The least disliked episode 2021 - DS9 Season Four

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now able to include Disco's third season as well as the debut years of Picard and Lower Decks. It's generally a lot of fun, providing a chance to mentally revisit those episodes you may not have thought about in a while. With that in mind, why not play again?

So, here's the game. The basic idea is your standard elimination game. I'll provide a list of the episodes for each season and you need to eliminate your least favorite or the one you deem the 'worst.' Please provide an EXPLANATION for why you are eliminating your choice and be sure to copy and paste the list with your choice removed. Finally, leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode just because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Hall of Champions
2011 - In the Pale Moonlight
2013 - In the Pale Moonlight
2017 - Improbable Cause
2019 - Tacking into the Wind
2021 -

Season Four

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Sons of Mogh
Bar Association
Accession
Rules of Engagement
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
The Muse
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

Sons of Mogh is out, I despise the ending, what they did to Kurn without his consent is awful.



The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Accession
Rules of Engagement
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
The Muse
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Seven of Five]

Lwaxana/Odo stuff is somewhat decent, but The Muse is such a silly episode otherwise.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Accession
Rules of Engagement
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Swedish Borg]

I am disengaging "Rules of Engagement" for the total absurdity of the plot.

1) The Klingons were attacking a convoy, they're the ones who should be on trial. Let them stand trial for attacking a peaceful convoy and then we'll see.

2) Admiral stupid shouldn't be willing to conduct (at the prompting of the mustache-twirling Klingon advocate) what basically amounts to a thoughtcrime trial.

3) You don't extradite one of your own toward an enemy no matter what they've done. That's pure nonsense.


The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Accession
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Qonundrum]

Yes, this story hits all the emotional moments. But there's a problem... or at least two. While one small issue in the episode might otherwise be passable (involving the treknobabble setup), the whole story goes out of its way* to pretend a bigger problem doesn't exist. A problem in that the guest star of the week just sits there listening to and takes at complete face value a complete stranger that, to the perspective of most people in-universe if not the audience, would come across as being senile. A senile old dawdling guy contemplating suicide that's involving a fantastic delusion that there will be time travel and daddy will magically come back, in fact. Or even if Jake wants to rejoin daddy, it's still contemplating suicide. She just sits there and does nothing about it, not even scurrying to call the local psych ward while he went off to make some fresh tea or get rid of old tea in the bathroom. Now that's trust on a whole new level. Or insanity. Or the 24th century is so commonplace with incidents like this that she takes it at face value - which, from our perspective, we can otherwise arguably buy into, but she's not watching 600+ episodes of Star Trek episodes to really know what sort of weird stuff is out there...

That said, there are some messages and points of intrigue that are genuinely excellent, and the acting is above first rate - no question. But the major plot point of "Ho hum, twiddle-dee-dee, I'll just sit and grin while listening to this guy I claim to admire want to go off himself under a contrived and kooky delusion of the sort that's never been recorded in any captain's log before." is too much to believe.

That, and "The Visitor" has nothing to do with lizards in human suits wanting to take over and eat everyone as take-out.

* like how TOS "Court Martial" was avoiding the issue of rigged logs, and TNG's "Contagion" holding back on computer viruses because those stories would otherwise end 40 minutes too early.


What's left:
The Way of the Warrior
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Accession
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[BlueStuff]

The only really bad episode of this fantastic season is already gone (The Muse) but I'll boot out Shattered Mirror. DS9 MU episodes were fun, but unnecessary.

The Way of the Warrior
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Accession
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Swedish Borg]

I am deaccessioning*: "Accession"...

1) I am not a big fan of the prophet claptrap in general and this one is nothing special.

2) Kira's birds were just awful! A five-year-old kid could do better in their sleep.

3) Why didn't Sisko ask the prophets to unkill the poor guy that was pushed by Vedek psycho? If anyone deserved to have his life back that would be him, not poet civil-war there. What sick asshole would give such orders and not expect people to die as a result?

* clever, isn't it?



The Way of the Warrior
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
The Sword of Kahless
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

Noooo! The Visitor is already gone I wanted to kill it so bad. But I can still complain about how they sidelined Cirroc Lofton and replaced him with Tony Todd who looks NOTHING like him, how the episode is a pointless reset time travel story, how Ben acting like Jake aging to an old man close to death in an hour (from Ben's perspective) is totally normal makes no sense ...

