DS9 Ranker – Ratings are based on a 5-point scale and include spoilers
Season 4
The Way Of The Warrior – 5.0 (Worf joins DS9 and things immediately get interesting. He reveals that the Klingons are going to attack Cardassia after an overthrow of the Central Command. The Klingons believe that this was a dominion assisted coup and as a result are going to take over Cardassia to prevent the Dominion from spreading. There is some extremely compelling stuff here, especially as it relates to Worf. He’s torn between his duty to Starfleet and the Klingon empire, and just wants to resign in general. The battles presented are also great, and it was fun to see DS9 actually have to go into battle. Some of the smaller stuff like Quark’s metaphor of how root beer(!!!!!) is like the federation is great. “It’s cloyingly sweet and happy…the worst part is that the more you drink it, the more you start to like it…it’s insidious, just like the Federation.” I also enjoyed Garak’s disgusted reaction to the drink. Garak and Gul Dukat also fight side by side in this one, and any scenes between those two are always fireworks. Kassidy Yates also makes another pleasant appearance. Another standout scene was when O’Brien and Worf discuss their time on the Enterprise, and Worf remarks it felt like they could accomplish anything during that time. O’Brien adds “except for keeping the holodecks working.” Love that little reference to all of the holodeck gone wrong episodes. I also enjoyed when Worf threw off Odo by saying that he had read his security file after Odo threatened Worf to reveal what he found out in his investigation to Sisko. Anyway, The Klingons eventually surrender as Starfleet reinforcements are imminent, and Worf decides to stay on DS9 after a convincing speech by Sisko. The Klingons decide to keep some of the Cardassian planets they captured, strongly implying more future combat. Sisko once again has a cut to black scene where he remarks that DS9 isn’t going anywhere either.)
The Visitor – 5.0 The episode starts showing Jake as old man, letting in an aspiring writer. She wants to know why he stopped writing, and he says that it all started when his father died. We flash back to Sisko getting zapped by the warp core and being flung out of time. Jake then explains his whole life of trying to get him back. The knife only twists as his father keeps reappearing at seemingly random intervals, leading him to no conclusive answers on how to get him back. He eventually moves on and is quite a successful author and husband, but is sucked back into his journey of getting his father back when he reappears once more. He studies subspace mechanics and decides the only way to get his father back is to recreate the accident.
The wormhole is going through another event just like the one that sent his father spiraling through time. He even gets Dax and Bashir to accompany him with Nog as the captain. Also worth mentioning is how the Klingons took over the station in this timeline, leaving a pretty bleak view of this universe. Anyway, this attempt fails, and we return to the present day old Jake as he explains that his father is coming again, and he will kill himself so that his father can be transported to the day of the accident and be able to save himself. Sisko comes back and is happy to see that Jake took up writing again before learning of Jake’s plan. He holds old Jake one last time as he reminds Sisko to dodge the beam. He does, saving himself (and really Jake) in the process. Now, this episode may have killed Jake in the same way that O’Brien may have killed in “Visionary” but that question is unanswered. My personal theory is that the answer is kinda. The Jake that died at the end of this episode is A Jake, but not OUR Jake. Basically, by this Jake dying, it reset the timeline from the accident, in which OUR Jake still exists. Basically, the other Jake sort of never happened which may have collapsed that timeline entirely but that’s not entirely clear. Anyway, the emotions were flowing in this one which really made this episode special. It’s really hard to not love the moment when Sisko holds Jake tight at the end of this one. Also: Imagining this from Sisko’s perspective must be traumatizing: he goes from time skip to time skip in the matter of an instant, and ends up being reverted to our timeline in like 15 or so minutes. DS9 better have a damn good therapist. Also, this was the first Star Trek episode to make me cry! So points for DS9 on that one.)
