Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season Three Rewatch

“The Search” Part 1 & 2

“The House of Quark”

When this first aired, I had no patience for it. I wanted to see what was next with the story of the Dominion. The ending of The Search part 2 was a huge cop-out… and then instead of more action we got this silly Ferengi episode? Yes, we got to see the Klingons again, and Gowron, but it was all played for a joke! It wasn’t at all what I wanted from the show. But now, knowing that the series will eventually get to the good stuff with the story of the Dominion, I can more easily enjoy this episode for what it is. And there’s a lot to enjoy!
I think the whole thing is a hoot. It’s fun to watch Quark slowly get himself in over his head — and I love how, eventually, he’s able to turn his Ferengi skills into an advantage, not a disadvantage. (Quark figures out in two seconds that D’Ghor has been manipulating the house of Grilka’s finances in order to gain an advantage over her.) The scene in which Quark tries to explain the financial situation to Gowron and the High Council is a riot, and I love that eventually Quark earns even Gowron’s respect. (“A brave Ferengi… who would have thought it possible?”) It’s a nice touch that Gowron actually leans down, so as to be on eye level with Quark.
I also love Grilka. She’s smart and tough and brave. I really enjoy the gentle arc of her relationship with Quark, gradually learning to respect him.
Meanwhile, the O’Brien/Keiko story is good too. The writers made a good call to abandon the idea of Keiko’s running a school on the station, and to allow her to get back to being a botanist. (Although it’s frustrating that the writers press pause for much of the season on the idea of the Dominion as an imminent threat, I’m glad to at least get a mention here fo the fact that, with the station now on the firing line, many civilians have left. So there are no more students for Keiko’s school, and Quark’s business is suffering.)
It’s great to see Gowron again — at the time, I never expected that he’d cross over from TNG to DS9! But I love seeing the way DS9 was beginning to embrace the entire Trek universe, beyond their corner of just Bajor and Cardassia. Also, it’s nice to see Gowron have the good sense to see that D’Ghor is without honor, when D’Ghor is ready to execute Quark. Gowron isn’t necessarily the smartest or more honorable Klingon out there, but it’s good to see him being a good leader here.
I like the scene when Dax recognizes immediately that O’Brien and Keiko are having problems, while Kira doesn’t get the hint to leave Sisko’s office. (“Must be some kind of human thing!” It’s nice to be reminded that, while Kira looks pretty human, she isn’t actually a human!) Sisko is great with O’Brien, fatherly and understanding of the Chief’s marital problems, and wanting to help as best he can.
I also really like the Bashir-O’Brien scene, with Bashir surprised that O’Brien is actually interested in his advice — and Bashir’s being the one who actually hits the nail right on the head, pointing out that the Chief’s idea of turning a cargo bay into an arboretum is only pushing his problem down the road for two months, and that Keiko won’t be happy until she’s able to be a botanist again.
There’s also some nice stuff with Rom here. Rom still is in his bumbling mode, but he’s begun to morph into the sweet, gentle character of the later seasons (different from the gruff, curt character seen early in season one).

“Equilibrium”

Like the two season two Dax spotlights, “Invasive Procedures” and “Playing God” this is an OK episode but not a great one. Coming after “The Search:” two-parter, when these shows originally aired I was very frustrated by this shift it relatively soft episodes. I wanted action with the Dominion, not this light stuff! In hindsight, I can find a little more to appreciate. Dax’s visions of a mask-wearing figure are very weird but certainly memorable, and it’s nice to visit Triull and to learn more about symbiosis and the symbionts. We get to meet a doctor from the previously-mentioned Symbiosis Commission, and we get to see the caves where the symbionts live and breed. That stuff is neat.
I think the episode doesn’t go far enough in making Trill a unique place. The matte shot of the Trill city looks a lot like Bajor and other peaceful planets we’ve visited before, and the symbiont caves are a clear reuse of the very familiar cave set the series uses all the time. The result is that Trill feels very bland and generic, and not like a cool and memorable new alien society.
The idea of a conspiracy at the heart if Trill culture is a cool one. But Sisko makes the enormous leap to figuring it all out way too quickly and easily, and it’s presented in a talky scene that falls flat. And the episode doesn’t at all explore that potentially society-shaking discovery. Sisko figures it out, Dax is healed, and the episode is over.
I love the scene of Sisko cooking a meal for his senior staff. I like this development of Sisko (we’ve heard before that his father was a chef and that he likes to cook) and it’s nice to see the DS9 characters hanging out together.

