The Passenger (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

"The Passenger" is the ninth episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"The Passenger"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 9
Directed byPaul Lynch
Story byMorgan Gendel
Teleplay by
Featured musicDennis McCarthy
Production code409
Original air dateFebruary 21, 1993 (1993-02-21)
Guest appearance(s)

Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy, in orbit of the planet Bajor. In this episode a sinister criminal is hiding in the mind of someone on Deep Space Nine.

Plot

En route back to the station in a runabout, Kira and Bashir respond to a distress call from a Kobliad freighter and find Ty Kajada, a security guard, and her prisoner, Rao Vantika. Kajada tells them Vantika started a fire on the ship in an effort to escape. Vantika dies and Bashir and Kira take Kajada back to Deep Space Nine, where she becomes convinced that he is still alive. He has faked his death many times before and Kajada has spent most of her adult life tracking him.

Bashir and Dax come to believe that Vantika's consciousness may be hiding in Kajada's brain without her knowledge. Vantika has indeed taken on another body, and he contacts Quark to hire Ferengi mercenaries to hijack an upcoming shipment of deuridium — a compound Kobliads desperately need to survive. Later, when Quark meets with the mercenaries, they are interrupted as Kajada falls from the second floor of Quark's bar while eavesdropping on them.

In the infirmary, Kajada reveals that the real Vantika pushed her. Dax finds a device under the dead Vantika's fingernails that he used to transfer his consciousness to someone else and tests Kajada for signs of the device's usage. Meanwhile, Quark and the mercenaries meet with the real Vantika, in the body of Bashir.

One step ahead of the crew's investigation, Vantika and the mercenaries manage to gain control of the freighter carrying the deuridium. The station traps the freighter in a tractor beam but Vantika threatens to destroy the freighter, along with Bashir's body. One of the mercenaries objects to such a plan, prompting Vantika to shoot him. Dax is able to disrupt Vantika's control of Bashir's body long enough for a confused Bashir to lower the freighter's shields and allow himself to be transported to the Infirmary. Once Vantika's consciousness is removed from Bashir's brain, Kajada formally takes possession of Vantika's stored consciousness and destroys it and thus rids herself of him once and for all.

Reception

In 2016, Atlantic Classic Comics ranked "The Passenger" dead last in a ranking of all 173 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[1]

In 2019, ScreenRant ranked this episode one of the ten worst episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[2]

References
  • P. Farrand, Nitpicker's Guide for Deep Space Nine Trekkers New York: Dell (1996): 39 - 43
  1. "I Can Live with It...Ranking the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Episodes, Part I". Atlanta Classic Comics. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  2. "Star Trek: The 10 Worst Episodes Of DS9 Ever, According To IMDb". ScreenRant. 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
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