Hippocratic Oath – 4.5 (Bashir and O’Brien crash land on a planet in the Gamma quadrant and are taken prisoner by the Jem’Hadar. The twist is that their leader wants Bashir to find a cure for their addiction to the drug that the Dominion uses to control them. The leader also somehow broke the addiction and is now less violent and war-like. O’Brien disagrees with Bashir on helping the Jem’Hadar, which leads to some interesting conversations between this now fleshed out duo. Bashir thinks that if he could cure the addiction that it could cripple the Dominion and let the Jem’Hadar be free. O’Brien is much more focused on survival rather than the larger potential benefits, and ends up defying direct orders from Bashir. He blows up the blood sample Bashir was using from the leader. The leader lets Bashir and O’Brien go, and there’s a scene on the runabout where both men explain themselves to the other, and decide to delay their darts game for another day. The B-plot with Worf not believing in Odo’s investigation skills is cool, as it actually explores that Worf is still adjusting to the way things work on DS9. This episode sets up a nice thought experiment in which both Bashir and O’Brien aren’t really wrong and explores a necessary part of Worf’s development as well. Very good episode overall.)
Indiscretion – 4.0 Kira finds out that there’s been wreckage discovered from a Cardassian ship that was carrying Bajoran prisoners. She immediately decides to carry out a mission to see if she could track down potential survivors, but not before the Cardassians request that they be able to send a delegation of their own. They send Gul Dukat, who has some of his own personal connections. Turns out his Bajoran mistress and daughter were on that ship so that they could eventually settle down far away, where they could have a resemblance of a normal life. There’s a great scene where Dukat is stricken with grief over the death of this mistress. The scenes between Kira and Dukat are good as a whole; in one particular moment Dukat sits on some sharp branch which induces a moment of laughter in both. This scene is quickly contrasted by Dukat telling Kira that he has to kill his daughter to save his political career back on Cardassia. Once they rescue the former members of the ship (who have been forced to work in mines for another species) there’s a great scene where Kira convinces Dukat not to kill his daughter, and he takes her back to Cardassia. The B-plot is also great, with Sisko harboring some hesitation with Kassidy Yates wanting to get quarters on the station. Bashir and Dax have a great scene where they try to help Sisko out, but it’s ultimately Jake that convinces Sisko to apologize and make his intentions clear, which he does. This proves that Star Trek writers absolutely can write believable and compelling romance plots, just perhaps not really in those single episode one-offs.)
1.5 – Rejoined (First of all, the reason I dislike this episode isn’t because of the female kiss/relationship portrayed here. Dax and Dr. Lenara Kahn were husband and wife in a past life. There’s some awkwardness because Trills are strictly forbidden from “reassociation” (Getting back together again) lest they risk being exiled and having their symbiont die with them. The reason I dislike this one is because the whole relationship is quite unbelievable. From what we’ve seen from Dax and Trills in general it seems that former hosts play a role in shaping decisions and personality of the current host, but not the role. Here it seems as though the past two hosts suddenly become the dominant personality somehow, with Kahn even referring to herself as “I” in reference to past actions taken by her prior host. Dax has always said “Curzon would…” or “Tobin might think…) because those were not her. In this episode alone she says that Curzon got kicked out of one of the most rowdy bars in the Universe. So, their love is suddenly rekindled how exactly? Even the friendship between Dax and Sisko isn’t one to one anymore, so why should this relationship be any different? This whole episode is in disagreement with literally everything we’ve seen thus far from the Trills, but perhaps the concept of “reunification” confirms that such a rekindling is possible. Either way, it’s not consistent with what we’ve seen from the Trills and drags down the core concept quite a lot.
Even if we hand wave that away we get a pretty basic forbidden love story, with Dax unbelievably (for the second season in a row) willing to throw her whole entire life away for love. The last time was the much bemoaned “Meridian.” Perhaps I don’t understand her character because it seems like she’s really dedicated to being a joined Trill in Starfleet; she even reapplied to the program after being kicked out of the initiate program. The episode ends with Kahn (predictably) leaving and Dax being forced for the second season in a row to actually live the life she’s chosen. This episode only confuses the nature of Trills even more and boils down to mediocre romance at its core with a completely boring backdrop of creating an artificial wormhole for the first time, which I swear has been done already. Maybe Dax romance episodes just aren’t for me.)
