DS9: End of Season 3 “The Adversary”

Date: July 11, 2020

Season 3, Episode 26

Musical Accompaniment: A romantic instrumental mix, though I’m not in a romantic mood at all.

Interstellar News: Technology failed today but other things were accomplished, so I’d say it was a wash. Happy 7/11 day, I hope you enjoyed your free slurpee!

Favorite Quotes:

Dax, She’s Too Old For You Bro: “There’s nothing worse than a long-distance relationship.”

Kira: Now that you have another pip on your collar, does that mean I can’t disagree with you anymore?

Sisko: No. It just means I’m never wrong.

Oh Sisko, you’re so funny **slaps knee**.

The Complaint of the Changeling: “I’ve never found it necessary to fire a weapon or take a life. I don’t intend to start now.”

So what had happened was…: Sisko is finally promoted to Captain and Ambassador Krajensky tells him to gear up the Defiant in order to show some force after a coup on the Tzenkethi home world. En route to the border there’s a problem with the transceiver and I’m getting flashbacks to “Emergence“, though the parasite is not so colorful. Sisko determines it’s sabotage and Dax scans everyone for tetryon particles one at a time, just like in “Court Martial” where they found the guy who was hiding by isolating heartbeats… and it’s still just as annoying. Dax finds out that Krajensky is really a changeling and he takes over the ship and sets it to start a war with the Tzenkethi. After sweeping the ship and getting everyone all paranoid they realize they can do a blood test to see who is the changeling and it’s Bashir who is chased by Odo into the conduits. Sisko sets the ship to auto-destruct while O’Brien is trying to damage the force fields in engineering. Two Odos emerge near the warp core and it’s a little bit of “Whom Gods Destroy” all over again. Our Odo harms the changeling, O’Brien gets everything unlocked, Sisko stops the auto-destruct, and everyone heads home. Odo shares that the changeling told him he was too late and that the Dominion and changelings were already everywhere… dun dun dun.

“We are everywhere.”: The ending confirmed something I had already figured out after realizing other changelings could impersonate a humanoid, that they had already infiltrated parts of the AQ. I loved how Odo was people-watching as everyone was being scanned for particles and how he was genuinely surprised when the saboteur turned out to be a changeling. I also totally called it being Bashir later on when I noticed a second vial in his hand, and I think I might finally be catching on to how this show works. There were a lot of interesting moments and a lot of good lines but this was not the most compelling season finale.

It’s absolutely one that sets up what I am sure is to come, given that I know there’s a book about the Dominion War, but it’s something that progressed in a way that was not too surprising once I caught on to the story. Why does Sisko get his orders from an ambassador and not directly from Starfleet? O’Brien heard a noise more than once and Bashir was being super weird, that was also a giveaway. They also did the one-at-a-time thing TWICE in the same damn episode and I’m sorry but that’s just two times too many. I hate that Odo had to take a life, especially from one of his fellow changelings, but it was the changeling that harmed Odo first so at least he didn’t break that long standing tradition. Also, this is now the 862nd time that a ship is saved in the last minute and it’s a bit old at this point, especially since we know this is not the end of the story. I will say it must have been quite a shock to hear Sisko be all dramatic with his opening log entry before you see he’s being promoted. I have to give this episode 6 tamales and am saddened I couldn’t rate it sweet potato flautas instead.

Overall I enjoyed Season 3 much more than the previous two seasons, almost all of the episodes I rated pretty high. Even though I still have four more seasons of DS9 to go, I am ready to update my Rankings page. I’ll just go ahead and say it’s nice to have a variety of other races in a science fiction show that takes place in space.

TA Out!