The SmarK DVD Rant for Star Trek – Deep Space Nine: Season 5

Into the fifth season of what is rapidly becoming my favorite of the Star Trek franchises, as the Dominion War is in full swing, the Klingons are pissed, and love is in the air in unexpected places. Oh, and there’s pretty much the most popular episode of any of the series in here, too, which you may have heard of.

The Film

When we last left off, Odo was banished from his homeworld and turned into a mere solid by the Founders, Kira was pregnant with O’Brien’s baby, and Gowron was apparently a changeling in Klingon’s clothing. And away we go…

Disc One

Apocalypse Rising. It’s some badass Klingon stuff to start us off, as Odo is moping around the station and getting drunk, until Sisko makes him an offer he can’t refuse: Get surgically altered to look like a Klingon and go to one of their bases to expose Gowron as a traitor to the Empire. Hey, all they need to do is hook up four radioactive yo-yos and get him trapped in a small room, and the deed is done. O’Brien makes the ugliest Klingon ever, by the way, and that’s saying something. However, their plan hits a complication (and doesn’t it always) when General Martok recognizes Sisko, even with his Klingon makeup on, and has them locked up. Worf goes one-on-one with Gowron in the battle we’ve all been waiting for, but it results in someone else entirely being revealed as the changeling, and the Klingons decide to make nice and stop killing Federation members. For now. Good start.

The Ship. Oooo, I liked this one, too. Sisko, Worf, Dax and the Chief are investigating some hoozits or another in the Gamma Quadrant, away from the Dominion, but are shocked to suddenly see a Jem’Hadar ship crashing into the planet on which they’re standing. Naturally they assume the worst, but check into the ship and find everyone already dead from a mishap that occurred in space. Ben’s all “Finders keepers” and they go about trying to resurrect the dead ship, but then they’re even more shocked to see ANOTHER Jem’Hadar ship, this one alive and kicking, orbiting the planet and seemingly in a bad mood about their attempt to salvage the wreck. The Vorta in control of that ship tries to make nice with Sisko and talk him into giving up his prize, but Ben’s all “What kind of an idiot do you take me for?” and soon she’s getting more and more pissed…but never sends the troops in to just wipe them out. The reason WHY shows why the Jem’Hadar were so much more interestingly written than the Borg were, providing the writers with several ways of humanizing the seemingly-unstoppable monsters. Yes, they’re super badass and could wipe out the Federation if left to their own devices, but they’re NOT, and that’s the point of the characters. There’s also another moment from this one that’s really un-Trek, as a minor character gets shot early on and is kept barely alive by the crew throughout the episode, only to die quietly near the end. Roddenberry would NEVER have allowed that, which is why DS9 was such a cool show most of the time.

Looking For Par’Mach In All The Wrong Places. A light comedy in the tradition of Cyrano De Bergerac sees Quark’s Klingon ex-wife returning to the station, and Worf immediately falling in love with her. However, being an exiled worthless dog and all, he’s not welcome to get his groove thing on with her. Quark, however, is more than ready to put the moves on her, and so he goes to Worf for advice on mating with a Klingon (Advice #1 from me: Bring protection, and I don’t mean birth control), which leads to Worf actually fighting a virtual duel with her bodyguard via Quark’s body. Quark wins the day and Worf is depressed about not getting the girl of his dreams, but Dax nearly smacks him with a shovel to point out that someone ELSE is right there in front of him. Luckily it doesn’t take Worf long to catch on, if you know what I mean. Meanwhile, Kira and Chief O’Brien find it tougher to be living together, but not because they’re fighting, rather because they might be attracted to each other. Keiko is clueless about the whole thing, of course. Good little filler episode.

Nor The Battle To The Strong. The quote in the title comes from the bible, basically saying that life is about chance and happenstance. Anyway, Jake wants to be a reporter and decides to follow Bashir into a colony for some good old battle-line medicine, but finds it all a bit much to handle when he’s caught in the middle of Klingon shelling and panics, running away and hiding. He comes across a wounded soldier who laughs off his platitudes about destiny and helping people, and then proceeds to die right there in a very un-Trek moment. Jake still manages to write his story, although it’s more of a downer than he originally envisioned. Again, the total opposite of Wesley Crusher, as Jake acts very human and empathizes with a coward who shot himself in the foot to get off the battlefield, and in fact decidedly does NOT save the day in any manner. But yeah, war is hell, no big surprise there.

