Re-Watching DS9

[Lord Garth]

Signs and Portents followed by The Jem'Hadar is a pretty solid sci-fi double bill!

Indeed it was! I have to start this off with the quote I promised...

That's how the Dominion introduces itself: with mass murder.

And by destroying the Not-Enterprise, commanded by American Not-Picard!

Where to begin? More like: When to begin? After I wake up. Too tired right now. Five months since I started the Re-Watch, and we're here! I'm so glad I didn't rush through the series to get up to this point quicker. It somehow feels more earned this way.

I think Quark would love pop-up ads.

Night!

 

[Lord Garth]

"The Jem'Hadar"

If "Duet" was like DS9's "The Measure of a Man", the first true stand-out classic of the series, then "The Jem'Hadar" is like DS9's "Q Who" where a new, powerful adversary is introduced, and the stakes are dramatically changed going forward. Like the Borg were alluded to beforehand in "The Neutral Zone", the Dominion were referred to throughout the second season of DS9. So, it's fitting that DS9's second season ends with the formal introduction of the Dominion. And what an introduction! The Dominion destroy the New Bajor colony in the Gamma Quadrant just like the Borg destroyed Romulan and Federation outposts.

Third Talak'talan makes quite the impression. Not only does the Jem'Hadar makeup look fierce, but Cress Williams plays him with intensity that really makes you fear the Dominion just by their presence alone. First by saying he wished the first people he met from the Alpha Quadrant were the Klingons and grabbing Quark by the chest. Then by beaming into Ops on DS9, walking through the containment field, telling Kira they've destroyed New Bajor, and issuing the threat that those from the Alpha Quadrant are to stay on their side of the Wormhole. How is this guy a Third? He should be a First!

Jake's been underused all season, but that's understandable given that he's never part of the main action, so it was an interesting change-up to see him and Nog in the thick of it when the Jem'Hadar kidnap Sisko and Quark and watch them try to figure out how to fly a runabout and ask for help. The science project was a great plot device to get Jake and Nog into the Gamma Quadrant and using supervision as an excuse was the perfect way to get Quark in the same room with Sisko, so Quark would have his ear.

Even though it's possible Quark might want to supervise Nog, and I'm sure Quark really does feel offended that Humans look down on Ferengi, he's always looking for opportunities, but none look good. Sisko refuses to allow him to sell merchandise over statin consoles and he sees what the Dominion are actually like for himself, probably wishing he didn't. He's scared out of his mind when he and Sisko are captured.

Eris is with Sisko and Quark and just like Third Talak'talan makes an impression for the Jem'Hadar, Eris makes an impression for the Vorta. The Jem'Hadar are in your face, but the Vorta seem approachable. They're just like you. Or so you think. And they tell you just what you want to hear. Eris is a captive too. She tells you how fearful the Jem'Hadar are. She's on your side. Or so you think. And she fools Sisko enough that he thinks she's even more scared than Quark is. She earned his sympathy. By the end of the episode Quark figures out Eris lied to them, they could've escaped from the Jem'Hadar any time they wanted, and that she's part of the Dominion. Molly Hagan's performance is multi-layered. Not only is she acting, but the character she plays is also acting. That's a tight rope right there.

Then, finally, just to show how powerful the Dominion actually are, and to give us a baseline comparison, the two Runabouts out to rescue Sisko, Jake, Nog, and Quark are accompanied by the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy Class Starship, commanded by Captain Keough, who's basically a stand-in for Picard. And this is where I go back to comparing the introduction of the Dominion with the introduction of the Borg. In "Q Who", the Borg would've destroyed the Enterprise if Q hadn't whisked them away at the last moment. The Enterprise was no match. Here, in "The Jem'Hadar", the Odyssey is no match for even one Dominion ship, that crashes right into them. The message this sends to everyone on the retreating Runabouts: The Dominion will go to any length to fight the Federation and will resort to any type of force. What DS9 has for defenses at this point isn't enough, basically asking for a change-up next season. To quote Sisko, "If the Dominion comes through the Wormhole, the first battle will be fought here, and I intend to be ready for them."

Obviously, I give this episode a 10. Great way to end the season!

