Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season Three DVD Review
Posted by Scott Rutherford on 01.01.2009
Dear Federation,
It's on.
Love & Kisses,
The Dominion
Welcome to Season Three!
Yeah, that looked way more excited than what I intended.
First of all, a happy new year to everyone. I hope good things happen to those who deserve it and bad things happen to George Bush Jr.
So, we’ve rolled around to the third season of DS9 and for the most part the response I have received has been great. It’s easy to forget how good this show was because I think the world was more than a little Trekked out by the end of its run due to TNG, DS9 and VOY all running close together and Voyager sucking so hard (don’t even get me started on Enterprise…..). A couple of years of watching little Trek have helped clear the decks of baggage and it’s been an enjoyable ride so far.
As for the show itself, Season 3 is where DS9 really gets molded and takes the shape we know and love. Most of the regular cast is now in place and the writers started nailing the personality types and how they interact. We also get the added dimension of DS9 getting a long range ship, The Defiant, which opened up the scope of the show because they could now have entire episodes happen off-station and not have a contrived reason for it to happen as my Season 2 wrap noted, that season was littered with stories starting with “these two characters are on a runabout when XXX happens”, the ship eliminates all that in a hurry.
A funny side track…the Voyager series was ramping up and Michael Piller who was Star Trek overlord was pissing his pants over the new show and flat out said DS9 was #2. This caused much angst as DS9 needed a ship and Piller was reluctant to actually approve the concept but he did. From that point Paramount (the producers of Trek) poured all money in to Voyager leaving DS9 to fend for itself against Babylon 5 and the money WB put into that show. This meant DS9 was the lowest rated Trek show in any run but conversely RULES in syndication because of the higher quality of the show, thus making more money for Paramount than Voyager ever dreamed.
Did you enjoy that trip? I did, so thanks for coming along for the ride. Back to DS9 and season 3….
Season three also saw The Dominion really take hold as nearly 1/3 of the shows referred back to them in some way and several key episodes take place setting up major plotlines and story arcs for the rest of the series and its Dominion heavy future. Basically, this is where shit gets good.
Okay, to set up the start of the season…after the run in with the Jem’Hadar at the end of last season, Ben goes back to Earth to consult with Star Fleet on the impending Dominion threat. Um, that’s it.
Groovy. I love simple set-ups.
The Search
Sisko arrives back at DS9 in grand style onboard the stations very own ship, The Defiant. Unlike other Star Fleet vessels, this ship isn’t about exploration rather than kicking ass. It’s the lead ship in the Defiant-class of ships which are war ships. Loaded to the gills with weapons, blade of amour hull and speed to burn, it was originally designed for war with the Borg but was shelved. Now with the Dominion threat at DS9’s doorstep it has been tasked to defend the wormhole and be the un-welcome mat for any threats. Star Fleet wants to send Ben and the Defiant through the wormhole and find out just who the fuck The Dominion are. To aid them in their quest the Romulans have allowed a cloaking device to be fitted to the Defiant. So off they trot into the Gamma Quadrant and lo-and-behold they have a less than stellar encounter with the Jem’Hadar. Odo manages to escape with Kira as he’s been drawn to a rogue planet further into the Quadrant and when he arrives, he discovers he’s indeed not alone as the planet is the home of shape-shifters. We discover he was one of a hundred baby changelings sent into the universe as a way for the shape-shifters to see what other races are like. He wasn’t supposed to return so soon but the wormhole meant he arrived sooner rather than later.
As for the rest of the crew, they managed to escape and by the time the meet up and make it too the station The Federation has already negotiated a treaty with the Dominion causing all sorts of feathers to be ruffled as they all but lay the welcome mat out for The Dominion to come in and take over. Ben takes umbrage with the Founders and the way the conduct business and kicks up a massive shit storm. Back on the shape-shifter home world, a female changeling is schooling Odo about himself while Kira is getting suspect about things in general. It leads her to a locked room and when Odo manages to get inside was see the entire DS9 crew have been put into a virtual reality world and the events back on the station have all been implanted into their minds as a way for the Dominion to gauge The Federations reaction if they invaded. We then get the big reveal that the people masquerading as the Founders are actually called Vorta and the changelings are The Founders…..HOLY CRAP. Odo rejects returning to his home world because he doesn’t agree with what The Dominion and returns to the station with the rest of the crew. (9.5/10)
Oh, this opening two-parter ruled the fucking earth. In essence this was almost a reset of the entire show as EVERYTHING is different from here on in. Now I know I’ve kept my reviews and comments short previously but I have to lay some serious words out over this episode and what it means.