“Second Skin”

This is a fun mind-fuck episode in which Kira wakes up with a Cardassian face and is told that the real Kira was killed long ago, that she is an undercover Cardassian operative named Iliana Ghemor who has been impersonating Kira for years. While we of course know that Kira isn’t really a Cardassian, the episode works because it does succeed in being a compelling mystery as we, along with Kira, try to figure out what the heck is going on, and also because the new Cardassian characters Enter and Legate Ghemor are so interesting. Ghemor in particular is a great character, and I’m glad they brought him back for a second appearance later in the show. It’s nice to get to meet a truly sympathetic Cardassian character, one whose love for his daughter trumps all other considerations.
I also enjoy getting to dig deeper into Cardassian society, and learning more about the unstable balance between the secret police of the Obsidian Order and the military leaders in the Central Command. We’ll get lots more of this soon in “Defiant” and later the “Improbably Cause” two-parter. We also learn a bit more about the growing dissident movement, previously seen in season two’s “Profit and Loss.” I love this world-building.
This is a great Kira episode, stubbornly sticking to her sense of self despite all the Cardassian manipulation, and then able to acknowledge at the end the weird bond she’s formed with Ghemor.
It’s great to see Garak again. He gets some great stuff in the episode. I love how easily he’s able to manipulate the Cardassian Gul they encounter. I love that he thinks Kira looks “ravishing” in her Cardassian look. While Garak proves very helpful to Sisko & co., I like that the episode ends with Ghemor’s warning Kira not to trust Garak. That’s important, because at this point in the show we don’t want Garak turning into an ally too quickly. And in “Improbable Cause” we’ll understand more about why Ghemor thinks Kira should be wary of Garak.
There are a few plot holes in the episode. In the first act, we build up this mystery of how Kira seemed to have been at the Ellemsburg Detention Facility when she knows she was never there. But not of that seems necessary to the plot to kidnap her to fool Ghemor. It seems like a HUGE coincidence that the woman studying Ellemsburg just happened to contact Kira at exactly the time that Enter was ready to set this plan in motion. None of that was necessary. We’ve seen people be kidnapped off of the station before, so it feels like Entek’s people could have grabbed Kira at any time, without creating this whole separate mystery. Also, it’s hugely convenient that Ghemor just happened to have a daughter who looked and sounded so much like Kira!! That’s an enormous coincidence the episode doesn’t really want you to think about. Also: why would Enter go to all the trouble of kidnapping Kira — why not just alter the appearance of on e of his own highly-trained Obsidian Order operatives to look like Iliana Ghemor, and have that agent manage the operation? It’s involving Kira that blows Entek’s plan, because her friends come to rescue her, and because Kira herself figures it out. If Entek had used one of his own agents, that wouldn’t have happened and he’d have had Legate Ghemor right where he wanted him.
Also, at one point Entek describes to Kira a childhood memory she’s never before told anyone. He uses that as evidence that her identity is an implanted cover story. But since that’s not in fact true, how did Entek know that story?
I also think that Sisko and co. were able to sneak onto Cardassia prime way too easily. Come on, this is the home planet of a militarized and very paranoid people. Even with Garak’s help it should have been way harder. I’m assuming that Sisko used the Defiant’s cloaking device, in violation of his agreement with the Romulans, although the episode never tells us that.
Garak complains about the Defiant’s corridors being claustrophobic. In this episode that’s just him complaining, but it winds up being a beautiful piece of (probably unintentional) continuity when we learn in the season five “In Purgatory’s Shadow” two-parter that Garak actually is claustrophobic!

“The Abandoned”

“Civil Defense”

I love this episode! This is a super-fun romp that gives great moments for all of our characters, while presenting wonderfully escalating jeopardy for our heroes.
We’ve heard that the Bajoran laborers processed ore on Terok Nor under Cardassian rule, and we even saw Ore Processing in the season two Mirror Universe episode. So it’s interesting to get to see these locations on our main, prime universe DS9. I love seeing new locations on the station, and it’s an interesting development of the show’s backstory.
All of the characters are well used. It’s nice to see Jake involved in an episode’s A-story in a way that makes sense. It’s fun seeing Kira in charge in Ops. And, of course, the Odo-Quark pairing is great fun. (Quark: “I should’ve listened to my father. He always warned me this was going to happen.” Odo: “What, that you’d spend your final hours in jail? I could’ve told you that.”)
The idea that O’Brien and Jake accidentally trip one of Gul Dukat’s failsafe programs to prevent a worker revolt is a great idea. I love all of the videos of Dukat we get to see throughout the episode, and then of course it’s great fun when Dukat himself actually arrives to gloat. And then it’s even more delicious when Dukat’s attempt to beam off the station activates ANOTHER failsafe program, one secretly put there by his superiors who didn’t trust him. Genius! There are so many great Dukat moments in this episode. His joy at seeing Garak cowering in the corner is so funny. And I love the way he dismissively flicks Sisko’s baseball off of the desk when he’s negotiating with Kira in his old office.
Coming soon after “Second Skin,” it’s delightful to get another great Garak episode as well. It’s fun to see how Garak is able to help, because of his knowledge of Cardassian computer systems, but only to a point. This is a great use of Garak. Also, I love seeing more of Gareak and Dukat’s animosity to one another. It’s great when Garak calls Dukat out on trying to impress Kira (Dukat’s twisted desire for a relationship with Kira, and his backstory with her mother, is something the show will do a great job in developing as the series continues), and I love the intriguing suggestion that Garak had some involvement in something that went down with Dukat’s father.
I love the silent moment when Ben Sisko urgently points for Jake to get in the chute when the computer announces that deadly gas is about to be released.

