Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 7x05 — Chrysalis

Aired 1998-10-28

SpaceOpera.com rating:8

Average reader rating:3.92

Synopsis

A group of genetically enhanced humans, once under Bashir's care, escape from their medical facility home in the hopes that the doctor, who himself was genetically engineered as a child, can cure their friend Sarina.

Filler rating: partial filler

This episode serves as a sequel to DS9: Statistical Probabilities and provides some closure for the "mutant" characters.

Remarkable scenes

"Admiral Patrick" and his recurring "That's a stupid question!" line.
O'Brien: "Julian, I can't break the laws of physics. Nobody can!"
Jack: "Your friend was right. You can't break the laws of physics. But you can bend them!"
Bashir: "Sarina! What are you looking at?" Sarina: "Everything..."
The scene with Sarina, Jack, Lauran, and Patrick singing.
Jack's insinuating that the universe will stop expanding and collapse in on itself in 60 to 70 trillion years while Lauren fantasizes about Nog. Jack's computer diagram title read, "THE END IS NEAR !" :)
Sarina objecting to Jack's idea, claiming that it's impossible to change the cosmological constant of the universe. This is a nice reference to the way Geordi LaForge objected to Q's idea in TNG: Déjà Q. Notice how Jack's computer diagram has changed to, "HOW TO AVERT DISASTER..." with "DISASTER" painted red. :)
Morn Appearances; 1. First scene, seen in the background as Julian asks O'Brien to go to the holosuite with him. 2. Walks by as Nog summons Bashir to meet "Admiral Patrick." 3. Seen in the bar when Bashir talks to O'Brien about Sarina's vast speech ability improvement. Morn had previously caught O'Brien up on how his 17 brothers and sisters were doing. 4. Is present at the bar when Sarina joins Bashir's little get together with his friends. 5. Is present at the bar when Sarina plays Dabo.

Review

A welcome sequel to DS9: Statistical Probabilities. I said in that episode that I wanted to see Jack, Lauren, Patrick, and Sarina again and here we do. We get a bit of closure regarding the characters, especially Sarina's character who steals the show. I am only annoyed with the ensuing aborted love story. The episode relied a bit too much on Sarina being "driven" back into herself, firs by Jack and later by Bashir. It's just bad writing to tease the viewer in this manner. Aside from this though, Sarina's character was compelling and I really wished she had stayed aboard to be with Bashir. Then again, this leaves him perfectly single and ready at any time to start a relationship with Ezri, even if Worf may disapprove. ;)

5 reader comments

I liked this episode quite a bit, except for one scene: the music scene. I'm sorry, but no matter how genetically enhanced your brain is, you don't sound like that after a near lifetime of not speaking, let alone not having your voice trained. That scene was painful.
Aside from that, it was some great character development (even so late in the series) for Bashir. I feel bad for him. Aside from his short-lived relationship with Leeta, he's been pretty lonely, and now he finally meets a woman like him, whom he can really relate to! Too bad she has no experience with relationships, and yes, he did move awfully fast and make a whole lot of assumptions about what their relationship would look like! Rather presumptuous. But understandable, given his character and given how lonely he's been.
The episode reminded me of the movie "Awakenings," where several catatonic patients are given a treatment that temporarily allowed them to function and interact. I was afraid that this episode would end the same way, with Sarina returning to her original state. I thought that her not returning to her original state, but not staying on the station, was a good middle ground. The moment when Bashir is talking to her while she was pretending to be unresponsive, and then her responding to his "do you love me" with "I don't know!" was quite touching.
One little note: maybe this episode was produced before the scientific consensus was that the universe will actually expand forever rather than collapse inward on itself. Or maybe in 400 years there will be new evidence for the "Big Crunch?" Or, maybe Jack is onto something the rest of us aren't? Funny either way.
by Damien Bradley | 03/03/2013 at 1:41 am

Oh wow. This episode has 10 written all over it. Just superb. So many beautiful scenes and the overall story was immense. I think I might like this even more than In the Pale Moonlight.
by Selador | 09/22/2013 at 4:17 am

Sarina reminded me of Tiffany from Hellraiser.
by Dr. Philip Channard | 06/10/2015 at 12:07 pm

Gotta disagree with Damien. The music scene is one of my favorite scene in all of DS9 (or even in all of ANYTHING!) It was amazing.
by lumzi23 | 01/22/2017 at 11:09 pm

Sarina is played by columnist and frequent “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” panelist Faith Salie.
by Scott Nolan | 10/23/2018 at 12:41 pm