Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series) The Collaborator (1994) User Reviews

Time for a new Kai

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 1 April 2010]

As the time approaches for Bajor to elect a new Kai, the most likely candidate is Vedek Bareil, known to be the personal choice of the former Kai and a very close friend of Major Kira. When a man who collaborated with the Cardassians is caught trying to get back to Bajor he claims that Bareil may have been involved in an act of treason which led to the deaths of many Bajoran rebels. When Vedek Winn invites Kira to investigated the claims she accepts expecting that as the evidence emerges it will prove her friend's innocence. As her investigations go deeper she is shocked to discover that the evidence suggests that Bareil was indeed guilty of treason.

While this episode didn't contain any real action it was an interesting look at the religious politics of Bajor and had a rather surprising twist at the end. Louise Fletcher does a good job as Winn despite being a relatively minor character at this point in the series.

Apparently Oscar Wilde was a Ferengi!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 19 December 2014]

This is another episode with the dreadfully evil Vedek Winn (Louise Fletcher). This snake-like religious leader is one of the more deliciously evil characters on "Deep Space 9"--and her interludes are always welcome.

When the show begins, the Bajorans are about to elect a new Kai-- their highest office for their religious leaders. While Vedek Bariel is a nice guy and clearly the person that the station members would like elected to become Kai, Winn is naturally up to something and is scheming to eliminate him as a candidate. Oddly, her evil schemes necessitate the help of Major Kira--an odd thing as she is Bariel's lover and truly hates Vedek Winn.

This is an interesting episode because so much of what happens here isn't apparent until much later in the series--much later. Why Winn MUST become Kai is something you'll just need to see in this excellent and slimy episode. Well worth seeing.

Solid episode expanding on Kia Winn's unquestionable thirst for power.

[thevacinstaller · 7/10 · 20 March 2020]

Overall, I enjoyed this episode.

Kia Winn seems to be a character or plot element that you either love as a fan or you despise it. I am of the people who finds the Bajoran story element to be culturally fascinating and it's great to see how Starfleet (a godless society) interacts with a highly religious people. And who could possibly blame the bajoran people for being religious? The prophets (worm hole aliens) communicate with them via orbs and provide visions --- If you did this on earth I would be far more compelled to 'believe'.

Anyhow, Kia Winn continues her quest to achieve power at all costs. Given the history of previous episodes one has to ponder the possibility that a Cardassian source provided the information that Vedek Bariel was the collaborator? Kia Winn's a scary lady ---- her warning to Kira was freaking me out ---- leave my kira alone!

It was a very star trek esque move on Vedek Bariel's part to cover for Kia Oppaka's collaboration with the Cardassians to save 1000's villagers lives at the cost of her own sons life.

It's Kai Time!

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 9 October 2018]

This is another one of those episodes that incorporates the supernatural Bajorin stuff with the Kai and the Prophets and so on. There is this monastic society that wields great power with the Kai being at the top of the list. It is supposedly supposed to be a spiritual calling, but it is, instead, highly political. Kira gets up to her neck in things better left alone and ends up doing more damage than good. I'm really tired of these episodes, but I suppose since the Federation has to cow tow to these characters (like Winn) we will have a steady diet of it.

Not only is it illegal, it's sacrilegious

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 27 March 2022]

Kira investigates a Bajoran collaboration from the time of the Cardassian occupation.

This is a fairly good episode with a strong central performance and good contributions from guest characters.

DS9 is always good when Kira takes centre stage and her character is perfect to explore the politics of Bajor. The plot contains great political intrigue, although it is done mostly through exposition dialogue.

One of the best scenes is an exchange between Kira and Odo where she confesses her feelings about something to him. Rene Auberjonois' reaction here is a classic piece of visual drama.

The episode benefits from the presence of Louise Fletcher, perfectly cast in a role that generates a lot of compelling scenes of antagonism. She really does cold-hearted, smiling, self-serving ambition convincingly. Her exchanges with Nana Visitor and Avery Brooks are all enjoyable.

Visually it has plenty of positives. The dreamy orb sequences are particularly good, along with the art design, makeup and costume of the Bajor scenes.

Fantastic

[chasemike79 · 9/10 · 2 March 2020]

Oh if only we didn't need to endure Winn as Kai! The religious episodes don't seem to be everyone's cup of tea... but that last twist, that Opaka was the "collaborator" all along... this hit me right in the gut. Great episode.

Compelling but with logical flaws

[wolfstar_imdb · 8/10 · 17 January 2024]

This episode is full of good acting and dialog scenes, but the basic plot doesn't make any sense. What is Winn's plan?

OK, so Secretary Kubus and Winn are working together, and she gets him to come to the station, where he is then recognized and detained. This is contingent on the Bajorans on DS9 recognizing him, but it seems he was a fairly notorious figure so we'll let that pass.

Odo then allows Winn to visit him in detention (which seems dubious, as Odo knows that Winn is a terrorist who ordered Neela to blow up Keiko's school and assassinate Bareil) and doesn't monitor or oversee their conversation (also very dubious). In detention, Kubus divulges to Winn that Bareil was the one who ordered Prylar Bek to tell the Cardassians the location of the resistance base. But we know that Winn already knows this, as the nod they give each other earlier in the episode indicates to us that they're carrying out a plan.

