LizstarTrek - DS9 Season 4

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

This is supposedly when DS9 “starts getting good”. Well considering I already LOVED DS9…. I’m ready for my socks to be blown off.

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The Way of the Warrior - DS9 9.5/10

CORNCHIPS ARE NO PLACE FOR A MIGHTY WARRIOR

The episode starts with everyone on the station hunting a Changeling. Aaaand Bashir is killed. Oh wait no it’s just a drill, and it’s Odo. They’re taking that Changeling threat very VERY seriously.

HE’S SHAVED! SISKO IS AT MAX, I REPEAT, OUR SISKO IS AT MAX.

This guy Martok is in the Klingon Empire’s flagship, and his men need some shore leave! Oh I’m sure this’ll go heavenly.

Odo and Garrak are having a lovely conversation at lunch (Odo and Garrak are allowed to be friends now, Garrak can hang with people OTHER than Bashir!!), when some Klingons harrass Morn. Uh, no. No you don’t. You do NOT harass THE Morn. Odo shuts that shit down and they’re very pissy at him, and Garrak for some reason. Then soon after, the gang of them beat the shit out of Garrak in his store. Garrak decides not to press charges, because he could be healed, but the harsh words he gave off will hurt THEM for a life time.

And then the Klingons start stopping and searching ships coming and going from Bajoran space, including Sisko’s girlfriend. Well that’s not good, that’s breaking a lot of laws. But they have orders. Sisko almost blows them away in the Defiant until they give up and go home, which uh, ends up in that captain being fucking executed for disobeying orders. Well that’ll make… things fall apart between these two super powers. Sisko needs help keeping diplomacy stable. And they need to know WHY the Klingon task force is actually here. So they call an old friend.

WORF! WORF’S HERE! Yes, this series grows its beard, AND its Worf! Worf is here, though he’s THINKING of retiring. So who knows how long he’ll be here (ha ha)! But he IMMEDIATELY gets to work. Martok’s son keeps causing bullshit in Quark’s bar, so he beats him up and steals his D’k tahg, a TRUE dishonor. When Martok comes to demand it back, Worf does, quickly. It was really just to get him to SPEAK with him. Martok doesn’t give any reasons though. So Worf gets an officer drunk, and what he learns… worries him.

Also there’s some GREAT scenes here. This entire episode is about Worf, and he gets moments with pretty much every character. Since he’ll be here to stay, his connections with every character are very important. He has a great scene with Odo where he’s frosty, and Odo is his usual blunt self. And of course some amazing scenes with Dax, who is very connected to Klingons.

Worf has to decide between his duty to his people or the Federation. He chooses the federation, and informs Sisko that the Empire is going to war with Cardassia. The past few weeks, Cardassia’s government has fallen, and the civilians have formed a new government! Oh, good :D That plot that was set up a while ago had a happy ending! Oh wait no, the Klingons believe that was a coup set up by the Changelings, and are gonna go to war and destroy em. Darn. There’s no proof towards or against it. They’ve been trying this coup for a while, and the fall of the order makes this easier. But it COULD be a Changeling plan.

Also, Martok. So, Martok WILL be very, VERY important. But right now he’s a harsh kinda rude mfer. He’ll have some growing.

There are two things they can do. Let Klingons go to war, get bloodthirsty, and eventually prolly turn on the Federation (Worf’s words). Or warn the Cardassians, and possibly lose their alliance with the Klingons. They take a third option. They invite Garrak in to hem some pants while they JUST so happen to be talking about the war effort. Just a slip~

The Klingons break off all diplomatic allegience with the Federation. Oh no. Things are going from bad to worse. Gowron demands Worf join him in war crimes! Worf is like “uh no, I swore an oath, I cannot break my honor.” Gowron demands he do it again, or he’ll be left with NOTHING. No titles, no anything. “Except for my honor.” Worf is very bad at being a ‘normal’ Klingon.

He also tries to retire from the Federation, but Sisko literally refuses to accept his resignation. I didn’t know that was a thing you could do. But they still need his help. They decide to try and smuggle Cardassia’s leaders out of Cardassia Prime. They go to the meeting point and find Dukat under attack by multiple Klingons. So…. they join the fight. With the Cardassians.

Thanks to timely tactical genius from Worf, they’re able to lower their shields just enough to transport everyone over, just before the Cardassian’s ship explodes. They’re chased by the Klingons heading back to DS9. This is gonna escalate. ):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

And then we get what might be one of the best scenes in all of Star Trek. This scene is PERFECT. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.

The Klingons are here, and they are fucking FURIOUS. It’s time to war. Everyone gears up to war on DS9, including inside the halls, cause they may just board and take the fight to them.

It is a good day to die. Gowron refuses to surrender, even with knowledge that the Cardassian Government aren’t founders. That doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone will be SAFE if the Klingons are in control :) The bloodlust has begun.

We get a long fight scene, very intensive. Lots of space explosions, lots of fighting as the Klingons board. Very impressive fun stuff, and lots happen. Kira gets stabbed, but they manage to hold the bridge.

Starfleet gets here before the Klingon’s reinforcements do, so Gowron stands down (Martok is very bloodthirsty still. Hmm), but not before giving a threat that this will NOT end happily. But this also shows DS9 can hold back an invading force by itself. They did it :D They won!

Worf decides to stay after all. And thus starts the second half of DS9 :3 This was an amazing double episode. It was basically a movie lol.

The Visitor - DS9 11/10

Our episode starts with an old man in his house, who’s interrupted in his musings by a young woman who’s been looking for him. She’s an aspiring writer, and she’s here to find her favorite author, THE Jake Sisko. Jake quit writing years ago, when he was 40, and she wants to know why. So he tells her a story. The story of how, when he was 18, his father died….

Amazing setup so far holy shit

Back to the past/present, Sisko drags Jake out of his room and the story he’s working on writing to hang out with him and watch a “wormhole inversion” or something, something that only happens to the Wormhole once every 50 years. Shit goes wrong, and the Defiant is about to explode. Jake and Sisko work together to stop it, but some weird electrical interference comes and zaps him, and Sisko is fucking dead. Gone. Disintegrated into nothingness.

Shit kinda falls apart without Sisko. Jake falls into a massive depression. The Bajorans abandon the Federation to join the Cardassians in a defense alliance (the death of their Jesus prolly hit them hard). But then, in the middle of the night, Sisko appears to Jake. He’s like “what the hell happened” before disappearing again. Jake asks Dax to look under his bed for monsters, but they find nothing. It isn’t till he appears again and STAYS for a bit that they find out what happened.

The accident set off his “temporal signature”, and it’s ALL outta whack. So now he’s phasing in and out of time. They try and keep him there, but they fail. And when the Klingons take over DS9 in the war (y’know how it is), he loses and chance of EVER seeing his dad again… The years move on. He slowly tries to forget the past. He gets to writing. Marries. He’s still besties with Nog, who’s a Commander now! And then his world is ripped apart again.

Sisko re-appears in his life, stunning him out of everything. He tells his dad about what happens, and his dad is SO proud of him… but something breaks inside of Jake with this. He changes the course of his life. He gets into the sciences, to try and save his dad from this timespace hell he’s stuck in. His hyperfocus on this causes his marriage to fall apart, but his dad’s safety is ALL THAT MATTERS.

50 years after the accident, they have one more change. One more shot at saving him. It doesn’t go well. Jake is pulled into the temporal white void, and Sisko is like “You… GAVE UP YOUR LIFE FOR ME?! WHAT?!”

