Deep Space Nine 7x25/7x26 "What You Leave Behind"

rating: ****

the story: The war ends, and Sisko finally confronts Dukat to settle up between the Prophets and the Pah Wraiths.

what it's all about: This is it, the final episode of Deep Space Nine.  I've always found it by far the most satisfying finale of the franchise.  Of the ones specifically designed to provide end statements, none of them are particularly disappointing, to me.  But they don't really give proper send-offs, aside from "What You Leave Behind."  The second hour is devoted to the crew going their separate ways.  That's all but absent in Next Generation's "All Good Things..." (which is a celebration of the crew itself), Voyager's "Endgame" (which completes the journey home just in time to end the episode), and Enterprise's "These Are the Voyages..." (which really only marks a goodbye to the show's best character, Trip Tucker).  Fans have always kind of bagged Voyager's for leaving the farewells unsaid, and Enterprise's for spending so much time with Next Generation's Riker and Troi (I have literally never had a problem with their inclusion), and thought Picard joining the rest of his crew in a poker game was sweet, but everyone knew there were movies in their future, so there was no perceived need to round out their adventures, except conclude Q's trial from the very first episode ("Encounter at Farpoint").

Deep Space Nine, however, kind of knew this was the end, so there was no reason to send everyone home happy.  Where some have been disappointed that Sisko never did get Bajor into the Federation (ostensibly the whole point of his posting in "Emissary"), it's hugely appropriate to end things in a moment of transition, because that's where things began, too, with everyone adjusting to radical new circumstances.  By the end of "Leave Behind," Sisko has joined the Prophets, Odo the Founders, O'Brien headed off to Starfleet Academy (as an instructor), Worf accepting a post as ambassador to the Klingons, and Bashir finally in that relationship with (a) Dax that he'd always yearned for.  The ending, with Quark remarking the old adage "the more things change..." and Kira and Jake Sisko looking off to the wormhole, wondering what the future holds...It's perfect. 

The conclusion of the war itself is classic.  Things finally come to a head with the Cardassians, as Damar becomes a martyr and the Dominion subsequently level heavy reprisals on the rest of the Cardassians as they rebel in his name, which puts them exactly in the situation Bajor was in at the start of the series.  That, if anything, is the element that rounds out the experience, with one of those planets finding themselves at some logical conclusion based on everything they'd been up to during the course of the series.  If everyone assumes it had to be Bajor, that doesn't mean they're right.  And even Bajor is posed for a more hopeful future, with Winn finally out of the picture, her epic downfall at last complete.

Speaking of Winn, her scenes with Dukat are somehow the best they are in the whole concluding ten-hour arc, Winn increasingly uncomfortable dealing with Dukat but dealing with him all the same, deluded to her last moments that she's still got the upper hand, even as she enacts a final redemption in doing the right thing, unequivocally, turning against Dukat as Sisko appears.  The encounter between Sisko and Dukat is itself a signature element of the episode, going totally against expectations.  We'd seen a version of this play out already in "The Reckoning," a full-on duel between Prophet and Pah Wraith powers.  But that was never Sisko, who was never Kirk, who was always game for a physical fight.  Sisko was game for that sort of thing, but his was always a more cerebral way, much more like Picard, the Picard in the movies, maybe, but more mature, measured, than Kirk ever managed.  When Dukat proves that he's willing to use powers he's all too eager to assume, a role he's all too eager to embrace, it proves all over again that for all of Sisko's doubt across seven seasons, he was still capable of doing the right thing, even if it meant sacrifice he became increasingly willing to make.  It's to be remembered that in the beginning, Sisko was a broken man precisely for a sacrifice he never accepted, the death of his wife.  Leaving his second wife, Kasidy, and their unborn baby, is the very symbol of his growth.

Vic Fontaine justifies his existence one last time in serenading the crew just before everyone splits, in the best scene of the best farewell in Star Trek history.  Sisko all but acknowledges Deep Space Nine fan conviction that this was the best series of the franchise, regardless of how fans in general would ever consider it.

