The least disliked episode of DS9 - Season Four

[BlueStuff]

This is a game that we play every few years or so, and 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, and wait at least 6 hours after your last vote, before voting again.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode 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 -

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

 

[BigDaveX]

Remembering how poor The Muse was inspired me to eliminate it first. The Jake story is just bland, and the Lwaxana/Odo story bland and annoying. It's also not the best exit for Lwaxana, who I actually really like as a character, but outside of "Half a Life" and "Dark Page" over on TNG, and "The Forsaken" on this stories, she (and Majel Barrett) were severely let down by the stories they gave her.

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
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Taking out "Bar Association". I like Ferengi episodes but this wasn't among my favorites.


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
Accession
Rules of Engagement
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

I'm removing Sons of Mogh, the ending was awful. What they did to Kurn was so unethical, Worf had no right to make that choice and Bashir should have refused.

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
Accession
Rules of Engagement
Hard Time
Shattered Mirror
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Removing Sword of Kahless. One of those episodes where characters mental ages are reduced to six for the episode. The idea that this sword would somehow bring a great new era for the Klingon Empire is extremely silly and none of the characters questioned it. Plus they started fighting each other like children without any established mind-affecting powers the sword had. Just a really terrible episode, and they retconned Worf's act of mercy on Toral into a silly moment of weakness.

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

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm removing Shattered Mirror. The Mirror Universe was overused, and I'm not sure what this episode adds to those previously done. There's something cut and paste about it: what is our Ferengi going to do this episode? Who will the intendant seduce? Finally, the actress who plays Jennifer Sisko is weak.

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

 

[Sakonna]

I'll toss Rules Of Engagement. It's an OK episode, but it deflates itself with the end revelation that it was all a sinister fraud designed to discredit Worf. They had some interesting ideas, totally fumbled in the actual writing of the script.

Also:

There's something cut and paste about it: what is our Ferengi going to do this episode? Who will the intendant seduce?

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

 

[Farscape One]

Season 4 was a superb season to me. Virtually all episodes were great, in my opinion. And frankly, I have to choose between the least favorite among the greats... which I suppose IS the point of this game.

So I will shoot down "CROSSFIRE". Odo pining for Kira during this episode just retracted from his character, in my opinion. And making mistakes at his job because of it, while realistic enough, left a bad taste in my mouth.

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

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'll eliminate Hippocratic Oath for the same childishness reasons, Worf acts completely unprofessional and it feels really out of character.

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

 

[Seven of Five]

I'll take away For The Cause. I liked The Maquis story but this was an average episode for me.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
Hard Time
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[Farscape One]

Six hours have passed for me.

This is getting tough. I will remove "REJOINED". I found it odd to see Eddington doing engineering instead of security. I kind of saw the ending coming, but it didn't really take away from the episode. Just made it sort of predictable. I did live the standibg on a force field effect, though.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Indiscretion
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
Hard Time
To the Death
The Quickening
Body Parts
Broken Link

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Eliminating Body Parts

Not to be the guy who kicks out all the Ferengi episodes. They have honestly been my least favorite episode left every time I have. In a season that's pretty uniformly strong, it's a very weak premise.

Don't worry, I have nothing against Little Green Men.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Indiscretion
Rejoined
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
Hard Time
For the Cause
To the Death
The Quickening
Broken Link

 

[Seven of Five]

So I guess I'll take Indiscretion. I like a lot of the Kira/Dukat scenes, and I also like Ziyal, but this is probably the weakest episode left.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
Hard Time
To the Death
The Quickening
Broken Link

 

[Wowbagger]

I'll get rid of "Accession." I like everything on the list, but "Accession" suffered from having too many ideas to execute in one hour. Most were good, but the result was muddy at times.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Hard Time
To the Death
The Quickening
Broken Link

 

[retroenzo]

Accession's gotta go. I'm not a huge fan of Bajoran religion/politics but even this one was a poor example of it.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
Hard Time
To the Death
The Quickening
Broken Link

 

[kkt]

There are no bad episodes left, but Hard Time doesn't quite rise to greatness to me. O'Brien suffers horribly, yes. His cellmate was well played. But I am not fond of the "and then he woke up" ending, or how the life-changing 20 years of hard time never got mentioned again when it should have been part of O'Brien's character from then on.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Accession
To the Death
The Quickening
Broken Link

 

[DonIago]

Everyone talks about Accession, but nobody accessed it...

Taking out "The Quickening". It's good character work, but I'm not typically fond of what are essentially single-character stories, and I find the whole A-story uncomfortable enough that I have trouble rewatching the episode. Though it does a great job of elaborating on Dominion concepts of justice.

The Way of the Warrior
The Visitor
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
To the Death
Broken Link

 

[Takeru]

I'm taking out The Visitor, it's an irrelevant reset button episode showing an alternate future, it replaces Cirroc Lofton with Tony Todd which shouldn't have happened, everyone else gets old people make up, Lofton gets slapped with a recast. Sisko's behavior is completely unbelievable, from his perspective he watches his son age to an old man in a matter of ... a day or two? But instead of being panicked or worried he seems to be oddly calm.
I know this episode gets a lot of love from others but I don't know why, every remaining episode is way more enjoyable.


The Way of the Warrior
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
To the Death
Broken Link

 

[BigDaveX]

Gonna have to slap down the death penalty on To the Death. It was nice to see the Jem'Hadar fleshed out a little more, and of course did the important job of introducing Weyoun, but other than that it's essentially a 40-minute build-up to an anticlimax.

The Way of the Warrior
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Return to Grace
Broken Link

 

[Trek Survivor]

Season 4 is one of the best, but this is an easy one for me - goodbye "Return to Grace". It and "Starship Down" are definitely the weakest links still here.

The Way of the Warrior
Starship Down
Little Green Men
Our Man Bashir
Homefront
Paradise Lost
Broken Link