Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 34: Whispers [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 34: Whispers [VHS] Review

Star Trek fans know that the character Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), the Irish-born engineer with a very small role on The Next Generation, grew into a major figure on Deep Space Nine, befitting Meaney's rising prominence in film (The Snapper). The episode called "Whispers" places the actor at the center of an unnerving, Twilight Zone-like story in which O'Brien returns to the station following an assignment in the Paradas system, only to find that everyone is treating him distantly. Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) assigns him to meaningless work and denies the chief his usual security clearance on important matters. Meanwhile, the engineering crew lies to him, Odo (Rene Auberjonois) talks to him as if were a suspect, and O'Brien's closest friend, Dr. Bashir (Siddig El Fadil), and his own wife (Rosalind Chao) regard him mechanically.

Suspecting a conspiracy afoot, O'Brien finds ample evidence that a kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario may be underway, and he bolts from the station in a Runabout under a hail of fire. Searching for answers, the good chief runs smack into a cruel discovery about the nature of destiny and identity. A fine mystery from beginning to end, "Whispers" draws upon a favorite Star Trek theme, that of questionable realities and fear of madness. --Tom Keogh

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 67: The Die Is Cast [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 67: The Die Is Cast [VHS] Review

Case and VHS are like new, very clear picture and sound

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 77: Indiscretion [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 77: Indiscretion [VHS] Review

Case and VHS are in very good condition, very clear picture and sound

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 59: Life Support [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 59: Life Support [VHS] Review

Always intent on tackling big themes in unique ways, the various Star Trek series have covered the subject of death, from suicide to terminal illness to euthanasia, a number of times over the years. "Life Support" continues that bold tradition with a challenging story about dying and medical ethics. A radiation accident brings Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim), Bajoran leader and lover of Major Kira (Nana Visitor), to the brink of death on the eve of important negotiations with the Cardassians. Aware of his condition but determined to see a historic treaty struck, Bareil pleads with Dr. Bashir (Alexander Singer) to keep him alive and conscious so he can coach the less diplomatic Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher) through the difficult talks. Bashir, who would rather place Bareil in indefinite stasis while seeking a cure, reluctantly yields but then protests as Kai Winn and Kira plead for greater and grimmer interventions to stave off the inevitable.

The strong but flawed script by Ronald D. Moore tries to lighten things up with a trivial, secondary story line about a conflict between Jake Sisko (Chiroc Lofton) and Nog (Aron Eisenberg), as if the main action is nothing but a turn-off. In fact, Bareil's tragedy is presented with painful honesty about the wisdom and morality of sustaining a life that might reasonably be called something less than human. The crossfire of altruistic and selfish interest between sundry characters makes for compelling drama, and the final scene of parting between the living and dying is quite moving. --Tom Keogh

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 47: The Search, Part 1 [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 47: The Search, Part 1 [VHS] Review

This is the first of a two-part episode that opened DS9's third season, coming after a second-season-ending cliffhanger involving a villain potentially as devastating as the Borg. The Dominion controls Gamma Quadrant on the other end of the wormhole and is threatening to attack DS9 and the Federation, using the war-happy Jem'Hadar as its conquering force. Sisko, Odo, and the rest head off in a warship of their own to make contact with the Founders, the secretive leaders of the Dominion, to explain the Federation's peaceful intent. But when they are ambushed by the Jem'Hadar, Odo and Kira escape to follow Odo's sudden instinct that draws him to the Omarion Nebula--and his home planet. It's a well-written blend of action and sci-fi fantasy, mixing a complex set of plot lines and finding a way to bring them full circle in the second episode. Particularly solid is the use of the character of Odo, who is played touchingly by Rene Auberjonois. --Marshall Fine

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 48: The Search, Part 2 [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 48: The Search, Part 2 [VHS] Review

This episode concluded what amounted to a three-part story arc that began with episode 46, "The Jem'Hadar," a cliffhanger episode that ended DS9's second season and continued in episode 47, "The Search, Part I," the first installment of year three. Back on DS9 after a harrowing encounter with the Jem'Hadar, vicious warriors of the Dominion, Sisko and Dax find themselves blind-sided by the Federation's willingness to cave in to the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar on a treaty. Meanwhile, Kira tries to contact Sisko from Odo's home planet, while Odo receives his first exposure to his own people and their concept of the "great link" that connects all shapeshifters. This story provides a solid conclusion to the tale and sets up much of what comes in the next season, as the entire region becomes destabilized. It also offers real insight into Odo's life story, which is told for the first time. The DS9 part of the plot is particularly tricky, and the ending plays mind games with the viewer in ways that the average show would never dare. Still, the Dominion turns out to be a lot less forbidding than the Borg, the scariest Star Trek villain of all time. --Marshall Fine

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 43: Crossover [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 43: Crossover [VHS] Review

"Crossover" is a runaway favorite with fans, and it's easy to see why. The alternate universe is a dark, twisted place full of intrigue and high weirdness--and Kira Nerys's evil twin running amok in black stretch vinyl. We're talking kitten with a phaser. We're talking the whole reason for Starfleet's temporal policy department. Watch as alternate Odo rules hapless Terran miners with an iron fist. See Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) perform actual hard manual labor in the mines of Terok Nor; think silently that after the way he behaved in the episode's teaser, maybe he deserves it. Meet a kinder, gentler Quark who rescues hew-mons from their torturous fate. Marvel as Kira flirts with herself. All this while alternate Garak schemes... it's just too wondrously bizarre for words.