Starship Down – 3.5 (Economic Negotiations with the Karemma are interrupted by a Jem’Hadar attack, with the Defiant forced to fight in unfavorable conditions inside an extremely hostile atmosphere. The episode tries to cover a lot of ground with four threads, and while the end results are entertaining in their own right, it doesn’t make the most cohesive story when looked at as a whole. Kira is trying to keep Sisko alive after the Jem’Hadar launch a brutal attack on the Defiant, Bashir and Dax are trapped inside a turbolift after Bashir saves Dax, Worf struggles to command engineering personnel and Quark and the Karemma ambassador are forced to defuse a Jem’Hadar missile that didn’t go off. All of these lead to some interesting moments, but it’s a little jarring to go from Quark shenanigans to Kira literally praying that the Emissary doesn’t die on her watch. This would be roughly equivalent to letting Jesus die, so the stress is understandable. The Dax and Bashir scenes are pretty well done as Bashir discusses a fantasy he had with Dax when he first started at the station, leading to some fun dialogue. The Worf scenes are the best, as he adjusts his leadership style after O’Brien told him to ease up on the reins a little and let the engineering people have some leeway to solve problems. The aforementioned Quark bomb defusal scenes are actually decently entertaining but it feels a little out of place with the rest of the episode, especially since those scenes seemed to almost always cut back to Sisko dying. A decent episode that stretches itself a little thin but succeeds nonetheless.)
Little Green Men – 3.0 (9 episodes in and I’m not loving the new intro. The slow buildup to the title screen was a lot better in seasons 1-3, and there’s these little chimes in the background which sound strangely off tempo somehow? The second or third to last chord is also strangely ugly. The updated visuals are busy and are a downgrade from the simple elegance of just showing the station off. On to the actual episode: Nog is about to go to Starfleet academy, and Rom and Quark are going to take him on a ship gifted to Quark. But whoopsie daisy! They end up in 1947 where they are held by the U.S. army and some shenanigans ensue. The early interactions where their universal translators aren’t working are the funniest, and I especially enjoyed when the Ferengi trio started banging their heads to try and get the translators working and the humans took it as some sort of greeting and started mimicking them. The rest of the episode sort of meanders along as the army (with a scientist duo) reacts to the Ferengi’s arrival with almost painfully stereotypical cold war tropes. The rest of the episode isn’t really that funny as well. Nog ends up convincing the scientist women to massage his ears since he complains of pain, and this ends up coming across pretty weird and uncomfortable. Odo shows up for some reason and pretty much is useless throughout the whole episode. He also doesn’t really add much to the humor either. Anyway, the Ferengi trio escapes with the help of the scientists and this turns out to be the ev ent that would be known as Roswell; this is a cute little tie-in. There’s also a great detail where Nog tries to show Quark in his history of Earth textbook that Bell (from the Bell riots) looks suspiciously like Sisko, which was a pretty awesome joke/callback to Past Tense. Overall a decent outing with more misses than hits, but it still made me genuinely laugh which elevates this episode past a 2.5)
The Sword of Kahless – 2.0 (Kor finds the directions to the sword that belonged to the revered founder of the Klingon empire. He, Dax and Worf retrieve it but not before the house of Duras nearly steals it. Since their communication signal is jammed, the trio is forced to navigate their way out of the caves where the sword was found, and along the way both Kor and Worf become corrupted by its influence, and both desperately want it. This gets stale quick, and the cave set is just so dreary and utterly boring. They meander through the caves and eventually defeat the Duras clan which stops the communication jam. They go back to the ship and transport the sword into empty space, determining no one is worthy of keeping it right now. This clear analogue to the Ring of Power just didn’t really click for me. I don’t really like the characterization of Worf here and I couldn’t really get invested in the premise. This episode is kinda eh all around.)
Our Man Bashir – 3.5 (A runabout that Sisko, Kira, Worf, O’Brien and Dax were on blows up and the transporter malfunctions.. Their physical data ends in a holosuite program that Bashir is running, which is essentially a James Bond story. The safeties are off and Bashir can’t close the program, so he has to pull off a highwire act where he goes through the program without killing anyone and without being killed himself. Garak joins him as well. The story is obviously hokey and cheesy, but it all works pretty well. Avery Brooks chewing the scenery as the bombastic villain is a real treat. This was a pretty fun episode and it was cool seeing Rom save the day on the other side with his technical skills. Though, it is a bit weird that Little Green Men was only two episodes ago, which was also a comedy.)
