Deep Space Nine 7x24 "The Dogs of War"

rating: ***

the story: Zek finally names his successor.

what it's all about: Parts of "Dogs of War" act as the first act of the final episode, "What You Leave Behind," which like the final episodes of Next Generation and Voyager is already two hours long.  You get Damar preparing to be the leader of a full-scale Cardassian resistance movement in the basement of Garak's childhood home, Kasidy announcing her pregnancy, and the build-up to the massive final battle.

All that is well and good.  It's also the final "Ferengi episode."  Ha!  "The Emperor's New Cloak" seemed like the final "Ferengi episode," but buried at the end of he final ten hours of the series is another!  Unlike "Cloak," "Dogs of War" gives the Ferengi some closure.  In the first-ever "Ferengi episode," in the first season ("The Nagus"), Zek visits the station intending to announce an heir, convincing Quark he's got the job when it was really just a ploy.  This time he finishes the job and it's...Rom!

Yeah!  "Ferengi episode" became something of an epitaph, a signal that the good qualities of the series were going to vanish and a bunch of weirdo business freaks would spend the hour wasting time with nonsense.  That's how some fans found it, anyway.  But these were some of the best character work of the series, doing everything no other aliens had ever really gotten, a full series arc and a dramatic revision, a chance at redemption.  "Ferengi episode" became a thing well before Deep Space Nine even began, after the Ferengi made a dismal debut in Next Generation as the would-be successors to the Klingons.  Obviously that never happened, so they became something else, such a broad sketch of a society that their stories could literally be about anything, as long as it ridiculed...our worst failings. 

The funny thing is, it was always Quark who showed the most depth, but his brother Rom who got all the credit for it, willingly bucking every Ferengi tradition while Quark seemed to uphold it.  Quark has no real moment in the final episode, so his career statement is in "Dogs," where he seems to claim he'll continue being a true Ferengi even as Zek and Rom and his own mother Ishka have smashed tradition all asunder.  Sounds like he becomes the character who least develops during the course of the series, right?  Well...

He's actually the one who had the shortest distance to cross.  He'd already been willing to work with fate in whatever shape it took.  He was the most adaptable resident of the station, even if the one with the seeming least amount of scruples.  But by Ferengi standards (all this is spelled out in "Body Parts," by the way), he was a very bad Ferengi indeed, no matter how things looked.  He was the ultimate opportunist, and because of him, his brother was allowed to develop into the new-style Ferengi he became. 

Anyway, I think Quark ends on a good note, the usual chaos around him as always driven by his actions, regardless of the outcome, which here means the very idealistic vision Gene Roddenberry always expounded, that the future will always be better than the past.  And that leaves the series with nowhere else to go but the end. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual fans will never forgive the Ferengi for being such an epic disappointment, but it will forever be their loss.
• series - The conclusion to an arc that began all the way in the first season.
• character - Quark's closing argument.
• essential - Things turn out well for his family.

notable guest-stars:
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt/Weyoun)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Tiny Ron (Maihar'du)
Wallace Shawn (Zek)
Cecily Adams (Ishka)
Vaughn Armstrong

Deep Space Nine 7x12 "The Emperor's New Cloak"

rating: ***

the story: The chronologically finale Mirror Universe episode.

what it's all about: In hindsight it kind of seems inevitable.  And hugely, hugely appropriate.  Deep Space Nine's fifth and final Mirror Universe episode (sequels to the classic episode "Mirror, Mirror") is also a "Ferengi episode."

Let me briefly explain: in the first three series Mirror Universe episodes, a Ferengi dies.  First Quark then Rom then Nog.  (That's the big three Ferengi in the series, by the way.  But it was all the Mirror Universe counterparts.  Brunt's counterpart dies this time to continue the tradition, by the way.)  So it was only a matter of time, really, until things finally worked out for the Ferengi (mostly) in the Mirror Universe.

But it's also a "Ferengi episode."  At this point in the series, it was considered Deep Space Nine's greatest creative liability, especially after the perceived fiasco of last season's "Profit and Lace."  In fact, it's the only "Ferengi episode" of the final season.  When Ferengi congregate, things tend to go a little silly.  Basically, the Ferengi were the Jar Jar Binks of Deep Space Nine (and maybe the franchise as a whole).  I never had that problem.  I loved the guys, and their episodes were always highlights for me.

If "The Emperor's New Cloak" seems weaker than previous Mirror Universe episodes, it's because the tone is so different.  But it's also the big bombastic finale of the whole thing, and it pokes fun at the whole thing, and is the kind of statement the final season needed, because in five more episodes, everything was going to become a lot more grim, and there was never a guarantee of a happy ending.  So the Mirror Universe saga finally concluding ("Crossover" in the second season proved how "Mirror, Mirror" ended up with different results than Kirk anticipated) with a decisive win for the good guys is worth celebrating, regardless of its creative departures.

I like how everyone gets to let loose.  Michael Dorn, especially, seems to have enjoyed the opportunity, giving Worf his most energetic scenes in the whole series.  And for the record, the Vic Fontaine who's not a hologram but rather a flesh-and-blood (and very quickly dead) guy, I have a theory for that, and it's simple enough: Bashir based the lounge singer on a real person.  Maybe not a singer, but, y'know.  Simple.  Obvious.  Sends everyone home happy!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Again, the final sequel to "Mirror, Mirror."
• series - Which ends a Deep Space Nine tradition, too.
• character - I think this one was just meant to be fun.
• essential - And to my mind, wildly succeeds.

notable guest-stars:
James Darren (Mirror Vic Fontaine)
Jeffrey Combs (Mirror Brunt)
Andrew Robinson (Mirror Garak)
Chase Masterson (Mirror Leeta)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Wallace Shawn (Zek)
Tiny Ron (Maihar'du)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)

Deep Space Nine 7x10 "It's Only a Paper Moon"

rating: ****

the story: Nog struggles with PTSD.

what it's all about: Well, this is one of the big ones, what I'd argue to be one of the best episodes not only of Deep Space Nine but the franchise as a whole, for the very reasons any episode of this series ever reached such heights: because it got to the very hearts of its characters.

"It's Only a Paper Moon" is ostensibly a sequel to "The Siege of AR-558," an episode most fans normally point to as a classic.  But to my mind, "Paper Moon" is such a richer, deeper, more fulfilling experience, relying less on mood than its actual storytelling.  Nog has his leg blown off in "AR-558," but has to deal with what that actually means in "Paper Moon," which turns out to be a different matter entirely.  Yes, it's a war story, too, in a series and several seasons immersed in war stories, but it's one that gives as much depth to war as it does Nog.

