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 6x3 "Sons and Daughters"

rating: **

the story: Worf reunites with his son Alexander, who's struggling to integrate into Klingon society.

what it's all about: This is an episode I've struggled with for twenty years.  The return/introduction into Deep Space Nine of Alexander is something not to be considered lightly.  Alexander was a significant recurring character in Next Generation, who almost existed outside the sphere of his father (Worf).  Theirs was a difficult relationship at the best of times, and when we last saw them together ("Firstborn") Worf came to a tentative peace about that.  So, in his third season as a regular in a different series, Worf finally meets up with his son again...and things aren't any better than they ever were.

There's a difference, though, and it's a big one.  Child actor Brian Bonsall, who portrayed Alexander in nearly every other appearance, has been replaced with a noticeably older Marc Worden.  It'd be one thing if Bonsall had played the part long enough to have reached puberty, but he was still just a kid when he last appeared (and "Firstborn" actually features a different actor playing a time-traveling adult Alexander for most of the episode, eclipsing Bonsall's final turn in the process).  Worden's Alexander is older but wimpy, painfully inept, and reconciling what the character has become with how we last saw him is a large part of how to interpret "Sons and Daughters."

I used to hate the idea of the new Alexander.  I thought it was a terrible mistake, one that came off as clumsy and dismissive of everything that had come before it, or merely needlessly duplicative.  The fact that Alexander makes only one more appearance in Deep Space Nine (a few episodes later, "You Are Cordially Invited") is an odd legacy for a series that usually went out of its way to develop characters like this.

But it's still kind of interesting.  This Alexander isn't really so different from the host of Ferengi who appeared and evolved throughout the run of the series, notably a different father-and-son combo, Rom and Nog.  So in essence, "Sons" is kind of a war story that couldn't otherwise be told in a series that had already gotten past that point with the two characters (two others, Sisko and Jake, too, come to think of it) who would've otherwise best exemplified it.

"Firstborn" featured an Alexander who'd just begun considering the possibility of embracing his Klingon heritage.  This was a kid who'd previously been raised by a mother who wanted to keep him as far from it as possible, an extension of an arc that had otherwise been cut short by her death.  Part of it was always about Worf, and his own feelings of alienation from a childhood that found him raised by humans, which forced him in the opposite direction his son later took.  He became obsessed with all things Klingon, and so he became an exemplar Klingon.  Alexander, not so much.

So to illustrate that, when Alexander finally embraces his father's life, it's bound to be awkward.  He comes at a disadvantage.  It's kind of good that he looks so different in this appearance, because a huge leap is necessary to see him struggling where he'd always resisted.  Although only a few years have passed, a lot has changed.  Worf lost a family when the Enterprise-D was destroyed (Star Trek Generations), and his life spiraled out of control.  In a lot of ways, since he ended up so important to two different Star Trek series, Worf's life was always going to be hard to keep track of (he still appears in both First Contact and Insurrection despite appearing in Deep Space Nine at the same time, with minimal effort to explain how).  So imagine how chaotic Alexander's life was during the same period.

Despite that, Alexander made the most important decision of his life, and make the commitment he'd long avoided.  Of course it makes a good war story, a family reunion under the worst circumstances.  This is not the best franchise episode set aboard a Klingon ship.  It doesn't have to be.  The more I think about "Sons," the more it makes sense.  Of course Alexander would stumble, badly.  If the story seems haphazardly executed and sort of dropped in out of nowhere, maybe that's how it should feel, the only way Alexander's story would continue.  By the end, he's at last proven himself, and been accepted into the House of Martok (there's a number of things worth discussing about that, but this is already a pretty lengthy write-up), the same as his father before him.  It only seems appropriate that Alexander effectively vanishes from this point, because he's finally found peace with himself, his father, and his future.

That's the kind of closure worth celebrating, even if in a muted way.  Also muted is the return of Tora Ziyal, Dukat's daughter.  A few episodes in the future she becomes hugely important, but here she's just kind of thrown into the mix to help round out Alexander's story, as Kira struggles with Dukat's overtures.  It would almost have made a better lead story, and Alexander's the supporting material, given what happens later.  But I guess it's also kind of appropriate, because unlike Alexander, Ziyal's story was never her own...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Too specific to appeal to fans of Klingon stories in general.
• series - Somewhat tangential to the war arc.
• character - A big moment for Worf and Alexander.
• essential - It's the closure Alexander needed, just not the way anyone ever imagined it.

notable guest-stars:
Marc Worden (Alexander)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
Casey Biggs (Damar)
Gabrielle Union

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 5x15 "By Inferno's Light"

rating: ****

the story: The Federation mends fences with the Klingons as the Dominion threat comes into focus.

what it's all about: Basically, "By Inferno's Light" completes the reclamation of what Deep Space Nine was originally about with what the studio attempted to make it with the insertion of Klingons into the fourth season in an ill-fated effort to ramp up its popularity and/or accessibility.   With Dukat finally assuming full authority over the Cardassians and completing his journey to becoming the definitive Cardassian in the process (it's shocking to think it really did take this long to achieve, with considerable work done during the third and fourth seasons to set it up), the original premise of the series, that Starfleet was coming to Bajor to help it recover from Cardassian oppression, becomes an integral component of the Dominion arc that had at times seemed sidelined by the Klingons.

Yet, at no point in franchise lore had the Klingons truly become such ready allies with the Federation as they do by the end of this episode.  Picard seemed to have special sway in Next Generation, but that translated to one man, a limited scope that kept relations at a distance.  Gowron, the Klingon leader whose debut in Next Generation helped set the tone of the warrior culture moving forward, passes the torch to Martok here, Martok whose earlier appearances couldn't really give an indication of his later significance.

That begins to change in "Inferno."  His relationship with Worf deepens as they grow to depend on each other in a Dominion prison camp.  This is also, primarily, Worf's best Deep Space Nine moment, by the way.  He becomes forced to compete in a series of fights with Jem'Hadar soldiers, persisting even when he begins to break down because of his famous pride.  He's never been pushed like this before, never been forced to demonstrate just how far he's willing to go.  As a Klingon, he'd always represented his people well, but he was more often than not constrained by the oath he took to Starfleet.  Too often, even in Deep Space Nine, his Klingon loyalties ended up seeming like a weakness.  There's no such hesitation here.  His prowess in combat, only hinted at elsewhere, becomes as much a focus of his arc in the episode as his legendary resolve.  While Martok is there to support him, this is totally Worf's show.

There's also Garak finding out that Dukat has singled him out in his efforts to reclaim Cardassian honor, but by making it clear he thinks Garak has no honor, and no place in the new Cardassia.  This is much as Garak had experienced in recent years anyway, but he also went to extreme lengths, in this two-part episode, to prove his loyalty to his people.  Shows what integrity gets you.  Somewhat surprising is that for the first and only time, he and Bashir share an adventure together ("Our Man Bashir" doesn't count), but it's not an experience that's particularly relevant to their bond.  Increasingly, Bashir moves off in his own direction (see the next episode, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" as well as "Inquisition," which ironically integrates him into the world of spies, which he'd only previously known about from his suspicions about Garak's past). 

This is a big, big moment in the series, where the war becomes positively inevitable.  It ends somewhat tidily, but by the end of the season, everyone knows such developments won't be possible anymore, which makes this somewhat the last of the happy endings in Deep Space Nine...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A big moment in Federation/Klingon relations.
• series - A big moment in Dominion relations.  And Cardassian relations!
• character - Arguably Worf's finest moment.
• essential - This is self-explanatory, given the above statements.

notable guest-stars:
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
James Horan
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Robert O'Reilly (Gowron)

Deep Space Nine 5x14 "In Purgatory's Shadow"

rating: ****

the story: Garak receives word that his mentor Tain is alive after all, but finding out for sure leads him directly into a Dominion trap...

what it's all about: This is the unofficial start of the Dominion War.  It's also the culmination of all Garak's appearances to this point in the series. 

It's funny, but after the awkwardness introduced into the series by a studio interested in the familiar (bringing in the Klingons for the fourth season), all the scrambling to rediscover the beating heart of Deep Space Nine led to a remarkable turn of events: two dramatic reveals in this episode help drive the significance of not only what has come before, but what will come later.  In a way, the episode is also a preview of Ron Moore's later Battlestar Galactica reboot, where a series of big reveals across the span of that series constantly rewrote the book on what fans did and did not know about the characters they were following, with many of them turning out to be Cylon sleeper agents.  Moore wasn't by any means the sole creative voice behind Deep Space Nine (to my mind a series defined by its remarkable stable of writers, which included Moore but also, among others, the ones responsible for "Purgatory," Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr, the latter of whom was arguably the most important and driving voice for the whole thing), but he was clearly inspired by the material most fans don't even realize he had anything to do with.  Ask any fan and they'll tell you Moore's main contribution to Star Trek lore was his expansion of Klingon culture.  But I ask you, do you see Klingons represented in his Battlestar Galactica?  Or changelings?

Anyway, the two characters rediscovered in this episode are Martok, who had made two prior appearances, and Bashir.  Martok was by far the more successful discovery, as he goes on to become a major recurring character and the most important Deep Space Nine element of Next Generation transplant Worf's legacy.  Bashir, meanwhile, is thrown in as more of a curveball.  There's no foreshadowing of this one, and to make it work you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics with his appearances earlier in the season, and still be left guessing as to when the switch was made.  It's another of the clumsy creative decisions that plagued the transition from what the studio had forced upon the series to the Dominion War that would come to define it. 

But putting aside Founder (the aforesaid changelings, and runners of the Dominion) shenanigans, this is a Garak episode.  Going back to his breakthrough appearance in "The Wire" at the tail-end of the second season, this "plain, simple," Cardassian tailor had come to define the intangible qualities of the series.  In the third season, his leading role in the "Improbable Cause"/"The Die is Cast" two-part episode, which was the prequel material for "Purgatory" and its "By Inferno's Light" follow-up, was the material that most advanced the Dominion arc to that point, so it's only fitting that he's also at the center of the discovery that the evil alliance is finally moving forward with its plans at invasion, first hinted at in the third season premiere "The Search," which had been far less conclusive in where things would be headed.

Garak became for Deep Space Nine what Guinan had been in Next Generation, the intriguing character in need of an explanation, and when that explanation finally came (Guinan's, alas, remained somewhat ambiguous, atypical of her series and therefore indicative of its general lack of interest in advancing much beyond episodic material), a clue as to where everything would go. 

It's ironic that it wasn't Moore who wrote this, because the impact of "Purgatory" is very similar to Moore's Klingon work in galvanizing a series.  It's perhaps not a coincidence that the Klingon material previously foisted on Deep Space Nine is roundly perfected as it's put in entirely new context, led by Worf being given material that seems relevant to a bold new direction, not only for him but, again, for the series.  Tellingly, this is material later echoed in the war arc itself, as was the best of the fifth season in general.  Aside from his relationship with Dax, Worf stubbornly remained aloof from the things happening around him, until he's paired with Garak to find out what Garak found out.  In this context he meets the real Martok, rather than the changeling imposter from their previous encounters.  It also feels like the first time, above and beyond Martok, that Worf is presented as a Klingon without needing other Klingons around to help prove it.  But more on that next episode.

Garak's arc across the two episodes is pretty evenly split between the one involving his mentor ("Purgatory") and what amounts to a second exile ("Inferno"), which itself serves as a link to Worf, too, who had been twice-exiled from his people as well (the second time during his Deep Space Nine debut in "Way of the Warrior").  In contrast, Dukat is about to return home, back to a villainous role the series had consciously drifted away from in that all-important third season.  But, more on that next episode...

Making her debut this episode is the last actress to play Tora Ziyal, Dukat's daughter: Melanie Smith.  The character, like Martok, had appeared several times already, but had never really stuck.  It's another way of seeing "Purgatory" as a definitive changing point.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Part of the tradition of game-changing episodes.
• series - The Dominion War arc all but begins.
• character - Significant to Garak, to Worf, to Martok, to...
• essential - A truly defining moment.

notable guest-stars:
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Paul Dooley (Tain)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Melanie Smith (Ziyal)
James Horan