Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

[Lord Vukodlak]

Worf and O'Brien are quite convincing as old friends, though I don't recall the actors having any scenes together on TNG. But I think both actors having played their characters for a long time helped selling it. I don't quite recall how Worf was in the last seasons of TNG, but the Worf here is actually quite different from the TNG Worf I remember. And the character had been retired only for one year, so it's not like the actor returning to a role from ages back. But my impression here is that Worf is much calmer, collected, and reasonable than I remember him from before.

The characters might not have had screen time together in TNG but I imagine the actors still spent time together on the set. Its probable the two actors were genuine friends. And in-universe Worf did after all deliver O'Brien and Keiko's baby Molly. Worf to me at the beginning of DS9 seemed very much like the Worf who ended TNG. But its understandable if he seems so different if you don't recall him towards the end of his arc on TNG very well.

Im guessing they basically went borg and re-assimilated them after the mission was over, and buried any of that feeling for the other race under the "sheer awesome" of being a changeling.

According to dialog from "The Search" Odo was the first of the infant Changlings sent out to return to them.
"And now, thanks to the passageway, you're the first to return to us. We weren't expecting you so soon. " So Odo going native and sympathizing with solids could be the norm and not the exception.

[Xyril]

The Minbari are also full of ****! Which is what got me to like them. They like to pretend that they are something like the Vulcans of their show, but they really are much more like Cardassians.
Maybe well talk about that in detail next year.

I would absolutely love that. It's an underrated show, though that's on the exact term I want to use because it certainly got its accolades while it was running and it's been remembered pretty well, but it certainly doesn't have the same fan base obsessively dissecting every detail of the show. I don't really think they're quite like the Cardassians--those guys know exactly what they are, and only put up thinnest pretense that they're anything else, while the Minbari actually do strive to be something better, though they fail a lot of the time. It was a great show with great characterization though. If Trek was a bit better than Star Wars about depicting species/groups/individuals as being more nuanced than being generally good or evil, B5 took it a few steps further.

The characters might not have had screen time together in TNG but I imagine the actors still spent time together on the set. Its probable the two actors were genuine friends. And in-universe Worf did after all deliver O'Brien and Keiko's baby Molly.

A more substantial off-screen friendship between the characters is certainly a reasonable inference to make given what we saw off screen, but even if they weren't as close on the Enterprise, just keep in mind how people are in real life. I know a lot of people who weren't particularly close friends in college, but eventually run into each other again and become much closer because that one point of connection becomes more important (going to the same school isn't as big a deal when you're literally surrounded by people going to the same school) and maybe the change of setting and the slight change in personalities allowed a deeper friendship to develop than what was possible before. On the Enterprise, Worf and O'Brien didn't have many points of intersection to make them closer than any other random two people in a crew of over a thousand. Worf was an (initially) minor bridge officer, and O'Brien was an NCO with possibly a limited purview. (He was the go-to example of an NCO in what was apparently everyone's favorite transporter room, but that doesn't mean he was the only one or even the most important one on the ship.) Their main point of intersection was a bit of a random fluke, which could have started a deeper friendship, but not necessarily.

Worf to me at the beginning of DS9 seemed very much like the Worf who ended TNG. But its understandable if he seems so different if you don't recall him towards the end of his arc on TNG very well.

Also, IIRC, near the beginning of his run on DS9, Worf expressed a bit of frustration with how friendly O'Brien was being, dropping by all the time unannounced. Worf being uptight and not really letting people in is explicitly a plot point later on, and his (slight) shift away from that is a major part of his character development on the series.

[Cikomyr]

Curzon died only something like 4 years ago, and had been joined for over 80 years (had to look that up). I think it was started that Dax is a bit over 300 years old in the first season, which means Curzon's memories are not only the most recent, but make up about a quarter of Dax' whole existence. The symbiont isn't simply a memory storage device, but a sentient mind, and it's normal for people to have good recollections of the past few years while things from decades ago get blurry and you rarely think about them. Another big difference is that the places and people Curzon knew late in his life are still around and basically the same as they were 10 or 20 years ago. Dax still can, an often does, meet people that were met during Curzon's lifetime. But any contacts or friendships from previous hosts would only be with other joined Trill.

I think it's fair to say the predecessor host is usually the one with the most influence on the host's life, especially early in their joined life. The way Toria was may have influenced Curzon. Or Curzon to Jadzia

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or Jadzia to Ezri

[Kantaki]

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or Jadzia to Ezri

You might want to fix that.

[Cikomyr]

You might want to fix that.

JFC.

Jockeying Female Changeling

Why didn't I bother checking the post after I posted it

[The New Bruceski]

JFC.

Jockeying Female Changeling

Why didn't I bother checking the post after I posted it

I did the same thing today on a different forum, [b] instead of [spoiler]. Just one of those days.

[Yora]

S4E2: The Way of the Warrior, Part 2

Sisko gets news that the Federation has send the Klingons a strongly worded letter and the Klingons kicked out all Federation citizens from their empire. Chancelor Gowron makes a stop at the station on his way to battle to have a talk with Worf. He wants Worf to go to war with him, but Worf refuses to abandon his post. Gowron thinks that a word given to people without honor means nothing, but Worf disagrees with that. He would give his life for Gowron, but he won't take part in a dishonorable invasion of the Cardassians. Gowrons threatens him with making his whole family outcasts, but Worf still refuses to join him.

Worf talks with O'Brien and tells him that he decided to retire from Starfleet, as he doesn't want to stick with the job that made him an enemy of his people. He also thinks staying on the station will make the Klingons being more trouble for Sisko. Quark comes by and tells O'Brien that business is back to normal, now that all the Klingons are gone. Worf obviously doesn't count, with stings because it's true.

Sisko tells Worf that currently he can't release him from service and he needs all officers he can get. Kira brings news that the Klingons have gotten through the Cardassian Border defenses and will reach Cardassia Prime in two days. Worf believes they probably will follow the traditional ways and go collecting the heads of the leaders. Sisko calls the Cardassian government about it but to his surprise gets Gul Dukat on the other hand, who had sensed the new direction the wind was blowing on Cardassia and is now the new chief military adviser. Sisko tells him to evacuate the council and he will take the Defiant to come escorting them to safety. Before he leaves, he tells Kira to evacuate the civilians from the station.

They leave the station and Bashir quietly voices his concerns about the agreement with the Romulans that they are not allowed to use the cloaking device in the Alpha Quadrant. Sisko understands his concerns, but thinks the situation is desperate enough do use it anyway. They come across the wrecks of a destroyed Cardassian fleet, and in good classic submarine fashion they are not able to use their active scanners to search for survivors while there might be cloaked Klingon ships waiting to attack rescue ships. Bashir says that doesn't sound very honorable, but Worf tells him that for Klingons, the most honorable thing is victory.