 

[DonIago]

One thing I particularly love about "The Jem'hadar" is the way the episode starts out seeming as though it might be a dismal failure of a season finale with a "Jake and Nog and Ben and Quark go camping and hijinks ensue!" storyline, and then the bottom drops out and just keeps dropping out as Eris shows up and things just steadily escalate from there.

But even then, I think many viewers expected Odyssey to make it home battered but intact. The kamikaze run was utterly unnecessary except to send a message, much as the Borg only need a single cube to humble Our Heroes. I sometimes see people ask why the Borg don't send an armada, and the simple reality is that from everything we've seen in most of the franchise, they don't need one.

 

[Lord Garth]

Some numbers. First what I had for the first season. I knocked "Duet" down from an 11 to a 10. I'm sticking to the 10-scale. The average I have for the first season is now a 7.95.

Spoiler

"Emissary" --> 10 (counts twice)
"A Man Alone" --> 7
"Past Prologue" --> 8
"Babel" --> 6
"Captive Pursuit" --> 7
"Q-Less" --> 5
"Dax" --> 10
"The Passenger" --> 7
"Move Along Home" --> 7
"The Nagus" --> 10
"Vortex" --> 6
"Battle Lines" --> 8
"The Storyteller" --> 7
"Progress" --> 7
"If Wishes Were Horses" --> 7
"The Forsaken" --> 9
"Dramatis Personae" --> 8
"Duet" --> 10 (I had this at an 11, but I'm sticking to the 10-scale)
"In the Hands of the Prophets" --> 10

Average: 7.95

How does the second season compare?

"The Homecoming" --> 9
"The Circle" --> 9
"The Siege" --> 8
"Invasive Procedures" --> 7
"Cardassians" --> 8
"Melora" --> 8
"Rules of Acquisition" --> 8
"Necessary Evil" --> 10
"Second Sight" --> 6.5
"Sanctuary" --> 7
"Rivals" --> 6
"The Alternate" --> 7
"Armageddon Game" --> 7.5
"Whispers" --> 10
"Paradise" --> 8
"Shadowplay" --> 7.5
"Playing God" --> 7
"Profit and Loss" --> 8
"Blood Oath" --> 10
"The Maquis, Part I" --> 10
"The Maquis, Part II" --> 10
"The Wire" --> 10
"Crossover" --> 8
"The Collaborator" --> 10
"Tribunal" --> 9
"The Jem'Hadar" --> 10

Average: 8.40

More thoughts later. But, as the numbers prove, I'm definitely in the "Season 2 is underrated!" camp.

 

[Oddish]

The Dominion introduced themselves through mass murder, proved immune to the Federation's most basic defense (shields), and obliterated a ship equivalent to the one we spent seven years with on TNG. They were a combination of pure evil, utter ruthlessness, horrifying fanaticism, and superior technology, and apparently beyond reason or negotiation... it was all bad enough, and it was going to get worse.

 

[Lord Garth]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Entire Second Season

Like I said, I think this is an underrated season. In order to look at DS9 Season 2 as a whole, I have to break it down into the Opening 9, the Middle 8, and the Closing 9.

The Opening Nine

I think these episodes expanded on what was introduced in the first season, and took some characters out of where they were in the first season so they could take their character arcs somewhere later on. "The Homecoming", "The Circle", and "The Siege" fully fleshed out Bajoran society from the militia to the ministry to the competing Kias to the radical extremists. These episodes showed the Cardassians using the Bajorans themselves to drive the Federation away so they can come back in. Sisko's resourcefulness foiled that plan.

"Cardassians" looked at War Orphans left behind after the Occupation and how Cardassian orphans were raised by Bajorans to hate their own kind. It was also an episode that re-introduced Garak and showed off his resourcefulness. To be honest, even though I gave "Cardassians" an 8, it's a painful episode to watch and one I won't revisit except in re-watches like this. The true highlight is Garak. I think the creators realized this too, so Garak would go on to be used a lot more towards the end of the season.

"Rules of Acquisition" not only delved deeper into Ferengi society, and showed us a Ferengi woman, but it also took a serious look at what was in the Gamma Quadrant and the Dominion were referred to for the first time. So, instead of the Gamma Quadrant being this vague thing where you can run into anything, now there was some definition to it. The Dominion were out there. I think the Dominion gave the Gamma Quadrant a focal point as opposed to the Gamma Quadrant being just nebulous, intangible, clean whiteboard. DS9 is about building and establishing things. So, in building terms, "Rules of Acquisition" figuratively broke ground.

