….on trucking?

That is a grossly inappropriate question that you should be ashamed of!

That's actually a good point, I hadn't thought about that. Though that doesn't negate the idea he's not that great at business, if he couldn't swindle his way out sooner.

I thought Necessary Evil was great for giving us a reason why Odo started to work on Security: Gul Dukat decided to turn the pet shapeshifter into a real asset, and Odo ended up taking to it very well. It's very simple on the surface, but giving it a whole episode to play out means we get to see it from the inside:…

I always liked the implication that Quark isn't the best businessman, because it makes the fact that he's not wildly successful with the wormhole at his doorstep make a lot of sense. It also explains why he might have looked at the Occupation and decided that setting up shop in a military base/ore smelting facility…

Oh, it's a clear reason for him to want to hook up with her. But he offers no clear reason for her to be interested.

That's why I specified Rugal instead of him not caring about any of the orphans. Even if you wanted to argue he doesn't care about the other Cardassian orphans at all, I think that question, at the very least, disarmed him for a moment. Whether it reflected a deeper regret is a good question.

See, I don't think Dukat is all surface. But I think that when he interacts with other people, he throws up obvious fronts, and it's not hard to get past them and find out what he wants underneath. He's just not as good at the lying and spying game as Garak, and that's perfectly understandable considering their…

Or some kind of wacky buddy movie.

Zach is exactly right that the "Gul Dukat was behind it all!" ending was a weird, tension defusing rush job. But Garak remains a delight, and even that ending is improved with the sense that Garak could care less about Rugal's fate, but he LOVES that he's getting to foil Dukat in any way.

The episode is bad, there's no question there, but in my recent rewatching of the series, it was the first one where I really noticed how much Bashir had improved over the Season One incarnation of "Hey, Dax, let's get together for no clear reason!"

Considering the Bajorans gave a pretty large amount of time for non-Bajorans to leave the station, that would only have worked if it was put down to Starfleet incompetence, so that would make the episode weaker, not stronger. At that point, the audience would be thinking "I guess the Bajorans should take over the…

I think part of the reasoning for not abandoning the station was a fear that once the Bajorans had Deep Space Nine, no amount of evidence of Cardassian involvement would force the Circle and their backers to give it up, giving them a semi-permanent base to fight a civil war. But I'll admit it's a bit muddled in…

SPOILERS

We are, at least, the Carolina that was peer pressured into the Confederacy and vaguely embarrassed about our participation.

There's also the issue of how many people on Bajor accepted he was the Emmisary at this point. There's a strong hint that Winn doesn't believe it, and anyone who's xenophobic on Bajor isn't likely to change their minds because a random Starfleet officer is now their greatest religious icon, no matter who appointed him…

Mostly how few of them seem to be worth the buildup, so it comes off more as a trick to keep interest than a real requirement for a specific story. That's not some terrible crime against art (especially since it's usually intended as a trick to keep interest), but it still irritates me.

I think it was mostly a combination of being territorial and stubborn. They had Bajor, and they weren't going to let some tiny resistance group defeat the mighty Cardassian war machine!

It's like the signaling wands those guys use at the airport. It needs to be highly visible so everyone knows to stop sinning when they approach.

I assumed it was less a grand plan on Jaro's part to brand Quark, and more his followers getting frisky and wanting to stir things up just because.