They get to Dukat's ship, but it's currently under attack by three Klingon ships. They can't beam the Cardassians over without both ships lowering their shields and the Defiant decloaking, so Sisko makes the decision to join the battle. He calls the Klingons to break off their attack, but get fired on in reply. Damaging the Klingon ships doesn't make them break off and Sisko tells Worf to destroy them if he has to. He tells Bashir to get ready for wounded, and also do blood checks on all the Cardassians. The Defiant is able to take a couple of shots while beaming the Cardassians over, but the cloaking device takes damage. Dukat is complaining to Bashir about the the blood tests. "I find this whole procedure offensive..." - "And I find you offensive!"

On the station, Garak goes to Quark's bar for one of the classic dialogs on the show. Quark is moaning about having picked the wrong business and instead should have gone into selling weapons, like his cousin Gaela, who owns a moon.
"The worst part of it is that my only hope of salvation is the Federation."
"I know precisely how you fell."
"I want you to try something for me. It's a human drink called root beer."
"It's vile!"
"I know, it's so bubbly, cloying, and happy."
"Just like the Federation."
"And you know what's really frightening about it? If you drink enough of it, you are starting to like it."
"It's insidious..."
"Just like the Federation."

The Defiant makes it back to the station, but with Klingon ships right behind it. They make it, but a whole Klingon fleet is assembling to attack. Odo tells Bashir that he wants to put guards at the infirmary, but Bashir thinks that probably would draw Klingon boarding troops to them. Odo lets him have his way, but reminds him that the Klingons might not care either way. Before he leaves, Bashir tells Odo to be careful, because the Klingons would see killing him specifically worthy of songs. Odo tells him that he wouldn't expect anything less than an opera.

Garak goes to help with the defense of the quarters for the council, but unfortunately finds Dukat leading the guards. Gowron and Martok call Sisko to demand he hand over the Cardassian council. Sisko tells them that they tested them all and none of them are Founder agents, but Gowron doesn't care about that anymore. They are now their enemies and he wants their heads. Sisko warns them that the station has been heavily reinforced to survive battles, but the Klingons don't believe him and start their attack. After a while of fighting and Klingons boarding the station, Starfleet reinforcements arrive and Sisko calls Gowron and Martok again to demand their retreat. He tells them that this is probably exactly what the Founders had planned, with the Federation, Klingons, and Cardassians taking out each other before the Dominion even shows up. Gowron sees the point and orders the fleet to stop the attack on the station, and the invasion forces to not advance further into Cardassian territory.

After the battle, Sisko goes to Worf to ask him once more if he really wants to retire from Starfleet. He tells him that he also thought about retiring, but moving to another job won't actually help forgetting the times when things went bad. Worf decides to stay and take a new assignment on the station.

--

This was produced as a single 90 minute episode and there isn't any obvious halfway point like in S3E1/E2 and S3E20/21, so it really needs to be rated as one. I just didn't feel like writing the summary of the whole thing in a single sitting yesterday.

This is a very good episode with little to complain about. Everyone gets a couple of scenes, and even Garak got himself a few moments. But the focus is really on Sisko and Worf. There's actually quite some amount of stuff happening with the Klingons before Sisko decides to bring Worf into the picture, which I really quite like. Back in the 90s, if you weren't following any fan magazines, I think a lot of people wouldn't have known that he appears in this episode, or that he would be joining the cast.

Adding Worf to the crew always seemed to me like perhaps the biggest stunt that Star Trek ever pulled. TNG, DS9, and then Voyager have overlapping timelines, but each show is still very much it's own thing with only the occasional single episode cameos. Taking a main cast character from one show and making him a main cast character in an already running show was pretty daring. It just isn't something that happens in Star Trek. I remember that when I first learned about it, I was very sceptical, and I still think that it was a pretty stupid plan. I feel like this could have turned out really poorly, but luckily for everyone it didn't and actually went really amazingly well. I'll be keeping an eye out specifically for how well Worf seems to integrate into the crew and how long it takes for him to feel like an integral part of the show. From what I remember, he never felt out of place, but as I mentioned before, I feel like the show changed quite a bit with the fourth season, though I don't remember the later half of the show much less than the first half.

It also seemed pretty wrong to me to have the Klingons become a major player in the show. Klingons are the main difficult aliens from TNG. DS9 had the Cardassians for that role. But again, this ended up working out really well. Any time I start thinking of watching the show again, it's really the Garak and Klingon episodes that I want to see. Before this, there were only two episodes with Klingons on the show. But very interestingly, both S2E19 Blood Oath and S3E3 The House of Quark had much more fleshed out Klingon characters and more varied looks into Klingon society than TNG ever did. They are both really good episodes and in my opinion the best Klingon stories at that point, alongside The Undiscovered Country.
As I mentioned, after the start of season 3, the Dominion had notably little presence after being introduced as a major and urgent threat. Supposedly they were there and extremely dangerous, but we didn't really see them do anything threatening. Having the Klingons in season 4 become antagonists because they want to stop the Dominion, but by that actually helping the Dominion is a pretty smart move. Not sure if it was planned that way when they were deciding on the episodes for season 3, but now we are presented with evidence that the Dominion was actually making its moves the entire time when we were not seeing them. It also means that it now makes sense to not have them suddenly start an invasion, but instead gradually escalating their sabotage of the Alpha Quadrant powers, making them seem threatening because we see so little of them. If this was planned this way at the start of season 3, then it's an example of a well set up long term commitment. If this is something they only came up with when it came to planning season 4, then it's an example of really finding and using the potential that resulted from earlier shortcomings. Either way, well done.

During a conversation with Worf about the Enterprise, O'Brien takes a shot at malfunctioning holodecks. We have been talking about that.

The big battle at the end is really big. Quite probably the biggest battle scene in Star Trek at this point, including the movies. But as it typical for Star Trek, the choreography is pretty poor. Still, probably a good step up from what came before. For a show like TNG, going properly violent wouldn't have been appropriate. For DS9 it's more fitting, but understandably everyone in the stunts and effects departments only have practice in the old ways. However, I am not sure if they ever got more fluid and dynamic later on. I do see a notable amount of blood on people, though. Of course no actual wounds, but plenty of scrapes and a few blood stains. Thankfully for Kira, Bajoran's apparently don't have kidneys were humans do, or that knife stab wouldn't have been "I'll be okay".

Really good episode. Very much looking forward to getting into episodes I barely remember now.

[Chen]

After very selective re-watching of DS9 recently you REALLY start to see the re-used space footage. The next time the station is attacked in a big battle a TON of the scenes are identical to this premier. Its not really noticeable if you watch everything in order. But if you skip a bunch it becomes very clear.

