What You Leave Behind

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Tonight we're going to party like it's either 1999 or 2375.

(Especially Ezri Dax and Julian Bashir, who have consummated their love while animals strike curious poses. Heh. Prince.)

Miles O'Brien packs up Keiko, Molly, and Kirayoshi for what they've always wanted- he got a teaching job on Earth. It's been mere weeks since the Breen set San Francisco ablaze, so maybe what they really want is someone to sweep out the Academy.

The new Defiant has arrived (once they make some poor sap like Nog paint over the name Sao Paulo on the hull). It still has that new ship smell when they launch for the Big Blow-Out over occupied Cardassia. On the planet below, Kira pulls the old Dressing-Like-A-Breen-To-Shoot-Jem'Hadar-In-The-Back Trick, while Female Founder goes full Vader and starts throttling her most loyal underlings and bombing whole cities when the populace strikes back.

Victory! The Dominion is defeated, but with half the Alliance army dead it's a cause only a Klingon could celebrate. And it's Odo who saves everyone that's left: by reaching out a healing hand of friendship to the enemy. In grateful surrender, she agrees to stand trial- but Odo will have to take her place back in the Gamma Quadrant if their people are to survive and grow.

Unless Kira wants to wear water wings the rest of her life- this is good-bye.

With all his enemies and/or parents and/or cleaning staff dead along with the art, architecture, and most of the biosphere, Garak can move home. Yay...? Worf also gets the dubious happy ending of a post as Federation Ambassador to the Klingons. Fair's fair, though- he forced Martok behind a desk and now that favour is returned. Unsuitable promotions for everyone!

As everyone tears up at the victory celebration/farewell party, Sisko realizes he left the oven on and rushes off to Bajor. And by the oven, I mean the Fire Caves. There, Kai Winn has poisoned Gul Dukat, but the Pah-Wraiths have rebooted him. He's hurtling fireballs and ranting about setting the entire Quadrant ablaze. He could probably do it, too. He starts with Winn. Sisko and Dukat grapple over the devil book- hurling themselves and the key to the Pah-Wraith's escape over a burning precipice.

The galaxy is saved at last. Each earns their reward: the Pah-Wraiths and Prophets keep their Emissaries. But is Sisko's heaven any kind of heaven without his wife and children?

"What You Leave Behind" is not as important as how you've lived, to paraphrase 'Star Trek Generations', but it's pretty amazing and in truth I don't EVER want to leave it behind. It's the final end for middle child of doom and gloom DS9, with no movies to come, and novels only for the die-hards. So... does Bajor EVER join the Federation? Would that be better for them anyway? Maybe I'll let you know someday how Sisko returned, or Dax gets a ship of her own, or check in on Kasidy and Jake. But for now, this is the end, and how we deal with loss and change is a measure of our humanity.

The Dogs of War

***** (5 stars out of 5)
Like many a Star Trek fan before or since, Elim Garak is plotting his revenge in his parent's basement.
Damar and Kira languish alongside him with the war raging in the streets outside. It's not really languishing if you're being waited on hand and foot by Tain's "housekeeper" Mila. I'm saying if Mila isn't Garak's real mother then Alfred isn't Batman's real dad.

Odo, cured but in no mood to be grateful, learns that while the Federation officially poo-poohs the anti-Founder actions of Section 31, the Federation Council itself votes "Genocide" rather than give their enemy the same cure. Way to go, Federation Council. Tack that one up on the wall next to "Created the Maquis" and "Allied with Drug-Dealing Slavers".

Speaking of governments falling to ruin, to hear Quark rant about it, Grand Nagus Zek's reforms have done the same to his. Ferenginar is virtually an equal opportunity democracy these days, and that's only going to get "worse" now that ROM is left in charge. If a man so tender hearted and tender headed is on the throne, then Quark's bar will be 'The Last Outpost' of true Ferengi. The line of pure greed and misogyny "must be drawn He-ya! This fa, no fuhthuh!"

"The Dogs of War"clearly agrees with me: Jeffrey Combs should play EVERY role all the time. Or, at least, Weyoun and Brunt at the same time. Also, the conclusion to the story of Quark's family is perfectly achieved, satisfying in every way. The Nagus is dead. Long live the Nagus.