For a long time, Nog was just the Ferengi who contradicted Ferengi tradition and became the first of them to join Starfleet.  He was the kid who grew up and made good.  In a lot of ways, he stole the arc of his best friend Jake Sisko, whose defining moment came halfway through the series (the equally highly recommended "The Visitor").  Nog has the benefit of hitting his high note toward the end of the series.  He's one of the few characters in the franchise to experience something terrible and actually have to deal with it.  And the whole episode, brilliantly, features his process toward recovery.

What makes it even better is that "Paper Moon" also features holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine, and the episode manages to work as well for him as it does Nog.  Vic could easily have been a bad gimmick, maybe a character who worked really well once (his debut in the sixth season episode "His Way"), but whose recurrence only serves to expose him.  He serves as a de facto counselor, much the way Guinan did in Next Generation.  And hey, Guinan already filled that role!  But Guinan never had an episode like this one.

At a time when Voyager was also proving what further depths there were to explore with artificial intelligence (The Doctor following in the footsteps of Next Generation's Data), Vic proved that another hologram, in an entirely different context, could do it, too.  And really, all he has to be is smart enough to let Nog talk through his problems, give him a little space.  No one else is willing to let Nog have any of that.  They all expect something from him.  All Vic does is sing, right?  And, thanks to Nog, have a simulation of a life, once his program runs continuously.  But he's okay living that kind of existence, too, because for him it's real enough.  And he lets Nog realize that's what life is for anyone.  It's only as real as you make it.  It's only a paper...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - One of the best episodes Star Trek ever did.
• series - Another essential war story.
• character - It's the ultimate Nog episode, and the ultimate Vic Fontaine episode.
• essential - It's a must-see, a classic through and through.

notable guest-stars:
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
James Darren (Vic Fontaine)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 7x4 "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"

rating: ****

the story: Sisko fields an unlikely baseball team against an old Vulcan rival.

what it's all about: Of all the episodes set during the Dominion War that didn't seem to notice that, y'know, a war was going on, it seems "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" would be the most egregious example of wasting such a unique platform, doing the exact opposite of what the producers should've been busy doing.  And granted, they were always going to have to shuffle in some episodic material with the hope of roping in casual fans, but this?

Well, yes, this.  It's such an unexpected episode and flies in the face of everything Deep Space Nine was supposed to be, that grim and nasty and dark series most fans probably didn't really have to worry too much about as they ignored its existence...But it was always the series with the most range, too.  I mean, it was always standard, from the very stark, to let loose a little.  "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the classic of all classic examples, surely.  But "Take Me Out" goes well, well beyond that.  And it's not technically a "Ferengi episode."  It does pivot around Rom's participation in the climactic ballgame, but it's really an episode for the whole cast, centering around Sisko, naturally.

Sisko's obsession with baseball goes all the way back to the very first episode ("Emissary") in which he actually explains linear existence to the Prophets with a baseball metaphor.  He had a baseball sitting on his desk throughout the series!  So at some point, the series was actually going to have to feature baseball.  Directly.  So that's basically what "Take Me Out" is.

It's also a kind of morale story, which is definitely a war story, a way to take weary minds off the heaviness of the conflict.  Only to redirect it to learning a game that in the future has almost entirely died away.  So it's a funny, fun episode as Sisko tries to explain how to play it to people (Worf's "Death to the opposition!" rallying cry is of course a classic) who couldn't possibly appreciate it as much as he does. 

Including their Vulcan opponents.  Having Vulcans as the "bad guys" is pretty interesting.  Until Enterprise the franchise never really got around to exploring just how humans and Vulcans actually get along.  Aside from Spock and Tuvok (Voyager), who pointedly were always pretty isolated from other Vulcans, Star Trek never really got around to exploring Vulcans.  Until, of course, Enterprise.  A lot of fans got very angry about how Enterprise presented them, but the roots of that were planted in "Take Me Out."  Is it really wrong to suggest Vulcans are arrogant, condescending?  How would you expect them to present themselves?  To my mind it's an entirely logical (heh) interpretation, so I think the episode nails that, and this depiction in it is a creative breakthrough worth celebrating as much as Sisko getting to celebrate baseball itself.

I'll admit that other fans will probably dispute a lot of my conclusions for "Take Me Out," but that's true for any episode.  This is merely my case for its credentials.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Between the spirit of the episode and the presence of Vulcans, I think casual fans should be interested.
• series - Presents a look at how to blow off pressure during wartime.
• character - Sisko!  Baseball!
• essential - An episode that in hindsight seems completely inevitable.

notable guest-stars:
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 6x23 "Profit and Lace"

rating: ***

the story: Quark is forced to defend everything he stands against as Ferengi society prepares to undergo a massive revolution.

what it's all about: Well, here we are, the "Ferengi episode" of all "Ferengi episodes."  Frequently cited as the worst episode of the series.  What I can never quite decide is how badly it betrays Star Trek fans to fall horribly below their own standards.  No, not on what makes a good, or bad, episode, but the social standards the franchise always represented.  With twenty years hindsight, the extreme hate for this episode actually kind of represents the most extreme bigotry the fans ever expressed.

For one episode, Quark becomes transgender.  That's perhaps the one-sentence summary I should've used above, and every fan would know instantly what I was talking about, and come up with their own summary of its worth: "Profit and Lace" is a farce.  That's exactly what they've been saying since it originally aired.  I've tried to come up with the reasons why the pejorative term "Ferengi episode" came into being, but it's probably because of "Profit and Lace."

The huge, huge irony is that this is not even the first time in Deep Space Nine featured a Ferengi posing as a member of the opposite sex.  Way back in the second season, "Rules of Acquisition" featured a female struggling to be taken seriously.  It was actually the foundation of the arc Ferengi society would take across the series as a whole, ratcheted up considerably when a different female, Quark and Rom's mother Ishka, took up the struggle in "Family Business" in the third season, the more obvious predecessor to "Lace," which follows the effects of Ishka ending up in a relationship with Grand Nagus Zek, the leader of the Ferengi.  In "Rules," the female poses as a male, and much like the ending of "Lace," it's unwanted sexual advances that end the experiment in discomfort.

