UNCUT - In The Hands of the Prophets (DS9 S1E20) | Star Trek Journey 276

DS9 sex scoreboard catch up version No scores that I saw (remember I am only catching up with the short versions) The sex score board Chief 1 Keiko 1 Quark 1 Odo 1 DETAILS: none

So the very first time we encounter a religious leader from Bajor, the first thing she does is put her hands on a child. Star Trek is always holding a mirror to society

"It should have been Morn" and he makes a huge speech afterwards and it's the most mindblowing piece of serious dramatic acting in the whole franchise.

Love when they speculate and hit close to the future lol

Nurse Ratchet at her finest lol

The slow motion assassination attempt was very popular in 1993. 30th anniversary of JFK was in several productions like In The Line of Fire.

Space Karen.

I always love hearing their predictions

This is definitely an episode that's way better on rewatches versus a first time through.

JReligion wasn’t the enemy. Desire for power was. When people desire power, they will twist whatever gets them power, whether they are a vedek or a bureaucrat or a worker at the dmv. Agree with Alex. People can mess things up. But there are always good folks too. Keep acting Alex! Keep wrestling! Don’t let the few @&$%s mess things up for you.

As an agnostic myself, I find the contrast between most of the Federation viewing them wormhole entities as aliens, vs Bajorans viewing them as prophets, quite interesting. Especially given their powers. What does define a God? It can't just be power. Given that Q has virtually infinite ability but no sane man would call him God. It's not knowledge or power alone, is benevolence required? What else would it take for me to categorize a being as divine?

I think this episode was a product of its time. Creationism and prayer in school were big issues in the 90s with the rise of the religious right.

Neela's motivation was frighteningly close to the terrorist attacks of 2001 and those who carried them out.

Robin Christopher was a real cutie. She spent some time after this on daytime soaps.

I don't like it when Alex is unhappy. But I love the time given to Morn during the reviews and discussions. xD

Chief dodged so many bullets by not falling to temptation. Not that he would have done anything. But...co worker, fanatical zealot, murderer? Yikes! Imagine his relief.

The actress, Robin Christopher, who plays Neela was also in “The Forsaken” as Anara but was recast as Neela in “Duet”.

The mystery for the audience wasn't whether Neela was the perpetrator (a random extra having lines gave away it was her before we even knew there was a mystery), the mystery was why, and what she was planning on doing. As Kira points out to Sisko at the end, she believed Vedek Winn was a true believer. And as detestable as she is, the audience has no reason to believe early on that Winn had any motive other than religious zealotry. The reveal that Winn didn't care at all about the school and that it was all political theater so she could draw Bareil out...THAT was the twist.

I don’t believe Vedek Bareil comes to the station for any political agenda he comes to help , which is why Kira says to Winn “this was all to get him to come here you knew blowing up the school would make him leave Bajor” He is not overly concerned with being the next Kai which is why he says to sisko he was happy just being a gardener! Just a good man trying to do the right thing.

One thing I’m discovering through this journey: TNG early seasons are less watchable after you’ve seen the whole series; DS9’s are more watchable.

I honestly feel like the bomb an murder plots were a distraction from what could have been a good philosophical episode about religion in school and school choice, but the writers force everybody to choose one side by making the other terrorists. Very "Oh no, not the plot!" episode.

I vaguely remember this episode. I think I am enjoying these more the second time around (TNG I know verbatim I can practically quote all dialogue of most of the episodes...)DS9 is almost new to me as I never loved it, but am enjoying watching it with these guys.

Loving Feisty Atheist Alex! It's a bias for sure, but I'm the same way. It's one of the least appealing things about DS9 to me. I just... find the Bajorans fucking insufferable. They've got my sympathy for the Cardassian occupation, and how they've fought to get their planet back -- but their smug, condescending religiosity is just so annoying, and keeps me from really liking them. That being said, Louise Fletcher nails that smiling calm authoritarianism as Vedek Winn. You can feel the Nurse Ratched in the performance. Here's to Season 2!

Ah shit, as much as I don't want to I can't help but agree with you. It's got its flaws but it's moving character building forward.

TA, the writers will take nearly all of your criticisms to heart and fix everything. I promise. Don't lose hope. Give them time. Only 2/3 of a season before we are cooking with gas.