All through the first and early second seasons of DS9, the Occupation was referred to and Terok Nor was referred to, but "Necessary Evil" was the first time we actually got see Terok Nor during the Occupation. It was nice to be shown it, instead of just always being told about it. They finally revealed what Odo was like while working for the Cardassians and it made more sense to me, as a viewer, how the Bajorans would still be willing to work with Odo after they drove the Cardassians away. Between "Necessary Evil" and "Cardassians", we also get to see more of Dukat, so he feels more like an actual character in his own right instead of someone who pops in every now and then as just a representative for the Cardassians like he was in "Emissary" and "Duet".

"Invasive Procedures", "Melora", and "Second Sight" took Dax, Bashir, and Sisko respectively out of where they were during the first season and opened them up to new story possibilities.

In "Invasive Procedures", Jadzia's life is put into jeopardy and, from that point on, Jadzia Dax decides to live her life more fully. Unlike the first time Jadzia joined with Dax, when Jadzia's re-joined she has experience as a host, so maybe the link between Jadzia, Dax, and the previous hosts was stronger so that more of their personalities and experiences would come through. Bashir spent all of the first season pining for Jadzia.

"Melora" shows Bashir in serious love with someone else, which made Bashir stop being so one-note. Other than the beginning of "Crossover" in his scene with Kira on the Runabout, I haven't had a problem with Bashir this season, whereas he was my least favorite of the regular characters last season.

"Second Sight" gets Sisko to a place where he's no longer grieving Jennifer as much and gives himself permission to be interested in other women. Nothing further comes from it this season, but it will next season.

The Middle Eight

This is the weakest part of the season, but as far as soft middles go, it wasn't bad. I didn't give anything below a 6. I think this was a period of the show where they let DS9 breathe a little, there were some high-concept ideas, and spend more time with the characters in general.

In "Sanctuary", we get to see how far Bajor's come in just a year by comparing them to a race far worse off, but the Bajorans can't take them in because they're still recovering themselves. Quark gets some business competition in "Rivals". We some crazy mini-universe shenanigans in "Playing God". These are all things you can only really do in the middle of a season. And then there's "Shadowplay". "Rules of Acquisition" might've been the first mention of the Dominion, but "Shadowplay" shows you the destruction the Dominion are capable of without actually introducing them yet. It helped build up anticipation for when we finally would meet them.

This "downtime" period also allowed for us to see more of the Bashir/O'Brien dynamic, first in "Rivals" where they're competing in racquetball, and then in "Armageddon Game" where they're stuck with each other on a world that wants them both dead.

The middle was also the perfect time to have an episode like "The Alternate" where Odo's discovered, Dr. Mora, is introduced. Between "The Alternate" and "Necessary Evil", we now have a much better sense of Odo's early life in the Alpha Quadrant.

"Paradise" quietly lays the groundwork for Sisko's "It's easy to be a saint in Paradise" monologue in "The Maquis, Part II". Sisko and O'Brien land on a seeming Paradise, see what the price the people who live there have to pay, and Sisko actively fights against it.

Right in the middle is also the perfect spot to have "Whispers". The perfect "What the Hell is going on?!" type of episode for O'Brien the Everyman.

"Playing God", the last of the middle S2 episodes, looks at how far Jadzia Dax has come when she has to review another potential initiate to see if he'd be a good candidate to become a host. She learns when it's necessary to not be someone's friend and that sometimes Curzon was hard on Jadzia because he had to be.

I think this part of the season is necessary. Before disrupting what's normal at the end of the season, you have to show how that normal actually is. And it doesn't get any more "normal" for early-DS9 than how things are in the middle of this season. It's not something I'd want skipped over.

The Closing Nine

After the early part of the season expanded on what was introduced in the first season, and the middle part of the season looked inward towards itself, the later part of the season saw DS9 branching outwards. VOY was going to take place in the Delta Quadrant, and soon we'd only see the TNG crew every two years, so, after this season, DS9 would have the Alpha Quadrant mostly to itself, and continuing Star Trek's ongoing established lore would now be DS9's responsibility. DS9 not only had to set up its own future but look toward how it would handle the rest of Star Trek on its own terms.