And we get the most heart wrenching scene of him grabbing Jake and begging him, DEMANDING he promise him that he will live a life, not for him, but for himself. And when Jake returns, he’s sobbing, shaking. It’s GUTWRENCHING.

Back in the future, old man Jake is still talking to the young girl who wants to be a writer. He’s tried to live for himself more. He’s been writing again. But he’s going to die soon. And not just cause he’s an old man. He figured out what’s happened. He’s been dragging Sisko along, like an anchor. If Jake dies, then his dad will be lost in subspace temporal space forever. Or… when he dies when Sisko is THERE, Sisko will be placed back on the correct timeline, at the point of the accident. So he says goodbye to the youbng woman, wishes her well, gives her his writings, and prepares for his dad to appear, once last time.

And so, Jake kills himself with lethal injection, while Sisko is there. He dies, happy but crying, with his father.

Sisko is back in the future, and he dodges the energy blast. They have another chance.

Fucking CHRIST. I WAS FUCKING. SOBBING. I STILL AM. FUCKING CHRIST. FUCK. I was going to just give it a 10. It’s good, it’s REALLY good. But the acting, the PERFORMANCE. The final scene destroyed me so god damn hard, it EARNED it. I CANNOT.

Hippocratic Oath - DS9 6.5/10

Worf isn’t really adjusting to life on DS9 yet. He’s seeing Quark do OBVIOUS illegal dealings and is like “why isn’t that fucker in jail????”

Meanwhile, Bashir and O’Brien are out being Totally Not Gay Bros on some mission somewhere, when their roundabout crashlands on an uninhabited planet. They are immediately found and captured by some Jem’Hadar. Ruh roh!

They seem to know a LOT about Starfleet. They know rank, what they do, everything about them. But as soon as Bashir admits he’s a doctor, they decide not to kill them, and instead captures them. Bashir assumes it’s because they need a doctor, and O’Brien is like “well, don’t help them. Anything that makes them weaker increases our odds of escaping.” Somehow I feel like Bashir isn’t gonna follow through with that.

Here’s the rub: The Jem’Hadar are addicted to a drug, White. This drug is used by the higher ranking members of the Dominion in order to control the Jem’Hadar. The commanding officer, Goran’Agar, is the only Jem’Hadar who appears to be free of his addiction. He got it here, by accident, by running out of white after crash landing. And now he’s trying to free others here, assuiming it was the planet, though it’s not curing others. So he demands that Bashir make a cure, or figure out why he’s immune.

Meanwhile, Worf keeps trying to make Odo arrest Quark for doing clearly illegal shit. Odo does not seem to appreciate this. This doesn’t quite fit in with the A-Plot, but at least its not goofy.

Obviously, Bashir begins to get into the idea of curing them. He’s seeing how the leader, Goran’Agar, is. He’s gaining like, morals. Bashir thinks if he cures them, maybe the Dominion will lose their army. O’Brien does not agree. He thinks it might make them run wild and attack. Uh oh, they needed a racist, so they made it O’Brien. God dammit. Bashir ORDERS him to work with him, but O’Brien escapes. And that also leads the other Jem’Hadar to ignore Goran’s orders, cause he’s “becoming weak, like the humans”

Also Worf tries to arrest Quark and the other person he’s working with. Odo was the bag of latinum, take a drink. Odo is angry at Worf, cause he would have busted the ENTIRE ring if Worf hadn’t interrupted. Silly Worf.

O’Brien blows up all of Bashir’s work on the cure, and tries to drag him back to the ship, but they’re stopped by Goran’Agar…. who ends up killing his second in command and letting them go. He sacrifices himself, because he’s going to hunt his men, so that they die in glorious battle, instead of slowly from drug withdrawal. It’s a sad way to go, and a little unneccesary. If they brought Goran back with them, and uses him to make a cure, it’d be better. But eh. Status quo. Bashir is EXTREMELY unhappy about O’Brien basically condemning all of those people to their deaths. O’Brien did it to save him, but… it’ll take him a bit to get over it.

Parts of this episode annoyed me. But it was alright.

Indescretion - DS9 9/10

Kira gets a message from an old friend, who tells her he has a lead on a ship’s wareabouts. It was a Cardassian ship carrying Bajoran prisoners. The Cardassians get word, and ask to send a repesentative to work with her. Oh hey, it’s Dukat :D

They get along great!

Also there’s a B plot of Sisko afraid of getting too deep in with his girlfriend Yates. It’s not as good as seeing Gul Dukat chew the scenery.

Watching these two together is a lot of fun. They find the ship and go about trying to figure out what happened, as they find some graves. Also, everyone with us was getting really distracted by how sexy Kira is. She IS very attractive.

We find out EXACTLY why Dukat is here. One of the Bajorans on the ship (the prison ship, remember) was his mistress. Dukat is essentially a Colonialism Governor with jungle fever. Yes.

There’s a funny scene with Kira and Dukat where she rips a thing out of his ass. It’s great out of context. They laugh and seem to get closer… though luckily the show doesn’t seem to be going a romance route. It could have been SO easily doing that. But thank god it did not. Instead, Kira pushes harder on the jungle fever thing. Turns out Dukat’s daughter was on that ship, and they need to find her. Dukat is planning to kill her, because she could be used against him. Hmm. That’s Bad. Kira is EXTREMELY unhappy about this.

They find the prisoners, and find that they’re being used for mining by the Breen! YO IT’S THE BREEN! This is our first time seeing the Breen, after they’ve been mentioned a bunch! They plan a rescue, infiltrating the Breen and stealing some outfits (Kira straight up looks like a Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel), and while Kira is rescuing the others, Dukat BEELINES for his daughter. There’s a standoff.

Luckily, he does the right thing.

This was a really great episode. I love Dukat as a character, and a villain. He’s SO shitty but stunningly likable.

Rejoined - DS9 8.5/10

This one is a version special one for people like me. Y’know, Dax fans. And nothing else.

Dax is doing Dax things and being cool, pulling latinum out of Quark’s ear

when Sisko calls her to his office, somberly. A Lenara Khan is coming to DS9 to do some work on an artificial wormhole, and he offers Dax a vacation to escape from her. Are they enemies? No. They are ex-wives.

You see, one of Jadzia Dax’s previous hosts was married to one of Lenara Khan’s previous hosts. They are both different people and also the same now, and they might still harbor feelings for each other. But it’s a taboo in Trill society to continue a relationship after rejoining. Breaking this taboo has resulted in exile from Trill Society, which means death for a symbiont once the Trill Host dies. So uh, that’s bad.

They’re both grown adults, they can do it though! Instead, they’ll gaze gayly at each other from across the room. They can handle it!

They are not gonna handle it.

A lot of this episode is like, long stares and slow turns, as they clearly make decisions their heart wants but they know is a bad idea because society tells them it’s bad. I wonder what this episode is an allusion and allegory towards. Huh!

Eventually they take that first step and get closer, and hit it off as friends! :D Oh what good friends these two women are. Dax invites her out for dinner, but asks Bashir to be a chaperone. And Bashir is a good friend, so he comes.

Poor Bashir.

There’s some comments here that are interesting. “We actually have more in common now than we did when we were married”. Unfortunately, Khan’s brother is CREEPING on them, and sees them alone once Bashir leaves. I’m sure he’s getting the wrong idea, they’re just gals being pals! When her brother confronts her she gets offended. Yeah, how dare you think she’d still have feelings!

Okay actually I’m starting to think I might be the one in the wrong

Hey I think these bitches gay.

Or well, not gay. Actually fuck it, it’s gay. Gender doesn’t mean jack shit to a Trill, every Trill is gay.