"Lace" is about a lot of things, but it's kind of the episode where Quark must really decide how much he wants to struggle against the tide of history.  Tellingly, it begins and ends with him interacting with one of his hired girls at the bar, and how he decides to treat her, which in itself has nothing to do with the few scenes where he's a woman (except from his firsthand experience fighting off unwanted advances).  True, by the end of the series Quark is the one character who seems to be in the same place he was at the beginning of the series, but he's also the one character who had settled into his new life well before the end, when massive change had already rocked the foundations of his world.  As in, this episode.  As in everything that preceded and followed it, but mostly this episode.  Quark stops being such a desperate man after this.  That's really the best characterization of the bartender, previously; he was always so desperate to validate his existence, trying to be the ideal Ferengi when everyone around him kept telling him it was a horribly backward mistake.  If he didn't make the outward advances his brother Rom and his nephew Nog did, Quark still managed to make peace with the universe.

What, you were expecting it to look different?

But getting back to the transgender thing, I still find that shocking.  Of course the scenes of Quark as a female will be hard to take seriously, if you're already predisposed to the idea of the "Ferengi episode."  Quark's basic character, again, remains entirely consistent.  Complaints about this concept stem either from problems with Ferengi in general, or a failure to take the concept of changing one's gender seriously.  It could be one or the other, or both, but I'm inclined to believe the hate is really directed at the gender issue.  I'm fully aware of how complicated this concept is, how it's not any closer to being mainstream now than it was in 1998, when "Lace" originally aired.  Today we see transgender people as visible for the first time ever, but they haven't even begun to approach the level of acceptance of the homosexual community, which still faces its own hurdles.  Star Trek did analogies for years, but didn't begin incorporating gay characters themselves until 2016's Star Trek Beyond. 

But fans consider "Lace" an abysmal episode, for the scenes of Quark as a female, and for those scenes alone.  They don't seem capable of incorporating those scenes into the rest of the episode, or the rest of the series, for that matter.  And maybe that's a good thing.  Maybe that makes them more powerful.  I don't know.  I just know that it makes the episode more important, for being impossible to ignore, one way or another.  And probably not even what the producers remotely had in mind when they conceived it.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A groundbreaking episode still ahead of its time.
• series - I'm inclined to knock it here, as it does seem to reiterate previous material.
• character - Unlocks the course of Quark's development.
• essential - Became the definition of must-see when fans insisted that it was must-miss, for all the wrong reasons.

notable guest-stars:
Cecily Adams (Ishka)
Wallace Shawn (Zek)
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Tiny Ron (Maihar'du)

Deep Space Nine 6x10 "The Magnificent Ferengi"

rating: ***

the story: Quark assembles the least likely commando squad ever.

what it's all about: "Magnificent Ferengi" is an interesting riddle.  On the one hand, it's an episode that might actually help convince reluctant fans to give the Ferengi another shot.  On the other, it may actually be the episode responsible for the dreaded "Ferengi episode" reputation.  What fun!

It's actually a nice culmination of the work Deep Space Nine had put into the Ferengi, tying together pretty much every significant representative of the species the series had introduced over the years, from the Grand Nagus (absent but crucial to the plot) to Ishka (Quark's mum) to Brunt (the evil would-be uber Ferengi) and even Gaila ("the one with the moon"), and even suggesting that the path to the future for even a perennially hopeless culture (in terms of the Federation ideal) wasn't as dim as it sometimes seemed. 

...On the other, the Ferengi were always going to be a hard sell.  These were the guys Next Generation botched so badly in its first season, so badly that even in a whole season filled with creative botches, the introduction of the would-be successors to the Klingons felt like the worst one.  Successors to the Klingons?!?  Surely not!  But at the time, they really did seem like they'd be more menace than punchline (see how one of their number was even set up to be Picard's archnemesis!), until fans actually saw them in action.  Their subsequent appearances in that series were concessions to the obvious conclusion that they hadn't worked out as planned, and so they became intergalactic weasels instead, comically obsessed with prophet and just as comically inept. 

Enter: Quark.  The station's resident bartender was a giant reclamation project, meant to showcase the heretofore unknown nuances of the Ferengi.  Actually, he succeeded so well it was almost impossible for any other Ferengi to measure up to him.  His brother Rom actually devolved into such a buffoon that the only direction left to go with him was actually to turn him away from Ferengi norms.  So it became with Rom's son Nog, too, and each subsequent new Ferengi had to either follow the norms or risk being swallowed by them.  Yeah, I don't know how that was supposed to work, either.

The results can be seen in "Magnificent Ferengi."  The ones trying to be true practitioners of the culture (Brunt, Gaila) have tellingly fallen flat on their faces since last we saw them.  This may be due to the effects of an aging leader (Zek) looking to consider reforms with the encouragement of his relationship to Quark and his family, or because of, you know, the Dominion War.

Speaking of that...Following the epic arc at the start of the season, no real fighting had been seen for three episodes, and then along comes this one, in which the fighters are...the Ferengi.  Who are laughably terrible fighters.  The whole episode is about how terrible they are.  I mean, it's a farce!  In any other context, they're so hilariously inept it would undoubtedly make a classic Star Trek farce (see: "The Trouble with Tribbles," although maybe don't because even the Klingons somehow emerge unscathed from that one).  But the joke almost seems like it's on them.  The whole episode focuses entirely on them, with no other species, much less Starfleet, around, except for a Vorta they accidentally kill and then motorize in order to try and complete negotiations with the Dominion.

It must seem like an epic lost opportunity for fans who have little patience for the Ferengi.  I'm hardly saying this is the only interpretation.  I like the Ferengi.  I think they gave necessary color to the series, and this is a great example of how they did so.  I mean, there were several attempts to lighten up the war ("One Little Ship" a handful of episodes later, "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" in the final season), and I think this was the most successful one.  And it does advance the overall narrative of the Ferengi. 

But it may also be the prototypical "Ferengi episode."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Whether you consider it a good or bad thing, this is arguably one of the definitive appearances of the Ferengi in Star Trek.
• series - Their development as a species, as depicted in Deep Space Nine, reaches a crucial moment.
• character - Quark, and just about every other Ferengi in the series.
• essential - I think it's a terrific farce, but others may simply consider it a farce.

notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt)
Josh Pais (Gaila)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Cecily Adams (Ishka)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Christopher Shea (Keevan)
Iggy Pop

Deep Space Nine 6x7 "You Are Cordially Invited..."

rating: ****

the story: Worf and Dax marry, with a few hurdles.

what it's all about: Amazingly, through six TV shows and thirteen movies, "You Are Cordially Invited..." is the only story in the whole Star Trek franchise where two main characters get married, where that is the sole focus (Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres get a quickie in Voyager's "Drive").  The next closest example is the marriage of Miles and Keiko O'Brien in Next Generation's "Data's Day," but that was years before O'Brien was a regular in Deep Space Nine and besides, as the title implies, it was more about Data than anything.

