Invasive Procedures (DS9)

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SST437: A plasma storm empties Deep Space Nine of all but a skeleton crew, and four criminals use the cover to board. Their leader is Verad, a shy, unjoined Trill who was turned down for joining and wants the Dax symbiont for himself. In “Invasive Procedures,” the fourth episode of Deep Space Nine Season 2, Jadzia agrees to the transfer to keep her crewmates alive, and Dr. Bashir is forced to perform it.

Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler rate it a solid mid-range DS9 episode and spend most of their time on the questions it raises about the Trill. How much of Jadzia Dax is Jadzia, and how much is Dax? Here the symbiont looks like a passenger. It shows no agency, takes on Verad’s goals the moment it is joined to him, and seems untroubled that its previous host is dying. If symbionts are that passive, Jimmy asks, why would anyone want one?

Dom sees something familiar in Verad. His motive is not money or power. He believes he is mediocre and that only something outside himself can make him more. Jimmy compares it to criminals who feel society dealt them a bad hand and set out to take back what they think they are owed. The panel also weighs Sisko’s answer to Verad’s claim that Jadzia will live on in him: only her memories will, and Verad will have killed her. Then there is Verad’s last argument, that one woman’s life is worth less than eight lifetimes of experience, which falls apart once you remember the symbiont can simply go back into Jadzia.

Along the way they look at Quark’s role in getting the criminals aboard and why he walks away without charges, Odo’s choice to go into the container to protect O’Brien, and how the script lets the audience work things out by implication. They also raise the plot holes: why Verad did not bring his own doctor, why the station had to be evacuated, and why Mareel and the Klingons were meant to leave separately from him.

The guest cast gets its due. John Glover plays Verad with a hesitation that suggests a suppressed stutter, then switches to easy confidence once joined. Tim Russ, later Tuvok on Voyager, is nearly unrecognizable as a Klingon, and Patricia Tallman of Babylon 5 doubles for Nana Visitor in the fight scenes. The panel also wishes the show had done more with Trill society: how joining began, how many Trill can actually be joined, and why Verad never comes back in “Facets.”

Listener feedback covers Strange New Worlds Season 4, a fan’s alternate version of a Yesterday’s Enterprise homage, “Amok Time,” and why Sisko and O’Brien would be on the station in the mirror universe at all.

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