• Firstly the Dominion. Unlike say, the introduction of the Romulans or the Borg into Trek lore we got THREE major new races in the package of The Dominion. On top is The Founders who have turned out to be master geneticists and have engineered two races to service the biding. The Vorta, who are the diplomats who ask nicely to get others to do what The Founders wish and if that doesn’t work we have The Jem’Hadar who will just kill you for not doing what you are told. In essence, the Dominion isn’t a collective banding of planets all working together for the greater good but The Founders who rule all worlds with fear so they are never persecuted and hunted ever again.
• Odo is now a completely different character. Most assumed that we would never get to see Odo find his people or at the very least, he would find them deep into the series run as a way to tie off the character. Instead, we’ve found them 5 seasons before the show ends its run and we also find out that Odo doesn’t think much of them even though he desperately wants to be with them. He chooses friends over his people and how this arc plays out in the future is a massive plank in DS9’s world.
• Add to Odo’s confusion is that Star Fleet has assigned a second security office (Eddington) because they basically don’t trust Odo. Odo not like. So basically now professional and personally, everything is upside down.
• The Defiant is whip-ass. The show now has the best of best worlds as it has a stable “home base” yet they can gallivant around in the ship. Dude, they can do two stories at once and have them both credible.
The House of Quark
Business is slow in Quarks bar and when he gets into a fight with an EXTREMELY drunk Klingon, Kozak, who manages to stumble and fall on his own knife and kill himself, Quark takes credit for it and business suddenly picks up. In steps his brother D’Ghor who advises Quark to stick to his story or he’ll come back and kill him. Things get REALLY confusing when the Kozak’s wife Grilka shows up and threatens Quark if he DOESN’T tell the truth. Turns out the D’Ghor is in fact from a rival house, whose keen to pick the bones of Kovaks estate and can do so since it has no head. Grilka can’t get dispensation to take control of her house so she marries Quark and makes him head which is allowed because he “killed” Kozak. Quark freaks the fuck out and D’Ghor doubly so and challenges Quark to a dual to the death for the right to control the house. Quark manages to do some quick thinking and the Klingon council approves Grilka to be head of the house in the face of Quarks courage. Grilka punches him in the mouth for a quickie divorce as they show a spark of a romance that could have been.(9/10)
Good follow-up to the big opening season salvo. Nice change of pace as any episode with Quark out of his element is great fun. Since Ferengi and Klingons sit at the opposite ends of the Trek world in terms of philosophy, the resulting culture clash had some sweet moments and makes a guilty pleasure to watch. I also liked the B-story of O’Brien and Keiko and Miles giving Keiko the chance to go to Bajor to study botany. As much as their marriages irks me (more for the fact that they have ZERO chemistry together), it is one of the only times you see a married couple together in Trek World where it isn’t two officers.
Equilibrium
Jadzia suddenly starts exhibiting strange aggressive behavior as well as being haunted by a melody that she can play even though she or any of her previous hosts have any musical talent. She also starts having dreams of a strange man and when she takes a turn for the worse, Bashir notes that the balance between Jadzia and the Dax symbiont is off and unless fixed will cause death too both. So off we go to the Trill home world where Jadzia is examined by The Symbiosis Commission who pretty much say that they can’t do dick and if it gets worse they’ll remove Dax from Jadzia and put the symbiont in a new host and Jadzia will die. Ben is not amused and believes the man in Jadzia’s dreams is the cause. After hunting down the mysterious melody in the Federation data banks they find it was composed by a Trill musician Joran around 50 years earlier and he managed to illegally join himself with Dax for a period of time with a big issue being Joran was a bit of a nut job and killed people. The Commission suppressed any knowledge of Joran in subsequent hosts as he was rejected to be a symbiont host and Trill society believes only a select few are suitable for joining where as more than half can be. If this knowledge got out he was joined and didn’t reject the symbiont it would cause a big stink on Trill hence the memory block. It’s decided that everyone will keep their mouths shut and Joran’s memories will be allowed to be felt by Jadzia thus saving her life. (7.5/10)
Seems like once a year we get a good episode about Jadzia relating directly to the Dax symbiont and how everything rolls in its regard. Like the previous episodes it adds a piece to the puzzle and fleshes out Trill society without having a bundle of dry exposition to help connect the dots. The part about most Trills being able to join gets paid off in spades at the start of season seven and the whole “dark side” personality of Joran also adds a great shade to Jadzia. We also get a typically strong Sisko outing as anytime that character gets put in a situation where one of his crew will be harmed, he gets VERY protective. Good stuff all round.