The story has its roots in the original series' "Mirror, Mirror"--a fact openly referenced in the screenplay. Thanks to solid writing and a lot of inside humor, the ensemble cast plays it to the "alternate" hilt. Special kudos to Nana Visitor as the coquettishly perverse Intendant--a woman with an ego so large she gets a charge out of having her alternate self around to talk to. Kudos to the DS9 station as the eerie Terok Nor, which looks like a slice of juicy film noir. Watch for Colm Meaney's poignant performance as Smiley and Armin Shimmerman's softened Quark. Both alternates offer subtle twists on their core characters. Watch "Crossover" for the hoot value; treasure it for the nuances. --Kayla Rigney

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 54: Meridian [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 54: Meridian [VHS] Review

Exploring the Gamma Quadrant, Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) encounters a planet where none had existed moments before. That planet, Meridian, shifts between dimensions, appearing in our time and space for short spells every 60 years. Upon investigating, Dax falls in love with one of Meridian's inhabitants, Deral (Brett Cullen), setting up a big problem as the clock ticks down to another, imminent dimensional shift. Basically a star-crossed romance from the get-go, "Meridian" doesn't have a lot of mystery to it. But it does have the considerable charm of Terry Farrell, whose Jadzia was always a woman for all seasons on DS9: gorgeous, funny, tough, lusty, a tomboy, a lover, a surrogate sister. Not surprisingly, this character-driven story, with a higher quotient of emotion than usual, was directed by Jonathan Frakes, Riker on The Next Generation and heir to directorial duties on Star Trek feature films. --Tom Keogh

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 70: Shakaar [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 70: Shakaar [VHS] Review

Major Kira (Nana Visitor) has another attack of divided loyalties when her former mates in a Bajoran resistance cell come under fire from the new Minister of the Bajoran Provisional Government: the loathsome Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher). Oblivious to the irony of persecuting the very people who fought Cardassian occupiers for self-rule, Winn becomes unnervingly reminiscent of Fletcher's turn as the manipulative, power-mad Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. A major problem in the first couple of seasons of DS9 was overexposure of Kira in too many episodes focused on her. Thus a Kira-centric story such as this one from the series' third year, in which she rejoins her old compatriots, really does look better with time and distance. Supporting players Duncan Regher, Dianne Salinger, and William Lucking, among others, are very good as weathered freedom fighters ready to take up arms again--this time against an internal enemy. --Tom Keogh

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 51: Second Skin [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 51: Second Skin [VHS] Review

Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) is a good person. She often serves as the series' voice of reason, because she can always be trusted to do the right thing. This trust is hard earned because Kira also has one very particular prejudice, and everybody knows it: Kira Nerys does not like Cardassians. Her prejudice elevates "Second Skin" from just ironic to deliciously creepy. Imagine waking up in a strange place in the middle of your own worst nightmare. All the people around you insist that this is reality and everything you hold to be true is a lie. Now imagine that when you look in the mirror, the reflection of your mortal enemy stares back at you...

In this episode, nothing is what it seems. The viewer is forced to peel away layer after layer to finally reveal the answer. And that answer isn't black or white. It's gray--like the Cardassian skin in which Kira finds herself encased. Nana Visitor is given good, solid material here, and she runs with it. Cardassian kudos to Lawrence Pressman as Legate Ghemor and to Andrew Robinson as the ever mysterious Garak. Great line: "Anything worth doing in a holosuite can be done better in the real world." Great scene: Sisko gleefully blackmailing Garak into submission. "Second Skin" is a puzzle within a puzzle--there may be only one solution, but getting there is half the fun. --Kayla Rigney

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 33: Armageddon Game [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 33: Armageddon Game [VHS] Review

"Give me two good actors in a room," said frequent DS9 and Next Generation director Winrich Kolbe in Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman's book Captains' Logs Supplemental, "and I prefer that over six bad actors hanging from a rope on the Matterhorn."

Kolbe got his wish in "Armageddon Game," one of the early DS9 episodes to highlight the superb chemistry between costars Colm Meaney (who plays chief engineer Miles O'Brien) and Alexander Siddig (known as Siddig El Fadil at the time, and the actor portraying Dr. Bashir). The two Starfleet characters are assigned to a laboratory orbiting T'Lani III to implement an agreement between the feuding T'Lani and Kellerun societies, who wish to dismantle a biochemical warfare system known as the Harvester. Before the chief and the physician can finish the job, however, Kellerun soldiers overrun the lab and O'Brien is exposed to the Harvester's dangerous contents.

