User Reviews

Season two of Deep Space Nine starts off well for the viewer but not so well for non Bajorans on the station when a group of ultra nationalists known as The Circle start activities on board. At first it is just acts of vandalism; painting their logo on a wall but later the escalate their activities and brand Quark with their logo. Around the same time The Circle's activities start Major Kira learns that a Bajoran war hero Li Nalas, who was presumed dead, is in fact still captive on Cardassia Four despite Cardassian assurances that all prisoners have been released. Kira goes to rescue him along with Chief O'Brien, they have a little trouble with the Cardassians but manage to rescue Li Nalas. Once back on the station he is not ready for his fame and confides in Sisko that his fame is based on an event which wasn't half as heroic as his supporters believe. Sisko tries to persuade him that sometimes the myth is more important than the truth... this leads to Li Nalas getting an appointment that could have major implications for a member of the DS9 crew.

This was a good season opener with good action scenes on Cardassia Four even if the planet was of the standard Californian desert variety. There was some nice humour too, Li Nalas's tale of how me killed an under-dressed senior Cardassian was both plausible and very funny. At the end we are left with a nice "to be continued" ending.

I always found "to be continued" shows very annoying but that was back in the day before Netflix and one had to wait a week to see the conclusion (or worse yet as in the case of this story, two more weeks). But now one can watch the whole story in one sitting. In the first part of this story, Kira and O'Brien rescue a Bajoran resistance hero, Li Nalas, from a labor camp on Cardassia Four. Gee, the Cardassians lied when they said all political prisoners had been released; Gul Dukat extends to Sisko how appalled he is that the terms of the peace treaty were not honored. Concurrently, there is increasing political unrest on Bajor and it is believed that the terrorist sect called The Circle is behind it. The Circle becomes active on DS9 - at first it's just graffiti but it escalates to a physical assault on Quark and other acts. When Li Nalas boards the station he is immediately recognized by the Bajorans on the station and their adulation of Li Nalas makes him very uncomfortable. And he soon tells Sisko that his status as a hero is really unearned; he came a hero by a freakish accident and not by a display of extraordinary courage as the Bajorans think. The political leader of the Bajorans arrives on the station and warmly greets and welcomes Li Nalas. A good start to a fascinating story of political intrigue. Although I remember Richard Beymer mostly from his miscasting as Tony in West Side Story, he does an excellent job as the reluctant hero.

One of the aspects of DS9 that I truly love is when the writers give us a complicated story with many dimensions to it. I like the unvieling of a reluctant bajoran hero (Li Nalas) who is just an average bajoran but feels obligated to play the hero role as it was fuel to sustain the bajorans during the occupation. I find it interesting that the bajoran earring just happened to be found at this specific moment in history ---- if one was a conspiracy theorist you could go on for a while about the potential implications. I also enjoyed seeing Sisko show Kira a ton of respect and faith by agreeing to her plan to rescue Li Nalas and the solidarity Dax shows in fighting for Kira's plan as well.

Some random thoughts:

• Great work with Odo being confounded by Quarks altruistic moment of providing intel in an Odo investigation. There's a rule for every moment, "Every once and while declare peace it confuses the hell out of your enemies"
• More build up on Sisko being a good dad. It seems he raised a real heartbreaker!

This second of a Four-Parter - Because I consider this 'sode a continuation of S1E20 "In The hands of The Profit". Vedek Winn Adami was unable to murder Vedek Bareil, so she forms a sex-tryst with "First Minister Nixon" (Frank Langella). But what Winn and Jaro do not know, is that some other force has set up the whole thing, they created it, they maneuvered it into position. Who was it? Someone who knows the Bajorans, how they will act, what they will do, even what they want.

But all of this is unclear, because this story uncovers itself like Clouds Parting, or a Vision from The Prophets- Which Major Kira sees, but as usual the Prophets will not give information in any way that it can be made sense of immediately.

Quark is "Declaring Peace" with Odo in an attempt to confuse him. Quark's Boslik Freighter Captain "Rionoj" (Leslie Bevis) appears in the first of her three major appearances- She always shows up when something significant is going to occur- Like when she finds a Jem'Hadar "Baby" and when she sees Odo beginning to fall apart due to an infection from The Founders. But those are to come, we have not seen such dire events in these first introductory character building seasons of DS9. So here, she gives Quark a controversial Bajoran Earring.

An Earring belonging to Li Nalas - A Hero of the Bajoran Underground, who single handedly killed a hated Cardassian Military Officer - While he was in his whatever Cardassians call Underwear doing whatever Cardassians call Relieving Themselves. In Fact Li Nalas (Richard Beymer) hates the title given him, because he felt what he did was a cowardly act.

