Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 6 created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller (1997-1998)
1 September 2006The show had really taken off by this point, with the whole Dominion war, this show has gone somewhere where no Star Trek has gone before, and made a much richer and deeper universe. This show was incredible. Honestly I think one of the sorest points of the show is the opening. I like the updated opening with ships and workers outside of DS9, and the theme is good, but it is slow and not forceful like the Next Generation theme, and I have a feeling this might have actually hurt what otherwise is an incredible show. Any Star Trek fan should watch this show, and will love it. This is such a great show, great characters, great effects, and a really good storyline. And this season features a huge wedding and a major death as well.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
This season starts off with an incredible 2 parter with A TIME TO STAND and ROCK AND SHOALS. After losing the Station to the Dominion and the Cardassians, things are not going badly for the federation, and it seems that Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) has been taken off of his duty as captain of the Defiant by Admiral Bill Ross (Barry Jenner). Sisko and his crew are given a Dominion ship to go behind enemy lines and destroy the main source of Ketrasell white in the Alpha Quadrant (the drug that the Founders have created to genetically bond the Jem’Hadar to them). The succeed, but the ship is badly wounded, and they and Jem’Hadar crash, and Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) is badly wounded. The Vorta of the Jem Hadar is Keevan (Christopher Shea) and he is almost out of Ketrasell white, so he makes a deal with Sisko and allows Sisko to kill off his own Jem’Hadar instead of letting them turn on him when they ran out of white, Sisko doesn’t want to be so dishonorable, but he is at war, and he kills the Jem’Hadar.
In SONS AND DAUGHTERS Worf (MIchael Dorn) is serving with the Klingon General Martok (J.G. Hertzler) when the crew gets a new crew member Alexander Rozhenko (Marc Worden) who is of course Worf’s son. Worf makes things worse for Alexander, who eventually gets accepted by the other crew members as the ship clown, they think he gives them luck by having such bad luck. Eventually Alexander is transfered to another ship, but he is accepted and is learning what it means to be a Klingon warrior.
In BEHIND THE LINES Sisko gets promoted by the Admiral, and Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) is given command of the Defiant for a very dangerous mission into Dominion space to destroy a sensor array, where they must travel through the Argolis Cluster. Sisko is not happy, and cannot sleep. Meanwhile back at Terok Nor, Major Kira (Nan Visitor) is sick of working with the Cardassians, and she along with Odo (Rene Auberjonois) Nog (Aron Eisenberg) and Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) start a resistance cell, and they plan to start to separate the Cardassians from their allies the Dominion. When Nog tries to do more, Odo turns his back on them, and starts spending all of his time with female Founder (Salome Jens) and Rom is put in prison and ready to die because his attempt to stop the Cardassians from destroying the mines around the wormhole. Odo has changed sides and does not care enough about Kira anymore.
Woe this was a real kicker, the whole story with Odo is fantastic, he finally gets to understand his people, but at the same time he is losing his humanity and also everything that her holds dear.
FAVOR THE BOLD is a great episode, where the Federation is suffering defeat after defeat, and pulling back, so Sisko plans a major offensive, and the goal is to take back Deep Space Nine. Meanwhile KIra and Quark (Armin Shimerman) attempt to get Odo to help them get Rom released, but Odo seems unwilling to do anything except spend time with the female founder. Even Gul Dukat’s (Marc Alaimo) daughter Tora Ziyal (Melanie Smith) tries to help, but Gul Dukat is unwilling to spare Rom. As the attack begins, Gul Dukat realizes Sisko’s plan and sends a fleet to stop them, and Martok and Worf have not contacted them yet to let them know if the Klingon’s are coming. The fight is epic, and going badly till the Klingon’s show, but even still only 1 ship gets through and makes it’s way to DS9. On the station Kira, Quark and Ziyal get Rom out and attempt to stop their plan to destroy the mines, and they do shut down the weapons, but not soon enough and the mines are destroyed and an invasion fleet is on it’s way, so Sisko takes the Defiant through the wormhole, and is contacted by the Aliens, the Prophets of Bajor, who inform him that he can’t be allowed to die, and they stop the fleet but inform him there will be a price for his actions. The Defiant returns, and takes on the station. THe Cardassians decide to run, but Dukat tries to get his daughter, but Damar (Casey Biggs) his assistant shoots her and kills her, and he loses his mind, and is taken by the Federation.