Winn then asks to use Odo's computer(!) and googles Prylar Bek and the Kendra Valley Massacre, something she could have just done on a padd or terminal. It's also not clear why she would need to look those things up, as nothing Kubus told her should require here to look up basic information on the events. Essentially she only does it in the hope that Odo will look in the browser history to see what information she accessed and then tell Kira, an obvious trap Odo falls right into. But that's moot because Winn comes straight out and tells Kira about Kubus's allegations against Bareil in the very next scene.

Kira is only able to find out the truth of the situation by getting Quark to hack into the Vedek Assembly (something Winn could never have been able to predict) then getting Chief O'Brien to retrieve the lost data in the erased logs, which requires unscrambling and reassembling the deleted file fragments that are still stored in the computer memory after deletion. Somehow this happens to include a retinal scan(!) that links back to Bareil. It's nigh-on impossible that Winn would have even known about these long-since-deleted files in the first place, let alone known that they would be recoverable or traceable to Bareil - it's not rational or feasible for Winn to have thought that Kira or anyone else would have been able to retrieve this information, even with Starfleet expertise - and as such Kubus's allegations against Bareil would have remained completely unsubstantiated, rendering Winn's plan moot. It's also completely unclear whether Winn knows that Bareil is covering for Opaka or whether she thinks Bareil genuinely betrayed the resistance. There seems to be no way for her to know (Bareil only does because he was Opaka's close confidant and protege), and in fact if we read the episode as if Winn genuinely believes that Bareil is guilty, all of her actions seem a lot more justified. Rather than mere outrage at his betrayal, she's more delighted and satisfied that she's finally found some dirt on him that she can use to her own ends, which is in character.

Even if Winn does know about Opaka, how can she assume that Bareil will withdraw or lose in order to keep the secret? If she and Kubus were to go public with the allegations, it would be far more rational for Bareil to come out and explain to the Bajoran public that Opaka betrayed the resistance base in order to save 1200 lives, sacrificing her own son in the process. This would complicate her legacy but by no means destroy it and would ultimately be very healthy, as would Bareil then becoming Kai. So Winn's plot, such as it is, rests on the assumption that Bareil will simply withdraw from the race to protect this secret, which isn't a logical deduction. Again, Winn's plot makes more sense if she really does believe that Bareil was the one who betrayed the resistance. When she blackmails him by threatening to reveal this information and he then capitulates and withdraws from the race in response, this can only strengthen her impression of his guilt. Yet somehow the episode wants us to think that Winn had a master plan and was pulling the strings on everyone all along and getting Kira to do her bidding.

Makes zero sense

[sloopnp · 4/10 · 17 January 2020]

So Vedek Bareil tries to cover for the actions of Kai Opaka who is gone and not coming back, so he takes the fall. That leaves Vedek Ratchet, a fanatical terrorist, to take over spiritual rule of this people. Um. ok. How is that better for Bajor? And don't the people deserve to know the truth?

Major Kira is an idiot

[phenomynouss · 3/10 · 20 June 2010]

It's only season 2, I know, but I'm starting to get tired of this series' dabblings into sheer stupidity. Major Kira, the highest ranking Bajoran on Deep Space Nine, has proved to be an insufferable moron for most of the series. Her part thus far has apparently been to be the fanatic of the ensemble crew.

The problem with her is that she rarely, if ever, gets her comeuppance, in the way Quark would for doing less than she does.

In this episode, it's revealed that a Bajoran collaborator has come to DS9 and reveals that another collaborator was behind a massacre of a resistance cell during the Occupation of Bajor.

So Major Kira goes on a crusade to find out who it is, including at the very least breaking several laws, getting Quark to hack into the Vedek's security system, and finds out that it's potentially her lover, Vedek Bareil who was the collaborator.

When confronted, Bareil admits it was him, and that he gave the Cardassians the location of the resistance cell because they were threatening to destroy several villages and murder thousands of Bajoran civilians.

MAJOR KIRA WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT, THOUGH! She snarls and condemns him with the same amount of dogmatic narrow-minded insistence of a religious fanatic, not even bothering to give second-thought to her condemnations and anger given that he was FORCED AGAINST HIS WILL BY THE CARDASSIANS OR ELSE THEY WOULD MURDER THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT BAJORANS. To her, he's a collaborator, and that's that.

So he takes the fall publicly, only for her to discover that it was actually Kai Opaka (the Bajoran equivalent of the Pope, who they left on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant to bring peace between two warring peoples) who told the Cardassians, because of the same reasons Bareil claimed, and because her own son was in the cell that she knew the location.

OF COURSE, SINCE SHE WAS GREAT AND ALMIGHTY KAI, MAJOR KIRA IS NO LONGER ANGRY AND FORGIVES THIS ACTION! Perhaps ironically, producer Ronald D. Moore also created the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, which had an almost identical situation in the 3rd season involving the human resistance fighters labeling collaborators as undeniable traitors and enemies of mankind, regardless of who they are or why they're doing it.

This lead to Ellen Tigh "collaborating" with the Cylons in order to free her husband, who was one of the leaders of the resistance, in order to help the resistance.

In Battlestar Galactica, this is handled with great drama, care, and realism, with the collaborators given genuine reasons for collaboration, ranging from secretly helping the resistance, to having no choice, to just being pawns and tools. The actions of the resistance fighters are treated with the proper level of disgust, viciousness, and barbarity, even after the occupation of New Caprica, when they begin targeting SUSPECTED collaborators, finding evidence, and murdering them without trial.

By contrast, this episode handles it in purely black and white terms. The collaborators are bad and wrong, even if they aren't evil people, and Major Kira is good and right, even if she's breaking the law to uncover who was a collaborator.

Idiotic.