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 5x24 "Empok Nor"

rating: **

the story: A small crew visits an abandoned Cardassian space station identical to DS9, where things spiral out of control and Garak is turned into the enemy...

what it's all about: This is one of those episodes that have so little to do with the arc of Deep Space Nine itself, and that can be enjoyed almost entirely on a visceral level, that general Star Trek fans will probably find it accessible, while fans of the series itself will probably consider "Empok Nor" ultimately inconsequential.

And don't get me wrong, all of that is as true of the episode as anything else you could say about it, which is why I'll try to make a case for series fans to consider it in a different light, too.

Clearly a "bottle episode," using standing sets to tell a story to save some money, in this case the station minus even most of the extras (somewhat reminiscent of "Distant Voices" from the third season because of that), "Nor" quickly introduces another station that won't factor into the series again until the seventh season, and even then as something Starfleet apparently never considered drafting into the war effort, a failure of storytelling logic that makes its existence kind of pointless...But it becomes the setting for a story that is so completely disconnected from the Dominion arc around it, or anything else for that matter, it's the last time this season, and in the series, where episodic nature of the classic Star Trek tradition exists in Deep Space Nine, and so there's a dubious distinction to celebrate on that score.  It's also a horror story, and in that sense mirrors the later Enterprise episode "Impulse."  Actually, there's a distinct Enterprise flavor to the whole episode (giving further credence to my personal opinion that Enterprise was always envisioned to follow the Deep Space Nine model).

But Cardassians appearing as generic villains, entirely unconnected from the recent revelation that they've joined the Dominion and are literally two episodes away from the start of a war...is a really questionable creative decision, and again reflective of so many such calls throughout the season.  Also unwieldy is the decision to pair up O'Brien and Garak. These are characters who literally had no past or future together.  As much as it made sense to have O'Brien in the story itself, clearly Bashir should've been in there somewhere, too.

It's Garak, however, who redeems the episode.  This is the one episode of the whole series where he has an opportunity to be the villain he always seemed he might turn out to be.  Other than his cartoonish shenanigans in the Mirror Universe episodes (he's one of the best elements in them because of that, actually), Garak had a similar chance in the third season (making this another of the fifth season's callbacks to that season) in "Improbable Cause"/"The Die is Cast," in which he seems to defect back to the Cardassian side, only to realize he simply doesn't have the stomach for it anymore.  In "Nor" he has no such freedom, as he finds himself coopted by a psychotropic element, and thus reverts to his base instincts.  We finally get to see what he's capable of when all the stops are let loose.  Thank goodness he's on our side!

The episode is really a reward for the character, acknowledgment of the fact that he's become so important to the series over the years and especially the last few seasons.  While it doesn't really say anything new about him, "Nor" allows Garak to have a little fun, which is to say, behave like just another member of the cast.  In the Mirror Universe he's just another of the egos running wild.  Here Garak is the center of attention, merely because he's a memorable personality.  I suppose if anyone had to deal with this side of him, it'd be the perennially hard-luck O'Brien... 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A horror story any fan could appreciate.
• series - Strangely pulls away from everything else that'd been developing.
• character - A nice spotlight for Garak.
• essential - Because it lacks any real context it can seem to be pretty throwaway.

notable guest-stars:
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)

Deep Space Nine 5x23 "Blaze of Glory"

 rating: ***

the story: Eddington's last stand.

what it's all about: Aside from Voyager's "Extreme Risk" (which came about a year later), this is about the last episode in the Maquis narrative begun in Next Generation mostly as a way to set up Voyager.  Eddington last appeared in "For the Uniform," which to my mind remains one of the signal episodes of the series, but this was immediately preceding "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light," where the Dominion War becomes inevitable upon Cardassia joining the evil Gamma Quadrant faction.  Seems the Maquis were targeted for elimination after that. 

So there had to be a follow-up, right?  Between Ro Laren (Next Generation's seminal "Preemptive Strike") and Tom Riker (Deep Space Nine's own "Defiant"), usually once someone has made the fateful decision to join the Maquis and either gone off into the sunset or be captured, it had become customary to never hear from them.  Voyager's contingent, of course, is an exception, for obvious reasons.  "Cause" ended with Sisko putting a stop to Eddington's adventures.  "Blaze of Glory" sees Eddington use some trickery to get his way out.

The Eddington of "Uniform" is more charismatic and thrilling than the Eddington who appeared in any other episode, including "Blaze.  This is my main stumbling block with it.  On the one hand, it confirms the cunning that was needed to engineer the long con necessary for the big reveal in the earlier "For the Cause," as well as the cat-and-mouse game of "Uniform," but it seems a little too clockwork in "Blaze," almost inevitable.  The attempt to make him sympathetic, which is what the episode is ultimately about, kind of foreshadows Damar's fate late in the series, which is far more successful.

It's almost like the season's last bit of bad timing.  Had Eddington returned in the sixth season instead, during the actual war, and actually made a selfless decision to help out the Federation in the war, that would've been a redemptive moment.  Instead...I don't know.  Just one of those moments that doesn't resonate the way it seems it should, even for an admitted fan of the Eddington character from well before there was any reason to care for him...What he ends up with is a valiant death, a sacrifice for family, but it could've been so much more.  Still there's something to be said for living up to one's own principles to the bitter end.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The Maquis story reaches a sad climax.
• series - A necessary beat in the run-up to the Dominion War.
• character - Whether or not it feels satisfactory, this is the final appearance of Eddington, who became one of the unsung essential components of the series.
• essential - Lingering doubt about the creative decisions around it dull the impact.

notable guest-stars:
Ken Marshall (Eddington)
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)

Deep Space Nine 5x22 "Children of Time"

rating: ***

the story: Via sci-fi plotting, the crew meets its own descendants, in the present.

what it's all about: This is one of the Deep Space Nine standalone episodes ("The Visitor" was another) that left a definite impact on the later franchise, later echoed in Voyager's "Endgame" (its final episode) and Enterprise's "E2."  So as a matter of historic significance, "Children of Time" already has a lot going for it.

While the idea of technobabble that sends the ship back in time and creating, in essence, an alternate timeline for the characters and whole generations of successors who meet them in the present, just before the technobabble that made it possible in the first place is itself pretty fascinating, none of it would matter at all if there weren't an emotional hook to it, and there is.  That's my biggest problem, at least with Star Trek, and maybe storytelling in general, in that I'll certainly accept a nifty idea, but if it doesn't have any depth, I see very little reason to care too much about it.  There's at least one episode I've docked as one of the franchise's worst (Voyager's "Twisted") because of that kind of lazy storytelling.

So anyway, the emotional hook is especially good because it basically push forward, at long last, after a series of fits and starts, one of its biggest narrative arcs: the relationship between Odo and Kira.  There were times during this season where I thought the writers had somehow forgotten it ("A Simple Investigation" is the most egregious example), even though it was hugely important so many times in the past.  Perhaps somewhere along the line someone decided Odo had abandoned the idea as impractical, and needed a reason to revisit it, which is what 'Children of Time" is in a nutshell. 

Being a changeling, Odo is one of those fictional characters who either ages very slowly (as Vulcans and Klingons demonstrably do) or not at all (Odo).  As such, he's the only original crew member who's still around in his original form from the technobabble problem.  That essentially makes this an Odo episode, even though most of it really spends times exploring other aspects of the plot.  Like Janeway in "Endgame," he's become obsessed with the one person he most regrets losing, which is of course Kira, and eventually makes a huge decision that not only conveniently provides a giant reset button (the noble crew had opted to go ahead and duplicate the original technobabble problem and in effect sacrificing their own futures so that the people who ended up existing because of it can continue to do so), but makes it clear, beyond any doubt, that this was an Odo/Kira episode all along.

It's refreshing, really, because these are the two characters who were least allowed to explore the true magic of the series otherwise, usually confined to the most miserable, mundane elements. Sure, they weren't Starfleet officers (neither were Jake or Quark), but surely they could experience some fun, too?  So this is their big moment.  I mean, their big moment.

And from this point onward, they were truly on the inevitable path to romance, because they no longer had doubts about what they meant to each other. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Later series borrowed the basic template.
• series - For a one-off episode, it ends up reflecting the course of Deep Space Nine well.
• character - It's a Kira/Odo episode by any other name.
• essential - Unlike any other experience they had together, and that's an extremely good thing.

Deep Space Nine 5x21 "Soldiers of the Empire"

rating: **

the story: Worf helps bring Martok back up to speed.

what it's all about: "Soldiers" is essentially a formality of an episode, confirming the stuff previously suggested by "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light" concerning the budding importance of Worf's relationship with Martok, the Klingon he discovers in a Jem'Hadar prison camp, who'd been replaced by a Founder in their previous encounters.  Otherwise, it's Next Generation's "A Matter of Honor" reheated, and a precursor to Deep Space Nine's much better "Once More Unto the Breach" in the final season.

So it's another episode set aboard a Klingon ship.  Worf, who has his soon-to-be blushing bride Dax along to encourage him, is serving aboard it at Martok's request.  But Martok is a broken man, and he has pretty much forgotten how to be a Klingon.  Long and slightly unnecessary story short, Martok is rehabilitated.

The problem with the episode, as with "Ferengi Love Songs" before it, is that it seems like something that should be essential viewing, but lacking the proper context.  With the Dominion War about to break out, all this would've worked much better had Martok found redemption in the war.  It's another instance of the season screwing up context like that.  Imagine if Odo had been featured prominently in "Love Songs," a callback to his and Quark's experiences in "The Ascent" earlier in the season, one of the moments that was absolutely nailed, everything in the right place.  Here it's not so much the growth that's missing, but a reason for why it's happening now as opposed to when it could feel less...random, less a space filler.

The fifth season, at its best (eight strong episodes in a row that all challenged basic Star Trek preconceptions) was among the best material the franchise ever saw.  But there was also other material that betrayed the fact that the producers were still gravely uncertain about what to do with a series the studio had tried to meddle with and as such had been knocked off its track.  Well, in all these fits and starts, something very big was on the horizon, and it was pretty easy to see at this point.  But it hadn't happened yet, and that was equally clear...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The rare Klingon episode that doesn't feel like compulsory viewing.
• series - Still, as part of an overall arc it makes sense in its Deep Space Nine context, at least to a certain degree.
• character - It completes, after all, the foundation of a powerful friendship between Worf and Martok.
• essential - But you don't necessarily need to see how it happens to understand why.

notable guest-stars:
J.G. Hertzler (Martok)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Rick Worthy

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 5x19 "Ties of Blood and Water"

rating: ***

the story: Kira reunites with her would-be Cardassian father.

what it's all about: A sequel to "Second Skin, "Ties of Blood and Water" is another example of the producers finally coming back to the momentum of the third season as they used the fifth to reclaim ground lost in creative policies instilled by the studio in the fourth...I think maybe this will be the last time I talk about that...

Like "The Darkness and the Light" earlier in the season, Kira finds herself once again confronted with her complicated past, but this time, and actually the first time in the series, events fans have witnessed for themselves.  "Second Skin" was a classic in vein of "Duet," the first episode Star Trek fans in general really took notice of Deep Space Nine, in which Kira was forced to confront the complexities of Bajoran relations with Cardassians, who had for decades oppressed them.  It introduced a man tricked into believing Kira was his daughter, in much the way Next Generation's classic "The Defector" was about how the state sometimes lies to force individuals to expose themselves. 

This Cardassian's return wasn't strictly necessary, but it's welcome all the same.  This time he and Kira are on much more equal footing, although once again they become pawns in Cardassian politics.  (Strange; in the first two seasons it was always Bajoran politics, but this was another shift seen in the all-important third; it was just as well, because as with any politician Cardassians just love to hear themselves talk.)  The timing, for once, is absolutely perfect in the fifth season, because Dukat has just revealed that he's aligned the Cardassians with the Dominion, and thus made them bad guys again.  This has the effect of making Kira's paternal figure, Tekeny Ghemor, all the more sympathetic, as he now seems, aside from Garak, to be the last of the good guy Cardassians.

Really, "Ties" is a throwback to the storytelling of the early seasons all the way around.  Once more Kira is forced to grapple with her conclusions, as Dukat throws conflicting information at her, and like so many times before (notably, "The Collaborator") she's forced to sift through it.  It's good work, and it's the last time this sort of story happens in the series (successfully, anyway; Kira has another such adventure next season in "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night," which clearly tries way too hard to follow the tradition), another nod to the massive shift about to take place with the advent of war...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This is one that will make most sense to Deep Space Nine fans.
• series - See the above.
• character - Kira says goodbye to a dear friend.
• essential - We also see the return of Weyoun and thus another major bridge to the future...

notable guest-stars:
Lawrence Pressman (Ghemor)
Marc Alaimo (Dukat)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Thomas Kopache
William Lucking