User Reviews

This stand alone episode wasn't as good as it might have been; it started well enough when Kira and Bashir respond to a distress call and find Ty Kjiada and her prisoner Rao Vantika aboard a burning ship. Bashir is told to leave Vantaka as he is dangerous but goes to his aid anyway, he briefly awakens and grabs the doctor by the throat but apparently overcome by his injuries he survives. Kjiada is convinced that her prisoner has somehow survived and requests a vast array of tests all of which seem to show he is dead. Dead or not it appears that somebody has been interfering with the station's computers in a way that Vantika has been known to use. The timing is suspicious too as a shipment from the Gamma Quadrant is due soon and this would help Vantika extend his life; something he was obsessed with. The investigation is slightly hampered by the fact that new Star Fleet security officer clashes with Odo although Sisko soon makes sure that they both know Odo is on charge in joint operations.

I liked James Lashly as Lt. George Primmin the new Star Fleet security officer, it felt like they were setting him up to be a regular character. The story went well until the end when we learnt that Vantaka had somehow transferred his consciousness into the doctor; we could tell he wasn't himself as he spoke in a most unnatural manner when that personality was showing, I can only assume this was the director's choice as Alexander Siddig is a good actor who can do much better.

I don't need to give you a synopsis of the plot, it's already been done by other reviewers.

After Rao tells Dr Bashir to keep him alive you soon realise he has taken over the doctors body and not Ty. She is emphatic that Rao is still alive while Bashir insists he is dead, if it wasn't obvious to you before it certainly should be now. It was no surprise to me when all was revealed.

OK the episode was a bit daft but if you can overcome the obvious I am sure you will enjoy it.

Imagine watching a television program that has the guile to express the darkness of the human mind. Then think of a story well written that deceives both the mind and the soul. This is what "The Passenger" promised yet did not deliver; a huge thud.

As I have explained above it was not the idea or writing of this episode that disappoints. Rather, it is the lack of execution on the part of Siddig and director Paul Lynch that causes the thud in this episode. Siddig is burdened in the role, evidenced by his performance in the last scene when he is overcome by Rao Vantika's persona. Burdened with the fact that his acting, at this point in his career, is soap opera quality at best. He reminds me of a Garret Wang on "Voyager"; forced to play science fiction dramatic roles without having the ability to do just that. Moreover, why does director Paul Lynch allow this to happen? Some direction for Siddig would have been nice; like "can you stop talking like a robot in supposed "climax" and get the lines out before the audience falls asleep".

With that said, the writing and idea save this episode from a 5 out of 10.

6 out of 10

I swear that my eyes were fully open when I watched this episode but I am having difficulty understanding how the Vantika has the ability to invade another persons consciousness and then control them. This is like the premise to a comic book supervillain and my ability to suspend my disbelief was sadly defeated.

What works for me:

• I enjoyed the scene of Quark professing his adoration for Jadzia. Atta boy Quark ---- I mean, look at Jadzia!!! This woman/trill is wearing a loose fitting potato sack of a universe and yet still manages to fill it out nicely yet still gives off a classic Hollywood level of grace radiance. What a stunner!
• I like the scene with Odo/Sisko. I have a lot of love for Odo and his 'no bullshit' approach to communication. I am glad that Sisko agrees that Odo is kind of a badass.

1.08 "The Passenger"

Bashir and Kira are returning to the station via runabout when they encounter a ship in distress. They rescue the lone survivor, an alien security officer, but are unable to save her prisoner, a man named Vantika whom she claims is extremely dangerous. Upon returning to the station, someone begins tampering with station security and appears to be plotting to steal an inbound shipment of rare material, and all evidence points to Vantika being the one responsible for the issues. But how can that be if he is dead?

This is another inconsequential episode, although the wormhole does at least play a small part, as the shipment of deuridium is coming from the Gamma Quadrant. The tension and pacing are both decent. Unlike the previous episode, the performances of the actors are all very good (with one very obvious and notable exception). Sisko, Quark, Odo, and Jadzia all gets chances to shine and their performances are what make this a slightly above-average ep.

THE GOOD

-"If you want my opinion--" "Actually I don't." Man I love Sisko's no-BS attitude. His handling of Odo's wounded pride is also very impressive. You gain a lot of admiration for Sisko's ability to command in this episode. He is fair but doesn't tolerate any nonsense.

-As mentioned above, several characters have multiple noteworthy moments. Rene Auberjonois steals the show though. Every scene with him is great, from his conflicts with Lt. Primmin, to his banter with Quark, to his no-holds-barred conversation with Sisko. And even though Odo is too hard on Primmin at first, he knows when he was wrong and gives him due credit at the end, showing he is a fair, if harsh, judge of character.

THE BAD

-Oh my Prime Directive is Alexander Siddig bad here. So, so bad. Especially the scenes where he plays Vantika. I never realized what an awful actor he was in the first season until this time rewatching the show. Fortunately, he does improve as the show proceeds and has actually had a very successful acting career post-Star Trek. But boy is he bad here.