Just a lot of great scenes piled up on each other, one after the other, everyone having a chance to shine, and nearly every recognizable face present and accounted for, too many for me to make labels for everyone, alas.  But a complete listing is below.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - It's the only final episode to date that allows fans to linger in the goodbye.
• series - The story comes full circle from the very first episode beautifully and imaginatively.
• character - Everyone gets a chance to shine.
• essential - To my mind the best final episode of the franchise to date.

 
notable guest-stars:
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Deborah Lacey (Sarah)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
James Darren (Vic Fontaine)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)

Deep Space Nine 7x21 "When It Rains..."

rating: ***

the story: Kira is assigned to help the Cardassians mount a resistance movement.

what it's all about: The final arc continues to heat up as the most ironic development of the series finally happens.  Kira is Bajoran.  Before the series began she was a member of the Bajoran resistance to Cardassian occupation.  Do you begin to grasp the irony?  Between Garak, who was always presented as sympathetic, and Dukat, who when he wasn't being a scoundrel or worse flirted with being a good guy, and not to mention experiences like "Duet" and "Second Skin," Kira spent a lot of time around Cardassians who contradicted the ugly history between their peoples.  So in a lot of ways, this development was almost inevitable.  All it needed was for the Cardassians as a whole to find themselves in a situation where they matched the unique circumstances Kira kept finding.  And this being the Cardassians, it was definitely inevitable.

Which still makes this a powerful moment, and one of the defining stories of the final arc.  The way the arc developed is something I haven't always appreciated.  You may remember me complaining about the somewhat arbitrary opening acts.  At this point everything seems justified.  It becomes clear how the arc presents every member of the sprawling cast with situations that push them to their limits, things they never thought would happen in a million years.

Also in this episode: Winn catches Dukat spying on the Pah Wraith book she's been guarding jealously, and laughs at the irony of his being struck blind for it.  Bashir realizes that Odo (and the other Founders) were infected by Section 31, which will lead to him finally getting his revenge against an organization that has crossed paths with him one too many times.

And, Gowron comes back into the picture.  This is the big one, at least at accessibility goes.  Gowron was one of the reasons why Next Generation's Klingons redefined the signature Star Trek aliens.  He'd made a few Deep Space Nine appearances, but he never really seemed like a fabric of the series.  That changes starting with "When It Rains..." (and if you don't know how it ends...).

All these arcs continue and get bigger in the episodes that follow, and that's how you know the arc has really begun to click.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Gowron begins his most significant appearances in this series.
• series - The final arc continues to sizzle.
• character - Kira comes full circle in the way she least expected.
• essential - Everything that happens here really pays off in other episodes, one of the drawbacks of heavy serialization.

notable guest-stars:
Robert O'Reilly (Gowron)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
Vaughn Armstrong

Deep Space Nine 7x20 "The Changing Face of Evil"

rating: ***

the story: The Defiant is destroyed by the Dominion's new allies, the Breen.

what it's all about: Well, this certainly never happened in Star Trek before.  Yeah, Voyager would later do it with the Delta Flyer, too, but Deep Space Nine got there first.  It destroyed one the franchise's signature ships, during the course of a series.

So that makes "The Changing Face of Evil" one of those essential moments in the closing arc of the Dominion War.  I guess, at this point everything seems like an essential moment in the arc, the serialization taking shape at last to feature big moments each episode and not mere running material for the sake of it.  Each one has its own specific purpose.  This one makes it clear that the war is definitely still being fought. 

Other big things are the news that Earth has been attacked, and that Winn has made the big decision to commit herself to reading a Pah Wraith book, thereby committing herself to Dukat's plan.  And that title?  Yeah, she's found out that the Bajoran farmer who's been helping her was Dukat all along.  Oh, and news has finally gotten out that Damar has defected from the Dominion.

This is an installment that deepens existing plot threads more than anything, raising the stakes just a little more. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I'm not sure the loss of the Defiant, or the replacement that shows up in the final episode, is something that's communicated properly for general fans to really care.
• series - The war heats up!
• character - Winn's role in these final episodes is perhaps the best she is all series.
• essential - The loss of the Defiant is a powerful symbolic gesture.

notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)

Deep Space Nine 7x19 "Strange Bedfellows"

rating: ***

the story: Damar decides enough is enough and defects from the Dominion.

what it's all about: With all the heavy serialization, each episode in the final ten-hour arc needs to have a definitive character moment to stand out, and, well, as my summary above suggests, "Strange Bedfellows" is Damar finally coming into his own. 

Damar was a character who first showed up in the fourth season, a seemingly unimportant ally of Dukat's in "Return to Grace" who kept appearing, a little like Martok, until he became indispensable.  When he took over for Dukat as the lead Cardassian in the Dominion, he was a familiar presence, but gradually this strangely reticent Cardassian turned out to be the rare Cardassian who cared more for the fate of his people than his grandiose ego (even beloved Garak was always more concerned about his own fortunes).

