Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.

Synopsis: "Captive Pursuit"

Episode Number: 406
Air Date: 1/30/93

	The episode opens with Sisko dealing with an upset
employee of Quark's who signed an unwise contract. He is 
called away from the meeting by the announcement that 
something is coming through the wormhole.
	The ship that appears is of unknown type, and damaged; it
is the first arrival of a native from the Gamma Quadrant 
at the station. The ship is in danger of falling apart; 
Sisko offers to beam the pilot (a lizardish humanoid) off 
his ship, but he refuses to leave it, so instead they lock 
onto the ship with a tractor beam and bring it into the 
station that way. Dax suggests that given the new arrival's 
odd behavior, they suspend standard first contact 
procedures. Sisko agrees, and sends O'Brien down to the 
newcomer's ship alone to greet the newcomer and see about 
getting his ship repaired.
	O'Brien arrives at the ship and discovers the pilot
seemingly isn't there, although Dax insists that the 
sensors show he is. O'Brien starts to poke around on the 
ship, and the pilot appears out of thin air; he seems to 
have the ability to turn invisible at will. O'Brien and the 
pilot chat, a bit awkwardly; the pilot identifies himself 
as "I am Tosk."
	O'Brien brings Tosk aboard DS9; they pass through a portal
which flashes brightly as O'Brien walks into it. Tosk is 
startled; O'Brien explains that this is a weapons scanner 
which is picking up on his phaser.
	O'Brien and Tosk tour the station, and begin to develop a
rapport of sorts. O'Brien shows Tosk to a guest room and 
leaves him there. Tosk immediately calls up a computer 
display and asks it to show him where the weapons are, 
which it does.
	O'Brien and Sisko talk about their visitor. O'Brien
suspects Tosk is hiding something, and may possibly be on 
the run. Sisko assigns O'Brien and Odo to keeping an eye on 
the newcomer.
	O'Brien and Tosk try to repair Tosk's ship, and make some
progress. Then O'Brien takes Tosk to visit Quark's, 
resulting in an three-way conversation during which Tosk 
drops cryptic references to what his purpose is. O'Brien 
tries to get more details out of Tosk, but is told "I 
cannot discuss it."
	There is a conference in Ops about the visitor. O'Brien
details Tosk's suspicious behavior, but defends the 
newcomer, saying that he doesn't think Tosk means the 
station any harm. The others aren't convinced. Sisko 
suggests that if Tosk doesn't want to tell them the truth 
about his mission and motives, O'Brien should simply repair 
Tosk's ship and send him on his way.
	Tosk is playing with a wall device in a seemingly deserted
corridor. A painting on the wall morphs into Odo, who 
confronts Tosk about his activities. Tosk goes invisible 
and tries to escape; Odo is not impressed. He orders the 
corridor sealed, and Tosk finds himself trapped between 
forcefields, with security men closing in on both sides. 
Tosk agrees not to fight them, and is taken into custody.
	Sisko and Odo interview Tosk; the device he had been
attempting to circumvent was a security interlock on the 
weapons storage area, and Sisko is not happy about this. 
Tosk says "I cannot discuss it." Sisko is even less happy. 
Sisko and Odo exit, leaving O'Brien with Tosk. Tosk begs 
O'Brien to let him "die with honor". O'Brien is upset that 
Tosk is talking about dying.
	O'Brien goes to speak with Odo, telling him Tosk is very
unhappy about being caged. Odo comments that it's not his 
concern if his prisoners don't like the quality of his jail 
cells. O'Brien says that he finds himself liking Tosk and 
feels responsible for his being locked up. Odo fails to 
comprehend this.
	Another ship passes through the wormhole to DS9. It scans
the station, then powers up transporters. Sisko orders 
shields up. The ship fires an odd weapon on the station 
which reverses the polarity of the shields, allowing the 
people on the ship to transport through. A team of three 
armed and armored humanoids appear on the station; Sisko, 
Odo, Kira, and security people rush to confront them. Odo 
makes a grab for one of them and is promptly decked. A 
shootout occurs, during which Odo states that he refuses to 
use a phaser. Several of the invaders are taken down, as 
are several DS9 personnel. One of the invaders blasts his 
way through a door and finds Tosk in a cell. The invader 
announces that "The hunt is over," and then proceeds to 
viciously berate Tosk for his poor performance. He asks if 
Tosk broke his oath of silence to get the DS9 people to 
help him; Tosk denies having done so.
	Sisko arrives at the cell and is distinctly not happy about
these events. When he learns that the invaders are 
"Hunters" and that Tosk, a clearly sentient and highly 
intelligent being, is their designated prey, he is revulsed 
and furious. He confronts the hunt leader in his office; 
the hunt leader defends his actions, saying that Tosk were 
created and bred for the hunt and that they are the highly 
honored for their role in it, provided that they make the 
hunt an interesting one. Sisko deplores the whole idea, but 
when the hunt leader states that from now on the wormhole 
and the area behind it will be considered out of bounds so 
that no more hunts will come near DS9, Sisko sees no 
alternative but to grant his request that the Tosk be 
turned over to the hunters.
	Sisko explains to O'Brien that he has agreed to give the
hunters what they want, to O'Brien's dismay. Kira suggests 
that perhaps Tosk could be given asylum aboard DS9; Sisko 
says that if Tosk asks, Sisko would be willing to do that. 
O'Brien rushes down to Tosk's cell to get him to request 
asylum, but Tosk refuses, saying that would be 
dishonorable, and he does not wish to further dishonor 
himself. O'Brien leaves, saddened by his inability to help 
Tosk.
	O'Brien goes to Quark's to drown his sorrows. Quark comes
over and tries to pry information out of O'Brien; O'Brien 
angrily tells Quark to mind his own business, but 
eventually confides that he is upset over his inability to 
keep Tosk from being taken away to a miserable life of 
captivity by the hunters. He states that he hates the way 
everyone seems to be "playing by the rules" and then, looking 
at Quark, gets an inspiration.
	O'Brien goes to where Tosk, leashed in humiliation, is
being led off by the hunters. O'Brien tells Odo that he 
has orders from Sisko to escort Tosk off the station; Odo 
angrily strides off to go confront Sisko over this 
interference in security matters. The hunt leader is also 
unsure about O'Brien, but O'Brien feeds him a line of 
blarney that the hunt leader buys, and, with the hunt 
leader reassured, they head off to the hunters' ship. Just 
before leaving Security, however, O'Brien unobtrusively 
removes and leaves behind his communicator pin.
	Odo complains to Sisko and is told that Sisko issued no
such orders to O'Brien.
	Back at the docks, the hunt leader steps into the portal
which contains the weapon scanner -- and is knocked 
violently backward by an energy discharge. O'Brien then 
decks him with a solid right cross, and comments to Tosk, 
"Glass jaw. No wonder he wears a helmet." Tosk and O'Brien 
run off.
	The hunt leader picks himself up and announces into his
commlink: "The hunt has resumed."
	O'Brien is trying to lead Tosk to Tosk's ship, but a hunter
transports in behind them and levels a weapon. Tosk leaps 
at the hunter and dispatches him with violent efficiency, 
leaving O'Brien looking startled and a bit taken aback. In 
Ops, the commotion is noticed, and the position of O'Brien 
and Tosk is pinpointed. Odo says he'll seal off their exit 
routes, but Sisko stops him, telling him thoughtfully, 
"Constable -- there's no hurry." Odo stares blankly at 
Sisko for a moment, then slowly nods, and walks off to 
Security at a nice, leisurely pace.
	O'Brien and Tosk are crawling through an access tunnel;
O'Brien uses his phaser to cut Tosk free of the collar and 
leash the hunters had put on him. Tosk comments to O'Brien 
that "Now you are Tosk, too."
	They jump another hunter and Tosk claims the hunter's
weapon. Then they run into the hunt leader and two of his 
companions; Tosk fires his captured weapon, hitting the 
hunt leader square in the chest and felling all three of 
the hunters with the blast. The hunters are left in a 
smoking heap as Tosk and O'Brien run on.
	They reach Tosk's ship, where Tosk offers O'Brien a chance
to come along. O'Brien demurs. Tosk wonders if O'Brien is 
now in trouble with his people; O'Brien says "Maybe. But I 
gave the hunters what they wanted...a hunt." Tosk tells 
O'Brien "Die with honor." O'Brien returns the salute to 
Tosk, and Tosk departs.
	In the final scene, Sisko is giving O'Brien a thorough
chewing-out for his behavior. O'Brien admits that he 
tinkered with the weapons scanner so that it would deck the 
hunt leader when he tried to walk through it; Sisko points 
out that this is assault, and comments that he has half of 
Starfleet eagerly awaiting his report on the first 
encounter with life forms from Gamma Quandrant, and what 
exactly is he supposed to tell them? O'Brien defends his 
actions, saying that he gave both Tosk and the hunters what 
they wanted: an interesting hunt. Sisko is unimpressed and 
threatens in no uncertain terms to can O'Brien if he does 
anything like this again.
	O'Brien then wonders why they weren't stopped, commenting
that he thought that Sisko and Odo would have little 
trouble catching them once they knew what was going on. 
Sisko pauses, then says, "Well, I guess that one got by 
us."
	O'Brien leaves. Sisko shakes his head and grins, though
it's a bit rueful.

