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

[Cikomyr]

I love how deeply layered garek is. All that analysis is likely true, but I bet there is even more to it than that. Garek LOVES to troll bashir. Its been awhile since I watched, but to me bashir always seemed like the kind of guy who loved the idea of playing spy while having little understanding of what it really MEANS to be a secret agent. So he keeps giving bashir hints, little tidbits that may or may not be true, often contradicting himself from story to story, while he enjoys watching bashir try to piece it all together. Its possible a part of him WANTS bashir to figure him out as well, as he seems to genuinely like him rather a lot. So every now and then a little bit more of a backstory that has matching details grows from him.

As for going back to cardassia, recall the first book he gave to bashir? Its a classic on cardassia all about loyal service to the empire. This is cardassian culture in a nutshell. they are raised on loyalty to the empire. Loyalty above all else, friends, family, it doesnt matter. Even the power hungry types are working within the system and honestly feel the state would be better off with them in charge. They dont want to overthrow the system, they dont want to break it, they want to become a more powerful part of it! So of course the thought of going back home would be incredibly tempting to garek, its all he has ever really known. But he is also aware of how it would be a bad idea right now. He is aware of the problems with the system, with how he would be treated if he did go back and avoided being executed or imprisoned.

Another point by SFDebris:

Garak could make a deal with Starfleet Intelligence in half a second if he wanted to. He could get security, luxury, anything he wanted to get away from his miserable existence. The threat from the Obsidian Order is only incentive to get out of DS9 and into a fortified location ASAP.

Starfleet would be more than happy to yield whatever he asked for, since they clearly see the writing on the walls about potential hostilities with Cardassia.

But the only way he could do it would be through doing the one thing Garak would never do: betray Cardassia.

Because Garak is a killer. He's a liar. He's a thief. A spy. An assassin. But more than any of these things, he's a Patriot.

The book discussed at the start of the episode is the summary of Garak's life:

The Neverending Sacrifice

[russdm]

There are two Trek Verse Expanded books worth pursuing. One is called "Never Ending Sacrifice" and is about the Cardie kid who Sisko sent home with his father. Another book was written by the guy who played Garak, and is supposed to explain Garak's history. Its a bit bizarre to be honest.

Bashir's fascination with Spies shows up again in the episode "Our Man Bashir". Its really great, features some great lines from Garak.

There is an episode later, "Empok Nor" That really shows Garak is all his glory, in what he can do. It features Nog and O'Brien as well. There are later episodes that are great as well.

Garak is by far one of the best characters in this series along with Quark, Rom, Nog, Odo. Kira is somewhat, but she has been steadily domesticating to Starfleet. The above characters haven't really, and its great to watch them slowly progress that direction how much or how little they do at times.

These characters are what really makes Deep Space Nine one of the better Trek series in my opinion. The exploration of non-Federation Culture, which makes for better episodes.

I would have to say, the Cardies were a really brilliant addition into TNG and here. They quickly adopted a place alongside the Klingons and Romulans as opponents to the Federation.

The first Cardie Leader, Gul Macet, was played by the same guy who does Gul Dukat.

[Traab]

I especially liked how the scene I linked earlier, was originally just some filler. the episode was short on run time so they had those two actors ad lib a scene of some sort, and instead of being a forgettable exchange of bon motts that meant nothing, it turned into this amazing insight into how a ferengi and cardassian view both the federation as a whole, and the situation they are stuck in. Its one of the more watched clips right up there with siskos monologue from in The Pale Moonlight. Or even nog and his speech about doing something worthwhile to sisko. There was just so much in this series that stands out.

[Yora]

S2E23: Crossover

Kira and Bashir are returning from the Gamma Quadrant and Bashir manages to provide possibly the three most annoying minutes in Star Trek history. As their ship enters the wormhole, something breaks and when they come out the other side they find themselves in another dimension in which the Klingons and Cardassians control the station. A Klingon ship tries to board them, but gets scared when he sees Kira and apologizes that he didn't know she was away on a ship. They are taken to the station which is run by Garak and a second Kira. Kira is brought to evil-Kira's office and Bashir gets put into ore processing with all the other human slaves. Evil-Kira is delighted to meet another version of herself and immediately comes across as hilariously crazy. She explains that in their dimension, the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans have conquered the Terran Empire after evil-Spock tried to reform it with ideas he got when Kirk replaced evil-Kirk.

Kira is allowed to walk freely on the station and goes to the bar to see if Quark might be able to provide her with a transporter that might send her and Bashir back to their dimension. Quark is a very friendly and helpful guy, but gets arrested by Garak for helping human slaves escape the station. As he is taken away, Sisko and his band of pirates come into the bar, and he's also crazy evil. Bashir tries to find out if O'Brien could help them modify a transporter to get them back to their dimension, but they get interrupted by Slave Overseer Odo.

Kira is called to come to evil-Kira's evil queen quarters, where she is surrounded by her servants and boy-toy Sisko. Evil-Kira feels very disappointed that she would try to find a way to return to her dimension behind her back. Quark is brought to her and sentenced to death, and with her previous disappointment forgotten, she gets very excited about having a party to celebrate having another her visiting. Later she gets taken to Garak, who tells her that he will kill evil-Kira that night, and needs Kira to take her place for a while before announcing her retirement and giving her position to Garak. If she refuses, he will have Odo kill Bashir.

Kira goes to Sisko to tell him about Garak's plan, but he doesn't really care if evil-Kira dies. So instead she tries to get him to help freeing the human slaves by overthrowing their masters. At the party, one of Sisko's men gets beaten by a Klingon and Sisko is about to start a fight, but it's interrupted by evil-Kira's grand entrance, who is wearing the same dress as the one she gave Kira to wear.

There is an explosion in the refinery and Bashir makes his escape by grabbing a weapon from a Bajoran guard and kills Odo as he is drawing his phaser. As he is running away, he runs into O'Brien and tries to get him to help him, and he agrees if they take him with him to their dimension. But they are quickly caught and taken to evil-Kira. She gets very upset with Kira for talking her into not killing Bashir immediately as is the law. Now is no more playing nice, and she orders Garak to have Bashir and O'Brien publically tortured to death as the start of her new way of running the station. Sisko finally has enough and with his pirates rescues the two and Kira. O'Brien decides to take his chances with Sisko's renegades, but Kira and Bashir make it to their ship and get through the wormhole to return to their dimension.