“Meridian”

“Defiant”

It’s staggering to me that they decided to do a follow-up to one of my least-favorite latter-session TNG episodes, “Second Chances,” in which it was revealed that a transporter duplicate of Will Riker had been created. And yet, somehow, the DS9 writers turned that cheesy idea into a wonderful episode. It’s huge fun getting to see Jonathan Frakes on DS9, and I love the way the episode develops the idea that Tom Riker is looking for some way, any way, to step out from under Will Riker’s shadow and to make a name for himself as a hero. That Tom went out and joined the Maquis is a fascinating idea and a great way to get back to the Maquis stories begun in season two. (Though the episode’s main weakness to me is that as the story unfolds, it spends too much time on that Riker-Kira stuff in a way that unbalances the episode. All those Kira-Riker scenes on the Defiant’s bridge make me wonder, hey, what do Tom’s fellow Maquis think about any of this??)
It’s great to see Dukat again so soon after “Civil Defense” and it’s interesting to see him and Sisko continuing to work well together (as they previously did in “The Maquis” two-parter). This is a more sympathetic version Dukat than the smarmy, arrogant Dukat from “Civil Defense” — more like the Dukat we saw in “The Maquis”. Dukat seems genuinely interested in working with Sisko to prevent a war. His monologue to Sisko about missing his son’s eleventh birthday is great. I love how all of these scenes, across different episodes, work together to paint a very multi-dimensional version of Dukat. It’s not inconsistent at all — he is a vain narcissist and also he is genuinely upset about letting down his son. As always, Marc Alaimo is terrific in the role.
I love getting to see more of the tension between the Central Command and the Obsidian Order, as played out in Dukat’s tense interactions with the Obsidian Order “observer.” I love the mystery of what the Obsidian Order is doing in the Orias system. This episode leaves that unresolved, which is a tad anticlimactic, but it works better in hindsight knowing that we’ll get all the answers soon in the “Improbably Cause” two-parter. I believe this episode also gives us our first mention of the Cardassian civilian government, the Detapa Council, which we learn here is a largely ceremonial and powerless group.
Wow, I’ve seen this episode many times, but I don’t think I’d noticed before that Tom Riker says “tough little ship” about the Defiant in this episode!! Will Riker says the exact same thing about the Defiant in First Contact, which was a stealthy callback to this episode! I love that!!
I wish we’d gotten to see a little more actual action in this episode, rather than seeing most everything take place as icons on screens, but we do get a few very short but cool shots when the Defiant mixes it up with a Cardassian warship towards the end.
I’m not sure how Sisko and Dukat got all the way to the Cardassian central command in less time than it took for the Defiant to get into Cardassian space…
It’s fun seeing Riker put the moves on Kira at the start of this episode, and it’s interesting to see how the usually tense, tightly-laced Kira actually responds to Riker’s charms! She halfheartedly mentions that she’s seeing someone (Bareil), but she’s nevertheless willing to see where things go with Riker. That’s fun! A little more awkward, when viewed today, is when Riker kisses her at the end. That was intended as a tragic/romantic moment before Riker goes off to a life-sentence in a Cardassian prison, but today his kissing her without her consent doesn’t play as well.