Second Skin
Kira gets abducted by a group of Cardassians and when she wakes up she has been altered to look to look like one as well plus she's also been transported to the the Cardassian home world. They also tell her she really isn’t Kira Nerys but a Cardassian operative named Iliana Ghemor who had her memory erased so she could infiltrate Bajoran resistance cells and when she was returned, be able to provide a wealth of information. The big issue is Kira can’t remember ever being Iliana and refuses to believe it’s the truth. They bring Iliana’s father into meet her and they slowly work Kira down until she believes she really is Cardassian. Sisko, knowing what is going on heads to Cardassia to save Kira when it’s discovered the Obsidian Order has plotted this as a way to weaken Iliana’s father politically. Odo and Garak make the save and it’s explained Iliana is real, and she did have her appearance altered but she is lost on Bajor. Kira takes the father into her heart.(8/10)
I remember being blah about this episode the first time around. Nana Visitor who plays Kira is very much an over actor but does have the ability to portray emotion with a hefty dose of reality. She manages to act through the heavy Cardassian make-up and really hit the target of someone who’s had her whole being questioned. The episode itself is all good as it shows the inner-working of Cardassian society with more depth than previously done. DS9 continues to put TNG and VOY to shame when it comes to character episodes as they seem to be able to grab at threads and really pull at them until they get something interesting. I would have preferred a level of ambiguity about Kira being Bajoran or Cardassian and having her make a choice about who she is and what she may be, but that’s by-the-by. Another quality episode in a string to start season three.
The Abandoned
Quark buys the wreckage of a ship and much to his surprise he finds a baby of unknown species inside. They quickly discover that this baby grows at an incredible rate and in less than two days they realize he’s a Jem’Harar. No one can control him but he will listen to Odo because he’s a changeling and been genetically encoded to obey any shape shifter. Odo tries to teach him how to control his instinct to fight but to no avail. When news gets to DS9 that Star Fleet plan on taking him away to study, Odo persuade Sisko to let him return him to the Dominion.(7/10)
This is an interesting piece of business. The episode was basically a one-stop primer to explain the Jem’Hadar. We learn that they are depended on a drug Ketracel White which contains an enzyme that the Jem’Hadar require to even live. We also learn that The Founders have genetically engineered them to instinctively obey the changelings and they only take 3 days to mature into full adults ready to fight. They also have an insane bloodlust and pretty much live for battle and war. The fact the writers managed to find an interesting way of explaining all this without sacrificing entertainment value is perhaps the most impressive thing about this episode. While nothing special it does all the work in letting the viewer know just what the Jem’Hadar are. I also like the b-story of Jake bringing home his first girlfriend, a Dabo girl 4 years his senior. Sisko’s reaction(s) to the whole thing is so true to life that it really grounds the plot emotionally and makes it ring close to home.
Civil Defense
While trying to convert the old ore processing plant on DS9, Jake, Ben and O’Brien trip an old Cardassian security program that puts the station into lockdown thinking that Bajoran workers are trying to revolt during the Cardassian occupation. Everything they try makes things worse as a pre-recorded video of Gul Dukat keeps making gradually more annoying threats if the “revolters” don’t surrender. Those remaining in the command centre try to figure out to stop it and soon enough Gul Dukat shows up on the station and offers a to shut down the program if Bajor agrees to turn the station back over to Cardassia. When Dukat tries to go back to his ship to wait for the response a second program from a higher ranking Cardassian official stops this knowing full well Dukat would try to abandon his post. HA! Flash forward to the dues ex machina ending as Sisko manages to save the station from blowing up and saves everyone.(7/10)
This was running along great until the writers painted themselves into a corner and just did a cheap cop-out ending. I was really wondering how this would all play out but the “heroic” saved at the last minute crap feels old and done before. I would have much preferred that they couldn’t do anything. The last stanza had the program threatening to flood the station with poisonous gas that will kill everyone bar Cardassians and I say let that play out and not have anyone do anything because they just can’t and find that the gas canisters have been removed or the system redundant once Star Fleet took over. We would have seen a smug Dukat reduced to annoyance because he STILL didn’t get the station back even though the program ran its course. Still fun for the first 3/4’s.