--

I usually am not a fan of silly nonsense and the characters in other costumes episodes, but this one is great. This one was everyone putting on their moustaches to twirl and ham out with no shame. Evil-Odo and evil-Sisko are both fun, but it's evil-Kira who completely steals the show. I usually think Kira is not a terribly interesting character and the acting nothing to impressive, but with this evil lunatic we're getting a very memorable performance. Very fun to watch.

Since this is an alternative reality episode, there isn't really much too look into in regards to what we learn about the characters or the setting. It's all caricatures with no impact on the regular continuity. The plot is not very strong, and many of the appearances are very small, which makes the whole thing more of a funny diversion than a story with its own weight to it. But it knows what it is, and it does the job very well. Not sure if you could say this has great writing, great acting, or great editing, but it certainly is fun.

[Kantaki]

The glorious return of the Mirror-verse!*
Mirror-Kira was... err... unique? I hope..,
Like, I get being in love with yourself, but her reaction to Kira takes that to a completely new level.

*No, really I love the Mirror-verse episodes.
They're usually part of the best episodes of their respective series.
The only good Episodes in Enterprise case.

[The New Bruceski]

Mirror episodes have never really worked for me. I enjoy other times the actors (across various Trek series) get to flex a bit but the MU stuff makes me cringe and not in a fun way. Not sure why.

[Yora]

S2E24: The Collaborateur

This one starts with Bareil having a vision of wandering the station and running into a dead priest hanging from a rope. Kira appears and drops the corpse down, and tells him that the dead man is himself.

He wakes up being actually on the station and he's apparently now Kira's boyfriend. The election for the next Kai is about to start and Kira thinks he's sure to get the position. Unfortunately, Winn is also on the station fishing for some public support. Bareil reestablishes quickly in his typical friendly way that he opposes her, and Kira in her typical confronting way that she hates her.

Two old Bajorans are passing each other by on the promenade and one turns around, recognizing the other man. He starts a commotion about him being a traitor and Odo comes out of his office to see what's going on. He is delighted to hear that the old man has returned from Cardassia. "Welcome back. You are under arrest."

Bareil has another vision being the new Kai and meets both Opaka and Winn. Opaka encourages him to follow her as her successor, while Winn is making vague threats. The priest he saw being hanged in his first vision comes in with a gift from the prophets. He opens the box and inside is a snake. Opaka tells him to take the gift, and when he reaches in, he pulls out a rope on a noose.

Odo and Kira have a talk with arrested man. He requests to be allowed to return to Bajor for the final years of his life, but Kira shots him down immediately. It's not even her decision to make, all Bajorans working for the occupation forces had already been exiled for life, and he is number four on that list.

Winn wants to talk to Sisko about the public perception that her relationship with the emmissary is strained. Which Sisko finds somewhat amusing and thinks the better term would be enemies. She admits that she has come around to no longer see the Federation as enemies, and Sisko thinks it would be very helpful if she could share this new opinion with her followers. She proposes that they should appear together before the Vedek assembly for a joint proclamation, but Sisko agrees to it only for after the election of the Kai. Curses, foiled again!

Odo calls Kira to tell her that Winn has just granted the traitor sanctuary and wants to take him to her temple, and Kira immediately calls Dax to deny her ship to leave the station. She checks in with Odo and he tells her that Winn had a short conversation with the traitor, quickly checked something on the computer, and then called the government that the traitor is now under her protection. They look up what Winn had been reading and find the file on the hanged priest from Bareil's vision, who had killed himself after he betrayed the rebels of Kai Opaka's son to the Cardassians. Winn comes in to complain about her ship being held. When Kira keeps refusing to let her take the traitor to Bajor, Winn claims that the traitor priest had really been acting on orders of Vedek Bareil. And if there is reasonable suspicion that Bareil is a traitor, the Vedek assembly would need to know before they make a decision to make him the new Kai. Kira sees no other way than to investigate the accusations herself, which pleased Winn, but she really has had enough with Kira's meddling in her plots.

Kira questions the traitor who tells her that after the rebel group had been betrayed by the priest, he saw the priest having a visit from Bareil and the two had some big argument. Bareil left and during the night the priest hanged himself. She thinks that is no grounds to accuse him of treason, but she has to call Bareil anyway. His explanation is that he went to visit the priest to hear his confession, and obviously he can not share with anyone what he confessed before he killed himself.

Odo goes into the records of the temple on the station to look at the files from the week in which the rebels were betrayed, but they have been restricted to access by nobody except for Vedeks. So he and Kira go over to Quark to ask him to get them the files. Quark says that this is surely illegal, but Odo only laughs at that. Odo and Kira wait outside while Quark is working and Odo says that he knew the dead priest and saw when he hanged himself in public, and that it was always odd that such a decent men would have been a traitor. Quark waves them over and tells him that he got access to the archive, but it's completely empty. O'Brien looks at the storage drives and says it's impossible to restore the deleted files, but he can restore the log about who deleted them, and it turns out to have been Bareil.

Bareil has another vision of being the Kai and meeting the dead priest, who accuses him of having killed him. Then he is kissing Kira, but when he looks at her it's actually Winn. (Aaaahhhh!!!) Then Kira walks to him in her nightshirt with a gift from the prophets and stabs him dead. I think the man is overusing the orbs, they are probably not meant to be looked in every day. As the vision ends, Kira confronts him with the findings. He confesses to her that the Cardassians had been fed up with the rebel group and planned to simply annihilate the entire valley in which they were hiding. Telling the Cardassians where the rebel hideout was saved all the villages in the area from bombardment.

Kira talls Winn to tell her what she found, but Winn already knew because Bareil had already informed the Vedek assembly about it and withdrawn his candidacy. But Kira finds it odd that someone like Bareil would do such a thing and then try to cover it up instead of openly explaining his actions.

Kira goes to the assembly hall and with Bareil out of the race, Winn gets elected as the new Kai. Bareil leaves last and Kira catches him to cofront him with the new detail she just found. Bareil actually has an alibi and couldn't have informed the Cardassians, so he was covering up the trail for someone else. Kira suspects it was Kai Opaka, who would have known where her son's group was hiding, and Bareil doesn't deny it. Kira respects that he was trying to protect Opaka, but in doing so he enabled Winn to become the new Kai, which still could have terrible consequences for everyone.