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED is a big one for DS9. They have the station back and Martok is made Supreme COmmander of the fleet with Worf as his chief intelligence officer, finding that Alexander will soon be transfered Worf agrees to change the wedding plans to have the wedding on the station. So Worf, Martok, Alexander, Sisko, Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) go for his bachelor party, which is anything but fun, a hard trial without food and with heat and trials. Meanwhile Jadzia Dax has to deal with Martok’s wife Sirella (SHannon Cochran), who she buts heads with and ends up throwing a bachelorette party and won’t listen to the women, so the wedding is called off. But Sisko makes her realize just how much she loves Worf, and she submits to Sirella and the wedding goes on as planned.
RESURRECTION is another story dealing with the mirror universe, none of which do I enjoy very much. This one deals with Kira’s former lover Bareil Antos (Philip Anglim) who has in fact come to steal the Orb for the mirror Kira, but he falls for this Kira, and doesn’t do it, and returns to his universe with his Kira.
STATISTICAL PROBABILITIES is a fun one dealing with Julian Bashir and his genetic engineering. This time Bashir agrees to work with a group of Genetically modified humans who are incapable of living lives outside of an institution. We have the hyperactive Jack (Tim Ransom), the sexually aggressive Lauren (Hilary Shepard-Turner) the childlike Patrick (Michael Keenan) and the completely turned in Sarina (Faith C. Salie). With them Bashir watches a speach given by Gul Damar of Cardassia and he is blown away by how much they can figure out just by watching him speak, and he manages to convince Starfleet to let them have intelligence and work on the war, and eventually they predict a Star Fleet failure in the war, and neither Sisko nor Starfleet will listen. The misfits decide they must end the war, by giving the intelligence to the dominion, and they tie up Bashir, but Julian manages to get Serena to let him go, and they manage to stop them, and the misfits are sent back to the institution. The thing is you can only predict so much and once person can change everything.
THE MAGNISICENT FERENGI is another fun one, with a band of bad ass Ferengi, Ha, at least sort of. Quark receives word that the dominion has captured his mother Ishka who they call Moogie (Cecily Adams). The Nagus wants her rescued and offers Quark 1000 bars of Gold pressed latinum. Quark gets Rom (Max Grodénchick) and Nog (Aron Eidenberg) as well as their cousin Gaila (Josh Pais)an assasin named Leck (Hamilton Camp) and their former editor Brunt (Jeffrey Combs). They head to the abandoned station Empok Nor, and try to deal with the Dominion by trading the prisoner Keevan (Christopher Shea). They must deal with the alien Yelgrun (Iggy Pop, yes really him), and they manage to make the trade even after Keevan is killed by running him like a robot, and end up capturing Yelgrun they have something to bring back to the federation.
Just straight fun with a group of Ferengi going up against Iggy Pop, and the Ferengi are such lovable miscreants.
WALTZ is an interesting episode pitting out biggest enemies against each other. Sisko is on the U.S.S. Honshu traveling to Starbase 621 to take Gul Dukat to his trial and imprisonment, but the ship is hit and destroyed by the dominion, and in fact it is Dukat who escapes and saves Sisko and ends up on a planet in the badlands. Dukat claims he has activated a distress beacon, but the wounded Sisko realizes that Dukat has not activated the beacon and has to fix it itself while dealing with the mad Dukat who is seeing visions of people, and his madness about the lack of love of the bajorans for him has really come to the front. Sisko tries to escape in the shuttle, but Dukat takes it and leaves, but the Defiant is able to save Sisko.
A good episode with the force of wills against the 2 biggest enemies of the series, and the absolute evil of Dukat.
WHO MOURNS FOR MORN? is a throw away Quark episode about Quark’s regular customer dieing and leaving everything to him, but actually getting him caught in the crossfire of 4 people gunning for 1000 bars of Latinum, and eventually all but Quark are arrested, and it turns out Morn is still alive and in fact the liquid latinum is in his second stomach.
