A Bajoran terrorist named Tahna Los barely escapes pursuing Cardassians and requests asylum aboard DS9. He turns out to have a history with Major Kira, who advocates for him. He insists that his days of violence are over, but with the help of Plain Simple Garak, who uses the naive Bashir as his unwitting accomplice, the crew of DS9 discover that Tahna may not be sincere about his intentions on the station, and the tense confrontation that results will influence the future of Bajor.
The is the first “normal” episode of the show and it continues the high quality storytelling and character development from the pilot. The plot here is pretty complicated, but the writing is sharp and the directing and editing is tight, which gives the whole episode a polish that is rare for a show so early in its run, particularly by ST standards. TNG is great, but there is no doubt that is stumbled a lot in its first two seasons. While season 1 is probably my least favorite from DS9, that is mainly just because the show continually got better as it went, and not due to any real flaws with the season, aside from perhaps some claustrophobia setting-wise.
In general, Bajoran episodes are among my least favorite ones on DS9 (probably mainly because they always feature Kira, who is my least favorite character on the show), but the excellent use of suspense and tension and some really great pacing (not to mention a lot of great moments with Garak and/or the Duras sisters) makes this episode highly enjoyable in spite of poorly-acted Kira tantrums and those awful drab Bajoran uniforms.
THE GOOD
- Garak!! I think arguably the best part about DS9 is the deep roster of great recurring characters like Garak, Dukat, Weyoun, Damar, Martok, etc. The overall acting talent of the main cast is pretty average at best, but the recurring characters are almost always a highlight of any episode they appear in. And of all the best recurring characters, Garak is my favorite (well, he and Damar are tied as my favs). Andrew Robinson’s acting is incredible and he absolutely oozes a serpentine quality that is perfect for the enigmatic Cardassian tailor. Watching him toy with Bashir in this episode is like seeing an apex predator play with its food. You really never know what Garak is going to do next, and every scene with him is just a joy to watch.
- I love seeing the Duras sisters here. They are cartoonishly evil but immensely amusing. For better or worse, they capture your full attention every time they are on screen. And having another TNG cameo effectively reinforces what Picard’s presence in the pilot was showing--that these two series are taking place at the same time in the same basic setting.
- “Go over my head again, and I’ll have yours...on a platter.” One thing I love about Sisko is his ‘no BS’ attitude. Even the ever-petulant Kira was cowed by that dressing-down.
- The Odo and Kira scene in the security office is good. Even though I don’t care for Kira very much, their friendship is nice and Rene Auberjonois is a really great actor who gets to shine here.
THE BAD
- The Bajoran clothes and uniforms are ugly and I hate them. Every Bajoran-centric episode is 10% less enjoyable due to that alone.
- Some mediocre acting from the guy who plays Tahna, as well as by Nana Visitor, drags the scenes down a bit where it’s just the two of them.
THE UGLY
- Runabout roster: Ganges, Yangtzee Kiang, Rio Grande
- Odo shapeshift count: 1 (rat), 3 total for series
- If Gul Danar looks familiar, that’s because he is played by Vaughn Armstrong, who has played a total of eleven different ST characters to date. This is his second appearance, with his role as a renegade Klingon in the TNG season 1 episode “Heart of Glory” being his first, and Admiral Maxwell Forest on ENT being his most numerous and recognizable.
- I was curious why the Ganges has a extra module on its dorsal side that the Yangtzee Kiang doesn’t have. Turns out that is an advanced sensor module, which explains why the Ganges can monitor the Yangtzee around the moon but not vice-versa.
- It’s unclear why Tahna said he needed a warp-capable ship for his mission. Everything seems to take place within the Bajoran system, so a sublight ship would work just fine. However, the top speed of a Danube-class runabout is Warp 5, which about 200 times the speed of light. Since it takes them about 2.5 minutes to get to DS9, that implies that DS9 is 9 billion kilometers away, or about 60 AU. For reference, Neptune is about 30 AU from the sun, which means that DS9 and the wormhole are probably very far out on edge the Bajoran solar system and would make a sublight journey possibly take a very long time, increasing the chances his plan would be detected and stopped.
- The Cardassian ship takes about 4 minutes to reach DS9 from the Cardassian border. The top speed of a Galor-class cruiser is around warp 8 (about 1000 times the speed of light), which means the Cardassian border is only .008 light years away, or about 493 AU. This implies that a large part of the Bajoran system’s Oort cloud (if it has one) isn’t even in Bajoran space, as the Oort cloud is believed to be able to extend more than a lightyear from its parent star.
- Dax and someone else should have been piloting the Ganges, not Sisko and O’Brien. It makes no sense for the CO and chief engineer to be doing that job. It would have been nice for Dax to actually have something to do in the episode, too.
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