[Yora]

S4E3: The Visitor

Old man Jake Sisko gets a visit from a young fan who wants to ask him why he stopped writing books at the height of his career. He tells her a story of how his father got zapped during a warp core malfunction and disappeared. Over the years, he frequently reappears next to him for a few moments and then disappears again. Somehow he is jumping through time, but since Jake was right next to him during the accident, he keeps reappearing always close to him. Eventually Jake gives up writing and starts researching a way to bring Sisko back. After he finished his story, the fan leaves and Jake kills himself with poison at the moment that Sisko appears again, because the connection that makes him always appear close to him is also the cause why Sisko is jumping through time. Or something.

--

By now it shouldn't surprise anyone that I this is one of the types of episodes that I hate. The most shaggy dog story Star Trek ever did. None of this ever actually happens. I tried watching the whole thing, but only made it halfway before I gave up. There are two expressions in the English language for my views. One of them is "I could not care less". The other is more rude but a better fit.
I actually saw this episode listed as the best of the whole show, but I think it's one of the very worst. I hate this mushy stuff.

[The Glyphstone]

Now that Worf is here, maybe Dax will stop getting knocked out/incapacitated? That'd be stealing his spotlight as the designated punching dummy for anything threatening.

[Devonix]

S4E3: The Visitor

Old man Jake Sisko gets a visit from a young fan who wants to ask him why he stopped writing books at the height of his career. He tells her a story of how his father got zapped during a warp core malfunction and disappeared. Over the years, he frequently reappears next to him for a few moments and then disappears again. Somehow he is jumping through time, but since Jake was right next to him during the accident, he keeps reappearing always close to him. Eventually Jake gives up writing and starts researching a way to bring Sisko back. After he finished his story, the fan leaves and Jake kills himself with poison at the moment that Sisko appears again, because the connection that makes him always appear close to him is also the cause why Sisko is jumping through time. Or something.

--

By now it shouldn't surprise anyone that I this is one of the types of episodes that I hate. The most shaggy dog story Star Trek ever did. None of this ever actually happens. I tried watching the whole thing, but only made it halfway before I gave up. There are two expressions in the English language for my views. One of them is "I could not care less". The other is more rude but a better fit.
I actually saw this episode listed as the best of the whole show, but I think it's one of the very worst. I hate this mushy stuff.

The thing is that this episode is actually super important. It colors Sisko's relationship with and how he treats Jake from this point forward.

[Cikomyr]

S4E3: The Visitor

Old man Jake Sisko gets a visit from a young fan who wants to ask him why he stopped writing books at the height of his career. He tells her a story of how his father got zapped during a warp core malfunction and disappeared. Over the years, he frequently reappears next to him for a few moments and then disappears again. Somehow he is jumping through time, but since Jake was right next to him during the accident, he keeps reappearing always close to him. Eventually Jake gives up writing and starts researching a way to bring Sisko back. After he finished his story, the fan leaves and Jake kills himself with poison at the moment that Sisko appears again, because the connection that makes him always appear close to him is also the cause why Sisko is jumping through time. Or something.

--

By now it shouldn't surprise anyone that I this is one of the types of episodes that I hate. The most shaggy dog story Star Trek ever did. None of this ever actually happens. I tried watching the whole thing, but only made it halfway before I gave up. There are two expressions in the English language for my views. One of them is "I could not care less". The other is more rude but a better fit.
I actually saw this episode listed as the best of the whole show, but I think it's one of the very worst. I hate this mushy stuff.

Oh man, I love that episode. Tony Todd gave a fantastic performance, i love the guy.

[Kitten Champion]

Yora's legitimately the first person I've ever heard disliking this episode. The acting's fantastic, the script is one of the best in Trek in combining a speculative fiction premise with exploration of the humanity of its characters which the Trek franchise is supposed to be about in the first place, and it's easily the best thing they did with Jake Sisko as a character. I wasn't surprised at all hearing that it was nominated for a Hugo, though to me is says something special about the state of science fiction in 1995 that it could lose to a Babylon 5 episode.

It reminded me of TNG's The Inner Light but focused on the actual main character's lives, which puts it in it's own light.

[Cikomyr]

I wasn't surprised at all hearing that it was nominated for a Hugo, though to me is says something special about the state of science fiction in 1995 that it could lose to a Babylon 5 episode

You kiss your mother with that mouth?!

Joke aside, DS9 is by far my favourite Star Trek series of all, but Babylon 5 is one of my favourite sci fi series of all. The Coming of Shadows is one hell of a dramatic episode that managed to even slip in some comedy.

[Xyril]

It also seemed pretty wrong to me to have the Klingons become a major player in the show. Klingons are the main difficult aliens from TNG. DS9 had the Cardassians for that role.

I'm not sure what you mean by "difficult aliens." Klingons were never the antagonists of TNG the way they were in TOS. TNG more than anything paid off the seeds planted by Undiscovered Country, showing the Klingons as having a rich but very different culture, one that absolutely explains how they could be such implacable enemies of the Federation for such a long time, but also they could also work as such staunch allies and genuine friends. Klingon honor is far from a perfect overlap with Federation ideals, but the fact that both have their own sort of code that they often value over their own self-interest means that they both understand each other on some level. The same isn't true about the Romulans or the Cardassians (the former being, IMO, the primary antagonist of TNG and the latter being a minor secondary antagonist in the same.) TNG goes a bit deeper into the Romulans, and some episodes of DS9 go deeper with the Cardassians. However, neither race strayed too far from a different flavor of "hostile authoritarian empire with expansionist tendencies," at least until the last season of DS9.

I actually liked the fact that Trek was a bit more fluid about which series "owned" a particular antagonist, or even whether each species was an antagonist or something else entirely at different points. Even when the Federation and the Klingons were in a shooting war, there wasn't anything "evil" about the Klingons or their motivation, and even when everyone was friends back in TNG, there were individual Klingons who were enemies and downright scoundrels, and staunch allies like Gowron who were depicted as not entirely selfless or honorable. Contrast this to a franchise like Stargate,

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where SG-1 had the System Lords as their main antagonists, and Atlantis had the Wraith, and never the twain shall meet. With these baddies, at least technological limitations explained why they never interacted, since each show was largely segregated to a different galaxy. However, for later antagonists this made even less sense. The Replicators were a cool enough enemy in SG-1 to bring in to Atlantis, but for whatever reason, the producers made absolutely sure that the we understood that they were in fact two different groups of hostile, self-replicating nano-robots, with entirely different origin stories. Then SG-1 advanced energy aliens invading our galaxy in part to destroy the legacy of their hated enemy, the Ancients... however, they had zero impact on Atlantis, despite the fact that they could clearly cross into any galaxy and that the whole reason Atlantis existed in a separate galaxy to begin with was the influence of the Ancients in that galaxy as well.