--

I almost didn't remember this episode at all, but I must have seen it at least once before, because I had a hunch about the twist at the end. The description didn't sound very encouraging, but it's actually a pretty good one. It's a good story with a mystery that at first doesn't seem to be one, then has an unexpected twist, followed by a second twist that the first was a fake one. And then it comes down to the bad ending, the villain has won.

Speaking of which: Isn't it highly suspicious that a man with information that could hurt Bareil's election returns from Cardassia to Bajor two days before the election? On the same station where the man the information is about hanged himself? While Winn is inexplicably campaigning there and not in some major cities on Bajor? Winn was involved in a coup that was sponsored by the Cardassians at the start of the same season. I am sure the Cardassians would love to see her beat Bareil as the new Kai. This has Cardassian handwriting all over it.

Winn is as charming as always, but she appears to have learned more subtlety in her plots. At the end of the last season, she tried to assassinate Bareil and then happily jumped in bed with the coup leaders to get a seat on their new government. This is a lot sneakier and probably serves her much better in the long run. Her new position brings her a lot of prestige and gooodwill, but ultimately her power will still be based entirely on public support. She doesn't just have to stay clear of criminal charges against her, she also must appear as moral and virtuous to the people.

Nice episode. Not quite what I would call fun, but very enjoyable to watch.

[Mightymosy]

Absolutely! The late episodes of season 2 are where everything gets traction and the main plot for the other 5 following seasons kicks off. Almost everything up to this point was for the sake of completion, but not the stuff everyone is still nostalgic about 25 years later. About now is where an okay Star Trek show turns into something much more outstanding.

Having just watched it critically, Season 1 can easily be skipped.
S1E1 The Emissary might be useful to watch, but I think having read my recap should also have introduced all the important pieces of information about the setting. I rated four episodes as green and worth watching, but they have practically no continuity relevance.

Season 2 could also be skipped, though it is considerably higher quality. Except for the last episode S2E16 The Jem'Hadar. That one is the first episode of the continious main story of the remaining five seasons. That one I would say is absolutely mandatory.
Other episodes in season 2 that I think should be watched, though are not mandatory, are S2E19 Blood Oath, S2E22 The Wire, and S2E23 Crossover. The first two are pretty important establishing moments for two of my four favorite characters, and Crossover is ... well, Crossover. A couple of future episodes will be so much more fun if you watched this one.

If you think about watching the show for the first time, now is exactly the perfect point to start! This is precisely the point where one should stop reading recaps and watch the actual episodes. The Wire and Crossover are both fan favorite classics.



Oh, yes. That actually makes perfect sense. Voyager is probably at the peak of pre-production right around this time. I wonder if the first decision was to have some of the Voyager crew be renegades, or to have the first season start at Deep Space Nine? I wouldn't actually be surprised if it was the later.

Can we watch it free online or do we still have to pay?
Preferably in deutsch...

[Cikomyr]

Originally, Bareil was supposed to be the next Kai, but the writers thought it would make things too easy for Sisko and his crew.

And there is the history behind the worst b..... of the galaxy

[Lord Vukodlak]

Speaking of which: Isn't it highly suspicious that a man with information that could hurt Bareil's election returns from Cardassia to Bajor two days before the election? On the same station where the man the information is about hanged himself? While Winn is inexplicably campaigning there and not in some major cities on Bajor? Winn was involved in a coup that was sponsored by the Cardassians at the start of the same season. I am sure the Cardassians would love to see her beat Bareil as the new Kai. This has Cardassian handwriting all over it.

Winn is there because, The Emissary is there. Its really hard to become "Space Pope" when its known that "Space Jesus" doesn't like you. Which really brings to mind how awkard it but be for Kira. Remember Winn was involved in that coup right up until she saw evidence the Cardassians were involved then she dropped it. I think its more likely that Kubus knew what he knew and waited until the opportune moment.

[Yora]

Can we watch it free online or do we still have to pay?
Preferably in deutsch...

No idea, I am watching them on DVD.

[Yora]

S2E25: Tribunal

O'Brien goes on a vacation with his wife. As he's going to their ship, he runs into an old friend from the war with the Cardassians who is now living in one of the Federation colonies that is now in Cardassian space, who secretly does record his voice. Soon after leaving the station, their ship gets stopped by Cardassians and O'Brien arrested. He's very uncooperative and gets beaten and drugged.

The Cardassians call the station to inform Sisko that O'Brien's trial will be held in two days and his execution in a week. Odo happens to be present and immediately jumps in to volunteer to be O'Brien's legal advisor, since he got the required qualifications while he was working for Dukat.

O'Brien gets visited by a Cardassian lawyer, who explains to him that the purpose of the trial is to reveal his crimes to the public. Which they will not tell him about yet.

On the station, Kira and Dax discover that photons torpedoes have been stolen with O'Brien's clearance. Sisko tells them to check who could have received them and if it really was O'Brien who took them.

Odo arrives on Cardassia to talk to O'Brien, and out of habbit goes through the standard interrogation, much to O'Brien's annoyance.

Dax is quickly able to proof that someone made a simulation of O'Brien's voice. Which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The real question is why anyone is using voice recognition for security checks, in a world in which holodecks can create spoken dialog of characters in real time. Kira also quickly finds the man who recorded O'Brien's voice.

At the trial, Odo tries to argue in O'Brien's defense and provide new evidence for his innocence, and the Cardassian lawyer pleads with him to not ruin his career. Odo keeps interrupting the trial by questioning the evidence that is presented without getting any answers to his questions.

Kira arrests the man but he denies everything. Sisko tries to get him to cooperate and leaves the threat about giving him to the Cardassians hanging in the air. Bashir goes to the infirmary later in the night and the lights are not turning on. He's awaited by a Maquis agent who tells him that the man they imprisoned is not one of them and they don't have anything to do with the theft of the weapons, then quickly disappears. Sisko has the prisoner examined by Bashir, and they have found out that he suddenly disappeared from his family eight years ago.

O'Brien keeps embarrassing the Cardassian lawyer by claiming he is innocent. Sisko arrives in the court room with the actual thief, and the judge makes the surprise decision to find O'Brien guilty and hand him over to the Federation to handle his punishment. As they leave Cardassia, Sisko explains that the man was really a disguised Cardassian who had been infiltrating the Federation for eight years, and the judge wanted to public broadcast to be cut before Sisko could say something.

