Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: A Simple Investigation

DS9 "A Simple Investigation"

 "Somebody stop me!" - Jadzia Dax, maybe referencing The Mask?

Of all the Deep Space Nine characters to get a romance of the week episode, Odo is one of the least likely, and "A Simple Investigation' uses that to drive the story, particularly how the rest of the cast minus Worf bemusedly encourage his romance along for his sake. As a setup I guess it's supposed to be vaguely noir - one issue with the episode may be a slightly unmoored tone. Is it space noir? Is it more of an espionage plot? Are the thugs supposed to be comic relief or not?

A woman named Arissa (Dey Young) sparks with Odo in Quark's against the backdrop of trying to get out from under a notorious Orion Syndicate gangster called Draim, who she's been working for as a hacker. Eventually, after Arissa and Odo develop an intense bond, the rug is pulled from under them as it's revealed that the version of Arissa we've been following is a sleeper agent whose memories were voluntarily patched and rewritten for a sting operation on the Orion crime boss.

"A Simple Investigation" is a sexually frank episode, especially for Star Trek. In Arissa's implanted backstory, she was a "net-girl", or remote sex worker. Odo loses his virginity to Arissa (not counting an experience on the Founders' homeworld he describes as ambiguously sexual - that changeling bit of turning to goo with each other that seemingly goes a little beyond the standard "joining"). And in the "morning after" scene, the episode gives us the extraordinary sight of... lovey-dovey flirty Odo?

Part of what contributes to the undercurrent of confusion are the plot revelations. Arissa turns out to be a surgically-altered member of a race we've never heard of called the Idanians, who used her to infiltrate the Draim's organization. Her handler shows up and brags about how he's going to indict Draim. But this is space. Who has jurisdiction? Is the Idanian homeworld part of the Orion Syndicate? Maybe these Idanians are sort of like the Fenris Rangers from Picard.

The b-plot of the episode is a brief, low-budget return to Doctor Bashir's James Bond-esque holosuite program from "Our Man Bashir", which provides a couple laughs. "A Simple Investigation" is a decent if not hugely engaging episode, though the central romance between Arissa and Odo (and the chemistry between Young and Rene Auberjonois) works well enough. 6/10.