From one standpoint, I understand the choice: Each series had its own segregated thing, making it easier to keep costumes, sets, and props in their own place and preventing writers from stepping on each other's toes. It probably also made marketing to a casual audience easier as well. Strangely though, the very thing you seem to like in a series is the thing that evokes a sense of wrongness in me: To me, it just feels weird and artificial to draw such a bright line between two series that have gone out of their way to create a rich and complex shared setting.

As I mentioned, after the start of season 3, the Dominion had notably little presence after being introduced as a major and urgent threat. Supposedly they were there and extremely dangerous, but we didn't really see them do anything threatening. Having the Klingons in season 4 become antagonists because they want to stop the Dominion, but by that actually helping the Dominion is a pretty smart move. Not sure if it was planned that way when they were deciding on the episodes for season 3, but now we are presented with evidence that the Dominion was actually making its moves the entire time when we were not seeing them. It also means that it now makes sense to not have them suddenly start an invasion, but instead gradually escalating their sabotage of the Alpha Quadrant powers, making them seem threatening because we see so little of them.

I actually had an entirely different take on season 3: The first time I watched it, I spent that entire season constantly wondering when they were going to surprise us with the Dominion. The first introduction was pretty terrifying: Shock troops with a capability that no Alpha quadrant military were able to deploy en mass, advanced weapons that gave their ships a huge force multiplier (particularly against Starfleet ships, which depended on shields to the exclusion of having meaningful armor at all), and enough ferociousness and conviction to launch a suicide attack on a retreating ship just to make a point. The next big Dominion reveal showed us an equally threatening capability--shapeshifters so adept at secrecy and misdirection that few even knew they were the Founders--and ended in a vague threat that the Alpha quadrant could use some of the order offered by the Dominion in the future.

At that point, I was pretty much waiting for the next shoe to drop, since the writers had pretty much made it clear that an attack from the Dominion could 1) come in pretty much any form, from overt military invasion to sabotage and asymmetrical warfare and 2) with no advanced warning or foreshadowing (no breakdown in diplomacy or inciting incidents, just the Founders deciding it was time), and that the Federation would likely fare poorly in the first few encounters (which drama demands anyway.) I was starting to think I was crazy when Improbable Cause came around.

Overall, the impact was pretty solid. I know you said that you saw Worf's arrival as indicating a major shift in DS9 with season 4, but for me it really started with season 3. Everything up to the end of season 2 (including The Jem'Hadar) really felt like a different flavor of classic TOS and TNG Trek, with a focus on exploring the setting and tackling different themes with a collection of largely unrelated stories. Even the first Dominion episode felt about the same as TNG introducing the Borg--they felt alien, and terrifying, and you suspected they would play a recurring role in the series, but at the time I didn't predict that they would be the series. After The Search, it became clear that DS9 was shifting gears to become a war drama--like Babylon 5--and season 3 was to be the calm before the storm, like season 1 was for B5. DS9 season 3 really felt the beginning of so many classic war dramas, where they're exploring how people live with a growing sense of certainty that the next big war can start at any minute, and the audience can't help but look at everything wondering what might be a clue as to what that war will look like.

At the time, I thought B5 did it better, since so many episodes were related to Shadows on the move, and that my anticipation was just me being more clever than the writers, but reading your review made me realize I didn't give them enough credit.

Yora's legitimately the first person I've ever heard disliking this episode.

I've commented to him to this effect before. I get the sense that he really values tight writing that consciously services the overarching narrative in a unified and consistent way, and doesn't like it when the focus is so much on character moments that you just sort of clumsily drop the ball on that goal. I actually would have said the same about myself before reading his reviews, but he's even further along that spectrum than me, which is probably why I've been enjoying Yora's reviews so much.

He makes a good point about the aborted timeline schtick being a bit pointless on some level (though pretty common in Trek), and sometimes it does feel a bit wanky, but I agree with you on this one. The acting was top notch, and even though nothing mattered per se, seeing how Jack (and Nog, to a lesser extent) lived his life in the face of a huge tragedy colors your evaluation of why he acts the way he does in the prime timeline, and hopefully helps you to understand the character a bit better.

The acting's fantastic, the script is one of the best in Trek in combining a speculative fiction premise with exploration of the humanity of its characters which the Trek franchise is supposed to be about in the first place, and it's easily the best thing they did with Jake Sisko as a character. I wasn't surprised at all hearing that it was nominated for a Hugo, though to me is says something special about the state of science fiction in 1995 that it could lose to a Babylon 5 episode.

B5 could definitely be uneven in terms of writing, but that episode was one of the good ones, probably because it was a key point that paid off a load of previous threads and marked the transition from the cold-war/pre-war phase where all the powers have been quietly planning and plotting to the active phase when the dominos start to fall and people start reacting. It had a couple of great guest stars and solid acting from two series regulars at a pivotal point in their character arcs. I personally don't think Coming of Shadows deserved to beat The Visitor, but I think it had enough quality that it the win wasn't a huge outrage either.

[Kitten Champion]

He makes a good point about the aborted timeline schtick being a bit pointless on some level (though pretty common in Trek), and sometimes it does feel a bit wanky, but I agree with you on this one. The acting was top notch, and even though nothing mattered per se, seeing how Jack (and Nog, to a lesser extent) lived his life in the face of a huge tragedy colors your evaluation of why he acts the way he does in the prime timeline, and hopefully helps you to understand the character a bit better.

As I said, it's like The Inner Light, nothing "mattered" there either but it's still a sublime story following a mundane person's life going into an apocalypse. Here you get insights into the characters you know, and it's not a Back to the Future 2-kind of narrative it easily could have been where the focus is on Jake fixing what went wrong and averting the Biff-verse but rather the emotional fallout of how grief and remorse can just chew away at a person's life.

Honestly, this should have been Voyager's series finale. If future-Janeway had a fraction of the pathos Jake Sisko had in The Visitor, her trying to rewrite time and damned the consequences would've been pretty effective rather than feeling mostly quite contrived.

I personally don't think Coming of Shadows deserved to beat The Visitor, but I think it had enough quality that it the win wasn't a huge outrage either.

Which is my point, it's nice to have speculative fiction of such quality where that argument is a thing worth having.

[Xyril]

Honestly, this should have been Voyager's series finale. If future-Janeway had a fraction of the pathos Jake Sisko had in The Visitor, her trying to rewrite time and damned the consequences would've been pretty effective rather than feeling mostly quite contrived.

