DS9: “The Way of the Warrior: Parts 1 & 2”

Date: July 12, 2020

Season 4, Episode 1 (though it’s a double)

Musical Accompaniment: Listening to my “study” playlist on iTunes

Interstellar News: The introduction has changed, I liked the old music better. Dun dun dun dun…

Favorite Quotes:

Odo: I didn’t know you spoke Klingon.

Garak: Oh, you’d be surprised at the things you can learn while you’re doing alterations.

Plain, simple Garak surprising even Odo.

Bashir: Constable, I’m sure there’s more than one Klingon who thinks that slaying a changeling would be worthy of a song or two.

Odo: Doctor, if a Klingon were to kill me, I’d expect nothing less than an entire opera on the subject.

Odo making the best of a bad situation.

So what had happened was…: Sisko kept the goatee but is now bald and everyone is searching for a changeling on the station, but it’s just a drill otherwise Bashir would be dead. Yates and Sisko meet for a dinner date, exchange gifts, and are interrupted by Dax because the Klingons have arrived en masse. General Martok was sent by Gowron to be ready for when the Dominion attacks, Cardassia has closed their borders, and some Klingons attach Garak. The Klingons also are stopping ships to search for changelings, using the same blood test from “The Adversary“, so Sisko calls for backup in the form of Worf. The Enterprise had a bit of a tough time and no one knows Klingons like Worf does, and he still enjoys prune juice! Worf meets the senior staff, handles some Klingons in the bar, and tries to get information out of Martok to no avail. Dax, however, gives Worf and idea and he gets the truth.

Odo, who is very good at his job, reads Worf like a very well read book and Worf tells Sisko that the Klingons are going to invade Cardassia because they think Central Command has been taken over by Dominion spies. Despite objections the Klingons head that way but Sisko can’t warn the Cardassians even though the Federation has a treaty with both parties, so Sisko is overwhelmed by the sudden need to be fitted for a new suit and allows Garak to overhear what’s coming so he’ll warn Dukat. Gowron gets mad at the Federation and tries to get Worf to come to the dark side, I mean back home to the Empire. Sisko decides to go rescue Dukat and the Depta Council, firing on and being chased by Klingons all the way back to the station. The Klingons attack the station, the battle comes inside, Worf apparently learned how to shoot, and as Starfleet arrives the Klingons decide to back down. Worf decides to stay and changes over to the command track and he looks good in red.

“Have you ever met a quiet Klingon before?”: This is absolutely how you start a season off… wow. I do, as always, have a few questions. Has anyone checked Gowron to be sure he’s not a changeling? I understand he’s always been a little crazy but this seems unreasonable, even for him and even for a Klingon. I get they want to test people but there are ways to go about it, and this is not the way. Thankfully DS9 is run by an awesome Captain with a kick ass senior staff who are doing their best to keep Bajor and the wormhole safe, despite what’s going on in the universe. Sisko knows how to bend the rules without breaking them and comes up with creative solutions to problems, though sometimes it is with the help of his team. He’s also super adorable when he’s with Yates, but I think he likes baseball just a smidge more than her… you can see his eyes light up when she gives him the baseball hat a bit more than his eyes lit up when she walked in wearing a revealing dress.

There were some really excellent moments. Worf getting the family friend drunk and taking Dax’s advice to help him get information the Federation needed was a fun moment and a way to establish that Worf is a textbook Klingon rather than one who has lived the life. Quark and Garak’s discussion about root beer was very interesting, informative, and entertaining. Those two don’t interact a lot, their styles of communication are very different, but that scene just worked. In fact every scene that had Garak in it was fantastic: standing up for Odo’s non-exisitant mother, exchanging words with Bashir in the infirmary, sniping with Dukat every change he got, and just being a wordsmith of epic proportions. I disliked the Dax and Kira bonding moments as it felt forced just because they were both women, but it was fun to see Dax encouraging Kira to bring out her imagination and how mortified Kira was when she met Worf. Worf’s “nice hat” line made me giggle and reminded me how much I missed him. He fits in nicely with the senior staff and he continues to be the lone Klingon who actually puts honor above all else, sigh. 9 bat’leth victories for Worf!

TA Out!