Meridian
The Defiant comes across a planet that phases in and out of this world. Lucky enough to talk to the planets inhabitants, they discover when out of phase the residents exist as pure energy but they realize that the time is coming that the next shift might leave them permanently that way. Jadzia happens to fall in love with one of the inhabitants and decides to leave this world and follow him into the great unknown. When the planet tries to shift back it almost breaks itself apart because of Jadzia’s presence and she has to stay in Trek world as her first love vanish forever.(4/10)
Yeah whatever. Didn’t like this show originally and I like it even less now. It feels like a bad TNG or VOY retread which is all wrong for DS9. One show love stories suck because you need to compress them so badly it just seems hokey. I did like the farewell between Sisko and Dax because it had some real emotion involved and Jadzia’s reaction after coming back onboard at the end and just the hollow feeling she conveys. However, the truly great stuff was the b-plot of Quark having to come up with a sex-up holo-program of Kira for someone and the truly disturbing pay-off at the end. It manages to push the show along through the dead spots.
Defiant
Will Riker shows up on DS9 and Kira soon falls under his charms. While taking him on a tour of the Defiant we soon learn Will is in fact Thomas Riker (click the name to get an explanation of THAT debacle), who now is part of The Marquise and steals the Defiant (with Kira still onboard) to make a run on Cardassian targets. Sisko confides this all to Gul Dukat and they both go back to Cardassia Prime to help the search because Sisko wants the ship intact and returned safely. They eventually corner Riker and the ship but not before a mysterious Cardassian ship under the control of the Obsidian Order, who are forbidden from having any military might, appears. Riker surrenders himself for life in prison in exchange for the rest of the crew being sent back to DS9 for punishment. (7/10)
There is much to like about this episode. While I loathe the whole mess that gave us Thomas Riker, this was an effective way to cross over Trek shows and tie off a loose end from TNG. The writing for this episode is layered giving equal parts character development and story advancement. Character wise the relationship between Sisko and Gul Dukat is explored here and while they might not like each other much, you can see the strains of mutual respect peaking through. While they often have different agenda’s they always seem to be working towards the same goal. I really liked the work done with the Obsidian Order and the hints dropped at them planning something that the Cardassian Government is unaware of.
Fascination
It’s the Bajoran Gratitude Festival and Lwaxana Troi also makes a surprise visit. As the festival begins people start exhibiting strange behavior that has them openly fawning for the most unlikely of people (Jake falls in love with Kira, Dax falls for Ben, Quark for Keiko, Bariel for Dax, and Bashir and Kira can’t stop touching each other). Seems Lwaxana is going through the Betazoid version of menopause which causes her to lose control of her telepathic powers and when she gets near people they let their latent feeling bubble to the surface. The quick fix is in and everything returns to normal. We also get a b-story of Miles and Keiko having a fight over her staying on Bajor for longer than anticipated and Keiko ripping the holy hell out of Miles for being a prick. It leads to a sweet moment where Miles puts in a letter of resignation and sits outside a door pouring his heart out to Keiko.(6/10)
This show is very much a wasted opportunity. Outside of the unbelievable contrivance used to get everyone acting abnormally, there should have been a lot to say about WHY these people felt the way they did about their unlikely crushes. Most of all we finally get a great Miles/Keiko storyline happening and it’s relegated to b-plot status. I will mention while still in a positive mindset, we get further information that Odo secretly is in love with Kira but Kira is a “friends only” kinda person. As a rule, any show with Lwaxana in it is an abortion. This episode is somewhat redeemed by its manic energy even though you crave for a little more substance.
Past Tense
Two parter…Sisko, Bashir and Dax all get sent back to the past (Earth, San Francisco – 2024) in a transporter accident. Sisko and Bashir wind up in the Sanctuary District (read ghetto where the poor and unemployed are kept out of the way.) because they have no ID and are caught by the police while Dax was found by a businessman who manages to shield her from the cities harsher side (she explains away the dots as tattoo’s). Sisko soon realizes they have ended up just before the Bell Riot which turned around peoples thinking when a man named Gabriel Bell gets himself killed in the name of saving his fellow hostages. This forces the country to change its attitude towards everyone. Due to a freak incident, Bell is killed before the riots begin and Sisko takes it upon himself to make sure history still plays out the same way.(6.5/10)
I’m really on the fence about this story. Time travel shows always suck by virtue of the fact if you think about the plot for more than 2 seconds large, gaping holes will appear. Parts of it were very good and this is the first time we really see Sisko get his back up and use his anger to get stuff done. We learn he is a studier of human events and knows the history of Earth and it’s through him we learn of this time in Earth les than stellar human rights past. Bashir on other hand play the role of the innocent perfectly. Of course he’s used as the black board the writers need to spell out the story whenever they hit a dead end but he brings layers to the role. As a change of pace and a way to tell a story off the station and not on board the Defiant, this works a treat and Kira and Miles time hopping trying to find the others is a hoot. Overall, the story itself drags down in the second part and would have made a fantastic single episode.