It was a subtle arc.  He was shown drinking.  We'd seen Garak use elaborate coping mechanisms, so that wasn't out of character for a Cardassian.  But the drinking got a little out of control, and finally in "Bedfellows" he realizes that the Dominion doesn't care about the Cardassians at all.  He becomes the ultimate incarnation of the sympathetic Cardassian the series had been searching for all along, since "Duet" in the first season, someone who finally takes a definitive stand for the sake of justice, regardless of whether or not it's for his own people. 

There's a bunch of other stuff going on, too, but this is the plot thread with the most weight to it, and the most significance.  Competing with it, on any level, is the continuing crisis of faith from Kai Winn, who's dealing with the mysterious Bajoran (who's really Dukat) and whether or not it's the Pah Wraiths rather than Prophets who've come whispering in her ear.  It's the clearest parallel to Damar's story: Damar chooses to do the selfless thing, and Winn one last time decides to be selfish...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Yes, it's a version of the classic defector scenario (see Next Generation's..."The Defector"), but without a conclusion in the episode itself I wonder how much casual fans will care.
• series - Regardless, Deep Space Nine fans will eat it up.
• character - Damar finally commands the spotlight.
• essential - Which proves important through the end of the series.

notable guest-stars:
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)
Deborah Lacey (Sarah)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)

Deep Space Nine 7x18 "'Til Death Do Us Part"

rating: ***

the story: Dukat enacts a deception against Kai Winn, posing as a simple Bajoran farmer to gain her trust.

what it's all about: Putting aside Kasidy and Sisko dealing with last episode's engagement and this episode's wedding, and all the angst therein between, given how the Prophets don't think it's in Sisko's best interests...The real meat of this episode is the beginning of the Dukat/Winn arc in the final arc of the series, which is possibly the most fascinating thing either character ever got to do.

Winn was a character who never gave much room for sympathy, from her first appearance in the first season finale "In the Hands of the Prophets" to her most callous and selfish moment in the third season's "Life Support," really it was only in the previous season's "The Reckoning," the first time she crossed paths with the Pah Wraiths, where Winn might have found some.  In that episode she was finally and at last presented with something that she couldn't muscle beneath her.  So it's ironic that it's the Pah Wraiths, or perhaps appropriate, that put her in such a position again.

With Dukat, this was a character who'd struggled to find his footing from the very start, and with him it's not really worth referencing a first appearance or any particular subsequent one, because he was always being thrown off-kilter.  It was only when he embraced his role as the Emissary of the Pah Wraiths that Dukat regained the confidence he'd once had as commander of Terok Nor (the name of the station when it was still under Cardassian control).

What made Winn so ironic was that she was the main representative of the Bajorans, a hugely religious people, and yet she was never particular religious.  No, she was the consummate politician, so caught up in her ambition that it never occurred to take her faith seriously except as a stepping stone ("kai" is akin to the Catholic pope, by the way!); at one point she was also First Minister, but she lost that position in the third season.

So she never realized how important the Prophets were to her until she finally had her first vision. Or so she thought.  Really, it was a deception cooked up by Dukat and the Pah Wraiths, one of the most brilliant maneuvers, really, ever featured in the series, something that seems downright inevitable in hindsight, so at least it happened in the final episodes, which also seems appropriate.

Seeing Dukat and Winn together, at last, is one of those perfect moments.  Winn had had previous climactic associations (way back in the three-episode arc at the beginning of the second season, when she worked alongside Frank Langella, one of the biggest acting coups Star Trek ever landed), but this was the climax of all climactic moments in a career of evil.  Of course, she had no idea she was getting in bed with the devil...

So I love this particular episode in the arc.  The ending also reveals the Breen as having joined the Dominion, after a few more moments of Ezri and Worf struggling to reconcile their relationship, which sets up Damar's defection later. But because this is serialized material, more on all that later...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Still pretty convinced that this arc is impenetrable to casual fans.
• series - Though to Deep Space Nine devotees, it begins to work better and better.
• character - Dukat and Winn own this one.
• essential - They've been waiting for this moment since they first debuted.

notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Penny Johnson (Kasidy)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Deborah Lacey (Sarah)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Salome Jens (Female Founder)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)

Deep Space Nine 6x21 "The Reckoning"

rating: ****

the story: The first experience of the Prophets squaring off with the Pah-wraiths via their chosen surrogates (but you'll be surprised about who represents them).

what it's all about: So yeah, this is a pretty huge episode.  It's in some ways, exactly what you might expect the final episode of the series to look like, a dramatic showdown between the god-like powers of beings long in the background but only seldom seen, and always (except "The Assignment") at crucial moments. 

