1- VIEWERS CHECK THIS OUT!..................
*THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT STARFLEET HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT TRAINING........
When the lab Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien are in is attacked by two gunmen (7:27), O'Brien disarms one of the gunmen (and by so doing, saves Bashir) and the doc disarms the other.
*HAVING EACH OTHER'S BACK CAUSES CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES TO BECOME FAST FRIENDS.....
As O'Brien and Bashir relocate to the planet to escape the assassins on the space station above, they begin to talk to one another about the deeper things in life (17:28). They begin to discuss what it means to fall in love and to get married. This time together on the planet's surface, hiding for their lives and awaiting rescue is a pivotal point in the relationship of the two characters. From this moment on they will remain the best of friends.
*The crew on DS9 are notified by emissaries from the space station that O'Brien and Bashir have perished. However, they are told a lie that O'Brien made a mistake and set off a security laser that killed everyone on the station - vaporizing everyone without a trace. Meanwhile, O'Brien and Bashir are struggling to survive on the surface of the planet.
2- Final Reflective Analysis and Final Grade:
*The character development of Bashir and O'Brien take massive leaps forward with this episode. Keiko, O'Brien's wife has an interesting role in this episode as well. The pacing is swift and the action non-stop. A question of Cosmic Ethics is raised: Is it ok or prudent to murder a small number of people for the greater good. The communist party in 1917 created the "Dialectic: Performing a variety of unsavory tasks (allowing people to starve, children to die) to accomplish the greater good for the greater number of people." In the wrath of Khan when Spock sacrifices his life to save the Enterprise crew from destruction he quotes a paraphrase of this concept: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - or the one in his case. Representatives from both planets are willing to murder their own people (and in turn people from DS9) in order that those who knew the chemical warfare recipe would all be dead so the remainder of both worlds could live in peace. These ethical viewpoints have been debated, argued and applied down through the 20th century and beyond.
Final Grade: B.
