Absolutely. That's a fantastic scene (and one of those effective moments I was thinking of).

Right, but making one of your main villains *less* complex with almost two seasons to go leaves you with (IMO) too few places to go with him in that much time (leading the writers to come up with plots that basically amount to Dukat calling up to say: Hey, I bleeped your *spoiler*.)

VAGUE SPOILERS

I always just took Bashir's mopiness for character growth, but Zack brings up a good point about it.

I pretty much agree with that, though you can start to see the cracks emerge in these stories with "Through the Looking Glass."

I think "Business as Usual" is a good example of the kind of stories they could have told with Quark (and that even uses another Ferengi as one of the principal characters).

You know, there's two episodes in DS9's early run that were so well-received that they led to multiple "sequels," if you will: "The Nagus" in season one and "Crossover" in season two.  If those two had gotten a more lukewarm reaction, we might have seen a great deal fewer Ferengi and Mirror Universe stories, which,…

I always just assumed that the Dominion got wind that the Wormhole Aliens obliterated their entire fleet inside the wormhole and that this would be the fate of any future ships that tried to traverse it.

I think Season 6's problem is that it has the normal amount of arc-heavy episodes (if we can use that term for DS9) in total, but we start with six of them, so the rest of the season feels a little baggy in comparison, and it never really builds momentum like Season 5 does as it drives towards its finale.

The ending with the Prophets does make sense, but it also feels like a bit of a cheat simply because it's not explicit that getting their help is Sisko's plan.  If he had taken the Defiant in there and opened an Orb to contact them, then it might have elicited fewer complaints.

These are two of my favorite DS9 episodes.  They feel to me like the show at the height of its powers.

"Call to Arms" is my favorite Trek season finale.  "BOBW" might be a better episode, but its conclusion, as much fun as it is, just doesn't quite live up to part one (maybe nothing really could have with a setup that perfect).

What's funny about that title is that Ron Moore went around asking people, "Hey, that in the pale moonlight quote from 'Batman,' what is that from?"

Right.  I get that the power in this story revolves around how the characters deal with an impossible issue.

I think the construction of the moral dilemma is what irks some people about "Children of Time."  But I like the wringer it puts the characters through.

I think, just on an episode-by-episode basis, season 4 might be DS9's best.  I'd argue its only really weak episodes are "The Muse" (and even that has a watchable Odo subplot) and "Rules of Engagement" (though I know that one has its fans, the fact that it's a Worf episode where he sits quietly throughout it is too…

There's a part of me that kind of wishes "The Nagus" hadn't been so well-received among fandom.  The success of that one combined with Ira Steven Behr's conviction that they kept writing fantastic Ferengi scripts that just weren't getting translated properly to the screen meant that we got way more "Ferengi episodes"…

I don't know.  Having "Improbable Cause" and "Far Beyond the Stars" on your resume ain't so bad as far as directing credits go.

Zack makes an interesting point about Kira episodes.  And looking at the remaining episodes of the series, sad to say I don't think there's another great stand-alone Kira in the entire series (at least where the entire A-plot revolves around just her).  And she really gets stuck with some of the worst ones…