Life Support
Bariel and Winn show up at DS9 to finalize a peace treaty with the Cardassians. However, tragedy strikes when the shuttle they’re travelling in has an accident and Bariel is fatally hurt. However Julian bring him back from the dead but the treatment to keep him alive will invariable kill him anyway. Bariel refuses to be put in stasis because of the peace talks and while Winn is the front man, it’s Bariel that has done all grunt work and without him the talks will either stall or the Cardassians will keep concessions they were refused originally. So Bariel goes through a series of procedures to keep him alive but the rest of his body is slowly being replaced one organ at a time. Eventually the treaty is signed and Winn, who was so insistent he be kept alive, now asks Kira to let Bariel die in peace and after some gentle persuasion from Bashir, Bariel passes on. (9/10)
This episode is all sorts of awesome. We have Bariel who keeps himself alive to serve his country even though it certainly means death and a great deal of pain along the way. We have Kira who has to stand helplessly by while she watches this all unfold. We have the ever awesome Kai Winn who manages to play both patriot and careerist in a way that we don’t know what her real intentions are. We have Bashir who’s going against all his instincts keeping Bariel (he calls Win a coward!) alive to the point he asks Kira to surrender her hope as well. All these ingredients make for a great show. Some in the past have complained about such a prominent support caster being killed off so early in the show’s run but hello, by killing off a popular character like this it means that in the future ANYTHING can happen to ANYONE.
Heart of Stone
Kira and Odo pursue a Marquis ship to an isolated planet when Kira becomes trapped by a growing crystalline rock. When Odo attempts to blast it with a phaser it absorbs the blast and uses it to grow and trap Kira even more. As the rock slowly covers more of Kira’s body Odo comes up with a sound wave device to shatter the rock but this takes time and they start talking. As Kira becomes more imperiled, Odo gets more and more desperate until this exchange happens…
Kira: "I want you to get out of here."
Odo: "Don't you understand? I can't!"
Kira: "You have to. Odo, please!"
Odo: "No. I won't leave you."
Kira: "Why?"
Odo: "Because! Because--I'm in love with you."
When Kira replies with “I’m in love with you too” Odo knows something is up and it turns out that the female shape shifter had waylaid Kira and set up the whole thing to try and lure Odo back to the great link.(6/10)
I’m wondering if the writers hit a mid-season slump in terms of storylines as this is another in a bunch of good idea/middling execution shows. I probably like this episode more after the fact because the infatuation Odo has for Kira was used to great effect later down the track and the whole cheat ending ended up working…but that’s in hindsight. We got this show straight up after Kira lost her lover and at the time it smacked of getting one character out of the way to further the story of another. I probably would have taken this story in another direction but in the wash up I’m glad Kira didn’t know because it would have made the whole Kira/Odo dynamic almost soap opera-ish and it worked so much better with Odo always being out of his comfort zone when he was alone with her. I however really like the b-plot of Nog wanting to be recommended to Star Fleet to be a cadet by Sisko. At first you think it’s being played for laughs but Nog’s speech about how his father doesn’t have the lobes to be a good Ferengi and knowing deep down that he isn’t going to be one either and wanting to avoid the same fate as Rom rings very true. Good stuff.
Destiny
Bajor and Cardassia are about to make their first co-operative mission when a Vedek Yarka comes to Sisko brandishing a prophecy stating that if they allow this mission to happen it will cause the permanent closing of the wormhole and shut off Bajor from the Prophets. Sisko ignores the warning (no matter how many coincidences seem to pop up) and just when it seems like it will come completely true, Sisko re-examines the text, adjust his perspective and not only manages to save the wormhole but strengthen it. (9/10)
The writers had to walk a very fine line with this story. Up until now we’ve been pimped hard on how spiritual the Bajorans are and how the Prophets have looked after them. To have a story disprove a prophecy would be majorly counter-productive, so how do you keep the integrity of the Bajorans and manage to avoid the destruction of the wormhole? Have the prophecy come true but in a way that was different. So now when people bring up these prophecies you have to take them with a grain of salt because you can find something to fit any situation you’re in, you just have to make sure your right. I also liked how the writers are beginning to dig deeper into Sisko being The Emissary, how he’s viewed by the Bajoran people in general and Major Kira specifically. We also find out that he most uncomfortable being seen as a religious figure and he tries to hold this responsibility at arm’s length. This episode is ALLLLL good.
