The least disliked episode of DS9 - Season Three

My six hour wait is over, that's it for Past Tense.

I really wonder which episode will win this time, all the remaining ones are good but none stands out to me as especially significantly better than the others unlike Duet which is clearly the best season 1 had to offer imo.

The Search (I)
The House of Quark
The Abandoned
Civil Defense
Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast
The Adversary

 

I don't have the heart to eliminate "THE SEARCH, PART I" because the Defiant was introduced there. She was such a badass.

So my pick for elimination is "THE ABANDONED" for pretty much the same reasons why I got rid of "SHAKAAR"... I feel it is the weakest of the strong episodes left. ("CIVIL DEFENSE" might be my favorite season 3 episode ever, the Odo/Garak two-parter is excellent on every level, "THE HOUSE OF QUARK" is fun and touching, and "THE ADVERSARY" is a great season finale... and Sisko FINALLY is made Captain.)

The Search (I)
The House of Quark
Civil Defense
Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast
The Adversary

 

I'll get rid of The Search (1). It's good, but so is everything else that's left.

The House of Quark
Civil Defense
Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast
The Adversary

 

House of Quark is gone. Nice comedy, some fun performances. There's something cool about Quark getting Klingons to spreadsheet. In some ways, a nice little play on multiculturalism. The premise that Quark must marry Grilka is very thin, and if it weren't for the fifth season episode, it would be inconsequential. Indeed, I can watch Looking for ParMach without worrying about this one.

Civil Defense
Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast
The Adversary

 

The Adversary is gone. Decent enough, but quite average for a season finale. Regardless, the others are better.

Civil Defense
Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast

 

I'll remove "Civil Defense". I find the episode a lot of fun, but it's just not quite on the same level as the other two.

Improbable Cause
The Die is Cast

 

The Die is Cast is out, Improbable Cause wins.

Garak torturing Odo is awful and Garak acting like he doesn't want to but doing it anyway is disgusting. He tried to blame Odo by telling him he can stop this by giving him some information, that's so wrong ...

 

Ok, Improbable Cause is a great episode, but I don't know about his reasoning. The character is doing what it is supposed to, and DS9 is not the Book of Virtues.

You've also written:

There are at least two more episodes in which Garak behaves IN CHARACTER that are still to be judged. One of them is generally considered the series' best. I hope this odd criteria doesn't resurface.

 

1. That Garak behaves in character does not mean I have to like it.

2. I made a choice between two good episodes and had to find a reason why I pick one over the other which is especially hard in this case because it's really one continuous story and this was the reason I found.

3. If the torture stuff was a huge problem for me I would have eliminated this episode MUCH earlier, it's not like I didn't have an opportunity. Don't make a bigger deal oit of this than it is, when only good episodes are left the reasons will appear to be nitpicky, weird or whatever.

4. Hope whatever you want but I will use the criteria I choose, episodes aren't eliminated by consensus, every choice is made by one person alone. I haven't agreed with every choice or every reason given but it's not my place to call someone out.

 

I'm very surprised "Civil Defense" lasted this far. I always felt it was out of place in that it would have fit better as a season one episode when the crew were still becoming accustomed to the station, finding leftover boobytraps and other relics from the occupation.

 

If Garak hadn't tortured Odo, one of the other Cardassians would have done it, hurt him far more and possibly killed him. And, they would not have trusted Garak. Garak torturing Odo saved both their lives.

 

Heh! My immediate response was: "Really? I always thought 'Civil Defense' was regarded as a consensus favorite of season 3, at the start of the round my assumption was that it would end up at least top five or so"

And then a second later I recalled that was exactly how I responded to your post in the season two thread.

Though your reason for not liking it as much totally makes sense to me. I see it from a slightly different angle: what makes "Civil Defense" such a good episode is how well-developed the characters are at that point. The story itself is nothing great, but the whole thing is elevated by how specifically and vividly rendered the relationships are throughout. In season one they didn't yet have a strong enough hold on several of the characters to have been able to pull this episode off, or they just hadn't found things yet (for example, Dukat was still just Cardassian Face On Viewscreen, and playing him off Garak had not yet occurred to anyone)

 

Civil Defense does cash in some credits, but the basic plot is very thin. I'd call it a personal favorite for all the fun dialogue. I know, though,that others don't share that love.

ETA: At least it wasn't eliminate because Garak had bad manners!

 

Can you just stop doing that?

 

Funny, the first response that I had vis a vis "Civil Defense" was "I'm not sure they would have had the budget to pull this off in Season 1."

Certainly the Garak-Dukat enmity works better here than I think it would have earlier in the show, and it's more fun to see a better-established Dukat get betrayed by his own program.

I agree that the plot is thin, but I kind of like that this far in Our Heroes are still getting tripped up by Easter eggs the Cardassians left behind.

 

I compare "CIVIL DEFENSE"" to TNG's "The Arsenal of Freedom", which was another great example of utilizing the entire cast properly... except Wesley, but he honestly didn't need to be in that one.

In TNG's case, that episode was needed at that time to help show how well these characters work together, and develop them a bit because of it. Geordi getting good command experience, Yar truly being a Chief of Security/Tactical Officer and taking charge when the situation was needed, getting family history on Crusher, and so on. It remains a favorite of mine from TNG.

"CIVIL DEFENSE" does exactly the same thing, except I think it is placed EXACTLY right on DS9's lifetime. Any earlier, and we wouldn't have gotten those great lines between Garak and Dukat, and we might not have seen Jake because he wouldn't have his job helping O'Brien. Any later, and I am not sure how Worf would have fit in this scenario. Plus, the argument of it being ridiculous that the crew still had to deal with Cardassian Easter Eggs like that would hold more weight. Having it happen here, they have enough experience with Cardassians to deal with it progressively in the way they did, like Sisko "surrendering" to the computer, but still not realize just how far the program would go and ramp up the danger incrementally as it did.

Personally, it remains in my Top 10 of the series for the reasons I just stated.

 

I still love the replicator surprise sequence.

 

I loved that sequence, too.

 

There are few things in DS9 that I laugh at harder than the slow turn of the other characters to Dukat after he tries to beam away, activating a recording from his Cardassian superior to deactivate his command codes and tell him he's a disgrace to their people.

 

And Dukat's face as soon as the recording says his codes have been deleted.