This is interesting. No one is bothered cause it’s gay. Fuck, MOST people aren’t bothered AT ALL. Like, logically, there’s nothing about this??? It’s a societal thing, and it’s kinda stupid, but that’s how society is. Her friends are all down to back her. But society won’t. The symbionts WILL die, if they pursue this.

The experiments go poorly, and the Defiant almost explodes. Dax risks her life to save Lenara. Also Eddington is still here. Remember Eddington???? Why is he still here?? Didn’t Worf basically take his job?

So, why does this work and not any of the other times they’ve tried a romantic Dax thing? Well, these characters have chemistry. The acting is really on point here. The longing looks, the passion, it’s on fire. And unfortunately, that same passion ends as brightly as it began. Lenara is like “I’ll go back to Trill, think us over…” but, they know that it won’t work out, and thus they leave with the same teary sad gay glances from across the room that they started with.

But hey at least we got a gay kiss out of it.

Starship Down - DS9 9/10

Remember seasons ago, when a trade agreement was made with a Gamma Quadrant species, the Karemma, with the Ferengi as intermediaries? Well uh, that’s being cancelled. Why? Why, all the taxes and surcharges! (It’s Quark’s fault, he’s embezzeling money. What a shocker) Meanwhile, it’s the anniversary of the Emissary’s arrival, a massive holiday on Bajor! And Sisko scheduled this meeting today just to avoid it.

Oh no, the Jem’Hadar are here! They attack the Karemma, as retribution for dealing with the Federation. Seems a bit harsh, but okay. They go to hide in a gas giant, the Jem’Hadar give chase, and the Defiant follows as well. Time for a Submarine episode! Using some of Kira’s old strategies, they use echo-location to find the other ships, but are hit by the Jem’Hadar (It is VERY annoying to write Jem Hadar every time lol) and they lose both phasers and impulse power, and are falling down into the gas giant.

They’re trying to fix that, but also at the same time Sisko is like “we’ll need to defend ourselves, turn the probes into nukes”. Uh, shouldn’t we try and fix the altitude issue first? “You have ten minutes to make me nukes, Sisko” They literally told you the ship will crunch like a soda can in 6 minutes dog. They fix it, but not in time. Dax and Bashir are stuck in a sealed off section of the hull, open to the atmosphere, and can’t contact the bridge. Everyone assumes they’re dead.

They blow up one of the enemies, but are fired upon and the bridge fucking explodes. Half the people there die, leaving an Ensign we first saw today and all the main characters. Sisko is severely injured, and might die if Kira can’t keep him awake and they can’t find a medic. Unfortunately Bashir is locked in a closet with Dax (please, Bashir, everyone can how you are with Garrak).

Also there’s a bunch of scenes with the Karemma and Quark arguing with each other about how Quark cheated him, while they also comment on how they’re probably about to fucking die.

The episode thus becomes a few small contained storylines. Bashir and Dax are running out of air in an elevator. Worf is down with the Engineers being a hardass and O’Brien has to teach him to not treat people like garbage. Kira learns that though she considers Sisko a friend, she treats him so distantly cause of both work and also him being Jesus, and all they can talk about is work. And most interestingly, a fucking torpedo slams into Quark’s room, and he has to figure out how to diffuse it before it explodes.

Eventually, it all works out. The Karemma gets into gambling, Worf treats his crew members like human beings, Bashir and Dax are alive. And, most importantly, Sisko gets Kira into baseball, and they hang out.

It’s kind of a sequel to Disaster from TNG, in a way. It’s cute! All the threads are fun little storylines (the Bashir and Dax one was maybe the weakest), and it’s got some great character moments.

Little Green Men - DS9 10/10

THIS. THIS IS ONE OF THE BIG ONES.

Nog is going off to the Acadamy, and Rom is helping run the auction that will finance him getting there! It’s a Ferengi tradition. Quark comes to drag Rom away though, because his cousin just sent him a starship that he’s been owed for a DECADE. It’s finally here, Quark’s own ship. Rom gives it a once over, it looks good, so to test it they’ll take a day trip to Earth to take Rom to the Academy… and, not to mention all the contraband stored in its hull, ohohoho. Oh, that Quark.

Nog and Jake have a sweet scene as Nog leaves. “It feels like we spent the past several years just doing nothing” “I can’t imagine someone I’d rather do nothing with!” Dudes rock. Rom is given a guide to Earth. I’m sure that won’t be helpful.

Unfortunately, Quark’s Cousin Gaela sabotaged the ship, and Rom has to do some Wild Engineer Shit to fix it. Did you know Rom is actually a fucking genius, but he’s just an anxious wreck with no self esteem. Uh, turns out though it didn’t work. Quark wakes up locked in a room with the others. Where could they be?

So, they’re in 1947, in Roswell Mexico. They’re in the possession of the US military. What proceeds is fucking HILARIOUS. Rom knows everything about the history, but is seeing it from the outside. So he’s making comments like “Oh yeah they used to nuke themselves all the time” while Quark is like “…they IRRADIATED THEIR OWN PLANET?!” or the classic “Yeah that’s Tobacco. It’s poison.” “They BREATH IN POISON?” “Yeah it’s addictive.” “Where do they get it???” “They buy it” “They BUY POISON?!”

I’m having trouble writing this because I just wanna watch the god damn episode.

Lots of really fun things happen. There two humans, a scientist and a nurse, who are hopeful and nice. The others are military shitheads. Quark has plans… he’s going to take advantage of how primative hu-mans are savage assholes, and make a profit selling future technology. Unfortunately, the military isn’t buying it. They KNOW they’re planning something. Y’know, EXTREMELY accurate 40s military jingoistic assholes.

ODO WAS THE DOG, TAKE A DRINK! Odo smuggled onto the ship to bag Quark for smuggling. He’s here to take them back to the future though. Quark REFUSES to go, but uh, after being tortured by the military, he’s down for it. How are they gonna get out of this one? Nog pretends that they’re going to invade CLEVELAND, the good hu-mans help them escape, and it’s so fucking fun. It’s REALLY fun to watch them lean into being invaders.

“STAND BACK, OR I’LL VAPORIZE THIS HOSTAGE!” “With your finger???” “With my death ray.”

They make it back to the future. The Hu-man Female is like “I hope we can join you in the stars some day, and join in a federation of other planets in peace!” A little on the nose there hun. And the military is like “….we’ll cover this up. It was all just a weather balloon.”

Fucking AMAZING episode.

The Sword of Kahless - DS9 3.5/10

KOR IS BACK! I loved the other episode he was in, so I’m SO hype he’s back again. He’s getting schwifty with Dax in the bar and telling old war stories. Dax wants to introduce him to Worf, but Worf is like “But I am an outcast and a traitor!” Dax says that’s ridiculous, and introduces them, and Kor is like “Oh, YOU. The TRAITOR. SO GOOD TO MEET YOU :D” Apparently he doesn’t like Gowron or the High Council all that much.

See, Kor has an old tapestry that might have held Kahless’ bathleth at one point, and they need to go find it!! It’s return will be GLORIOUS. Apparently centuries ago, the Hur’q, a species from the Gamma Quadrant, came and pillaged the Klingons, and took their artifacts. Now they’re dead, and the artifacts have never been found. Time to find the most famous one! :D Worf, Dax, and Kor are heading off!

Oh and Kor is attacked by some kind of demon-lookin mother fucker, and his brain electrified. I’m sure that won’t be important.

