Nor the Battle to the Strong #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 4) Jake Sisko, cub reporter, tests his belief in courage under fire

Rewatching ST:DS9 On an assignment to write a profile on Bashir, budding writer Jake tags along to a medical conference, and nothing really surprising happens. Their casual, character-based banter is not interrupted by a distress call from a colony in desperate need of medical assistance, and no side-quest, custom-tailored to appeal to the people who…

Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 3) Worf helps Quark romance his Klingon ex-wife; Kira and O’Brien get very close

Rewatching ST:DS9 Outside the O’Briens’ quarters, Quark catches Bashir eavesdropping on raised voices. (It’s actually Miles and Kira fighting.) Dax and Worf are happily bickering over opera when he is smitten by the sight of a “glorious” Klingon woman. “She’s okay,” says Dax. It’s Grilka, Quark’s ex-wife. Quark realizes she needs his financial advice, but…

The Ship #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 2) Sisko defends his claim to salvage a Jem’Haddar warship

Rewatching ST:DS9 The Ship On a mineral survey of a planet that just happens to look like Southern California, O’Brien trades playful barbs with crewman Muniz. Unlike most episodes where the leads have all the fun, this mission is fairly crawling with random crew we’ve never seen before. An unidentified ship appears randomly and crashes…

Apocalypse Rising #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 1) Sisko Infiltrates a Klingon Base to Expose an Impostor

Rewatching ST:DS9 Worf and O’Brien want to search for overdue Sisko and Dax, but Kira invokes the Defiant’s standing orders to guard the station. When the captain’s damaged runabout turns up, we learn Starfleet wants him to prove that, per Odo’s intelligence, Gowron is a Changeling. Quark shows concern for Odo: “That’s one depressed ex-changeling.”…

Broken Link #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 26) Odo gets drippy, must visit Changeling homeworld

Rewatching ST:DS9 In Garak’s shop, the enigmatic proprietor tries to play matchmaker between Odo and an attractive Bajoran woman. Odo is characteristically formal and polite to her, but as a shape-shifter who is liquid in his resting state, he just isn’t interested in “these convoluted mating rituals.” He reluctantly admits she’s lovely, but has a…

Body Parts #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 25) Quark announces he’s dying; Kira becomes “Aunt Nerys”

Rewatching ST:DS9 In Ops, O’Brien frets to Dax about his very pregnant, very active wife’s latest outing to the Gamma Quadrant. Quark, having just returned from a visit to Ferenginar, seems unusually happy to be back, but blurts out just before the opening credits that he’s dying. While on Ferenginar, Quark was diagnosed with the…

The Quickening #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 24) Bashir visits a planet where plague victims “worship death”

Rewatching ST:DS9 After a comic opening on the station (featuring Quark working an advertising jingle into the cups served up by the food replicators), we join Kira, Dax and  a starry-eyed Bashir (“Is it my imagination or are the stars a little brighter in the Gamma Quadrant?”) on a runabout, following a distress beacon to…

To the Death #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 23) The Defiant’s pursuit of disloyal Jem’Hadar raiders leads to an unlikely alliance

Rewatching ST:DS9 In the Defiant mess hall, Dax and Bashir give O’Brien friendly advice about parenting, and Dax and O’Brien warn Bashir not to sit in Worf’s favorite seat. A Jem-Haddar sneak attack on DS9 has fragmented a docking pylon, and during the hectic scene that follows, the camera leaves Kira’s in-progress tactical report so…

For the Cause #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 22) Eddington and Odo suspect Sisko’s smuggle-buddy Kassidy; Ziyal offers friendship to Garak

Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko and Kassidy playfully tease each other about balancing duty and their relationship. After she leaves, Sisko blissfully smells her pillow. Eddington briefs the staff about protecting a shipment of industrial replicators from the Maquis (former Federation citizens whose colonies were ceded to the Cardassians against their will).  Sisko sends Worf to patrol…

Hard Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 19) O’Brien deals with the implanted memories of a 20-year prison sentence

Rewatching ST:DS9 A haggard O’Brien, with a scraggly beard, is released from an alien prison. He seems disoriented… “I can’t leave. Where would I go to?” A concerned Kira watches as smug aliens infodump that they punish offenders by inserting extended memories of incarceration — twenty years, in O’Brien’s case. Sisko explains to Keiko that…