Extreme Measures

*** (3 stars out of 5)
Let's pretend for a moment that you can get past Odo's crusty exterior and love him anyway. Perhaps a little less than Kira does, but still. Given that, what lengths would you go to to keep that surly shapeshifter from glooping down the drain for good?

Would you defy the law, catch a master spy, and force a cure from his twisted brain with banned Romulan mind sifters? Assuming, of course, that no Vulcan or Betazoid or Lethean or Minaran or Talosian or anyone of several dozen other kinds of legal telepaths couldn't be found or hired to look in there for you for some reason?

If your answer is yes- then congratulations. You just got Section 31 operative Luther Sloan to commit suicide rather than help you. Do you A) give up? B) devise a contraption to hop inside the dreams of a dying madman to find the answer anyway?

If you answered B) I hope you have a best friend like O'Brien to help you.

"Extreme Measures" has it's head and heart in the right place, that is, the "Dreamscape" or "Inception" place. It's a great sci-fi concept to enter and participate in someone's dream. And Julian and Miles get to risk their lives together again for a righteous cause. Maybe they even brought down Section 31 for good, though that's a pretty big maybe. As I say, it's a good concept. It's just unfortunate that the inside of Sloan's head is on such a tight budget.

Tacking Into The Wind

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The Dominion's Founder leadership may be failing, but they'd take the whole galaxy down with them out of spite. And on that note: it's a Bad Leaders theme day!

Kira and Worf fight uphill battles with the empires that have never taken them seriously. Though they hate her completely, the Cardassians need Kira's guidance. Likewise, the Klingons need the generally despised Worf. I don't mean Generals despise him- General Martok's flower units about the boy. But the outsider's perspective is required for some radical changes.

Damar of Cardassia suffers grievously when the Dominion has his innocent wife and child shot. When he wails about the injustice of his oppressors, Kira all but chortles in his face. And so Damar must choose whether to kill his blindly racist friend Rusot or his honest foe, Kira. All phasering aside, speeches are what it's all about on Star Trek.

Take my Worf... please! As it becomes obvious to everybody that Gowron would get his whole army slaughtered if it made a good photo-op, Worf keeps silent. Ezri is even brave enough to tell Worf that the Klingon Empire is dying- and deserves to die if they won't defy their corrupt, dishonourable leaders.

When he can bear it no longer, Worf assumes governmental control in the usual manner: petitions, leaflets, and filibusters. NAH! Just kidding. With sharp, stabbing things! That pop-eyed, poisoning snake Gowron has had it coming for seven years!

"Tacking Into The Wind" proves that heavy is the head that wears the crown. Klingon heads being plenty heavy enough already, Worf fobs the actual job off on his brother-in-arms. Qap'la, Martok!  Maybe his hard-ass wife will even crack a smile when she hears she's now the First Lady. If Martok gets a darling new cape, perhaps Sirella gets new shoes?

When It Rains...

**** (4 stars out of 5)
Whenever I see Klingon Chancellor Gowron throwing his weight around I always think back to something I heard him say repeatedly in the ST:TNG VHS video board game: "YOU WILL EXPERIENCE BIJ!" (pronounced BEEEJ, means 'punishment').

And we're all getting punished today: Gowron's jealous of Martok's wartime prestige so he's moving in to take command and credit, Ross and Sisko order Kira to hang out with the fine, upstanding men of the Cardassian rebellion, Odo discovers he has the same wasting disease as the Founders, and Dukat goes temporarily blind. (Not from looking at Kai Winn in the buff, you understand, but from peeking at the devil's books, I guess.)

Sisko gives Kira a drab new uniform and battlefield commission so the Cardassians won't have to think 'Bajoran' while she's bossing them around. Although it's really her face that gives it away... so... whatever. She's not making many friends teaching Killing Cardies 101 at the Cardassian Learning Annex anyway. Also, it's easier to work with Damar and think of him as a hero if Kira and Garak never bring up the way he shot their friend Ziyal in the back.

Dr. Bashir has a scheme to learn rapid organ replacement synthesis from whatever Odo's made of. We'll never know if this payed off... except otherwise Odo would never have found out he was sick. Well, the 'crumbling to dust' would've been a clue, but doctors like to feel useful. Like the desk-bound PADD-pushers at Starfleet Medical: who wouldn't lift a finger if it might help Odo. A cure for Odo might get back to the Founders. And nobody wants THAT. The Founders might be grateful or shamed by Solids who show compassion or something.

