# ST: Deep Space Nine, Best and worst episodes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835 "2010-11-16T05:21:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/41 "2010-11-17T03:15:07Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > I didn’t. Winn was freaking intolerable until her face heel turn…or heel worse heel turn, I guess. Just so smarmy and utterly false. Heh. That’s exactly why I enjoyed her so much. She’s a fascinating study in self-interest. I mean, I’m sure I would hate her if I knew her in real life, but as a character in a TV show, she was endlessly compelling to watch. I liken her to the character of Gaius Baltar from BSG - self-serving skinks with charisma to spare, who parlay that charisma into power. And though they occasionally lean towards doing the right thing, they always, always end up looking out for themselves, first and foremost. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/42 "2010-11-17T03:22:39Z")
DS9 is my all-time favorite Trek (and I’m one who used to watch TOS during its original run). Two episodes that always stick with me haven’t been mentioned yet (unless they were mentioned by title without description; I don’t remember the titles): - The one with O’Brien where he is sentenced to (something like) thirty years in prison… but it is performed surgically, and only happens in his mind. In real life, something like an hour passes, but he has to live through the entire sentence. And then, has to go back to his real life, remembering it. - The one where O’Brien’s daughter is lost in some time-portal, and they don’t get her back until \*she \*has aged something like ten years, and gone totally feral. I’ll never forget the look of horror and regret in O’Brien’s face at what he let happen to his daughter. Yeah, I guess Chief O’Brien is one of my favorite characters. His wife, not so much. That bitch I would beam into the core of a star! ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/43 "2010-11-17T03:41:47Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > I mean, I’m sure I would hate her if I knew her in real life, but as a character in a TV show, she was endlessly compelling to watch. I see your point. I just don’t really find characters to whom my primary reaction is ‘I want to slap them’ particularly interesting villains. And all the politicking that amounted to small potatoes, even for 99% of the other characters involved was wearing. I think a more accurate explanation for why I disliked her as a character, which allowed why I disliked her as a person (‘smarmy and utterly false’) to come to the fore, is captured in that last sentence - she was very very small, in among things that were rather big. I’m not talking, necessarily, _inherently_ big things, like Sisko’s cosmic issues, or the various wars. Just plots of consequence to _anyone_ but Winn Adami. She was mostly nothing but a minor annoyance to the characters I cared about (Sisko or Bareil, particularly)…not a big enough issue to really care how things fell out (save for the episode where she became Kai by threatening to ruin Bareil’s reputation), but just there, taking up space that could have been spent on something else. ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/44 "2010-11-17T04:41:20Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Yeah, I guess Chief O’Brien is one of my favorite characters. The thing I loved, in a meta- sort of way, was how O’Brien was the writers’ punching bag. In addition to the ones you mentioned, ( **Hard Time** and **Time’s Orphan** ), there was **Whispers** , where he returns to the station to find everyone turned against him. And **Visionary** , where he dies and is replaced by himself from the near future. And **Tribunal** , where the Cardassians torture and try him for a crime he didn’t commit. And **The Assignment** , where his wife is possessed by a Pagh Wraith… Dude just couldn’t catch a break. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/45 "2010-11-17T04:43:34Z")
In the Pale Moonlight. Definitely my favorite, hands down. I’m also fond of the baseball episode, “In the Cards,” any of the Ferengi episodes… Aw heck, I like them all, really. I could list a bunch of my favorites. The only ones I didn’t much care for were the ones about the prophets. You can rearrange the whole universe so that Ben Sisko’s parents meet and have sex, but you can’t understand how linear time works? Morons. ---
**Author:** ![Osiris\_the\_1st](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Osiris\_the\_1st](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osiris_the_1st)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/46 "2010-11-17T16:05:10Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > The baseball episode in Season 7 was pretty sucky too. The baseball episode was one of my favorites; I thought that it was a good way to bring in some comic relief and break the tension between one very serious storyline and the next. If a show has constantly building unrelenting tension I find that I get so exhausted watching it that I lose interest/hope all the main characters die just to get some closure. (See Heroes) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/47 "2010-11-17T16:05:11Z")
“In the Pale Moonlight” is very, very good. To win a war, sometimes you have to do nasty things. “The Visitor” is a very well-crafted tearjerker. Loved it. “Trials and Tribble-ations” is a lot of fun. A nice touch to have the Temporal Police (or whatever it was) agent immediately know what day of the week something happened a century before. The DS9 crew was seamlessly inserted into the TOS episode - well done. And I liked Worf gruffly refusing to explain why the TOS Klingons looked different from him. I don’t remember all of the episode names, but I also liked the episode with the DS9 staff playing baseball with the Vulcans (esp. hearing the Federation anthem after all these years!); the one where Kira befriends an elderly Cardassian man who’s wracked by guilt for what happened during the Occuptation; and the one where Garak is going through withdrawal from his implant. The one where Garak is torturing Odo and Odo can’t revert to his liquid form, getting more and more tattered, was very powerful. Oh, and the one where the DS9 folks are all writers and production staff for a Fifties sf magazine. And the one set years before in which Odo, under Gul Dukat’s watchful eye, investigates a murder on the station and comes to suspect refugee Kira. The series finale was almost perfect - a great end to the series (although if I were directing, the last shot would’ve been Morn saying “Goodbye,” his first and only word after all those years). Good stuff. Episode for episode, one of the very best Treks. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/48 "2010-11-17T16:25:11Z")