“Fascination”

“Past Tense” Parts 1 & 2

“Life Support”

These two episodes almost made me give up on DS9 when they originally aired, back to back. I hadn’t rewatched either of them since that first viewing, back in 1995.
There are events in this episode that should have been HUGE, series-shaking moments: the signing of a peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia, and the death of an important recurring character, Vedek Bareil. But instead, this episode is small-scale and dull.
The stuff with Bareil slowly dying is just painful to watch. And it doesn’t make any sense to me that the creation of a peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia, which should be an enormous event, involving teams of diplomats working for months, seems to get hammered out in a few conversations between Kai Winn all by herself, and one minor Cardassian functionary who we’ve never seen before and will never see again. Why doesn’t Winn seem to have any other advisors or assistants other than Bareil?? It makes Winn’s desperate need for Bareil, upon which the episode’s story hangs, seem ridiculous. Also: why is Winn, the planet’s religious leader, negotiating this treaty? Shouldn’t the Provisional Government be responsible for this? There could have been a cool idea about religious leaders being able to build a connection where politicians fail, but the episode never goes there. (The episode also hints that the Cardassians are up to something… when the Gul tries to get Winn to agree to return all Cardassian property abandoned during the withdrawal, that seemed to me like an obvious ploy for the Cardassians to get DS9 back under their control… but no one in the episode comments on that, and the episode never returns to this idea.)
The B-story of Jake and Nog going on a double date is just as painful. This supposedly “comedic” B-story is not comedic at all, it’s agonizing to watch. (And watching Nog and Jake goof around in between scenes of Bareil slowly dying is spectacularly awkward and ill-conceived.) After getting a lot of attention in season one, the show seems to have lost the sense of how to use Jake and Nog in seasons two and three. This story is just terrible. (Also, while it’s nice to see Jake and Nog reconcile at the end, it’d have also been nice to have given Jake a final scene with his insulted date, to show us that Jake cares a bit about how she feels, too.)

“Heart of Stone”

These two episodes almost made me give up on DS9 when they originally aired, back to back. I hadn’t rewatched either of them since that first viewing, back in 1995.
This isn’t quite as completely horrendous as I’d remembered, but it’s still a very bad episode.
The Odo-Kira stuff is just awful. The rock substance encasing Kira looks absolutely god-awful. It’s a total effects fail. And it’s yet another example after The Search pt 2 of the show giving us fake drama as a way to maintain the status quo. Odo professes his love for Kira, but it’s not really Kira, it’s the female changeling, so we can go on with Kira not knowing how Odo truly feels for her. I absolutely hate that.
Not that the story would be any good if it was the real Kira. Having Odo forced into professing his love for Kira by their situation is just so dumb and on the nose and painful to watch. There are a billion more subtle and interesting ways the show could have allowed the audience to gain this revelation about Odo, without Kira’s realizing it. (Season four’s “Crossfire” is a much stronger example.)
The idea that the Female Changeling is manipulating Odo, to test his allegiance to the “solids,” is an interesting one — they just didn’t pull it off successfully here.
Saving graces: I like hearing Odo tell the story of the true meaning of his name, and I like hearing the female changeling proclaim that “no changeling has ever harmed another,” which will become a critical story point in the season finale and beyond.
Strangely, it’s the B Story that makes this episode worthwhile. Nog decides to join Starfleet Academy and asks Sisko to sponsor his application. I didn’t have much patience for the Jake and Nog stuff in the early seasons, back when this show first aired. But upon rewatching, I enjoy those two characters a lot more. Nog, in particular, is enriched by the wonderful stories I know are coming. At the time, I was happy because I thought this meant Nog would be off the show, if he was away at Starfleet Academy. Thankfully, this story is actually a critical turning point for the character, and a stepping story to the many great Nog stories that will soon come. Aaron Eisenberg is fantastic in this episode, and his climactic scene with Sisko — in which Sisko pushes Nog to admit why he really wants to join Starfleet, and Nog admits in anguish that it’s so he doesn’t end up like his father — is fantastic.
Rom himself gets a few nice moments in the episode, in particular when he stands up to Quark at the end. I love hearing Nog remark that his father is an engineering genius — something that the writers had been slowly establishing (a switch from the dumb, narrow-minded Rom of the earliest episodes). It’s great how far these two Ferengi supporting characters, Nog and Rom, have come since they first appeared back in season 1!
The show hasn’t quite known what to do with Jake for a while. He appears in one scene, in which he’s surprised that Nog’s desire to join Starfleet is genuine. It’s a fine scene, but I do wish they’d better utilized the friendship between these two as a story-point in this episode.

“Through the Looking Glass”