As Bashir deduces, that hardly sits well with the solids who infected them in the first place: our old pals, the spooks at Section 31.

"When It Rains..." is continues the gripping saga with desperate humanity eager to throw the Founders to the wolves, Sisko forced to do the same with all his non-Federation peeps (except Quark, I guess), the Kai throwing her blind ex-lover into the street, and Gowron settling in drunk behind the wheel of the bus he's throwing Martok under.

The Changing Face of Evil

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Clearly, 2375 is not a good year to visit San Francisco. Or to visit Ben Sisko, who is bound to be in a terrible mood.

The Dominion chose well when they brought the Breen race into their war with the United Federation of Planets: a direct assault on Starfleet HQ is something not even the Klingons ever achieved. Those Breen are real go-getters! Very admirable work... uh, I mean, GO EARTH! These colours do not run!

As if his new wife semi-intentionally burning his beloved bell peppers to get even with him when he tries to make her take a vacation wasn't bad enough, Captain Sisko also narrowly avoids exploding at the biggest space battle setback yet. Scores of Alliance vessels (mainly Federation and Romulan) are struck down by a fancy-new Breen power siphon, including that brave little toaster: Defiant. The eventual owners of the Chin'toka system should look into the burgeoning field of salvage... once the plasma fires go out and the giant frozen clouds of red and green blood dissipate.

The female shapeshifter makes sure her troops let the escape pods do their escape thing. Lots and lots of demoralized enemies means spreading tales of Dominion bad-assery... somehow still very necessary at this late stage? This should stop that SISKO character fighting back... for about a week.

But what's this? Coming up from behind? Why, it's those heroic-slash-treacherous Cardassians. Instead of doing what they asked for and just handing Cardassia the conquered universe on a shiny silver platter, those Dominion jerks have mostly been riding to victory on the backs of seven million dead space lizards. Now the space lizards rise up against their re-branded oppressors when Legate Damar begins to speechify.

Bajor's Kai Winn is shocked when her assistant Sobor discovers her own personal space lizard, Dukat, is not all he claimed. Further discoveries on Sobor's part are necessarily limited when Winn discovers what substance is required to read ancient forbidden Pah-Wraith texts. Here's a hint: may contain platelets.

"The Changing Face of Evil" continues the rock-solid. slam-bag, gee-whiz, ka-blooey final chapter. Did I mention 'P-tchoo! P-tchoo!'? Because it has plenty of that, too.

Juggernaut

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Great Green Globs of Greasy, Grimy Malon Guts- and me without my spoon!

When a gloopy Malon Toxic Waste carrier ship springs a leak it threatens to seep theta radiation poisoning across the entire sector!? Really? SECTOR? How is that even possible? And here I thought the Gamelan garbage scow was filthy!

Speaking of filthy, B'Elanna Torres is a dirty girl. Dirty, dirty girl. What was I saying? Oh, right, she's spending the story crawling around covered in grease, grime and LETHAL RADIATION.

Because radiation is a serious matter, Torres strips down to a singlet. It's very HOT, you see? Why put on some bulky ANTI-RADIATION SUIT? When your life and desire to not mutate are at stake, always wear as little as possible.

Neelix gets into the act with his "Going Spelunking in a Haunted Barge Cat-Suit". I don't think this was quite as welcome, however.

What monster lurks in the dark, contaminated, Health-and-Safety-Regulation Forsaken engine room? Could it possibly be more like the Toxic Avenger? And is it possible Torres could take off more clothing before she beats it to death with a pipe?

Why even pretend that the Starfleet way includes a reverence for life if you never make use of the stun setting? Or ANY form of non-lethal sedations or restraints? No, as Michael Jackson always said: "Just Beat It."

"Juggernaut" is a draggy, one-star episode which ends with a two-star shower scene. Just the way I like... uh, sort of tolerate it.