--

Let's torture O'Brien #2

I expected this one to be terrible, but it's actually pretty decent. I assumed it would be mostly interrogation and torture, but there isn't really anything of that here. The court scenes are a complete joke, but it doesn't seem funny given the circumstances of the rest of the episode. The mystery about who stole the weapons and how wasn't a question at any point, because that was revealed right from the start. The question of why didn't really matter either until the point that the Maquis agent told Bashir that he's not one of them, but even then it didn't seem to be relevant in any way. It really only became interesting when the truth was revealed in the last minute of the episode. Performances this episode are okay, with nothing standing out. Looking at all these things, I am actually a bit surprised that the episode as whole worked as well as it did. It's not boring. It's okay.

[Cikomyr]

S2E25: Tribunal

O'Brien goes on a vacation with his wife. As he's going to their ship, he runs into an old friend from the war with the Cardassians who is now living in one of the Federation colonies that is now in Cardassian space, who secretly does record his voice. Soon after leaving the station, their ship gets stopped by Cardassians and O'Brien arrested. He's very uncooperative and gets beaten and drugged.

The Cardassians call the station to inform Sisko that O'Brien's trial will be held in two days and his execution in a week. Odo happens to be present and immediately jumps in to volunteer to be O'Brien's legal advisor, since he got the required qualifications while he was working for Dukat.

O'Brien gets visited by a Cardassian lawyer, who explains to him that the purpose of the trial is to reveal his crimes to the public. Which they will not tell him about yet.

On the station, Kira and Dax discover that photons torpedoes have been stolen with O'Brien's clearance. Sisko tells them to check who could have received them and if it really was O'Brien who took them.

Odo arrives on Cardassia to talk to O'Brien, and out of habbit goes through the standard interrogation, much to O'Brien's annoyance.

Dax is quickly able to proof that someone made a simulation of O'Brien's voice. Which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The real question is why anyone is using voice recognition for security checks, in a world in which holodecks can create spoken dialog of characters in real time. Kira also quickly finds the man who recorded O'Brien's voice.

At the trial, Odo tries to argue in O'Brien's defense and provide new evidence for his innocence, and the Cardassian lawyer pleads with him to not ruin his career. Odo keeps interrupting the trial by questioning the evidence that is presented without getting any answers to his questions.

Kira arrests the man but he denies everything. Sisko tries to get him to cooperate and leaves the threat about giving him to the Cardassians hanging in the air. Bashir goes to the infirmary later in the night and the lights are not turning on. He's awaited by a Maquis agent who tells him that the man they imprisoned is not one of them and they don't have anything to do with the theft of the weapons, then quickly disappears. Sisko has the prisoner examined by Bashir, and they have found out that he suddenly disappeared from his family eight years ago.

O'Brien keeps embarrassing the Cardassian lawyer by claiming he is innocent. Sisko arrives in the court room with the actual thief, and the judge makes the surprise decision to find O'Brien guilty and hand him over to the Federation to handle his punishment. As they leave Cardassia, Sisko explains that the man was really a disguised Cardassian who had been infiltrating the Federation for eight years, and the judge wanted to public broadcast to be cut before Sisko could say something.

--

Let's torture O'Brien #2

I expected this one to be terrible, but it's actually pretty decent. I assumed it would be mostly interrogation and torture, but there isn't really anything of that here. The court scenes are a complete joke, but it doesn't seem funny given the circumstances of the rest of the episode. The mystery about who stole the weapons and how wasn't a question at any point, because that was revealed right from the start. The question of why didn't really matter either until the point that the Maquis agent told Bashir that he's not one of them, but even then it didn't seem to be relevant in any way. It really only became interesting when the truth was revealed in the last minute of the episode. Performances this episode are okay, with nothing standing out. Looking at all these things, I am actually a bit surprised that the episode as whole worked as well as it did. It's not boring. It's okay.

I remember watching this episode a few years ago and thinking, when Obrian tries to resist the Carsassian military, that he would probably have been beaten to death if he had tried that in America.

[Yora]

Tonight I will be wrapping up season 2. Up to this point I covered every single episode for the sake of completion, but now I feel this is getting to the good stuff that makes watching the entire show worth it.

I always enjoy seeing other people's oppinions on the episodes and getting ideas for other interpretations than what I was innitially thinking. So if anyone is interested in joining in on watching the rest of the show, or catching up to where I am, I'd be completely happy to go with a slower schedule.

The best options I see are:
One episode per day, as is.
One episode from monday to friday, as on TV.
One episode every second day.

I can also post a schedule for every episode, for people who might be interested in rewatching some specific episodes before they are covered here. It just depends on what pace you prefer. Any preferences?

[Cikomyr]

Tonight I will be wrapping up season 2. Up to this point I covered every single episode for the sake of completion, but now I feel this is getting to the good stuff that makes watching the entire show worth it.

I always enjoy seeing other people's oppinions on the episodes and getting ideas for other interpretations than what I was innitially thinking. So if anyone is interested in joining in on watching the rest of the show, or catching up to where I am, I'd be completely happy to go with a slower schedule.

The best options I see are:
One episode per day, as is.
One episode from monday to friday, as on TV.
One episode every second day.

I can also post a schedule for every episode, for people who might be interested in rewatching some specific episodes before they are covered here. It just depends on what pace you prefer. Any preferences?

I will follow you at the pace you want, bud. Get them tiger!!

[Traab]

Yeah review as fast as you want, we can comment easily enough on whatever episode you have reviewed.

[Yora]

S2E26: The Jem'Hadar

Sisko tells Jake that he will help him with any practical science project for school that he can think of, and Jake decides to do a simple survey of a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. He wants to bring Nog along so they can do the project together and Sisko can't really say anything against Jake trying to help his socially disadvantaged friend with his education. When Quark hears about it, he tries to come along to put on the charm on Sisko to allow him to display advertisements over the station's computers. Sisko doesn't feel like arguing with him and lets him stay on the ship.