Agreed. Maybe with some better writing and acting she could have sold me on the idea that after getting a happy ending for 99% of her crew and sitting in it for a few decades, she suddenly decided it wasn't good enough.

What's worse is just two years prior, the same series did a similar plot far better in Timeless.

Which is my point, it's nice to have speculative fiction of such quality where that argument is a thing worth having.

Ah, my apologies for misinterpreting you. I mistakenly thought you were implying something else (which absolutely would be a fair implication to make if certain other episodes of B5 had somehow won that year.)

[Kitten Champion]

Ah, my apologies for misinterpreting you. I mistakenly thought you were implying something else (which absolutely would be a fair implication to make if certain other episodes of B5 had somehow won that year.)

Honestly, I watched all of B5 over the course of week nearly a decade ago. While I thought it was outstanding generally and I remember some of the better moments from it, I can't talk about it with the same level of clarity of most Star Trek shows. Like what the episode titles are or in which season was what.

Trek series are on reruns here constantly. and even outside that everything's on Netflix. I watched all of DS9 myself less than a year ago, for instance.

[Yora]

Yora's legitimately the first person I've ever heard disliking this episode. The acting's fantastic, the script is one of the best in Trek in combining a speculative fiction premise with exploration of the humanity of its characters which the Trek franchise is supposed to be about in the first place, and it's easily the best thing they did with Jake Sisko as a character.

Maybe. I just don't see episodes like these (like S3E11/12 Past Tense) having any place in the show as I see it. The way I see the show, what it is, and how it works, these don't fit in at all.

I've commented to him to this effect before. I get the sense that he really values tight writing that consciously services the overarching narrative in a unified and consistent way, and doesn't like it when the focus is so much on character moments that you just sort of clumsily drop the ball on that goal. I actually would have said the same about myself before reading his reviews, but he's even further along that spectrum than me, which is probably why I've been enjoying Yora's reviews so much.

I love character development. But I want it through seeing the characters in action as they find their own ways of dealing with difficult situations. I am actually not very interested in most big picture stuff. Most action scenes bore me, because they are mostly characters going through the motions of the cheography instead of making actual choices that mean something, and big politics don't do anything for me. Character stuff is almost always the main reason I watch or read something. But I want to see characters do things and deal with the consequences of their choices. I can't stand it when instead they philosophize on a soap box and there are no consequences to deal with. And I am just outright allergic to mushiness. Makes me want to run away.

[Rodin]

I'm kind of on the middle ground on The Visitor. I had no memory of seeing it prior to watching it for this thread, but I thought it was a decent episode. However, I wasn't moved by it the way others were, and given how gut-wrenching Coming of Shadows was I can definitely see why it won the award.

More generally, I continue to be sad that we are likely to never see a golden age of Sci-Fi TV like the mid-90s were. We seem to be seeing a bit of resurgence in the last couple years, but I don't have high hopes.

[comicshorse]

Yora's legitimately the first person I've ever heard disliking this episode. The acting's fantastic, the script is one of the best in Trek in combining a speculative fiction premise with exploration of the humanity of its characters which the Trek franchise is supposed to be about in the first place, and it's easily the best thing they did with Jake Sisko as a character. I wasn't surprised at all hearing that it was nominated for a Hugo, though to me is says something special about the state of science fiction in 1995 that it could lose to a Babylon 5 episode.

It reminded me of TNG's The Inner Light but focused on the actual main character's lives, which puts it in it's own light.

That's weird because I have genuinely, no exaggeration, never heard anybody say they liked that episode before. Me included

[Talakeal]

Its kind of an "oscar bait" episode, its very well made an has a lot of emotional depth, but isnt very exciting.

The idea of disliking something because its outside of the main continuity is understandsble, but not one I share. My favorite episodes of Trek are often ones that invovle alternate realities, amd when I was a kid I think I read a lot more "What If" and "Else Worlds," comics than I did main continuity stuff.

Besides, in our world of retcons and reset buttons, does continuity really matter anymore? Especially in Trek, where we tend to have an enduring status quo where most new aliens and technologies are forgotten about after the episode they were introduced in to preserve the episodic feel of the show.

[Cikomyr]

Its kind of an "oscar bait" episode, its very well made an has a lot of emotional depth, but isnt very exciting.

The idea of disliking something because its outside of the main continuity is understandsble, but not one I share. My favorite episodes of Trek are often ones that invovle alternate realities, amd when I was a kid I think I read a lot more "What If" and "Else Worlds," comics than I did main continuity stuff.

Besides, in our world of retcons and reset buttons, does continuity really matter anymore? Especially in Trek, where we tend to have an enduring status quo where most new aliens and technologies are forgotten about after the episode they were introduced in to preserve the episodic feel of the show.

It's a strong character piece. Strong on fluff, weak in crunch.

[Yora]

S4E4: Hippocratic Oath

Worf sees Quark as a security threat and has a hard time adjusting to letting Odo handle such things in his own way. Sisko explains to him how these things work on this station and Worf agrees not to interfere with it.

Bashir and O'Brien crash on a jungle planet and are captured by a group of Jem'Hadar. The leader takes Bashir to a simple working space where he wants Bashir to work for him. Bashir says he won't help develop any weapons for the enemies of the Federation, even if they kill him. But the Jem'Hadar tells him that he was stranded on this planet for some weeks and discovered that he can survive without the White that makes them slaves to the Vorta. Later he returned to the planet with his soldiers so they can live free of the Dominion, but he is the only one who can survive without the White and the supply for the others is already running low. Since Bashir is a doctor, he wants him to find a way to make all of them free of the drug.
He takes Bashir with him when he gives out the next ration to the soldiers, many of which are already in quite terrible condition. He tells Bashir that they think the supply will last for a month, but there is only enough left for five days. When they will run out, they will turn violent and uncontrolable and kill Bashir and O'Brien before they die.

Sisko is getting updates about the situation with the Klingons from Worf, Kira, and Odo. They have stopped the invasion of Cardassian territory, with Gowron simply proclaiming that the war is won, but now they are looking for smaller independent worlds that they can conquer instead. After the meeting, Worf talks to Odo about some activities of Quark he found out about and Odo thanks him for the information, but has to tell him again that he will handle his way.

Bashir has O'Brien help him with the equipment, but they are really working on devices to overpower the guards and make their escape into the jungle. Guards come by tosee about their progress and when one of them fiddles with the thing O'Brien was working on he zaps another guard and they start beating O'Brien. The leader tells the guard to let him go, but the guard needs to be told several times before he complies.
Bashir looks after the injured guard and estimates that he will need extensive surgery on his knee to fully recover. The guard and another soldier both agree that he should be killed, since he can not fight and there would also be more White left for the others. But the leader tells him that he will remain alive because they no longer obey the rules of the Vorta, which Bashir likes.