Strange Bedfellows

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The exciting and wonderfully serialized Final Chapter continues! Thot Gor of the Breen Confederacy meets with the Founder face-to-... whatever. Their alliance hopes to erase the Federation from the face of the galaxy. Also, as a minor point, the Changelings give some Cardassian planets to the Breen. Since Cardassians are an infinitely generous and forgiving people, this will never have any consequences at all.

Weyoun cages Worf and Ezri together, because he's a little too eager to watch some interspecies mating. What a wonderful creep! (Although the hanging upside down and barfing probably isn't part of it.) Unfortunately, they just TALK about their feelings and discover they aren't really in love. Poor Weyoun! Also, Worf breaks the Vorta Voyeur's neck, so... mood killer. Somebody uncork Weyoun 8!

Martok congratulates Sisko on entering the "long, grueling, intoxicating war" of marriage. In Martok's view, the husband wins some battles... and the wife always wins the war. Martok knows whereof he speaks.

Damar, tossed aside for the shiny new Breen, watching his people slaughtered in droves in a war FAR less fun than marriage, and accidentally sober long enough to trip over his conscience, frees Worf and Dax to tell the Federation they have an ally on Cardassia.

And enemies on Bajor! Case in point, Winn is doinking False-Faced Dukat, and the "Strange Bedfellows" conspire to play pin the End On The Emissary. Winn learns that her visions have been coming from the Pah-Wraiths. Farmer Dukat is shocked, SHOCKED that such a thing... oh, never mind, yes, he loves the Pah-Wraiths too, and isn't that better anyway? Kira doesn't think so: she recommends Winn step down from the Space Papacy and find her heart and soul again. Winn, however, doesn't like to lose. Stepping down feels like losing. No, I don't think she'll be doing that. Devil Worship it is!

'Til Death Do Us Part

**** (4 stars out of 5)
Kai Winn graciously insists that she receive the burden and prestige of performing the Emissary's marriage. And receives her first Prophetic Vision: or at least, they ACTED like Prophets! All cryptic and not-at-all Pah-Wraith-y. Close enough, right?

Ezri and Worf languish in a Breen cell, eating algae paste out of cans. The Breen interrogate them with a cortical memory probe. Worf overhears Ezri hallucinating that she loves Julian. So that's all it took to get Dax to admit it... brain damage!

The Breen give the odd couple to Weyoun as wedding presents on the eve of their alliance. To hear Worf talk, no one has Seen a Breen and lived to tell of it. (I guess Kira and Dukat averted their eyes for modesty's sake while undressing two Breen guards back in 'Indiscretion'.)

Damar (first among the subjugated Cardassians) drinks himself to sleep, and for symmetry he drinks himself awake, too. He's helped that loony-tunes Dukat get surgery to pass as a Bajoran- the Pah Wraiths have a mission for the mad despot on Deep Space Nine. Posing as a hayseed, Dukat's performance in Pink Face gets him in to see Winn. By hook or by crook, his cover story has all the right buzz words Winn needed to choose him as her spiritual guide. Also, the crook got his hooks into her. I mean in bed. Sex-wise. Avert your eyes now... and bleach your brains for safety.

Ben breaks off his engagement to Kasidy, trying to spare them sorrow and follow the Prophets. But soul searching and the arrival of her non-refundable Terrelian diamond engagement ring means the wedding is back on... no matter what the Prophets say. Sorrow it is!

"'Til Death Do Us Part" apparently had the writers pull the pin on the freakish romance of Evil It Couple "Wukat" a little too early, but it works. Their scenes together are dripping with crazy! Not sure which is cobra and which is mongoose, but some biting is definitely going on.

Penumbra

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Sisko just bought land on Bajor to build the home he's been craving. And what's a home without someone to share it with? He proposes to Kasidy Yates and she accepts!

And all's well that ends well... (if only he hadn't as much as said 'Only nine episodes to retirement!')

It seems the entire populace of Bajor wants to come to the wedding of the Emissary, but not everyone's smiling. The Prophet Sarah (Sisko's half-mother) declares his destiny lies elsewhere. Once again, religion stomps all over sex and happiness!

