*blush* I would be honored at any invitation from the institute. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I have certain business that detains me on Romulus.

You have nothing to worry about. The Flirty Vorta Waitress is certainly an interesting novelty, but the discerning patron will notice a certain … hollowness to their presentation and the management will abandon the experiment ere long. After all, the Flirty Vorta Waitress might be all smiles and sidelong glances and…

*wipes foam from mouth*

He's already made it clear he's not going to do ItPM as its own episode… but honestly, bookending those two together is not a bad way to go. There is a nice shared theme.

It's just a fun little detail. Hardly a spoiler to say "watch this space" :)

My dear I could toil day and night and never become adept enough at your particular skillset to earn a place sweating in your shadow.

Right — that's why I didn't get into the details of it, but if you already know she dies, I don't think it's really spoilery to say "this episode would have been a 'better death' than the one coming up."

THESE two episodes?

I'll stop by your quarters later to say hello.

I'm glad the whole "Orb of Time" — is it Time Travel, exactly? thing bothered you, too. The Prophets have a history of giving people "Vision Quests" (Necessary Evil, Far Beyond the Stars) but the Orb of Time is straight-up Timetravel (the same Orb from Trials and Tribble-ations which was very clear that this was…

WATCH THE SPOILERS, PEOPLE!!!!

How is that? Like I said, he's the CoO of the most strategically important space station in the Alpha Quadrant. His name and face will be all over Sisko's reports to Starfleet Command. He's the personality responsible for the station's weapons and shield upgrades, apart from being One of Those Starfleet Engineers Who…

It actually would have been a pretty good way to get more of Robinson's brilliant Garak acting into the series without sending the poor man to a psych ward. "Oh, this plot requires that we surgically alter Garak to look human since the people we're investigating don't trust the bloody cardies." Robinson "WORKS FOR ME."

Garak would be about as sensible a choice as O'Brien as far as the gulf between experience/loyalty. Plus, Bilby's "Family is the most important thing" BS would have ricocheted off of our Elim in a most gratifying way—O'Brien was too soft a target because he loves his family so much that just mentioning "wife and kids"…

It's a pretty precipitous decline, IMO. First MU trip was entertaining but stupid, and every trip back thereafter was exponentially more painful. To be honest, between MU, her turn as Komananov, and her "fever" performance in the upcoming His Way ep, it makes me a little uncomfortable how often the writers go to the…

Honestly, those two episodes age the best, IMO, but not in a pleasant way.

LOL

And I think that's a key point: DS9 was the only Trek show who could lift up the rock and show the less pleasant stuff underneath the shiny.

I admit it was tempting. It's a throwaway episode. But I've been rewatching those wretched Mirror Universe episodes, and Honor Among Thieves wasn't worse than those, so I sucked it up.

She was also the one running the missions at the beginning of the season when Sisko got saddled with the desk job. :)