Proving “Crossover” wasn’t a one-off, we return to the Mirror Universe for what will become an almost annual occurrence on DS9.
It’s super-fun to go back to the Mirror Universe, and getting to see Mirror Jennifer alive and well is a delicious idea.
I think the episode makes it far too easy to travel between universes (Smiley seems to be able to do it with ease, with a tiny device. How he created that tech when on the run from the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance is a mystery to me). I understand the writers not wanting to waste time with tech explanations for how to get the characters to and from the two universes, but making it so easy feels like a plot hole.
While many Mirror Universe characters are tough, evil versions of themselves, Mirror Jennifer seems quite like our Jennifer (though we don’t know if Prime Jennifer had anywhere near the tech savvy Mirror Jennifer seems to have). Sisko’s scenes with her are sweet and moving.
It’s fun to get to see Mirror versions of other DS9 characters who we didn’t see in the first episode, like Bashir and Dax. Ornery pirate Bashir is one-note, but still a fun twist on the gentle doctor. And sexy Dax (love her haircut) is fun.
It’s a bit twisted that Sisko apparently has sex with the mirror versions of both Dax and Kira in this episode! It must be hard to go back to his universe and look at his friends/colleagues the same way again after this!
It’s fun to see Mirror Rom, who dies a hero. (And thus the tradition of killing off Ferengi in every Mirror Universe episode is established, with Rom following his brother Quark to the grave…). It’s also fun to see Mirror Tuvok, with Voyager’s Tim Russ crossing over to DS9 for this guest appearance.

“Improbable Cause”

This is one of my all-time favorite DS9 episodes. I’ve seen in dozens of times, probably, and I love it every time. This two-parter is a beautiful payoff of so many storylines from these first three seasons, the development of Garak and his mysterious past with the Obsidian Order and his relationship with Emabran Tain, as well as more recent stories such as the tensions between the Obsidian Order and the Central Command and the mystery of what the Order was doing in the Orias sector (from “Defiant”). Although we’ll never quite learn what Garak might have done that led to his schism with Tain, we finally do get confirmation that Garak was indeed once a high-ranking member of the Obsidian Order, and that it was Tain who had him exiled. (Not before getting one more lie from Garak on that subject, claiming that failure to pay his taxes led to his exile…!)
Part two has the action, but part one is such a beautifully sophisticated and well-structured escalating mystery and character piece. I love part 2, but I think I like part 1 even better!
The scene in which Garak disputes with Bashir the moral of the story of the boy who cried wolf is one of the best scenes in the entire show. “Never tell the same lie twice.”
Another great line from Garak: “The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination.”
I love Odo’s interrogation of the Flaxian.
I love the surprise of the destruction of the Flaxian’s ship. After the scene of Garak waiting for Odo in the runabout, you think the episode its going to be about an Odo-Garak adventure, and in the end it sort of is, but I love that weft-turn in which their adventure is cut off immediately after it began. More than that I love the look of absolute surprise on Garak’s face in the runabout when he sees the explosion, and the interestingly-staged scene that follows in which Sisko and co. discuss what’s happened while Garak stands motionless to the side. We’ve never before actually seen not knowing entirely what’s going on.
I love the weird scene in which Odo converses with his nameless Cardassian informant.
I love that Garak actually blew up his own shop! I love also that Odo is sharp enough an investigator to figure that out. And I love Tain’s gleefully surprised reaction when he learns that fact.
I love the way things build with the gradual revelation of the involvement of the Romulans. I love that shot of the huge Romulan warbird decloaking above the little Runabout. It’s awesome seeing DS9 use the Romulans. Even though the show is focused on Bajor and the Cardassians, I love this opening up of the show and embracing of the broader Star Trek universe.
The funny scene in which Garak tells Bashir to eat an isolinear rod is a wonderfully playful twist on the type of scene you might expect before Garak leaves on this mission. I love how beautifully the Bashir-Garak relationship has been developed, and I love that we get that last Garak-Bashir scene even after the episode has shifted into more of a Garak-Odo focus.
I’d forgotten that we first met Mila in this episode, when Garak calls her trying to warn Tain of the danger he believes him to be in. I’m glad that they eventually brought her back onto the show (much later). But here short scene here is great, and we can tell that Garak actually does care about this woman. (Confirmed in part 2 when he tries to talk Tain out of killing her.)
I love Garak’s dig about how the Romulans could use a good tailor. Though actually, this two-parter debuted a new, sleeker look for the Romulan uniforms that I think was an improvement over what we saw in TNG.
What a cliffhanger!

“The Die is Cast”

