Season 5

[Son of Quark]

Man, my wife and I started watching Season 5 of Deep Space Nine the other day, we had previously finished seasons 1-4, I forgot or had a brain lapse, that the first four episodes in Season 5 "Apocalypse Rising", "The Ship", "Looking For par'Mach in All the Wrong Places", and "Nor the Battle to the Strong" are four freakin killer episodes in a row. Usually you'll have a killer episode, then one that is okay, but in my opinion these four were awesome!

 

[DS9 Gal AZ]

I agree. In fact, "The Ship" is my favorite Season 5 episode ... as you can probably tell, heh.

 

[Son of Quark]

"The Ship" was a very cool episode. That episode is up there at the top of my list. My favorite episode however was in season 7, " Siege of AR-558" They did start season 5 with a bang, ans I have stated, you don't see that many eipsodes that awesome in a row like that.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I had the same reaction when I saw those episodes. I especially like The Ship. Personally, I consider Season 5 to be the strongest of the 7 seasons.

 

[Damask]

Season 5 is brilliant. I honestly think its the best season of all Star Trek.

 

[Son of Quark]

I had the same reaction when I saw those episodes. I especially like The Ship. Personally, I consider Season 5 to be the strongest of the 7 seasons.

You may be right about Season 5 being the strongest of the 7 seasons. I think of those first four of Season 5, I like Looking for par'Mach in all the Wrong Places and Nor the Battle to the Strong a tad more than Apocalypse Rising and The Ship. But those first four episodes, what a way to start off a season.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Season 5 also has the Bashir Changeling performing the lion's share of Bashir's most important surgeries, doing brain surgery on Sisko and delivering Kira's/the O'Briens' baby.


I think Season 5 gets overlooked a lot because the war-lovers love Season 6 & 7 whereas the war-haters like the first half of the series (Seasons 1-4). Season 5 is the transition between the two, that calm before the storm/war (kind of like how from Oct 1939- April 1940, there was no major movements in WWII, it was just this uneasy calm everyone knew was going to break into all hell at some point). It's before the war really ramped out and broke out but it's after the early mystery and the cold war/diversionary wars with the Dominion so for neither bloc is it fully in the era of DS9 they like the most.

Season 5 has some of the series' strongest episodes:
"Apocalypse Rising", "The Ship", "Trials and Tribble-ations", the Purgatory/Inferno 2-parter, "Children of Time", "Call to Arms".

and a few interesting entries:
"The Ascent" (one of the more interesting location shoots for DS9 besides the 128 degree hell of "Rocks and Shoals"), "Things Past", the 2 Sisko/Eddington episodes, the big Bashir revelation episode

and of course some of the worst episodes of the series:
"Let He Who is Without Sin...", "Ferengi Love Songs"

 

[Gul Re'jal]

(kind of like how from Oct 1939- April 1940, there was no major movements in WWII, it was just this uneasy calm everyone knew was going to break into all hell at some point).

This is totally off topic but I couldn't just leave it like that.

Attacking a sovereign country and occupying it is not a major movement in WWII? I dare to say that 38 million Poles would disagree The war started on 1st of September 1939 and believe me--there was a VERY major movement there in a certain part Europe.

Rant's over.

Now, to pleasant part of a great season 5

It was the first season I had bought on DVD and not without a reason

 

[Eddie Roth]

Re'jal, I was going to say the same things about the fall of 1939... You beat me to it.

Anyways, since when has "Looking for Par'Mach..." become an "awesome episode"? I remember the days when it was generally as loathed as it should be by all rights. That said, I've seen it recently and I was more entertained by it this time than I was back when it first aired. It's fluff and really contrived, but kinda fun, I guess.

 

[Damask]

Anyways, since when has "Looking for Par'Mach..." become an "awesome episode"? I remember the days when it was generally as loathed as it should be by all rights. That said, I've seen it recently and I was more entertained by it this time than I was back when it first aired. It's fluff and really contrived, but kinda fun, I guess.

I've always liked Looking for Par'Mach. Wouldnt describe it as awesome but I thought it was quite funny. Then again I liked the baseball episode too.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Attacking a sovereign country and occupying it is not a major movement in WWII? I dare to say that 38 million Poles would disagree The war started on 1st of September 1939 and believe me--there was a VERY major movement there in a certain part Europe.

