Babel (24 Jan. 1993)

The crew and civilian population of Deep Space Nine begin to gabble when a plague, engineered by the Bajorans as a weapon against the Cardassians, accidentally gets released into the station's atmosphere.

Director:

Paul Lynch

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), Rick Berman (creator),

Stars:

Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Avery Brooks	...	Commander Sisko
Rene Auberjonois	...	Odo
Alexander Siddig	...	Doctor Bashir (as Siddig El Fadil)
Terry Farrell	...	Lieutenant Jadzia Dax
Cirroc Lofton	...	Jake Sisko
Colm Meaney	...	Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman	...	Quark
Nana Visitor	...	Major Kira
Jack Kehler	...	Jaheel
Matthew Faison	...	Surmak Ren
Ann Gillespie	...	Nurse Jabara
Geraldine Farrell	...	Galis Blin
Bo Zenga	...	Asoth
Kathleen Wirt	...	Aphasia Victim
Lee Brooks	...	Aphasia Victim

Storyline

Cardassian technology isn't as good as it seems. Chief O'Brien is very very busy as systems all over the station are failing. While Trying to free people stuck in an airlock and promising a ship's captain a repair crew by the end of the day, Dax wants him to repair a malfunction in the lab. Then he must repair the navigational computer for Kira, only to be ordered by Sisko to make sure he gets good coffee by fixing the replicators. A while later all of the sudden O'Brien has become aphasic. Bashir has no clue what happened, there seems to be nothing wrong physically with him. Then out of the blue Dax also turns aphasic, right in front of his eyes. All over the ship people are displaying the symptoms, it seems an epidemic caused by a virus.

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Plot Keywords:

virus | 24th century | language | quarantine | speech | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

24 January 1993 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The title is based on the biblical story of the The Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. Man wanted to be closer to God so they built this extremely high tower. God was angered, destroyed the tower and punished the men by making them speak many different languages (everyone was babbling), thus beginning the various nations and cultures after all of man had descended from the same tribe since he was driven out of the Garden of Eden.

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Quotes

Chief O'Brien: "Fix the replicators, chief." "My console's offline, chief." Should've transferred to a cargo drone. No people, no complaints.

User Reviews

Experimental Episode with some Decent Character Development

This unusual episode takes a very different look at a standard Star Trek plot - the ship-wide seemingly insurmountable threat story.

In fact, it starts out as a comedic episode following Miles O'Brien around as he tries to repair chronically failing Cardassian technology all over DS9. Shortly after, however, the story takes a very sinister turn as O Brien becomes heavily aphasic and is followed very quickly by many others on the station. Eventually, Sisko quarantines the station, and Kira is sent on a mission of mercy to try to locate the one person who may be able to save the crew.

Brooks and Visitor turn in excellent performances in this episode, and the episode is important in the development of O'brien, Jake and Ben and Kira's characters. And there is a good amount of conservative exposition about the Bajoran underground.

A solid, if not entirely original, episode.