This earring sets all kinds of wheels in motion, Kira gets permission to break Li out of his Prison on "Cardassia Four" where O'Brien tries to "sell" her to John Fleck as a Cardassian, and she beats him black and blue. They free not just Li but about a dozen more Bajoran Prisoners.

Li is Celebrated when he gets back to DS9, and even Gul Dukat uncharacteristically "apologizes" for the imprisonment and sends the remaining Bajorans back, something which normally, he would never do. Why?

But then suddenly First Minister Jaro-Nixon appears on the Station, relieves Kira as Liason and gives her job to Li Nalas! And Kira goes down to Bajor to hang out with Vedek Bareil, who brings her to an Orb. But then she is Kidnapped.

Meanwhile, all kinds of graffiti starts magically appearing all over the station, Quark is attacked and almost has his Lobes torn off, and out of the blue all kinds of weapons start appearing in the hands of the group who is doing all of the tagging on DS9 - Called "The Circle" and within hours a full scale insurrection is surmounted on the surface of Bajor. A Starfleet Bean Counting, Pencil Pushing Admiral orders The Sisko to hand the station back to the insurrection.

But while this is developing, Odo "Fringes" out some rotting Bajoran/Danish fish - He deputizes Quark as a Spy to find out where all of these guns are coming from. He finds out, the answer to this is expected, and once this is known, The Sisko knows exactly what is Happening. So he decides to mount a small insurrection of his own: To Be Continued in West Side Bajor Story part II: The Wrath of Li Nalas.

2.01 "The Homecoming"

Bajor is being destabilized by political unrest, so Kira goes on a mission to Cardassian space to rescue a hero of the resistance named Li Nalas, who has been a prisoner there for a decade. But it turns out that Li is resentful of his reputation and just wants to be left alone, and it's up to Sisko to convince him to be the symbol Bajor needs. But Sisko gets more than he bargained for when Li is named his new liaison officer, leaving Kira's status uncertain as the episode ends.

This is the first part of a multi-episode story arc to start the season. As such, it plays out more like the first act of a movie, with a ton of exposition and not much of an actual story. It ends up being pretty boring on its own. Li Nalas isn't a very interesting or charismatic figure, and the plot moves at a snail's pace throughout, with a decent action scene during the prisoner rescue as the only real excitement.

THE GOOD

-By far the biggest and best action sequence of the show so far. The shots with the squad of Cardassians charging over the ridges as O'Brien provides covering fire for the fleeing prisoners are well done.

-O'Brien is great, as always.

-The next episode in this arc is actually quite good, and probably part of that is getting the exposition out of the way here. As such, this episode has to be given some credit for the quality of the episode that follows it.

THE BAD

-I find it hard to care about Li Nalas or Bajoran politics

-Bajoran/Kira ep

-Slow plot with too much exposition and no payoff.

THE UGLY

-Rule of Acquisition quoted: 76th -- "Every once in a while, declare peace; it confuses the hell out of your enemies." 5 rules quoted for the series so far: 1st, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 76th.

-The Boslic freighter captain comes back in several later episodes.

-When escaping the prison camp, the runabout wouldn't be able to outrun the Galor-class warships. Danube-class runabouts have a top speed of warp 5, Galors have a top speed of warp 8. Due to the exponential scale of warp speeds, warp 8 is about five times faster than warp 5. However, we can assume O'Brien used some of the nifty piloting trickery we often see from him in order to evade the faster ships (hiding in nebulae, using celestial bodies to shield himself, etc.).

-Hulk Kira count: beats up the Cardassian guard, though she did trick him into letting down his guard first so it's semi-believable. 3 Hulk-outs for the series.

This was not quite as enthralling as the end of season 1, but still a really strong showing.

Possibly more than anyone else in the cast, Avery seems to give away whether he's enjoying or not enjoying a script.

This one gave him more to do than most episodes, and he's great in it. Lots of good family stuff with Jake, some light hearted comedy and then some big gravitas in the later monologues. Definitely the best Sisko episode so far.

We get some relatively flat political stuff that feels bland versus how season 1 finished, but still provides a good backdrop. The rescue mission to the quarry is pure undiluted trek, and I'm here for it. Grey stone quarry, phaser fight and some good ham acting. I'm in. Shot quite cinematically, too, with lots of big telephoto shots - rare for this era of star trek.

The 'twist' as it were of Mr hero being an unwilling fraud, then being convinced to be the symbol Gotham needs is all a bit cliché. He wasn't a compelling character at all, despite a good guest star performance.

Aaand we get our first(I think?) dun dun duuun cliffhanger to be continued of ds9.

I dunno, I feel like they could've leaned way more into that side of the story. Have her lose her rank and military service as punishment for going against orders, give it some stakes more than a completely arbitrary 'she's been reassigned'. It all just got a bit away from the writers in the third act, I think.

Quark stuff was premium. More of that.