"Profit and Loss" sets up the Cardassian Dissident Movement, letting us know the political situation on Cardassia isn't as stable as might've thought, and that change might be on the way. The tensions in the Demilitarized Zone, which we see in "The Maquis" highlight how the peace treaty between the Federation and Cardassians is always one incident away from falling apart. The treaty is constantly pointed to as being a tactical error.

We may have seen the Duras Sisters during the first season, and there may be a Klingon Restaurant on the Promenade, but DS9 brought the Klingons in the series on its own terms -- separate from TNG -- by bringing back the Klingons from TOS, giving them a history with Curzon Dax, and showing how Jadzia Dax interacts with Kor, Koloth, and Kang. This will come in handy in "The Way or the Warrior" when Worf becomes a regular and Jadzia Dax will already have her own experiences with the Klingons that we've already seen and it'll show that Worf (and TNG) isn't the only one who knows Klingons. So does Dax (and DS9).

"Crossover" re-introduces the Mirror Universe and shows yet another canvas DS9 can now play in. Leaving everything open-ended shows their intention develop the storyline over here as well. It's not a one-time thing and nothing else is on DS9.

Garak gets overdue development and focus in "Profit and Loss" and "The Wire" now that he's become a full-fledged recurring character instead of someone we only see here and there. Not only does it make Garak even more interesting, but it makes us want to wonder more about the Obsidian Order and Cardassian Dissident Movement.

"The Collaborator" and "Tribunal" give a last look into Bajoran and Cardassian society respectively this season. The Cardassians want to take away any advantages the Federation have but don't want to look like they are. As for the Bajorans, I think that having Winn as the Kai provides for more conflict in later seasons, and making Bariel innocent allows for Kira to still be his lover, otherwise she'd want nothing to do with him. So, they covered all the bases.

Finally, "The Jem'Hadar" introduces the Dominion as a new element. How everyone else will react to the Dominion will be more interesting precisely because everyone has been so fully developed beforehand. This is the advantage serialized television with continuing lore has over one-and-done stories where we never see anyone again.

A Different Type of Model for Star Trek

Not only is DS9 Season 2 different from Star Trek that came before it, but a season like this would also not have happened in New Trek nor would it be possible unless there was a serious change in how they did things. Here we have 26 episodes of a season that combines the episodic with the serialized, has high stakes, low stakes, in-between stakes, and continues the ongoing storylines without bringing them to an abrupt conclusion.

I wasn't in favor of shorter (and shorter and shorter) seasons before. And, after having just re-watched this season now, I'm even less in favor of shorter seasons. Bring back longer seasons! Or at least have one season continue into another so it creates the illusion, and we can go further in-depth again. But I think you get more out of a higher episode count and a higher season count. Shorter series can only ever go so far, and I prefer longer journeys. Longer journeys with some nice scenic routes along the way.

I'll be taking a break from DS9 for a little bit, but soon I'll be back for Season 3. Looking forward to it!

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm binging Prodigy S2. Finally. So far, so good! Paramount+ was stupid for cancelling this, so a Thank You to Netflix for taking it in. Once I finish, it's back to DS9 for Season 3!

 

[Dee1891]

I was watching the Season Four episode, "Starship Down" recently. I noticed that most of the command staff was aboard the Defiant. I found myself wondering who was in command of Deep Space Nine during their absence?

Why do a lot of science-fiction movies and television shows make mistakes like this?

 

[Oddish]

I was watching the Season Four episode, "Starship Down" recently. I noticed that most of the command staff was aboard the Defiant. I found myself wondering who was in command of Deep Space Nine during their absence?

Why do a lot of science-fiction movies and television shows make mistakes like this?

The station was empty. They were fumigating it for voles.

 

[Farscape One]

I was watching the Season Four episode, "Starship Down" recently. I noticed that most of the command staff was aboard the Defiant. I found myself wondering who was in command of Deep Space Nine during their absence?

Why do a lot of science-fiction movies and television shows make mistakes like this?

During this time, probably Eddington. We see him in command of the station in "OUR MAN BASHIR", only a few episodes later.

 

[Lord Garth]

Almost done with Season 2 of Prodigy. This has been a binge as in a binge binge. Depending on how things work out, with everything else I have going on, I'll be re-watching "The Search, Part I" by Friday or Saturday.