I'll get rid of The Sword of Kahless as a consolation price, I never cared about any of this klingon stuff, it's all stupid.



The Way of the Warrior
Hippocratic Oath
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Qonundrum]

Noooo! The Visitor is already gone I wanted to kill it so bad. But I can still complain about how they sidelined Cirroc Lofton and replaced him with Tony Todd who looks NOTHING like him, how the episode is a pointless reset time travel story, how Ben acting like Jake aging to an old man close to death in an hour (from Ben's perspective) is totally normal makes no sense ...

I'd read with equal interest any post going into six paragraphs on that story's plot problems. Ben's perspective alone is an oddball worthy of that in its own right.

Maybe Jake got a facelift!

 

[Qonundrum]

The season's first nigh-on-stinkeroo is Hippocratic Oath. There was something plodding about it, and the big problem with introducing an internal weakness... um, look up Cybermen's shiny aversion to gold. Or kryptonite. Because that's the go-to maguffin, every single time. I can't dislike it too much; the Worf subplot is easily the better plot to the story, the Bashir/O'Brien argument isn't exactly bad, and the theme of overcoming drug addiction is still noble - but I'd argue a later episode fleshing that aspect out, leaving this one just to introduce a need for blood serum to survive. Then to build on that later would have arguably been better.

What's left:
The Way of the Warrior
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

Maybe Jake got a facelift!

Then Cirroc Lofton could have played old Jake without old people make up.

Casting Tony Todd as Jake is really the worst, it's not just that he and Lofton look nothing alike, it also doesn't make sense when Bashir, Dax and Nog don't get recast and just get plastic wrinkles and ill fitting All Good Things leftover uniforms. By casting Todd the producers basically told the world that Lofton couldn't carry the episode and they needed a stronger actor, that's not very nice.

 

[Orphalesion]

Bye, bye "Our Man Bashir" You know sometimes I really want to punch Julian in the face for his terrible taste in everything.

What's left:
The Way of the Warrior
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Bar Association
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Seven of Five]

Bar Association has some good Rom material, but it's the weakest one left for me.

The Way of the Warrior
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Crossfire
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Removing Crossfire. All the bad episodes are already gone. This is just not a very interesting one. One of the ‘Crazy for a day’ sitcom tropey episodes and develops romance with Shakaar the Boring.

What's left:
The Way of the Warrior
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

Rejoined, this episode is offensive. Oh, look, Jadzia's kissing a woman, Star Trek is sooooo progressive ... except that the women are not attracted to each other, their belly slugs are and they remember being in a straight relationship because Trek liked to talk about being progressive even though it was not, they didn't want a not straight character but via the magic of convoluted storytelling we get a lesbian kiss on screen anyway.
And then they have the audacity to throw in "What's the problem, it's not a big deal" dialog, really Star Trek? Because apparently it's such a big deal that you turn a kiss between to women into forbidden slug love to keep Jadzia straight.



The Way of the Warrior
Indiscretion
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[BlueStuff]

Indiscretion; just the weakest of what's left.

The Way of the Warrior
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Orphalesion]

The Way of the Warrior, because it injected an extra dose of Klingon crap into DS9 and, I liked Worf well enough on TNG, but adding him to DS9 was a bit much, imho and he didn't contribute all that much to the series, except that awkward Worf/Jadzia romance which I could have done without.

Starship Down
Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Swedish Borg]

"Starship Down" because Kira's story was so boring that Sisko should have sunk even deeper into a coma. The Worf subplot on how to give orders to get results is idiotic for one very simple reason, these are engineers, they are smart and they know one thing right now, if they don't do their job right, THEY'LL DIE!!! Do they really need more incentive than that?

I've never seen diodes this size!!! Someone should tell something to these aliens about MINIATURIZATION!!!

Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Farscape One]

This is tough, because I feel this is the strongest season in the franchise.

I take out "BROKEN LINK" only because the consequence that Odo gets only lasts half a season and is not explored as much as it could have been. (Not really the episode's fault, but I had to find a reason.)


Little Green Men
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts

 

[Orphalesion]

Not a fan of Little Green Men tbh, It IS quite clever to have the Ferengi be the origin of the Roswell UFO phenomenon, but all those "hijinks" and "commentary" on primitive humanity aren't my thing.

Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts