It's got ups and downs but some absolutely solid episodes. Personally I really enjoy: Take me out to the holosuite Once More Unto The Breach Siege of AR-558 Badda-Bing Badda-Bang Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges Strange Bedfellows Tacking Into The Wind (Maybe my favorite of the season) Extreme Measures Dogs of War However... The season also went ahead and categorically fucked the entire ending of the series, I never cared for the entire Pah-Wraith, Kai Winn, Dukat bizarro subplot, the whole thing really just in my humble opinion, I don't think should have been done and while there's a lot I love in "What You Leave Behind" that whole thing soured the end to the greatest Trek series ever made.
Dukut was a great character with all the hybris and exaggerated opion of himself. His character went down the drain when he turned into Anjohl. At least it was hilarious when Winn found out whom she beded...... We had Marc Alaimo already without prosthetics. He should have remained Dukat until the final. Killing off Jadzia that late was bad for the development of Ezri's character. I loved most of the Klingon-centered episodes. But Jadzia had a better understanding of the Klingon culture than Ezri. And I really hated the Erzi-Worf hookup. It was good to see Worf coming to terms with the fact that his wife is gone and Ezri is completely different. The Jack Pack was hilarious, too. Bashir hassled Sarina into leaving the station. But I'd like to have seen another episode with Jack, Lauren, "Admiral Patrick" and Sarina.....
I think what slowed it down was the necessity of developing Ezri's character, backstory and relationships. However I'd say that in the last 10 episodes or so it picked up to a very good conclusion. In terms of pacing-I like it-it builds up slowly with the aftermath of season 6 and then accelerates until the grand finale.
Season Seven is a mixed bag for me, but the loss of Jadzia makes it needlessly awkward for me. I love the character so much and just as things are wrapping up, she's abruptly and unceremoniously taken off the show. What would TOS have been like had there been no Spock in Season 3? That's what it feels like ... going through the motions, but the spirit and the flavour were radically altered because of it all. With Ezri just a blank spot where Jadzia used to be. The pah-wraith thing became so cartoonish, with Dukat even getting surgery to pass for the cult leader and his affair with Kai Winn and all that ... I'm just glad that the show was able to tie up all the loose ends by the close of it, where there was no real excuse to bring it back, or have a movie, or anything. Just kind of awkward otherwise, however you want to look at it ...
Love it. It's definitely better than Seasons 1-3. The war, the strong supporting characters, etc. There's not much I don't like about this season. I would have to rewatch it to even pick out bad episodes. Nothing from the episode guide stands out.
It's my 2nd or 3rd favorite after 6 and possibly 5. It has so much greatness in it that I have to figure it has some irritation factors that ruin it for some people, obscuring the good stuff. I did like it when they edged in the direction of becoming mystical... as long as they didn't cross that line completely, leaving SF for the supernatural. I think they went too far with it. Things became too magical and melodramatically good-vs-evil, especially the big Dukat-Sisko showdown. I liked the ambiguity, where we were tempted to class the Prophets as real gods... it's when actual magic starts happening that I lost my SF show...
I wouldn't go so far as to say I hated it, but it felt like a bit of a let down after season 6. It didn't help that I wasn't a big fan of Ezri as a character, nor of her romance with Bashir. I also wasn't keen on the direction they went with Dukat. But then they'd been switching him up on an ongoing basis for the whole show. One minute he's the bad guy, next he's redeeming himself and helping Sisko, then he's the bad guy again, then he's helping again ....
Dukat as a blind beggar on the streets on Bajor, what a great end that would have been for him. One great thing about s7 was that this was when circumstances changed so that all the hidden motivations of the "villains" could come out. After these people have been toying with us and Star Fleet for 6 years, rationalizing, legitimizing, the masks finally come off. That's part of what makes DS9 a long unfolding story rather than just a show that ran 7 years.
I love season 7! I have only the last episode to watch now and so far this season has been very exciting. Lot of action and some really interesting arcs which have made it almost difficult to wait for watching the next episode (if your evening time is up and you just have to sleep a few hours before going to work next day). The Pah-Wraith thing was a bit of mumbo-jumbo but it actually created some really good episodes and it also gave us one of the most charming couples in Star Trek: Gul Dukat and Kai Winn! Not to mention that the Federation and it's allies finally started to beat the s**t out of the Dominion. The change of Damar from Cardassian brute to freedom fighter was positive and the most heart-breaking was how Bashir and O'Brien did put down so much effort in saving Odo's life. I miss Jadzia, not so happy that she was killed off but I really like Ezri who's a great addition to the crew. The sad thing is that tonight it will be over. I will watch the end episodes between the ongoing football WC games. Then I'll wait a week before I watch "Emissary" again and here we go!
I agree with most of what you have written but I wasn't too fond of Bashir's genetic altered "buddies". They were creepy, more like something out of the X-files (which I actually love) than Star Trek.
The part which I found interesting about was.... hey they have made many progresses in the 24th century, but they don't know what to do with this group. Alexander Siddig wasn't fond of the genetically enhanced thing either.
They never hooked uped, they just got really drunk and thought they hooked up. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Whatever really happened between them. I like that Worf overcame his hostile attitude towards Ezri. They became friends later. Worf had to deal with Jadzia's death first and Ezri struggled with her forced joining with Dax
Just watched the last episode. Incredible exciting but it was sad with all those goodbyes at the end. I wish that they all had remained on the station and that Sisko, Odo and O'Brien only would leave for some time.
I'm glad they tied up a lot of the loose ends. From that point of view it was a great finale. "Even Quark."
I like how it's a season of two halves. The first half has many stand-alone episodes like traditional Trek but then the second half goes full on serialization for 9 straight episodes until the end.
Yes, they really had to give up the regular format at some point, and go to a serialized extended story, approaching the end of the war. I wish they'd done it earlier. It always got me how they'd go off on some tangent even in the middle of a huge war, in seasons 6 and 7. Like baseball, like doing their own Oceans 11. Apparently total war only interferes with hobbies at the very end...
Loved the more serialized story telling. I remember when it aired how TPTB finally let them write DS9 the way they wanted to for years, though only because it was almost over and they cared more about Voyager. Hated the whole Siskos mom storyline. I think him having chosen Bajor of his own free will was far more compelling than it having been his destiny all along. And him disappearin at the end... ugh. I’d rather they killed him. At first I hated Ezri but she’s grown on me. How Jadzia died is still a huge shame but her death made the war more “real” and gave Worfs character some (more) conflict. Cause as much as I loved them together, had she lived where would their story have gone in the 7th season? Their happy married life wouldn’t have juxtaposed well against the backdrop of the war. Overall I thought it was a good season. Five and six are still my favorites though.