 

[DonIago]

I've come to feel that one thing I don't like about binge-watching if it's too bingey is that I don't have time for episodes to really sink in. There's no time for me to process what I've seen because it's off to the races with the next episode. And then, of course, assuming I remember what happens, remembering in which episode it occurred can become challenging.

I remember when I watched Six Feet Under for the first time I could only really handle one episode at a time because I tended to find each episode so emotionally intense that I needed a break afterward, but there was a mystery toward the end of one season that led me to binge because I simply couldn't bear the tension of not knowing the answer to the mystery.

 

[Lord Garth]

I've come to feel that one thing I don't like about binge-watching if it's too bingey is that I don't have time for episodes to really sink in. There's no time for me to process what I've seen because it's off to the races with the next episode. And then, of course, assuming I remember what happens, remembering in which episode it occurred can become challenging.

This is what happened to me with Orange Is the New Black. Every year, from 2013 to 2019, they'd drop an entire new season on Netflix. And I'd watch the new season in under 24 hours. And then never watch the show again until following year when the next season would drop. Rince, repeat.

For a Star Trek example, it's what also happened to me with Enterprise. I basically skipped almost the entire series first-run. I watched the first six episodes, then I was out. "See ya!" Then I binged it during the Holiday Break in 2010, on some website called Watch Trek, where they used to have all the Star Trek episodes in the days before it was on Netflix. Not exactly legal, but I'm talking about this 15 years after the fact. Anyway, I think I binged the show in a week, and absorbed none of it. Like none of it. I might as well have not have even watched. Next time, I binged it in 2020, during the Quarantine. There was nothing else to do. Once again, I binged it in a week. This time I remembered more. My opinion of the first season was mixed, I thought the second season was duuuuulllllll, the third season wasn't my thing, and I thought the fourth season was okay.

In the case of ENT, the binge model worked, even though it didn't. While it's true I didn't retain much, I retained enough to know that if I'd done an ENT Re-Watch Thread like I'm doing a DS9 Re-Watch Thread, and went through it at a similar pace, it would not have been an enjoyable experience for me. If I didn't go through it quickly, I would've given up by somewhere during Season 2 at the latest. I would've been like, "I can't do this!" I might eventually go back and do a TNG Re-Watch Thread or a VOY Re-Watch Thread someday, even though I've already re-watched them. But ENT? Not only "No", but "Hell No!"

If you want to get through something quickly, binging works. If you want to really absorb it, then not so much. I agree. I couldn't tell you a single thing that happens in a specific episode of Orange Is the New Black, just vaguely what happened in each season. I know I liked the first three seasons better than the last four. It never became as over-the-top as Oz -- another prison show, which was on HBO and went pretty ridiculously extreme -- but they started inching closer to that territory from the middle of the series on.

With Prodigy, I didn't mean to binge it the way I did. But every episode ended on a page-turner. So, against my better judgement, I kept thinking, "I have to put on the next one!" And then, somehow, I ended up from Episode 4 of the second season to Episode 17!

I have the same "problem" with a show called The Way Home. It's a Hallmark series about time-travel and three generations of a family. It's kind of like Back to the Future but not. The time-travelling is done through a magical pond. It sounds silly, but it's better than you'd think, and I'm officially hooked on it now. Whenever I watch it, I keep thinking, "I have to put on the next one!"

 

[Turtletrekker]

I know that this is looking somewhat far into the future, but once you finish with DS9, you should include Lower Decks 3.06 Hear All, Trust Nothing and 4.06 Parth Ferengi's Hearth Place as they are the only places to get post finale updates on DS9 characters.

I'm not a fan of binging. I much prefer having the time in between episodes not only to absorb what I've seen, and perhaps even rewatch it once, but for the conversation I get right here at the BBS.

 

[DonIago]

As far as ENT goes, I have it on Blu-ray but I've never even opened it. There are episodes I think I'd be happy to rewatch, but I've been exploring other stuff that I haven't seen before instead. One of these days...

 

[Bad Thoughts]

If you want to get through something quickly, binging works. If you want to really absorb it, then not so much.

In the context of holding onto details within the current season, I think binging is effective. However, those details don't hold, and are easily forgotten once the next season starts.

 

[Lord Garth]

Change of plans. Today didn't go as planned, thanks to the terrible weather, so I have more free time than I thought I would. And I really don't feel like doing anything productive IRL right now, so might as well put on the next episode of Babylon 5 and then... drum roll... "The Search, Part I"!