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.


First Impressions Reviews: "Captive Pursuit"

One-line opinion summary: Solid and entertaining; not much
more than that.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Many spoilers below, and no ^L on this terminal, so it will
have to be blank lines.

As I said in my one-line summary, this was a good, solid,
entertaining episode, but nothing spectacular. As is 
beginning to be the norm for DS9, we get a decently written 
plot that avoids the TNG problem of the two-subplot show, 
throws in some decent action scenes, a couple of nice 
characterization bits, and some sharp, snappy dialogue. We 
also avoided (mostly) the "station in danger" plot (though 
it looks like we'll be more than making up for it next 
week...) I had very few problems with this episode (and the 
few I had I'll get to in a minute, you can be sure), but 
also found very little that really grabbed me, which 
accounts for its fair-to-middling rating on my number 
scale.

The focus in this show was almost entirely on O'Brien;
aside from him, the only other character who got any 
significant screen time was Sisko. Odo and Quark had a 
couple of scenes which were, as in previous episodes, 
excellent. Kira and Dax had a few lines, very standard 
stuff, no characterization bits; Bashir got one line (which 
he didn't even get to finish, since O'Brien cut him off, 
much as Sisko did in "Babel"; this is beginning to remind 
me of the way the TNG crewmembers always used to cut Data 
off in mid-sentence.) Jake and Keiko were not to be seen.

While it's nice to see a focus on a particular character, I
have a personal bias toward episodes which use the entire 
ensemble (or a good percentage of it), and I am also a bit 
uncertain about some of the characterization of O'Brien as 
shown here. For one thing, I dislike "instant friendships" 
presented with no real sound basis for them; I can forgive 
a fair amount on the grounds that the writers only have one 
hour to show what needs to be shown, but it still rankled. 
Why exactly did O'Brien take such a shine to this guy? 
O'Brien has never seemed the sort to instantly bond with 
another person so quickly and easily before this; he always 
seemed kind of cautious and a little prickly, almost, in 
his personal dealings up to this point. I had liked that 
aspect, too, and I was sorry to see it thrown away. This 
sort of sudden rapport, and the consequences it led to 
(including a career-threatening piece of insubordination 
and the active encouragement of dangerous events on the 
station for the sake of this new friend) seems more 
appropriate for a younger and more impulsive character, 
like Jake or Bashir, or possibly Kira who seems the sort to 
champion underdogs just on the grounds that they require 
championing.

The second problem I had with the way O'Brien was portrayed
in this episode was that risk-taking on Tosk's behalf that 
I mentioned earlier. Okay, if he wants to throw away his 
own future for the sake of his new-found buddy, that's his 
choice (little though I may be convinced of it), but at the 
point where he decked the Hunt Leader and began to lead 
Tosk on a chase through the station, getting into shootouts 
with hunters all the way, I really started to wonder what 
he thought he was doing. Given the hunters' lack of regard 
for other life forms, it seemed likely that they wouldn't 
worry overly much about any innocent bystanders who got 
between them and their prey; I was wondering just how good 
O'Brien would feel about his actions if some innocent on 
the station caught one of the stray bolts that the Hunters 
(and later Tosk himself) were throwing around so casually, 
or if those blast guns (which had been shown to be capable 
of trashing a station door without much problem) hit a wall 
and caused a hull breach. I would have liked it if O'Brien 
had expressed some concern about this at any point. Was a 
friend he met only a day ago more important to him than the 
safety of the people on the station where he worked?

Given these points, I'm surprised that Sisko didn't give
O'Brien something more than just a royal chewing-out at 
the episode's end; I would have expected him to nail 
O'Brien with demerits or an official mark on his record or 
some other kind of punishment (whatever Starfleet uses to 
officially register disapproval) as well. Even thought 
Sisko felt sympathetic, I can't see him being very 
forgiving of one of his senior staff engaging in what 
amounts to reckless endangerment of the station and its 
personnel.

Maybe I would have felt better if the bonding between Tosk
and O'Brien had happened over the space of several days; I 
don't know what stretching it out that far would have done 
to the pacing of the episode, but it would at least have 
made the relationship feel more real to me.

Aside from those points, I liked the rest of the
characterization of O'Brien; in particular, his scenes 
with Quark were great. "Barkeep!". His brief talk with Odo 
rang true as well -- though after Kira did something 
similar in "Past Prologue", I begin to wonder just how Odo 
feels being put in the position of Father Confessor to all 
these angsting humanoids...O'Brien's line of blarney to the 
Hunt Leader was nice, too.