Despite Picard's efforts at reconciliation, it seems the Son'a are still Dominion allies (Aw, that's too generous. I meant insignificant pawns) rather than all going home to their moms on Ba'ku. Nice one, Picard. Leave your mess behind for the stay-at-homes as usual! Also, still plague-ridden, the Founder known as Drop-In-The-Ocean has her Vorta doctors put to death. This encourages their clones to work faster. (Then again, devil's advocate here, why not simply MAKE the clones, PUT them in different labs, and TELL them their earlier selves were executed? Two for the price of one? Many hands make light work? What am I thinking? She's the VILLAIN. If she's not hampering her own recovery by irrationally killing her own minions how would I know who were the good guys?)

Ezri Dax loves to take a Gander... so she does. She steals the runabout (hastily re-dubbed from the long-ago destroyed Ganges to the Newfoundland river Gander) to locate missing Worf after everyone else had to give up searching. They find each other again, in more ways than one. After a night of arguing, getting shot down, and some ill-advised passion on Goralis (Yunga, Yunga!), they are captured by the mysterious Breen. No, not Ben Vereen. BREEN. You remember them? You don't? Well, that's what you get for skimming.

"Penumbra" is the beginning of the most ambitious (and, I would argue, successful) serialized story arc in Star Trek history. The nine final episodes of the niners! Turn off your telephones, ignore your families, and watch it all in one gulp with me, won't you?

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

**** (4 stars out of 5)
Grey the Federation is becoming, and grey the Romulans already are; clothes, buildings, and people. Grey-skinned "Gardener" Garak points out that the Romulan heart itself is literally grey, and one doesn't want to inquire just how he learned this. Garak finds Romulans 'unimaginative', and I find myself wondering what happened to the 'passionate people' described in the original series.

Federation-Protecting Quasi-Government Creepozoid Sloan from Section 31 (also grey) returns when Dr. Bashir is invited to a conference on Romulus. Sloan's Romulan counter-creep Fleckus Koval (You know? Identical cousin of Taibak? Tal Shiar operative who tortured Geordi years ago? Never un-grits his teeth?) is eager to hear the good doctor's thoughts on the horribly deadly Teplan Blight. Although not the cure, if any.

Sloan pits Bashir against Koval, gets our hero beaten up and mind-scanned, secrets are kept, people get shot (or DO they?), and a perfectly innocent Romulan woman (Cretak the Barbeau-Bot) has her career ruined and probably went to jail. Merely for trying to help Bashir keep the unsteady new alliance intact! Aw, who am I kidding? Romulans don't have jails. They sent her to NEW JERSEY.

Admiral Ross turns out to be a Section 31 patsy (or apologist) as well. He tells us the title is a Cicero quote meaning: "In times of war, the law falls silent". Bashir echoes Picard's dead prof Galen in accusing the Federation of decaying like the Roman Empire. Then they attend a toga party. At least, they might have.

"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" is intriguing intriuge-y intrigue. I love Romulans, I love Bashir, I love John Fleck. I'm not so fond of the 'compromised Federation' stories... but it's cracking good drama no matter how much I personally prefer optimism to cynicism.

Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Bashir's friend Felix just doesn't know how to make a holoprogram without crazy antics. His "2013 Papacy Succession Beer Pong Bash" is legen... wait for it... dary.

The holographic Vic's hotel contains a jack-in-the-box character: a mobster named Frankie Eyes. He's bought the place, turned it sleazy, and roughed up our beloved lounge singer. Only a well-planned wacky heist can ruin the gangland goomba and save the day!

The Deep Space Nine crew rallies around their fictional photonic friend, devoting their off hours to solving the dilemma- within 1962 parameters and using only historical Vegas materials. (So no arming Cirque du Soleil with photon grenades, then.) Kira puts the make on Frankie Eyes. Kasidy and O'Brien compete to antagonize the guard into giving one of them a free strip-search. Bashir brews the ipecac, Odo distracts goons with his supple wrists, Nog cracks the safe, and Ezri wears skimpy clothes and slips the mickey to the guy in the count room.

It's Captain Sisko's job to ruin the mood by reminding us that Vegas was WHITE, WHITE, WHITE in 1962. Leave it to Captain Wet Blanket to disdain a fantasy game because of the LACK of period-specific racism.

Of course, Sisko's cause is just. You don't just forget how awful the past was just because it's been hundreds of years. Yet there must come a day when even a righteous grudge gives way to enjoying your present life. The Captain does eventually unclench- sharing the stage with the hologram Vic. Sharing the song in their hearts: 'The Best is Yet To Come'.

"Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" was all about rallying around a fiction and investing heavily in fantasy. AND HAVING FUN, DANG IT! Deep Space Nine was almost never comedic. Brilliant drama, great stories, fine performances, heady ideas... but usually pretty doom-y and gloomy. So here's to just having a blast. Like Vegas itself- hot, wild, inebriated fun.

Chimera

**** (4 stars out of 5)
Casting some doubts on the strength and permanence of the Kira/Odo romance is a straight-up shapeshifter bromance which is neither straight nor terribly "bro".

When O'Brien and Odo meet a mighty space fish swimming merrily along in the vacuum, they welcome one of the 100 missing Founder-baby cosmonauts aboard. That welcome comes with some pleasant-if-awkward linking, as well as some just plain awkward intolerance and violence.

The new shifter, Laas, is two centuries more jaded than Odo, and has the moral superiority of a beast who knows humanity's flaws all too well on a very personal level. He's had the bad break-up when he couldn't be the breeder his "monoform" lady partner needed, and when he literally lived as an animal he  was righteously indignant at the way humanoids obliterate the natural worlds.

Odo must choose between Kira (the best lover he's ever known) and the brutal honesty of a new partner with whom he has much, much more in common.

Throw in Quark's remarks about a 'Changeling Pride Parade' and the genetic-level horror that non-changelings feel toward the alien, and you've got yourself a 'hot issue' show. In fact, it's pure Star Trek.

"Chimera" is a well-performed, intelligent story I'm not qualified to judge in all its nuance. I enjoyed the more first-hand review of Carl Cipra on page five of this issue of the Gaylaxians Lambda SciFi newsletter, and a more detailed 2006 review by Stephanie Dutchen on Rene's Page. These days, I like to keep my mind open. I have less difficulty with unconventional relationships than I do with cheating on one's existing lover, so I'm dismayed more by Odo's wavering loyalty than the concept that he turns to jello for an older man.

Field of Fire

**** (4 stars out of 5)

In which Ezri Dax uses Trill mesmerism to have crazy conversations with her invisible friend, that murderer who lives inside her brain, Joran.

Who could be killing people at all hours with a ceremonial kill-a-ma-jig? By which I mean a primitive projectile rifle upgraded with (A) an exo-graphic targeting scanner to see through walls and (2) a micro-transporter in the barrel to beam the bullet right where you're looking.

Granted, I'm not a shell-shocked space soldier with homicidal rage and access to deadly toys that sate my lust for blood, but I can think of a lot of ways to have more fun with X-Ray Goggles. Well, one.

Speaking of perversion, I just have to ask: why does Dax (or any Trill for that matter) need this Rite of Emergence? I mean, talking to yourself is exciting and all, but these are HER memories. Aren't they just as good when taken internally?

But we'd wrap much quicker if Ezri just looked up and to the left (J.D. style) in silent contemplation for thirty seconds and declare 'I know who the killer is! Also, wasn't William Peterson amazing in 'Manhunter'?'

"Field of Fire" is the final contribution Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote for Star Trek. 38 scripts from 'A Fistful of Datas' onward, and great work throughout. I thought this was thrilling and innovative when I first saw it, and I still really dig it.

The Emperor's New Cloak

*** (3 stars out of 5)

If you ever needed evidence that the Klingons abandoned their camera surveillance culture at some point after Errand of Mercy (and when WOULDN'T You?) then it is right here:

The most conspicuous pair of Ferengi brothers in the universe stroll into the flagship of the Supreme Commander's Seventh Fleet (offscreen) and stroll out with the most vital component. The Cloaking Device. Cloaked, naturally.

They're hoping to trade it for Zek's life. See, Nagus Zek stole the designs of a Mirror Universe transporter from Rom, and set sail for profit on the Kinky Side of the Mirror. (Maybe he's hoping Evil Risa imports whips and chains in bulk...)

(This cloaking device plan is only viable because the mirror-side Klingon-Cardassian Alliance have forgotten that they already HAVE cloaking technology. The villains ARE amazingly stupid.)

Quark was bending and bribing the ear of his Blessed Exchequer figurine praying for Ezri to be his bedtime pal this Xmas, when an Ezri DOES suddenly appear, but the grabbing and restraining are not all Quark hoped for. She's a black-hearted, black-coated mercenary. Also, she's gay.