Unfortunately, by the time they make it to the Hur’q artifact chamber, it appears to have been stolen. Dax figures out some science fuckery though, and they find the REAL chamber and the Bat’leth! Though uh oh, Toral Duras is here!! He has the Lethean steal Kor’s thoughts to lead them here, and he’ll use the Batleth to forge a new Empire! Cause that worked so god damn well for the Duras all the other times.

After escaping, Kor learns about how Worf retused his right of vengeance and didn’t kill Toral before. Ugh, he’s PATHETIC. NOT EVEN A TRUE KLINGON! And now, we get to the portion where Kor is a fucking asshole. He trearts Worf like dogshit, and it now becomes clear that he’s going to use the sword HIMSELF to become emperor. Hmm. Not sure that’s a good idea.

And while talking to Dax, Worf talks about how actually HE should have the sword and HE should be the one to lead his people!!! Ah. This shit is corrupting. Worf even tries to use Kore SLIPPING AND FALLING IN A PIT as a way of easily getting rid of him. Dax is FED UP With this shit, and takes the sword. SHE will carry the sword to mordor.

Worf and Kor are about to fucking hill each other when Toral’s group catches up with them. They fight, and win, but then they turn on each other and fight to the death. Dax is fucking fed up, and shoots them both. You go, girl.

They decide that this was fucking stupid, and jettison the god damn thing into space. It was their destiny to find it, but not to keep it. Boom, it’s floating in space now. “Our people are not ready”.

I kind of did not like this episode. It was fine until they got the sword, then it was annoying and everyone was out of character. Worf wouldn’t just fucking murder Kor, that’s fucking stupid. At least Dax was great.

Our Man Bashir - DS9 10/10

Bashir is playing out a secret agent fantasy in the holo suite, when he’s interrupted by Garak, and is EXTREMELY unhappy about it. But FINE, he’ll let his boyfriend join him in his james bond fantasy.

“Nice tux” “Thank you!” “Now get out.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the command staff is on a single runabout that’s been sabatoged and it fucking explodes. Eddington tries to beam them off but the explosion makes his transporters fuse. The transporter buffers are gonna degrade, and they need to save it. So they just erase random data and shove them into it. Where do they end up?

Exactly where you’d expect.

Can you believe the actors fucking LOVED shooting this episode? It’s like a completely different fucking show. So, all of the senior staff are in this james bond program. And, due to shenanigans, if any of them die, they are erased from the program, so the actual staff die too. AND the safeties are off. Because of course they are. This makes it tricky when one of them is an assassin who’s after Bashir’s head.

The show becomes two halves. We have Wet Blanket Eddington, Odo, and Rom joins us as our Backup O’Brien. The other half is a fucking amazing James Bond pastiche, which Garrak keeps making fun of because, remember, HE IS AN ACTUAL FUCKING SPY. This is fucking hilarious on multiple layers. He’s sitting back and being Waldorf AND Statler.

The villain’s plan is so stupid, in a way that’s perfectly Bondy. Lasers that will cause molten rock to form, and will cause the earth to shrink, causing the waters to rise and make an island in the Himalayas, a perfect island paradise. It’s so stupid. I love it.

Garrak has had ENOUGH, and is going to exit the program. So Bashir fucking shoots him. Just a flesh wound, but…. can you tell if he MISSED or not?~

Sisko is the perfect bond villain btw. Bashir wins in the end by letting the villain win, which keeps them monologuing JUST long enough to let Rom fix everything.

This episode was REALLY FUCKING FUN. VERY goofy. Apparently, they ran afoul of the James Bond people, and almost got sued over this god damn episode. Stupid fucking MGM. This episode whips.

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Homefront - DS9 8/10

Our first episode starts today with two things. One, the Wormhole keeps opening and closing for apparently no reason. And two, Odo is pissed because Dax keeps sneaking in his room and moving his furniture to piss him off. This means one of two things. Either this is gonna be a fun quirky episode about Odo’s neurosis, or it’ll be about Changelings.

Anyways so a bombing happened on Earth, and a Changeling was found in the security footage. So the second it is. Sisko is sent to Earth to investigate, being an expert on Changelings, and Odo is sent with him as y’know, a Changeling. Neither of them think they can do much. Everyone is extremely anxious about this, feeling the Earth is in danger. Sisko’s old admiral friend is like “it’s the most danger the Earth has been in since the last world war”

I can only imagine Sisko is like “Uh, the Borg? My WIFE?”. Also how long do you think it’ll be before this admiral goes fucking bonkers and goes “we have to kill everyone, it’s the only way”?

We also visit Sisko’s dad’s restaurant. I love that he runs a creole food place, looks good as heck. Nog also comes as a regular (I guess it’s just that easy to visit Nawlins from Sanfran), which is fun. He’s trying to get into Red Squad, an elite group of cadets. Mr. Sisko is getting up in years and having health problems, and Ben is unhappy about this lol. Also Mr. Sisko is a very funny guy.

Sisko and his Admiral friend want to beef up security in Starfleet and Federation official buildings. The president (NOT a human, which is always cool) is like “uh I don’t wanna be the president who started a trend towards authoritarianism”, but Odo infiltrates the meeting and scares the shit out of him so he agrees.

Oh no, the Admiral is a Changeling, take a drink! Odo finds him out, though as an interesting twist, he was only a Changeling in this scene. The real Admiral is like “Our security measures aren’t working, and the president won’t let us buff them up. HE’S TOO SOFT”.

HERE IT COMES.

Meanwhile, the blood testing isn’t going well, and that’s the security measures that are apparently NOT working. Mr. Sisko is pissed and about to be ARRESTED for refusing to test if he’s a changeling, and Sisko is TRYING to force him to. It takes Mr. Sisko cutting himself while cooking, and Sisko seeing the blood, and Mr. Sisko being like “Damn you ACTUALLY THOUGHT I was a changeling?!” for him to realize, oh fuck. He’s getting paranoid. REALLY paranoid. And it’s getting to him, real bad.

Then, the power surges. Over the ENTIRE Earth, ALL of Earth runs out of power. Uh oh. Admiral Boi makes his move, with them beaming to the president’s office, and demading martial law declared, because they have it in their heads that all those wormhole openings were cloaked Jem’Hadar ships, and they’re preparing an invasion. Ignore the fact that we’ve NEVER seen them with cloak tech.

They basically force the president into it, and we get starfleet soldiers in the streets.

To be continued

Paradise Lost - DS9 9/10

Martial Law is here, and it’s all awkward. As Sisko is going over reports, he and Odo discover some weird discrepancies. Red Squad, an elite group of cadets, teleported back 23 minutes after martial law was declared, even though all other cadets were sent out for field duty. Why were these ones, the ELITE ones, called back? So Sisko calls a commanding officer to ask, who’s like “…is this a secure channel? Okay good, this could get us in a lot of trouble if anyone finds out. Thanks for telling me about it! It would really hit Admiral Leyton” and Sisko is a fucking genius and NEVER shows it on his face, and immediately jumps in on it, like “oh yes, wouldn’t want that, just needed to let you know so that wouldn’t happen”. Time to investigate.

We start with him talking about Nog, who tells him all about the leaders of Red Squad, and how they see Sisko as a hero. So he calls in that leader, and pretends that he’s unhappy about the sloppy work the Cadet does.

And the cadet SINGS. He SINGS about how he committed treason on the Federation, and sabotaged the power relays so that they could gain power and martial law. He’s damn proud of it too. Sisko is DISGUSTED. These are his FRIENDS, his COMRADES, and they happily and actively committed treason to gain power and enact fascism? And he HELPED THEM? How can he turn against them? And Odo is like “But they’ve already turned against you, and everything you believe in”

Sisko and Odo run off to the president to tell on the Admiral, and if they can find ACTUAL evidence, the admiral is toast. But the admiral finds out about them first, and sends away the cadets to save his ass, and goes to hang a long talk with Sisko to convince him “no, join us. Together, we can be fascists and rule earth. Y’know, to save it from the dominion!”