So this one's a milestone.  It's also the first episode of the series since the penultimate one from the fifth season to take a break from the Dominion War, including the first six of the sixth season.  And it's a good excuse for a change of pace, as good an excuse as there ever was, obviously, as indicated above, another example of how importance the lives of the characters in the series were.

It's also a Klingon episode, sort of like "Amok Time" if everything (eventually) works out.  In terms of further fleshing out Klingon society, what it would be like to live it every day and not just as a warrior, "Invited" is a great episode on that score alone.

But it also gives Worf and Dax, especially Dax, a wonderful spotlight, after a few seasons of courtship that was fortuitous for both of them, Worf in terms of integration into the series and Dax in finally doing something with the Klingon connection that'd been there from the very beginning but until Worf had been relegated to one standout episode ("Blood Oath") but otherwise mostly ignored.

It's really a Dax episode.  Jadzia Dax would be dead by the end of the season (spoiler alert?), so this was kind of the last opportunity to revisit and explore in depth what made her tick.  Surprisingly or not, she finds that being familiar with Klingons and actively trying to join one of their families are two different things.  The whole experience is a reminder of what helped make her stand out to begin with (especially in appearances like "Playing God"), as something other than a pretty face, a strong personal drive that was just as apt to get Dax in trouble as lead to another of her epic memories (it would probably be safe to argue that it would be very tough to find a Trill who enjoyed being joined more than Jadzia Dax).

It's also a fun chance to see Martok relax a little, the first real chance he's had since returning from a Dominion labor camp last season and struggling to reintegrate himself back to his old life.  Which is to say, this is a rare chance to just hang out with the guy, as if he were just another member of the large station family, and not a Klingon who only appears when there's a fight brewing somewhere (admittedly frequent enough during a war).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Klingons!  You can't be a Star Trek fan and not love them.
• series - A big moment for two series regulars.
• character - That would be Worf and Dax, in case you forgot.
• essential - A truly unique moment in Star Trek lore.

notable guest-stars:
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Marc Worden (Alexander)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)

Deep Space Nine 6x6 "Sacrifice of Angels"

rating: ****

the story: Sisko retakes the station in spectacular fashion.

what it's all about: If "Favor the Bold" feels weightless, war-for-the-sake-of-war (and in turn, action-for-the-sake-of-action), what fans who never really watched Deep Space Nine assumed the Dominion War arc to be, then "Sacrifice of Angels" fulfills the promise of the concept, tying everything together neatly.

An unexpected callback to the wormhole aliens, or Prophets, who come to the rescue as a kind of deus ex machine but in a fashion that has considerable impact later in the series (one almost wonders if Sisko actually released the Pah-wraiths when he asks the Prophets to make the Dominion fleet disappear), bridges nicely with the physical act of winning back the station, a thrilling sequence of events that might have made a dramatic series opener.  Star Trek, to this point, was always afraid of action, aside from fight scenes that more often than not were poorly choreographed.  The Borg invasion from Next Generation's "Best of Both Worlds" happens mostly off-camera.  Deep Space Nine's pilot, "Emissary" actually features more of the battle at the heart of that invasion than was previously seen, but only as Sisko loses his ship, his wife, and his life (for a time).  The Cardassians were more or less wrapping up the Occupation at the same time, thus opening up the station to Starfleet in a bloodless coup.  Twice, during the course of the series, the station needed defending on an epic scale, but this time it had actually been lost.  In terms of significance this is huge.  Even Odo's temporary loss of his shape-shifting ability didn't seem this important when it happened a season previous. 

The action becomes deeply embedded in the history of the series, and its future as well.  Besides Sisko's future hassles with the Pah-wraiths, and Prophets, there's Dukat on a collision course with destiny, too.  Damar completes his journey to becoming a truly significant character when he betrays Dukat, murdering his daughter Ziyal, who collaborated with Kira and the other good guys who'd remained at the station (I talked previously about the importance of collaborators in the series, but this is easily the most dramatic example of them).

It's a big, big moment, and it justifies everything that preceded it, even the parts that seemed to be dragging their feet in an effort to make a big continuous arc, the longest in franchise history to that point, where one episode led directly into the next.  Some of the episodes in the arc didn't seem to contribute much to it, the producers still uncertain about the studio's willingness to let them pull it off, perhaps.  Or maybe they just weren't ready yet.  The minefield dilemma, however, does manage to justify all of it, sort of like the need for Obi-Wan Kenobi to deactivate the tractor beam in Star Wars in order for Luke, Han, and Leia's escape from the Death Star to be possible.  What was needed was a big ending, and that's what's accomplished here.

Arguably, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan works as well as it does because of Spock's death at the end of it.  I'd argue that Ziyal's death functions in much the same way.  Obviously Tora Ziyal is nowhere near as important a character as Spock, but her death greatly affects her father's future.  Dukat begins a descent into madness at the end of "Angels" that carries over into "Waltz," which permanently bonds him to Sisko, which finally crystalizes one of the most important arcs of the series, where Sisko's destiny as the Bajoran's Emissary (that term from the pilot) ends.  Again, that sequence with the Prophets makes that all the more important, too.

The Pah-wraiths are the enemies of the Prophets.  Dukat eventually becomes their Emissary, Sisko's opposite number.  They'd previously appeared in "The Assignment," but were relatively impotent, directionless other than their vague feud with the Prophets.  My argument is that whatever was keeping them in check previously ends when the Prophets directly intervene on behalf of Sisko.  This is big storytelling, somewhat beyond the scope of anything else Star Trek ever attempted, except maybe the abandoned Temporal Cold War arc in Enterprise.  To find anything like it, you'd need to watch Lost and wait to find out about Jacob and the Man in Black, and still end up with a fairly ambiguous explanation of a similar mythology...

The point, however, is that "Angels" ushers in a bold new era for Deep Space Nine, and the franchise in general.  It's the moment the whole serialization concept truly clicks, and as such is directly responsible for the image of the series as it persists today.  Actually, there was far less serialization than fans tend to assume; recurring characters tended to have a lot more of an impact than their ongoing stories, many of which don't really exist.  The one ongoing thread of the series is actually Sisko's role as Emissary, which of course is something that is touched on in "Angels," somewhat tellingly.