I also started warming up to Sisko again in this episode,
after being less than impressed with him in a couple 
previous episodes. Although the opening scene with the Dabo 
girl was extraneous and could have been dispensed with at 
no loss to the episode, it was nice to see Sisko taking an 
interest in the problems of the ordinary people of the 
station, and not just his own senior staff (and not just 
his Starfleet personnel, either.) It was also a nice 
indirect commentary on the character of Quark (hey, it was 
in the contract...) I appreciated his willingness to assume 
that Tosk was unthreatening until given evidence to the 
contrary (though I question the wisdom of it a little), and 
his indignation at the arrogance of the Hunters and their 
callous use of a sentient being was well-played. However, 
why exactly did he feel that the Prime Directive called for 
him to turn Tosk over to the Hunters? The Prime Directive 
calls for non-interference; they had already interfered 
with the hunt (to the dissatisfaction of both the hunters 
and Tosk) when they locked Tosk up. I would say that one 
reasonable interpretation of the PD might be to say that in 
order to not interfere (or in order to attempt to repair 
their interference), they would have to try to return 
things to the state they were in before the Federation 
interfered -- in other words, it could have been 
interpreted (creatively) that it was their *duty* to set 
Tosk loose in his ship, while at the same time restraining 
the Hunters from following him for exactly as long as Tosk 
had been kept on the station, thus restoring the status quo 
to the best of their ability. I bet he could even have 
gotten the Hunters to agree to it! (On a possibly 
irrelevant note, Kirk wouldn't have hesitated for a second 
to creatively interpret the PD in such a fashion :-)

The other nice scene with Sisko was the one where he tells
Odo not to hurry in his efforts to catch O'Brien and Tosk; 
good to see him willing to stick his neck out a little and 
bend the rules for what he sees as the greater good. 
(Although, as with O'Brien, I question that he didn't think 
about any innocents who might get caught in a crossfire; a 
comment to Dax or Odo about evacuating all of the areas 
between the current position of O'Brien and Tosk and Tosk's 
ship to prevent accidents would have made me feel better.)

The only other main characters we got to seen any of in
this episode were Odo and Quark, and in both their cases 
it was basically more of the same. Which is not in any way 
meant to be derogatory, since what we've seen before has 
been so very enjoyable. Odo remains a source of some 
priceless one-liners -- the one about the jail cells comes 
to mind, though I can't precisely reproduce it -- and 
somehow Auberjonois manages to be expressive even under all 
that face latex; his body language in the scene where Sisko 
told him "There's no hurry" spoke volumes. Quark, again, is 
terrific; all the scenes we've scene recently between Quark 
and the other members of the cast have almost invariably 
sparkled like few others, which must be a tribute to Armin 
Shimerman's abilities, as he brings out the best in his 
fellow players. My favorite line -- Tosk: "I have no vices 
to exploit." Quark: "A challenge...!" And the scene where 
he heckles O'Brien about his mood was a lovely take on the 
"sympathetic bartender" scene; it left me wanting to see a 
meeting between Guinan and Quark :-)

A few random comments and questions, positive and negative,
which don't fit elsewhere in this review:

-- Why exactly did Sisko send O'Brien down alone to meet 
with Tosk? O'Brien isn't exactly trained in first contact 
scenarios. I was surprised that given that this was the 
first contact with someone from the other side of the 
wormhole, Sisko didn't go down there himself, as the 
ranking Starfleet person there.

-- ALthough I applauded Sisko's willingness to assume that
Tosk was nonthreatening until he proved otherwise, it 
struck me as maybe a trifle incautious of him. Especially 
after O'Brien found out that Tosk could turn invisible at 
will. (An ability which didn't have too much relevance to 
the plot, come to think of it...) Would you want this guy 
running loose on your station? When you don't know anything 
about his abilities or motives?

-- Tosk requests to be shown where the weapons are, and the
computer *tells* him??? This is the same computer that 
wouldn't tell Quark, a station resident, where the 
replicators on the command level were, and yet it will tell 
a complete stranger where the armory is??? A little 
consistency, please!

-- How did Odo know where Tosk was going to be, when he
surprised him trying to break into the weapons locker? He 
had to have gotten there first to become the picture on the 
wall (yet another case where I failed to guess where Odo 
was, I might add).

-- Speaking of incautious, this guy can go invisible and
yet Odo lowers the forcefields before getting a hand on 
him? Tosk agreed not to fight, he didn't agree not to try 
to get away...if I had been Tosk, the minute the field went 
down I'd have gone invisible and scarpered (tried to, at 
least.)