I'll compare it to the movie version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which ends in, yes, a dramatic showdown between the forces of good (Dumbledore) and evil (Voldemort).  It's the only time in eight films in which wizards are shown to really cut loose.  This doesn't even happen, properly, in the several duels between Voldemort and Harry himself.  It can't, really, because Harry was never as experienced a wizard as his mentor Dumbledore.

Sisko never will be, during the length of Deep Space Nine, because he never develops his abilities.  Most of the time he's barely interested in his role as Emissary of the Prophets (the wormhole aliens Bajorans worship as gods).  Dukat quickly develops his abilities as Emissary of the Pah-wraiths (the "cast-out" Prophets), which is why their showdown in "What You Leave Behind" (the series finale) seems so lopsided.

So what makes the showdown in "The Reckoning" different?  It's literally a Prophet and a Pah-wraith inhabiting a couple of lowly mortals, so it's really a showdown between them.  The Prophet chooses Kira while the Pah-wraith makes a far more interesting choice: Jake Sisko.  It's like Jake's decision at the start of the season, to remain behind at a Dominion-occupied station, writ large, especially where his father is concerned, who must once more look on helplessly.

Actually, surprisingly, it's Kai Winn, who is usually the least sympathetic character in any episode in which she appears, who gains the most points in all this.  And her role is actually far more foreshadowing than the rest of the events in the episode, as later she'll be held in thrall by Dukat, and once again be forced to make hard decisions, decisions she otherwise finds so easy to avoid.  Here she begs Sisko to stop meddling in affairs he doesn't understand (she doesn't understand them any better, mind you), and then forcibly ends the showdown, unwittingly making things ten times worse (and she herself will learn), because that will mean the showdown between the Emissaries will still have to happen, and no one will be prepared for that one...

What makes this episode so compelling is that it openly explores issues the franchise previously only skirted around, the scope of god-like powers, and what it means to confront them.  Throughout the original series, Kirk kept outsmarting "gods," one after the other, whether mere mortals who had suddenly gained extraordinary powers, or god-like beings themselves.  And obviously there was Q in nearly every other incarnation of Star Trek (including Deep Space Nine), but Q is very much Q, and so is hard to fit in this context.  So "The Reckoning" is a unique adventure, in that we see two god-like beings, locked in immortal combat with each other...This is a series that dares to argue that humans really don't have any adequate answer to such events, and this is the episode where that is most abundantly clear.

It's a big, big moment, the likes of which will probably never be seen again, as they weren't even later in the series itself.  It qualifies as a classic almost on that basis alone.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A bold new look at the "god problem."
• series - A glimpse of the kind of power that was always in the background.
• character - This is Kai Winn's biggest moment.
• essential - Everything that was never done before and will ever be done again, and for good reason, and I do mean good.

notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)

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 5x10 "Rapture"

rating: ****

the story: Sisko begins having visions that lead him to a hidden Bajoran city.

what it's all about: "Rapture" arrives with a thunderclap, and leaves a massive void in its wake, one that isn't really filled again until the seventh (and final) season.  It is at once a culmination of Sisko's journey to date in the series, and a massive hint as to where it goes next.

It's also visually different from every episode before it, for one very important reason: the revised Starfleet uniforms first seen in Star Trek: First Contact are seen in a TV series for the first time.  This would be because it's the first episode to air after the movie had settled comfortably into the collective fan imagination ("The Ascent" actually debuted a few days after the film's release, but it also focused primarily on non-Starfleet personnel and would've made a far less dramatic reveal, plus the timing would've given the movie less of a chance at establishing the new look, which was its right).

It helps the episode look bigger than anything that came before it, and it helps that the story is kind of bigger than anything that came before it.  Sisko had always been reluctant to embrace the trappings of the Bajoran culture he'd been forced to represent as commander of the station tasked with bringing it into the Federation fold.  This was complicated by the fact that the Bajorans immediately declared him a religious figure, which tended to baffle him, even if he became comfortable with it over time.  Yet, he'd never previously exhibited any particular ability to warrant it, until now. 

The visions, and Sisko's obsessive need to follow them, recall to mind two key episodes: "Explorers" (in which he builds an ancient Bajoran solar sail ship) and "The Visitor" (in which his son Jake obsessively pursues Sisko's rescue from a predicament no one else understands).  That both involve Jake is also key to "Rapture," since while Starfleet and Bashir are reluctant to embrace Sisko's new vocation, it's Jake who ultimately must make the call to end it.  This is the last great Sisko/Jake story, and while it leans more heavily on Sisko than previously, it also finally pushes him in his own direction, a culmination, too, of the new drive he'd discovered at the start of the third season, where he and his son had begun to drift apart.  They needed one last moment together, one last big emotion to be shared, before being thrust in opposite directions.