Homefront – 4.5 (Sisko, Odo and Jake go back to Earth as a changeling has infiltrated a diplomatic conference between the Romulans and the Federation and set off a bomb. Jake is coming along mostly to see Nog and his grandfather. The episode starts a bit slow but quickly picks up. Sisko is made acting head of security for Earth and convinces the president to put in more stringent security measures to fight the changeling threat, such as blood tests and phaser sweeps. Meanwhile Sisko’s dad isn’t taking care of his health and Sisko is worried. There’s also a scene with Nog begging Sisko for yet another letter of recommendation. This time he wants to get into some honors program basically because all the cool kids are there. It’s a decent plot thread but it feels shoehorned in and a little unnecessary since the other two directions (Changeling threat and Sisko’s dad) are already very compelling. Perhaps the best scene in the episode is when Sisko’s dad refuses a mandatory blood test, and for a few seconds Sisko truly believes that he is a changeling. The paranoia and stress has weighed so heavily on Sisko that he’s beginning to question his own father, and this makes him highly uncomfortable. The last leg of this episode is where everything gets insane. The changeling infiltrates Starfleet (pretending to be the main admiral in this episode) and Odo catches him, but he gets away. Then all of Earth’s power shuts down and Sisko and the gang have to convince the president to allow them to declare martial law. The president hates this but agrees since there’s a concern that the Jem’Hadar are on their way right now as the beginning of this episode featured an unexplained phenomenon where the wormhole kept opening and closing. It’s a good, tense episode and it’s also a ‘to be continued’ episode so I’m excited to see the rest of this plotline. I only have one nitpicky thing: why does the president of the federation have control over Earth?? Shouldn’t Earth have its own human president? Seems kinda weird for a non-human to be making the call on Earth affairs.)
Paradise Lost – 5.0 (Sisko learns that Red Squadron transported into Starfleet headquarters when the power went out. He has suspicions, and eventually gets a Red Squadron cadet to confess that they had orders to sabotage the power relays. Sisko wants to find out who ordered it and why- and he quickly gets his answer. Leyton ordered them to sabotage it to increase paranoia of the dominion threat so he could justify a military takeover of Earth. There’s a very effective scene in which the Defiant is ordered to Earth by Sisko with an officer that’s willing to confess that he had a device put on the other side of the wormhole so that it looked like a Dominion invasion- at Leyton’s orders. Leyton orders a ship to disable the Defiant as he claims that they’ve all been replaced by changelings. There is a tense scene where the Defiant is locked in battle with the Lakota and that’s a highlight. The last scene where Sisko expresses the sadness and disappointment with Leyton’s betrayal is the perfect end to this episode, and Leyton actually resigns after he realizes he lost.)
Crossfire – 3.5 (This episode really hinges on whether you like the Odo-Kira romance or not because Odo’s characterization here is pretty…bombastic. Shakaar is on board the station for negotiations to get into the Federation. Odo really wants to keep an eye on him and notices that Kira is getting quite cozy with Shakaar. Shakaar later plainly states that he’s falling in love with Kira and this makes Odo jealous, since Odo is in love with her. I want to emphasize that the acting by Auberjonois is outstanding here and really is throughout the whole episode. He plays a jealous, heartbroken Odo really well. The scene where Quark talks to Odo after Odo destroys his room is great, and the detail that Odo’s hair is sort of messy adds to how broken Odo is in that scene. In many aspects, such as love, he is sort of like a teenager since he’s not a humanoid and it has taken him a while to understand even basic things about what it means to be a person. The Shakaar and Kira romance works well enough and it’s believable. Shakaar is basically a more charismatic version of Bariel. This is a good episode overall that is elevated by Auberjonois’ performance.
