The least disliked episode 2021 - DS9 Season Seven

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 Seven

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Chrysalis
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Prodigal Daughter
The Emperor's New Cloak
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Tacking Into the Wind
Extreme Measures
The Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Locking torpedoes on "Tacking into the Wind", because it craps on both Gowron (who I've liked since TNG) and Martok (I don't see the honor in Worf killing the Chancellor and then installing him... makes him seem like a puppet.

 

Bye The Emporer's New Cloak. It' both a very limp end to the Mirror Universe arc, whilst at the same time being another dodgy Ferengi episode. Intendent Kira and everyone deserved a better send-off than the silliness they had.

I've also removed Tacking in the Wind from the list as Oddish forgot to post an updated list.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Chrysalis
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Prodigal Daughter
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Extreme Measures
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Oooops. Thanks, Seven.

 

Chrysalis. Even when he was constantly hitting on Dax back in Season 1, Bashir didn't come across nearly as creepy as he did in this episode.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Prodigal Daughter
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Extreme Measures
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

"Take Me Out to the Holosuite" is taken out... of the list. Because it doesn't make sense that a responsible grown-up be so upset by the taunting of another. It's character assassination, it shows that apparently deep down Sisko is still a kid. The Vulcan is caricatural. Vulcans are supposed to be above that kind of stuff. Hell, normal adults are supposed to be above that!!!

Plus the episode is boring and the ending is stupid. So they pretend that they won and taunt the taunter...

All this nonsense so that Sisko and crew could basically say: "Same to you!".

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Prodigal Daughter
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Extreme Measures
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Prodigal Daughter is around the time Ezri started wearing out her welcome. This should have been O'Brien's episode being as he interacted with Bilby back in Honor Among Thieves.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Extreme Measures
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

"Extreme Measures" Man, that final arc was rolling along, each episode seemed better than the one before, peaking with the incredible "Tacking Into The Wind" -- and then it slams into this time-wasting mess. Such a letdown.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Field of Fire
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

"Field of Fire" or how to solve a mystery... with nonsense.

They have pictures of laughing/smiling people!!

(Who the hell DOESN'T have pictures of happy people!!!)

So it's someone who hates laughter
(Oh really!)

It's a Vulcan!

Yeah, Sherlock holmes got nothing on these "two"...


Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Chimera
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Bdda-Bing-Badda-Bang. The Abomination didn't need his own episode.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Covenant
It's Only a Paper Moon
Chimera
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Covenant - even compared to how off-the-rails Dukat's story arc went after Waltz, his taking the time out to start some kind of doomsday cult just feels really weird and out of place.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
It's Only a Paper Moon
Chimera
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

I'm tossing Chimera because it feels like more of the same. Once again, we meet a Changling who comes to the station for a while. Said Changling enchants Odo, then tries to convince Odo to leave his miserable life here. Changling does something and has to be made to leave. Odo chooses to stay on DS9. Hmm...been there, done that.

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Afterimage
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
It's Only a Paper Moon
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Removing Afterimage.

"We need something for a counselor to do, who knows about psychology?"
"I know about pop psychology!"
"Good enough."

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
It's Only a Paper Moon
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Unfortunately It's Only a Paper Moon. The stuff about Nog being in denial and coming to terms with his lost leg are good, but the episode gets ruined due to excessive use of the Abomination (Vic).

Image in the Sand
Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Image in the Sand is erased. As a season premiere, it fell flat.

Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
The Siege of AR-558
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

"The Siege of AR-558"... Yeah, war is bad, we get it...

Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Penumbra
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Penumbra, as it's one of those episodes whose main function is providing exposition and set-up for the episodes which follow, and thus isn't terribly memorable by itself.

Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Once More Unto the Breach
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

What I dislike about this episode is that it ignores basically all Star Trek technology to do a 20th century siege.

 

Once More Unto the Breach. More dimly lit Klingon Crap. No.

Shadows and Symbols
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind

 

Removing Shadows and Symbols. The whole wandering in the desert thing felt a bit too magic.

If I get another elimination it will start to get tough to remember what happened in what episode during the final sequence.

Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Til Death Do Us Part
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Dogs of War
What You Leave Behind