In the seventh season, Sisko discovers that his mother was actually a Prophet, the nonlinear "wormhole aliens" the Bajorans worship as gods, and the source of his designation as Emissary over them.  This comes with visions, too, tellingly.  Left unsaid but certainly implied is the connection back to "Rapture."  This is far more deft storytelling than was managed earlier in the season with "The Assignment," which featured the introduction of the Pah-wraiths, who would also factor prominently in the seventh season.  It's just as if "Rapture" were produced as a reset button, after too many episodes in which the future of the series was left in question despite an earlier drive to make it clear (appropriately enough in that third season).

What general fans will appreciate about "Rapture" is that it revisits a very old trope of the franchise, which is what to do with a character who suddenly "evolves" to a new level and seems to become a problem.  From "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (the second pilot) to "Charlie X" (another of the earliest episodes of the original series) to "The Nth Degree" (Next Generation), Star Trek always seemed to think this was a terrible thing, just as everyone does around Sisko in this episode, even though with the benefit of hindsight and knowing how it's knitted directly into the fabric of the series, we know how important and resonant a moment this really is, not just another in a series of random moments, so therefore once again an opportunity to showcase how it's different from the rest of the rest of the franchise.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Seems to embody a typical trope.
• series - But portrayed in-line with the material around it.
• character - Hugely significant to Sisko.
• essential - Another elevation of the whole series.

notable guest-stars:
Penny Johnson (Yates)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)

Deep Space Nine 3x24 "Shakaar"

rating: ***

the story: Kira is reunited with a friend from the Resistance, who will become a significant part of Bajor's future thanks to a power play from Kai Winn (just not in the way she thinks).

what it's all about: Bajoran stories at their heart were always a mix of church and state, and so in that regard they may actually be the most fundamentally American stories of the whole franchise.  The trick was always to find a balance between these impulses, which had already created compelling figures and arcs earlier in the series, but had failed to find a truly likable figure, outside of Kira, with which to rally stories around.  Well, "Shakaar" finally finds that figure.

Dipping into Kira's past (and present), which some might consider a cheat since until this episode the title character somehow didn't exist at all, despite a lot of heavy drama surrounding Bajor in the early seasons (the Bajorans will always be the Kazon of Deep Space Nine; Voyager fans will know what I'm talking about).  Putting that aside, he comes at an opportune moment.  Kai Winn had just vanquished the other likeliest contender to her personal little Game of Thrones in "Life Support," where the perennially bloodless Vedek Bareil finally ran out of luck with the writers.  She used a lot of political reasoning then, too, just as she attempts to use here, but Kira won't let her get away with it this time, which is actually kind of ironic, since Winn actually enlists her into the cause, given Kira's past association with the man hogging all the valuable farm equipment Winn wants to use to bolster her public image, I mean support Bajor's future (of course!).

Duncan Regehr is instantly a more charming actor than just about everyone else (besides Michelle Forbes and Nana Visitor) who's ever played a Bajoran in Star Trek.  It's good, too, because he was last seen in the franchise playing a thankless role in one of the worst episodes ever, Next Generation's "Sub Rosa.  But a lot of the story falls, as usual, on Kira, who is once again asked to mediate a difficult situation (it turned out horribly in the first season, but apparently Winn never heard about that).  Eventually it becomes a full-blown Bajoran Western.

It's good stuff.  It works on every level that usually falls apart in Bajoran episodes, and even manages to give the poor world a break, a happy ending for a change, when Shakaar is elected to the role of first minister, which Winn had attempted to usurp and thereby control everything for her people.  It's the easiest Bajoran episode to recommend, so of course it comes from the third season.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This belongs more to the fantasy TV genre of perfect political figures than to Star Trek.
• series - It works wonders for the Bajorans.
• character - Once again Kira proves to know what's best for her people.
• essential - It's the episode any fan should watch who would otherwise groan at the prospect of a Bajoran adventure.

notable guest-stars:
Duncan Regehr (Shakaar)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Sherman Howard
William Lucking

Deep Space Nine 3x13 "Life Support"

rating: ***

the story: Bashir agonizes over the need to preserve Bareil's life at the expense of his soul.

what it's all about: This is one of the best episodes of the series and yet it's also not particularly necessary to the series, almost a deepened version of the first season random death of Kai Opaka in "Battle Lines."  But it's also a powerful answer to one of Next Generation's most troubling episodes, "Ethics."  Is that intriguing enough for you?  So let me explain.

They key to any character can sometimes be summed up by their occupation, and doctors in Star Trek are thusly strongly geared toward medical dilemmas (Phlox features perhaps the best, and yes most controversial, one in Enterprise's "Similitude").  "Ethics" was a rare episode where a guest character was doing all the heroics, but Dr. Crusher wondered if it wasn't at the expense of morality.  Usually in this franchise, it's the main characters who're inexplicably capable of solving any crisis, sometimes debating internally the implications of their actions (this would be a more or less accurate summary of the entire original series), so half of what made "Ethics" so impactful was that this standard was completely subverted.  I mean, it's another Star Trek standard for its main characters to question the implications of other people's actions, so that in itself wasn't really the crux of "Ethics," so much the fact that this was a case of those actions clearly leading to a beneficial outcome, but still being capable of being wrong.  It was one of the first steps to broadening the scope of Star Trek storytelling, which Deep Space Nine was by definition committed to exploring in full.

So "Life Support" was an episode that needed to happen (alas, poor Bareil!), whether or not it had anything to do with the course of the series itself.  I mean, the death of Bareil was one step in making the budding romance between Odo and Kira possible, and the portrayal of Kai Winn's cold logic was key in her development, but at this point, with Bajoran/Cardassian relations taking a backseat to the emerging threat of the Dominion, it was almost beside the point.  That the negotiations Winn needs Bareil so badly to keep going are not themselves the lead story is telling.  If this had been a second season episode, say, they would have been

But the whole point is to present Bashir with a medical dilemma so awful, even he backs away from it eventually.  This was in effect the death of Bashir's innocence, an arc in and of itself throughout the season.  He began the series a hopeful and painfully naïve young doctor, the most eager new resident of the station by far, who helped mire the first season in a tone that was later difficult to reconcile with what would follow.  When asked to replace one and then another and then another organ of the unfortunate Bareil, he begins to wonder how much he can take away before Bareil is no longer Bareil.  He reaches the point when asked to replace the poor man's brain.  Too late?  Probably.  But that's not the point. 

There are Star Trek fans who think Deep Space Nine is just too dark to like, and perhaps more than any other episode "Life Support" reflects that view, because maybe it is too dark.  Winn's callous disregard of Bareil's life is hard to watch after a while.  Here she truly becomes a villain, a role she'd been flirting with since she debuted at the end of the first season, but one she embraces with seeming relish during the course of the episode, without ever looking back.  She never really regains a sense of the ambiguity that otherwise defines the series around her.  That would probably, more than anything, explain why it's hard to give an episode like this my full support.  Like Bashir, I stand in horror of it.

If there's anything standing in the way of all that, it's the B-story, which features Jake Sisko standing in equal horror of his friend Nog, as if he's just discovered that Nog is a Ferengi.  It's a turning point for them, too.  They'd never be the mischievous friends who were such a defining aspect of the early seasons again.  This is the point where Nog begins to turn his life around, the start of another season arc.  It seems only fitting.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Stands in the great tradition of Star Trek medical dilemmas.
• series - Seems a little out of step with the rest of the series.
• character - Still, features strong material for Bashir and Nog.
• essential - It's a turning point for them, a true defining moment.

notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)

Deep Space Nine 2x24 "The Collaborator"

rating: ***

the story: Kira finds herself caught in the middle of Bajoran politics.

what it's all about: "The Collaborator" is basically the Bajoran edition of the Cardassian-centric "Duet" from the first season, Deep Space Nine's first acknowledged classic.  "Collaborator" is a huge step forward from the awkwardness of the Bajoran trilogy that opened the season, a sign of the increased maturity the series experienced during the course of the second season.  It definitively closes out the original Bajoran narrative that had been embodied by Kai Opaka in the series premiere, "Emissary," who was eventually supplanted by Vedek Bareil and the eventual Kai Winn, who are engaged in bitter politics throughout "Collaborator."  Actually, the episode may best be summed up as a commentary on the nastiness of election cycles.

It's a very Deep Space Nine story.  Next Generation had a Klingon saga including similar battles, and on a smaller scale, the battles over Worf's personal honor.  But "Collaborator" ratchets up the stakes by pitting two familiar recurring characters against each other, one who had been portrayed as a good guy all long (Bariel) and the other a bad guy (Winn).  Since it's Bajorans, who tend to be about as lively as your average Vulcan, don't expect to be jazzed by the results.  It's cerebral material, and as with the best of Deep Space Nine, explores moral gray areas, so that you're no longer sure whether good guys are so easy to identify.  It's an episode the series desperately needed, not just another Bajoran problem but one that deepened the species and its status as victims of Cardassian oppression for decades.  Suddenly matters aren't quite so simple.