-Maybe it's because I've seen the episode several times before, but it seemed painfully obvious to me that Bashir was the bad guy all along. There was no mystery that I could discern. However, in spite of knowing I still felt the tension from seeing Bashir/Vantika skulk around the station and mess everything up, so that's a positive at least.

-Going off the above "bad," it's baffling to me that nobody suspected Bashir, especially Jadzia after discovering how Vantika had survived, or Kira after seeing Vantika grab Bashir right before dying. Definitely makes the crew look incompetent.

-No O'Brien for the second episode in a row.

THE UGLY

-PLOT HOLE: Now that Vantika has a new (human) body, he no longer has any need for the deuridium since he originally wanted it to prolong his life. None of his actions after the first scene make any sense in that light. He hangs around the station and waits to get caught for...absolutely no reason.

-Runabout used: Rio Grande multiple times

-The material that Vantika is trying to steal, deuridium, is apparently fictional.

-The freighter carrying the deuridium has Federation LCARS control interfaces, in spite of not being crewed by Starfleet personnel. That would explain how Bashir knew exactly what button to push to lower the shields, even in his disoriented state.

-Glial cells are what Vantika uses to transfer his consciousness into Bashir, but it's unclear how that would work since glial cells are non-neuronal, but are rather part of the central nervous system that surrounds and cares for the neural tissue.

Even though I liked this episode, the ending made my jaw drop. I was perplexed for several minutes trying to justify what I just saw.

Ty kajada, standing next to three federation officers, executes Rao Vantika without them even blinking an eye. Further from it; these officers were eye-browing one another with a hint of a smile on their faces! It's strange how 3 federation officers who are subject to the prime directive, which holds sentient life in very high regard, can so easily choose to ignore it.

What were the writer and director thinking when they made Ty Kajada pull the trigger? Rao Vantika has no body so there's no problem if she executes him without a trial? Is this what we want to teach the viewers? It's alright to kill a sentient being if it has no physical form? There's lots of star trek episodes that show otherwise. The federation even has a robot and a hologram in its ranks who both are classified as being sentient. Granted it took some effort and several hearings to get to that place.

So what is it that made Rao's life so worthless in the eyes of the writer/director. Is it because he's a murderer? No. Because even murderers deserve a trial in the star trek universe.

Shortsighted is the only answer I can think of.

A vicious criminal, Vantaka, apparently dies after a fire on the ship his captor, Ty Kayada, is transporting g him in. After returning to DS9, Bashir tries to assure Ty Kayada that Vantaka is indeed dead. she's having none of it; she has been pursuing Vantaka for years and knows how wily and evil he is and that he would go to any lengths to prolong his life. It was interesting to read reviewer remarks about the origins of this concept in the works of classic science fiction writers. However, I found this episode to be pretty boring and Siddig's performance an unconvincing distraction. His performance in the final scene whether done deliberately or not, was overblown. Even so, as with all DS9 episodes, this is still worth a watch.

In "The Passenger" the crew of Deep Space Nine tries to track down a wanted prisoner who may have transferred his consciousness before dying. The prisoner maybe after an important cargo shipment passing through the station soon. Star Fleet sends out additional security personnel for the delivery, much to the chagrin of Odo.

I love a good mystery but this thing falls apart down the stretch. Siddigg is completely awful in his dual-role gig here. I don't know what kind of voice he's doing but NO THANKS! What a head-scratching decision on his part. This is an episode that had potential but gets completely ruined by a lack of solid direction behind the camera and weird acting decisions by a focal point in the episode.

...Also contains a bit of "The Hidden" - But I also include, the greatest Sci Fi "Whodunit" of all - "Who Goes There" by John W Campbell, which is the basis of "The Thing from Another World" and "The Thing" Films from the 50's and the 80's.

Rao Vantika is an Alien obsessed with Death. Ty Kajada is an Alien Policewoman of the same Alien Species, obsessed with Vantika.. and also obsessed with bringing him to Justice.

But Vantika is a genius. He's used all manner of tricks to prolong his life, extending it to the maximum that his species will allow.

But the Prisoner transport he is being hauled in, somehow catches fire and he dies. End of Story? Not by a long-shot.

Lt. Primmin, the Federation Security Liaison assigned to DS9, is tasked with protecting the shipment of some stuff called "Deuridium" which has some kind of Life-Preserving properties - This stuff is a Planetary Shipment, being sent to the home planet of Ty Kajada and Rao Vantika. Well, for some reason, Vantika wants this stuff - And he'll do anything - Including rise from the Dead, to get it! Kajada is not convinced Vantika is dead, he's faked his death so many times before. And in fact, things start happening on the Station that point to him being alive... But How? The DS9 team figures it out - Too late. Vantika has taken possession of a member of the DS9 crew... but which one? This is the question asked here. Who is it, Who Done it? And the "Science" gimmick of this ep, is the premise, that a Human Mind is not using all of it's capacity at any given moment - So there is room enough in the Human Brain's Neural Pathways, to store more than one ENTIRE personality. Which is a startling answer to this conundrum. The question becomes "Who Goes There?" - Which is the main gimmick in the 1930's Sci Fi story of the same name by John W Campbell.

