S7E20, “The Changing Face of Evil” (Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler)

Ezri and Worf arrive back at the station safely, greeted by Bashir, O’Brien, and Sisko. This scene was weird. None of them even look at Worf or acknowledge him. They are totally focused on Ezri’s return. I think this is not a slight or has deeper meaning to the characters at all. I kinda just think it’s sloppy direction. Maybe the pace of recent episodes is overtaxing the showrunners and budget or something. They still get a lot done, and this isn’t a disaster or anything, but it’s kind of a clunky episode right from the start that forces its way to where it needs to be since there’s a lot of moving stuff around to be done.

Worth noting that Memory Alpha at this point is a bunch of trivia about the writing team bickering with each other trying to figure out how to shift all the threads around to slot into equally-timed episodes. This is while many of them are still being developed. The tidbits are all some flavor of “Ira changed this in his episode and it screwed up Ron’s story, but then they worked it out.” The details are a bit like hearing a far-too-detailed description of someone else’s workday, but the larger process is interesting. They certainly had certain end goals, and nine episodes to get there, and what happened in between got worked out in real time. Sounds like a fun job (but in reality probably is like a normal job).

A lot of this one is spent with Kai Winn forcing poor Solbor to fetch illicit reading from the Bajoran archives while Dukat smirks in the background. I think we just have to roll with this because I don’t see how Winn could just get locked away with some new guy and Solbor as her only contact with the outside world. The books she wants are supremely sensitive forbidden objects that Solbor says haven’t been opened in 700 years. (The librarian in me cringed when she unwraps it and opens it up, like it wouldn’t crumble into nothing. Paper is better in the future I guess.) It seems like this should set off a few alarms around the Kai compound, but, oh well. Eventually Solbor gets wise, and gets dead. Life comes at you fast. I forget if we knew this thing about the pah-wraiths living in some fire caves somewhere. I might’ve zoned out during one of Dukat’s interminable speeches back in “Covenant“. Weren’t they floating around when pah-wraithy Dukat tried to kill everyone before? Or was that just one of them? I’m sure a smarter reader will remember all these details, but I don’t. Maybe it’s on me as viewer. But this is so weird to me. Horrendous evil holy phantoms (a) exist in the material world and (b) are just trapped in some cave? And this ancient text says how to get them out? So like, is there any reason at all to keep this book? There is literally no good reason to mess with something that dangerous and evil. Solbor really could’ve showed some initiative and put a premature end to all of this. Instead he just keeps lugging in evil literature until it dawns on him what’s going on. He even digs into Dukat’s alias and figures out it’s a fake. But rather than alert anyone he just starts ranting about it, trapped in the room by himself with Dukat and Winn, and it doesn’t go well for him. It’s a good thing for Dukat’s increasingly dubious schemes that there are so many Bajoran dopes around. I didn’t really like any of this.

That’s the biggest development. Other stuff:

• Sisko tries out restricting Kasidy from doing her job for safety. He gets what’s coming to him. Kasidy is a boss and I like her. (Kasidy for President.) Though she’s a lousy cook. Sisko can be brilliant but he’s also prone to incredibly stupid decisions. It’s kinda why I like him. He’s not in the great Kirk vs. Picard debate, but I think that’s only because DS9 never became a cultural touchstone. Really, he’s a bit of both. He’s got Picard’s wisdom and a little Kirk swagger.
• The Federation launches an offensive that gets rapidly crushed by advanced Breen technology, and the Defiant is destroyed. We wondered if Sisko would make some sort of final nutty declaration about the ship’s abilities, but even he has to give up. Fortunately the Dominion lets all the escape pods go, thinking the fearful tales the survivors will tell outweighs knocking off a few more individuals. I dunno, maybe that makes sense? Awfully convenient for our principle cast, though.
• Damar is in way over his head trying to dig out of this crappy hole the Cardassians find themselves in. Damar, making a late-season run at most redemptive arc. I actually feel sorry for him. Dukat was the one who forged this crappy alliance.
• Worf says he’s satisfied with the friendly state of his relationship with Ezri, but he spends the whole episode ragging on Julian. Worf, come on, you have more class than that.

I am really digging this final arc in a general sense but this one could’ve used another couple rounds of polish. A lot of it felt rather awkward and underdeveloped to me, given all the interesting stories going down. 3 out of 5.

S7E21, “When It Rains..” (René Echevarria & Spike Steingasser)

Since Kristen knows a lot about TV, I asked her whether she thought Winn was going to redeem herself in the end by turning on Dukat, and therefore be the key to his ultimate downfall. She thought yes, but we agreed there’s a pretty good chance Dukat will be expecting that and he’ll dispose of her before she has the chance. Now I’m not so sure, or at least, they are setting it up to not play out either way. But it’s becoming a case of: what do I think the showrunners think, and what do they think we think that they think, etc. tending towards madness. Anyway, being blinded when trying to sneak a peek at the forbidden book, then cast out into the streets by Winn, is something of a setback for Dukat. It’s 100% safe to say he has not run out of tricks, and will find his way back to Winn both sighted and grouchy. In the meantime I did enjoy seeing such immediate ironic justice for him. Winn is still a sack of garbage even if she has turned on her fellow sack, dispassionately lying about poor Solbor’s disappearance, and not exactly rushing to return the evil books.