ONE LITTLE SHIP is one I really enjoyed, a really fun episode where we got to see the Defiant from a view we have never seen before, kind of a honey I shrunk the shuttle craft. Dax, Bashir and O’Brien are investigating a phenomenon that shrinks them, but before they can be returned to their own size the Defiant is attacked by the Jem’Hadar and it is up to the little crew to save the ship, and even go into a control panel and see the controls from up close and personal. Very cool, and great fun!
FAR BEYOND THE STARS is an interesting and strange episode directed by Avery Brooks, where Sisko has a vision where he is a science fiction writer in the 1950’s dealing with racism and writing about DS9, and all his friends and enemies are there in different parts, so we get to see everyone without makeup. And this is mostly about Sisko realizing he can’t lose faith and give up, he has to do what he believes in no matter what.
You know they had fun making this episode, and just having a change, and saying something important about racism and not being accepted.
HONOR AMONG THIEVES has O’Brien going undercover for Starfleet Intelligence with the Orion syndicate, and wins the trust of Liam Bilby (Nick Tate) enough that he vouches for O’Brien to his boss Raimus (Joseph Culp), and O’Brien is shattered when he finds the Orion syndicate is working with the Dominion, and tries to get Bilby to run, but he goes on his mission knowing he will die to save his family from the Orion Syndicate.
CHANGE OF HEART is one that will change Worf’s entire career, but he does it gladly. Jadzia and Worf go on a mission to pick up a key Cardassian spy who has been found out, and they must sneak in 10 kilometers to get the agent, but Jadzia is badly wounded, and can only be treated in a hospital, Worf must leave her to save the agent, but he can’t abandon his wife, and he saves her and the agent is killed, and along with all of Worf’s chances of ever getting his own command.
WRONGS DARKER THAN DEATH OF NIGHT starts with Kira getting a message from Dukat making her believe that her mother was not a hero, but Ducat’s lover, so she goes to the orb of time and travels back in time to find out the truth, meeting her mother Kira Meru (Leslie Hope). There she finds that Dukat did chose Meru as a lover, and she did seem to care, but she was doing it to save her husband and children.
INQUISITION is about Bashir being charged as an enemy agent by a Starfleet Intelligence Sloan (William Sadler) and being arrested and even taken by the Dominion, but eventually he realizes it is not real, and it is all Sloan, who frees him. It turns out Sloan works for the ultra secret section 31 of Starfleet created in the charter which has no oversight and does all the black ops dealing with potential dangers to the Federation, and he wants to recruit Bashir. When Sisko finds out about it, he wants Bashir to join next time he hears from Sloan to find out about the unethical organization.
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT is an intense episode, where we learn Sisko has given in, and given up on his morality and values, and is making a journal entry about what went wrong with his plan to force the Romulans into the war through false means. He works with Garak (Andrew J. Robinson) to falsify a holo recording of a Dominion meeting, but the romulans realize it is false, but before the Romulan can return to romulus, his shuttle explodes thanks to Garak, and the recording is found, and thought to be real, and the Romulans join the war on the Federation side, and Sisko would have done it again.
HIS WAY gives Bashir a new Holoprogram, but one that is in fact self aware, and unlike any other hologram in existence, this is the 1960’s Las Vegas singer Vic Fontaine (James Darren). Vic is a great character, and I would have been happier to see him earlier in the series. Here he is known to give great relational advice, and Odo goes to him to get confidence and learn how to date Kira, but still won’t ask her out. Vic plays games, and gets Kira to come into the Holosuite, so Odo is actually on a date with her and doesn’t know it. And Odo finally gets Kira and gets to kiss her, and they start their relationship.
THE RECKONING has Sisko being sent for to see a Religious artifact they have unearthed and he goes to see it, and it is about him, and he takes it to the station to translate the ancient Bajoran and a prophecy of about the Reckoning. The removal of the tablet brings Kai Winn (Louise Feltcher). Dax meanwhile has found out more about the prophecy and it seems to be about sorrow at Depp Space Nine, the Gateway to the Celestial Temple. And the wormhole is having issues and causing the station to shake. Sisko goes to the tablet and destroys it, and energy strands rise from it, and leave the room. Winn is furious and no one can find the energy. Then Sisko gets a message from Odo that Kira has been taken over by an prophet, and it waiting for a Pah-wraith for the reckoning, which will be a final battle between the Wraith and the Aliens, and the Pah-Wraith takes over the body of Jake Sisko, but while the station has been emptied, Kai Winn does not leave and floods the station with radiation to make the aliens leave, not believing in the prophets as she never has.