You need to look at your history books again. Notice I left off September 1939. Read the link below. And also look at the history of WWII in 1939/40. After Poland, the next big events are various invasions in spring 1940 (Denmark, Norway in April, the Benelux countries in May), and then really ramped up in the summer (invasion of France, Dunkirk, etc). So, what was Oct 1939 to April 1940?-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

 

[Son of Quark]

Re'jal, I was going to say the same things about the fall of 1939... You beat me to it.

Anyways, since when has "Looking for Par'Mach..." become an "awesome episode"? I remember the days when it was generally as loathed as it should be by all rights. That said, I've seen it recently and I was more entertained by it this time than I was back when it first aired. It's fluff and really contrived, but kinda fun, I guess.

I have always dug this episode. I'm new to this and any Star Trek boards and I didn't know that Looking For Par'Mach was hated in the past.

 

[Gul Re'jal]

Nevermind, that's not the place for it.

 

[Lrrr]

I just got disc one of season five in the mail today. I'm currently watching the series for the first time and I look forward to watching all four episodes on the disc later tonight.

 

[Kelso]

S5 is one of my fav. Trek seasons ever. And that was a perfect time to be a Trekkie. The franchise was going strong in 1996. I was 15/16 years old at the time and ate it up.

 

[Scotty]

S5 is one of my fav. Trek seasons ever. And that was a perfect time to be a Trekkie. The franchise was going strong in 1996. I was 15/16 years old at the time and ate it up.

Same here. Although at the time, I actually preferred Voyager (season three of Voyager also ranks as on of my favorites). But I see now the error of my ways.

 

[tomalak301]

I love Season 5 because of how much happened this year. I mean we got the end of the Klingon conflict, more or less the end of the Maquis conflict (Even though I wish more were done with them) and a transition from the Klingons to the Dominion at the end. Also, the character moments were fantastic, including In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light, the seeds being sown for Odo and Kira in Children of Time, the stuff with Sisko and Eddington. It just felt like every episode added a layer of substance to the overall season and it kept building and building towards that awesome Finale, especially the calm before the storm with In the Cards. And it also had the Tribble Episode, which I don't like as much as others seem to but it was still good.

I'd say the only episodes I didn't like this season was A Simple Investigation and Ferengi Love Songs, but it's been a while since I've seen either so that might change.

 

[flemm]

I think that season 5 is actually quite commonly regarded as DS9's best season and, for what it's worth, I basically agree, though I think the gap in overall quality between season 5 and seasons 2, 4, 6 and 7 is pretty small.

Season 5 isn't so much better than the other seasons as it is the most cohesive, basically it's a sort of crossroads where all the show's main plot threads come together.

 

[Eddie Roth]

Cohesive? I don't know. For me, that season was all over the place. Klingons, Dominion, attempts at comedy (unsuccessful for the most part) and a continuation of Season 4s unfortunate trend of focusing many episodes on one main character (and guest stars) only. Starting at around this point, it sometimes felt as though you didn't even see some of the characters for several episodes.

However, it is true that in Season 5, once you accept these flaws (and they are flaws in my eyes), the history of the characters and the show's concept started to pay off in many spectacular ways.

 

[flemm]

Cohesive? I don't know. For me, that season was all over the place. Klingons, Dominion, attempts at comedy (unsuccessful for the most part) and a continuation of Season 4s unfortunate trend of focusing many episodes on one main character (and guest stars) only. Starting at around this point, it sometimes felt as though you didn't even see some of the characters for several episodes.

It's a big canvas, with a lot of plot threads and characters, but yeah, I do think that season 5 is where it all comes together as a cohesive whole.

Take the Klingon plotline, which is sometimes erroneously characterized as irrelevant to the overall DS9 storyline. In actuality, the Klingons' crippling of Cardassia is what causes Dukat to seek alliance with the Dominion, thus the tension with the Klingons in season 4 and early season 5 leads directly to the events of In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light.

Sisko's developing role as the Emissary and original mission to bring Bajor into the Federation cross paths with the looming conflict with the Dominion in Rapture.

The Maquis storyline is directly impacted by the Dominion's alliance with Cardassia as seen in the contrast between For the Uniform and Blaze of Glory. And of course Call to Arms is a beautiful climax to all of this. A lot of important character stuff comes to fruition in this season as well.

I do think, however, that season 5 only really stands out in this way once the whole saga is known, and that the quality is pretty similar episode-to-episode in season 5 and a bunch of other seasons.