The least disliked episode of DS9 - season one

[BlueStuff]

This is a game that we play every two years, 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 before you eliminate another episode.

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

Winners
The Original Series - Mirror, Mirror
The Next Generation - All Good Things...
Deep Space Nine -

Season One

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
Dax
The Passenger
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
Progress
If Wishes Were Horses
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[IronMaiden]

I was thinking 2 years you mean as you will do the next show in 2 years, lol.

I will take out Progress, do not like it as i think it was to boring for me and always skip it.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
Dax
The Passenger
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
If Wishes Were Horses
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Shadowboro]

Let me just say from the start that it would be a complete travesty if "Duet" doesn't win this game. Then again, always having the same winner in these kinds of polls can get tedious and boring so it might be good if it got eliminated early on.

Still, I'm not going to be the one to do it (I love Yulin's performance and Kira as a character too much to be able to bring myself to eliminate Duet). I'm going to go with "Dax".

For me Dax episodes were t!he least interesting (most people seem to give that title to ferengi episodes, but I love Armin Shimmerman as Quark and thus will take "The Nagus" over "Dax" any day). Terry Farrell was beautiful but her acting was lacking in the first season (not that she improved much later on, she is still my least favorite DS9 character and while the writers deserved some of the blame for that Terry's acting chops weren't up to the task either).

So considering this episode managed to be even more boring than "Move Along Home" (which at least had an original and interesting premise - being pawns trapped in a mysterious alien board game) I have to give "Dax" an early boot from this game.


Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
The Passenger
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
If Wishes Were Horses
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Tosk]

The Passenger gets my vote. The thin plot is incapable of supporting the wright of Sid's terrible performance.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
If Wishes Were Horses
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Terok Nor]

If Wishes Were Horses is appalling. I almost went for Move Along Home until I remembered that hilarious scene of Sisko and the others skipping along and singing that nursery rhyme.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Bad Thoughts]

How was Move Along Home not removed first? It is often cited as the reason many viewers tuned out in the first season.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Seven of Five]

I'll remove the awful Q-Less. A complete waste of Q and Vash - surely her return would have better served Picard on TNG?

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Terok Nor]

The Storyteller was poor.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

Removing The Forsaken, never liked the Lwaxana episodes.

 

[Seven of Five]

And now The Nagus can go. Some good bits in there compared to the later Wacky-Ferengi-Hijinks-Episodes™, but nevertheless, a lot of fluff too.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Vortex
Battle Lines
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[SoM]

Let's get rid of "Dramatis Personae", the obligatory possession/regulars get to act out of character episode. At least DS9 got theirs out of the way relatively early.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Vortex
Battle Lines
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Terok Nor]

I didn't particularly care for In The Hands Of The Prophets apart from the Winn scenes.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Vortex
Battle Lines
Duet

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'll go with Vortex as it's the least memorable of those left. All the bad episodes are already gone.

Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Battle Lines
Duet

 

[boldygoing]

I'll get rid of Babel, just for Chief O'Brien yelling, "Simple hesitation!"

 

[Tosk]

I'm gonna take out A Man Alone, but we're down to all good episodes now. It's weird to see Odo fearfully retreat from a bunch of extras with bricks.

Emissary
Past Prologue
Captive Pursuit
Battle Lines
Duet

 

[Isolinear]

I removed Battle Lines. Yet another Planet of the Agressive People with awful sets. And they killed off the Kai after only a few episodes. WTH?

Emissary
Past Prologue
Captive Pursuit
Duet

 

[boldygoing]

I'll remove Past Prologue, nice episode for Kira showing her conflicting loyalties and it introduced Garak, but overall meh. I guess my biggest objection is the completely unnecessary use of the Duras Sisters. The first season had too many Next Gen crossovers that just fell flat and didn't let DS9 be its own thing.

Emissary
Captive Pursuit
Duet

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm removing Captive Pursuits because no matter how great it is, it's just a warm up for The Abandoned.

Emissary
Duet

 

[Isolinear]

Then I'm going to remove.....NO!!! I can't choose between these two! One is an emotional masterpiece and the other is the best, epic opening of all the series that has everything that makes Star Trek great.

If it were up to me I would keep Emissary, but Duet is just so good I can't remove it. Dammit, I'm like The Doctor in Latent Image.

 

[Seven of Five]

Does this mean Duet wins then? Or if you're stuck in a loop I can just say I'll vote for Emissary and to make Duet the winner.