Well, most importantly, we get the series’ first truly great space battle, as the Cardassian and Roman fleet, and then the Defiant too, mixes it up with the Jem’Hadar. It’s so cool to see FLEETS of starships battling. I felt for much of seasons two and three that the show’s production couldn’t quite keep up with the epic scale of the stories being told, but starting here that began to change.
I absolutely adore the idea that the Founders knew about the Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar plan all along. It builds to a fantastic Return of the Jedi “It’s a trap!” moment. I’m glad the writers didn’t wait too long to address the plot hole that if the Alpha Quadrant powers knew the location of the Founders’ home planet, surely they could use that to their advantage. It’s awesome to see how cunning and devious the Founders are, and how far ahead of the Alpha Quadrant powers they are. It’s a great twist that the Roman Commander Look is a Founder, and I love that he reminds us that “no changeling has ever harmed another” — something which will be very relevant again in the season finale.
Of course, the Lovok Founder’s best line is his comment that “After today, the only threat remaining to us from the Alpha Quadrant are the Klingons and the Federation. And I doubt either of them will be a threat for much longer.” Ominous…!!
I like the brief appearance of Admiral Toddman. (That same actor played another Starfleet admiral in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country!)
It’s nice to see Eddington again, but he’s weirdly used here. He sabotaged the ship under Admiral Toddman’s orders… but then Sisko lets him stay on duty and all is forgiven? I needed a few more scenes for that to pay off better. It also would have helped if we’d seen Eddington AT ALL since he was introduced in the two-part season premiere! (Also, while I respect Sisko’s line about always trusting the word of someone wearing a Starfleet uniform, the scene would have worked better without the unfunny “better stay out of the Chief’s way” button, which for me totally undermines the drama of the moment.)
It’s fun to hear Garak quoting Shakespeare, following up on his and Bashir’s discussion about Shakespeare in part 1.
I love that Bashir tries out O’Brien as a lunch partner in Garak’s absence, but he’s disappointed that the Chief isn’t the conversationalist Garak is!
The Garak-torturing-Odo stuff is hard to watch, which is the idea. I like seeing Garak struggle with stepping back into his old role as an interrogator. Ultimately I found Odo’s relegation that he truly does want to rejoin his people to be a little anticlimactic, but I guess it works OK.
I love Garak’s sincere apology to Odo at the end, when they think they’re about to be blown up by the Jem Ha’dar. It’s a rare moment of true sincerity from Garak. I also love their final scene, beautifully shot with Odo visible just as a silhouette in Garak’s dirty mirror. It’s nice to see the rapprochement between the two. I love the beautiful moment when you see Garak’s face fall, just a little bit, when Odo suggests that they could still need a tailor’s shop on the Promenade, and we see Garak resigned to his fate. Beautiful acting by Andrew Robinson. The tragedy that in this two parter Garak is oh-so-briefly given back everything he’d lost, only to lose it all again, is marvelous.
But while Garak winds up right back where he starred, I love how this two-parter totally shakes up the DS9 status quo, demolishing the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar and advancing the Founders’ long-term plans for the Alpha Quadrant. After a lot of diddling around this season after the opening two-parter, it’s great to see the Dominion reestablished as a terrifying villain and a driving force behind the show’s stories.
And that space battle was great!!

“Explorers”

Most notable probably for the first appearance of Sisko’s goatee! Though he still has his hair. This weird mid-phase version of Sisko will persist for the final episodes of season 3. Once season 4 kicks off, Sisko will be bald and we’ll be off to the races.
This is a very slight story, but it’s sweet and I dig it.
I love the idea that ancient Bajorans constructed solar ships to sail the cosmos. I love the design of the Bajoran solar ship that Sisko builds. It’s sort of ludicrous that Sisko builds this beautiful, large vessel in just a few weeks in his spare time, but I guess I can put that aside. It’s fun to see Sisko in this building phase. We know he used to work at Utopia Planitia and was involved in the construction of the defiant, so we know this is a part of his character, but it’s not something we get to see too often.
It’s nice to get a good Ben-Jake pairing, something that would start to become fewer and farther between as the series continued and the larger stories became more of the focus. It’s nice to see that Jake has pretty definitely moved away from following his father into Starfleet, and that instead his passion is for writing. (It’s crazy that it’s Nog going into Starfleet, not Jake! I love that the writers made that choice.)
It’s super cute that Jake is worried about his father, and I love that Jake wants to set Ben up with a freighter captain. (Kassidy Yates, who goes unnamed here but who we’ll meet in the next episode!)
Speaking of new characters, we get to meet Leeta for the first time here too! You’d never know she’d turn out to be an important character, from her one silly scene at the beginning shamelessly flirting with Bashir.
Bashir’s nervousness over a reunion with the woman, Lense, who graduated ahead of him in medical school is a nice little character B-story. I love hearing about the ridiculous pre-ganglionic fiber/post-ganglionic nerve flub again. It’s a nice twist that, in the end, she envies him. (Nice little writerly meta-commentary there that maybe life on this space station is better than life on a starship!). But what really makes the B story sing is the Bashir-O’Brien stuff, as this is the first time we really see them as having become true friends. The Chief is very cute huddling together with Bashir at a table in Quark’s plotting how and when Julian should go over to talk to Lense. And they’re marvelous in the wonderful scene in which they’re drunk together, singing “Jerusalem.” Fantastic.
Dukat is great in his two scenes on video. He grudgingly has to show respect for the Siskos’ accomplishment! (I like this peek at the “culture wars” between Cardassia and Bajor, with the two planets disputing whether the ancient Bajorans could have accomplished such a feat, and the Cardassians apparently hiding the proof that they did.). The ending shot of the Cardassian vessels saluting them with fireworks is cute.
Dax has some nice scenes, messing with Julian when he’s trying to flirt with Leeta, and checking on Benjamin as he builds his ship. (I kept wondering if Benjamin told her he’d shagged her Mirror Universe counterpart!)