One of those episodes where the ideas are great but the execution is a bit uneven. As a religious person myself I love how this depicts the religious fanatics that abandon decency and embrace radical selfishness that they then claim as divinely purposed. The slow-mo sequence is way too corny, but I don't see Neela's approach as stupid. Rather it is defeatist - once she embraces the suicidal, gonna be caught and executed with no escape nature of it, her not bothering to protect her self is understandable. Go for the easier shot (which she still botches) rather than a harder one from the balcony or something.

Bashir's scream from Move Along Home is more cringe than the 'NoOoOOoOOOoO' from this episode to me.

Winn is a villain that really brings out some visceral hate.

It wasn't until Joffrey in GoT where I found a character I hated more than Winn.

gotta be honest - so many bad takes in this reaction soured me on this channel. See you again in the pale moonlight

I know you guys haven't really warmed up to Sisko very much, but once you realize how lyrical Avery Brooks is in the motion of his body it might help you like him more. Avery is a jazz piano player and he composes music and sings. He is very musical and moves very musically. He actually tones it down in DS9, but it comes thru in some of his performances. You may notice how he seems to move and talk like he hears music in his head. I have seen him in interviews and his body motions are very musical. So I hope this helps when watching his performances. He may seem like he's overacting, but he is really just trying to calm the music in him down some.

As for serialization, DS9 was very serialized for the time. Compared to today when everything is, it is barely serialized.

Don't worry guys, it really starts cooking in season 6

Yet again, Alex had me chuckling away at his outbursts. I think I have a whole new layer of admiration for him. Despite whatever steaming rancid fetid rotten disembowelled shit that has been thrown at him in life, he’s still not been sucked into the religion thing. Even on his worst day, in moments of vulnerability, his rationality prevails. I better be right or about all this or I’ll be turned to a pillar of salt and burn in hell for what my imagination is doing. In other news, Keiko can really act when they give her something. It looked like an authentic “leave it, he’s not worth it” moment with a woman in a British pub pulling her husband away from the Bajoran fried dog poo stall.

Fucking Winn. Makes my skin crawl every time she talks.

Don't really agree with your takes on this episode but I am glad that we are done with season 1. At least we're a bit closer to the good part of DS9.

If Kira had been the assassin our minds would have been blown. It really needed to have been a longer established character.

I disagree with your interpretation of the scene between Vedek Bereil and Sisko. He wasn't saying "I'd help you, but it doesn't help me, so no thanks.". He was saying I can help you know in my role as a monk, but it means I won't be able to really help you later when I'm Pope."

Nice reaction and interesting discussion from you both. Well, I still love this episode and I can't even explain why. The mystery is well done, because it focused on the dead crew man, while the school discussion starts detached from it - classic A/B plot. In the end, Vedek Winn only wanted to get rid of a political opponent and used the stations school as starting point... ;) prediction: in a few years you'll like this one and Star Trek 6 a lot more. Its like some songs you hear: they need a few repetitions

Perhaps I'm a bit alone here, but I think the botanist Keiko is clearly in the wrong. Especially the way she uses the false (!) Galileo myth. Which is somewhat ironic considering that Galileo provoked the Pope with the story of "Simplicio." Also interesting: Galileo's arguments for his hypothesis turned out to be false at the time (despite the correct result). That the prophets guide the ships through the wormhole is certainly debatable. After all, they control the ships and, like with the Cadassian ship, can prevent them from reaching their destination. Is it actually stated anywhere that prophets are considered creators? Gods and creators aren't the same thing in every culture.

In my opinion, this episode shows what makes DS9 so good. But also a small problem. In Emissary, we learned how important the Kai is. (It holds the people together and is more important than the interim government.) In Battle Lines, we learned, with some distance, what happened to the Kai. (Kira's reaction somehow reminds me of what was shown when Kim Jong Il was dead.) And now in In The Hands Of The Prophets, we have a situation that builds on how the situation has changed. Not direct sequels, but they build on each other. or in other words, time goes on. And despite the connections to other ST series, it's not like you have to have seen them. I see the problem as being that the Bajoran religion is repeatedly forgotten, if not the focus of the episode. (We have 19 - 20 episodes here and I can remember 4 where religion was important and only one other episode where I remember it being mentioned at all. Although here someone with strong faith works daily with the emissary of the prophets. ) This forgetting also occurs in other series, but nowhere did I notice it as strongly as at the beginning of DS9. My (!) season-specific(!) rating S Pilot A 18, 19, B 10, 15, 16, C 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 17, D 4, 7, 12, E 11, 13, F 14,

I don't care what anyone else says, I will always love the internal bajoran politics arcs.

