Season 5
Apocalypse Rising – 1.5 (Starfleet sends Sisko, O’Brien, Bashir, and Odo to infiltrate the Klingon empire and eliminate the replaced Gowron. Dukat takes them to the empire; it’s nice to see him again, and there was some funny dialogue with him as well. The squad infiltrates the party to enter the Order of the Bat’leth under false names and identities. There are some entertaining moments, particularly when Sisko beats up a Klingon that killed a person he knew in Starfleet academy. None of it is played too seriously, and the tension is fairly high. Finally, Gowron walks in, and the squad sets up their devices that are supposed to expose Gowron as a Klingon. In a completely baffling move, Sisko doesn’t press the button to activate it despite it all being set up because his name was called up to receive his badge signifying the order. There were a million other ways to execute this better. He literally had the device in his hand and didn’t press it. Ridiculous. Anyway, he’s exposed, and they’re sent to prison. It turns out that Gowron’s second in command (the man watching our now imprisoned squad) has suspected for months that Gowron is a Changeling. So, he escorts the squad (sans Odo since he claims he’s worried about his loyalties) back to the party room to kill Gowron. For some odd reason, they don’t just shoot him. Instead, Worf battles Gowron and wins, but not before Odo realizes the second in command is a Changeling. What???? This twist feels absurdly stupid because we just met this character five minutes ago. I suppose the writers really wanted to avoid any long-term consequences. It also turns out that Gowron will negotiate with the Federation, which knowing DS9 will likely end the war, thus ending that overarching plot with an unceremonious off screen ending. Kind of an awful way to execute the promising ideas set up in the season 4 finale.)
The Ship – 3.0 (Quite possibly the most uneven episode of Star Trek I’ve seen yet. The issue with this episode is that it was in a constant identity crisis. The opening was pretty strong, and I especially enjoyed the atmosphere of exploring the crashed Jem’Hadar ship. Then the Jem’Hadar warship showed up with a Vorta to negotiate to get the ship/an item on the ship back. There was also a scene on DS9 where Odo arrests Bashir and Quark for smuggling some illegal spiders or something. It was fine, but felt just kinda stitched onto the rest of the episode. The rest of the show devolved into melodrama with some of the worst writing of the show yet. Dax is constantly joking and O’Brien and Worf get into a fight. In my opinion, it’s poor characterization for these seasoned officers to act so unprofessionally in a crucial situation. The subplot where Ensign Muniz gets shot earlier in the episode and slowly dies creates some interesting moments, but he’s so clearly written to die that some of it came off as painfully cliche. The ending is quite literally explained to the audience in no uncertain terms. “If we had just trusted each other, no one would have died” is what Sisko says to the Vorta pretty much verbatim. Basically the Dominion crew just wanted a Founder on the ship, but it ended up dying because neither party trusted each other. Though, I don’t really blame Sisko. The final five minutes is where this episode truly elevates itself above drudgery. Sisko talks to Dax about how hard it is to lose someone under his command, and Worf and O’Brien both mourn the loss of Muniz. Both of these small scenes are done well, and definitely save this rocky episode from being totally awful.)
Looking For Par’mach In All The Wrong Places – 3.5 (Grilka from “The House Of Quark” makes a comeback. Worf is into her, but can’t be with her since he’s disgraced. Quark still wants to be with her, and gets help with the Klingon traditions from Dax and Worf. A fairly simple plot with some amusing scenes. I especially liked the scene where Worf is sulking and jamming out to Klingon songs on the Defiant. The B plot with sexual tension between Chief O’Brien and Kira is really hard to watch, apart from the scenes with Odo and Bashir, respectively. It was actually pretty rough, especially the last scene with O’Brien and Kira. Anyway, the main plot involved Quark having to fight a Klingon (yet again) in order to be with Grilka. This time Dax comes up with a trick where Worf will remotely control Quark in the fight, which leads to some comedic moments, especially when the technology breaks down and Quark has to improvise a Ferengi tradition to stall. Armin Shimmerman also does a wonderful job of capturing what it would be like to have someone else control Quark’s body remotely. Some genuinely impressive stuff. Quark ends up winning the fight, and also Dax and Worf are kinda together. I actually don’t hate this; they’re cute together.)
…Nor The Battle To The Strong – 4.0 (Jake and Bashir assist a colony under attack from Klingons. As a quick note: the tension of the looming Klingon threat is great in this episode. Jake is thrust into a battle situation almost immediately, as he and Bashir are forced to get a backup generator from the runabout. He flees, and feels extremely guilty when he encounters a starfleet officer who stayed behind to let his crew get away. This is the main emotional thrust of this episode, and it works well. He’s eventually put into another life or death situation where he starts frantically shooting the ceiling in a desperate attempt to survive. He’s hailed as a hero for this, but he doesn’t feel like it since his thought process was the same when he fled from Bashir: he was just trying to survive. Compelling stuff. Sisko’s perspective revolves around his worry as a father. These scenes are just okay. The whole theme is a little cliche and doesn’t add much in terms of the father-son dynamic, unlike “The Visitor.” Overall a pretty solid episode and the strongest so far early in season 5.)
The Assignment – 4.0 (Keiko is taken control by a Pah-wraith, and orders O’Brien to do a series of tasks in order to save his wife. I really enjoyed the tense atmosphere, especially the scene when O’Brien is in a briefing with Sisko, Dax and Odo about the saboteur, and he has to sort of play down the severity of it so he can continue his modifications. I also thought the call with the Pah-wraith Keiko and Molly was quite eerie. I enjoyed the atmosphere of this episode quite a bit. I also liked when Rom sort of inadvertently saved the day by telling O’Brien that the Pah-wraith were trying to kill the prophets. The ending is pretty lazy technobabble since the episode doesn’t even explain what he does to have the electricity kill the Pah-wraith but not Keiko. It’s very convenient, but I’ll let it pass since the rest of this episode is very compelling. I especially liked that the Pah-wraith shut out any interference from the rest of the senior officers. I enjoy O’Brien having to play the role of saboteur, making his fellow senior officers the antagonists. I also enjoyed the look into Rom’s life as an engineer; he even gets a promotion at the end of this episode!)
Trials and Tribble-ations – 5.0 (Incredible!!! The two guys from temporal investigations were hilarious and so was everything else. It would be a chore to type out every funny moment because there’s just so many. One of my favorite moments was when Bashir, O’Brien and Odo asked Worf why the Klingons looked so weird. I also really enjoyed the attention to detail. The costumes and the weaving of past clips with current footage was nothing short of masterful, and it made the viewing experience incredible. The O’Brien and Bashir duo was probably my favorite team of the episode, especially when Bashir was rationalizing why he should bang this random medical officer because she has the same last name as his great grandmother- a sort of temporal paradox where he has to be his own grandfather. O’Brien in general was also hysterical. Odo making fun of Worf for Tribbles being the “mortal enemy” of Klingons is also hilarious. Just An absolutely excellent episode)