Afterimage (episode)

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Ezri Dax has trouble adjusting with the rest of the crew; Garak inexplicably collapses.

Summary

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Everyone is slowly adjusting to the new Dax pretty well – except for Worf, who is totally avoiding her. Thanks to Jadzia's memories, she can read him like a book, but she also knows that the thing he needs most at the moment is his vital space. The only Starfleet officer she feels totally comfortable with is Benjamin Sisko.

In a totally different area, Elim Garak is having a hard time controlling his claustrophobia. This comes at a time he is more needed, and solicited, than ever by Starfleet Intelligence. Since Ezri is an assistant counselor, she is the one most fit to help him. Unfortunately, Garak is very reluctant to open himself to a person he barely knows.

Even if certain people – Quark and Dr. Bashir in particular – are more than happy to "have a second chance" with Dax, Worf doesn't make things easy for his former wife when he tells her that he doesn't want to have anything to do with her (anymore). On the bright side, Ezri is able to make some progress with Garak by helping him to regain some serenity after a particularly acute attack. Unfortunately, the tailor soon falls back into his very private habits and says harsh things to the still confused and fragile Trill destroying what little confidence she has. After collapsing in tears at the Bajoran Shrine, she hands Sisko her resignation. He tries to talk her out of it, but when she refuses, he angrily tells her that maybe she made the right choice, and after telling her he'd pass her resignation on to Starfleet Command, sharply dismisses her.

But Ezri is not the only one having trouble sorting her feelings out. Worf is also getting his part of confusion. The Klingon in him surfaces when he assaults the doctor and menaces Quark to keep them away from Dax. Nevertheless, Miles O'Brien is able to make him understand that Ezri has much of the answers he is searching for.

Things unfold for the better for Garak when Dax and he are finally able to uncover the cause behind his attacks. The war against the Dominion unfolded in such a way that Garak became the traitor he always claimed he wasn't and he found it difficult to swallow. He is finally able to rationalize the choice he made and live with it, even thanking Ezri for helping him to sort things out. She goes to Sisko to withdraw her resignation, only for him to tell her that he never passed it on, and his reaction was only to help her make the right decision (similar to what Curzon would have done to him). However, she still plans to leave and rejoin the USS Destiny.

In the end, even Worf comes to apologize and explains to Ezri that she doesn't have to take decisions against her will because of him. Ezri then decides to stay at Deep Space 9 as the resident counselor and she looks much happier in the final ceremony, held to celebrate her promotion to the rank of lieutenant.

Memorable quotes

"These pronouns are going to drive me crazy!"

- Ezri Dax

"Now wait a minute! You have no right to tell me who I can be friends with!"
"If you dishonor Jadzia's memory, you will regret it. And that goes for you, too, Ferengi!"
"What did I do?!"

- Bashir, Worf, and Quark

"It's a strange sensation, dying. No matter how many times it happens to you, you never get used to it."

- Ezri Dax

"You're a therapist?"
"Why does everyone sound so surprised when they hear that?"

- Quark and Ezri

"Spare me your insipid psychobabble. I'm not some quivering neurotic who feels sorry for himself because his daddy wasn't nice. You couldn't begin to understand me!"

- Elim Garak, responding to Ezri's help

"I want someone to help me get back to work. And you, my dear, are not up to this task. I mean, look at you. You're pathetic – a confused child trying to live up to a legacy left by her predecessors. You're not worthy of the name "Dax." I knew Jadzia. She was vital, alive. She owned herself, and you... you don't even know who you are. How dare you presume to help me? You can't even help yourself. Now, get out of here before I say something unkind."

- Garak, responding to Ezri's help

"You are not Jadzia. Jadzia died and went to Sto-vo-kor. I do not know you, nor do I wish to know you."

- Worf

"Oh, no. Not again."

- Worf, when O'Brien enters the Klingon's quarters with bloodwine.

"She is cute."
"She's also about three hundred years too old for you."

- Jake Sisko and Benjamin Sisko, about Ezri

"Will you come to dinner with us?"
"Please, I don't want to intrude..."
"Honestly, it's fine. It'll take some pressure off me. All he does is sit and count how many times I chew."

- Odo, Ezri and Kira, after Odo asks Ezri to dinner.

"Stop it, Benjamin! I thought you of all people would understand."
"I do understand. And you're right. You don't deserve the Dax symbiont. Quite frankly, you don't deserve to wear that uniform! I'll pass this on to Starfleet Command. Dismissed!"

- Ezri Dax and Benjamin Sisko

Background information

Obviously, the primary function of this episode was to introduce Ezri Dax into Deep Space Nine. As Ira Steven Behr explains, "We knew we had to be bold and not just try to sneak her into the show. Maybe we could have if this had been Season 2 or 3, but by this point, we only had one season, so we just had to go for it." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
René Echevarria was scripting this episode before Nicole de Boer had actually shot any scenes for either "Image in the Sand" or "Shadows and Symbols". Indeed, Echevarria was half-way through his first draft before he even found out who was going to be playing Ezri (this recalls Kurt Michael Bensmiller's situation when he was composing the teleplay for the first season episode "The Storyteller" – he was working several weeks before filming even began on the pilot, "Emissary").
René Echevarria's original draft of this episode focused more on Garak than it did on Ezri. Garak had gone on a dangerous mission for Starfleet, and at one point, to avoid capture by the Jem'Hadar, he had to lock himself inside a torpedo tube. As a result, when he gets back to Deep Space 9 and is being debriefed, he suffers a breakdown and forgets the information he was sent to retrieve. This is when Ezri comes into the story. The problem with this structure however, as Echevarria explains, was that "Ezri would have to be a very, very effective counselor. And that would make the scenes between her and Garak more about psychotherapy than about Ezri's character. The plotlines were fighting each other. This person who didn't know who she was would not be an effective therapist – and that was a major part of the story. So I radically simplified Garak's problem in my second draft. And by that time, I'd seen Nicole, which gave me more ideas. She became more quirky, standing on her head and stuff like that. We decided to let her almost stumble onto the solution to Garak's problem, and allow her vulnerability to bring it about." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
René Echevarria was not entirely happy with how this episode turned out; "Ezri helps Garak sort of by serendipity, and that gives her confidence. That was the intent, although I'm not sure we pulled it off. I talked to some professional therapists after they saw the episode and they told me, 'That was just bunk.' That was disappointing to hear, that we'd missed the mark. But I still think it was a good introduction to Ezri." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
In relation to Garak's role in this episode, Andrew J. Robinson comments, "Garak is Cardassian, and I think of them as really working from the reptilian part of their brain. They're very suspicious when anyone tries to interfere or pry or get inside their very carefully constructed perimeters. So although Garak was suffering this terrible anxiety that was affecting his breathing, he was driven to fence with Ezri, daring her to get inside him, and trying to stop her. But finally his anxiety overwhelms him and he realizes that he does need her help. And in the end, he is grateful." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) This is not the first time that Robinson has likened the Cardassian brain to the reptilian brain; see the Background Section for the second season episode "Tribunal".
Garak was first revealed to suffer from claustrophobia in the fifth season episode "By Inferno's Light".
This is the last episode of the series to be directed by Les Landau.

Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 7.2, 12 April 1999.
As part of the DS9 Season 7 DVD collection.

Links and references

Previous episode:
"Shadows and Symbols"

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Season 7

Next episode:
"Take Me Out to the Holosuite"

Afterimage (episode)

Contents

Summary

Memorable quotes

Background information

Video and DVD releases

Links and references

Starring

Also starring

Guest star

Uncredited co-stars

References

External links

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