For your consideration: A good Ferengi episode. Yes, it exists! _Little Green Men_ - the one where Quark, Rom and Nog end up in 1940s New Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/49 "2010-11-17T16:30:08Z")
Meh. A few laughs, but overall I didn’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/50 "2010-11-17T17:01:18Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > I loved Kai Winn up until Season 7. Same with Gul Dukat. These are not by coincidence. Right - both were great so long as they remained deeply flawed but nuanced characters, and lost a lot of appeal once they became straight-up villains. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/51 "2010-11-17T17:04:47Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > … I can’t stand Avery Brooks. 😕 I understand each individual word. I do not understand what they mean when put together in that order. Hell, if Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko read the telephone directory in “that” voice you’d better believe I’d start dialing every number he read… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/52 "2010-11-17T17:23:07Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > 😕 > I understand each individual word. > > I do not understand what they mean when put together in that order. > > Hell, if Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko read the telephone directory in “that” voice you’d better believe I’d start dialing every number he read… The problem is that, especially in the first season Avery Brooks tended to read his lines very much as if he _were_ reading the telephone directory. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/53 "2010-11-17T17:45:17Z")
He does have an annoying tendency to unnaturally pause between words that begin and end with the same consonant. Listen to him say “weapons (lengthy pause) stations!” for example. I’m guessing some **ACTING! COACH!** told him this was a good idea once upon a time. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/54 "2010-11-17T18:00:30Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I always wondered if the Peace with the Dominion would have held. There were a lot of planets in the Dominion besides the Founders. Plus The Jem’Hadar were still around. I’m not sure making peace with the Founders was enough to remove the threat. > > It’s similar to the Shadow war on Babylon 5. After the Shadows left there was another season dealing with other bad guys that supported & worked with the Shadows. It’s different, though. The Jem’Hadar were essentially slaves to the Founders - they’d been created or genetically engineered to need a substance that only the Founders could provide (white something-or-other, I think). The other big race that we saw a lot of - and I forget their names but Jeffrey Combs played Weyoun, one member) referred to the Founders as gods. Something like “you don’t speak that way to a GOD!”). If Jesus and His brothers and sisters were among you, and you _knew_ they were Jesus and kin, and they said quit fighting, you’d quit fighting. Other races in the Dominion - if there were any that weren’t so completely subjugated - probably had comparatively little desire to battle the Federation and would have been perfectly happy to stop the fighting. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/55 "2010-11-17T18:05:05Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > He does have an annoying tendency to unnaturally pause between words that begin and end with the same consonant. Listen to him say “weapons (lengthy pause) stations!” for example. > > I’m guessing some **ACTING! COACH!** told him this was a good idea once upon a time. Eh, I chalk that up to odd personal delivery (much like Shatner’s own well-known penchant for random pauses). It may also come from his theater background - like his fellow Trek captains, Shatner and Stewart, Brooks did a fair amount of Shakespeare back in the day. It works for me, because Brooks’s speaking style fits the character quite well. He tended to dial up the pauses during tense action sequences (because Sisko is the most bad-ass of Starfleet captains), and turn it waaaaay down, to the point of soft-spokenness, during Emissary or personal scenes. It fits the duality of the character, torn between the two worlds of the Federation and Bajor, and his place as the “in between” Star Trek captain - less brash and more mature than Kirk, but more decisive and less diplomatically-inclined than Picard. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/56 "2010-11-17T18:08:40Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > For your consideration: A good Ferengi episode. Yes, it exists! _Little Green Men_ - the one where Quark, Rom and Nog end up in 1940s New Mexico. Roswell, NM, specifically, in July 1947. And didn’t Odo stow away? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/57 "2010-11-17T18:12:15Z")
[QUOTE=Tanbarkie] It fits the duality of the character, torn between the two worlds of the Federation and Bajor, and his place as the “in between” Star Trek captain - less brash and more mature than Kirk, but more decisive and less diplomatically-inclined than Picard. [/QUOTE] I thought the look on Q’s face was funny when he succesfully goaded sisko into belting him in the mouth. “You actually HIT me! Picard never did that!” ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/58 "2010-11-17T18:31:01Z")
I loved DS9; easily my favorite ST series. I probably haven’t seen most of the episodes since they aired, though, so I really oughta Netflix them. I just loved the huge epic feel of season 7, especially. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/59 "2010-11-17T19:04:08Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I thought the look on Q’s face was funny when he succesfully goaded sisko into belting him in the mouth. > > “You actually HIT me! Picard never did that!” “I’m not Picard.” With a slightly evil smile. That was awesome. ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835/60 "2010-11-17T21:32:42Z")
I loved Brooks’ character overall, but damn, his cadence was annoying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-deep-space-nine-best-and-worst-episodes/560835.md?page=4)