Star Trek: Deep Space Nine primer

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was arguably at least as good a show as TNG--it certainly found its footing much faster than the latter--yet for whatever reasons doesn't get quite the same level of love.  Possibly that has to do with its stationary status--it literally takes place on a space station, which involves a whole lot less "boldly going forth" and a whole lot more "crazy things coming to you," which, while still rousing, mayhaps does not inspire quite the same awe and romance.  

Being stationary also means that you can't just fly away from your problems--no more Kirk punching something or Picard speechifying, them warping away with warm fuzzies in your belly--on DS9, everyone must deal with the consequences of their actions in future episodes (such becomes a recurring trope on the show, in fact).  Here, you don't have to wait 15 years and a movie sequel for Khan to come back for vengeance as all your past mistakes at last catch up with you--on DS9, you sometimes only have to wait half-a-season.  On DS9, the relentless optimism of the Star Trek universe and purported benevolence of the Federation is really run through the wringer, which I suppose could be off-putting to some fans of the franchise's utopic vision.

Yet none of that takes away from the quality of the acting, the sharpness of the writing, and the compelling story lines.  This was a show distressingly ahead of its time in how it portrayed the psychological tole of occupation, colonization, and prolonged warfare; of the difficulties in keeping your faith between the fundamentalists on one side and the skeptics on the other; of the gross compromises in national principles that are rationalized to win a war.

But really, what is probably the single greatest barrier to entry for new viewers is the fact that it was semi-serialized (one of the first shows to do so).  While such is common today in the era of the Netflix binge, such was a strange new thing in the '90s.  There are also stand-alone episodes galore, which can throw off your rhythm when trying to follow the larger and various arcs of the show (there's the religious Emissary arc, the Post-Bajoran-Occupation/Reconstruction Arc, the minor Mirror Universe arc, the rebel Maquis arc, and of course the master Dominion War arc).  As such, to cap off my Star Trek month in honor of the late, great Leonard Nimoy, I present a list of the major arc episodes that my roommates and I identified during a DS9 Netflix binge a couple years back.

Season 1

• Emissary (Series Premier; start of the Emissary Arc, as Commander Sisko, arriving at his new assignment on DS9, meets the time-less aliens living inside the newly-discovered Wormhole to the far end of the galaxy, who are also the gods worshiped by the space-Jews--er, the Bajorans--whose brutal occupation by the fascist Cardassians has just ended)
• Past Prologue (Introduction of Garak, the enigmatic ex-Cardassian spy-cum-tailor, who will become your favorite recurring character)
• Progress (Post-Occupation arc; what happens when the rebels do now that they're finally in charge?)
• Dramatis Personae (A stand-alone thriller that nonetheless comments on the larger Post-Occupation Arc)
• Duet (Catching a war-criminal--or is he?  Post-Occupation Arc)
• In the Hands of the Prophet (Science vs. religious tolerance; the Emmisary Arc.  Intro of delightfully Machiavellian Kai Winn, played by Oscar winner and Nurse Ratched herself, the incomparable Louis Fletcher)

Season 2

• The Homecoming (Religious extremists take control of Bajor; Post-Occupation Arc)
• The Circle (Part II of this civil war)
• The Siege (Part III and the conclusion, as the DS9 itself comes under the titular siege)
• Cardassians (Garak episode; Post-Occupation Arc)
• Necessary Evil (Flashbacks to the Occupation during a murder investigation)
• Whispers (There is a recurring trope on DS9 of "Colm Meany must suffer."  This is kinda the Ur-example)
• Paradise (Friggin' hippies!)
• The Maqui Parts 1 & 2 (Settlers rights vs. Larger Geo-politics; beginning of the Maqui Arc)
• The Wire (Garak-centric episode!)
• The Crossover (First Mirror-Universe episode)
• The Jem'Hedar  (Official beginning of the Dominion threat arc).

Season 3

• The Search Parts 1 & 2 (Dominion Arc; introduction of the Federation warship USS Defiant; Odo finally finds his people in the worst way possible)
• Second Skin (Was Kira actually a Cardassian secret agent?!  Post-Occupation Arc)
• The Abandoned (Baby Jem'Hedar ends up on the station; Dominion Arc)
• Civil Defense (Old Cardassian security system accidentally tripped; Post-Occupation Arc)
• Defiant (Riker from TNG hijacks the Defiant; Maquis Arc)
• Past Tense Parts 1 & 2 (Time-travel episode, where crew ends up in a 2024 America plagued with class segregation between rich and poor; no relation to current America of course...)
• Heart of Stone (Dominion Arc; Odo and Kira trapped on a desolate planet)
• Destiny (Post-Occupation Arc; how much scientific validity do the Prophets have anyways?)
• Visionary (Another Colm-Meany-must-suffer)
• Through the Looking Glass (Another Mirror-Universe Arc)
• Improbable Cause (Dominion Arc; Garak episode, that ends with the Cardassian and Romulan fleets taking the Dominion threat into their own hands)
• The Die is Cast (Dominion Arc; Garak saves Odo, as the Cardassian and Romulan assault on the Dominion goes about as well as you'd expect).
• The Adversary (A Dominion Founder infiltrates the Defiant!)