Disc Two

The Assignment. A really kind of creepy episode that sees Keiko returning from a trip to Bajor, possessed by a Pah-Wraith, one of the legends of Bajor’s past. “Keiko” gives O’Brien a specific series of instructions to carry out, on threat of the real Keiko being killed in unpleasant ways. Miles is forced to act as a traitor to the station, while also being forced to interact with a stranger in intimate ways (one who has access to all his wife’s memories and knowledge of him and the station), and by the halfway point you just wanna fire a phaser at the bitch yourself. With clueless Rom’s help, however, Miles finally figures out what he’s being forced to do to the station, and uses it to turn the tables on his “wife” and save the day. Standard fare, but a solid episode.

Trials and Tribbleations. Although “Best of Both Worlds” from TNG traditionally dominated fan-voted popularity contests for “favorite episode” up until the mid-90s, this one blew the doors off it in terms of popularity and impact, and probably stands as one of the best overall episodes of any Trek series. Based on the original Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”, this is presented as a kind of Back to the Future II-ish retelling, and as a spoof of Star Trek time travel in general. The first tipoff is the appearance of humorless time travel police Dulmer & Lucsly (gee, wonder where THOSE names came from?), who hate predestiny paradoxes and jokes, in that order. Sisko tells them about how the Defiant got sucked back in time 100 years, and they bumped into the original Enterprise, while it was circling station K-7 and dealing with the Tribble problem. This gives us a BREATHTAKING 3D-rendered model of both the Enterprise and the station, which now makes me wish they had the time and money to redo all of the original Treks with CGI. Anyway, using Forrest Gump technology, the show sees our crew interacting with the original story (complete with a color-shifted film stock that is decidedly more bright and garish than the generally understated and muted tones of DS9) and having a blast doing so. Bashir has a hilarious moment where he worries about the social ramifications of becoming your own great-grandfather, Dax lusts after Spock, O’Brien finds out that a crazed chief engineer who rewires the ship to his own liking hits closer to home than he’d like, Worf has troubles talking about why Klingons looked so different back then, and it’s just 45 minutes of pure fun from start to finish. There’s no real sense of urgency or danger about the whole thing, and it’s such a breath of fresh air after months of Jem’Hadar and Klingons. Not that I don’t LIKE those things, but the show NEEDED a bright and colorful episode like this to take the edge off, and it delivers in spades. Absolutely awesome stuff.

Let He Who Is Without Sin… This one was looking like a bright and sunny episode to start, but turned out a lot different. Worf and Dax, having trouble initially working out the details of being a couple, decide to vacation on Risa (well, DAX decides to vacation on Risa, showing that some things are still true even in sci-fi), but somehow get duped into bringing disgustingly happy couple Bashir & Leeta along, as well as Quark. Once there, Worf has trouble grappling with the concept of leaving his uniform in the hotel room (although Dax and Leeta sure don’t…WOO WOO!) and it starts turning into a “you’re trying to control me” / “you’re not taking this relationship seriously enough” argument. However, once the cosmic version of right-wing Christian fundamentalists show up, trying to shut down the pleasure planet in the name of traditional values, Worf finds himself increasingly drawn to the dark side. Who knew Klingons voted Republican? Leeta and Bashir, meanwhile, have one of the most sex-filled breakups in the history of the universe, leading to Leeta admitting that she has a crush on another crewmember…Rom?! Not quite a serious episode, not quite a comedic one, there’s an interesting message here somewhere, but I’m not even sure the writers knew what they were trying to say behind all the relationship stuff with Dax & Worf.

Things Past. Another super-dark episode, as Sisko, Garak, Odo and Dax are on the way back from Bajor and run into a plasma cloud, which causes them to have a shared flashback to the days when DS9 was run by the Cardassians and Odo was in charge of security. However, they experience things from the perspective of a group of Bajorans living on the station at the time, and some of the details are notably wrong, leading them to wonder who’s pulling the strings behind their experience. As they delve deeper into the mystery of what’s going on, we learn that fair and just Odo had an even darker side in his past than he was letting on, and the ending is anything but a happy one. Doom and gloom all around here, and I thought it dragged a bit.

