All episodes ranked

[DevilEyes]

Wow, Through the Looking Glass at 2? May I ask why you like it so much?

Looking through the list, your taste is drastically different than mine. I think I'll wait to make my list after I do the rewatch, though, there are some episodes I'm not sure how to rank.

 

[Kai Winn]

carlmarx obviously regards the ferengi as sort of contamination of the show, all their episodes are at the bottom. i'd rank any of them in the top 20. for me, ds9's primary merits is the developement of these outstanding folks, not the one-dimensional enemies founders, vorta and jem hadar, and the stories involving them.

 

[carlmarx]

^True, I'm not big on the Ferengi episodes. Though I really enjoyed episodes like "The house Of Quark" and "Business As Usual"- ones that develop Quark as a character, not just use him as pure comic relief, surrounding him with characters that I found too silly for their own good.

When I watch DS9, I do it because the overall story arcs are riveting and have a greater impact on me emotionally than any otehr show I've ever seen. I wouldn't consider any of the antagonists on DS9 one-dimensional- the Jem'Hadar may be killing machines, but there's more than one episode that dares you not to feel compassion for them in some way. That's just one example. I'll pick an episode like that over one with tired, goofy, overplayed Ferengi "comedy" any day. Not even the first time did I think Ishka calling Zek "Lobe-kins" was anything but embarrassingly lame. Rarely did I find Rom's goofy overplayed idiot shtick amusing. I wouldn't call it contaminate for DS9, but it's surely one of my least favorite aspects of the show.

 

[DevilEyes]

^True, I'm not big on the Ferengi episodes. Though I really enjoyed episodes like "The house Of Quark" and "Business As Usual"- ones that develop Quark as a character, not just use him as pure comic relief, surrounding him with characters that I found too silly for their own good.

When I watch DS9, I do it because the overall story arcs are riveting and have a greater impact on me emotionally than any otehr show I've ever seen. I wouldn't consider any of the antagonists on DS9 one-dimensional- the Jem'Hadar may be killing machines, but there's more than one episode that dares you not to feel compassion for them in some way. That's just one example. I'll pick an episode like that over one with tired, goofy, overplayed Ferengi "comedy" any day. Not even the first time did I think Ishka calling Zek "Lobe-kins" was anything but embarrassingly lame. Rarely did I find Rom's goofy overplayed idiot shtick amusing. I wouldn't call it contaminate for DS9, but it's surely one of my least favorite aspects of the show.

The Ferengi can be great when used well, which usually happened when they were interacting with other, non-Ferengi characters. Quark is an awesome character who often provided a different perspective and was often used as a mouthpiece for some of the show's best lines and speeches. Nog developed into a interesting non-stereotypical Ferengi and had a great relationship with Jake. But when it comes to Rom, even when they started doing more interesting things with him and developing him as another non-traditional Ferengi, his overplayed idiot shtick still made him barely tolerable. He would be my least favorite DS9 character if it wasn't for Grand Nagus Zek, who was always just silly.

And I agree that the Dominion races were never one-dimensional. Even the one that came to closest to it - the Vorta - had exceptions such as the "defective" Weyoun 6 in the wonderful Treachery, Faith and the Great River. The Jem'Hadar were given some variety in personalities, depth and sympathetic qualities in episodes like Hippocratic Oath, To the Death and Rocks and Shoals. The fact that they were an engineered race bred for war only made the whole issue all the more difficult and complex. The Founders were one of the few Trek aliens who were depicted as being truly alien; they were scary and evil while having a developed and believable motivation, even their paranoia and hatred were based in reality (episodes like Chimera reminded us that persecution, mistrust and intolerance they faced from the solids was very real), and the fact that Odo, one of the main and most sympathetic characters of the show was one of them certainly precludes them from being one-dimensional.

 

[Joeman]

Wow, Through the Looking Glass at 2? May I ask why you like it so much?

In any series, I for some reason love seeing the mirror/evil/alternate versions of the regular characters (i.e. Living Witness, In a Mirror, Darkly, Yesterday's Enterprise), and this one just had several other elements that I really enjoyed. In particular the dynamic between the mirror Jennifer and the regular Sisko. I also really enjoyed Tuvok being in the episode. It was just an episode that I personally find pretty much no fault with. I know there's a continuity problem with the cloaking technology, but that kind of thing has never been something that bothers me or that I pay much attention to.

Looking through the list, your taste is drastically different than mine.

I'm sure most people would say the same thing.

 

[flemm]

I would have a hard time doing this with DS9. Doing a top ten or twenty is hard enough. It's the story arcs in large part that make the show great, so picking single episodes quickly becomes an exercise in futility. Also, breaking up two-parters and groups of episodes like the beginning of season 6 doesn't make much sense.

In The Pale Moonlight, Chimera and Tacking Into The Wind are the easiest choices for me as best of the best. By contrast I'm not a huge fan of The Visitor or Duet, though they are both solid episodes of course.

I just rewatched Tacking Into The Wind and was reminded how everything just clicks on all cylinders in this episode. If only the rest of the final arc had been this good! It is good overall, but this episode is just incredibly intense.

 

[Joeman]

Also, breaking up two-parters and groups of episodes like the beginning of season 6 doesn't make much sense.

Maybe I'm wrong, but in most Trek twp-parters, aren't part 1 and part 2 usually written and directed by different people? I very often found myself giving two-parters two different scores, so it makes perfect sense to me.

 

[flemm]

Maybe I'm wrong, but in most Trek twp-parters, aren't part 1 and part 2 usually written and directed by different people? I very often found myself giving two-parters two different scores, so it makes perfect sense to me.

Fair enough. For me, something like the opening arc of season six is enjoyable in part because it transcends the episodic formula of earlier Trek, so I just don't personally get a lot out of rating the episodes individually.

 

[DevilEyes]

Also, breaking up two-parters and groups of episodes like the beginning of season 6 doesn't make much sense.

Maybe I'm wrong, but in most Trek twp-parters, aren't part 1 and part 2 usually written and directed by different people? I very often found myself giving two-parters two different scores, so it makes perfect sense to me.

Those that were shown as one double episode usually have the same writers and directors (Emissary, The Way of the Warrior). Those that share the same name have the same writers but usually not the same directors (The Maquis, Past Tense). As for the others, some are, some aren't. The Circle trilogy has different writers for all 3 episodes, Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast has different writers, but In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light has the same writers (though different directors), so does Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels.

How do I even know this? It's not that I tried to know all these things, it's because I made a "best DS9 episode" ranking on Rankopedia a while ago and had to decide which episodes to group as one, and I also have a 'written by' column, so I had to check these things.