Best of Star Trek: Deep Space 9---In the Pale Moonlight

"In the Pale Moonlight" is the 19th episode of season 6 and was written by Michael Taylor.

One of Captain Sisko's weekly routines is posting the casualty list from the Federation/Dominion war. Dax  is upset that a friend of hers was killed in Romulan space by a convoy of Jem'Hadar. They know that to get the Romulans on their side they would need evidence that the Dominion is plotting an attack on them---evidence that probably doesn't exist. If it did, it would be in the central command station on Cardassia Prime.

Sisko enlists the help of former Obsidian Order spy Garak to find such evidence. Garak makes contact with operatives who owe him favors. Unfortunately, they are all killed by Jem'Hadar when their communications are intercepted.

So, on to Plan B. Garak knows someone being held in a Klingon prison who can fake realistic hologram scenarios in data rods. Why not just invent the evidence?

Starfleet approves the plan, especially after word gets out that Betazed has been invaded, but the ways and means Sisko goes about faking the evidence is left undocumented because of its devious nature.

While the released prisoner works on creating the fake evidence, Sisko and Garak plan for the arrival of a Romulan Senator. As Sisko and the Romulan are in discussions, Garak is quietly executing Plan C---planting a bomb on the dignitary's ship and planting evidence to suggest sabotage by the Dominion, all without Sisko's consent or knowledge.

Things come to a head when Sisko learns of the Senator's death and confronts Garak with a sock to the jaw. There's little he can do however, seeing the operation was covert and it did get the Romulans involved in the war against the Dominion.

This episode expands Sisko's character into a multidimensional and complex man, one who is willing to bend the rules and do whatever it takes to keep the Alpha Quadrant from falling to an enemy that seems unstoppable. Making up shit to win would have seemed unthinkable to him at one time. But with mounting casualties and the possibility of  being ruled by an authoritarian regime, he decides it's worth the risk.

As he explains in his personal log:
 I lied. I cheated. I bribed a man to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all, I think I can live with it.

Best of Star Trek: Deep Space 9----Empok Nor

"Empok Nor" is the 24th episode of the 5th season and was written by Hans Beimier.

A team of engineers, lead by Miles O'Brien and including Cadet Nog, take a runabout to the abandoned Cardassian space station Empok Nor to salvage equipment to replace worn out plasma manifolds on DS9.

They get through the series of booby traps with the help of Garak. The station recognizes his Cardassian DNA and he's able to disable the booby trap before the entrance to the station.

While the team works on salvaging the equipment, Garak and one of the engineers finds a biochemical substance on a stairway and Garak gets some on his hand. They also discover some stasis tubes containing dead Cardassians and two empty. Apparently, they were triggered to be opened when the crew entered the station.

What follows is a game of hunter and prey as three hapless crew members are bumped off by the two roaming Cardassian soldiers that left their tubes. To pour salt on that wound is Garak, affected by the biochemical compound on his skin, becomes like one of the Cardassian soldiers---highly agitated, paranoid, and out for blood. After hunting and killing the rogue Cardassians, he kills a fourth crew member, who was guarding one of the engineers, by stabbing him in the chest with a flux coupler.

He then kidnaps Nog and lures Chief O'Brien to the spot. O'Brien insists he's no longer a soldier, just an engineer and proves it by improvising an explosive that renders Garak unconscious.

This was one of the scariest and most intense episodes thus far. We are with the crew members as they are on a mission to merely take unused equipment back to DS9 for maintenance, only to be hunted down one by one by biologically engineered soldiers embedded with severe xenophobia and survival skills---kill or be killed.

One highlight of the episode is when the drug is taking effect on Garak, O'Brien notices the change and remarks to Garak that he looks different. Garak responds, after having killed one of the Cardassian soldiers, that for the moment, he's no longer just a tailor.

Best of Star Trek DS9---Our Man Bashir

"Our Man Bashir" is the tenth episode of the 4th season and was written by Ronald D. Moore.

