Game The Most Disliked Maquis Episode

[Sakonna]

THE OBJECTIVE: A sudden-death elimination game in which we remove our personal favorite episodes from a themed list, until we arrive at the episode that is, if not the worst, at least the most disliked.

THE RULES: Below is a list of Maquis episodes on TNG, DS9, and VOY.

Eliminate/save your favorite, or the one you deem the ‘best.’
Post something you love about the episode you are saving, and copy-and-paste the list with your choice removed.

You can use any standard you like to judge which option is "best." You can save episodes for being widely recognized “best Trek” classics, or for idiosyncratic qualities that no one appreciates but you.

But -- no tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode because you don’t think anyone else will, or because you feel it would threaten your preferred episode's chance to “win.”

You can take multiple turns. Leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

New players are always welcome, you do not have to already be a "most disliked game" regular to dive in.

Enjoy!

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 3: "Defiant"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "For The Uniform"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 2: "Dreadnought"
VOY Season 3: "Worst Case Scenario"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Bah! I’m out!

I’ve seen all the above, but not in a decade. I’m waiting until 2066 for the 100th anniversary remasters of DS9/VOY and I don’t recollect anything at all about the TNG episodes on there…

Until the next game!

 

[1001001]

I'll remove Dreadnought. I love this episode. The back and forth with the missile is great stuff.

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 3: "Defiant"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "For The Uniform"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 3: "Worst Case Scenario"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[at Quark's]

Always liked Worst Case Scenario.

Yes, it is Yet Another Holodeck episode, and not with terribly deep concepts and all, but at least this time it's from the perspective of people that have to rewrite a holodeck adventure under tight time constraints, or else, Our Heroes will Die.

Tuvok writes a deadly serious training scenario and the crew picks up on it as the greatest thing in entertainment since the invention of sliced bread - a fairly typical dash of the kind of humor Voyager could sometimes insert into its better scripts.

Figures that Seska wouldn't let a tiny detail like being dead prevent her from getting her revenge.

All in all, a fun episode.

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 3: "Defiant"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "For The Uniform"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Farscape One]

"WORST CASE SCENARIO" has always been a favorite because it's so much fun.

I'm going to save an episode that still gets hotly debated today... "FOR THE UNIFORM".

I think Sisko did the right thing under the curcumstances, given that the alternative was to wait for the Maquis to poison other planets and kill who knows how many other Cardassians.

My wife, though, thinks he should have lost his commission, and was shocked no one spoke out against him on the bridge. Since what he was doing was technically illegal, hunting them down in the DMZ, and he was just taken off the Eddington assignment, she has a point. I simply disagree.

Still, fun to debate these things, and few episodes in the franchise get debated like this one. That alone is a good batometer for an episode's worth.



TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 3: "Defiant"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Seven of Five]

Defiant has it all. The reappearance of Thomas Riker, who hijacks the Defiant. A tense situation where Sisko and Dukat have to work together to find Riker. A cool moment where Dukat discovers that the Obsidian Order is stockpiling ships.

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part I"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Sakonna]

I'm glad "Dreadnought" was already saved, my absolute favorite on this list. (Also, my brain just generated a whole Dreadnought meets Drednok bit)

Free's me up to save "The Maquis, Part I", which I really have to do for being the big episode for SAKONNA. Also, it is great! A real level-up moment for DS9.

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Prime Factors"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Summer Solstice]

So many good episodes in this game! And many good ones already saved.

I'm saving Prime Factors. There is conflict about whether the Maquis way or the Starfleet way is better. It sets up 'State of Flux' really well. I love Tuvok's use of logic to justify doing something he knows Janeway will hate. The only question I have is after Seska changed her appearance to look Cardassian, why didn't she return to Sikaris, pretend to be someone else, and use the transporter to get to the Beta Quadrant?

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[at Quark's]

^ Possibly, Seska was more interested in building a position of power for herself, than in returning home. She may have seen a good or even unique opportunity in leveraging the easily manipulated Kazons to that end. Her options in the Beta quadrant wouldn't necessarily have been better.

Eliminating VOY Season 6: "The Voyager Conspiracy" . Voyager satirizing fans pushing theories based on scant evidence just a bit too far and picking on conspiracy theorists and telling a good Seven story all at the same time - that must be a worthwile watch!

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
TNG Season 7: "Preemptive Strike"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Vger23]

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
DS9 Season 2: "The Maquis Part II"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

"Preemptive Strike" was one of the best episodes of TNG S7 (and S6 for that matter). It was a really good wrap-up to the Ro character, it mixed in well with what was going on in the broader Trek universe (DS9), and it had a powerful, relatable emotional core that worked excellently.

 

[CoveTom]

Part I has already been saved, so I'll save "The Maquis, Part II." I always enjoyed that two-parter, particularly some of the interplay between Dukat and Sisko. Really good, especially for a relatively early DS9 effort.

TNG Season 7: "Journey's End"
DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Sakonna]

There's recency bias at play here, but I just rewatched "Journey's End" for the first time in forever, and it was much better than I remembered. It's been out of my rotation so long it was truly like watching a new episode for the first time, which is giving it a bit of a halo today. The treatment of Native Americans is problematic, but surprisingly not as problematic as so many Chakotay episodes of Voyager (some of the things Paris says to him in "Caretaker", eesh, way worse than this).

I was also surprised by how much good Beverly material there is here. In my memory, she had like one scene.

DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Caretaker"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Farscape One]

"CARETAKER" is, overall, the best pilot of the franchise. Having the Maquis explained and created in the tv season before VGR debuted was a genius move, because it eliminated the need to do exposition that would have taken too long for this story to work.


DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
DS9 Season 5: "Blaze Of Glory"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[CoveTom]

"CARETAKER" is, overall, the best pilot of the franchise. Having the Maquis explained and created in the tv season before VGR debuted was a genius move, because it eliminated the need to do exposition that would have taken too long for this story to work.

Agreed. And not only that, but the Maquis were developed across two series, TNG and DS9, to properly develop them for Voyager.

Which makes it all the more said that Voyager promptly dumped any significant use of the Maquis storyline and the potential it offered. DS9 made far better use of the Maquis, IMHO, than Voyager.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I'm a big fan of DS9's "Blaze Of Glory". Pairing Sisko up with Eddington was a fantastic idea and it gives the Maquis storyline a proper conclusion.

DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 4: "Hunters"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Summer Solstice]

I love 'Hunters' so much I wanted it to be a two-part episode so they could really look at how the former Maquis characters would feel.

DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 2: "Alliances"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Farscape One]

"ALLIANCES" is excellent. Until Janeway's speech at the end.



DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 5: "Extreme Risk"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Sakonna]

Saving "Extreme Risk", for how charming I found the recent Delta Flyers pod on it. Roxann Dawson was on and she was delightful and makes such a great case for the episode. I almost must admit to being a Malon fan.

Of what remains, I LOATHE one of them, but I like the other three, to varying degree. Can't wait to see who's last one standing...

DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"
VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I like For the Cause and Parallax pretty much equally, but I flipped a coin and it said I have to save... DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause". I really felt for Sisko when he tries to give Kasidy a way to avoid what he knows is coming and she won't take it.

VOY Season 1: "Parallax"
VOY Season 1: "Learning Curve"
VOY Season 7: "Repression"

 

[Qonundrum]

Ninja'd!

DS9 Season 4: "For The Cause"

is the least intolerable. FTC has potential but felt clunky and less cohesive than it should have been. It does lead to the hard-question-asking and overall-supremely excellent episode "For the Uniform", so for that alone it is enough to save it.