“The Muse,” I think, wants to be a story about how we can inspire one another — but only insofar as there is something within us to inspire. It’s actually a pretty interesting idea for a story. Too bad it’s utterly wasted here. The entire episode plays out like its characters are under the effects of ether, the plot simply makes little to no sense whatsoever, and it involves horrendous mischaracterizations. The result is truly abysmal.

Need I mention that Lwaxana Troi figures prominently?

The main story involves Jake Sisko meeting a mysterious woman, named Onaya, who claims to “have a weak spot” for artists. Onaya is somehow able to tap into Jake’s inner talents as a writer, allowing him to begin work on a novel, called Anslem. The problem? Her efforts somehow extract a kind of psychic energy from Jake which, in short order, will leave him … well … dead.

The notion of a person who can see within us, who can see our potential, and who wants to help us reach our potential is absolutely a compelling one. Though, it’s unlikely that such a person would turn out to be a predator, I could accept the premise for the purposes of the story, on the condition that it provided some revelatory new perspective about character, or the human condition. But that isn’t really the case here. At best, we get a passing mention of the age-old conflict between whether or not it’s better to burn out in a flash of brilliance, or fade away after a long, but productive (though perhaps less brilliant) life.

To that end, Onaya claims to have inspired a whole host of brilliant-but-short-lived artisans over the centuries. But the actions within the episode just don’t work. For starters, the quasi-sensual reactions she gets from “feeding” off of Jake’s creativity are more comical than sinister. And yet, we get scene after scene after scene of these moments. Mayhap all of this is akin to a kind of drug addiction (which would explain her ludicrous decision to abduct Jake from the Sick Bay). But that angle just isn’t given enough justification within the episode itself.

In the end, she escapes, Jake recovers, he’s left with the beginning of his novel, but little else. I suppose one could argue that the experience teaches Jake that the “words were inside” him all along. But if so, the story was nowhere near close to compelling enough to justify the time spent on it. And that doesn’t even begin to get into plot inconsistencies such as Ben heading off to Bajor and coming back, with no one really mentioning anything about it. Worse still, the whole affair is plodding, dull, and just too obscure to really get into the heart of any of the issues it tries to raise. The fact that it’s the better half of the episode is … unfortunate.

This is because Jake’s story is “married” to an even more abysmal tale involving a now-pregnant Lwaxana Troi. Yes, that’s right. Pregnant.

Actually, Lwaxana’s performance here is much, much more subdued than normal, which is a relief. But it’s the only positive to this particular plotline. As it turns out, though Lwaxana is still in love with Odo, she married some alien dude, got pregnant, and is now on the run because she disagrees with how her husband wants to raise the child (because it’s a boy, the husband will take the baby away from Lwaxana and only allow it to be raised by males). So Lwaxana runs to Odo who, reluctantly, agrees to help.

And this is where the story gets … well … weird.

Instead of the characters actually confronting the issue about how the baby should be raised, Odo decides it’s better to bypass the whole conflict by … marrying Lwaxana. Yes, that’s right. Marriage.

By some strange quirk of custom (aka plot device) in the alien’s culture a married woman can marry someone else, if only this someone else can prove his love for her. So we’re left with a quaint scene in which Odo explains, quite sincerely, what Lwaxana’s acceptance of his nature means to him. It convinces the spurned husband that Odo does love Lwaxana. The marriage is official, and the child can now be raised by Lwaxana. See what she did? She was furious that her husband would take *her* baby from *her* … and her solution was to take *his* baby from *him*. The worse part? No one notices much less comments on the utter hypocrisy of her (and Odo’s) actions.

Wow.

What a wonderfully moral, ethical, uplifting, satisfactory resolution. It’s just as problematic as the solution to “The Sons of Mogh.” But whereas that episode featured some truly compelling character and acting moments before it fell apart, this episode offers absolutely nothing of worth.

“The Muse” is the epitome of failure. Nothing works. One conflict literally has no resolution and, even worse, it presents a thoroughly immoral and hypocritical solution to its other conflict. There’s nothing here to redeem it.

Filed under: Deep Space Nine