Deep Space Nine does The Ghostbusters. Badly. For the first half of “The Reckoning,” we get a solid episode about faith and prophecy — about how far one will go when belief alone isn’t enough to provide answers to complex, and potentially dangerous, questions. But then the episode switches gears into an overtly paranormal story which is utterly ridiculous in both concept and execution. The end result is a very, very poor installment.

The episode opens with the discovery of an ancient Bajoran tablet which makes reference to The Emissary. Sisko heads off to investigate and finds that the rest of the writing on the tablet is almost undecipherable. So he brings the object back to DS9 to study it further.

These opening scenes are worthwhile for a number of reasons. The reinforcement of Sisko’s role as Emissary is nicely handled, as is the need for Sisko to pay some kind of “price” for his request of the Prophets to stop the Dominion fleet earlier in the season. Jake’s concern about his father is plausible and touching. And Kira’s faith is reinforced by Odo’s faith in her.

These are nice character scenes which keep the episode humming along nicely as Kai Winn boards the station to protest Sisko’s removal of the artifact. Even Winn’s actions in this part of the episode are plausible and illuminating. Following the events of the Dominion occupation of DS9, it would seem that she had at least accepted Sisko’s role as Emissary. Here, though, it’s made perfectly clear that any such “trust” she had in Sisko was temporary, and now she’s back to seeing him more as a rival.

This is all well and good, but as soon as Sisko smashes the tablet — the Prophets told him to — the episode plunges off of a cliff and morphs into some of the worst Trek ever put to screen (and that includes any of the uber-cheesy TOS moments which so often get mocked).

As it turns out, by breaking the tablet, Sisko released two “pah-wraiths” — Prophets who represent good and evil. Their destiny is to inhabit to humanoids to do battle, to have a final reckoning, as it were. To that end, Kira is possessed by the “good” Prophet and Jake is possessed by the “bad” Prophet.

The notion that the Prophets would have to use “corporeal” bodies to do battle is patently absurd considering their obvious disdain and even ignorance of life forms such as humans or even Bajorans. But even worse is how these elements are portrayed on screen. Kira has lightning come out of her fingertips while wind (on the promenade) whips her hair backwards. Jake as red eyes. They “battle” by shooting beams of energy out of their belly-buttons.

It’s embarrassing.

Of course, the episode tried to humanize all of this by making Odo and Sisko decide whether or not they’d let their loved ones take part in the battle (knowing that the loser might die). It’s a nice thought, but it’s utterly lost within the misguided spectacle.

And the final climactic moment … has Kai Winn scurrying up to Ops in order to use a technobabble device to put an end to the battle so that she wouldn’t lose her position as a spiritual leader.

So what did we learn out of all this? That Kai Winn is a selfish, self-serving person? We already knew that. That Sisko has accepted his role as Emissary? We knew that, too. That Winn now resents Sisko more than ever? Well, that, at least, was new. But it hardly justifies such a preposterous story.

“The Reckoning” gets some credit for its opening scenes which go a long way to explore prophecy and faith (and even character). But beyond that, the episode becomes pointless and ridiculous.

Filed under: Deep Space Nine