Return to Grace – 3.5 (Gul Dukat has been demoted as a result of bringing his half Bajoran daughter to Cardassia, and is tasked with escorting Kira to a conference. When they arrive they realize that the Klingons have destroyed everything at the location of the congress and they try to use their weapons, but since their ship is just a freighter it’s ineffective, and the Klingons just end up not fighting them because it wouldn’t be honorable. Kira says that they should pursue and Dukat agrees, with Kira suggesting using a disruptor from the debris the Klingons left behind to take out the Bird of Prey. The underlying tone of this episode is tension, with Dukat clearly having some sort of affection for Kira and her wanting no part of it. This works okay, but it feels like a retread of “Indiscretion” at the beginning and it’s pretty boring as a result. The episode really picks up when Dukat dupes the Klingon ship into using their tractor beam and then launches the disruptors, impairing the Klingon ship. Kira and Dukat are forced to beam over for a little trick since the freighter won’t be able to take anymore hits. They end up transporting all of the Klingon ship onto the freighter and vice versa for the freighter crew. Dukat destroys the freighter and kills the Klingons to Kira’s dismay. Dukat tries to convince Kira to fight the Klingons with him since the Central Command wants a diplomatic solution and as a result won’t support military engagements. Kira obviously declines, but has a conversation with Dukat’s daughter and decides that she needs to leave for DS9 if Dukat is going to fight. Dukat agrees, and now she’s living on DS9. This obviously a huge development which could be really interesting so hopefully they won’t just abandon that plot thread. Overall an episode that started a little boring but ended strong, especially with the future implications.)
Sons Of Mogh – 4.0 (Worf finally has to face the consequences of his actions in “The Way Of The Warrior.” Worf’s brother Kurn wants to be killed by Worf in a Klingon tradition because he lost his house due to Worf’s actions. That’s the main crux of this episode, and it works really well. Kurn is a tragic figure because he lost literally everything because his brother decided to side with the Federation. He did nothing wrong and now he’s basically stateless, roaming through the galaxy and cursed with the dishonor of his brother. His conversations with Worf are excellent, especially since Kurn isn’t wrong or selfish for simply wanting his life back. Worf’s attempt on his brother’s life fails, which leads to a great dressing-down sequence by Sisko. Worf is now forced to resolve the situation by keeping his brother busy essentially. He convinces Odo to put his brother on the security force as a favor, and Odo has a great line, “You’ll find Mr. Worf that I’m a man who collects on his debts.” This scheme fails since Kurn tries to kill himself by allowing him to get shot. The bow breaks when Worf has Kurn join him on a mission to uncover mines that Kira and O’Brien have discovered right outside of Bajoran space, a thread that was also building throughout this episode. In the process of getting a map of the mines, Kurn shoots a Klingon officer to save Worf. Worf is struck with guilt as his sloppiness forced his brother to kill a fellow Klingon. Worf finds Kurn drunk and they have a conversation. The most powerful line in the episode comes from Kurn. He says that he wishes himself and Worf were raised together, even if they were both on Earth. Behind his warrior facade is a deeply broken young man who never got the chance to have a childhood with his brother. Worf decides the only way to save Kurn is by erasing his memory and giving him a new identity. Bashir would never agree with this, which really weakens this episode right in the final minutes, but the ending still works effectively. Kurn wakes up a new man and starts his new life without Worf. The Sons of Mogh should’ve never been split up, and now they are irreparably so. A tragic ending that feels fitting, but forces Bashir to perform a life-altering procedure seemingly without the consent of the patient, which is contrary to everything we’ve seen from him regarding his medical moral compass.)
Bar Association – 4.0 (Rom falls ill and faints while on the job, and Bashir says he had a near life-threatening condition. Bashir has an off-hand comment where he says that Rom should form a union since the contract at Quark’s is awful, not even allowing for sick days. He forms the union and hilarity ensues. Rom quotes Marx, the FCA comes to stop it and O’Brien and Worf get in a brawl over their respective stances on the strike. Rom feels competent and decisive; this isn’t just a good comedy, it’s a good character episode. Rom stands up to his brother, the FCA and every other external pressure until Quark relents to his demands and the bar workers get what they want. It’s a simple plot but it works, and in the end Rom quits after his strike succeeded. He’s part of the repair personnel on DS9 now, which feels fitting with his high level of technical expertise. It’s also nice to see him gaining some initiative of his own, perhaps learning from Nog. There’s also some really awesome bits like Odo listing off Enterprise security failures and O’Brien admitting he was bored as the transporter chief. I also liked when O’Brien said, “He was more than a hero…he was a union man!” when speaking about his ancestor who died in a coal miner strike.)