The episode begins with Dr. Bashir indulging his fantasies on the holosuit. His fun is interrupted by a pesty Garak, who wants to see how his friend spends his free time. Reluctantly, Julian invites him along and the two play spies.

In the meantime, the rest of the senior crew is on a runabout that's been sabotaged by a faction who are angry about the Federation's involvement with the Cardassian/Bajoran peace agreement. As Eddington beams them aboard the station at the moment of the warp core breach, the crew's patterns are lost somewhere in the computer. To locate them, the Eddington orders the stations computers shut down except for the patterns of the missing crew. The are located---on the holosuite!

Now, Bashir must remain on the holosuite and play out his program in order to keep the crew isolated while the remaining senior crew work to retrieve their neuro patterns. Because their bodies only were energized in the holosuit, they take on the personas of Bashir's characters in his program.

A mad scientist, in the body of Sisko, is about to destroy the world using electric underground lasers to simulate earthquakes. Sisko, AKA Dr. Noah, is about to kill Bashir (the safety protocols aren't working) when the missing crew's neuro patters are found and beamed aboard the Defiant, to which they are merged with their physical patterns and beamed aboard the station.

This episode was fun and offered the actors a chance to expand their talents playing different characters in a cheesy spy escapade.

What makes it even more interesting is the interaction between Bashir and Garak. When there were times when Garak believed they were going to die, at one time being tied in a pit awaiting hot molten lava, he kept insisting on contacting Eddington to open the doors to allow them to escape. This would have been risky if one of the embodied crew members decided to exit.

Bashir even warned Garak that if he attemtped to exit the doors, he would shoot him---and he did! Garak headed for the exit and blam! Bashir grazed him on the neck as a warning and Garak was impressed.

Avery Brooks was especially amusing as the mad scientist. It was a performance likened to a cheap B-Sci-Fi movie worthy of a mocking on "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Best of Star Trek: DS9---Past Prologue

"Past Prologue" is the 3rd episode of the 1st season. It was written by Katharyn Powers.

SUMMATION

A vessel is under attack by Cardassians. The DS9 crew rescues the occupant and we learn he's a renegade from a group known as the Kohn Ma. He's a Bojoran called Tahna and the Cardassians accuse him of committing high crimes on their homesoil and seek his return to stand justice.

We also learn "justice" according to the Cardassians isn't something one would wish on their worst enemy. We get a glimpse of this in TNG in the episode "Chain of Command" where Captain Picard is tortured by a Cardassian prison guard. Tahna requests asylum and Commander Sisko grants it for the time being.

The station also has two less than distinguished guests--the Duras sisters. They show up to the station to seek out Tahna who owes them payment for a transaction.

Meanwhile, Tahna informs Major Kira that he intends to take a ship into space rather than stay for amnesty hearings Kira had arranged for him. And Dr. Bashir overhears the deal between Tahna and and the Duras sisters brokered in the tailor shop of Cardassian Garak, who had insisted Bashir be present to hear it. The deal was the selling of a volatile substance bilitrium to be used in an explosive.

Kira must choose sides---should she remain loyal to her post as security of DS9 under the jurisdiction of the Federation, or help Tahna. She decides to reveal Tahna's plans to Sisko.

Kira boards the ship with Tahna and thwarts his plans by getting the ship off course and fighting with Tahna and beams the destructive device into space. Sisko gives Tahna the option---either come back to Federation space and receive justice there, or allow the Cardassians to take him into custody. Tahna chooses the former option.

This episode offeres suspense and intrigue. There's a great scene where Tahna meets in secret with the Duras sisters in a cargo area followed by a rat. After the meeting, the "rat" changes (back) into the form of the "Constable" Odo.

It was rather nice seeing the creepy Duras sisters again. They always manage to add a little spice to any episode. And we also meet the charming Garak for the first time.

We also learn a bit more about Major Kira, a woman who has seen suffering and hardship under Cardassian infiltration which gives her character more dimension. She wants the best for Bajor but is tired of the violence, preferring the more peaceful solutions offered by the Federation. She is called a "traitor" by Tahna, a man she once called a friend and ally. She maintains her composure.