Disc Three

The Ascent. It’s a pair of odd-couple matchups here, as Nog returns from the Academy to do some field study on DS9, and ends up rooming with Jake, who is on his own for the first time. However, neat and tidy cadet clashes with slobbish writer and HILARITY results. OK, not so much, but it was neat to see Nog really developing as a person and Sisko being all bad-ass in resolving the situation (“You’re a cadet, you don’t get a say”). The other plot involves Odo gleefully flying Quark to what he thinks is his final comeuppance in the form of a high-profile trial of a galactic syndicate, but a bomb in the runabout strands them on an icy planet with no food or communications. Whoops. The only solution: Split a survival suit and march up the mountain carrying a subspace transmitter on their backs. And of course, 5 days of marching with no food and no water make Quark & Odo hate each other even MORE than before, it that’s possible. Funny stuff throughout that plotline makes for a solid episode.

Rapture. Shockingly, it has nothing to do with rapping white chicks or men from Mars. No, in this case it’s more like DS9’s homage to Close Encounters, as Sisko finds a picture of an ancient Bajoran city, ala Atlantis, and gets so wrapped up in it that when his holoimage version of it malfunctions and causes him brain damage, he just starts having visions instead of dying. Now there’s a side-effect for you. In fact, he not only foresees the location of the lost city, but starts having visions about the fate of the entire Federation. And speaking of which, Bajor is ready to join the Federation and the Federation is ready to let them, but the increasingly weird Sisko is freaking everyone out with his behavior and tranquility and stuff. Plus Kasidy Yates is done serving hard time, but Ben’s ignoring her. Must be the perfume. Sadly, it comes down to Jake having to make the hard choice as to whether or not to let Ben suffer through life-threatening prescience, or get an operation to go back to good old Captain Sisko. I guess you know which he picks. Note: The new grey and black uniforms make their debut here, marking the third uniform used on the show.

The Darkness and the Light. It’s a creepy murder mystery done Trek-style, as Kira finds out that members of her former resistance cell are being murdered in rather creative ways, one by one. Each time, there’s a message from the killer in a distorted voice, but when Nog’s sensitive ears get a hold of the messages, the identity of the sender isn’t what they were expecting. Sadly, once Kira goes commando and sets off to find the real killer herself, the writers cheat a bit by introducing a new character as the mystery opponent, but otherwise it’s a nice little ripoff of the Silence of the Lambs that gets you wondering who’s behind it all as it builds up.

The Begotten. One major story arc wraps up here, as it had gone on long enough anyway. Quark sells Odo a canister which apparently contains a baby changeling (awww…it’s goo), but one in dire need of medical attention. Odo gives it love and attention and tries to coax it into learning to shape-shift, but when his efforts don’t move fast enough for Starfleet, they call in Dr. Mora, the Bajoran who raised Odo from goo, and he brings his equipment with him. Zap, zap. However, Odo and Mora bond while torturing the poor little thing, and Odo realizes that his hated adversary wasn’t such a bad guy after all. And when the little blob finally does die, it gives Odo the nicest gift of all, by melding into his body and turning him back into a shapeshifter again. Meanwhile, Kira goes into labor and it’s more painful for O’Brien and her boyfriend Shakaar, as they squabble over delivery room territory rights and generally annoy the poor woman to death. The baby would be promptly forgotten about by the writers again, since it was only there to explain away Nana Visitor’s real-life pregnancy anyway. Good stuff here.

Disc Four

For The Uniform. Trek gets all literary again, as Sisko goes hunting for traitor Michael Eddington in the Badlands, intending to bring him to justice and halt the advance of the Maquis. However, Eddington proves to be a right bastard, crippling the Defiant with a computer virus and leaving them dead in space. A very, VERY, pissed off Sisko is taken off the case by Starfleet, leaving him to take out his frustrations on a helpless punching bag. No, not Kasidy Yates. However, when it becomes apparent that Eddington has escaped the clutches of the new task force and has now taken to irradiating entire Cardassian planets in order to free them from their rule, he decides that enough is enough and takes the crippled Defiant into the Badlands for a showdown with Eddington, who responds by sending him a copy of Les Miserables. I was thinking it would be Moby Dick myself, but that works too. And while Sisko’s methods of finally getting Eddington to surrender to the authorities are, shall we say, incredibly suspect from a moral standpoint, you can’t argue the effectiveness, and that piece of shit Eddington is hauled away for a court martial at the end. Still, yikes, DON’T FUCK WITH SISKO.