I'm surprised Alex is getting sick of the heavy focus on Bajor in Season 1. Because there are actually only 4 or 5 episodes focusing on Bajor in the entire season. That's not a lot in my opinion for a show featuring a station owned by (and located close to) that planet.

Yeah I agree it is not about religion. I think it is more about politics and corruption and power. Religion is just one tool for powermongers. Kai Winn just corrupt on and criminal religious political. Political opportunist. And I think she is evil. And I see this episode as just world building and setting up political problems in Bajoran culture. And I agree it's not written not so well. :) I would love more mystery for this political plot.

"What if it was Morn?!" "You have opened you're mind to blasphemy."

The tension of us knowing something and watching the characters figuring it out isn't in "are they gonna figure it out?" Which, of course they are. It's: "are they gonna figure it out IN TIME to stop it." Now, whether that works for you is a different matter, but ideally, you're supposed to feel uncomfortable watching all this slow-mo cringe stuff because you're not supposed know if Neela is gonna kill Bariel or not. Which you're also apparently supposed to care about. Sometimes it feels like TV nowadays is only held up for how much it shocks people, and it seems inconceivable that it could make you squirm or be annoyed - without a cathartic release of a reveal, or unexpected event, mind you, and have that be a good thing. Winn is a perfect example. She's awful. She's annoying. She's a great character. You're not supposed to like her, but you're also supposed to find that fun. Nowadays she'd have had some comuppance, or dealt a quippy blow, or some way the audience gets satisfaction after putting up with her BS. But no, she saunters off unscathed, no final gotcha lines or anything. It is unsatisfying. But it was also fine back then, when TV wasn't necessarily about how much it made people gasp or cry.

This is still my favorite Star Trek... but I really think it doesn't take off until the end of Season 2. Season 2 is MUCH BETTER on balance than Season One, in my opinion, but even in Season 2 is still kinda trying to be The Next Generation on a space station. In Season One, DS9 didn't really have its own identity. It starts to establish some of it next season, and can stand on its own in Season 3.

This episode is more topical today than when it was aired

I’m thinking they need a break from trek, anyhow the boys always have an issue with guest characters who are meant to be hated, and Kai Wynn’s take on the religious right is meant to be that way

I'm a little anxious given their reactions.....and expectations........

I'm glad to get Season 1 behind us. It only gets better from here. Season 2 isn't the best either, but the show does start to find its way, working its way up to (much) better things.

Chief: what was he doing on a runabout at 4 in the morning? Odo: apparently he was getting murdered CSI INTRO KICKS IN………

fun fact the assassin was planned to be a extra through the whole season so you get attached and shocked by her Beng a assasin, but the previous actress for the character was disliked by the show runners and was let go and they didn't bother to get a replacement until the time of duet filming

Ugh, fucking Winn

UK members alert: Paramount+ bizarrely has cut the episode's first scene (kumja stick), but the Netflix version retains it.

She's my got to be one of my favorite love to hate characters

Not knowing Bajor wasn't part of the Federation *insert Picard facepalm*. That was established in the Pilot and its the whole reason why Picard was at DS9 talking to Sisko. Anyway, you guys enjoyed this one more than I thought you would. On to season 2!

LOVED Alex's unfiltered disgusted reactions to Nurse Ratchet throughout the episode XD Also, even the DS9 writers agree with you that Neela's role should've been a recurring character. But unfortunately DS9 has this tendency to introduce recurring characters that never end up recurring because of some reason or other, so instead of bringing Anara back, they had to introduce Neela in that out-of-place scene in Duet.

Religion being the mask for political gain ? Say it ain't so!

lol some of the funniest comments from you both during this. made an average episode a lot more enjoyable

After speaking with my lawyers, they are applying for a court order to force you both to watch TNG Season 1 again. That will greatly refine your relative evaluation of this episode.

Josh said that he expected the writers to have gained enough experience from TNG's run to be able to give DS9 S1 a higher standard. The problem though was that 2 TV shows and the preparations for the 1st TNG film and Voyager left the writers stretched. TNG S7 demonstrates this as well as DS9 S1 and 2. Remember that Paramount requested a new ST show and Piller and Berman weren't pitching Paramount a fleshed out concept instead. It also is a learning curve with a new show and it takes time to assemble a writing team.