Ben is relieved of duty as acting head of security of Earth, and he’s outside thinking about wtf to do as O’Brien wanders up of all fucking people. Colm Meany then acts his fucking life off, as whoop, it’s a SHAPESHIFTER! He’s like “Would you believe me if I told you there are only FOUR changelings on this ENTIRE planet? And look at the chaos we’ve wrought. Whoo boy~”. It’s nice to see him given a villain’s speech.

Ben isn’t going to just give up. He and Odo keep looking into it, and see that the admiral is planning a FULL coup soon. But when Sisko goes to try and meet with the president again, the admiral fakes a blood test and gets him thrown in jail. Not for long. After the Admiral gives his villain victory speech, Odo does his thing (Odo was the… something! Take a drink!), and breaks him out, and the Defiant is coming here with evidence.

Sisko is not putting up with this shit, but the Admiral is ahead of him, and is sending a ship over to stop the Defiant. Jesus christ, he just doesn’t get how fucked up this all is, does he??? Nope. After he demands that they just BLOW UP the defiant, his second in command he put on that ship as captain is like “Wow fuck this shit” and stops, allowing them to leave. It’s over. The coup has failed. Martial law ends, and starfleet leaves Earth. The Changelings are still there, and a threat, but they’ll just have to destroy Earth themselves, Starfleet won’t do the work for them.

Good shit, sticks the landing very well.

Crossfire - DS9 6/10

YOU’LL GET CAUGHT UP IN THE

First Minister Shakaar is back! He’s Kira’s old friend who is now the leader of Bajor, and he’s here for talks and stuff on DS9. He’s made LOTS of enemies though, cause he’s a progressive who wants to join the Federation. There’s a threat on his life, and Odo and Worf have to try and keep him alive, while he seems EXTREMELY BAD at following any amount of security detail, and doesn’t seem at all worried at threats on his life. Odo is VERY unhappy. His unhappiness only grows as he notices the… LOOKS Kira and Shakaar are giving each other.

Kira, please stop falling in love with politicians who are visiting the station. I guess she has a type though. Odo just needs to get into politics, easy! It’s an interesting dynamic, Odo needing to keep this guy alive, but also he’s his romantic rival. And it gets WORSE than Shakkar goes to Odo like “Hey be my wingman, help me get with Kira, does she ever talk about me and seem interested in me?~”

Quark offers to help, like a good boyfriend. But Odo isn’t interested in that. He’s just gonna focus on his job and keep this guy and his crush safe, as they wander the station. He’s just, very, VERY distracted, and when someone deepfakes Worf’s voice, Odo gives him control without checking his security code first, and the turbolift falls into freefall. Odo has to use his Super Strength to stop the turbolift from falling. His mind is CLEARLY not on his work.

As Kira gets into a relationship, she literally goes “Oh Odo I have to confide in you because you’re SUCH A GOOD FRIEND <3” This is the most painful thing I’ve ever watched. And as the assassin is apprehended and they didn’t even NEED him, he uh, takes it very VERY poorly, and destroys his fucking room.

Quark comes over (he lives under Odo and hears what goes on up there), a good boyfriend here to help. Also because he runs a pool about how fast Odo will do his job, that’s whats really important and why he come over, for sure. The only reason. He tells Odo he either has to confess, or get over it, because it’s interfering with who he is. And Odo is like “….you’re right”.

The episode ends with Odo telling Kira that they need to stop their weekly meetups. Oh just because he’s so busy, you know. And then he walks out and does his rounds, walking past Kira and her new boy toy talking in the bar.

This episode is fine. Could be better. Also makes me really sad lol

Odo is the friendzone, take a drink

Crossfire - DS9 7.5/10

Kira is going to Cardassia to a meeting! Her boytoy asked her specifically to do it, and she’s annoyed cause she’s not a diplomat, and she’s complaining to Bashir, who is like the Catty Gay Best Friend and it’s pretty great. And then DUKAT SHOWS UP, YAY DUKAT! Dukat is going to be her personal transport to Cardassian space, because he’s been fucking fired over his half-bajoran daughter, and lost all of his power and authority, and is now the captain of a freighter. Welp. But don’t worry. It’s only a TEMPORARY setback.

Ziyal is here, Dukat’s daughter! Things have been… rough for her, but she’s just happy to be with her dad. Kira is very sweet to her, but their meeting is cut short by a battle drill. On a freighter. Hmm. Weird. We see Damar, who will become VERY important down the road but right now is just an extra, hi Damar!

They have dinner, where Dukat is catty about Kira’s new boyfriend. Their dinner is interrupted by a call from the bridge. The planet where they were doing the meeting is destroyed, everyone fucking dead. And the bird of prey that killed them all is still here, and doesn’t seem to give a fuck about Dukat or his freighter. And when Dukat fires on them, his weak-ass freighter does nothing, and they just… leave. Cause who cares.

I’m sure this won’t have any effects on Dukat’s psyche.

Kira convinces him to go after them, but they need something to fight. And Dukat’s a traditional Cardassian officer. Kira is here to teach him how to fight like a freedom fighter, against the Klingons who are just going around and murdering indiscriminately. It’s an interesting situation.

Especially considering that Kira fucking hates Dukat. Like, they’ve had some episodes where they hang out and laugh, but Kira can NOT get over y’know, the fascism and the murder. And she does not want to.

It’s important to note that while they’re making Dukat sympathetic, he’s like, still evil He’s an asshole. He’s a very complicated character, and a GOOD one, right now.

They find the Klingons, and get them interested in taking their cargo before using the gun they took from the dead planet on them, blowing them the fuck away. Not QUITE enough though, and as their freighter is nearing explody-status. Kira and Dukat beam over and take the ship, beaming the Klingons over to the weakened freighter, taking the bird of prey. Damn, good victory y’all, those Klingons will go back with their tail between their- oh, Dukat fucking killled them.

Things get worse and worse. Dukat messages the Cardassian government with the news, and they offer to hire him as their military advisor again. but tell him not to fight, because uh, they’re going to try and be diplomatic and get a peace to this war. Dukat is PISSED at this. So he’s going to take a line from Kira, show he really HAS learned from her! And he’s going to start a resistance cell, taking on the Klingons as a pirate!! :D And KIRA is going to help him!

Uh fucking NO she’s not. He’s like “you NEED to help us, for your own sake” but no, she wants NOTHING to do with this. She’s not even tempted. She has one thought. She needs to save Ziyal, from this life, and from Dukat. And y’know what? Dukat agrees.

Ziyal is here to join DS9 and live on the station for a while. Good episode! Important character stuff.

Sons of Mogh - DS9 4/10

Dax and Worf are fighting and flirting, very VERY heavily flirting. But that’s interrupted by an intoxicated klingon. Worf’s brother, Kurn, is back! :D It’s been a long while. He WAS on the council, but also Worf’s… Worfing, that ended. So what’s he doing here? Well, he’s here to invoke some ancient thing that requires Worf to kill his brother. Oh boy.

Meanwhile, O’Brien and Kira find a weird kind of explosion nearby, and go to investigate it, but find a Klingon ship that’s like “we’re doing exercised here, go the fuck away”. They decide to investigate further because of course they do.

