Shhhhhh.

Alaimo and Fletcher playing off each other excused alot on rewatch. Not everything, but a lot.

Split up two parters are the best two parters though. Lets Zack focus on each constituent part nicely.

And apparently, despite keeping his nose to the grindstone at the end of the episode, still hasn't three years later.

I still prefer Bashir's questionable medical techniques to Voyager's "Computer. Make Doctor evil." methods.

A complete side note: In stumbling upon Glee's 100th episode, I kind of decided Jonathan Archer is the Will Schuester of Starfleet. Thoughts?

The Cardassians, because we spend so much time with them that we get deep into their culture, are the best at avoiding the Trek "planet of the hats" problem.

SPOILERS

It's always special when you get at something Zack doesn't go in depth on in the review, and he appreciates it. I'm gonna miss that!

Indeed. And it's one reason I can't stand people who are like "The NSA is the new Stasi, man!" because those are people with no clue about what the actual Stasi was like.

It all makes sense now! Matthew Weiner is a prophet.

Of course, Ross : Sloan, Sisko: Garak. For seven years, Sisko kept him around as his own private Section 31.

At least it finally, at least kinda, has Ezri actually dealing with her past memories and her relationship with Worf. Finally, Dax gets to be something other than “GOSH! I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM ANYMORE WHY'D I ORDER THAT FOOD!” Small victories.

Zack's is absolutely right that Ross being compromised here is absolutely the key to Section 31 being a real thing and viable moral threat and something bigger than just a few eeeeeeeevil bad apples. It's also the key thing every attempt in the franchise to use Section 31 after DS9 forgets. We've seen plenty of evil…

One thing I loved was on some other board someone had a very interesting take on Section 31 that fits here. It's black ops, secretive, and a very nasty piece of work, but it's also fundamentally different than the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order in a key way, even if I don't entirely agree with his interpretation. In his…

Penumbra really does feel like it's sluggishly starting up all the main plot lines again after everything kept dormant for 2/3 of the season. Making the finale 10 hours of serialization meant making the rest of the season nearly standalone and away from the main plot (outside the disease revelation of Treachery,…

He just got bored. It happens.

Clearly when going through all her Dax memories, Ezri didn’t remember Change of Heart: Worf + Dax + Sex + Mysterious Planet = Trouble.

I love Garak’s brief cameo here. His arch cynicism as always perfectly counters Bashir’s usual idealism. It’s all the more delicious because he knows something Bashir doesn’t (and that ties into Zack's reference of ITPM)—this new ‘alliance that could be the beginning of a new era of peace and friendship’—is built on…

We’ve seen the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order have some complex gambits, but here the Federation is playing on that same level. It takes all your expectations, follows them through, and then turns the world upside down. I think back to the Defector, previously the quintessential Romulan episode. In that episode Picard…