Prophet Motive
Grand Nagus Zek obtains a Bajoran Orb from Cardassia and after a run in with the Prophets starts to rethink Ferengi culture and the Rules of Acquisition with the first new rule being “If they want their money back, give it to them”. Quark smells a rat and when he finds out the full story of what happens, he takes Zek back to The Prophets and they set Zek back to his old ways. (5/10)
A waste of a Ferengi episode really but as this show progresses, most Ferengi episodes are really hit or miss. For any Ferengi episode to work they need something to play off and it just wasn’t there this time. The only real highlight was Quarks stand against the Prophets on behalf of greed and his right to be greedy. You see, give him something to rally against and you get witty, funny and insightful. I must mention the B-plot of Julian being nominated for a medical award that usually comes your way after decades of achievement. The whole episode he goes around say he won’t get it and….he doesn’t. Okay…..maybe a mid-life crisis freak out would have been interesting. He still doesn’t have to win it but he can go mental thinking he’s peaked in his md-20’s as a medical researcher.
Visionary
After having been poisoned by radiation, O’Brien suddenly starts shifting to the future in jumps of five hours. Dax detects a quantum singularity and they theorize that this singularity coupled with the radiation poisoning is what’s causing the shifts. After witnessing his own death twice Miles see’s a Romulan war bird de-cloak and destroy the station. After traveling through time to much Miles dies and it’s left up to his future self to go back and save everyone. (7/10)
I liked this one a lot. While it doesn’t have any real moments of revelation that will influence the series, it makes good use of what are now very well written characters and can use them in such a way that when you get a plot that has a few holes in it, it’s easily covered. I mean, if past O’Brien is so badly irradiated, why wouldn’t future O’Brien be the same way? They’ve both gone through the same thing. Time travel stuff…blah. This was a tightly plotted and well thought out piece of business and kudos to the writers for remembering the TNG episode (Timescape) where they explained how Romulan ships are powered (quantum singularity!!!), which automatically makes DS9 a million times better than VOY on the scripting front. A clever jigsaw that was well put together.
Distant Voices
Bashir gets attacked by a telepath and starts to age rapidly as he makes his way through a deserted DS9. We soon learn that we are inside Bashir’s head and he must make it to Ops and repair the station or else he will die in a real world coma. (3/10)
Not much of an episode means, not much of a synopsis. This is all symbolism and smoke and mirrors as Julian fights his inner demons and wins. Bully-bully for him but this episode would have been better served if it was linked to the lifetime achievement award from a few episodes back. It would have had much better context to play with. Anyway, easily skip-able.
Through The Looking Glass
We’re back into the mirror-universe again as Smiley (alt-O’Brien) kidnaps Sisko to fill in for his dead counter-part so he can convince a Terran scientist to come and join the Terran rebellion. The hitch being is that it’s Jennifer Sisko who, though long dead in DS9 world, is very much alive here. This conflicts Ben as he wants to “save” her. After fooling mirror-Kira (ruler in mirror-town) that Ben is the Sisko she thought was dead, he locks himself into the ore processing plant with every other Terran and threatens to blow the whole place up if Kira doesn’t leave and take all of her Klingon and Cardassian buddies with her. Jennifer leaves with Ben and he confesses who he really is and goes back to his reality that much sadder.(6/10)
Mirror Universe shows bore me. Although it can be fun to see the characters we know do some way-out stuff (Sisko banging Dax for instance) it all means naught because the characters we are attached too have no clue. Now, if normal Dax was to find out Ben schtupped her in another reality, how would it affect their relationship? I know these are meant to be fun (and do get better in the seasons to come) but I’m one of the few Trekkies that just don’t click with it.
Improbable Cause
Garak shop explodes under mysterious circumstances and it soon is revealed that Garak himself paid someone to do the deed. Odo pieces together the puzzle some more and finds out 5 other Cardassian operatives have been killed as well and they all have links to former leader of the Obsidian Order, Enabran Tain. Garak and Odo go see Tain and it's soon is apparent that something big is going on. It seems that the Romulan Secret Service, The Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order have amassed a gigantic fleet and are making way to the Gamma Quadrant to destroy the Founders and their home planet thus rendering the Dominion threat void. We learn Garak staged his own bombing as a way to get to Tain and Garak will be let back into the Order and end his exile.(9.5/10)
This is all sorts of awesome. My recap doesn’t even get into the meat of the story and will never be able to do it justice. It’s really a masterwork of intrigue and surprise as the Garak character is the gift that keeps on giving. The man is one big shade of grey and the writers have absolutely NAILED his character. You can slot him in with anyone and it become automatically interesting. The scenes with Odo are priceless as they trade barbs, half-truths and information in a sweet game of cat-and-mouse and we’re not sure which character is which. Their apparent loneliness is palpable and seeing these two let each other in on their private worlds is something else. The reveal of the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order army is a great throw back to the information found in the Defiant episode and sets us up for a hell of a ride in the next episode.