Depending on how I feel when I get to the end of Part I, I might just decide, "The Hell with it! Why wait? I'm putting on Part II right now!"

 

[Lord Garth]

"TKO" (B5 S1E14)

Spoiler

Definitely a split-personality episode if I've ever seen one. On the one hand, you've got Ivanova being visited by Rabbi Kosvo (a.k.a. Worf's foster-father!) and a subplot where Ivanova hasn't yet grieved the death of her father. On the other hand, we've got Walker Smith, a guy who came from out of nowhere, who's Garabaldi's friend, and he's getting into a boxing match.

These should've been two different episodes in their own right. One a serious character study with Ivanova, her family, and her extended family. The other a fun, silly, goofy, guilty pleasure "let's have a boxing match!" episode. But they just don't go together at all. Serious whiplash going from Ivanova and Kosvo grieving to Walker Smith duking it out in the ring. Either they didn't think the audience would be able to sit through an entire episode of family drama, or they wanted something more serious to counter a silly "we've got a boxing match!" episode. I'm not sure which.

An interesting thing where Babylon 5 differs from Star Trek. Apparently, peace hadn't been achieved on Earth before Humanity became space faring, since Ivanova's father believed Humans had no business going into space until they make peace on Earth. That feels like an entire potential web of things to untangle. It'll be interesting to see if the series does.

Then there's Walker Smith. He's a cool guy. I hope we see him again. But something about him feels very contemporary (to when this was made). And when he's talking to the aliens, he calls one of them E.T. That's something I'd expect from someone in 1994 if they met an alien for the first time, not someone in Babylon 5's 2258 where it's common place.

The highlight of the episode is unraveling the different mental layers of Ivanova, who keeps things very compartmentalized. There's work and then there's her personal life. And her personal life is feels full of disapproved from others over her chosen career and Kosvo stepping in to say how she should grieve. What she does and how she deals with what's in her life is her business. So I sided with Ivanova throughout. I think it would've been nice to have had an entire episode devoted to it.

This is a tough one to rate. The stuff with Ivanova is probably an 8. It could've easily been a 9 or 10, if they went further, but what we have is an 8. The Walker Smith and Garabaldi stuff is a fluffy 6. An 8 and a 6. I'm going to come down the middle and give it a 7.

On to DS9 Season 3!

 

[Lord Garth]

"The Search" Parts I & II

This season premiere was a departure from previous season premieres on both TNG and DS9. It continued from where the previous season left off, like TNG would do, but did so while setting things several weeks later and introduced a ton of new elements at the same time. The Defiant, "a Federation starship with a cloaking device?!", Eddington, and T'Rul (Martha Sackett). As much as I would've liked for T'Rul to have stuck around, I think Martha Sackett got a better deal by playing Seska on the then-upcoming Voyager. With how powerful the Jem'Hadar are, it made sense that Starfleet would send a ship as overpowered as the Defiant. Then there's Eddington, who's brought on to represent Starfleet Security. Odo feels threatened by him. It seems to me like even though Eddington wants to make friends, he's someone who doesn't get that things have to operate differently on DS9 because of their circumstances. In retrospect, I think Eddington acted more Starfleet than Starfleet so no one would think he was really a Maquis, but that's getting ahead of myself. Sticking to the third season!

Even though these two episodes were a shake-up to the series, they felt like an organic shake-up. Sisko having to protect Bajor from the Dominion gives him a tangible and immediate goal that he can be proactive about, in contrast to the role he also has with helping Bajor where he can help them but has to keep a distance of sorts so as to not violate the Prime Directive. The Defiant gives him some sense that maybe he can defend the station. And this episode looks at how Sisko sees himself in Starfleet. Something the first two seasons didn't really do. Dax says it when she says he wants to be in the thick of things. The opposite of an Admiral. Speaking of Admirals, the simulation of Nacheyev dangled the Captain rank in front of Sisko. It sounded strange here, but by the end of the season we'll be thinking "It's about time!" It's almost like Sisko being a Captain bookends the season. It's mentioned here, to put the idea in the audience's minds. Then it actually happens in the season finale, "The Adversary".