So anyone looking to see what the series is all about really could do far worse than catch "Angels," which could very well open up the whole concept for them.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - In some respects, it's the must-see moment that could just as easily define the series for fans and skeptics.
• series - It's the lynchpin of the serialization concept.
• character - A defining moment for Sisko and Dukat.
• essential - Kind of the definition of can't-miss.

notable guest-stars:
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 6x5 "Favor the Bold"

rating: ***

the story: Sisko decides to retake the station.

what it's all about: The strength and weakness of serialized storytelling is that it's a commitment that becomes inevitable, something that must be stuck with regardless of whether or not you've really figured it out.  To my mind, that was always the problem with Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine's cult doppelganger, some grand vision J. Michael Straczynski came up with but really never had the tools to execute properly (and I'm not just talking about the budget).  Whereas today you have people watching something like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones and it's the spectacle of the thing that's really the driving point of interest, the uninitiated viewer will be left wondering about its quality if individual episodes plod along without any real heft to them.  Especially in the binge age, weaknesses can be hidden by a yearning just to experience something. 

But even a novel needs to be consistently compelling to be an overall pleasurable experience, and TV serialized storytelling is basically the filmed version of a novel.  The fifth episode in the initial six-episode Dominion War arc betrays some of the weaknesses in its storytelling.  Whereas the previous entry, "Behind the Lines," contributed something meaningful to the overall plot by acknowledging not just the arc itself but all the material that had come before it, "Favor the Bold" feels like something the producers decided to do just to help wrap up the arc, having done nothing appreciable in the preceding four episodes to introduce what is otherwise an obvious development: the retaking of the station.  Considering two big stories in the series had already featured a similar moment ("The Siege" at the end of the three-episode arc at the start of the second season; "Way of the Warrior" at the start of the fourth), it almost feels too inevitable to register as the climax it needs to be.

Yes, there's still the rest of the season, plus another season besides that, before the war itself ends, but that's kind of beside the point.

In these five episodes, nothing substantial is done to bridge the twin plots of the arc: Sisko leading a crew fighting the war, Kira leading a crew leading the resistance aboard the station.  Now, having the impetus of Sisko's decision being the imminent destruction of the crucial minefield blocking the wormhole and thus Dominion reinforcements, that's a pretty big deal.  But it comes off as random, and while Kira's crew has been struggling with the issue of the mines all along, Sisko's crew has been doing anything but.

It just comes off as weak.  The version of serialized storytelling "Bold" represents is akin to soap opera, not space opera.  Things in some respects just kind of continue in this episode that've been introduced earlier.  The big development is merely that the station will finally be retaken; everything else just kind of exists.  Odo's weird relationship with the Female Founder, so crucial to "Lines," continues.  Even Tora Ziyal, who is one episode away from her crucial murder, doesn't seem to be anything but a character experiencing things merely to experience them.

All of this is quibbling, to a certain extent; it's clearly setup, so that the payoff next episode can focus on the good stuff.  So to a certain extent, it's an episode that needs to be seen in conjunction with the next one.  That actually makes it more of a two-part story than the fifth of six, which is how "Bold" and "Sacrifice of Angels" were originally presented.  It's just as clear, though, in hindsight, that this six-episode arc started something significant.  And that the producers didn't quite, yet, have the creative power to pull it off.  The ten-episode arc at the end of the series is a much better example of the kind of storytelling these installments are attempting.

Does all that make sense?

criteria analysis:

• franchise -  For this one you really need to be invested in the Dominion War arc to care, I think.
• series - A crucial moment in said arc.
• character - I don't think any one character truly stands out in the episode; you'll see a ridiculously extensive set of guest-stars below.
• essential - Unlike past versions of seeing Sisko fight to reclaim the station, this one is entirely earned, and so seeing where and how it begins is important to what follows, and to the series experience as a whole.

notable guest-stars:
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Aron Eisnberg (Nog)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)

Deep Space Nine 5x26 "Call to Arms"

rating: ****

the story: The fifth season draws to a close with the start of the Dominion War...

what it's all about: And thus begins, officially, the signature story of Deep Space Nine.  On the surface, "Call to Arms" might almost be seen as similar to "The Best of Both Worlds," the Next Generation episode that is half the definitive Borg story of that series, a big wartime scenario that was resolved one episode later.  But the Dominion War does not end in two episodes.  Or three.  It engulfs the two final seasons of the series.

Is this glorifying war?  Is this an affront to the very tradition of the franchise?  Is this, as many fans have complained about the Abrams-era films, featuring action at the expense of the cerebral heart of Star Trek?  To all three, I say, absolutely not.  The Dominion War, as "Arms" makes clear, continues the franchise tradition of putting the human experience first.  Actually, it helps explain how Deep Space Nine did that better than any Star Trek before or after it (arguably). 

At the episode's heart is actually Rom, the one-time bumbling Ferengi, lackey brother of irascible bartender Quark, whose evolution was a key part of the development of the series itself, beginning as so many elements of the fifth season did, in the third season.  He comes up with the idea Starfleet needs to secure the all-important wormhole that was always the reason the station became so strategically significant: a minefield (a technobabble minefield, naturally).  He also gets married to Leeta, a Bajoran who like him used the station to start a new life for herself.  How does Rom end up being the reason the Dominion War happens?  Because these are stories where character matters

Also involved is Jake Sisko, who makes a fateful decision about his own future, too, once it's becomes clear that the war has begun and Starfleet is forced to evacuate the station: he's going to stay.  It's the biggest decision he ever makes, beyond opting out of joining Starfleet.  Obviously it puts him in an extreme amount of danger, but it also means Jake has once and for all dedicated himself to the writer's life, as a journalist.  Maybe it's not the novelist everyone wanted him to be ("The Visitor") but it makes the character relevant as perhaps never before, and that's good enough, finally.

Of course: the war.  With every other major power forming pacts with the Dominion, Starfleet feels backed into a corner.  Rom's mines cut off access to the Gamma Quadrant, where the Dominion is based, making it totally reliant on resources, for the moment, from the Alpha Quadrant, including the resources already transferred there, including the increasingly signature Vorta representative Weyoun, as well as his main Cardassian ally Dukat, who has at last found his defining role in the series, too.  The Federation finds its ally in the Klingon Empire, finally putting to rest all the hassles of the past few seasons (and thus completely redeeming them, in the figure of General Martok, who becomes one of the most iconic Klingons of the franchise in the process).

When you put aside the morality of war itself, the complications of war can thus be explored.  The first of these in the series is Sisko having to make peace with his son's decision, which in some ways mirrors where both characters were at the start of the series, victims of the aforementioned Borg threat in "Best of Both Worlds."  Seems appropriate, right?