Meanwhile, Worf is about to kill his brother, and stabs him, but Dax and Odo, who were investigating this and barge in and save Kurn at the last minute, teleporting him to the infirmary. Sisko is PISSED that Worf would do murder, and ignores that it was a y’know, ritualistic assisted suicide, and refuses to allow it, so they’ll have to find another way. Uh, why are we so anti-right to death i nteh 24th century? That’s very weird to me.

Kurn is pissed off that Worf is once again choosing the Federation and their ways over him. This episode is weird and I’m not enjoying it so far.

So they need to find something else for Kurn to do. So, what to do? They get him a job, so he can stay on this station and start a new life. So Worf asks Odo to accept Kurn as a security officer. This puts Worf in Odo’s debt, but apparently Kurn makes for a good security officer. He’s a bit uncomfy with the uniforn, but he’s okay with it.

Back at the “training exercises,”, a ship falls out of warp, a Vor’cha, very damaged. Weird. The Defiant hauls it back, as Kurn is fired from his job, because he LET someone almost kill him, because he wanted to die. A security officer who won’t even defend himself is worth nothing, so he’s fired. Welp.

They find out that’s going on. The Empire is setting up cloaked mines around Bajor, just outside Bajoran space. Probably. There is REASON TO BELIEVE this. But they need proof. They need to infiltrate the ship and find out. Worf convinces Kurn, and they sneak in and investigate. It goes well and they get the codes to blow up the mines, though Kurn DOES kill a Klingon officer who catches them and was about to kill Worf. That doesn’t settle well with Worf. He doesn’t feel Klingon anymore, but knows Kurn needs to be with Klingons. So what’s their plan?

They erase Kurn’s memories and surgically alter him. Worf calls in a favor with an old famiyl friend for him to be adopted by them as their son who has suffered from amnesia. What a fucking wild way of fixing this issue, what the fuck. THIS is okay, especially doing it without his consent (he’d prolly be okay with it but still), but ASSISTED SUICIDE IS BAD??? Worf ends this like “I have no family”, and Kurn gets to be a Klingon

This episode is kinda dumb. The mission statement of this episode was apparently “We’ve been teasing the ‘will Worf choose the Federation or go back to the Empire” storyline a bunch but here we decided, he realizes he can’t go back. He’s not fully Klingon anymore, he’s something new, and he has to accept that”. But I think they do it kind of badly. Like, he realizes this in a very negative way. Instead of going “I can’t go back, and I am not fully Klingon, I am something more, and the differences between me and Klingon society are GOOD things that I LIKE about myself”, instead he’s mopy and angry that the humans have changed him. And of course all the shit about Kurn is kind of stupid. It still gets a 4/10 because there are some good parts, I like the mines stuff, and also Dax is REALLY hot in the opening. Movek.

Bar Association - DS9 10/10

THIS IS ONE OF THE EPISODES

Leeta is here! She’s not been a character at all, but she gets to be a character now! So, there’s a big month of ascetic stuff, the Cleansing Month, for Bajorans. The bar is struggling, according to Quark. He’s running everyone harder than usual. Poor Rom hasn’t had a day off in weeks, AND he’s sick. It almost kills him. But that’s the way it has to be, right? Until Bashir suggests…. a union.

YES. IT’S THAT EPISODE.

Rom starts a strike. Every Ferengi is a little apprehensive, because yeah, labor unions are illegal in Ferengi society. But they’re kinda pushed against a wall. And Leeta is ALL for it, as basically Rom’s 2nd in command.

First, Quark finds it hilarious. Then he takes it seriously. Next, he uses AI to try and fix the issue and prove he doesn’t need workers. This fails, because the technology is shitty. Holy moly.

Also, O’Brien is REALLY into this, as a big leftist and union man. Good man. He and Bashir are both pro-union and support them from the sidelines, watching people either pass the bar or go in, and guessing which they’ll do. “Oh, Vulcans are big on morals. Pass.” Yep. But when Worf enters, they get into an argument with him, and are thrown in the brig for the day. lol Sisko responds by going “OKAY. THAT’S ENOUGH, THIS HAS TO END.” Sisko is a union buster ): (though he DOES tell Quark to just give in to the demands and blackmails him to do it). Also, Odo is anti-union. Sad. Milkshake ducked.

Unfortunately for them, Rom is a little to uh… heavy on this. He refuses to accept a bribe, heavy on the ALL OF US OR NONE OF US THING. So, we’ve got Brunt back to fix all this shit. That fails too. Brunt can’t threaten Rom, he’s WAY too union-pilled for this shit. So he just tries to kill Quark instead. Yeah that’s prolly what a union buster would try and do.

This proves to be kind of a bad idea lol cause now Quark is much more willing to get this shit over with and give in to demands. Quietly, claiming that THEY gave up. It works. But, in the end, Rom actually quits the bar. Why? Well, he’s learned a lot from this episode. And now, he’s working as an engineer on the station. It’s time for him to move on and grow up. Good for him!

This episode was fantastic. Handled everything well. A shame Odo and Worf are anti-union, but that’s how it is. Makes a lot of sense for Odo, anyway. He’s always Pro Order lol

Accession - DS9 8/10

The episode starts with Keiko coming back from being kicked off the show for so long her time on Bajor. Also she’s pregante! Yay! He doesn’t seem… SUPER excited about this. He wanted more like, Keiko and him time. Now there’s gonna be even MORE of that. Hmm.

Meanwhile, Sisko is getting used to his job as the Emissary. He’s still uncomfy being Space Jesus, but all he has to do is officiate weddings and stuff. But then, suddenly, a sun-sailing ship comes through the wormhole. It looks Old, and no one saw it go IN. They rescue the person in there, and he introduces himself as the Emissary. Ruh roh!!

This man, Akorem Laan, was a man from 200 years ago, a famous poet, but he was saved and dragged forward in time. And he claims he’s the emissary. Yay! Sisko is okay with it, he never wanted to be Space Jesus anyway. And he makes his first announcement, of what changes he intends to bring! His people need to HEAL. And how are they going to do that? By going back to the old conservative ways, and restoring an ancient caste system! By force and law :D

This is bad.

Some people are happy about this! Y’know, people with HIGH RANKING D’jarras. People who’d benefit. Though uh, Kira’s gonna benefit, kind of. She’s high ranking. But she’s also supposed to be an ARTIST. She’s not very good at that lol and has no interest. But hey, her god told her to do it. So what can she do???

A priest on the station is REALLY into this. Of course you fucking are dog, you’re part of the priest caste lol

Look, obviously I personally am anti-caste system. And so is this show, obviously. They, and I, view it as a kinda backwards and awful system. And even Kira believes this, though hey, Jesus told her to do it, so she’s gotta. She’s VERY unhappy about it, but she resigns her commission. “I’m sure you can find someone to replace me.” “It’ll already be impossible to find someone to fill your post… but REPLACE you???” Good acting, good line delivery, good lines.

The B-plot of “O’Brien and Bashir miss when they were dating each other” is weird and does not fit this episode.

Shit escalates. The nice friendly priest we saw at the start, who was also very eager to fall into the caste system, killed a man because he was the lowest caste and refused to go become a shit slinger. This feels sudden and weird but is actually VERY accurate to what would happen irl lol. This IMMEDIATELY changes Sisko’s thoughts. He’d already felt like he failed because this is pushing Bajor away from the Federation (the Federation won’t accept a people with a caste system). So he has to step up, and fix this.

They go to the prophets to find out what’s true and what’s not. The prophets are REALLY clear. He is the Sisko. You are NOT the Sisko. They sent him into the future to lead the Sisko back on the right path. A little convoluted, but they are weird energy beings who literally don’t understand causality. It all works out.