In Purgatory’s Shadow / By Inferno’s Light. With titles like that, you have to be worried. And indeed things start to get serious, as this is a two-part episode where the shit finally hits the fan for the Federation. It all starts with Garak getting an emergency message from the Gamma Quadrant, as it seems the rumors of former mentor Enebrin Tain’s death are greatly exaggerated, although not by much. Garak and Worf fly into Dominion Space to see what the hell’s going on, and it turns out to be a Dominion trap, as a SHITLOAD of warships ambush them and haul them off to a penal colony on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere. There they meet General Martok (last seen in the season premiere as a changeling) and…Julian Bashir? Yup, back on the station, it’s another changeling, this one imitating the good doctor. This leads to one funny moment as Bashir wonders what horrible things his double has in mind, and it cuts to “Bashir” bringing Dax & O’Brien sandwiches. THE BASTARD! Tain really does die, leaving Garak as their only hope of getting another message out of the prison. Meanwhile, Worf is made to fight Jem’Hadar soldiers in a sort of Ultimate Fighting Championship in space, and he does quite well at it, too. However, the bigger threat comes through the wormhole, as a giant Dominion fleet shows up on the Federation’s doorstep…and Gul Dukat makes his long-suspected heel turn, and Cardassia joins the Dominion. Uh oh. However, help arrives in the form of the Klingons and Romulans, and you just know that soon, the shit is gonna be ON. With the Klingon war now over, they decide to hang out on the station again, which is good because Dukat leaves Sisko an ominous warning: He intends to retake the station again, no matter what.

Doctor Bashir, I Presume? This one SEEMS like a light-hearted episode initially but changes tone halfway through. Dr. Louis Zimmerman (aka the holographic doctor on Voyager) arrives on the station to fashion a more long-term version of his program with Bashir as the template, giving us some funny character moments with the other crew members as they talk about Bashir. However, Zimmerman invites Julian’s parents (against his will) and you THINK it’s gonna be another “his dad embarrasses him in front of the captain” deal, but it suddenly gets more serious when his father accidentally reveals that Bashir is a product of illegal eugenics experiments, turning him into a virtual superman when he was a child. The other plot sees Rom unable to express his feelings for Leeta (I can express them fine, although it would require me to have my eyes pop out of my head like in a Tex Avery cartoon), which leaves the door open for Zimmerman to make his move on her. Can Rom find the words in time to keep her from leaving the station? I…I…I….I don’t know. Actually, I do, and the answer is pretty obvious. Good bit of acting from Bashir and his father here, though.

Disc Five

A Simple Investigation. Ah, it’s the old ironic title, as this one proves to be anything but. Anyway, this is entirely about Odo, as he bumps into a mysterious stranger on the Promenade, one who thinks he has “bedroom eyes”, but she’s wrapped up in some nasty business. Odo digs deeper and stays one step ahead of her, and discovers that she’s really just on the run from an abusive boyfriend, who happens to be a part of the deadly Orion Syndicate. However, he falls in love with her, and FINALLY gets some use out of his shapeshifting wang. The real tragedy here is that there’s a subplot with Bashir and Miles playing spy games on the holodeck again that’s almost totally ignored, when I was hoping for another episode about it. Anyway, after getting his changeling freak on, there’s one final twist in the relationship, as he discovers what she’s really about, and alas, Odo is alone again, naturally.

Business As Usual. Another “Quark has a moment of conscience” ep, as his cousin (the one who owns the moon) comes to the station with an irresistible offer for him – use the holosuites to sell weapons, and get a 5% cut of the action. Which amounts to millions of bars of latinum. However, the guy he’s working with is a huge creep, and when a local regent wants biochemical weapons (no, not Saddam Hussein) to wipe out 28 million people who pissed him off, Quark gets worried and hatches a plan to escape with his morals and life intact. Meanwhile, O’Brien can’t get the baby to shut up, no matter what, leaving him carrying the poor kid around the station while he does his daily routine. Just a light-hearted filler episode, one of the weaker of the season.

Ties of Blood and Water. All sorts of cool stuff going on here. Kira’s “father” Ghemor (the Cardassian whose daughter was made to look like a Bajoran resembling Kira, from season 1) comes to the station to escape the new Dominion government on Cardassia, but reveals that he’s actually dying of a rare disease and only has days to live. He proceeds to give all his deepest secrets to Kira, which causes her to flash back to her real father’s death during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. However, new leader Gul Dukat, along with a clone of Weyoun (in a HILARIOUSLY simpering performance by Jeffrey Combs), head to the station to demand Ghemor’s release, which allows Sisko to be all badass again. The tension mounts.