It's a must-see moment, even if you don't want to invest in the rest of the arc.  It also provides one of the most poetic images of the series, as Dukat discovers that Sisko has left his signature baseball on the desk he's been forced to vacate.  Clearly not just a war but a pitched battle for the station itself will be coming...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The start of a wild new look at the nature of war.
• series - The start of the signature arc of Deep Space Nine.
• character - From Rom to Jake, surprising characters define this moment.
• essential - The definition of can't-miss.

notable guest-stars:
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)

Deep Space Nine 5x25 "In the Cards"

rating: ****

the story: Jake and Nog in their last and greatest business scheme.

what it's all about: A staple of the first couple seasons of the series was the young duo of Jake Sisko and Nog getting into all sorts of juvenile trouble.  The more they, and the series around them, grew and came into their own, the less time they spent together.  "In the Cards" is a big reminder of how much Jake and Nog, as originally conceived, contributed to Deep Space Nine.  Although Nog eventually joined Starfleet, they were both strong elements of the series that reflected life outside of service (even a bar, Quark), the all-important civilian experience that always proved so difficult to regularly depict even in Next Generation with families aboard a starship (Wesley Crusher was an unofficial and then official member of the crew virtually from the start, and never even considered until the very end of that series any other life for himself). 

All that means that this is basically a slice-of-life episode that has a look at the ordinary experiences of the station.  As Jake and Nog navigate circumstances in order to obtain a baseball card for Jake's dad (y'know, Sisko), we get to see how things operate on a routine basis.  Nothing major seems to be at stake, but that's in fact the episode's biggest strength, because that couldn't be further from the truth: the whole story is about a state of grace everyone knows is occurring before war breaks out.  Kai Winn makes perhaps her only sympathetic appearance of the series as she frets about Bajor's future.  Weyoun appears in the last friendly (only?) Dominion appearance at the station.

But really, it's just a fun episode, without anything outright comedic about it.  This was a series known for going dark, but it was also a series capable of plumbing every kind of storytelling, with remarkable aplomb.  "Cards" has such a light touch it might seem easy to dismiss as inconsequential, but it is very deliberate in what it sets out to do, which is give the series once last chance to breathe.  Because a war is about to break loose.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - In the best Star Trek tradition it lightens the mood nicely.
• series - It's the last episode before the war, and knows it.
• character - It's Jake and Nog's last caper.
• essential - Subtle storytelling and a thorough delight.

notable guest-stars:
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Louise Fletcher (Kai Winn)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Brian Markinson

Deep Space Nine 5x20 "Ferengi Love Songs"

rating: **

the story: Quark discovers that the Grand Nagus and his mother are shacking up!

what it's all about: When fans think of "Ferengi episodes," it's actually probably this one they're thinking of.  Taking every "Ferengi episode" that came before it and playing fast and loose with the logic, and generally making as many convenient, logic-defying leaps as possible, "Ferengi Love Songs" has the dubious distinction of actually becoming the crux for every major "Ferengi episode" that followed it, including the much-loathed "Profit and Lace" a season later...

Grand Nagus Zek was kind of the Q of Deep Space Nine, a wonderfully zany character who'd show up about once a season to cause chaos, mostly for poor Quark.  Quark's mother Ishka debuted in the third season, "Family Business."  As you'll note above, the two end up in a relationship together.  It'd the definition of a farce.

This is extremely unfortunate timing, as with certain other parts of the season, as Quark had just experienced his darkest story, "Business as Usual," and this is basically its antithesis.  I'm not going to dock it as much as I suddenly feel like because it is pretty important to the rest of the series, and the notion that even hilariously backward Ferengi could be redeemed to something resembling respectable with enough radical shoves from the irrepressible Ishka.  I think all this would've worked a lot better if Quark hadn't been in the picture, for a change.  But then again, even Rom, about as opposite a Ferengi as you'll find, acts a lot like a typical Ferengi in the episode, which is equally baffling.  It would've been better, I think, to have some other character discover what Zek and Ishka have been up to.

Well, like I said, "Ferengi episode."  This is one you're either going to like or it'll just drive you nuts, not because of something obvious like Quark parading around in drag ("Profit and Lace"), but because it doesn't seem to respect what came before it.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - One way or another, this one's strictly for fans of Deep Space Nine.
• series - It's a "Ferengi episode," for better or worse.
• character - I think the episode best reflects on Zek, all told, shows how far he's come since the first season.
• essential - Because it kind of savages everyone else.

notable guest-stars:
Wallace Shawn (Zek)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Tiny Ron (Maihar'du)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt)
Cecily Adams (Ishka)

Deep Space Nine 5x16 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?"

rating: ****

the story: Dark secrets about Bashir's past are revealed.

what it's all about: A string of eight brilliant episodes concludes with this one, in which another effort of the third season comes to fruition: the redemption of Bashir, who in his original boy wonder incarnation was just this side of Wesley Crusher (Next Generation) in his obnoxiousness.  There was a new world weariness to the character in the third season that finally began to ground him, but otherwise he was the least developed character of a series filled to bursting with well-developed characters.  That it took until the fifth season to finally crack him wide open has the interesting side effect of fans just as easily rejecting as embracing the revelations of "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" but I think they fit the character perfectly.

It was always Bashir's overeagerness and pride that defined him, in the early seasons, as if he wasn't trying to prove himself to others as much as, well, himself.  Turns out that was exactly the case.  When he was a child his parents took it upon themselves to genetically enhance Bashir, so that he would be the impressive boy they wanted.  He did prove to be impressive, as he would point out every chance he got later, but was it really Bashir boasting so much as him trying to convince himself that these were his achievements and not merely the result of what his parents did to him?

Genetic enhancements had played a part of the franchise previously, of course, and quite famously so, in the guise of Khan, whose defining turn in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was another miraculous turnaround in franchise lore, helping redeem the "it" factor of Star Trek after the less-inspiring Motion Picture (and not to mention cancellation of the original series after an ignominiously brief three season run).  "Presume" references Khan as the reason the Federation outlawed genetic enhancements because of their inherent unreliability (later Bashir meets products of that unreliability who are more quirky than menacing, in "Statistical Probabilities").  It's the first time the franchise addresses Khan's nature, and as a result fleshes out a part of the mythology nicely.

Besides all that, two other elements help the episode stand out.  One is Rom completing his journey to becoming his own man when he professes his love to dabo girl Leeta (completing journeys begun, you guessed it, in the third season).  It's a nice contrast to the doubt Bashir experiences throughout the episode, and a feel-good ending in an episode that needed one.

There's also one of the niftier franchise crossover moments when the creator of Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram, who happens to look just like him and as such is also played by Robert Picardo, becomes the reason why Bashir's secrets are exposed when he shows up at the station looking to build a new holographic doctor, modeled after Bashir.  (Would you believe he ends up choosing Andy Dick instead?  Look no further than Voyager's hugely delightful "Message in a Bottle" to see for yourself!) 

Eight episodes in which the producers in effect looked back at the fruitful period in the second season where they had hard looks at the franchise at large to see what could be applied to Deep Space Nine, material like "Blood Oath" (which brought back three original series Klingons and actors) and "Crossover" (a follow-up to "Mirror, Mirror"), in which the future of the series finally came into focus, and character work became stronger than ever, starting with "The Ascent" and ending with "Presume."  It may be the single greatest creative stretch in franchise history.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Finally explains what went wrong with Khan.
• series - A moment general fans can really appreciate Deep Space Nine.
• character - Bashir's best story to this point in the series.
• essential - Hard to see anyone arguing you shouldn't watch this one, even if you disagree with my conclusions.

notable guest-stars:
Robert Picardo (Lewis Zimmerman)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)
Brian George

Deep Space Nine 5x7 "Let He Who Is Without Sin..."

rating: ***

the story: Worf and Dax vacation on Risa, but end up fighting the whole time.

what it's all about: The idea of morality in Star Trek seemed so often to veer toward the '60s counterculture ideals of total freedom (except in the case of Harry Mudd) it's extremely eye-opening for an episode to question how far, if indeed too far, they've gone.  This is one of those controversial episodes for that very reason, an uncomfortable viewing experience that happens to feature Worf coming to peace with his new home. 

Like every other character in Deep Space Nine, Worf was incredibly uncomfortable in his life when he first came to the station.  He'd had a home, famously, with the crew of Next Generation (to the point where he appeared in every movie derived from it, even though two of them, First Contact and Insurrection, overlapped with his tenure at the station), and despite the occasional inconvenience (or outright crisis, which basically explains every time he met another Klingon) he was another happy member of Picard's merry band (though he would protest such a characterization).  His addition to Deep Space Nine at the start of the fourth season was kind of apropos of nothing, just like the Klingons the studio insisted be added to the series to broaden its appeal.  Subsequent appearances only compounded the problem, until someone finally realized the perfect solution in pairing him with the Klingon-loving Dax, which finally happened earlier in the fifth season ("Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places"). 

Yet to attempt to craft a happy ending for Worf so abruptly wouldn't have been true to the series or character.  So this is the episode where all the ugly details are ironed out, and once and for all Worf can either decide to make peace with the universe...or not.  Even in his Next Generation glory days he never quite got to do this, but rather avoid it at every opportunity, finding temporary happiness with Troi, who was the other most likely personal in that crew to understand the desperate need to find acceptance (thanks to her overbearing mother).

So he does a lot of bad things in this episode.  In short, Worf is a jerk.  To Dax, to Federation principles, you name it.  Never before had all those troubled Deep Space Nine characters tried to take it out on each other, even in the early days when Kira wanted to rip Sisko's throat out. 

Of course, Worf serves as a metaphor, contrasting his motivations with those of his "friends" who are out to question what the Federation has become, the comparatively shallow nature of their actions compared to what we eventually learn about Worf's reluctance to truly share himself with anyone (something he got to avoid with the empathic Troi).

That it's set on the pleasure planet Risa (Next Generation's "Captain's Holiday," Enterprise's "Two Days and Two Nights") is a nice little link to franchise lore.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The rare episode that questions the basic tenets of Star Trek's philosophy.
• series - I think this has less to do with Deep Space Nine as a result.
• character - But plenty to say about Worf.
• essential - It's a fascinating case study.

notable guest-stars:
Vanessa Williams
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 4x16 "Bar Association"

rating: ***

the story: Rom finally has enough of Quark's constant lack of respect, and finally strikes out in his own direction.

what it's all about: This is one of those crucial turning points of the series that could very easily be lost in the shuffle of the huge Dominion War arc that, as I've said before, tends to encapsulate the whole perception of Deep Space Nine at its best.  But that couldn't be true if the characters in the story didn't matter, and because of that, episodes like "Bar Association" really are important, too.

The revolution of Ferengi society is ultimately an arc that revolves around Rom, who never managed to be as successful as his brother Quark.  By the end of the series, after Rom and Quark's mother Ishka had convinced Grand Nagus (read; Ferengi leader) Zek to enact radical reform, it's Rom who's named Zek's successor.

The odd thing about "Bar Association," and Rom's ultimate fate, is that he's a great supporting character, and easy to root for, especially the more he became his own man (it's crazy to think in hindsight that Max Grodenchik changed how he voiced the character along the way), the more he made Quark look bad in comparison.  No, not because Quark stubbornly clung to the traditional ways of his people, but because it robbed him of an opportunity to grow, too, the one character who was denied a conclusive arc in the series.  But it also gives Quark a unique role in the series, as the unlikeliest champion of the status quo in a Star Trek series that dared defy it, in a way even the original series never did, much as it mirrored the struggles of the countercultural revolution of the '60s.

But it's odd within this episode, too, because up to this point, Quark and Rom had always been inextricably linked, with Quark being the one who would subtly learn a thing or two about why things working as they typically do maybe isn't such a good thing.  And while this would continue ("Business as Usual" is easily the most effective of his later spotlights), having him effectively exist in a vacuum also deprived Quark of that essential suggestion that he wasn't as bad as he seemed, if Rom was willing to stick by him.

Still, Rom's defining spotlight is a triumph, right up to the point he joins his son Nog in finally casting off any notion of following Ferengi norms, quitting the bar and joining O'Brien's engineering team. 

We also have Worf reflecting on the chaos of the series, for the first time really seeming like what's going on around him actually matters to him.  "Bar Association" is as much a reflection of what the series once was and what it was to become.  Quark having to defend his business practices was one of the original defining elements of the series, one that survived every creative revision, and this episode proves its enduring appeal.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - While there's a certain universal appeal to the story, it may resonate best with fans of this particular series.
• series - It really shouldn't be too hard to see how relevant it is to Deep Space Nine.
• character - Rom's definitive spotlight.
• essential - Reflects on the past and present of the series.

notable guest-stars:
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 3x25 "Facets"

rating: ***

the story: Jadzia undergoes a ritual to "meet" every previous host of the Dax symbiont.

what it's all about: What might have come off as a silly gimmick (while consistently amusing, many of the hosts come off merely as too comedic) proves infinitely compelling when two specific ones grab "Facets" and push it to greater heights.