Accession – 3.5 (A famous Bajoran poet comes from 200 years in the past, claiming he is the Emissary. Sisko then steps down, but the rhetoric from the new Emissary is centered around returning to the caste system. Sisko regrets his decision; one Bajoran is even killed after he refused to give up his post, as his caste was too low for that position. Kira resigns for the 10th time (Seriously, seems like she does this at least twice a season, and Sisko’s aw-shucks-I-can’t-replace-you reaction is the same every single time.) Anyway, Sisko and the poet go to the prophets to decide who the real Emissary is. Sisko turns out to be the winner, and the poet is sent back to his time. The execution is a little rocky at times; I found the scene with the prophets pretty uncompelling. The best scenes in this episode were all about how Sisko truly realizes the gravity of his position as the Emissary. I thought the b plot was entertaining since I’m a big fan of the O’Brien-Bashir friendship, but I can see how others might think the scenes were hokey. I thought it was worth a half star alone.)
Rules of Engagement – 2.5 (Worf is on trial for shooting down a civilian transport ship. Did he commit a massacre? Or did he do his duty? The opening and the premise are interesting, but the execution is sloppy. The worst part of this episode is the directing. I love Lavar Burton, but having all of the witnesses give their testimonies in the past by directly facing the camera is jarring and looks super goofy. The ending is also a major cop-out. The Klingons used some sort of technology to make a warship look like a civilian transport in order to make Worf look bad. This is just such a lazy way to end the episode, and it completely kills the tension and moral discussions that this kind of episode relies on. I also didn’t fully agree with Sisko in the end. Starfleet is a military organization when in battle. Worf’s actions are completely understandable; you don’t have time to check if the ship uncloaking in front of you is civilian or not. In that type of environment, a good captain needs to take decisive action, and it’s only reasonable that on the battlefield that you would expect an uncloaking ship to be harmful. Asking a captain of a ship to potentially sacrifice their crew’s life in order to check that a ship UNCLOAKING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU is civilian is completely ridiculous. If it’s some sort of sick tactic that the Klingons have known to use, then perhaps. But just because a battlefield happens to be near a shipping lane doesn’t suddenly make Worf’s decisions immoral.)
Hard Time – 5.0 (O’Brien is falsely accused of committing espionage and serves twenty years in prison…in three or so hours. The species that imprisoned him used neural technology so that O’Brien would serve twenty years in prison in just a few hours time. This is how the episode begins, and the rest of the runtime is spent exploring the emotional damage that O’Brien’s imprisonment caused. This is extremely effective, as it shows O’Brien becoming quickly frustrated and angry as he isn’t able to return to his normal life right away. He also has hallucinations of his cellmate. This all culminates in a scene where he holds a phaser to his head and Bashir has to talk him down. He eventually breaks down and admits that he killed his cellmate in rage, and that he hasn’t been able to get past it. This episode is haunting and genuinely horrifying, and the flashback scenes to his time in jail only emphasize how truly awful he was treated. The scene where O’Brien nearly hits Molly is visceral- this episode doesn’t hold any punches when it comes to dealing with O’Brien’s trauma and his response to that trauma. A very effective episode with a compelling premise that completely sticks the landing.)
Shattered Mirror – 4.0 (Sisko is once again pulled into the mirror universe after Jeniffer sort of kidnaps Jake. He’s forced to fix the Defiant by Smiley and the rest of the rebels in exchange for going back home. The mirror Jenifer scenes work pretty well, especially when she dies. Seeing Sisko and Jake grieve together after losing Jenifer again was compelling. The battle scenes with the Defiant were pretty slick, especially the assault on the main ship. The scenes with mirror Worf and Garak were pretty boring. It was the same ‘You failed and now I’m mad’ shtick for every single interaction, which created some uneven moments. Though, I have to admit Worf saying “You’re not my type!” and “Make it so” was pretty amusing. I liked that the Intendant was her brutal self in this one. Overall this was a pretty solid mirror universe entry, even if some parts (especially some of the dialogue) were pretty meh.)
