Underrated Trek-Empok Nor (DS9)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of DS9 that is scary. But unlike last time, it is a good episode too! This is:

There weren’t to many DS9 episodes to pick from. I covered Distant Voices already. And Whispers barely makes it as a scary episode. This episode is perfect, it’s basically a homage to classic horror movies. And being DS9, they do a fantastic job! Let’s take a look at it.

 

Plot Synopsis:

In need of a new conduit, O’Brien decides the best place to get it is DS9’s sister station. He goes with Nog, Garak and…a few red shirts to be honest. Garak is brought along to helo disable any Cardassian security measures


On the station the crew find stasis tubes, one with a dead Cardassian soldier. An explosion then strands everyone in the station with no way to call for help. The solider kills two of the security officers while Garak determines that the solider has subject to psychotropic drugs which amplify their more savage tendencies. Garak kills the last solider off, before turning and killing the red shirt himself!

Soon O’Brien and Nog realize Garak has also been affected and is now after then. While O’Brien sets out to stop him Garak uses Nog to set up a trap for O’Brien. Thankfully O’Brien out thinks Garak and they all get off the station. On DS9 Garak is normal and feels regret for his actions. Garak wonders why O’Brien didn’t kill him, and O’Brien says asks how he knows that wasn’t his intention.

 

Guest Star:

Andrew Robinson of course plays Garak and he’s fantastic here making the usually very likable Garak just plain psychotic and even scary! His performance is downright sinister and sells the episode.

 

Episode Pro’s:

This was obviously meant to homage classic horror movies, and while I am not lover of those movies I have to say I think they did a fantastic job! The dark station is a great backdrop and there is plenty of suspense and intrigue, especially as the episode nears its end. It has the usual tropes, like people searching dark hallways, being cut off from calling for help, a surprise killer, and jump scares grabbing the officers from behind.

Give the episode credit for trying to get us to like the red shirts before they are killed off. It’s blatant but still A for effort. And I applaud the continuity in this episode. When we first met the Cardiassians back in TNG it was established that O’Brien was on a party which killed a bunch of them during the war. That incident gets referenced several times in this episode. In fact this episode shows thr growth in O’Brien since that first episode, he’s no longer a soldier he’s an engineer.

And speaking of that, how does O’Brien save the day> As any engineer of course. He puts his phaser down at Garak’s urging. The two then begin to fight. When Garak is close t the phaser, O’Brien is able to cause the phaser to overload which disables him. Another underlying theme in this episode is the natural human tendency to hurt people and do awful acts, which Garak insists all humans have whether they admit it or not. Which Garak is also exhibiting with his behavior. Not touched on enough but still it’s stuff like that elevates it from sci fi schlock to what Trek does best,

 

Episode Con’s:

Wow it sure was lucky that Empok Nor looked exactly like DS9, it sure saved on sets. Ok I am being facetious obviously this was a bottle show and the intention was to use the DS9 sets and just call it Empok Nor.

This episode is a great example of a problem DS9 had, short changing the main characters! Sisko, Odo, Worf, Dax, Quark and Kira only appear in the teaser (and the scene is so quick and pointless I almost feel bad for the actors in it) and Bashir gets a short scene at the very end. This happened A LOT on this show, where the minor characters were the focus leaving the main characters in small roles or not appearing at all! You just dont usually see that on TV show. At least we got O’Brien in this one. The other down side is that, as I hinted at above, all of these no name characters we’ve never seen before are obviously meant to be killed off and so there’s no suspense there. The reason the ending works is because we know Nog so we want him to make it out.

Garak’s odd behavior should have been questioned a lot sooner and O’Brien should have never let Garak go off alone midway through the episode. At lest O’Brien finally realizes it, after the red shirts are all killed!

Fast Forward Moment:

The beginning part on the runabout goes on a bit to long, we don’t need most of it especially learning that one of the red shirts has a collecting obsession. Try all you want episode, they’re still nobodies to us.

 

Final Thoughts:Far better than it had any right to be for a “bottle episode”. Next time, can Voyager pull of its own horror episode?