Worf keeps snooping after Quark, and as he expected, he sees Quark making deals with a smuggler late at night. Instead of getting involved, he goes to Odo's office to complain. Odo is getting fed up with Worf and tells him to shut up about it and let him handle these things the way he sees fit.

Bashir is examining the Jem'Hadar leader and discovers that his body is producing the enzyme supplied by the White in sufficient amounts by itself. They have a friendly conversation about the time they had a Jem'Hadar child on the station and Odo had to rein him in, and the the Jem'Hadar tells Bashir that to them the Founders are like gods. Except that the Founders never speak to them or await them after death, but only expect them to fight and die.

O'Brien doesn't trust him, and tells Bashir not to help him. Even if the leaders seems like a decent enough guy, what would happen if there were hordes of Jem'Hadar that nobody can control? This might be even worse than having them on the Founders' leash. In the end, Bashir has to pull his rank and gives O'Brien an order to make him the equipment he needs for his work.

The soldier who is guarding O'Brien is more conventional and makes no secret that he doesn't trust them, and can see that O'Brien doesn't trust the Jem'Hadar either. While O'Brien is working on the ship to remove some parts, he distracts the guard and uses the transporter to beam himself away into the jungle.

Bashir thinks that it's not an environmental factor that makes the leader survive without the White, but that his body never needed it at all, but nobody ever noticed since he always has been getting his ration like all other Jem'Hadar for his whole life. One of the soldiers arrives to tell him that O'Brien has escaped. He orders the soldiers to go searching for O'Brien and bring him back alive, but the soldier has had enough and refuses the follow the nonsensical orders of the leader anymore. O'Brien asks the leader to go and find O'Brien before the others and promises that he won't try to run away and continue with his work. And the leader agrees to it.

Quark is looking at the goods of the smuggler and as pulls out a big bag of money to pay him, Worf walks in to arrest them both. He takes the money bag, which then turns out to the Odo, who is obviously really angry about Worf messing up his work. He's not interested in arresting one courier, but wanted to find the smugglers' leaders.

O'Brien is leading the soldiers on a chase through the jungle and then comes back to the camp where he finds only Bashir without any guards. But Bashir says he can't leave and needs to pursue this opportunity to cure the Jem'Hadar. O'Brien is certain they will be killed whether Bashir finds a cure or not, and Bashir tells him that he can try to make his escape if he wants to, but he will be staying. O'Brien shots the worktable and destroys all of Bashir's equipment. He turns around to leave but the leader turns visible right next to him, knocks him to the ground, and takes his gun. He leads the two to their ship, where they find one of the soldiers who is already very worked up. The leader shots the soldier and tells them to leave the planet while he will stay behind with the other Jem'Hadar. Better to have most of them die fighting each other to the death than letting slowly die now that the supplies are empty. He tells Bashir that O'Brien will be able to explain his decision. He disappears back into the jungle and O'Brien tells Bashir that as their commander, he can not leave them as they are facing death.

Worf goes to Sisko to tell him about his involvement in the arrest of the smuggler that Odo didn't put in the report. Sisko tells him not to worry, as all Starfleet officers have problems with how things work in practice on the station, but he is certain Worf will be able to settle in soon.

Bashir is still pretty frustrated as they are returning to the station. He thinks O'Brien didn't do what he had to do, but made a choice what he wanted to do. O'Brien agrees that he made that choice and he still stands by it, but he at least wants Bashir to accept that his motivation was to save his life. Bashir doesn't want to play dart later that night, but is still looking forward to their game next week.

--

Based on the title I was expecting something dreadful, but this is actually really quite good. This is what I would expect as a standard for good regular episodes (because in reality they can not all be outstandingly great).

This episode is exactly those thing I was just talking about in what I hated about the previous one. This is all character development and ethics, and I very much like it. But this isn't lofty philosophizing and sappy morality, but about practical problems and dealing with the consequences. We have two stories, but actually three people facing an ethical problem. Bashir is facing the issue of helping the Jem'Hadar, while O'Brien has to deal with going against Bashir for his own good.

Let's start with O'Brien because it's the simpler one. The problem at hand it pretty simple for him. Bashir is doing something really stupid and he has to force him to come to his senses, whether he wants to or not. But it gets a lot more complicated by the facts that first Bashir is his superior and made it clear that he orders O'Brien to do what he says, and second that he wants to keep Bashir as a friend. He doesn't want to disobey orders and he doesn't want to anger his friend, but he does not trust Bashir to make the correct decisions in their situation.
Bashir first assumes that the Jem'Hadar want him to make something that helps them in battle and he refuses without hesitation to help his enemies, even under threat of death. But then the actual request is that he helps to free the Jem'Hadar from their dependency on the Vorta, which morally sounds already good enough, but the ultimate goal is to have the Jem'Hadar desert the Dominion completely. That's not helping the enemy, but actually weakening them. Sounds great, but O'Brien raises a good point. The Jem'Hadar are engineered to crave fighting and were raised and trained to do nothing but fight. The leader of the group that Bashir is dealing with seems like a decent enough guy who probably wouldn't be a problem if allowed to be on his own freely. But is his unique personality the direct result of not being dependent on White? That actually seems rather unlikely. The other Jem'Hadar under his command all don't seem to be very eager to leave the service of the Dominion and change their ways. Morally, giving them the option to chose for themselves is the right thing. But there still is the practical issue of what will happen with those who will chose to go rampaging on their own? This is an issue that O'Brien brings up and that Bashir should think about very hard, but he actually doesn't. He sees one Jem'Hadar who seems to be making the right choices with the freedom he has, and does not really consider the things that lie beyond his immediate vision. Which actually does fit the character very well. When it comes to treating patients, Bashir has always shown to have some tunnel vision about his own preferred treatment and not allowing any arguments from anyone. And he really hates it when the patients decide against the treatment he thinks they should get. The only issue I take with the situation here is that he doesn't really seem to reconsider any of his beliefs or choices or having learned anything. He only decides to let go of his anger against O'Brien, and that is it.