They land on a planet and Quark keeps annoying both Sisko and Nog as expected. At night, Jake and Nog leave the camp for a moment and an alien woman comes running into Sisko's and Quark's camp. She asks if they've seen any of the soldiers and they try to calm her down saying they are alone, but they get surrounded by a group of big angry soldiers with cloaking abilities. They are taken to a cave and kept in a containment field. Sisko talks with the woman and explains to her who he is and where he comes from, and she tells them that the soldiers are the Jem'Hadar, who are serving the Dominion. She warns him and Quark that the Dominion is extremely dangerous and will take control of any planet they want. She also has telekinetic powers, but they are supressed by a device put around her neck.

Jake and Nog find the camp empty and use a tricorder to track them to the cave, but turn back when they see the guards outside.

Quark keeps being annoying and yelling until a guard comes to shut him up. Sisko uses the opportunity to get him to talk. He tells him that the Founders are the leaders of the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar serve them, but the alien woman says the Founders are only a myth since nobody ever gets to see them. The guard also tells Sisko that he knows of humans and Ferengi and was really hoping that the Klingons would be the first ones from the other side of the wormhole he meet. The Dominion had had enough with the Federation and Bajorans roaming around in their territory and will soon put an end to that.

Jake and Nog beam to the ship and try to beam Sisko and Quark up, but it's blocked by the containment field. Next they try to set the autopilot to return to the station, but they don't have clearing to control it. They disable the auto-pilot, but that means that the ship now can only fly on manual.

A Jem'Hadar ship leaves the planet and goes to the station. The leader beams through the shields to tell the crew that Sisko is their prisoner and they will not allow any more ships to come to their side. He then walks through the containment field that was put around him to give Kira a list of all the ships and Bajoran settlements they destroyed in the last weeks. He then beams out as easily as he came and the ship easily gets away before it can be stopped.

The station gets reinforcements from the Odyssey, a big galaxy class ship. The captain of the Odyssey plans to rescue Sisko, and Kira, Dax, Bashir, and O'Brien provide backup in their two remaining ships. Odo insists that he comes along. Jake and Nog are slowly making their way in the direction of the wormhole and are spotted by the three rescue ships. O'Brien beams over to restore the autopilot and take control of the ship. It won't be ready for battle, but O'Brien says he'll try to beam up Sisko and Quark.

After many hours, Quark finally manages to pick the lock on the device suppressing the woman's telekinetic powers and she used them to disable the containment field. They fight their way out of the cave and the three get beamed up by O'Brien. Meanwhile the other three ships are fighting off two Jem'Hadar ships that are dealing a lot of damage to the Odyssey. With Sisko and Quark rescued, they turn around to make their escape back to the wormhole, but one of the Jem'Hadar ships crashes itself into the Odyssey, completely destroying it.

As they land back on the station, Quark calls Sisko over to tell him something important. Sisko gets some security people to arrest the woman they brought with them. Quark pocketed the suppression device to replicate and sell the technology, but discovered that it's just a really good lock and nothing else. She admits that they allowed Sisko to be rescued to get her into the Federation to gather intelligence. She warns them that the Federation is dealing with an enemy that is well above it and beams away, even though no ships are anywhere near the station. Sisko expects that the Dominion will be back soon.

--

Great episode, one of my favorites. The plot itself isn't particularly amazing and neither are the performances, but the episode does a really good job at making the Dominion seem both mysterious and dangerous. The costumed of the Jem'Hadar are pretty simple, but they are all really big guys who walk around as if they own the place, and the gray scaled heads have just the right amount of spikes on them to be menacing and avoid looking silly. They behave very different from Klingons, but it's clear that the two species are a match made in hell. Klingons would love to fight those guys.

The Vorta, who are the Dominion's smart guys, also work really well. The woman seems nice enough for most of the episode, but when it's revealed that everything had been a plan to get her to spy on the federation, she is absolutely unimpressed by being surrounded by security. She knows that she isn't in any risk, and even though her mission failed right at the start, she seems confident that this doesn't actually change anything and is a minor inconvenience at most, but not a real setback for what's coming. She sets a nice baseline for what the Vorta will be. Ice cold, in a casual non-threatening way. One might say arrogant, but in face of the forces under their command, it's really just confidence.

And blowing up a Galaxy class ship as their very first show of force certainly was an entrance with a bang. They destroyed one of their own ships for that, but it does establish very well that these guys's don't give a ****. The Jem'Hadar are carnage incarnate. I also assume that with the last episode of TNG airing three weeks before this one, they still had some Enterprise models at hand which they knew they would no longer need for anything else.

I don't have the slightest idea why, but this episode feels tonally quite different from what has come before and is more in the style of the following seasons. The Collaborator was not a simple episode by any means, but this one leaves me with an impression of having more subtlety and depth. Though this might come from me knowing this episode as being basically the first part of a three part episode. But I do have a memory of being really quite impressed by this one, even though I was only 10 or 11 at that time.

This is a great episode. I think there are very few cases where you can pinpoint exactly the episode in which the early meandering orientation ends and the show is in it's final form. This is one of them. This is now a quite different beast from what it was in the previous episode. And now I am slightly tempted to watch the next to episodes right away, but I'll keep that for (probably) tomorrow.

[comicshorse]

I believe Jemadar was the title of the leader of a gang of the Thuggee sect in India (before they were wiped out)

[Kantaki]

And just like that the Dominion established itself as a friendly, peaceful and reasonable neighbor.
No. Wait. The opposite.
Crazy Wackos the whole lot of them.

I mean a suicide attack against a fleeing ship?
Why?
Even taking into account everything I know about Dominion troops that is kinda crazy.

[Yora]

Season 2 Summary

E1: The Homecoming
E2: The Circle
E3: The Siege
E4: Invasive Procedures
E5: Cardassians
E6: Melora
E7: Rules of Acquisition
E8: Necessary Evil
E9: Second Sight
E10: Sanctuary
E11: Rivals
E12: The Alternate
E13: Armageddon Game
E14: Whispers
E15: Paradise
E16: Shadowplay
E17: Playing God
E18: Profit and Loss
E19: Blood Oath
E20: The Maquis, Part 1
E21: The Maquis, Part 2
E22: The Wire
E23: Crossover
E24: The Collaborator
E25: Tribunal
E26: The Jem'Hadar

Season 1:
Season 2:

As I mentioned in several places before, this season is a considerable step up from the first one. Even though this season is longer, it has only half as many real stinkers. There are almost the same amount of great episodes as there are okay ones, but the biggest problem with season is that big nine episode stretch of weak to awful episodes in the middle. It has a really good start and does great in the end, but the middle part is actually rather disappointing.