Speaking of which, Mirror Kira kills her latest Ferengi out of half-hearted tradition. Poor, kind-hearted Mirror Brunt bears the brunt of her rage, while simple-minded Mirror Garak is offed by Lezri.

Will our not-very-heroes get home alive... and unspoiled?

"The Emperor's New Cloak" is DS9's final foray to the domain from the brain of the late Jerome Bixby is quite adequte to the task, and it's fun. Rom in particular is a welcome voice of reason in a dimension so unlikely that even VIC FONTAINE gets killed there... and yet it somehow stays parallel.

Prodigal Daughter

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Trill businesswoman Yanas Tigan runs the sector's sixth largest pergium mining company with a duranium fist. Not literally, but she does have a heart of stone. Or latinum, anyway. No, if she had a heart of gold she would have sold it.


And Yanas holds despot status over her worn-out children: hardworking foreman Janel, struggling artist Norvo, and Ezri. You remember Ezri, don't you? Ninth Dax host? Mentally addled psychologist?

Well, her horrible family doesn't live in paradise. They live in a big glass house dangling over a precipice, and today we throw some stones.

Their world (either Sappora VII or New Sydney or both, depending on how you take the vagaries of the script) is one of those polluted-looking crap-piles like Farius or Finnea Prime that 21st century audiences find familiar but which are always strange to see in the enlightened 24th Century. Incongruous obsession with money and power. Dysfunctional families. Hard hats.

I'm not saying you can't wear hard hats. Hard hats are cool. But, well, it's all very primitive, isn't it? Are we saying that the Trill AREN'T Federation members? Then why is greed such a motivating factor in their lives? Hasn't egalitarian technological and social harmony reached them yet? How many Federation planets really start to suck if you look too close?

Oh, and incidentally, who killed O'Brien's cat Chester's former owner's widow Morica Bilby? As if anyone cared.

"Prodigal Daughter" is very well played, if you like back-stabbing daytime drama (and I suspect if they added clones, robots, and flying cars that would be ME). Doesn't seem like Star Trek, but it's well played.

It's Only a Paper Moon

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Do you know the one with the holographic lounge singer and the one-legged crazy man?

There's no punch line. But it's one hell of a great dramatic episode from a dynamic duo.

Back from getting his biosynthetic limb and some adequate counselling, Nog is as physically healthy as he's going to get, but still on medical leave for phantom pain. The Ferengi engineer can't just HOP back into his life, forgive the flippancy. Not when there's a couch and a television.

As is his right, Nog selects an unorthodox location for his therapy: he MOVES IN to Vic's Vegas hotel and never goes outside anymore. (Either the holosuite replicates meals and disintegrates waste or that place is going to stink up real fast.)

Nog's corporeal family and friends timidly try to coax him back to interaction, while Vic just appreciates the company and the strange oppurtunity to 'sleep' and 'do paperwork'. Although he leaves the paperwork to the kid with ledger ink for blood.

When Jake's lady friend Kesha gazes a little too long at Nog's invisible impairment while calling him a 'hero'. Nog turns on her, barking rudely. Partly out of tradition, Nog has ruined Jake's date. But it's the first time he does so by punching his best friend.

Nog never quite clued in to his mortality before, and he can't face it yet. If the Jem'Hadar had fired a couple of inches higher, it might have been his head or something. "If I stay here, at least I know what the future is going to be like."

"You stay here," Vic says. "You're going to die. Not all at once, but little by little. Eventually, you'll become as hollow as I am."

When he's ready to rejoin reality, Nog arranges things so Vic is left on 26 hours a day. Get a Life, indeed.

I'm over the paper moon about Nog and Vic, I really am. They fancy themselves ladies' men, but for all the loneliness. "It's Only a Paper Moon" is exactly what I needed to hear at that time in my youth, and I still feel the truth of it when I revisit the story. Fantasy comforts us, but only our loved ones can truly sustain us.

Covenant

*** (3 stars out of 5)
Not only are Kira and Odo a mixed species relationship, they don't have a religion in common, either. Doesn't stop me rooting for them, and gives me hope that love conquers church anyway. Well, we'll see.