“Family Business”

We get to visit rainy Ferenginar for the first time, and get a bunch of lovely world building for different Ferengi customs and traditions, most of which have to do with characters needing to pay for every minor privilege. It’s all very funny.
The great Jeffrey Combs finally enters the picture as Liquidator Brunt, the first of two amazing and very important characters he’ll play regularly on the show. Brunt and Quark both express their hope never to see the other again at the end of the episode, but luckily for us their paths will cross again.
We also get the first appearance of Moogie, Quark and Rom’s mother! She’s played here by Andrea Martin, though later episodes will have Cecily Adams playing the role. She’s fantastic. It’s fun to meet a smart, confident Ferengi female and I like this story of a woman pushing against the ridiculous misogynistic structures of Ferengi society.
We get some great stuff with the dynamics between Rom, Quark, and Moogie here. It’s interesting, complicated stuff. The backstory of Quark’s father and Quark’s built-up resentment is potent stuff. It’s great that these potentially very silly characters can have such real emotions. It’s nice to see Rom show a little spine, too!
As if meeting Leeta last week and now Brunt AND Moogie for the first time in this episode wasn’t enough, we also get to meet Penny Johnson as Kassidy Yates for the first time here! (It’s crazy how important this silly Ferengi episode is to the series as a whole!) Continuing smoothly from Jake’s mentions in the previous episode of a freighter captain he wanted his dad to meet, we get to meet Kassidy here and see that she and Ben hit it off over their shared love of baseball. Jake is a pretty damn good matchmaker! Dax gets another nice scene with Sisko this week (following up on a similar one in “Explorers”) sweetly wondering if Ben has gone to meet Kassidy yet, and I love the scene in which Sisko bumps into O’Brien and Bashir and Odo and realizes they all know about Kassidy too. It’s nice and sweet to see the crew as such a family at this point! Coming after last week’s drunkenness, it’s also fun to see O’Brien and Bashir as true goofy friends together here, trying to break into Quark’s like a bunch of knuckleheads, just to get their dart board. (I like how they can’t seem to penetrate Rom’s super-lock, as we’re deeply along the journey from season 1 idiot Rom to technical genius later-season Rom!)
It’s a bit of a shame that Quark doesn’t actually accept and support his mother at the end, which feels a little unsatisfactory in this episode. But on the other hand, it’s natural that Quark wouldn’t be able to make a full 180 in this one episode, and it’s nice to know that this episode isn’t the end of this story (one begun back in season two’s “Rules of Acquisition”).
I love that Kassidy has relatives on Cestus Three (the Federation Colony attacked by the Gorn in the Original Series episode “Arena”)! That’s a great reference!
I love Kira’s joke that, at the rate they go through runabouts, it’s a good thing Earth has a lot of rivers!

“Shakaar”

As the show shifts from the Bajoran focus of the beginning to instead focus on the Dominion, it’s great to still get a great Bajoran-focused episode like this one.
After meeting Leeta in “Explorers” and then Brunt, Moogie, AND Kassidy in “Family Business,” now we meet Shakaar here! It’s exciting how many important new elements/characters are still being introduced into the show at this point!
It’s great to finally meet Shakaar, the leader of Kira’s resistance cell, played by Duncan Regehr. I like this hunky/thoughtful dude. We can see why he’s a leader so many follow.
I also love Furel and Lupaza. Furel’s quiet speech about why he never had his arm replaced is magnificent, a master course in how to create a character we love and root for in mere minutes.
It’s fun and interesting to see how eager Shakaar, Furel, Lupaza, and even Kira are to go back to the “old days” of living as fugitives — I love how we see through the story them all gradually accept that those days are gone, and that they need to find other ways to solve their differences now.
It’s nice to see Winn again, and to see her further attempts to consolidate power. She’s remarkably clumsy here, though, as her power play is fairly obvious.
I like the framing device of the flame in Kira’s quarters that she keeps, as she mourns Bareil. The simple image of her blowing out the flame at the end shows that she’s moved on. Very effective and sweet.
I really like the other Bajoran leader Lenaris we see briefly, hunting Shakaar. He’s played by John Doman, who would go on to so memorably play Commissioner Rawls on The Wire.
The B-Story with the Chief being “in the zone” while playing darts is fine silliness, but not a great fit with the serious Kira/Shakaar story. Also, that darts story feels like it takes place over just a few days, while Kira has apparently been on the run with Shakaar and co for weeks. It’d have been nice to have seen more concern from Sisko and her crewmates over that time as to what was happening, and how they could help her. (Also, the scene in which the Chief’s shoulder pops out of its socket is terribly staged. It’s totally unconvincing. That’s always bugged me. Oh well.)