Ferengi Love Songs. And this one dispels the tension again for a bit, as a dejected Quark heads back home to “moogie” (sadly not played by Andrea Martin this time around, because her and Wallace Shawn on the same screen would have been howlingly funny stuff), but is shocked and grossed out (as we all are) when he discovers that Grand Nagus Zek is, uh, getting his freak on with his mother. And you thought YOUR parents were embarrassing. There appears to be an upside, as Quark attempts to weasel his way back into a business license again, but of course Brunt (FCA) shows up in his closet at the worst possible time, with his own scheme to become Grand Nagus. Quark, put into a position as the Nagus’ second-in-command, out-thinks Brunt (not that that’s HARD), but is dismayed to find that the forbidden love of his mother and Zek is still going strong. Speaking of disturbing love affairs, Rom and Leeta have proceeded to planning the wedding, but Rom’s insistence on a traditional Ferengi pre-nup leaves him blinded to just how whipped he really is. Luckily he comes to his senses, since that’s probably the best looking woman he’d ever get. Lucky bastard. Brunt (FCA) is great as always. They’ve GOTTA do a “Brunt meets Weyoun” gag at some point, don’t they?

Disc Six

Soldiers of the Empire. Ah, more quality Klingon blood and guts, directed by LeVar Burton. A battle-scarred General Martok, in need of action after months of comfort on the station, takes Worf, Dax and a ragged group of losers on a Bird of Prey for a mission into Cardassian territory to rescue a wounded Klingon ship. However, the crew (already demoralized and pissed off from numerous defeats to the Jem’Hadar) don’t have the same faith in Martok that Worf does, and start looking to pick a fight at any opportunity. And when it seems that Martok really HAS gone soft and trigger-shy, Worf steps up like a real man and tells him to throw down, BITCH, thus re-inspiring the crew of losers, and only costing him a near-fatal knife wound in the process. Small price to pay for honor. Martok is so touched by his gesture (you know, insulting his manhood and trying to kill him) that he invites Worf to regain his honor by joining the House of Martok and forgetting the dead House of Mogh. In TNG, Worf would refuse because of sentiment. In DS9, he accepts.

Children of Time. This started out looking like one of those gimmicky time-travel puzzles, but ended up being pretty powerful stuff. With the entire core crew on the Defiant after a long tour of the Gamma Quadrant, Dax wants to stop and investigate a planet surrounded by weird interference. Just in case there’s some smart fungus there. However, the ship gets zapped going through the cloud surrounding the planet, and they meet up with a colony on the surface that is apparently composed of their descendants. It seems that when they try to leave two days hence, the ship is thrown 200 years back in time and crashes, leaving them stranded decades before anyone finds the wormhole and thus has a way to rescue them. However, Kira dies as a result of injuries sustained in the crash, so the future Odo (having mastered proper shapeshifting years ago) tells present Kira exactly how he feels, so that he can spend some quality time with her. The crew hangs out on the planet and gets to know everyone, but pretty soon it’s apparent that escape means sacrificing the existence of 8000 perfectly innocent people, and after MUCH soul-searching, Sisko decides it’s not worth it. Future Odo, however, doesn’t want to be denied the chance to have Kira in the present, and sabotages the flight plan, taking them out safely and thus wiping the colony from history, and leaving present Kira and Odo with a very awkward moment between them. So now they both know.

Blaze of Glory. With the Dominion having wiped out the Maquis off-screen after taking over Cardassia, the only thing left was to close out the saga of Michael Eddington. In this case, Sisko gets wind of a last-ditch strike by the Maquis, in the form of 30 cloaked missiles aimed for Cardassia, with the goal of wiping out as many people as possible. Rather desperate for a way to avoid a total war, Sisko heads to the Federation prison outpost and springs an uncooperative Eddington on a sort-of day pass, on the condition he helps shut down the missiles. Soon enough, Eddington’s death wish is stalled and his spirit is rekindled (after a funny bit where Sisko goes to get coffee while the Jem’Hadar attack the runabout in the Badlands), and they head down to the launch site to abort the mission. However, as usual, Eddington was a liar, with a totally different agenda, and this time it catches up to him one time too many – the Jem’Hadar have over-run the base, and he’s shot to death in rather grisly fashion by Star Trek standards, having finally redeemed himself somewhat. This episode is somewhat notable for being the only mention in Star Trek history I can recall of the loonie – apparently Eddington is Canadian and has a vintage $1 coin from Canada. Even in the 24^th century, it’s still only worth $0.73, sadly.