-- The scene just previous to that, though, with Odo calmly
responding to Tosk's escape attempts, was nicely done; as 
has been pointed out by other netters, Odo is extremely 
sure of himself on his own ground and rather panicky 
elsewhere. (This has also been shown of Bashir in other 
episodes, and I for one like it as a character trait very 
much, for both of them.)

-- I wonder about those handy-dandy instant force fields,
though; they strike me as a too-powerful plot device which 
the writers may regret introducing later, as any time where 
they could be useful but fail to be used will be pointed 
out with great glee by observant (okay, nitpicky) netters 
such as myself.

-- The hunters' ship "reversed the polarity" of the
station's shields...a nice trick. If it's that easy why 
isn't everyone doing it? (And "reversed the polarity"?? 
Argh! Lame technobabble! Around here, the line "they 
reversed the polarity of the neutron flow" is often used as 
a classic example of bogus "skiffy" dialogue. I'd have 
preferred something about setting up an interference 
pattern, or creating a window in the shields, or just the 
shields being ineffective, to this "reverse the polarity" 
garbage.)

-- The hunters' transporter effect was nifty, though.

-- Odo got punched out! I guess if you hit him fast enough
and hard enough he doesn't have time to shift out of the 
way and can be hurt (stunned, at least.) He must have 
already "jellified" his head when that mace got chucked at 
him in the premier. At least we get to see some limit to 
his powers, which is good.

-- Odo won't use phasers. Why? Kind of silly (if not
downright stupid!) for the Constable to go running around 
without some kind of ranged weapon. How does he stop a 
fleeing criminal if he happens to be alone?

-- The Hunt Leader's speech to Tosk was nicely biting; I
 felt really sorry for the poor Tosk, which was the intent.


-- I had mixed feelings about the whole "We hunt Tosk; they
are bred for the chase" scene between Sisko and the Hunt 
Leader. On the one hand, we are clearly meant to view the 
Hunt Leader as an out-and-out nasty Bad Guy, and to be as 
disgusted by the whole thing as Sisko is. And I do, in 
fact, think that any such sort of hunt would be a basically 
evil thing. However, there was a kind of patronizing air to 
the situation that I rather disliked. I think it would have 
been better if the Hunt Leader had been more...hmm..how to 
say this...likeable? If he had been genuinely puzzled by 
Sisko's attitude, and apologetic for the problems he and 
his hunters had caused the station, but not in the least 
apologetic over the habits of the Hunt, the impact would 
have been greater, I think. An idea that wasn't really 
explored in this episode was the one of evil depending 
greatly on one's point of view. To our society, for 
example, cannibalism is disgusting and Evil with a capital 
E, but to the African tribes which practiced it, it was an 
honor to the dead enemy, because by eating him one 
expressed a desire to possess his qualities of courage and 
strength. No one would want to eat a weakling for then one 
becomes a weakling oneself. (Any anthropologists out there 
feel free to correct me if I'm flagrantly wrong about this; 
I'm not an expert on the topic, but this is what I've 
picked up from reading.) The point I'm trying to express, 
however inelegantly, is that I would have preferred if the 
show hadn't taken quite the judgemental tone toward the 
Hunters that it did in portraying them as one-dimensional 
villains.

-- Poor Sisko has a lot of insubordinate underlings! After
less than a half-dozen episodes, two of his senior staff 
have been censured for their behavior (Kira and O'Brien). 
They're both on the "one more problem out of you like this 
and you're out of here" list already. (And Dax probably 
should be for continuing to call her commanding officer by 
his first name, but they're ignoring that.) I have to admit 
that it's fun watching Sisko try to ride herd on this bunch 
of rather rough-edged characters, but I wonder how the poor 
man's nerves can stand it.

-- As a final comment, I rather wish they had done
something else for the first visitors through the 
wormhole; not that this was bad, particularly, but they 
could have built an entirely different episode on the 
"first contact with the people from the Gamma Quadrant" 
theme and saved the hunters for the second set to come 
through. This is a minor peeve, though. And it was almost 
worth it to hear Sisko complaining to O'Brien about how he 
was going to report this to Starfleet HQ (how indeed?).

Next Week: It's Q. And the station's in danger again. This 
ought to be fun. (A quick note -- John De Lancie looked 
older and more serious as Q in the promos for this episode 
than he does when he's Q on TNG; he has grey in his 
sideburns, for example, and just in general appears less 
flippant. I may be judging from too little evidence in the 
promo, but it looks as if even Q is being portrayed more 
"darkly" for DS9 than he is for TNG. We'll see whether or 
not I'm right next week.)

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.
