Okay, none of this was fun and lighthearted. Pretty much the opposite, actually.

I LOVED the episode where Julian saves Garak from the implant he’s addicted to. I loved Julian’s conviction. I also finally figured out I can’t trust a word Garak says (the first time he told Julian “why he was exiled.” I sat there thinking “no way.” Took me long enough). I don’t agree with the medical ethics of the situation necessarily but I believed in who Julian was in those moments so it didn’t bother me. And it is really thrilling to genuinely believe in a character.

The episode in the mirror universe honestly confused me a bit. Bashir shot mirror Odo with zero consideration which I found interesting. It’s funny because in the season finale they say he and Jadzia don’t have much combat experience but I have no doubt that either would do exactly what they need to in that sort of situation. I also just think it would have been really funny to see the crew’s reaction when Kira shows up in an evening gown while Julian was covered in soot.

The Collaborator episode was extremely disappointing because I didn’t want Wynn (Winn?) to be in charge. That’s all I got. I love seeing Kira go through stuff but she could not disentangle herself here and should have had Odo investigate. But this is what I want to see more of.

The episode where O’Brien was on Cardassian Trial was just... odd. It just had no motivation behind it until Sisko explained it in the last few minutes. The entire episode was, “We can’t tell you anything except that he’s already guilty and scheduled for execution! You have no authority in this court.”

AND THE FINALE: you guys are going to hate me but I just wasn’t interested until that twist at the end where the telekinetic girl was working for the enemy. I still just don’t believe Sisko’s character. I don’t like Quark, and the kids mildly annoy me. The kids spent the whole episode trying to get into space only to have Miles jump on, undo their progress, and realize that if they had just waited they could have transported their guardians onto the ship. Then we had these (what I’ve always imagined are) pretty small shuttles getting into battle formation with a giant star ship, but oh no, it’s the big ‘ol star ship that gets blown up because there are no main characters on it. The ending was cool though, I really trusted that character for some reason, so I was actually surprised when she was a bad guy.

I did start the first few minutes of season three, and I’m not excited for the first couple episodes. The diplomacy and exploration of new species in greater detail is what makes DS9 unique and exciting to me. I don’t honestly understand why they, knowing that they had divided up territories to species like the Romulans and Cardassians, did not stop to think at some point that maybe this part the universe is claimed by some species. Shouldn’t they have tried to figure that out before they started romping around in it? I believe in the Star Trek motto, as well as the human spirit of, exploration. But at some point, we need to exercise some caution. Did we learn nothing from the Q? You would think, at some point, there would be some amount of caution. And while most of my commentary on episode 1 season 3 will be in the next post, I will say this: I’m annoyed that cloking devices in Bajoran space were illegal until somebody blew up a star ship because suddenly it’s personal to The Federation.

Sorry, this was a really negative post. And I obviously haven’t seen the conclusion to this encounter with the Dominion so as alway (except with Quark), I’m keeping an open mind (okay, maybe a little with Quark, too). But I want to see more Garak. I want to see more Miles (I’ve said that in how many posts now? I like Miles). I want to see that absolutely beautiful side of Odo we got little glimpses of. I want to see more of the Vedec stuff, and how Bajor is interacting with THEIR OWN station. I want to see cool sciency stuff come out of the gamma quadrant, and I also want to see more life on station. This show has been super creative with the politics and scifi ideas to the point where a big space battle almost felt like a cop-out to end the season and start the new one. But I’m still looking forward to see how they play this out. I feel like DS9 is going to have to distinguish itself from other Star Trek series, even in the big space battles.