Also, Keiko does a GENIUS thing. She’s smart. She knows whats going on. So she tells O’Brien she ran into Bashir, who promised her not to say anything, but he’s depressed. He should go cheer him up for a few hours! And when he does, she calls up Bashir. Hey, I promised not to say anything, but… my husband is really depressed, and he needs his best friend, why don’t you cheer him up? Very clever, great shit.

Rules of Engagement - DS9 3.5/10

Our episode starts with a shaky dream sequence of Worf surrounded by corpses on the Defiant, as Klingon warriors cheer over them. He then wakes up, in the brig. Odo asks him if he’s okay, then tells him to try and get more sleep. His hearing is in four hours.

WHAT A COLD OPEN, JEEZE. Worf, what did you DO??

In the courtroom, we learn what he’s accused of. While in battle with Klingons (why was he fighting Klingons), a ship decloaked in front of him, and Worf ordered it destroyed. This was a civilian ship, and 300+ civilians are killed.

Sisko has Odo looking into it in his Detective way, while he communicates with the opposing lawyer, who is like “Ah, well once I will this lawyer battle, my people will move in while the Federation is weakened after having committed a clear massacre. So now yay we will gain more power :D” wow just… admitting you had prior motives for setting this up? Weird.

Anyway his argument and way to prove Worf would kill civilians and is a monster hunter is “hey, there’s this holodeck program he uses where you replay a historical battle, and it ends with sacking the city, killing women and children. He played that holodeck program the day before the massacre. I rest my case.”

YOUR HONOR, I HAVE PROOF THAT THE DEFENDENT PLAYED THE AIRPORT LEVEL IN CALL OF DUTY ONCE. GUILTY. EXECUTE HIM NOW.

Something important to note is the way that this frames the witnesses accounts. It doesn’t have them on the stand. Instead, it’s them in the scene they’re recounting, talking through the fourth wall. It’s unique, and I like it.

lmao “Hello Chief O’Brien, do you agree with Worf’s decision to fire? What would you do in command?” Uh, he wasn’t. And he’s not interested in ever doing that. That’s why he’s a Chief. Also this question is unfair cause he has hind sight, of course he’d say no, he wouldn’t fire. It colors his testimony.

This is a little stupid, and I feel not as well written as other court cases I’ve seen in this series. The actors are doing well, but the writing feels dumb. Also, he calls the DEFENDENT COUNSEL to the witness stand. I don’t think you can do that.

Things get bad when the prosecutor keeps riling up Worf, intentionally, insulting his son. The judge lets him keep doing this. She’s like “I will hold you in contempt if you continue!” and he continues and she does nothing until Worf hits him for insuilting his son, and now she’s upset. Ohhhh, mean violence bad >:( “I thought you said you’d never attack an unarmed man.” THEY ARE LITERALLY ARMED EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.

And then Deus Ex Machina happens. Odo figures it out off screen, and yeah, the transport was fake, it had false sensors sending out information about who was on that ship. No civilians were on that ship. It was all staged to weaken the Federation. Boom, done and done. None of this episode really mattered, cause of that deus ex machina.

The episode ends with Sisko ripping into Worf for being a dumbass who’s fire on an unknown ship when civilians might be in the area. Ignoring y’know, that it was a ship uncloaking in the middle of a battlefield in front of an enemy. This episode kinda sucks lol

Hard Time - DS9 5.5/10

Time for everyone’s favorite trope, “Let’s Make O’Brien Suffer”!!! :D

O’Brien is aged and broken in a jail cell, when he’s told his 20 years of incarceration are up, and he’s thrown out of the jail, and into the light. BOOM he’s back to normal, back to the present. What happened? Well, this society doesn’t have jails. Instead, it has technology that implants memories in the mind. So they implant 20 years of jail time, so that they don’t need REAL jails. What a great system :D

Um yes hello, question. IF YOU HAVE A HYPERBOLIC TIME CHAMBER THAT LETS YOU LIVE OUT LIKE, GETTING PHDS OR LEARNING ENTIRELY NEW SKILLS IN NO TIME AT ALL, WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK DO YOU USE IT FOR TORTURING PEOPLE?!

O’Brien is not handling this well, obviously. Kira is like “But this is REALITY”, which god, I hope I don’t have to hear that a lot. People like “Jeeze, chief, lighten up. It never actually happened, what’s the big deal???” when this man is OBVIOUSLY SUFFERING FROM PTSD OVER THINGS THAT BASICALLY HAPPENED, CAUSE THEY ARE MEMORIES IN HIS MIND. Luckily, Bashir is taking this VERY seriously.

O’Brien is seeing someone all around, even as Keiko. His old cell mate, apparently. Also I have to note, O’Brien’s actor is doing a VERY good job portraying someone suffering from PTSD, and CONSTANTLY living through this, over and over.

His cellname, a man called Ee’char, seems like a good man. He was alone in there for 6 years, and seems SHOCKINGLY well adjusted. Well, you find ways to survive. And he found a way to survive by meditative art, and laughing when others wouldn’t, being jovial and optimistic. I can’t wait for this to… fall apart. Especially since he keeps seeing Ee’char. AND that he keeps resisting seeing a counselor. This results in an argument where he yells at Bashir.

O’Brien is… very aggressive and violent, actually, now that he’s out of prison, and I’m not sure I agree. Like, that’s how some people are with PTSD. But it feels like O’Brien wouldn’t have fallen into that. He’s a good guy, he’d prolly be working through his PTSD in another way. His way of “All I want to do is work and distract myself” is WAY more fitting. Unfortunately, this ends up causing issues, because all his other outbursts cause them to deem him unfit for duty and take his work away from him.

Also I’m a little worried they’re just… conflating schizophrenia and other similar disorders with PTSD, and they are…. not. Everything reaches a head when O’Brien almost hurts Molly. He rushes off and uh….

Yeah. Like obviously, it’s a heavy topic, and he’s doing it because he doesn’t think he can get better, because he thinks he’ll just end up hurting others, like Bashir, and his family. But Bashir comes in, and talks to him. He tells the story of how he killed Ee’char in a jealous fit over some food, even though Ee’char did nothing wrong. And then Ee’char forgives him and walks off. And he’s cured! The episode makes it very clear he is NOT cured, like, it’ll be a work in progress as he goes to therapy. But uh, it’s prolly not going to be brought up ever again, is it?

I have no idea what to think of this episode. It is a HARD nut to crack. I think I don’t like how it feels weirdly out of character? If they had had him JUST fall into his work, not fall into his work and lash out in anger… and if instead, Ee’char had died of malnurishment and O’Brien felt guilty cause he was hording food… it feels like it’s land a little better.

Shattered Mirror - DS9 7/10

Jake is missing Nog, and he walks in on his mom hanging with Sisko. Wait, his mom??? Yes, his mom! Well, no. It’s his mom, but from the mirror episode. She’s apparently come to visit, cause it’s just so easy now to hop between the two universes. Sisko has to run off so he’s like “I’ll just leave my son with this woman from The Evil Dimension”

Anyways she kidnaps him. No way. Sisko goes after him, and is kidnapped too. No way, what a twist! Well, actually, Jake let himself get kidnapped. He just wants to help! Also he wants to be with his “mom”. Anyways, they built a new Mirror Defiant. But it’s ripping itself apart, so they need Sisko to fix it, because he built it.

As with all mirror episodes, we get some cool new characters. Mirror Nog is a womanizing, weirdly aggressive Ferengi. Worf is the ruler of the Alliance. Also he might be Gay. Yay. The rebels captured Terok Nor and captured the Intendent, who is horny as usual, though Garak escapes and is being tortured by Worf for failing to stop the insurrection.

