Well...here we are. Season 7. Before we get started, here are the results so far: Season 1: "Duet" Season 2: "The Wire" Season 3: "The Die is Cast" Season 4: "The Visitor" Season 5: "Trials and Tribble-ations" Season 6: "In the Pale Moonlight" Now it's time to vote for your favorite episode from season 7. After we're done with each season, we'll vote for the favorite overall. The poll will be open for a week to give as many people a chance to vote as possible. Comment on your favorite, but don't forget to vote! --------------- Well, I'm going with "What You Leave Behind." Everyone goes their separate ways, yet somehow the ending is right. I loved the way they made sure to give on-screen closure as much as possible with this series and not just in the last episode. In this episode specifically, the scene at Vic's Lounge with everyone together one last time, all of the scenes with people saying goodbye to each other, the montage scenes starting with O'Brien picking up that little toy soldier (*tear*), Kira picking up Sisko's baseball (he'll be back), and the final scene with Kira putting her arm around Jake as the "camera" slowly backs away from the station with that lonely trumpet theme playing. What a great ending. What a great show.
I'm going to go with Tacking Into the Wind. Really a hard choice since I liked so many others this season, especially Faith, Treachery and the Great River, but this really struck me as a powerful episode on so many levels. The acting was great and every character was going through something quite dramatic. Bashir and O'brien were desperately searching for a cure to save Odo. Odo was trying to hide how bad it was from Kira, who knew anyways and was letting him delude himself to keep his self respect. Garak promised Odo he wouldn't tell, but did anyways but for once wasn't lying for the sake of just lying. Weyoun finally seemed to be falling out of favor with the Founder and Damar realized just how evil he and Cardassia had been his whole life and when the choice was put forth to him, literally with one pull of the trigger, choose to be a better man. I just loved all of it. Not to mention Garak stepping out of the shadows with that creepy smile on his face makes a great avatar.
I went with "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" because i'm a big fan of Sloan, to bad "Extreme Measures" wasn't better.
"Treachery, Faith and the Great River": perhaps Star Trek's best examination of the intricacies of religion, it also has some great concepts (the Great Material Continuum), the manifestions of Damar's revolt (now just passive aggression) and a heart-breaking performance from Jeffrey Combs. So many of this season's best seem to give a prominent role to Nog--he almost outdoes O'Brien as the Everyman.
Re: the baseball-- I interpreted more in terms of Kira's arc. The baseball was used to symbolize Sisko determination to return. However, it was also used to symbolize the desire to command and control the station, as in how Dukat plays with it in Sacrifice of Angels. In WYLB, Kira isn't content to leave the baseball. She picks it up and plays with it, as if to say she stepped into Sisko's (political) role. It's her ball (and her station).
A tough choice. Very tough. I was torn between the finale and some others, but went with "It's Only a Paper Moon", a very touching episode which shows how excellent DS9 was at focusing on supporting characters.
The finale, it's awesome. It's got drama, it's got action, it's got heart. Just about everything that was building up had a great payoff.
I really liked the casino episode. Nice change of pace before getting into the final arc. Also quite fond of Take Me Out, Once More, Siege, Paper Moon, etc, loads of really good eps in this season really. Still, voting for Badda-Bing.
I thought that the finale was the better episode of the season. They got a lot done in that episode to try and tie up everything as best they could.
And the winner for season 7, with 9 out of 20 votes (45%) is... What You Leave Behind Here's an extra from the DVD collection about not just this awesome series finale, but how they went about wrapping up as many of the storylines as possible: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se4BhIZ9E_w[/yt] Ira Steven Behr gave a speech on the last day of shooting: Bravo! Lots more details about the last episode (all interesting stuff) can be found here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/What_You_Leave_Behind_(episode) Next, we will vote for our overall favorite episode of DS9 based on all of the favorites voted in this process. I will put that poll up early next week. Stay tuned! And have an awesome weekend!
I love how the actors (Combs, Biggs, etc.) were in the crowd at Vic's at the end. The wrap party was pretty much built into the show, which was great. They were a family, and it showed. Voyager, by comparison, looked like a dysfunctional family - cold and distant. Each actor finished their scenes and there was no special attention given to it. They were just "done".