My most hated character arrives. F religion

Hadn’t seen this one in a while! I agree they kind of bungled Winn's introduction. We're supposed to believe she's this skilled manipulator, and she comes in like a sledgehammer in her first scene. If she had stood at the back of the classroom pursing her lips and going "Hmm... interesting," and then after class gone up to Keiko and said "Wouldja stop teaching blasphemy?", it would have been easier to believe that she'd spent her life cutting deals and moving the levers of power. I also love Sisko's admonishment to Jake that faith carried the Bajorans through tough times. I agree with others that he has to be pragmatic because he's in a delicate political spot, but it also invites us to draw a distinction between Mr. and Mrs. Average Bajoran Believer and the Winn/Bareil types who are trying to use their religion to advance themselves. And while the Sisko Jump was some high-octane cringe, it was still a lot of fun.

Thank you Alex and Josh for cuttiing the 24 hours gap after pre-release to 22. It's now 6.30 pm in Central Europe. Perfect time!

Interesting that it seems to me given religion at least, you could argue Sisko is more open-minded than previous commanders. BUT he is also being pragmatic because he is there trying to work with a group of people who are very defined by their religion. He can't sit there and think "What a bunch of stupid fanatics."

So I think the original plan was she was supposed to shoot in the middle of a crowd and then had an escape route to the runabout that she would have used taking adavantage of the chaos. Originally she was trying to escape. Having her walk around behind Bareil, it would have been obvious who the killer was. Once her escape plan was detected, Winn encouraged her to do it anyway, even knowing she would get caught and executed. But at that point, since they knew the Starfleet staff had figured out someone was trying to escape, positioning herself directly beind Bareil would probably have been too obvious. Being in the crowd gives her a chance to make the shot because it wouldnt be as obvious, she would have taken the weapon out and fired. Part of the point of the slow mo I think was this actually all would have happened very fast, too fast for the audience to really grok what was going on. Sisko sees her in the crowd before she pulls the gun. He starts moving in front of Bareil. We're supposed to think she's going to shoot him instead. But she sees him moving towards Bareil and adjusts her shot rightwards so she'll hit Bareil instead of Sisko, but misses entirely and Sisko tackles her. I think you guys were so caught up in the corniness of the execution you didn't quite understand why she was doing it the way she was. She had ti figure they would figure it out and she'd be the number one suspect, so there wasn't a way to get a better shot, and her best chance would be to blend in with th crowd, like her original plan where she would run to the runabout after the chaos of the crowd reacting to Bareil being shot.

I think maybe the point of the slow mo was to make us think Sisko would get shot, taking the bullet for Vedek Bareil essentially.

I think the reveal wasn't who was responsible. It was what Kira said- that essentially the motivation wasn't sincere but an elaborate scheme to eliminate Winn's primary rival for Kai. Of course Winn believes that her personal success is in Bajor's best interest, but she was willing to manipulate the convictions of the faithful, including the assassin, to achieve her personal political goals.

Nurse Ratchet. Read the book before seeing the movie, its much better

If Bajor was a federation planet the distinction of a Federation/Bajoran station would be meangingless. In the pilot, Sisko's mission was "to do anything short of violating the prime directive to help Bajor get ready to join the Federation." There are no doubt strategic reasons for this (especially after the discovery of the wormhole) and they probably would have been ready prior to the Cardassian occupation, but now with the Cardasian withdrawal the Federation is helping Bajor rebuild. But the fact it's a Bajoran station run by Starfleet has been an ongoing plotline, with Bajoran soveriegnty paramount.

I hope you guys will be more open to the Cardassian/Bajoran stuff and the more nuanced treatment of religion and spiritually. Going in with a bias against those plot elements would really be a shame, as DS9 does such a good job with that.

Wynn is played by the legendary Louise Fletcher, and she does an amazing job.

Cirroc Lofton is the greatest child actor of all time. I know the bar isn't high, but he always comes off so natural. His performance was so convincing to me, that I bet he's telling someone religion is dumb right now!

Louse Fletcher (as both Vedek Winn and Nurse Ratched) is the queen of passive-aggressiveness.

The thing about season one is, it's mostly a set up of characters and possibly future storylines. Try to watch it from that perspective because yes, the episodes are milktoast. Think of it as an investment especially for season 3 onwards because I'm not going to lie. Season 2 is mid at best as well. It's BETTER than season 1, but we don't even have the amazing solo showrunner that takes the show in it's iconic direction until mid season 3. I hope none of this counts as a spoiler. I'm trying to be vague lol I just don't want you to quit or feel discouraged. We told ya the first two seasons were meh. :) The other thing is, I know it's hard, but try not to compare it with season 6 TNG...a show that was already established and lets be honest: seasons 1 and 2 were WAY worse than seasons 1 and 2 of DS9. But remember the way the TNG changed completely during season 3? Literally almost a soft reboot. Well, it'll happen here too.

