I'm sure this definitely won't be a contentious issue at all!
So, without further adieu...
Season 1: Move Along Home
An alien race from the Gamma Quadrant that makes no sense when you consider the Dominion's hold over said quadrant shows up at Deep Space Nine. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, and Kira all become players in an elaborate game played by Quark which will lead to death for them if he fails...except not really.
It's basically the last vestiges of The Next Generation's cheesy early seasons trying miserably to die. The Wadi are an interesting concept, but that's really all that works about this episode. Even then, their design is ridiculous and the technology that they use to make the game world raises way, way more questions than it answers.
To put it in perspective, this is one of Avery Brooks' two least favorite episodes. That should tell you everything you need to know about this.
Season 2: Rivals
Said technology also makes no sense whatsoever. More so when it's thrown into the spotlight and becomes the main problem of the entire episode. Basically, Chris Sarandon plays a huckster who has a gadget that can manipulate probability - somehow. After Quark doesn't get into a business arrangement with him, he opens his own bar on the Promenade and is a success...which is bad news for Quark, at least until his luck turns. Now, Chris' business is going under and Quark is a success again...only now the people and technology on Deep Space Nine are suffering the effects of a really, really bad rabbit's foot.
It's just...not that great. The fact that the technology isn't studied for later use (the smaller device only affected the person holding it and events specific to them, so I imagine that could easily be studied in some sort of safe environment) is kind of disappointing, considering a probability manipulation device would have been pretty damn useful against the Dominion.
Season 3: Explorers
Captain Sisko and his son Jake build a Bajoran sail ship and decide to retrace the path of ancient Bajorans in getting to Cardassia.
It's a Jake Sisko-heavy episode. I'm not a fan.
I will admit that the Bajoran sail ship looks pretty cool, though. That I will admit.
That's about all I'll admit, though.
That's it, that's all I got. Just...not a fan. Not a fan at all.
This also has what is probably the most unrealistic ending to a DS9 episode (and possibly a Star Trek episode) ever. Which is saying something.
Season 4: Rules of Engagement
This one is a weird one. Worf gets put on trial by a Klingon prosecutor wanting to extradite him to Qonos after Worf accidentally destroyed a Klingon civilian transport using the Defiant...or did he? Spoiler alert: He didn't, it was actually a deception by the Klingons.
This one just feels a bit weird, since it feels like several steps back on Worf's character to have him questioning whether or not he has a warrior's spirit or is just a cold-blooded murderer.
Also, I know they were in Undiscovered Country (Worf's own grandfather being one as a matter of fact), but I find myself unable to get over this particular hang up: Klingons have lawyers.
Klingons.
KLINGONS!
Who did this guy piss off to get this job in the uber-warrior race? What's next? A Klingon accountant? "Hur! My battlefield is MICROSOFT EXCEL! QAPLA'!" He cries as he aggressively clicks a pen.
Season 5: Let He Who Is Without Sin...
Likewise, this episode is goes back on Worf's character development and has the added benefit of being hilariously dumb even without that. Jadzia, Worf, Bashir, and Leeta vacation on Risa. A fundamentalist group believes that the Federation has become too decadent and spoiled and won't survive a battle against the Dominion because of it. Worf, instead of immediately being turned off when the group does a demonstration that involves pulling phasers on civilians (they're inactive, but it's still not a good look) to show that security is bad, decides to join up with them and help them gain control of the weather machine that makes it not perpetually rain on Risa. All of this because he accidentally killed another boy when he was at school.
...yeah, no, this episode is just bad. Just bad on so, so, so many levels.
Also, Vanessa Williams guest stars as a Risian who banged Curzon Dax to death.
...no, seriously.
Just...so bad.
Terry Ferrell in a one-piece is lovely, but it does not make up for literally everything else around her, which is all just terrible.
Season 6: Profit and Lace
So, Quark gets a sex change to con a Ferengi business man into supporting Zek's (and Ishka's) bid to establish female equality on Ferenginar.
It tries to be "misogynist learns an important lesson by walking in the other person's shoes" and comes off as "we really shouldn't joke about this because we'll upset several people due to our extreme lack of nuance, but...". I usually love Ferengi episodes, but dear God was this one so hilariously tone deaf.
Granted, this is from the perspective of me in 2020 looking back on the late 90's/early 2000's, but it's really kind of awkward to look back at it and not being able to imagine how they didn't think it was extremely questionable.
Also, yeah, I get it, Acting Grand Nagus Brunt.
Just beat that dead horse, DS9. Beat it into the ground.
Season 7: Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Season 7 was a real show-stopper, no pun intended seeing as it was actually the final season of the show. It tied up all the major character arcs and the various other plots that had been weaving through the entire series, up to and including the Dominion War itself.
This episode should definitely not have been in this season.
This is an episode that really feels like - if it needed to exist at all, which it doesn't - it should have been in Seasons 1 or 2 at the latest.
It has a goofy feel that, by it's final season, Deep Space Nine had largely gotten rid of in favor of tighter focus on the long-running narrative and on developing its characters into the fantastic mosaic that they'd become by this point.
I know that Captain Sisko loves baseball. That isn't in question.
However, we're in the fourth episode of the final season of the show and Sisko is having a grudge match against a Vulcan that we've never heard of before and never will again. It's kind of petty and ridiculous, which I guess is supposed to show his more "human" side, but it just comes off as too little too late and too silly at this point.
Also, finding out that Max Grodénchik - Rom's actor - was considering a career as a baseball player before becoming an actor is just really, really amusing after having suffered through this episode. Besides Michael Dorn giving us the "Death to the opposition!" meme, give this one a miss.
And that's it for the list. Unlike last week's list of best episodes...there are no runners up. Unlike last time, where there were episodes that I could have expanded on, DS9 really doesn't have a lot of bad episodes. But when they are bad, boy do they really stink.
Next time, we'll still be in that drought between Doctor Who series in my retrospective. I'm preparing this about a month in advance, but I'll hopefully have something nice prepared for next week...
Star Trek and all its related spin-offs are the property of Paramount and CBS.
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