“Facets”

Yet another OK Trill-focused episode. Facets is totally fine and watchable and enjoyable. It has a fascinating (yet totally outlandish) premise, that there’s a Trill tradition in which the memories of past hosts can somehow temporarily be allowed to inhabit other living bodies so that the host can converse with all of her/his past lives. It’s fun to finally get to meet all of Dax’s past hosts, and the cast all do great work inhabiting these different people. But there’s not much story here. There’s some business about a scary encounter with Joran, but that’s quickly dispensed with. Then very late in the episode we get the twin ideas that 1) Curzon tells Jadzia he only allowed her back into the initiate program because he felt sorry for her and 2) Curzon/Odo decide they want to keep living together and not allow Curzon’s memories to rejoin the symbiont where they belong. But because those dilemmas are both only introduced at the end, they’re both also done away with rather quickly, without having time to really develop.
Curzon eventually admits that the real reason he rejected Jadzia from the initiate program originally was because he was in love with her. This is a very weird and creepy notion, that Jadzia has within her memories/identity a man who was in love with her, so that now she would sort of be in love with herself. This is a very twisted idea that the show doesn’t really do much with.
I do love Rene Auberjonois’ work as the joined Curzon/Odo, and the makeup look is great too.
The B-story is about Nog’s taking an exam to qualify to apply to Stafrfleet academy. It’s nice to see Nog and to see more of his quest to join Starfleet (I like that it’s not just a fair accompli after Sisko agreed to sponsor him back in “Heart of Stone”), but here too, while this story is fine, it’s not well-developed to be interesting or surprising. Nog fails, it turns out Quark rigged the test, Rom figures it out, the end. I do love the scene where Rom stands up to Quark — this is as tough as we’ve ever seen Rom be, and it’s lovely — but again, there’s not much story here.
It’s fun to see Leeta again, in a far more substantial role than her one scene in “Explorers” — but it feels like a weird jump to have this dabo girl we’ve previously seen for one scene in the group of main DS9 cast members whom Dax considers her close friends who she wants to be involved with this ceremony. (Apparently Rosalind Chao was unavailable to reprise Keiko, which is why they went with Leeta.)
Curzon orders Tranya!! (From “The Corbomite Maneuver”!) I love it!

“The Adversary”

A strong season-ender and the first episode to really embrace the horror and paranoia of having an enemy, the Founders, who can be anyone at any time.
I love the slow building suspense of the show, with the crew trapped on board the Defiant hurtling to start a war.
I love seeing Odo go at it, at the end, with the other changeling. It’s a terrific payoff to the idea that “no changeling has ever harmed another” and also to Odo’s refusal (since the pilot) to ever carry a weapon.
Of course, that final line “it’s too late… we are everywhere” is chilling, and a great way to end the season.
Finally, Sisko is made a Captain!! It’s a long time coming and great to see. Finally Sisko can stand as an equal with all the other Captains who have headlined the other Star Trek shows.
It hurts the episode a bit that Sisko and co. are so embarrassingly ineffective (they’re painfully slow to react and shoot each time the Changeling appears; they can’t seem to stay in pairs). Also, there was no reason for Odo, the Chief of Station Security, to be on this mission to show the flag on the Tzenkethi border.
Speaking of the Tzenkethi, rather than creating a brand new, never heard-of before enemy, I think the episode would have been stronger had the unseen enemy nation been someone we’d heard about before. Why wasn’t this, say, the Romulans?
It’s curious that, when the Defiant is sabotaged, no one comments that Eddington sabotaged the ship just a few episodes ago (in “The Die is Cast”)! I do like seeing Eddington again, and this episode does a nice job in developing him as a character.
This is our first look at the Defiant’s Engineering room! Nice new little set.
I like hearing Sisko and Dax talk about Kassidy again. Nice continuity.
Lawrence Pressman just Tekeny Ghemor in “Second Skin.” He’s great here as Ambassador Krajensky/the changeling.
It’s interesting to see how DS9, unlike TNG, seems to be in the pattern of stand-alone episodes to end its seasons, rather than cliffhangers. BUT each DS9 season-ender DOES have a great hook to lead us right into the next season.

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