to bring out Kira's healing, she was interesting in her own
right, and I'll miss seeing her in future episodes.

I do have to wonder, though, where all this is going to lead. Opaka's loss
is probably not going to be taken lightly by Bajor, and the combination of
this plus the revelation about the orbs in "Emissary" may lead to a major
spiritual crisis there. I'll be intrigued to see where it goes.

Some particular moments that are worth watching for:

-- Kira's look of joy at taking Opaka aboard. She's downright *giggly*, at
least by Bajoran standards.

-- Opaka's actions from her arrival to the crash. She wasn't quite truthful
when she said she knew she wouldn't be returning once she came through the
wormhole, I'd say; she knew from the moment she came on DS9 that she wasn't
going to come back. Her calm anticipation of her own death is among the more
striking elements of the episode.

-- Kira's reaction to Opaka's death. Although her initial wail over the body
is way overdone (do Nana Visitor and Marina Sirtis have the same acting
coach?), the funeral rite for Opaka done through tears is very wrenching.

-- Opaka's return from the dead: spectral to the core.

-- Kira's ranting about lack of proper attention to the war. The lines
themselves aren't important -- what *is* is to note that Opaka stops her with
a few words when Sisko couldn't do it with an iron fist. One wonders how
easy to get along with Kira will be now.

-- The entire Kira/Opaka scene. "Just what *impression* do you think I
have?"

-- The second battle, especially Bashir's save. He finally gets to be a hero
for real, and while I can't put my finger on why, the hurried "I'm sorry,
Commander, but I've discovered we can't afford to die here -- not even once"
probably ranks as one of the best act-closing lines I've seen on DS9 so far.

-- As I'd previously mentioned, Bashir's reaction when Shel-La wants to use
the offered reprogramming as a final weapon is beautiful.

-- The final shot closed on *Opaka*. Closing on something other than a
regular character or the station is odd enough, but combining it with a rare
fadeout to closing credits is even more different. I happen to like it.

That should about cover it. This review seems a bit short, but I've talked
myself out with writing about "The Chase" this week. "Battle Lines" was
quite good, and I hope the rest of the season does as well.

So, the numbers:

Plot: 9. A bit too much technobabble in the runabout bits, but all in all
a simple and well-done story.
Plot Handling: 9. Again, the runabout bits were slow; the rest were good.
Characterization/Acting: 9.5. Kira's first wail is the only thing 'tween
this and a 10.

TOTAL: 9.5, rounding up. Nice job -- keep it up.

And yes, the .sig is a rerun from "Chain of Command, Part II". It's so
apropos that I couldn't resist.

NEXT WEEK:

Geez, give a guy a first name and a family and he thinks he's God or
something...:-)

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.caltech.edu@hamlet.caltech.edu
"Do you know that in this century you can go into a shop and purchase a
revolver or any firearm, it's perfectly legal, these people encourage--"
"STOP IT!" [slap]
"It's catching, isn't it? Violence."
--David Warner and Malcolm McDowell, "Time After Time"
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
author*. Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note.

Related Links:

Where to Watch - Local channels and airtimes.
VHS, Laserdisc and DVD availability.

Cast:

Avery Brooks as Benjamin Sisko™
Rene Auberjonois as Odo™
Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax™
Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko™
Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien™
Armin Shimerman as Quark™
Siddig El Fadil as Dr. Julian Bashir™
Nana Visitor as Kira Nerys™

Guest Cast:

Camille Saviola as Kai Opaka
Paul Collins as Zlangco
Jonathan Banks as Shel-la

Creative staff: