I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...

That could make sense if there was at least some mention by anyone about home being other than Earth. They weren't focusing on getting their debriefing, they were trying to get home to Earth and Timmy and their dog.

Besides, the Federation is utterly massive. There isn't a huge-ass regional HQ a two months closer to the edge of Federation space from Earth near the damn middle? They're just supposed to take a cross-country tour upon getting home instead of getting on with *it? They've blown up Vulcan and Romulus and what else in the new movies so far. Have some WMD take out Earth so I can quit hearing about how we're the MASTER RACE. Move the flag over to Tellar -- it's less obnoxious.

*Actually it might have been interesting if they did just that in a novel. Or have them being debriefed on a flotilla of ships escorting them the last stretch through nearby and Federation space. It'd be an interesting denouement to the exciting story and a jump off place for whatever came next as the crew split up. Maybe the could have family come visit them in the fleet until those that chose to stay on the ship touched down on Earth for some ceremony.

 

One of my favorite fanfictions has them coming to DS9 first and their families come to see them. Like Mrs. Kim, bringing his clarinet to him, poor Harry.

 

I love that episode purely for entertainment. I actually watch it all the time. The best part is when the whole cast is decked out in tuxedos and dresses, striding by Quark's on their way to the holosuite.

 

It will get back to the war.
Watch some Voyager now and after that it will be a non stop ride to the end with DS9.

 

Badda Bing Badda Bang is the last stand alone non arc episode. Everything from here to the end is on point Dominion War. They front loaded all of the Random Crap and Padding that they normally spread out over a season in order to have a straight run of arc episodes for the entire back half. Season 7 will redeem itself.

 

Yeah it does eventually. I always find the first half hard to rewatch with the Ezri overload. As much as I love the Final Chapter, I always thought the season would have been better paced with a spreading out of the really good stuff.

 

I have to disagree. Take away all the major episodes--the final chapters and the season openers--and there are three ensemble episode, two Odo episodes, two Bashir, one Kira, one Quark/Ferengi, and one Worf. That leaves one for Vic (and Nog) and three for Ezri, one of which she shares with Garak, and one of which was extremely anomalous (it was a seriously bungled Sisko episode). Certainly all the episodes that drive the war forward belong to other characters, and the best--Treachery, Chimera, and Inter Arma--belong to the older characters.

 

At this point there are so many assorted clones and duplicates and copies of Voyager running around the Delta Quadrant, likely further duplicating themselves through subspace anomalies and quasimenotictechnobabble fluids etc, that Voyager can in fact be categorized as an Intergalactic form of Cancer. It duplicates itself and corrupts and destroys everything in its past. "You Will Be Assimilated For Coffee!".

 

Starfleet Inteligence is an actual publicly acknowledged division of Starfleet. Section 31 is a "does not exist" Super Secret Off the Books Wet Works brigade outside of any normal channels or oversight. The major difference will become clear towards the end of DS9.

 

He always had a lot of inner turmoil, and a nice line in understated snark - I guess it just took a while to see.

She's not "back". The Borg create "queens" to facilitate communication with the non-collectivized.

Yeah, there are a lot of useless standalones in the last couple of seasons.

I'm not saying the Baku's origins justify the Fed's assertion of eminent domain, but it does mean that relations started on the wrong foot - i.e. the secret surveillance we see at the start of the film is something they would do for a pre-warp culture, but if they'd known they were warp-capable they might have opened relations directly.

Death waits for no-one.

 

First Contact retconned her as having been on the cube from "Best of Both Worlds" too, so she also somehow survived that, only to come 'back' in FC. It's never really explained how the Queen survives/is reincarnated when she is killed/defeated - and yeah the Queen's not played by Alice Kriege in this episode but I think we're supposed to pretend it's the same one.

You'd think, but again First Contact retconned this into the Queen looking for some kind of 'equal' and having chosen Picard for the task - a sort of 'Duke of the Borg' to her Queen. And Hugh in "I, Borg" treated him with some sort of recognition and reverence beyond a regular drone when he roleplayed Locutus. So who knows? The Borg never really made sense.

 

I'm curious to know how you feel about Ezri's role in these episodes.

 

Making the new Dax a man would have been so great to see - especially considering the sub-plot with Ezri's feelings for Worf.

But I understand why they made Dax a woman again - Kira would have been the only female character left in the main cast

 

A lot of that is a consequence of the writers not knowing entirely what they were doing. Echevarria, Moore and Weddle all admit that they had difficulties synchronizing stories together, meaning that some character arcs stagnated (either took unusually long or were subject to lots of filler) until important plot points came into fruition. Yes, there is too much soap opera in the dialogue, but I appreciate that there was an honest story about how ex-spouses/ex-lovers related to one another.

 

Yeah it's a favourite of mine.

 

Yes and then again... no. It's dead in the same way that Superman is dead.

Spoiler, read once you get a little further in

Spoiler

Destroying the Defiant that late in the series is generally viewed as one of the less brilliant moves in an other wise brilliant run. It was a pointless dramatic moment that was almost immediately robbed of any impact or importance. Largely because of how Practical Special Effects work for a TV show. Remember they shoot most of the bulk effects footage before they start principle photography with the actors each season. They build up vast libraries of generic footage of the ships doing certain moves, that they then splice together each episode to fit the needs of the week. This is why Voyager gets the magic reset button each week. Because 90% of the footage of the ship was shot months of not years before, and the ship has to match that library of existing footage by the time the episode ends. It was too expensive back then to do it any other way. At least until they went pure digital. This is why nuGalactica and ST Enterprise could show the ship getting more and more battered. But Voyager and DS9 could not.

So yeah the Defiant is gone. The 9'ers will need a new ship. so long as
- It's a Defiant class ship (not a problem we have already seen a few others such as teh Valiant. We know there are at least 6 or 7 by this point.)
- It has the same hull markings as the Defiant
- It has the same Registry NUmbers as the Defiant
So yeah, the only difference between the Defiant and the next Defiant is the Brass Plaque on the bridge wall. The new one says USS Sao Paulo (sp?) (There and only there. It's amazing how fast Miles is with a paint brush.) If you want to get really technical the Defiant's registry should have changed to NCC from NX at that point, but the effects library prevented even that.

The Breen were a rather interesting late addition that I wish they had thrown in earlier in the season so we could have gotten to know them more. Although the helmets always make me think of Princess Leia disguised as a Bounty Hunter.

 

Yes to all this, except I'd hope what we get to "know" about them would remain relatively limited. The mystery is a big part of their appeal.