Meanwhile Julian is trying to learn enough about Odo’s regenerative powers to grow replacement human organs, but instead learns that Odo is also infected with the Changeling plague. Really fascinated by this part, as he slowly pieces together when and where and how this happened, and which certain secret Section of Federation operatives just happens to be responsible. O’Brien is hanging around so that we don’t have to watch Julian talking to himself for the whole episode as he watches little animated cells squirm around and figures everything out.

Kira sent to team up with the Cardassians because of Kira’s expertise in resistance warfare and because Sisko enjoys dark ironic humor. Garak is still considered to be the most devious spy amongst all Cardassians I guess because he goes too. Odo can probably be useful, toss him in. The Cardassians are predictably awful to work with and are also lousy tacticians, so it’s a swell assignment for Kira. It’s sort of just mean at this point to make her do this. Actually the real failure here is in workforce development. Kira has failed to train anyone to be as similarly cunning, Garak hasn’t shared any of his secrets. So they keep having to do this stuff themselves. When she trashes the storage room in frustration, she’s probably as mad at herself as anyone. Anyway there is a real payoff here for working through seven seasons of Kira’s development. She’s outdistanced the field as the most complex character in the series. I just hope Julian can cure Odo’s disease so she can end up living happily ever after with her blob. Also now we like Damar? He just really hated working with Weyoun. I don’t blame him.

Finally, Gowron shows up and uses his position to usurp Martok’s strategic command and hog all the glory for himself. Then he promptly devises an overaggressive and transparently idiotic plan. This was by far the weakest development in “When It Rains…” There’s really no reason for Gowron to do this other than to throw unnecessary roadblocks into the arc. I don’t think he can be both politically devious and this stupid at the same time, he has to know Martok can strategize circles around him. Shouldn’t he just worm his way into a ceremonial title but make Martok do all the actual work, and take credit? Well it’s not a great thread but I don’t mind getting to hate on creepy Gowron a bit more before the series ends.

This one ended very abruptly. Maybe I was just really in the flow of the story, but when the credits rolled I was confused. There have at least been sorta cliffhangers or mini-thread wrap-ups in the previous episodes of the arc, but they just ran out of time on this one and didn’t bother with anything like that. Oh well. Mostly still fantastic continuation of the final arc other than the annoying Gowron stuff. 5 out of 5.

S7E22, “Tacking Into the Wind” (Ronald D. Moore)

Daaang this one was good. Ronald Moore was on fire with some of these scenes. Fewer threads and a little more depth on each, probably just the right balance here.

Kira and the Cardassians: When Damar learns the Dominion has tracked down and murdered his family, and is shocked by the brutality, Kira can’t help get in a dig on the Cardassians’ recent history. Damar has been on the fast track to redemption lately, though, and it feels like a hell of a bad time to prove a point. Even Kira feels like she screwed up. But Garak insists it was tough love, and he’ll make a stronger, more sympathetic ally for it. Of course he’s right because he’s a supergenius when circumstances require it. It pays off later when Rusot makes his move to kill Kira, but Damar blasts him instead. We are all-in on Team Damar now.

Worf and the Klingons: Ronald Moore Klingon stories are always good. Here, Martok is getting played like a very honorable cheap violin. It’s become pretty clear to everyone that Gowron is just sending him on one suicide mission after another in order to get him killed. Only Martok won’t violate the Klingon patriarchal order to refuse. Basically if you call a Klingon a coward you can get them to do anything, which is a dirty trick, but we would expect nothing better from Gowron. Worf ends up being the one to stand up to him, basically because Ezri talks him into it (also, sorta by calling him a coward, in a more meta-cultural way). As Klingons, this results in a bat’leth duel, which we had a good laugh at considering Worf is like 20 years younger and a foot taller, although Gowron gets in a few good licks and hurls him through a glass display before Worf closes the deal. I guess the only thing stopping Klingon society from disintegrating into a bloodbath is their code of honor, so it’s probably a good thing they have it.

The two main threads parallel each other quite effectively. The old empires of the Klingons and Cardassians are both dying, but only the Klingons really know it.

Odo’s Biology Corner: Odo is looking extremely shabby, but he’s doing his best to hide it from Kira, who obviously is onto him. This is a fantastic Kira episode too, we see all sides of her: badass tactical genius, friend, and soft touch.

More 5 out of 5 stuff as we near the end.