I was surprised she wasn't the mother given that the arc was clearly Healy trying to see his mother in all these women.

She is trying to talk him off a ledge. Literally.

I could also see the Romulans splitting the difference and blaming the Cardassians, since assassination is clearly not a Federation motive.

The Romulans are vastly better written on DS9 than in either TNG or VOY, in large part because DS9 never really felt the need for its villains to be out-and-out mustache twirlers. The Romulans could have valid, strategic reasons for their antagonism, much as China or even Russia have strategic reasons for their…

Yes, very much so. His final lines are as he walks off with Caprica, about how he grew up on a farm. He starts to cry a little, and she cradles his head. For me, the implication that his punishment is to never escape the past he was trying so hard to run from is more devastating than anything else that happens in that…

Did Star Trek actually invent this? I don't remember it existing before TNG, but of course, I wore short pants through most of TNG. I do remember getting very excited as a kid whenever the Previously happened because I knew it meant this episode would be important.

I haven't read any of them much past Sisko's return, really. I ought to make an exception for Una, as I think she's the best of the lot by a wide mile.

I find those episodes increasingly chilly with time, yes.

That Pel didn't become a recurring guest was an astonishing oversight on the part of the writing staff. So much more interesting in one appearance than Ishka in all of hers.

Agree strongly. DS9 really has the perfect pitch between despair and hope, a quality I find lacking in a lot of current TV.

I'm going to agree to disagree. "Rising Son" makes it seem like the novelverse was about to launch a major new arc for "season 9" which never gets followed through due to the editor leaving. And I thought it was potentially interesting, even if Prophet-based, to see how a destabilized Dominion reacts to the…

Agree with all of it, and @EliHawk, except that I think the wartime alliance and Spock's reunification movement sees Romulus reaching an uneasy, but semi-permanent detente with the Federation. Of the major galactic powers, the Romulans have by far the closest cultural ties to the Federation. Even after 80 years of the…

Oh, absolutely. I have very mixed feelings about that particular callback, in part because I think the show never really sells a sense of Jake becoming his own man. That said, I think we're meant to think that Jake is now going to be "the man" of the family, if you will forgive me - and we know how those Sisko men…

To be fair to Moore, Baltar's final lines in BSG are the only part of that finale that has any emotional resonance for me.

The only white male regular playing a human is O'Brien. All the others are aliens.

Wow. A Star Trek/WW thing I didn't know!

I can certainly see this argument, as I think you and I have discussed… but ultimately I think he's just too much of that consummate survivor not to come out the other side. That said, the remarkable bitterness of "But not MY Cardassia" is a hell of a sting.

I'd actually enjoy this as I think the DS9 relaunch books are mostly worthy successors until about Unity, where the entire thing runs off the rails.

Shush. Franklin finished first and then finished them off like a colonial gentleman.

This is always how I view it. She's just going to wait the Feds out and then swoop up the pieces once she escapes.