In contrast to the first season, production values are much better and are consistently at the level that they had at the end of season 1. Though I believe as time goes on, they continue to dial up the contrast between spotlights and shadows until they get an actual noir look, which they are still far away from. This season we have a couple of proper outdoor scenes, which looks a lot better than the studio sets from first season. They had pretty good fake sunlight in season 1, but when you think back to The Storyteller and Progress, it clearly was all on a set. I also don't recall seeing any obviously terrible costumes. They are still pretty stingy on showing ships in action, though. Even the battle in the last episode is puny compared to what the show later put on screen. Though I don't remember if the last season of TNG was any more impressive in that regard.

The other main field of progress is character development. The characters were all pretty well established at the end of season 1, but this season they started to add a bit to that. Though I think this mostly applies to Odo and Dax, with a little bit for Quark, and Garak finally being put to good use. They try with Sisko, but it doesn't work. O'Brien and Bashir are still just there, and Kira remains Kira.

We get a good amount of Bajoran politics, and Bajor is pretty much in shambles. Not the top priority for the crew on the station, but turning the world into a normal stable state again will still take a lot of time and work. We also slowly got introduced to the Dominion. Very slowly, and 25 years later I have no idea how well that actually worked on the first time viewing. I've been watching one episode every day now and it didn't seem like anyone would be noticing that name popping up very rarely when seeing only one episode per week. Even at the end of the season, when the Dominion actually does make it's entrance, I doubt many would remember that it had been mentioned before, and that Quark is referencing an actual episode when he says the Ferengi have been trying to establish trade with them for over a year.

Bajoran reconstruction episode #5, #6, #7, #8
Trill episode #2, #3, #4
Cardassian episode #2, #3
Ferengi episode #2
Changeling episode #2
Klingon episode #1
Garak episode #2, #3, #4
Let's torture O'Brien episode #1, #2
Mirror episode #1

Destroyed Runabout #2

Looking at this list, we see a couple of ongoing storylines getting first established here, but still remaining a one-off thing at this point. Season 1 and 2 are the ones I am the most familiar with and probably watched the most, since I not always made it through all seven season when I started rewatching the series again. I actually have no clue how much any of these will progress in season 3, or if they will remain occasional things for a while longer before entering the main storyline.

I've also been seeing that this thread really has picked up steam now. I had the first season covered in barely more than 2 pages, and this one being only slightly longer still got more than double that. Very much looking forward to continuing this

[Rodin]

I still remember watching that episode when it first aired with the whole family. We all thought the same thing.

"Why are they using some random Galaxy class ship instead of having a crossover with TNG and using the Enterprise? That would have been awesome!"

*BOOOOOOOMMMM*

".....Oh."


This thread has encouraged me to pick up the show again. I tried to start watching it again years ago but the Emissary was so painfully stilted and slow that I never got further, and the threat of terrible first season episodes loomed greater in my mind after I hadn't really enjoyed the first "arc" episode. With an episode guide giving reviews it's been pretty solid going - I watched Q-less to establish just what a really bad episode would be like (I made a bad decision!), and other than that there's only been one episode that was really painful. The episode where Kai Opaka "dies" was anvilicious and had a plot holier than Swiss cheese made in the Vatican. I was rather pleased to skip ahead a bunch of episodes after that.

Also, is it just me or is it really weird that both Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 have fanatical xenophobic groups that go around branding people? They're so similar that I actually got them confused and conflated the groups, and when I last re-watched Babylon 5 I couldn't remember where I got the name "The Circle" from. To DS9's credit, they came up with it a full year before Babylon 5 did, so the copycat in this case is clear. Or maybe not even a copycat - there were enough old Star Trek scripts floating around that it wouldn't surprise me the B5 writers dug it out of storage without even checking to see if DS9 had already used it.

I'm past season 1 now so the quality should pick up, and I'm excited for when I get into the "dead zone", an area of DS9 episodes around about season 4 or so that I have literally never seen. I picked up the show again in college and just watched through from wherever it picked up, and I know I missed a fair bit including some very famous episodes.

[Yora]

You're in for some great stuff.

[Algeh]

Also, is it just me or is it really weird that both Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 have fanatical xenophobic groups that go around branding people? They're so similar that I actually got them confused and conflated the groups, and when I last re-watched Babylon 5 I couldn't remember where I got the name "The Circle" from. To DS9's credit, they came up with it a full year before Babylon 5 did, so the copycat in this case is clear. Or maybe not even a copycat - there were enough old Star Trek scripts floating around that it wouldn't surprise me the B5 writers dug it out of storage without even checking to see if DS9 had already used it.

The Babylon 5 similarity in plotline was addressed by JMS here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countr...de/007.html#JS (6th bullet point).

[Aeson]

I mean a suicide attack against a fleeing ship?
Why?
Even taking into account everything I know about Dominion troops that is kinda crazy.

Militarily, trading a Jem'Hadar attack ship for a Galaxy-class starship would appear to make a reasonable degree of sense, in a cold-blooded way - a Galaxy-class starship is a much larger vessel than the Jem'Hadar attack ship and therefore likely represents a much more significant investment of resources to produce and crew, and the Galaxy-class starships appear to be among the Federation's largest and most powerful, suggesting that it should be relatively uncommon,* whereas Jem'Hadar attack ships are relatively abundant, seemingly being one of the Dominion's most common types of vessels.

Spoiler: * (Spoiled because contains information pertaining to Sacrifice of Angels)

Show

If you believe the TNG Technical Manual, the initial production run totaled twelve ships, of which six were commissioned into service and six were laid up in an incomplete state against future requirements. That said, Memory Alpha claims that there are at least ten Galaxy-class starships involved in the battle in Sacrifice of Angels, and at least three Galaxy-class ships should have been destroyed by that point (Yamato, TNG: Contagion; Odyssey, DS9: The Jem'Hadar; Enterprise-D, Generations), so if Memory Alpha's figure of ten Galaxy-class ships present for that battle is correct then either at least one more Galaxy-class starship must have been built or the TNG Technical Manual is wrong. Mind you, I am not sure how Memory Alpha arrived at the figure of ten Galaxy-class starships - watching a montage of the battle, I did not see any more than five Galaxy-class starships simultaneously visible, nor did I notice any visual cues which would lead me to assert the uniqueness of ships shown in separate shots, though as the montage I watched did not include dialogue it is possible that there is something there which would allow that.