I'm used to hating Wynn in this. But now I get to witness ALEX hate Wynn. Thanks for the fuckin' Gold~

Again, the Bajoran engineer O'Brien was working with wasn't just in the last episode, she's been in the last few. I would assume she's the head of the Bajoran engineering staff who answers to O'Brien. Remember this a Bajoran station overseen by starfleet, and most of the actual crew including security and engineering are Bajorans.

Ah Winn, my favorite character I love to hate.

If you guys have the same DS9 DVD set I have. Theres a Disc with special features. Don't watch it! The thing is full of spoilers. It's labeled season 1 disc 6.

There's a meme about this episode saying that Vedek Winn's headpiece was modeled after the Sydney Opera House as a nod to Australia's fondness for the word c*nt. I don't know a single trekkie that likes Winn, so props to Louise Fletcher for making the audience hate the character that much. But anyway, putting aside the flaws in Neela's plan, and bearing in mind Winn's main motivation was to eliminate a rival for the role of Kai, you get the impression from this episode that significant proportions of the Bajoran population oppose the Federation's presence because they're "nonbelievers". What's THEIR plan? I mean if they get their way and make the provisional government tell starfleet to leave, they'll leave, and it'll be occupation 2.0 just like Kira said. Marritza in the guise of Darhe'el(or maybe still Marritza) said leaving Bajor was a political decision, like it wasn't worth the trouble anymore. The wormhole 100% changes that. The Cardassians would jump on the chance to control passage to the Gamma Quadrant. The thing with Bajor and religion is that it's kind of a caricature when you think about it. There's a definite implication that the Bajorans have remained somewhat backward because of their religion. Yet most of the unprecedented and extremely rapid scientific and technological advancement of the last 2-3 centuries has happened in predominantly religious nations that were able to reconcile faith and science, but the Bajorans apparently weren't. Sure we see they have stuff like phasers, but arguably a lot of their current tech could be based on stuff they stole from Cardassians during the occupation. Going by Picard's log in Ensign Ro, the Bajorans were "architects, scholars and philosophers" before humans were standing upright. That is probably an exaggeration given it implies they reached a level of advancement comparable to the ancient Greeks or Chinese millions of years ago. Still, the clear implication is they reached that level LONG before any human society did. Unless you get into theories of Atlantis or other ancient civilizations reaching or surpassing our modern tech and then all that knowledge was lost in some spectacular collapse. At any rate, going by Cochrane's age and the time he was thought to have died in Metamorphosis, we can assume he invented warp drive sometime in the mid-late 21st century. That means humans went from a preindustrial state in the mid 1700s to developing powered flight, splitting the atom, landing on the moon, developing advanced computer technology and ultimately being warp capable in 300 or so years. If the Bajorans were advancing 10% as fast, hell if they were advancing 2% as fast, the occupation would probably never have happened as the Bajorans would be one of the most advanced species in the galaxy. Would love to see that argument thrown at Winn in front of a crowd. At any rate, Bareil seems to represent a much more moderate/open minded side to the Bajoran equation, so hopefully his is the viewpoint that wins out. At any rate, that's the first and worst season out of the way. Here's hoping you find that the writers have a better grasp of what does and doesn't work both with stories and characters in S2. I won't say it's amazing to me, but the show does start to stand on it's own feet. Also generally in Trek you'll find 2nd seasons tend to be more ambitious with the production. A lot of the season 1 budget disappears into the big feature length pilot and building all the primary sets, though sometimes that works out by giving us great bottle eps like Duet. Other times we get old men yelling at shitty VFX clouds. You win some, you lose some. See you in season 2.

Audiences, esp in the 90s, can be kind of dim, so they probably thought they needed to really telegraph Neela was up to something. What I think stands out though is how much forethought Vedek Winn put into the assassination plot, both before and with it in motion. She had a general plot figured out long in advance, but I don't think she knew how to get Vedek Bariel to the station until the whole school thing, and purposefully antagonized Keiko to get her to object. But I think that if Keiko relented, she would have come up with some other plan to get Bariel there. Neela was clearly groomed for the part, and was just a sacrificial pawn. It didn't really matter to Winn if Neela was obvious or not, or died or not, when making her move, just that she could pull it off and that there was no evidence to link Neela to Winn. Imagine if Winn put that much effort into just being kind, giving and non-condescending lol

I'm pretty anti-religion, but I enjoy stuff like this where the obnoxious religious person is the villain. If the show had tried to be like, "Well, maybe Vedek Winn has a good point..." then I would have been as angry as Alex, but fortunately it doesn't go that way. I do think the episode has other problems, but I'd probably give it a low B.

