Production Number 563

Summary
As mysterious and unexplainable murders begin occurring throughout the station, Ezri turns to a previous Dax host who was a murderer for help in revealing the killer's identity.

The Review
Oh boy...a goody little murder investigation. Homicide. Hehe..fun. Unless it was not obvious, a good homicide is always interesting to me. Science Fiction in general tends to sway away from these kind of episodes, but in this case the DS9 writers took the full plunge right into it. That takes guts and willing to something different, and it seemed to have been pulled off fairly well.

Atleast, for once, Ezri is no longer the innocent little girl that she's been all season. For once her incessant talking starts to make sense, atleast for me. Almost like a classic episode of Law and Order this episode starts out from the point of view of the victim. Lieutenant Ilaro, who is apparently the best pilot the Defiant crew have ever seen, is at a party in Quark's celebrating his success. Ezri escorts him back to his quarters (Ilaro being extremely drunk) where in moments we learn much about him. That's an extremely important fact that I'm surprised the writers did not leave out. Ezri leaves, and the next mourning his dead body is recovered.

There's a killer in the station's midst.

Within hours a second victim is found. True, we have never heard of this person, but taken it's only an hour show it's in our best interests we did not take fifteen minutes to do an examination of this person. And then yet again, there is another murder. By now a full-swing investigation is under-way. It's then that O'Brien presents what he believes to be the murder weapon, always critical in an investigation, an experimental projectile weapon designated the TR-116 rifle. The rifle was in essence an ordinary weapon which fired a single bullet, but unlike any other weapon, once fired, the bullet could be transported via a micro-transportor installed on the rifle. The problem of seeing was solved with a scanner sight allowing to be able to see through bulkheads, objects, and even people. In one of those classic Trek demonstrations Chief O'Brien practically blows up a melon while not even being in the same room as the melon.

Ezri uses the help of Joran, a previous host, to find the killer. I bluntly found this a little stupid. An imaginary friend only Ezri can see thanks to the symbiont? It makes sense, no matter how stupid, but still, it's a little childish as far as plot developements. Joran's personality and memories, atleast, live on in the symbiont. The scene where Ezri was openly talking to him on the Promenade and she gained a suspicious eye from several people was mildly funny. Ezri's 'dark side' was toyed with this episode. I will not even discuss this, but leave opinions open to the reader, because it could go on for awhile. And I could get an angry e-mail, or two. :-)

The uncovering of the criminal was rather unspecial, or uninteresting for that matter. The only surprise was that the killer was Vulcan, and in Starfleet, no less. If you want my honest opinion, there's a whole new episode here. A criminal investigation behind why quote, "Because logic demanded it." Who knows the motives behind the killing. This was the show's true weakness, lack of motive. Overall, this was ok. Considering this sort of stuff is new to Sci-Fi it was good, but ignoring that, it kinda sucked.

Rating: C+

Other Reviews
Jammer's Review
The Cynic's Review
TrekWeb's Review