The Die Is Cast
So the Romulan/Cardassian fleet is heading toward the Founder home world and Tain wants Garak to prove his loyalty by interrogating Odo for information. Meanwhile back at DS9 Sisko defies direct orders and takes The Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to rescue Odo too which Eddington sabotages the ship under orders from an Admiral. Sisko gets his word that nothing else will go wrong, fixes the ship and makes way again. Back with the fleet and Garak has a device that won’t let Odo regenerate and Odo is slowly dying because his 16 hour cycle has long past. When they reach the Founders home world we find it’s been a set-up and 150 Jem’Hadar ships come at them, hell bent on total destruction. We find out a changeling infiltrated the Tal Shiar and help set this up and he helps Odo and Garak escape as Sisko makes the last minute save and gets the flock out of there.(9.5/10)
A huge one-two punch of a story. Last episode was all story, this was all home run action. The battle sequences are fantastic and if I could use one word for them it would be frenetic. Story wise we got a huge helping of stuff, not the least that the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar are now completely gone rendering the Romulans and Cardassians no-events leaving only the Klingons and Federation as likely adversaries. We hear that no changeling has ever harmed another which will set the stage for future plot devices and storylines. An outstanding piece of work and the season three highlight.
Explorers
Sisko finds the plans to an 800 year old Bajoran space ship that runs off solar sails. He wants to build one and sail it with Jake to prove they actually did work and one could have made it to Cardassian space hundreds of years before other races had space flight. Jake uses the flight to take the time to talk to Ben about stepping it up on the girlfriend front and has set him up on a date with a freighter captain, Kasidy Yates. After hitting a freak ion storm they realize they managed to travel a sub-light speeds and make it to Cardassian space where Gul Dukat welcomes them amid the news of a discovery of the wreck of an ancient solar ship on Cardassia. We also get a GREAT b-plot where Bashir confronts his past and the student that was #1 in his class arriving on the station and…giving him the cold should. Julian freaks out and gets full-tilt drunk with O’Brien. Turns out that it was an innocent case of mistaken identity and they bond over science and research.(8/10)
The perfect way to back up the huge impact and intensity of the last two episodes. They take things quiet and resolve things quietly as well. For the most part this show works because the two pairings Sisko/Jake and Miles/Bashir have good chemistry. I can’t recall a more true to life display of father-son storylines than that thrown up by DS9’s writers and it’s interesting to hear in the special features that Avery Brooks really took Ciroc Lofton under his wing and made him part of his family in real life so they would play their scenes more naturally. It shows here. Bashir and Miles are always good to watch and having them get personal (even though it took a few drinks) adds another layer to their friendship. We also see future support character Leeta for the first time (trying to get Julian to put his stetha….you get the idea) and we also get the debut of the SISKO GOATEE OF INFINITE WISDOM! Word.
Family Business
Quark and Rom’s mother breaks Ferengi law by earning profit. They make a run to Ferenginar where Quark has to talk her into stopping or else he’ll be held responsible and have to pay recompense. Typical Ferengi craziness happens and we find that Quarks mother Ishka is quite the trouble maker and Quark thinks he was hard done by as a child and Rom was given everything. Quark gets Ishka to play ball but we learn she didn’t divulge a third of her profits.(4/10)
This episode was okay. Andrea Martin plays Ishka here and never reprised the role because of the heavy make-up which is a shame because if she ever got in a room with Wallace Shaw (Zek) it would have been a riot. This is the third Ferengi heavy show of the season and more and more you get less empathy for Quark and that Rom is a complete block of concrete. They are always the same and really you’d expect more from DS9 writers since they manage to do everything else right on the show. Take a look back at The House of Quark and you find yourself rooting for Quark to overcome the odds because he’s been put into a very tough spot. Here, he’s just a prick and a not very likable one at that. One good thing we did get was Liquidator Brunt (Jeffery Combs) who comes back into DS9 world here and there to create merry havoc. The b-plot however is worth the viewing as we meet Kasidy Yates and Ben nearly blows a load into her face straight away when he learns she’s a baseball fan and she’s waiting to get a transmission from her brother about a game he’s playing in a 6-team league in the Cestus system. I swear, Sisko would have gone down on her if he could of.