Quick as you can say 'Friendly Angel, Come To Me' Dukat turns out to be the leader of the Pah-Wraith Cult. Lady Bajorans get a Free Half-Cardassian Bastard with every new membership!

These mixed nut bags have the best transporters around. They beam Kira across three light years to Empok Nor. Where did they GET this transporter?!? Even the Dominion can't do this, can they? If they could beam from system to system as casually as walking from room to room, wouldn't Earth already be kissing space lizard ass under Empress Changeling the First?

Vedek Fala, Kira's old friend and kidnapper, has joined the cult for all the right reasons: abstinence, poverty, huddling in the dark on the rickety, haunted space hotel Empok Nor. But when Dukat starts to look like a hypocrite, the former dictator passes out the poison pills faster than you can say 'Who wants Kool-Aid?'

"Covenant" is for anyone who's gotta have faith, faith, faith, ahhh. The need for a higher power is built right in to our genes, but use your common sense, too, o.k? Start with the assumption that the higher power is kind and good, work backwards to the notion that You Only Live Once. In conclusion: try and see if you can't be the last one to swallow poison for God...

The Siege of AR-558

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Quark offers his two slips on the well-known Rule of Acquisition #34 "War is Good For Business"... but only from a distance. The Nagus wants a Ferengi-eye view of the front, so the luckless bartender enjoys a field trip with the Starship Doom-N-Gloom.

Here's some shell-shocked Starfleet soldiers now! Reese, the Steve McQueen of the gang. Even the Jem'Hadar don't want to meet this thug in a dark alley. Vargas, who won't change his bandages because they are all he has left of some jerk he didn't like. Oh, that's just the space gangrene talking! Kellin, the soft-spoken Enginerd. Descended from the great early galactic pioneers called the Space Family Robinson. Identical cousin to Lennier the ever-faithful Minbari aide. I'm trying to say the man likes Roly Poly fish heads. It's Bill Mumy! He's worth two stars just for showing up!

The enemy is using Houdini mines- deplorable, underhanded sneak attack weapons that appear without rhyme or reason from that domain of the demonic, subspace.  Their use is condemned by Starfleet types... mainly because they didn't have any before now.

If you ever got the impression that Nog was promoted too fast, then it should be noted that there's no better on-the-job training than a horrific interstellar war. No better for teaching people how to die in droves, with or without dignity. How to be maimed- Like a Man! You get the picture.

"The Siege of AR-558" went as badly as the earlier sieges at AR-557 and 556, and there aren't any lovely spaceships exploding serenely against the void. Just a bunch of scared, filthy people getting screwed up. Or deceased. For other mid-90s space war drama commemorating the 50th anniversary of the miserable debacle at Guadalcanal in 1942, please see the Space Above and Beyond episode with the more evocative title "Sugar Dirt". If you like. They're both good, just gloomy.

Once More Unto the Breach

*** (3 stars out of 5)

While yesterday's 'Once Upon A Time' urged us all to think like children, "Once More Unto the Breach" is a country for old men. Still, it teaches us to find the inner child: the cruel, teasing, vicious, taunting inner child. In other words, the Klingon child.

Martok's held a grudge ever since his youth in the Ke$ha Lowlands.  It seems Dax's blood brother Kor was the One Percenter who held him back. Martok was forced to wield a janitor's mop before he got to hold a bat'leth for his country, and it was all due to Master Kor's entitled sense of fuckery.

Worf doesn't exactly love Kor, but he figures everyone deserves to die honourably. Worf gets Kor a job on Martok's ship over Martok's more than strenuous objection.  Worf's sympathy caused him to overlook Kor's raging senility. Kor's senility caused him to overlook what century it is. Calling on his dead friends to destroy the Federation in the heat of battle, the drunken master narrowly misses Martok's knife in his face.

With no ice floes handy for Kor's retirement party, Martok mercilessly mocks his despised elder, perhaps in the hope of shaming him into suicide. If that was, indeed, the plan... then they both win. Kor steals Worf's command of a solo mission flying down the gun barrels of a Jem'Hadar fleet and passes from history into legend.

"Savour the fruit of life... But don't live too long. The taste turns bitter after a time." The final performance of John Colicos is indeed most worthy.