While watching this I noticed that the question of what happens with the Jem'Hadar if they are allowed to chose their own lives is extremely close to the big debate about the future of the Krogans in the Mass Effect series. In those games, the Krogans are an alien species that was chosen specifically for their strength, aggression, and ability to reproduce rapidly and then given space ships and energy weapons to help turn a war that the good guys were about to lose. It worked perfectly, but once off their hellish planet their population exploded and they had absolutely no interest in stopping to fight. So they were infected with an artificial virus that keeps most of their eggs from hatching and now keeps their population stable at low levels. The side effect of it is that none of them have any ambition to do anything constructive, as they feel that any time they accomplish something or make progress to improve their standing, the other species will just take it away from them. At the time of the game, the standing policy to forbid any development of a cure is basically the biggest social controversy. Some argue that giving them back self-determining by no longer regulating their numbers will make return to attacking any planet they can find, while the other side thinks that releasing them from this leash is the necessary first step to let them develop out of their violent barbarism. I dare assuming that this is probably most fans' favorite part of the worldbuilding in the series, as there are couple of quests revolving around the issue. The pieces looks a bit different here, but the underlying issue is basically the same. And I really wonder if the Mass Effect writers where taking deliberate inspiration from this episode.

As great as the story is, I take the same minor issue with it that I had with S3E6 The Abandoned. I think it comes to early. I believe this story would work much better if we had been given more time to develop an image of the Jem'Hadar are ruthless killing machines. We do get to see them in that capacity, but that only comes in later seasons. This is putting the cart before the horse. Both episodes are relativising and recontextualizing the violence and mercilessness of the Jem'Hadar before those are actually shown. Perhaps the writers didn't yet know how how brutal and violent battles with the Jem'Hadar would be in later seasons. But I think in hindsight these episodes should have been placed late in season 4 and 5, instead of early in season 3 and 4.

There's something that probably had bothered me for quite a while, but this episode I am able to directly put a finger on it. I don't really like how Star Trek handles B-plots most of the time. The basic structure of splitting an episode in two stories with a weight of 2:1 or 3:1 isn't a bad one, though I think most of the best episodes don't use it. But when it's done well, both plots are happening on different sides of the same event. But very often there is only a slight thematic similarity. This episode there is a very strong thematic match. Bashir has to decide what to do, based on how much he trusts the Jem'Hadar. O'Brien has to decide based on how much he trusts Bashir to be able to handle the situation. and Word has to decide based on how much he trusts Odo to be able to handle the situation with Quark and the smuggler. These two stories mirror and complement each other very well, but they have zero connection or overlap. At no point do they intersect in any way. This is watching to completely different stories at once, not switching between two perspectives on one situation. And the problem is that the B-plot is almost always a weak story, unless you consider character moments a story. Really not a fan of this method. I see it as wasted potential and therefore wasted time. Not that the material of the Worf plot is in any way bad, but it could have been put anywhere else, freeing space to give to the A-plot. I guess that's really the issue I am taking. When the two stories are completely separate, they don't complement each other but instead get both compressed down to less screen time.
Odo basically telling Worf to shut up and get out is a bit of a forced conflict. Much of this could have been avoided if Odo had felt to take a few moments to explain to Worf how he is running things. But then again, it is completely consistent with the character. We had Odo share responsibility with Starfleet officer two times, and both times he got a hissy fit. He actually was much more friendly and restrained with Worf than the last two times. And the first time Worf comes to him with information, Odo thanks him for the help and assures him he's onto it. And as Odo is concerned, that should have been enough. He doesn't have to explain himself and continuing to argue with him is pretty much a guaranteed way to piss him off. And when Odo feels offended, he just brickwalls people.
But I still can't help to feel that it seems a little bit uncharacteristic of Odo to simply shut Worf out and expect him to quietly take that. One thing about Odo that impressed me from season 1 is his ability to talk to people in a way they respond to very well. Whether you see him being polite, friendly, or aggressive, it almost always turns out to make the other people cooperative. Worf isn't a terrible difficult person to read, and I think Odo shouldn't have had any problem to see that Worf thinks his concerns are being ignored. I think if he had taken a moment to explain that his approach to security is to uncover and bust criminal networks instead of sweeping up individual peons, that would have been enough for Worf and he would have had Odo do his thing. Odo getting annoyed at an outsider wanting him to explain himself does not go against his character. But I think he usually displays a much better touch with people who cause him trouble. And he's really become a lot more sociable over the course of season 3.

Plenty of things for me to say about minor issues that become quite visible in this episode, but on its own merits this is a pretty good one.

[Traab]

The part that obrien missed imo is, afaik, the jem hadar are clone troopers. There are no females, they are artificially made, they lack knowledge of just about anything but combat which means they wouldnt be able to be truly self sufficient, and I think they have a short life span. Worst case scenario they go berserk but die on their own within a few years, though too be fair, im not sure if thats old age or death in combat as apparently none live to see 30. If it was possible to sabotage the jemhadar so they arent enslaved by the drug, they would have utterly shattered the ability of the dominion to project force. They would be reduced to infiltrators, spies, and terrorists having to do the work themselves. Or at least a long term project to replace their disposable troops.

[Saph]

But there still is the practical issue of what will happen with those who will chose to go rampaging on their own? This is an issue that O'Brien brings up and that Bashir should think about very hard, but he actually doesn't. He sees one Jem'Hadar who seems to be making the right choices with the freedom he has, and does not really consider the things that lie beyond his immediate vision. Which actually does fit the character very well. When it comes to treating patients, Bashir has always shown to have some tunnel vision about his own preferred treatment and not allowing any arguments from anyone. And he really hates it when the patients decide against the treatment he thinks they should get. The only issue I take with the situation here is that he doesn't really seem to reconsider any of his beliefs or choices or having learned anything. He only decides to let go of his anger against O'Brien, and that is it.

I think you're missing Bashir's most basic motivation here, and it's right in the title of the episode.

Bashir is a doctor. He sees his job as being to save lives. Telling him "you could save these people's lives, but you shouldn't, because there might be unpredictable long-term consequences" is never going to work. If he was that sort of person, he wouldn't have become a doctor in the first place.

That's why this is a good episode, IMO. It never gives an answer as to who's right, because that isn't the point – the point is the characters.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I think you're missing Bashir's most basic motivation here, and it's right in the title of the episode.

Bashir is a doctor. He sees his job as being to save lives. Telling him "you could save these people's lives, but you shouldn't, because there might be unpredictable long-term consequences" is never going to work. If he was that sort of person, he wouldn't have become a doctor in the first place.

Yeah he's Doctor Bashier not Doctor Phlox

[Talakeal]

Yeah he's Doctor Bashier not Doctor Phlox

This is why I really like Bashir as a character, he is a doctor first and Starfleet second; and doesn't stand for allowing atrocities to happen just because of the prime directive or "natural selection" like so many other characters in the franchise.

We get a nice bit of development and subversion on this when we get to The Quickening next season.

[Cikomyr]

This is why I really like Bashir as a character, he is a doctor first and Starfleet second; and doesn't stand for allowing atrocities to happen just because of the prime directive or "natural selection" like so many other characters in the franchise.

We get a nice bit of development and subversion on this when we get to The Quickening next season.