Back when DS9 was first airing, I never would've guessed that the third season would be when we'd find out who Odo's people were. Initially, I didn't think Odo's people would be revealed until the end of the series. I thought it would be a running mystery throughout DS9's run. I'm glad it wasn't, because once you reveal Odo's a Changeling and the Changelings run the Dominion, then you can do so much more with that and generate so many more story possibilities. At the end of the two-parter, when Odo finally figures out that he's not as much like his own people as he thought he was, he tells the Female Changeling, "Being an outsider isn't so bad. It gives one a unique perspective." That dialogue speaks as much to me now as it did when I was 15.

Some great scenes with the Defiant. Obviously when the ship was first revealed before the opening credits. But also when the Defiant is cloaked in the Gamma Quadrant, and you can feel the tension when you're wondering if the Dominion ships are going to be able to detect them. Later on, when the Jem'Hadar board the ship, the fight is brutal. More intense and action-packed than any hand-to-hand fights we'd seen in '90s Trek up to this point. And especially with so many of them happening at once. Great choreography, and the Jem'Hadar look extremely formidable. The directing of that scene really made it feel like you were there in the fight, until Kira was knocked unconscious and on Odo's shuttle on the way to the Changeling's home world.

Another thing Dax had noticed in Part I was how passionate Sisko was about things again. We see the payoff for this immediately in Part II when things at first seem to be a little too good to be true between the Federation and the Dominion, only to find out how many strings were attached. "The price is too damned high!" Sisko is going to do what he thinks is right, no matter the cost, and he's not going to be pushed around by the Dominion. Even when I first saw these episodes, back in 1994, I knew something was up. We saw with the Cardassians that the Federation takes forever with treaties. They'd never sign something with the Dominion so fast. They'd never hand Bajor over to the Dominion, or the Wormhole, and they'd never alienate the Romulans in such a manner either. It all felt off. So I was glad that it was all a simulation.

I'm amazed at how well and detailed the surface of the Changeling's home world looked and all the sets there, considering how much of the budget must've also gone into the Defiant sets.

There's probably more, but I'll stop here for now. I'll give these episodes a 9.

 

[Farscape One]

"TKO" (B5 S1E14)

Spoiler

Definitely a split-personality episode if I've ever seen one. On the one hand, you've got Ivanova being visited by Rabbi Kosvo (a.k.a. Worf's foster-father!) and a subplot where Ivanova hasn't yet grieved the death of her father. On the other hand, we've got Walker Smith, a guy who came from out of nowhere, who's Garabaldi's friend, and he's getting into a boxing match.

These should've been two different episodes in their own right. One a serious character study with Ivanova, her family, and her extended family. The other a fun, silly, goofy, guilty pleasure "let's have a boxing match!" episode. But they just don't go together at all. Serious whiplash going from Ivanova and Kosvo grieving to Walker Smith duking it out in the ring. Either they didn't think the audience would be able to sit through an entire episode of family drama, or they wanted something more serious to counter a silly "we've got a boxing match!" episode. I'm not sure which.

An interesting thing where Babylon 5 differs from Star Trek. Apparently, peace hadn't been achieved on Earth before Humanity became space faring, since Ivanova's father believed Humans had no business going into space until they make peace on Earth. That feels like an entire potential web of things to untangle. It'll be interesting to see if the series does.

Then there's Walker Smith. He's a cool guy. I hope we see him again. But something about him feels very contemporary (to when this was made). And when he's talking to the aliens, he calls one of them E.T. That's something I'd expect from someone in 1994 if they met an alien for the first time, not someone in Babylon 5's 2258 where it's common place.

The highlight of the episode is unraveling the different mental layers of Ivanova, who keeps things very compartmentalized. There's work and then there's her personal life. And her personal life is feels full of disapproved from others over her chosen career and Kosvo stepping in to say how she should grieve. What she does and how she deals with what's in her life is her business. So I sided with Ivanova throughout. I think it would've been nice to have had an entire episode devoted to it.

This is a tough one to rate. The stuff with Ivanova is probably an 8. It could've easily been a 9 or 10, if they went further, but what we have is an 8. The Steve Walker and Garabaldi stuff is a fluffy 6. An 8 and a 6. I'm going to come down the middle and give it a 7.

On to DS9 Season 3!

Funny coincidence: my wife and I just watched "TKO" tonight. (She agreed to watch B5 for the first time. And has been enjoying it. Another victory achieved!)