Empok Nor. This was an interesting way to tell a story and save money at the same time. In this case, a vital part of the station breaks down and they can’t replicate another one, so O’Brien takes Nog, Garak and some yellow-shirts to an abandoned Cardassian station, Empok Nor, to salvage a replacement part. Of course, the station looks exactly like DS9, but is lit much darker, thus allowing them to re-use the main set with different lighting. However, once there, they find the whole place booby-trapped and guarded by 2 Cardassian super-soldiers who had been stuck in stasis and left to guard the place. Nasty ones, too. Guess which members of the team get murdered in standard slasher movie fashion? Anyway, Garak soon succumbs to the same madness overcoming the soldiers, and after killing them goes after O’Brien and Nog, leading to the big showdown on the Promenade. I think we can pretty much know by this point that Garak isn’t just a tailor…

Disc Seven

In The Cards. One final bit of lightness before the real darkness begins. Sisko and the crew are mighty depressed with all the Dominion shenanigans, so Jake and Nog decide to bid on a 1951 Willie Mays rookie card that Quark is auctioning off along with some other junk. However, they get outbid by a crazed “scientist” who wants the other junk, and are left negotiating with him (the name – Dr. Giger – seems to be a play on Aliens designer HR Giger) for the card. His theory is simple: Death occurs because cells get bored and decay, so if you can find a way to keep the body constantly entertained, you will achieve immortality. To that end, he invents the…uh…Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber (emerging from the casket-like structure, Giger notes that he’s feeling “refreshed and mildly entertained”), but he needs parts to finish it, so Jake and Nog run all over the station bargaining with the staff, and making them happier in the process. At the same time, in a more serious storyline, Kai Winn is presented with a non-aggression pact by Weyoun, and needs Sisko’s advice on what to do (note: Winn was SEVERELY toned down by this point from earlier seasons), but Sisko knows the truth – either way, it’s gonna mean war. The baseball card portion doesn’t really make SENSE from a logic perspective (what exactly did he NEED from the auction?) but it’s still tremendous fun.

Call To Arms. And the fifth season wraps up with a KABOOM, as a few of the minor storyline points are wrapped up (Sisko marries Rom & Leeta, and Odo & Kira agree to hold off on anything until after the war) and then things get REALLY serious. The Dominion starts massing troops via the wormhole, so Sisko has the Defiant plant a bigass minefield outside the opening to head off any further reinforcements, and then it’s time to dig in. Bajor signs the non-aggression pact and buggers off the station completely, and then it’s go time, as DS9 is forced to defend itself against a zillion Jem’Hadar ships while the Federation runs operations elsewhere. They hold out as well as can be expected, and then Sisko decides that retreat is a good idea at that point, surrendering the station back to the Dominion. Odo, Quark, Kira and Jake remain on the station, all the Starfleet personnel take the Defiant and run, Worf goes with Martok, and Sisko leaves Gul Dukat a message before he goes by trashing the station: I’ll be back. FUCK YEAH HE WILL! Bring on the retaliation in season six, as we close this season with a GIGANTIC Starfleet armada on the way back to Terok Nor.

The Video

Pretty much on par with the last couple of seasons of TNG, this is pretty much as good as the Trek universe is going to look outside of the feature films. Colors are spectacular and contrasts are strong. There’s some serious compression artifacting during black portions and scene transitions, however, and I could make out matte lines in a lot of the SFX shots in space at times, but that was getting better with more of a shift to digital effects by that point. I don’t know if it was just my player, but there were also a lot of episodes where the video stuttered during space scenes.

The Audio

To be honest, I’m starting to get disappointed in the 5.1 mixes presented by the DS9 sets. I find the audio a lot more quiet than the TNG ones, and everything seems to be coming from the center channel except for brief forays into space where you get the occasional “whoosh” of the ship (except there’s no air in space, but that’s another argument…). I really hope things get more aggressive when the Dominion War picks up.

The Extras

As with the TNG releases, you get about 90 minutes worth of featurettes and documentaries. I’ve heard of major spoilers in them for the later seasons, so I’m going to avoid watching them until I’ve seen the entire series on DVD and then go back and do them later, because I’d like to experience things blind. I’ll assume it’s the same rating as the TNG releases. However, I can say that most of the featurettes focus, wisely enough, on Trials and Tribble-ations.

The Ratings

The Film: *****

The Video: ***1/2

The Audio: ***1/2

The Extras: ****

The Bottom Line: It just keeps getting more awesome, as the storylines get more labyrinthine (and may confuse newer viewers) and the characters get more fascinating, and the season finishes with a huge space battle, and now I’m dying to see season 6! Highest recommendation!