Louise Fletcher is so good at making you hate her. Love it. Another great character arc for Kira as well - that's 3 now. In Progress she had her arc of accepting she is not a resistance fighter anymore. In Duet, it was her hatred of Cardassians. Here is her faith and relationship with religion. The best part was Quark's sick burn of religion: "Orthodox? In that case I'll need twice as many dabo girls." The slow mo was cringe though.

I think you were a little harsh on this one. High B for me. Yes the season was a little uneven but we are over the worst.

I went to private Catholic schools from Grade 1 through high school. And you what we had? We had a religion class and we had separate science classes. I learned all about evolution and the Big Bang.

I won’t specify of course but this discussion included some completely wrong things, but also maybe an accurate prediction about the future of the show. I will say DS9 asks questions about some things that TNG never did. But that’s what you hope for as a franchise progresses. Well, I do anyway. Some fandoms want a static franchise where nothing changes.

Fun fact: that establishing matte painting of Bajor is the same from the pilot, *except* all the broken glass has been fixed. I loved that detail.

What's the problem with slo-mo? It's something you rarely see used. To my knowledge the only TV shows from this period and the years before that used them were nighttime soap operas.

See the interesting thing about this stuff in my mind is… the Prophets ARE real. So does that make their religion more true or not?

The slo-mo was cringe in 93 lol

Couldn't help draw some comparisons between Sisko's jump to take down Neela, and Kirk's jump to save the Federation President in ST:VI And whatever happened to that Starfleet guy who helped out Odo once...

The only ting I don't like about this episode. You can see it play out in real life on the news.

Well, these guys' feelings about religion, especially Alex's, are going to make for an interesting series watch-along going forward! Besides, the point in this one is not religion is bad. It's that religion CAN be bad.

“They gonna burn down the school?” The rest of us: 👀

I fucking hate religion. It needs to be eradicated for humanity to move forward.

This was Louise Fletcher's most evil role since "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest." Vedek Winn is the second best villain on this show and one of the best in all of Star Trek.

The slow-motion scene is cringe, but it wasn't as big a trope 30 years ago. There are much more cringey things in TNG's early seasons (like that guy swinging the halberd at Riker). Aside from the issues with the execution of the assassination, I think Wynn's plan is quite ingenious if you break down all the parts that had to go into it. Was Neela as the assassin a good mystery? Not really, but I think the way she covered up her tracks was well written. Not written well enough to get one over on Odo but still good. It's my least favorite of the finales on DS9 but I think I like it more than the boys do.

"Maybe we have made some progress after all."

Oh I don’t think Neela is evil. I think she’s been groomed and indoctrinated…

Oh that slo-mo scene. I do love DS9 for doing it despite it being a bit cheesy 🤪 I can’t think of any other scene in Trek like it, just a shame it makes Neelas plot look so bad. The score tho is great.

Good catch Alex. Yes, that is nurse ratchet.

I really liked this episode, but only once I'd seen the rest of the series. Not giving anything away but it sets up so many threads that make more sense later on. Bit of an anti-climactic ending (how can she have missed that shot!) but there was a lot of interesting power-plays and it's the tip of a very big iceberg. Makes it all the better knowing what's to come. Figured you guys would find it mid, which I totally get, but my heart genuinely skips a beat when everything goes slow mo - I love that build up, whereas I felt like you probably found it a bit cringe.

I’ve always liked this one, find the issues it raises are interesting and Louise Fletcher does a good job playing a villain that in real life you’d probably want to punch.

I should have left a comment about the scene between Sisko and his son where he tells him to also keep an open mind to other view points and that maybe the Allen's in the wormhole are actually prophets so you couldve talked about it. Really nice character focused scene.

I thought this was one of the best of the season. Keiko does nothing for me but Louise Fletcher was a good actress.

I can't look at the thumbnail without hearing John Williams' Superman theme

I don't consider C--tier to be shit - I reserve that for D tier and below. In DS9's case, I think most of the 1st season episodes are just ... boring, meh. Not bad, but not good.

Louise Fletcher plays such a good b*tch. I think she got type-cast to a certain extent after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.