This Ep reflects some of the best golden age Sci Fi stories ever written: "Passengers" by Robert Silverberg - Beings that can take over any human body and use it as a plaything, leaving the host personality unable to do anything about it... Kind of like a reverse Dax, and the Hosts the passengers take have no say in the matter.

Then there is "A Plague of Pythons" by Fred Pohl - There is a small conclave of humans that can don a headset and take over any human body on Earth. That story does not bode well for the people who made the headsets- The hero of the story gets control of all the headsets and kills them all.

"The Puppet Masters" by Robert A Heinlein, which reflects an invasion of Slug-like creatures (Sound Familiar, Dax?) that can attach to any human brainstem and it creates a merged being, LIKE the Dax symbiote- But the "Slugs" are Malevolent.

There is even a reference to "The Hidden" - An 80's sci-fi flick starring Kyle MacLachlan and Mike Nouri where there is a race that can do the same thing: IE, take control of a host body for a short time, abuse it, get it killed, then move to another host.

There is a very large hint of these stories in this great DS9 Ep written by Hugo Award Winner Morgan Gendel of Next Gen Ep "The Inner Light" - And it took one of the regular DS9 Actors to pull it off. Can't say which one, as I put enough spoilers in my reviews... Let's just say the guy they put Vantika IN, was a newbie to US Television.

The way this ep moves is the epitome of creepy. We never find out who Vantika is traveling in until the last minutes of the episode, but when who it is, is finally revealed? It is a shock and a kick in the Arse.

Now it was said in another review that the actor who "Had Vantika In Him"- when he had to BE Vantika, that this actor was wooden. Wrong: I think they did a great job, putting on a personality that was different than the DS9 character they usually portray. So we have a very creepy story, and everything that happens is misdirection. There are quite a few Macguffins in this Episode, we are totally fooled until the very last reveal. This was a great Ep in the first season of DS9 which revealed the possibilities of where this show could ultimately go.

I am going to have to qualify my last paragraph again, just to make it totally clear: a number of people in these reviews have commented on Siddig Al Fadeel's voice, without mentioning that during most of those conversations, he was speaking as the "Kobliat" alien Rao Vantika- Who in fact uses that same kind of speech at the very beginning of this episode, right before he dies the "first" time! I think the strangeness of Vantika's speech, which only manifests itself when Bashir "is" acting as Vantika, is totally appropriate.

Does Bashir speak like this during the rest of the episode when he was acting as Bashir? NO. The only time Siddig speaks like this is when he is representing Vantika. Which makes these comments in the other reviews regarding Siddig's voice, highly offensive and inappropriate to me. It says less about Siddig's acting talent and more about those particular Reviewers' inability to follow the story.

We also have to remember Dr. Bashir's little "frontier medicine" speech to Kira, which included quite a lot of stuttering. And also when Bashir and Dax walk out of the airlock of the science ship when we first see them in "Emissary", he is also stuttering when he is trying to invite Dax to dinner. That was our introduction to this character, he is a great doctor but he is of course a geek, A geek who is obsessed with Dax. And so this episode, being closer to the beginning of the series rather than the end- when we discover things about Bashir which we did not know here- and that he was hiding from everybody- when it comes down to it, Bashir was a better actor than the entire cast of the show, he was pretending to be a timid geek for the first 6 1/2 seasons, but that is not at all who he really was, was it?

First-rate story,writing. direction, and acting by both regulars and guest stars combine to produce one of the best installments of the first season.

In particular, Alexander Siddig is outstanding and really shines here, giving a powerful performance in a dual role. Guest star Julie Caitlin Brown also turns in a convincing performance as the cold and ruthless Ty Kajada, and we get to learn a bit more about the relationship between Odo and Sisko here, too. Excellent direction by Paul Lynch keeps you constantly guessing in this suspenseful adventure that plays very much like an Alfred Hitchcock spy mystery.

The only weak link in the chain is that of Lieutenant Primmin, played sincerely but ineffectively by James Lashly. The fault here is not so much Lashly's performance as it is the fact that he is simply miscast in this role; his affable manner and genial appearance do not make him threatening enough to be believable to be as a member of the intimidating & mysterious Starfleet Security (sort of like John Goodman trying to play a CIA agent- good actor, but wrong part). Apparently, the producers felt the same, way, too, for after one more appearance in the next episode, "Move Along Home", Lt. Primmin "sailed off into the stars" and was never seen in the Star Trek universe again.

Highly entertaining, with many unexpected twists and turns. I give it a 9 out of 10.