Tonight, reviewing the episode history of Deep Space Nine, I was drawn to this episode because I remember it being the first time that a Deep Space Nine episode left me breathless and totally gobsmacked by such a perfect match of excellent performance and excellent writing.
I'm not surprised to find myself in agreement with the reviewers here who utterly loved the episode. Tony Todd was a crucial part of one of my all-time favorite Next Generation episodes, where his Klingon captain reveals his brotherhood to Worf and urges him to claim the family birthright, only to have politics force Worf into banishment. Here, watching Mr Todd, you can plainly see that the material IS HIS, it's a masterful, deep and touching, even stunning performance.
This Star Trek franchise has never gotten its due in my opinion. As a followup to the rightly successful Next Generation, it lived in the syndication shadows for most of its life, and unlike Next Generation which evolved from a mediocre start to an excellent middle and old age, Deep Space Nine was a non-stop victory lap for Star Trek IMO, even its least popular episodes were GOOD.
Over all five ST franchises, there are a dozen episodes that hit me in the gut, and six of them are DS9 episodes. I live near Mt Rushmore, where (last time I checked) Avery Brooks' voice narrates the nightly video shown during the lighting ceremony at dusk. I feel the need to head out there again.