Though I will say, pretty much every last bit of the Garak-Ziyal relationship creeped the crap out of me. Dude! She's practically a kid! Did they have to try that hard to prove that Garak wasn't interested in Bashir?
My fav Garak/Bashir moment was always Garak showing up in Bashir's bedroom in the middle of the night in "Cardassians", and Bashir's casual reaction. It's quite clearly not the first time Garak has let himself into the bedroom at that hour...
The Garak/Ziyal stuff is so odd to me, mostly because I can't really make sense of what the writers were aiming for; ostensibly, it was intended to be a romantic relationship (and there is definitely a small segment of Trek fans who view it as a grand romance) but it gets fumbled so badly. Setting aside the politics behind the decision to pair Garak up with a female love interest, as well as the questionable practice of aging the character up to put her in a relationship (or, at least, re-casting older actors for the role), it is never fully clear just what kind of relationship it is, and this lack of clarity seems like a failure on the part of the writers rather than any kind of deliberate ambiguity.
While Ziyal's feelings for Garak are clearly romantic, Garak comes across as conflicted/ambivalent toward her attention, and at times even completely disinterested. Granted, he's a character who thrives on obfuscation; he plays his cards close to the vest (and also likely doesn't feel like he deserves to be loved) and maybe that's what the writers were aiming for, but if that's the case, it doesn't quite translate. His dynamic with her reads more paternal than anything else. If Ziyal had stuck around for the rest of the series, it likely would have developed into something more, but of course that isn't what happened, and what we got was two characters who do not seem to be on the same page.
At any rate, they really did Ziyal dirty in general. She had so much potential, but instead she got sent to an early grave so Dukat could tragically unravel and go full Space Aleister Crowley.
I always felt like I was clear on what Garak's feelings towards Ziyal were, but, given that it's so differently interpreted in the fandom, I suppose it must be more ambiguous than I originally thought. But I always perceived it as Garak seeing her feelings as hopeless, without any romantic potential between them (Garak is bi- or pansexual in my headcanon) -- just because he had enough life experience to understand that this sweet, naive young innocent could never be in a real relationship with a man of his age, who's had such a vastly different life experience as compared to hers. There's notes of wistfulness -- maybe it would be nice to be the kind of person that could be in a relationship with Ziyal -- but clarity that he wasn't that person, and never would be.
But there's also genuine affection and maybe even love for her, but only as a friend, and as his only in-person connection to another Cardassian. And the friendship motivates him to handle her romantic feelings gently.
The writers really tripped themselves up with that idea that they needed to make Ziyal into a paragon of perfect sweetness and innocence and light, in order for us to care about her tragic death. It doesn't make it more sad, it just makes her harder to relate to. Not to mention, the girl grew up as a slave in a forced labor camp! They never did the work of explaining how she came out of that seemingly brutal experience with such a sunny disposition and naive worldview.
AND the version of Ziyal that's a little more jagged, a little darker, would be a version of Ziyal that might have actually fit with Garak, so that's another missed opportunity.
I also agree I find it odd when people perceive Ziyal/Garak as a grand, sweeping love story. She kissed him once, and he was NOT into it!
As for my next elimination, I will save
"The Changing Face Of Evil," for the awesomeness of Damar's speech at the end, one of the great DS9 moments.
TNG Season 6: "Chain Of Command, Part I"
TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 1: "Past Prologue"
DS9 Season 2: "The Homecoming"
DS9 Season 2: "Profit And Loss"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis, Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis, Part II"
DS9 Season 3: "Second Skin"
DS9 Season 3: "Defiant"
DS9 Season 3: "Destiny"
DS9 Season 3: "Improbable Cause"
DS9 Season 3: "The Die Is Cast"
DS9 Season 4: "Indiscretion"
DS9 Season 4: "Return To Grace"
DS9 Season 5: "Things Past"
DS9 Season 5: "The Darkness And The Light"
DS9 Season 5: "By Inferno's Light"
DS9 Season 5: "Ties Of Blood & Water"
DS9 Season 5: "Empok Nor"
DS9 Season 6: "A Time To Stand"
DS9 Season 6: "Rocks And Shoals"
DS9 Season 6: "Behind The Lines"
DS9 Season 6: "Favor The Bold"
DS9 Season 6: "Sacrifice Of Angels"
DS9 Season 6: "Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night"
DS9 Season 7: "Penumbra"
DS9 Season 7: "Til Death Do Us Part"
DS9 Season 7: "Strange Bedfellows"
DS9 Season 7: "When It Rains..."
DS9 Season 7: "Tacking Into The Wind"
DS9 Season 7: "The Dogs Of War"
DS9 Season 7: "What You Leave Behind"
VOY Season 1: "State Of Flux"
VOY Season 2: "Maneuvers"
VOY Season 2: "Investigations"
VOY Season 2: "Basics, Part I"
VOY Season 3: "Basics, Part II"
VOY Season 5: "Nothing Human"
I could see it taking place on DS9, a plot to retake the station or at least sow chaos, but I found it questionable that it'd all take place on an abandoned station. A series of very convenient events to facilitate a "horror" episode, but it just missed the mark for me. A team even slightly more prepared would have captured the Cardassians and given the Federation a bounty of biological and intelligence data that the Union would have very much not wanted them to have. It doesn't make sense that they'd be left there, trap or abandoned or otherwise. Too much risk with too little gain (which is to say, almost none).