After this one, Winn's role in the series had been solidified, and she finally becomes one of its great characters, villain or otherwise.  That's reason enough to care, right?

criteria analysis:

• franchise - You don't need to care about the rest of the franchise to like this one.
• series - A big one for the perennial Bajoran problem.
• character - It's Winn who wins.
• essential - By revealing just how delightfully nasty she can really be.

notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)
Camille Saviola (Opaka)

Deep Space Nine 2x3 "The Siege"

rating: **

the story: The rogue Bajorans calling themselves the Circle have sieged Deep Space Nine!

what it's all about: The biggest problem with the ambitious three-part episode that opened the second season is that it spent so much time focusing on Kira, it kind of almost totally forgot Sisko.  Now, this is a problem.  A lot of fans think Sisko in the early seasons is pretty weak, and while on the whole this isn't really true, his appearances in material like "The Siege" certainly don't help.

Again, this is a problem, because by this third episode in the arc, it's arguably Sisko's turn at driving the story, and instead it just seems as if he's trying desperately to play catch-up the whole time.  And thus we discover the essential weakness of this arc: the series was by no means ready for it.

As we would see later in the series, whether in "The Search" or "The Way of the Warrior" (which are, essentially, similar stories that opened the third and fourth seasons, respectively), or even the comparatively minor but vastly superior "Civil Defense," getting Sisko right is absolutely imperative in pulling off a story like this.  If you put the station in peril, its commander has to have a commanding presence.  Which just doesn't happen in "Siege" (not to be confused with the seventh season "Siege of AR-558," another episode unfortunately regarded as vastly superior). 

Simply put, if you're going to pull the trigger on a big moment, such as putting the station in peril, you really need to think it all the way through, especially if you try to do it so near the beginning of the series.  This is probably the very episode the producers started to realize the importance of this, because by the end of the season, a truly credible threat (the Dominion) was introduced, and it ended up defining the series far more than Bajoran politics.

Again, this is not to say fans who think Bajoran politics ruined the early seasons are right.  Clearly they could produce great drama, with or without direct Cardassian involvement (although that's another gaping hole in this episode, the absence of Gul Dukat, which even by the two-part "Maquis" later in the season, and the Dukat-heavy third season and beyond, had been identified by those same producers).  But you can't let Bajorans overrun the station.  You just can't.  I don't care how many admirals are telling Sisko they can't do anything about that sort of development. 

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this was exactly the episode that needed to happen, not just to galvanize the storytelling, but to clear the Bajoran problems that were the original basis of the series.  The bottom line, though, is that "Siege" feels like an underwhelming conclusion to what should have been a shining creative moment for the young series.  There's something wrong with that, anyway.

Still, the best moment in the episode, Dax joining Kira in some antiquated fighter unit, helps shine a renewed light on Dax, her lively personality, which would come up again later in the season ("Playing God").  Seeing these two women bond is probably one of the better moments hindsight can give, from an era where that has become increasingly important.  This had never happened before in the history of Star Trek, but soon, in Voyager, it would become a welcome new staple.  So that's the best way, probably, to think of "Siege."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Not essential to the franchise per say.
• series - Pretty important to the series.
• character - Has good character work from Dax and Kira.
• essential - Not essential.

notable guest-stars:
Frank Langella
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Steven Weber
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)

Deep Space Nine 2x2 "The Circle"

rating: ***

the story: Kira is replaced in her position aboard the station, so she decides to go to Bajor and see if there's anything interesting happening there.

what it's all about: This second chapter in the opening trilogy (trilogies were a big thing in Enterprise's final season, but arcs tended to go longer after this initial extended effort) of the season sounds a little flippant in that description above, doesn't it?  That's probably because "The Circle" might be considered filler.  But really, it's just Deep Space Nine testing the waters of serialized storytelling, which it really wouldn't try again (as opposed to heavily-interrelated storytelling, which began in the first season and continued steadily throughout the series) until its final seasons.