I adore the Quickening.

It's one of the episode that affected me the most. I know when I see people reviews of each episode, most have the opinion that "meh, it's fine", but it really affected me deeply.

[Yora]

S4E5: Indiscretion

Kira gets a call from an old friend who now works as a smuggler. He found parts of a ship that went missing years ago and thinks Kira might want to go looking for it. He currently can't leave his hiding place to bring it to her but she can come to him to take a look at it.

Kira is distracted by the news and Odo tells her to stop brooding, because he knows in the end she will decide to go searching for the ship, whether there is any hope that there still could be survivors or not.

When she gets ready to leave, Sisko comes to her to tell her that the Cardassians got news of her search expedition and want to send someone to come with her. Kira really doesn't like the idea, but sees how useful it might be for Bajor as a friendly gesture to the Cardassians.

Dax is once more digging for news about Sisko and Cassidy and he tells her that nothing has really changed so far and he doesn't think she's interested in a real relationship yet. Then Cassidy happens to come around the corner with news that she won't be leaving tomorrow and that she's currently negotiating for a long term contract carrying cargo for the Bajorans. Dax immediately suggest that in that case she should rent quarters on the station. Sisko's face says "Stop helping!"

The Cardassian assigned to search for the missing ship arrives at the station and it turns out to be Gul Dukat himself. Kira is not amused. She wants to know why he is assigned to such a minor task and he says it's because the ship belonged to his occupation forces and was his responsibility, but that seems very unbelievable as a reason. Kira is looking for the ship because she knows one of the prisoners who were on it and Dukat immediately wants to start digging for more personal details and then goes on praising how much the Bajorans have gained coming out of the occupation. I'm surprised she didn't beam him out into space there and then.

Sisko isn't too enthusiastic about Cassidy now working permanently in Bajoran space and she notices. It doesn't go well from there. Later Sisko has a talk with Bashir and Dax, and she's basically throwinng her hands up in despair. Even Quark chimes in to give Ferengi relationship advice.

Kira and Dukat track the debris from the ship to a desert planet where they find the wreck mostly buried in sand. It has clear signs of having been shot down and there are some rock graves close by, but they only account for a small fraction of the crew and passengers. The first thing Dukat wants to do is to identify the remains in the graves, and he wants to do it by himself. He claims Cardassian culture is very strict about dealing with the bodies of the dead, while the Bajoran's don't have much taboos about the handling of corpses, so he should be opening the graves alone. As long as he gives her any Bajoran ear rings that he finds for identifications, she's fine with that. She will go trying to see if she can get any information from the computers. And she doesn't need Dukat's access code, the Bajorans have all the standard codes from six years ago. Which he apparently finds more amusing than annoying. While she is working, Dukat finds an armband he clearly recognizes and takes it quite badly. Kira has little sympathy for the loss of his Bajoran girlfriend, but doesn't poke at it. From the computer she learned that the ship crashed after being attacked, and Dukat things that perhaps the survivors where taken prisoners by the attackers. Kira reveals that in the resistance they often used implants that can release a trail of particles that can be followed if you know what you're looking for, and her tricorder does pick up a trail.

When it gets dark, Kira insist that they camp for the night because she can't see a thing. Dukat sits down on a sharp spike that sticks in his butt, which Kira finds hilarious. As they eat, Kira brings up that when she looked at the prisoner list in the wreck, she saw that Dukat's girlfriend also had a relative among the other prisoners, and she asks Dukat who it was. Since Zial is a Cardassian name she assumes the girl is a hybrid. Dukat admits that it's his daughter. But he's not come to rescue her, but to make sure she's really dead and his family on Cardassia will never learn of her existence.
Kira is absolutely not okay with it and tells him that even by Cardassian family values this is horrible. He's not protecting the rest of his family from harm and disgrace, but his own career.

They follow the trail to a mine in the desert where Breen guards are watching prisoners work. And among them they can see a young hybrid woman. Kira tells Dukat to go back to the ship and get reinforcements from the station. He refuses to go and tells her to do it, but Kira doesn't want to leave him alone near his daughter. They take the environment suits from two guards to get inside the mine to free the prisoners. The Bajorans are a bit confused to get rescued by a Bajoran and a Cardassian but quickly take care of the guards once they have weapons. Dukat runs off to find his daughter and Kira has to chase after him. When he finds her and asks her name, she immediately recognizes him. Before he can shot her, Kira arrives and threatens to shot him. The daughter says the Cardassian prisoners told her to expect this to happen if they ever get rescued. And as the conversation drags on, he decides not to do it.

After having a talk with Jake who tells him to stop being such a coward, Sisko goes to Cassidy to ask her to take the job for the Bajorans. She takes the apology, but makes him work for it. He admits that he was feeling nervous about having another relationship while still working in Starfleet. Cassidy tells him that she already signed up with the Bajorans, because she wouldn't skip out of a good contract just because he wouldn't want her to.

Dukat decides to take his daughter with him to Cardassia and deal with the consequences that come from it.

--

Another of the very okay episodes. The quality is nothing to complain about, it just isn't a story that interests me very much. I did find it quite engaging though.

I'm not having a lot to say about it. Not because there isn't anything going on, as there probably is quite a lot, but right now I am a bit at a loss at what I might write about.

What I find a bit odd is how well Kira and Dukat are going along here. That she agrees to go on a search for several days with one Cardassian might be believable, but that she can be around Dukat for more than a few minutes without wanting to kill him is not. It's too friendly even for a faceless soldier who served during the occupation but Kira doesn't know anything about. But Dukat has a long list of war crimes she personally holds him accountable for, and while for the sake of diplomacy she might agree not to murder him at the first opportunity, it just isn't believable that they would be having a normal conversation. I feel like the show has gotten rather soft about the whole occupation thing. In the first seasons they made real efforts to make the occupation sound like the Germans rampaging through Eastern Europe, or the Japanese through China, but now three years later everyone lets bygones be bygones. Reconciliation after horrible crimes is possible, but that usually takes two or three generations, not two or three years. And Dukat even has the guts to muse about how the occupation has benefited the Bajorans. Sorry but no, this doesn't work for me. This episode could have worked perfectly with any random Cardassian, but not with a despicable monster like Dukat.

Tiny detail that I noticed early on but somehow always forgot to mention. Time limits on the show are almost always given as either 26, 52, or sometimes 78 hours. Indicating that the station uses a 26 hour clock. Which is never pointed out, but stuck to very consistently. Neat little detail.

On the desert planet, Dukat admires the fantastic weather, only a little bright with no shade from the sun. And Kira says that she can't see anything during the night, implying that Dukat might. More unforced references to the environment on Cardassia.