It's days like this that I wish I took down detail notes because there's a ton of sparkling dialogue and quotes that truly shine. But why not watch the episodes and you'll see firsthand? "Babel" - this episode reminds me of TNG's season 1 eppy where Wonderboy Wesley contracts a virus generated by the holodeck then gives it to the rest of the crew outside of the holodeck. Thankfully the A-plot from that story ("Angel One") was ignored since nobody has ever done any "battle of the sexes" story right in sci-fi. "Babel", which has an interesting title, is novel in the type of virus that gets spread around and what it does. 8/10 I already mentioned Q-Less, which was good but DS9 had much more it could do without tethering itself to every TNG villain (Hannah Louise Shearer's style is always enjoyable, though.) "Captive Pursuit" was excellent, but the glaring flaw is how the station - with zero programming for anyone from the gamma quadrant, much less replicators that can duplicate broken ship parts into magically working ship parts - could make any communication possible, though kudos to the writers for throwing in some ambiguity. What overcomes the nitpicking is the plot and how it's laid out and told: The "hunt intelligent life as sport" is subverted cleverly as the Tosk are genetically engineered to outwit the hunters. That was pretty cool. The two species are only given so much that's relevant to the story. Does a viewer want to know more? Potentially, but DS9 clearly went with other areas and, yeah, the gamma quadrant is a very big place. What's even more cool was Sisko "doing a Kirk and Picard" simultaneously, regarding how to discipline O'Brien, and then some... Picard is the "by the book" sort, Kirk would always bend the rules for the crew and Sisko overlooking details during O'Brien's escapade fits this perfectly. What's far more cool is saying if O'Brien end runs around him again that he won't be there (using Keiko as the means to convey this is, however, 100% Sisko... and 100% awesome because O'Brien's responses during that last scene shows he's not going to go out of line. The episode is definitely "filler" but those little scenes sprinkled into the episode elevate the story to better levels, and compared to other shows' "filler", DS9's fillers are rarely bland, boring, or lame. "Profit and Lace" might be the exception...) 8/10 "Dax" - oooh, another strong story. This time it's a courtroom drama. It starts with this little piggie Bashir being quite the sailor mouth to Dax about what he can do to keep her up at night (wow, this show rocks for daring to do these scenes even if the show didn't do anything else because the actors nail their lines with aplomb), followed by Dax being kidnapped - which then leads to some great scenes with Sisko and Ilon (and with Kira, too). Granted, anything involving DC Fontana is an insta-win for me and she, with Peter Allen Fields, deliver one of Trek canon's best courtroom stories ever. Having a great guest cast, with the wonderfulness of Anne Haney as the judge, only makes a great story even greater. So far, in DS9's first 8 episodes/7 stories, they've had some top notch directors. And anything David Carson does is definitely going to have a great style. A couple scenes have some overacting by Kira (which is not a dig, overacting is more engaging than underacting and Trek's history is replete with scenery chewing and I've got my bottle of A1 steak sauce with me every time someone tears into the juicy dialogue). The best bit in terms of story narrative is Dax keeping the promise of not revealing the affair. For which Enina tells her to do a favor and live a very long life. If there is a nitpick, Enina is the one who reveals how her hubby had sent the coded message in the attempt to betray his own people leaves a compelling opening for a sequel, yet old in a way that gives the story closure... or at least letting "The Simpsons" tell us a few seasons later how the myth of Jebediah Springfield was better than the reality (it's a great episode, "Lisa the Iconoclast"). That and the whole piece turns the trope of "infidelity creates motive for murder" on its clichéd little head, this is the sort of prime meat that good Trek brings to the table. Now where's that steak sauce? Man, DS9's first three stories are strong on their own but "Dax" is the first 10/10. And to think, in 1993, I skipped so many episodes until "Move Along Home"... then skipping until "The Way of the Warrior" (which then made me a bona fide fan, though at the time the mirror episodes did not appeal... I'm now rather looking forward to seeing those...)