Shakaar
The First Minister of Bajor suddenly dies and Kai Winn takes it upon herself to lead the interim government until a new leader is elected, with the big wrinkle being that she’s the only one willing to stand. She enlists Kira to help a dispute with some farmer who turn out to be members of her old resistance cell. It seems that special farm equipment they just received is to be taken away before it will do any good. Winn is unable to bend or even negotiate and sends the Militia in after them bringing near-civil war to Bajor. After a tense stand-off with a Colonel that used to be head of another resistance cell, they realize that they didn’t fight Cardassians for 25 years to reach this point. The stand-off ends and Shakaar, Kira and the Colonel go back and confront Winn about her over-reactions and that Shakaar with stand for election and if Winn tries to stand as well, they let the whole incident become public hurting her standing with Bajors people. (6/10)
Not bad by-the-by as we get back into Bajoran politics and Winn being a power hungry hag. Up until now they managed a definite duplicity about Winn that even if you didn’t agree with what she did, you could understand why she did it. Here she’s drunk with power and anyone that defies her is going to be taken out. I dug the part where Sisko told her that the Federation will not help making her feel even more isolated. Although it’s never really said out loud, Kira and Shakaar get hot and heavy from here on in and Bariel is now a man of the past. This episode also has a neat sub-plot of Miles being in “the zone” and winning 47 games of darts in a row before succumbing to his dickie shoulder. Much fun.
Facets
Dax finally undergoes her Zhian'tara which is a ritual that takes the memories of her previous hosts and transfer them to friends or family so Jadzia can speak to them. She enlists the help of the DS9 gang and sets about measuring herself against them. Things go astray when Curzon gets transferred to Odo and instead of just the memories being introduced, Odo himself changes into a half Trill/half changeling form that combines both personalities. Curzon goes on a tear and literally freaks the loving shit out of Quark and cleans out the local Ferengi’s at Tongo. It seems Odo/Curzon like the arrangement and plan on staying this way but after a confrontation with Dax, things go back to normal.
A rather fun outing as we get to see Rene Auberjonois cuts loose as the merged Odo/Curzon. While I could have done without the whole “Curzon loves Dax” subplot I felt this episode could have focused more on all personalities instead of moments with everyone then 25 minutes of Curzon. Sure it was fun but ultimately played for laughs and not pathos which this should have been. Not quit the perfect part to the previous two Trill heavy storylines (Invasive Procedures and Equilibrium) but a worthy addition and taken as a three episode arc, a great way to educate people on Trills. I do also have to mention b-plot again as Nog takes an exam that will allow him to sit for the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. Quark rigs it so he fails which causes Rom to get vicious with Quark. Sisko lets Nog take the exam again and this time he passes, much to the delight of his proud father.
The Adversary
Starfleet finally gets shit right and makes Sisko a Captain. He’s also sent on an away mission by Ambassador Krajensky to patrol the Tzenkethi border as word has reached the Federation of a coup on their home world. Once on the way it quickly becomes obvious there's a saboteur on board and what’s more, it’s a changeling. The ambassador gets found out and we begin a chase through The Defiant as the ship is hurtling towards the Tzenkethi home world out of control and if it hits, it will create a war big enough for the Dominion to stroll in and take control of the Alpha Quadrant. They catch and kill him but at a high price, Odo kills someone for the first time and it happens to be one of his people. Thus he becomes the first changeling to kill another but not before the dying shape shifter reveals “it’s too late, we’re everywhere”. (9/10)
Hot stuff to end the season on as things go from interesting to insanely compelling and I can’t wait for season four. The whole Odo/changeling scenario was just flat out perfect as Odo, who’s already conflicted about his people, now must face the internal conflict of being the first changeling to harm another. The warning of changelings already being everywhere adds a new slant to the show as they’ve already shown, just one can cause massive problems if undetected.
Season Wrap-Up
This season was an amazing piece of storytelling. While we had our share of dud episodes, the quality of the rest was really high. We had some big episodes cycle through the DS9 world and each one of them continues to pay off down the track. This show rules because the writers manage to get everyone involved and while everyone has their episode-moments, within these stories you always find the b-plots or characters support the main plot are used very smartly. They might have only 5 minutes screen time but it’s used wisely and for the betterment of the story. Take Facets as an example, while Odo was in a large part of the episode it wasn’t really Odo, but that experience is used to further enrich the character.
Another example is the Gul Dukat character. He started out as pretty much a vile snake. Slowly, through a few minutes of screen time every few episodes he fills out the character more and more creating layers for the writers to use in the future.
Anyway, I highly rate this season and if you intend to get into DS9, you must watch this season as it really is the start of what the show became.
The 411: Essential DS9 and if you want to be able to know what all the fuss is about in the coming seasons, you will need to watch this to get all the story arch. Highly recommended.