[Inchhighguy]

S2E26: The Jem'Hadar

This episode is a great one.

It starts with the whole Federation Arrogance and ends with a big...oh, no. The idea that Sisko can just take a Runabout and just head off to the Gamma Quadrant for a School Science project is not just arrogant, but it's really insane.

Quark really does get to shine in this epsoode, beyond just being comic releif. His greed does nicely expose the Dominion Spy. After all the silly easy Starfleet folks all fell for the spies sad story hook, line and sinker. Though even better is the little fight he has with Sisko about how humans don't like Ferengi....because they remind humans of thier ''bad past''. And when Quark goes ''concentraton camps....slavery...we have nothing in our history that comes even close"...he makes the point that humans were way, way, way worse then Ferengi. Avery Brooks(aka Sisko) also has a truely great reaction, just on his face, as Quark says ''slavery".

Jake and Nog get some good bits too. Like when they spend several minutes dismanteling the command processor....then order the Runabout to fly them back to the station...and the computer is like ''unable to comply, the command processor is not functioning." LOL

The Jem'Hadar here are way over powered:

*Ignore Starfleet Sheilds/Force feilds
*Long range transporters(across Quardants?)
OR
*Cloaking technology for ships(or exactly ''where" does the Vorta go at the end of the epsiode?)

And the *Vorta telekinesis (or did she have a bio implant or something?)

Of course this all gets toned down next season.

Also, they might have gone too far in this episode when the Dominion draws the line. They are very clear that ''coming through the anomly(aka wormhole) enters and voliates Dominion Space. And, as a sovgrian entity, they want the Federation to Stay Out Of Their Space.

This, of course, gets changed next season so they can still go through the wornhole to have epsiodes.......and there is some vague mention about ''Dominion space is over there....so it's ok if we explore(/invade) over here".

So sure they retcon the wormhole is ''not" in Dominion space.....but, er, it's like something like a light year away....really not all that far as we see in plenty of epsiodes.

Wonder why the Odyssey did not seperate and just take in the drive section? (other then it looks a bit silly to have a ''headless ship").

The ship hitting the Odyssey is some of the best 90's computer animation...nearly the first in Star Trek.....compare to the scene right before where the 2-D Odyssey model is limping to the side of the screen with the full ''space is a 2-D ocean" effect.

The end has the perfect touch of ''The Next Generation" is OVER....and the classic Worf effect: You show the Jem'Hadar as SO bad.....by having them blow up the Galaxy class ship. Not quite the Enterprise...but close :)

[Lord Vukodlak]

This episode is a great one.

It starts with the whole Federation Arrogance and ends with a big...oh, no. The idea that Sisko can just take a Runabout and just head off to the Gamma Quadrant for a School Science project is not just arrogant, but it's really insane.

Quark really does get to shine in this epsoode, beyond just being comic releif. His greed does nicely expose the Dominion Spy. After all the silly easy Starfleet folks all fell for the spies sad story hook, line and sinker. Though even better is the little fight he has with Sisko about how humans don't like Ferengi....because they remind humans of thier ''bad past''. And when Quark goes ''concentraton camps....slavery...we have nothing in our history that comes even close"...he makes the point that humans were way, way, way worse then Ferengi. Avery Brooks(aka Sisko) also has a truely great reaction, just on his face, as Quark says ''slavery".

Jake and Nog get some good bits too. Like when they spend several minutes dismanteling the command processor....then order the Runabout to fly them back to the station...and the computer is like ''unable to comply, the command processor is not functioning." LOL

The Jem'Hadar here are way over powered:

*Ignore Starfleet Sheilds/Force feilds
*Long range transporters(across Quardants?)
OR
*Cloaking technology for ships(or exactly ''where" does the Vorta go at the end of the epsiode?)

And the *Vorta telekinesis (or did she have a bio implant or something?)

Of course this all gets toned down next season.

Also, they might have gone too far in this episode when the Dominion draws the line. They are very clear that ''coming through the anomly(aka wormhole) enters and voliates Dominion Space. And, as a sovgrian entity, they want the Federation to Stay Out Of Their Space.

This, of course, gets changed next season so they can still go through the wornhole to have epsiodes.......and there is some vague mention about ''Dominion space is over there....so it's ok if we explore(/invade) over here".

So sure they retcon the wormhole is ''not" in Dominion space.....but, er, it's like something like a light year away....really not all that far as we see in plenty of epsiodes.

Wonder why the Odyssey did not seperate and just take in the drive section? (other then it looks a bit silly to have a ''headless ship").

The ship hitting the Odyssey is some of the best 90's computer animation...nearly the first in Star Trek.....compare to the scene right before where the 2-D Odyssey model is limping to the side of the screen with the full ''space is a 2-D ocean" effect.

The end has the perfect touch of ''The Next Generation" is OVER....and the classic Worf effect: You show the Jem'Hadar as SO bad.....by having them blow up the Galaxy class ship. Not quite the Enterprise...but close :)

They don’t retcon that the wormhole wasn’t in Dominion space the Dominion were lying. For two years they heard only whispers of the dominion.
That entire ordeal was an attempt to trick the federation into letting in a vorta spy. Why the hell should we believe the soldiers claim the wormhole was in Dominion space.

[Yora]

Well, it is now, because the Diminion says so. That's how they work. They want it, they take it.

[Kantaki]

Militarily, trading a Jem'Hadar attack ship for a Galaxy-class starship would appear to make a reasonable degree of sense, in a cold-blooded way - a Galaxy-class starship is a much larger vessel than the Jem'Hadar attack ship and therefore likely represents a much more significant investment of resources to produce and crew, and the Galaxy-class starships appear to be among the Federation's largest and most powerful, suggesting that it should be relatively uncommon,* whereas Jem'Hadar attack ships are relatively abundant, seemingly being one of the Dominion's most common types of vessels.

Sure it makes sense, especially considering how the Dominion gets their troops -but it seems a bit extreme. And stupid.