Season 4

• The Way of the Warrior (Dominion Arc; Worf from TNG joins the crew; the Kling-ons invade Cardassia, claiming they've been infiltrated by the Dominion; the Federation/Kling-on treaty ends; the stakes are raised)
• The Visitor (DS9's equivalent to "The Inner Light")
• Hippocratic Oath (Dominion Arc; O'Brien and Bashir clash over whether the Jem'Hedar really can be freed of their addiction)
• Indiscretion (Post-Occupation Arc; can Kira and Dukat really work together to free some prisoners from the Bree?)
• Starship Down (Defiant battles Jem'Hedar warship in a gaseous giant, submarine-style battle)
• Little Green Men (Turns out Quark was the Roswell alien all along?)
• Homefront (Dominion Arc; the problematics of the PATRIOT ACT, 5 years before 9/11)
• Paradise Lost (Sequel to Homefront; attempted coup on Earth!)
• Crossfire (Will Odo ever admit to Kira how he feels?)
• Return to Grace (Kira the former-freedom-fighter must now train former-occupier Dukat how to be a freedom-fighter against the Kling-ons)
• Shattered Mirror (More Mirror-Universe Arc)
• For The Cause (Maquis arc; is there a traitor in their midst?)
• To The Death (Dominion Arc; intro of Weyoun, a villain even more delightful than Dukat and Kai Winn!)
• Broken Link (Dominion Arc; Odo must face his own people for killing one of his own a season ago)

Season 5

Apocalypse Rising (Dominion Arc; Sisko, Worf, etc, must infiltrate Kling-on High Counsel to expose the Changeling infiltrators)
The Ship (Dominion Arc; Sisko et al attempt to take and defend a crashed Dominion ship)
The Assignment (Emissary Arc; Colm Meany must suffer again as his wife is possessed by a demon hell-bent on killing the wormhole aliens)
Trials and Tribble-ations (Time-travel back to the original series!)
Things Past (Post-Occupation Arc; kind of flips the tables on season 2's "Necessary Evil")
For The Uniform (Maquis Arc; Sisko tracks the traitor Eddington)
In Purgatory's Shadow (The Dominion begins its apparent invasion of the Alpha Quadrant)
By Inferno's Light (Thrilling conclusion of the previous episode)
Doctor Bashir, I Presume? (Dr. Bashir is not all he seems to be...)
Ties of Blood and Water (Sequel to Second Skin)
The Begotten (How Odo got his groove back)
Children of Time (This one is hard, one of the best yet most brutal episodes...)
Blaze of Glory (End of the Maquis Arc)
In the Cards (The calm before the storm)
• Call to Arms  (The Dominion/Federation War officially starts here, and lasts till the end of the series).

Season 6

• A Time to Stand (Dukat retakes DS9, while the crew fights with their stolen Jem'Hedar ship)
• Rocks and Shoals (The crew is stranded alongside hostile Jem'Hedar)
• Sons and Daughters (Worf must help his son learn combat, while Kira and Odo attempt to start a resistance movement on DS9)
• Behind the Lines (Odo's allegiances are challenges while the Dominion works to bring down the mine-field)
• Favor The Bold (The Federation begins its assault to retake DS9)
• Sacrifice of Angels (They succeed, but at great cost...)
• Resurrection (Mirror Universe!)
• Statistical Probabilities (Dr. Bashir tries to help other genetically-modified pariahs assist in the war effort)
• The Magnificent Ferengi (Dominion Arc; the title tells you everything you need to know!)
• Waltz (Sisko and Dukat crashland on a planet together; this is where the latter officially crosses the line from merely Machiavellian to straight-up evil)
• Far Beyond the Stars (What if we are all just in the imagination of a black 1950s sci-fi writer?)
• One Little Ship (Dominion arc; yes, this is the Honey I Shrunk the Kids episode, deal with it)
• Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night (Post-Occupation Arc; just how complicit was Kira's own mother?)
• Inquisition (Start of the insidious Section 39 arc)
• In The Pale Moonlight (Arguably the high-water mark of the series, maybe the franchise; just how many principles would you be willing to compromise to win a war?)
• The Reckoning (Emissary Arc; now the Prophets and the Pah'Wraiths are in open combat)
• Tears of the Prophets (Where the Dominion Arc and the Emissary Arc begin to overlap)

Season 7

• Image in the Sand (Sisko loses his groove after Dax's death and the wormhole's collapse)
• Shadows and Symbols (How Sisko got his groove back and reopened the wormhole)
• Chrysalis (Sequel to "Statistical Probabilities")
• Treachery, Faith, and the Great River (Weyoun defects! Sorta)
• The Siege of AR-558 (The Red Badge of Courage episode)
• Covenant (Dukat kidnaps Kira to his doomsday cult of Pah'Wraith worshiping Bajorans!)
• The Emperor's New Cloak (Last of the Mirror Universe arc)
• Chimera (Odo has an existential crisis when he meets another [non-evil] changeling)
• Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (Section 39 pulls Dr. Bashir back into duty)
• Penumbra (This and the next 8 episodes form an arc building up to the grand finale of the Dominion War, as the Founders suffer from a degenerative disease, Dukat turns into a Bajoran to seduce Kai Winn, and Worf and Dax are captured behind enemy lines.)
• Til Death Do Us Part (Kai Winn is seduced by Dukat and the Pah'Wraiths; Sisko marries Kassidy against the Prophets' warnings)
• Strange Bedfellows (The Bree join the Dominion, just before Worf and Dax are freed by Damar)
• The Changing Face of Evil (The Bree deal the Federation a crushing blow, the Defiant is destroyed, which is mitigated by Damar announcing his Cardassian revolt against his Dominion masters)
• When It Rains... (Irony abounds as Kira must help organize the Cardassians into an effective resistance)
• Tacking Into The Wind (Odo and Kira must hijack a Bree weapon; Worf must deal with a leadership crisis in the Klingon empire)
• Extreme Measures (End of the Section 31 arc)
• The Dogs of War (The Federation Alliance prepares for its final assault on the Dominion; meanwhile, Dukat and Kai Winn prepare to release the Pah'Wraiths)
• What You Leave Behind (The Grand Series Finale, wherein we tie up all loose ends)