The first and comparatively throwaway is Sisko embodying the rogue host uncovered in the earlier third season episode "Equilibrium," instantly selling the whole concept as far more chilling than its predecessor had managed.  It gives Sisko, and by extension Avery Brooks, yet another compelling, previously-unthinkable moment in a season full of them.

But by far, Odo's portrayal of Curzon Dax is what the episode, and the series, really needed.  Curzon is easy to overlook in his importance to series lore.  He's the "Old Man" Sisko is constantly referencing when he addresses Jadzia, the host of the Dax symbiont who came immediately before her.  Other episodes had attempted to tell compelling stories around him ("Dax" in the first season, "Blood Oath" in the second), but without having Curzon himself represented, they always circled back to Jadzia herself.  Not only does "Facets" solve that, it also demonstrates the pitfalls of host selection far more effectively than previous attempts ("Equilibrium" and "Invasive Procedures"), namely by making it immediate, personal, and downright heartbreaking.

Simply put: during the course of the episode, it's revealed that Curzon flunked Jadzia out of the initiate program, and eventually that he did so because of a conflict of interest, namely that he'd fallen in love with her.  That's the beating heart of a story that breaks new ground for Jadzia as more than the quirky hotty she'd kind of become somewhere along the way (actually, that would be "Playing God," thank you very much), and it paves the way for the ultimate host episode, "Rejoined," early next season, perhaps the boldest episode the series ever attempted, a direct rebuttal of "The Host," the Next Generation episode that introduced the Trill in the first place.

Incorporated into this is Odo's own self-loathing, one of the running themes of the season, and even his as-yet unrequited crush on Kira (by way of suggestion).  The B-story complements this by having Rom finally show some backbone and acknowledge the huge achievement his son Nog has made by gaining admittance (the first for a Ferengi) into Starfleet Academy. 

This is one of those breezy efforts from the season, where the newfound confidence the series had found could really blossom.  It's not overly crucial to the course of things, but it's also indicative of why any of it mattered, because Deep Space Nine really had invested time and effort into its characters, so that it could.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This one's for fans of Deep Space Nine, thank you.
• series - Well, like I just said...
• character - Technically focuses on Jadzia.
• essential - But has plenty of room for others to shine, too.  Good character work overall!

notable guest-stars:
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)

Deep Space Nine 3x22 "Explorers"

rating: ****

the story: While the Siskos experience some one-on-one bonding time, Bashir reluctantly reunites with an old classmate.

what it's all about: When it comes to episodes featuring the unique bond between Benjamin and Jake Sisko, most fans will be able to tell you all about the classic episode from early the next season, "The Visitor," but few will remember "Explorers," which really only comes a few episodes earlier, and in some ways, in its breezy simplicity, is better.

Next Generation could sometimes drive itself nuts trying to create a slice-of-life episode that hit all the right marks, but never came close to something like this.  Not only are the Siskos in the spotlight, but Bashir in what is by far his most appealing story of the season, and perhaps the all-time great B-story of the whole franchise featuring the all-time greatest drunken duet of the whole franchise....It's really, really hard for me to undersell this episode, which has always been one of the key reasons for why I love this season so much, and how it helped me fall in love with the series itself.

Jake Sisko will always be the youthful character of the franchise that somehow managed to avoid the curse of becoming a grating, obnoxious recurring presence, who was listed as a regular throughout the series but somehow ended up being featured and feeling like a recurring character, and by far the most subtle one.  In some respects he existed to ground his father in a reality most Star Trek characters never really get to experience, as the kind of Wesley Crusher we always wish we had, merely the reminder of a tragedy that must inevitably happen in Starfleet families, the loss of a parent and the need to soldier on.  And yet by this point Jake had made the decision to forego Starfleet and committed himself to the life of a writer (in fact, a lot of this episode is dedicated to his formative development in that regard, and as such always had natural appeal to someone who was just beginning to realize that's what he wanted, too, for his future).  He'd seen his best friend, who seemed to have far worse prospects, make exactly the opposite decision and convince everyone it wasn't just a mad pipedream.  And with a father who had become more involved in his own life than he had been in years, Jake now wonders if it's time he move on, accept a scholarship that will take him away from the station (in some ways, the course of Jake's whole arc in the series mirrored the one that brought everyone to the station to begin with, because in fact he never leaves).

The Ben Sisko who appears in "Explorers" is by far the most appealing he ever was, a warmed-in version of the one who showed up in the season premiere, "The Search," with the same kind of fervor for a new project early seasons only hinted at.  He decides to throw himself into recreating an ancient Bajoran solar ship, and once that's completed actually taking it into space with his son.  By that time the episode really settles in, and becomes ten times more appealing, a lark that never really feels the urge to become more complicated than it needs to be, allowing father and son plenty of time to bond.  When an emergency does break out, it feels organic, and when Dukat shows up to congratulate them on showing how ancient Bajorans really could have been as impressive as the ship itself suggests, it's the best moment of the season for showing how politically hypocritical the Cardassians can be (same as politicians ever are), but in a good way.

And anyway, Bashir's angst about where his career has landed has been a subplot all season, whether the award he thinks he's too young to win or the sudden awareness that he's actually getting older...But being confronted with an actual specter of his past, the embodiment of the one decision he regrets, having charged with the fullness of youthful abandon at the prospect of the "frontier" instead of taking the most prestigious posting available upon graduation from medical school...This is the guy's lowest moment.  He gets drunk, sings with O'Brien (what's with O'Brien getting all the best singing moments in Star Trek, anyway?), and then...discovers how wrong he's been.  Well, of course.

This right here is the depth of the series, the simple moments somehow writ large, because for Deep Space Nine it really wasn't about the big moments (even though the Dominion War was about as big as you can get in Star Trek), but the small ones, the ones that are all about, and only about, its characters, and why they matter, for the fact that they exist and nothing else.  And yet it would be a huge mistake to say this is soap opera material, because soap opera wishes it could be this endearing.  Soap opera lives for shock value.  There's nothing shocking about a father telling his son his writing has a long way to go.  But there's plenty of profundity in it.

Surely the most unlikely classic in a franchise better known for its sci-fi twists...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Unlike anything else you'll see in Star Trek.
• series - Or this series, really.
• character - But it's all about what's always important about this series.
• essential - The characters.

notable guest-stars:
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Chase Masterson (Leeta)