If the whole thing really had been about keeping the Federation out that stunt could easily have accomplished the opposite.
Also, not blowing up the Odyssey would have made the whole spy thing easier.
Sure, thanks to Quark they would have found out anyway, but if they had acted less aggressive it would have looked less bad- getting information about the guys who keep going into your territory is entirely reasonable after all.

I mean the whole point was getting intel for a war.
Pretending to be a peaceful, if paranoid, neighbour could have helped with that.

So, sure, make clear you don't want Federation ships violating your borders, get a spy or a dozen to infiltrate them, but maybe do it without revealing yourself as the Evil Empire™.
Firmly but politely tell the next Federation ship to come through the wormhole they're violating your borders, have your spy establish themself as a trader on DS9... something like that.
But don't show your true colours before the time is right.
Also, don't use spies who spill the beans the moment they're accused of being one.

They don’t retcon that the wormhole wasn’t in Dominion space the Dominion were lying. For two years they heard only whispers of the dominion.
That entire ordeal was an attempt to trick the federation into letting in a vorta spy. Why the hell should we believe the soldiers claim the wormhole was in Dominion space.

I wouldn't call it „lying”. As far as the Dominion is concerned that area is within their sphere of influence therefore it belongs to them*.

Especially as far as the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta are concerned.
Their masters, their gods, tell them this area is Dominion territory, therefore it is.
No matter what the locals or random passerbys say about the matter.

*Actually I'm pretty sure as far as the Dominion is concerned everything is Dominion space.
The locals just don't know (yet) they're citizens of the Dominion.

[Cikomyr]

The Dominion didn't need no silly Vorta to spy on the Federation. Instead, I believe thst Vorta 's mission was to act as disinformation.

The Jem'Hadar here are way over powered:

*Ignore Starfleet Sheilds/Force feilds
*Long range transporters(across Quardants?)
OR
*Cloaking technology for ships(or exactly ''where" does the Vorta go at the end of the epsiode?)

They only mention that Federation shields resist Jem' hadar poleron beams only at the last episode of Season 5. It's not a huge deal, but it's always something to remember as to why the Jem Hadar kicks everyone ass.

The.. New ship can withstand hits because it has specific, top secret ablative armor.

So sure they retcon the wormhole is ''not" in Dominion space.....but, er, it's like something like a light year away....really not all that far as we see in plenty of epsiodes.

Nah, actual Dominion space a long way off from the wormhole. It's just that there are 2 factors to consider:

- like previously mentioned, the Dominion has the habit of pointing a finger and claim "mine". So they decided that the wormhole was theirs, no questions asked.

- it's also a matter of sphere of influence. Superpower will often decree that a specific territory is "theirs" without actually annexing it, and they will prevent any foreign powers/superpowers in getting a foothold in that sphere of influence. The Dominion probably consider all territory between the Work Hole and their territory to be part of their sphere of influence and they reject another superpower (the Federation) from building any power base there.

Wonder why the Odyssey did not seperate and just take in the drive section? (other then it looks a bit silly to have a ''headless ship").

In universe, it's because separating the saucer from the drive is only worthwhile to keep civilians safe from combat. The drive section alone is less powerful than the full ship combined, and the Odyssey already evacuated all nonessential personnel from the ship.

The Odyssey is 100% meant to be a stand in for the Enterprise. It's captain is coded like Picard ; very competent but some consider his stuffy.

The point of this episode is: "this could have destroyed the Enterprise"

[bguy]

Quark really does get to shine in this epsoode, beyond just being comic releif. His greed does nicely expose the Dominion Spy. After all the silly easy Starfleet folks all fell for the spies sad story hook, line and sinker. Though even better is the little fight he has with Sisko about how humans don't like Ferengi....because they remind humans of thier ''bad past''. And when Quark goes ''concentraton camps....slavery...we have nothing in our history that comes even close"...he makes the point that humans were way, way, way worse then Ferengi. Avery Brooks(aka Sisko) also has a truely great reaction, just on his face, as Quark says ''slavery".

Quark's speech falls flat though when you consider that the Ferengi have effectively enslaved half their population.

Also, they might have gone too far in this episode when the Dominion draws the line. They are very clear that ''coming through the anomly(aka wormhole) enters and voliates Dominion Space. And, as a sovgrian entity, they want the Federation to Stay Out Of Their Space.

This, of course, gets changed next season so they can still go through the wornhole to have epsiodes.......and there is some vague mention about ''Dominion space is over there....so it's ok if we explore(/invade) over here".

So sure they retcon the wormhole is ''not" in Dominion space.....but, er, it's like something like a light year away....really not all that far as we see in plenty of epsiodes.

It's not a retcon. It's a territorial dispute. The Dominion is making an expansive (and frankly rather absurd) territorial claim by essentially claiming the entire Gamma Quadrant as their territory, and the Federation is disregarding that claim. This is a common occurrence in the real world (the U.S. Navy routinely conducts freedom of navigation exercises in disputed waters to reaffirm that the United States considers those waters to be international waters), and we've also seen this kind of situation in prior Star Trek episodes.

Spoiler: STTNG episode Tin Man

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In particular in the Next Generation episode "Tin Man", where it is mentioned that the bioship at issue in that episode is located in a sector of space claimed by the Romulans. Worf dismissively notes that the Romulans claim everything within their field of vision, and the Enterprise subsequently proceeds into that sector (showing that the Federation does not recognize the Romulan territorial claim.)

So, sure, make clear you don't want Federation ships violating your borders, get a spy or a dozen to infiltrate them, but maybe do it without revealing yourself as the Evil Empire™.
Firmly but politely tell the next Federation ship to come through the wormhole they're violating your borders, have your spy establish themself as a trader on DS9... something like that.
But don't show your true colours before the time is right.

Prior to destroying the Odyssey, the Dominion had already slaughtered the Bajoran colony on New Bajor and attacked a number of other Federation ships in the Gamma Quadrant, so the horse was already out of the barn on trying to mask their aggression.

They only mention that Federation shields resist Jem' hadar poleron beams only at the last episode of Season 5. It's not a huge deal, but it's always something to remember as to why the Jem Hadar kicks everyone ass.

Spoiler

Show

And notably the Federation only adapts its shields to resist Jem'Hadar weapons after the Federation salvages a downed but mostly intact Jem'Hadar warship in the episode "The Ship."