They Just Don't Make 'Em Like This Any More...

As I've probably mentioned in here at some point or another, I'm currently engaged in the long-term project of watching all of Deep Space 9 over from the beginning. Columbia House sends me two episodes a month, and I've been getting pretty backed up on watching them, so I made some time tonight and watched "Improbable Cause"/"The Die Is Cast" (despite the two different titles, it really is one two-part episode). And, well... wow. This is a very, very serious contenter for my all-time favorite DS9 episode, possibly even my favorite episode of any Trek series. ("In the Pale Moonlight," an ep with which it has many features in common, might just beat it out, but it's hard to say.) TV episodes I really liked the first time they aired often turn out, on re-viewing years later, to be a little disappointing (I feel that way about a lot of TNG, for example), but this one was even better than I had remembered. Talk about an episode with everything: Mystery, skullduggery, and intrigue; more plot twists than an entire season of The Twlight Zone; sharp dialog; space battles; and layer upon layer upon complex, wonderful layer of deft, subtle characterization.

Oh, and Garak. Lots and lots of Garak! Truly, the fact that the "plain, simple" Cardassian tailor plays a central part in it is almost enough to make this a standout epsiode all by itself. Garak is, in my opinion, one of the truly great characters in TV science fiction. He's mysterious. He's incredibly cunning and intelligent. He's witty. He's quite ruthless, skilled at assassination and torture... and yet he has a conscience, a heart, and perhaps even his own unique code of ethics. He is an incredibly accomplished liar: a man who can deceive by telling the simple truth in exactly the right way and express the deepest truths through barefaced lies. His charming smile is, of course, carefully crafted, a tool with which to manipulate others... and yet, you can't help but like him for it anyway. He has a subtle, devious, complicated mind, and it's fascinating.

Oh, and he gets some of the best lines, too. Some particularly appealing Garak-isms, just from this one episode:

Garak on Shakespeare:
Garak: I'm sorry, doctor, I just don't see the value of this man's work.
Bashir: But Garak, Shakespeare is one of the giants of human literature.
Garak: I knew Brutus was going to kill Ceasar in the first act, but Ceasar
didn't figure it out until the knife was in his back.
Bashir: But that's what makes it a tragedy. Ceasar couldn't conseive that his best friend would plot to kill him.
Garak: "Tragedy" is not the word I'd use, "farce" would be more appropriate.

Garak on Aesop:
Garak: Why is it no-one ever believes me even when I'm telling the truth?
Bashir: Have you ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?
Garak: No.
Bashir: It's a children's story about a young shepard boy who gets lonely while attending his flock, so he cries out to the villagers that a wolf is attacking the sheep. The people come running, but of course there's no wolf. He claims that it's run away and the people praise him for his vigilance.
Garak: Clever lad! Charming story.
Bashir: I'm not finished. The next day the boy does it again and the next two and on the fourth day a wolf really comes. The boy cries out to the top of his lungs, but the villagers ignore him and the boy and his flock are gobbled up.
Garak: That's a little graphic for children, wouldn't you say?
Bashir: If you lie all the time, no one is going to believe you, even when you're telling the truth.
Garak: Are you sure that's the point, Doctor?
Bashir: Of course. What else would it be?
Garak: That you should never tell the same lie twice.

Garak's further thoughts on lying:
Garak: The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination.

I could go on, but frankly the quotes lose something when you can't see his facial expressions or hear his tone of voice, so I'll stop.

It wouldn't do, however, to concentrate so hard on Garak that we forget all about the other major character in this story... It's wonderful to watch Garak and Odo play off each other. (Indeed, it's a dynamic I really wish they'd used more often.) Odo's passion for honesty is as strong as Garak's love of deception, but they share the same incisive intellect, the same keen powers of observation. I love the scene on the shuttlecraft in which the two of them make astonishingly astute guesses about the other's darkest emotional secret, with whole volumes being communicated between the lines. And speaking of dark emotional secrets, there's also, of course, the utterly unforgettable interrogation scene and its sharp reminder of just how much else the two of them have in common... Powerful stuff.

See, this is how I like my Star Trek! Do you think a little more of this kind of thing is too much to ask? Really?