Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 51: Second Skin [VHS] Review
Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) is a good person. She often serves as the series' voice of reason, because she can always be trusted to do the right thing. This trust is hard earned because Kira also has one very particular prejudice, and everybody knows it: Kira Nerys does not like Cardassians. Her prejudice elevates "Second Skin" from just ironic to deliciously creepy. Imagine waking up in a strange place in the middle of your own worst nightmare. All the people around you insist that this is reality and everything you hold to be true is a lie. Now imagine that when you look in the mirror, the reflection of your mortal enemy stares back at you...
In this episode, nothing is what it seems. The viewer is forced to peel away layer after layer to finally reveal the answer. And that answer isn't black or white. It's gray--like the Cardassian skin in which Kira finds herself encased. Nana Visitor is given good, solid material here, and she runs with it. Cardassian kudos to Lawrence Pressman as Legate Ghemor and to Andrew Robinson as the ever mysterious Garak. Great line: "Anything worth doing in a holosuite can be done better in the real world." Great scene: Sisko gleefully blackmailing Garak into submission. "Second Skin" is a puzzle within a puzzle--there may be only one solution, but getting there is half the fun. --Kayla Rigney
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