VALIANT is a good episode that once again deals with the Red Squad cadets who turned against the federation earlier. Nog has been sent on a mission to the Grand Nagus with information from Starfleet and Jake has gone with him trying to get an interview with the Nagus, but they are found by Jem’Hadar and chased into Dominion space, and saved by what they take to be the Defiant, but is in fact the Valiant a second ship in it’s class. It turns out this ship is entirely crewed by Red Squad cadets, who were on a training mission when they were attacked and trapped in Dominion Space and the teachers died, and left a cadet Tim Watters (Paul Popowich) in command. Nog is made chief engineer, and Jake is arrested for talking to cadets about home. They do manage to get important intelligence about a new Dominion ship, but the captain who is on stims decides that they can destroy it, but their analysis is wrong, and the whole crew is killed except Nog, Jake and one young cadet.
We see the avarice of too much pride and how it can not make a good captain, a captain must think about his crew first to be a good captain, because this crew could have come out alive and as heroes instead of as dead children.
PROFIT AND LACE sees Grand NEgus Zek (Wallace Shaw) having lost his position thanks to the Ferengi Commerce Authority who has put Brunt (Jefferey Combs) as the acting Negus, and he will become the actual Negus in 3 days. The NEgus arrives with Ishka, and she is to meet with Nilva an influential member of the FCA. The thing is Quark fights with his moogie, and sends Ishka to the hospital, so the only way to do it is for Bashir to give Quark a sex change, and he manages to convince Nilva, and get Zek re-instated and start a new era of equality in Ferenginar.
TIME’S ORPHAN is about the O’Brien’s and when they go on vacation, the young Molly (Hana Hatae) falls into a cave, and through a time portal. The technology is old, but O’Brien manges to get it working, but they pull through instead of an 11 year old an 18 year old (Michelle Krusiec). Molly can no longer handle life on the ship and eventually attacks someone and is going to be taken away from the O’Briens, but they run away with her and send her back through the portal, but it sent her back to when the young Molly went though, and the older Molly sends the younger Molly through, making the older Molly not exist anymore, and re-uniting the family.
THE SOUND OF HER VOICE is about a rescue mission of the defiant to rescue a downed Starfleet officer Captain Lisa Cusak (Debra Wilson) who is dieing on a class L planet, and they have trouble communicating to, but they manage to do it with O’Brien’s help. And the Captain becomes a friend to them all, and even helps Sisko with his problems with his girlfriend Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson) who is on the mission. The thing is their is an energy barrier on the planet, they find the woman has been dead for 3 years, and the energy barrier was sending the messages through time, but the funeral does bring all the friends who have had issues because of the war back together.
The Season finale TEARS OF THE PROPHETS is an intense as hell episode. The annual Bajoran gratitude festival is being held and Sisko gets the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor, and Admiral Ross tells Sisko he is to plan the invasion of Cardassia, and he choses a likely system, though it is one where Cardassia is implementing an automated defense system unknown to them. Meanwhile Word and Jadzia decide to have a baby much to Bashir’s and Quark’s chagrin. Sisko gets a vision from the prophets saying he can not leave the station, but he leaves anyway and have the war, though it is more difficult because of the weapon platforms, but they manage to destroy them with some hard work. The problem is that Dukat has used a Bajoran artifact and joined with a Pah-Wraith and has managed to beam to the station, where he kills Jadzia and using the Orb of the Prophets, closing all the orbs, and thus communication with the prophets. The Bajorans are in chaos, and Sisko after the funeral leaves to go find himself and and head for Earth not sure if he will return.
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An awesome awesome season. Damn this show was good. I wonder how much Ron D. Moore had to do with just how good this show got, because his battlestar Galactica is fantastic. What an amazing show.
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