The Muse – 0.5 (Jake gets seduced by a mind sucking succubus that allows artists/writers to create something great before they eventually die. The mysterious woman (who looks just like a Cardassian for some reason) uses mind energy to continue her perverse agenda of getting artistic types to create something beautiful as they die! This is just as bad as it sounds. Certainly the worst plot of DS9 in my opinion thus far. It’s just pointless and also really dumb. The execution is also extremely goofy- the woman pulls this golden dust stuff towards her body from Jake’s head while he’s writing and she basically moans the whole time. Just seriously some TNG season 1 type content. My description of the episode thus far is mildly misleading because the main plot involves Odo and Laxwana getting married so that she can keep her baby from her husband who wants to raise him around men in his species’ tradition. This plot is actually somewhat funny and sweet, so it saves this episode from being 0 stars. It’s worth noting that both of these plots are basically even in terms of runtime, so I’m not totally sure which one is supposed to be the main plot. The Odo-Laxwana plot just feels like the more central story in this episode. Anyway, Jake lives and the weird succubus lady flies out into the galaxy to seduce a Wattpad writer or something. This is the type of episode where you look at the runtime and are shocked that it’s only 27 min in.)
For The Cause – 4.0 (Kasidy Yates is suspected as a Maquis agent, which forces Sisko to walk a fine line between his duty to Starfleet and his relationship with Kasidy. It turns out that Kasidy is supplying medical supplies to the Maquis, but this was a distraction that Eddington employed so that basically all of the senior staff would be on the Defiant to catch Kasidy. Eddington used this time to steal some fancy replicators that were going to the Cardassians, clearly planting his flag with the Maquis. He goes on a whole tirade about how the Federation is bad, and Sisko basically says he’ll stop at nothing to find him and imprison him for life. Also on DS9 is a budding relationship between Garak and Gul Dukat’s daughter. There’s some interesting and compelling dialogue between the two, and I hope this is a relationship that continues to grow. They’re both isolated from Cardassia likely for the rest of their lives, which creates some interesting interactions between the two. My one issue is that this episode feels like part 1. The whole scene where Eddington takes over DS9 feels rushed and pretty half-baked. It’s pretty unsatisfying for Sisko to say that he’ll stop at nothing to arrest Eddington and then just…do nothing. Same thing with Kasidy: what’s going to happen to her? This episode has some compelling moments, but it leaves too many loose ends which ultimately drags this one down.)
To The Death – 3.5 (Sisko and company get back to DS9 from a mission to see that a major chunk of an upper pylon has been blown off. The visuals here are great, and little details like Quark frantically searching for Rom truly make this opening feel that much more tense. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode fails to live up to this spectacular introduction. It turns out that this attack was done by a rogue Jem’Hadar group who have also seized technology that would allow them easy access to anywhere in the galaxy, thus freeing them from the Dominion. Weyoun convinces Sisko to help the Dominion in stopping this rogue faction. The whole crux of this episode lies within the DS9 crew and the Jem’Hadar working together, but it’s ultimately mot very compelling. The Jem’Hadar are basically just uber aggressive Klingons, and as a result they provide no moral challenge to Federation ideals. Sisko even gives up trying to explain his actions by the end, which proves that trying to get the Jem’Hadar to understand is quite pointless. Since a decent amount of runtime is spent on this, the episode suffers. The main issue is that this episode doesn’t provide any new interesting ideas on the Jem’Hadar or the Dominion as a whole, so the whole ordeal is pretty meh. The fight scenes are pretty good though, and there’s some good moments of humor too. Those two aspects sort of save this one from being just mediocre.)