This episode swaps between two things. Jennifer Sisko being all “I wish I could be Jake’s mom” and Jake being like “I hope she could be my mom”. Jennifer is trying to kindle a romance with Sisko, who is NOT INTERESTED. And then Garak being tortured by Worf. It’s weird but kind of entertaining, in the alternate universe way all of this is. Also sometimes, Kira is super horny and funny.

Nog helps Kira escape, because hey, she killed his family, so now he owns the bar, he owes her one. Huh, okay. Well, Kira immediately kills him cause he’s the only one who knows she’s escaping, so…

Jennifer sacrifices herself to protect Jake, but when Kira learns that he’s Sisko’s kid, she lets him go, “to get a favor from Sisko”. Meanwhile, the Defiant Mellenium Falcons against an ENTIRE fleet, alone. I like how the Defiant is either shitty and awful or the best ship of all time, depending on what we need.

The episode ends with Worf retreating, and him and Garak planning who to throw under the bus. It’s the Intendent. She MUST have betrayed them (she did, actually, tell them where to attack, but they just wanted a scapegoat). Sisko says goodbye to Jennifer, again, as she dies, and then they go home, the end.

This was fine. Mirror episodes are kinda fun, and mirror everyone is hot. Mirror Worf is a cheesy bad guy. Mirror Kira can fucking destroy me.

So, I wrote 5 episodes worth of stuff, and uh, it all died due to a browser error. So all of what you’ll see here is secondary written quick thoughts. Very, VERY annoying :/ But it is what it is.

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The Muse - DS9 5.5/10

Jake meets a mysterious woman who turns out to be a vamp who feasts on creative life energy, killing her host. It’s very, VERY boring. The B plot is that Lwaxana is back, and on the run from her newest Husband, an abuser who’s using law to get their child. Well that’s a charged subject. This episode was ORIGINALLY just that plot, but they felt it didn’t stand on its own, so they added the Jake thing and made it the A plot. That did NOT work. The Lwaxana plot ends early to make room for hte Jake one, then it’s just 10 minutes of cutting back and forth from Jake being feasted on and the others going “we should stop that”

To solve the issue, Odo marries Lwaxana. It’s very sweet. He’s come a long way. If Lwaxana suggested the marriage, it might have been bad. But this worked out well. This episode has good moments between them.

For the Cause - DS9 6/10

Hey, you remember Eddington? Eddington was a character who’s ONLY character trait, the one thing he ever did that was important, is betray everyone because they were going to go against Federation orders. So his only character trait is that he is fiercely loyal to the Federation. Anyways he tells Sisko his girlfriend is probably a smuggler for the Maquis. Turns out she IS, but he’s actually the villain, and works for the Maquis. He sacrifices her, she’s smuggling medical supplies at risk of her own life, for like 6 replicators. He’s very stupid.

Then there’s a massive Villain Speech by Eddington. He’s like “Why do you all care so much about us and call us terrorist? All we’re doing is terrorism against you >:( You just hate that we left the Federation, after you told us we’d have to be kicked out if we kept doing what we did and we got angry that you kicked us out. Honestly you’re worse than the Borg, you’re assimilating just like them, by making friends with everyone and trying to bring peace. You DISGUST me >:(“

It is very VERY VERY stupid.

Also there’s a Bplot with Bashir and Gul Dukat’s daughter. It’s okay.

To the Death - DS9 9.5/10

Some Jem’Hadar attack DS9, and it turns out they’re Jem’Hadar rebels. The Defiant team teams up with some Jem’Hadar and a Vorta, Weyoun, who I’m excited to meet I can’t wait for him to be a recurring villain :D Anyways it has a lot of fucking AMAZING lines, nonstop good lines and character moments, big fan. Weyoun is killed in the end. Poor guy.

Also this happens.

The Quickening - DS9 10/10

Bashir finds a planet with a people who were destroyed by the Dominion and given a disease that kills them all, from birth to death. Very, VERY heavy plot points. Bashir is optimistic and chipper and proud of who he is and what he can do, and he’s ripped down, but still does what he can to help. Very good Bashir moments, very powerful. Lots of stuff about assisted suicide and hope. It’s good, very very good. Though it starts with a goofy starting cut away gag about Quark inventing adware and infecting the station with it which is RIDICULOUS.

Body Parts - DS9 10/10

Two parts to this episode. The B plot is that Keiko’s baby is implanted into Kira after an accident, so she becomes a member of the O’Brien household. It’s actually really sweet. Bashir gives her estrogen and progesterone to make the pregnancy go smoothly. Kira is given HRT :D

The A plot is that Quark is told he’s going to die, and he gets a 500 bar bid on his corpse. It’s by Brunt, who set him up so that he could fuck over Quark’s life. Either he breaks the contract and is excommunicated, or he kills himself. He takes the third option and hires Garak to kill him, which causes one of my favorite scenes in the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUo8W_tbGtE

He eventually decides to live and is excommunicated. Big “Worf is dishonored” energy. But as he sits there, with nothing to his name, the bar completely empty, everyone on the station comes to just “give off” some stuff they don’t need, dropping off items they don’t need. Like alcohol, and chairs and stuff. It’s very sweet and cute. LOVE this episode so much.

Broken Link - DS9 8/10

Odo is suddenly struck by some kind of disease that makes him melt and not able to transform properly. The makeup is really nice. Also Kira is still very pregnant, and there’s a lot of cute stuff about that. Bajorans sneeze a lot instead of morning sickness, that’s sweet~

They go to the Gamma Quadrant to find the Founders so that they can try and save Odo. Garak comes along too, mostly so he can see if anyone survived that attack from seasons ago. He’s also there to be catty and gay and I love him.

Turns out the Changelings are the reason he’s dying. They did SOMETHING to him, and now he’s falling apart. The Female Changeling is here to explain, because he killed another Changeling, the ONLY law they have really, he must be taken to the Great Link and judged. Nothing like this has EVER happened, so they’re not sure what to do about him. If he joins the link they can find out WHY he did it, and understand him.

So they beam onto a Hypnospace Outlaw desktop, and Odo joins the great link to be judged. They WANTED to help him, some way to try and save him if things go wrong, but he tells them not to bother. He WANTS to be judged.

Worf find out that Garak was reprogramming the weapon controls to blow up all the fucking founders. There’s some GREAT lines. “You’re a Klingon! Don’t tell me you’d object to a little genocide in the name of SELF DEFENSE?!” And then Worf beats the shit out of him. But he fights well, for a tailor. I do totally get Garak’s plan here, like, yeah, they’ll all die, but he can save the Alpha Quadrant from a LOT of pain, and stop some fascists in the meantime. Imagine if this HAD been how it went. I wanna see that AU.

Odo has been judged. He has been turned into a Human, somehow. “Perhaps we should have killed you, it would have been less cruel”. But if he wants to be with solids so much, he can BE one. But they left his face the same, so he’d never forget who he was, what he did, and what he lost. It’s very, VERY interesting. But hey, women hot. He’s getting used to being a Solid already. Though he is NOT taking it well. “My job is the only thing I have left.” But he’s doing his best, one moment at a time.

And then we get a message from Gowron, disrupting the Gul Dukat channel! Gowron is saying he’s about to declare war on the Federation. But Odo knows one thing. Something he learned from the Great Link. Gowron isn’t what he seems. He’s a changeling.

END OF SEASON. GOOD CLIFF HANGER

God this season was REALLY good???