What "Circle" has going for it is a further exploration of Bajoran life and politics.  As such, we again meet two crucial Bajorans, Vedek Winn (later to be better known as Kai Winn, a position she parlayed from being analogous to the Catholic pope to being prime minister as well) and Vedek Bareil (Kira's love interest for the first three seasons), as well as enjoy the continued killer uncredited appearances of Frank Langella (that's probably the biggest selling point of this whole trilogy right there) as the main villain, the secret conspiracy leader who's about to play his hand and/or be exposed.  We'd met Winn and Bareil last season ("In the Hands of the Prophets"), and so seeing them again was a sign that this was indeed going to be a series where seeing familiar faces would take far less time than in Treks past, as the whole premise of a station-bound series had always promised but to this point seldom delivered.

Winn ended up becoming a crucial recurring character throughout the series, and so each and every early appearance is important in seeing how she developed into the monster fans best remember her as, a crass opportunist for whom events like this were made.  If you want to view the trilogy, and this second act, as important for any other reason than putting Kira in the spotlight and trying to make the most of Bajoran drama, then this is how to do it.  Her absence from the previous "Homecoming" installment seems odd in hindsight.  Actually, if you like Star Wars and don't mind comparisons from the prequels, watching Winn in these moments is like seeing Palpatine blatantly manipulate everyone before he completes his transformation into the Emperor, hiding in plain sight.

The scenes with the hero from "Homecoming" are almost meaningless by comparison.  I remember the character's name (Li Nalas) perfectly well enough, and apparently the actor, Richard Beymer, was in West Side Story (the creators of this series loved vintage Hollywood, as you'll see later in the season), but he leaves no real impression in the series, which was otherwise gifted with an abundance of memorable characters.  That will always be a drawback of this ambitious early arc-heavy effort.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This one's pretty series-specific.
• series - See above.
• character - Come to see Kira, stay for Winn.
• essential - It's actually pretty important to where Winn ends up later in the series.

notable guest-stars:
Frank Langella
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)

Deep Space Nine 1x20 "In the Hands of the Prophets"

****

As a season finale, "In the Hands of the Prophets" is a little unconventional.  In a lot of ways, it's a regular episode that's another sign that Deep Space Nine was finally finding its legs, and that in itself is something to cheer, but every other finale in the series had something more dramatic to say, at least more obvious.  Then again, perhaps the episode does exactly what it's supposed to.  Well, let's have a closer look.

Keiko O'Brien, stalwart wife of Chief O'Brien, is finally starting to feel like she's not completely out of place on the station, having opened a school on the Promenade and accepted any student who wishes to attend.  Earlier in the season it was a struggle just to get Nog, Jake Sisko's Ferengi friend, to take regular classes.  Now she's got Bajoran kids in the classroom.  This is a problem, because Keiko has to navigate certain beliefs, such as what exactly the wormhole aliens are.  To Bajorans, they're the Prophets, the central tenet of their religion.  To Starfleet, they're simply noncorporeal beings.

Okay, so this becomes a sticking issue for ambitious Bajoran politicians, especially Vedek (later Kai) Winn, who makes her first appearance in the episode, as does Vedek Bareil, the more moderate voice who becomes a recurring love interest for Kira.  Winn escalates the situation into a whole fiasco, forcing everyone to the mat, including Sisko, whose posting at the station is supposed to help smooth Bajor's transition into stability and readiness to enter the Federation.  It is quickly proving to be exactly the opposite.

Considering that the first three episodes of the second season are an extended Bajoran crisis, "In the Hands of the Prophets" has a great deal more significance than it can sometimes seem.  This may be due to the fact that most fans found Bajoran problems to be exceedingly tedious.  In later seasons, Bajoran affairs practically become invisible, and not just because Dominion concerns lead to an extended war arc.  The first season finale is perhaps the statement of a series that would undergo a somewhat radical transition, and so any ongoing perception of its impact may become malleable, when the truth is at the time of its original airing, "Prophets" could not have been more important, both to that moment in the series and for the series in general.

Deep Space Nine was meant to accomplish a lot of things, and one of them was to explore the original intentions of Star Trek in a dynamic and new way.  This is one of those episodes that provides that potential any number of unexpected benefits.  The theme of faith and science did not ultimately receive a lot of traction, so this is in that sense an experience that still stands out as unique, even though there are many other elements floating about so that you don't have to think of "Prophets" strictly as a morality play.

Coming off the heels of "Duet," "Prophets" will always seem like something of a letdown, but in its own way, it's just as noteworthy, and just as enduring an episode for anyone looking to examine the long-term development of the series.

So yes, one of the things you begin to realize about Deep Space Nine is that you can learn something important about the series in every episode, if it's done right.  Finally we're at the point where the show itself seems to have learned that.  If nothing else, that's a fine note to end a season on.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)

Memory Alpha summary.