The Quickening – 4.0 (Bashir and Dax find a planet in the Gamma quadrant in a state of disarray. Every single member of the population has a disease that can trigger at any time and kills within weeks or months. The disease was wrought upon the population by the dominion as a punishment for trying to fight back. Bashir tries to find a cure, as he is mortified with the town “doctor” that just kills people peacefully instead of actually curing them. The great part of this episode is that Bashir is only half-successful, and at a great cost. He had a group of individuals with the disease under study, but it turns out that the equipment greatly accelerated the disease, causing all of them to suffer an extreme amount before dying. Bashir, surrounded by a dozen dead individuals, is humbled. His own arrogance led him astray, but Dax gives him confidence again. “…it’s even more arrogant to think there isn’t a cure just because you couldn’t find it.” Bashir now has renewed determination to help a woman (which was the only one receptive to Bashir at first) birth her baby. The disease has activated in her, and Bashir is determined to see that the baby survives. The baby is born, and it doesn’t have the marks which clearly mark the disease. Bashir created a vaccine, not a cure. The woman dies from the disease, but not before seeing her baby, free of the disease. In the end, the “doctor” that euthanized the population gladly learns how to vaccinate pregnant women: the next generation will no longer have the disease. This episode is melancholic in the best kind of way, and it plays with Bashir’s sense of arrogance in a great way. In a way Bashir becomes Captain Ahab for an episode- desperately trying to find a cure in spite of extreme setbacks. The horror of the Dominion is also shown here in a more subdued but far more terrifying manner than a clear threat like the Jem’Hadar. This disease is cruel, and its purpose is to punish and make an example of those who dare try to resist the Dominion. Just a very well crafted episode all around.)
Body Parts – 3.0 (This episode is ridiculous, but in a good way. The A plot revolves around Quark dying and then subsequently selling his body off to the highest bidder. This turns out to be Brunt, who is determined to collect on his contract despite the diagnosis being incorrect. There’s a very funny scene where Quark hires Garak to kill him, and Garak shows him a variety of different ways in the holosuite. There’s also a ridiculous but effective scene where Quark believes he has died and gone to the Divine Treasury, but it turns out to be a dream. This part of the episode isn’t taken too seriously and it really works because of it. The ending where everyone pitches in to rebuild Quark’s bar is honestly really heartwarming, especially when. However, the B plot is genuinely one of the dumbest things I think I’ve ever seen on any Trek episode. Keiko is injured while on a trip to the Gamma Quadrant and as a result the baby has to be transferred to Major Kira. I know it’s the 24th century, but seriously? It’s not like it’s a kidney transplant or something lol. It’s a human baby that’s being transplanted into a completely different species! I know that Nana Visitor was pregnant, but still. I couldn’t get past the completely absurd concept of the B plot, and as a result none of the attempts at humor or drama really resonated. It was just so utterly ridiculous that I couldn’t suspend disbelief.)
Broken Link – 4.5 (Odo comes down with a mysterious illness, and he soon realizes that going to the great link is the only way to remedy this. There’s a surprising amount of comedy in this which feels tonally wrong, but is funny enough in isolation. Garak also joins the trip to the Gamma quadrant, under the pretense of asking if any Cardassians survived the attack on the Dominions (The answer is no, btw.) Odo is forced to join the great link to be judged, and on the Defiant Garak tries to take control of the defense systems and quantum torpedo the great link, which he claims would stop the Dominion (Eh….maybe, but the Jem’Hadar still exist and weird things happen with power vacuums.) Anyway, this plot fails as Worf stops him. Odo is finally released by the great link, but no longer as a changeling. His punishment was to be exiled from the great link forever, and this was accomplished by turning him into a human. Honestly, this was an excellent idea. This whole season has been kind of meandering plot wise, and I was getting a little antsy for something to actually meaningfully happen. This a truly shocking move, but is one that is extremely interesting. Odo is now completely isolated from his people; he no longer even has the distant hope of being accepted by the great link again. Garak got six months in the slammer for his actions, which seems low (Odo even remarks this) but perhaps Sisko views him as an asset. The final scene of this episode was Gowron giving an ultimatum to the Federation to either give up some colonies or fight. Odo realizes that the founders were trying to hide certain names from him during his time in the great link, and one of those was Gowron. Gowron has been replaced, and the founders now have complete control over one of the fiercest races in the galaxy. I’m excited to see how this all plays out.)