A number of times on DS9, Bashir and O'Brien find themselves in harm's way together, allowing the show's writers (Morgan Gendel in this case) and directors (such as Kolbe) to bring a rare sort of actorly texture to the proceedings. Meaney and Siddig simply click together with their excellent, often funny dialogue, some of it quibbling, much of it pure banter about the most human, everyday things: family, love, decisions once made, etc. A very rewarding show. --Tom Keogh

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 8: Dax [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 8: Dax [VHS] Review

Jadzia Dax, Deep Space Nine's Trill science officer, is kidnapped by an armed "extradition" party charging Curzon Dax (Jadzia's previous incarnation) with treason and the murder of a Klaestron war hero, who was a national icon and the father of the gung-ho prosecutor and platoon leader (guest star Gregory Itzin). The extradition hearing is a tepid courtroom drama, but it helpfully sifts through the secrets of the Trill race, the unique symbiotic marriage of mortal humanoid and long-living sluglike beings that were introduced in the Next Generation episode "The Host." While Sisko wrestles with law and ethics (can an entity formed of two sentient beings be held responsible for the past actions committed by one of the pair?), Constable Odo investigates the murder and uncovers a carefully preserved secret that even Dax refuses to unleash in her own defense. Director David Carson, who piloted the DS9 pilot and the feature Star Trek: Generations, can't turn the static script (cowritten by longtime Trek writer D.C. Fontana) into space-age excitement, but he lets Sisko's cocky control have a field day as a sly, smiling courtroom defender. --Sean Axmaker

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 71: Facets [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 71: Facets [VHS] Review

Jadzia meets the previous Dax incarnation in a Trill ceremony that extracts the resonant memories from the symbiont and deposits them in a willing temporary host, in this case her closest friends on the station. Meanwhile Ferengi teenager Nog prepares for a Starfleet entrance exam while his father Rom suspects Quark is up to no good once again. This is the kind of episode that actors sink their teeth into: confident engineer O'Brien temporarily turns into a nail-biting mathematician who can't stop apologizing, confrontational Kira becomes a gentle philosopher with a motherly purr, and best friend Sisko agrees to house her psychopathic ancestor (first revealed in episode 50, "Equilibrium"). Odo's physiology results in a personality merge with the earthy, blustery "old man" Curzon and they enjoy it so much they decide to remain together, an unheard-of event in Trill history that shakes Jadzia's confidence to the core. It's a gimmicky episode without much of a dramatic spine, but it's fun to see familiar characters flip into radically different personalities, especially Rene Auberjonois, who convincingly turns Odo into the life of the party without losing the core of his own, unique personality. --Sean Axmaker

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 10: Move Along Home [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 10: Move Along Home [VHS] Review

The Wadi are an interesting people. They obviously don't give a hoot about Federation First Contact formalities. In fact, when greeted by an uptight Captain Sisko and his officers decked out in full dress uniform, Master Surchid Falow (Joel Brooks) demands to be taken to Quark's Bar. To play games. Now. Not one to argue in the face of warped logic, Sisko wisely obliges. The Wadi may come from the Gamma Quadrant, but they prefer to reside in Wacky Land. Although it owes its existence to the famous "Checkmate" episode of British TV's The Prisoner, "Move Along Home" is also a tight, well-crafted piece of science fiction writing. The story is deceptively simple. The Wadi turn out to be excellent game players. They win a lot. Ferengi Quark goes gonzo and resorts to cheating in order to salvage his profit margin. The Wadi, who are no fools, catch him and decide he must be punished. They "invite" Quark to play one of their games. So much for Sisko's precious First Contact folderol.

Joel Brooks is maniacally perfect as Falow. Not to be outdone, gifted Armin Shimmerman manages to imbue Quark with poignant smarm. Watch for truly great Ferengi groveling. Listen for the best upper-level-management line of the entire series ("I'm a Bajoran administrator. This is not what I signed up for!") and cool role-playing game in-jokes. "Move Along Home" may be simple, but it's also a whole lot of surreal fun. --Kayla Rigney

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 76: The Visitor [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 76: The Visitor [VHS] Review

Nominated for the prestigious Hugo Award and voted the best Star Trek ever by readers of TV Guide, "The Visitor" transcends the limitations of series canon and exists in a continuum of its own making. There is something indefinable, something both solid and intangible about the love that exists between a parent and a child. If strong enough, it probably could forge a connection through time and space--and beyond life itself. This episode feels very real.

The plot is deceptively simple: a young writer appears on Jake Sisko's doorstep in the middle of a very dark and rainy night. She wants to hear his story; and Jake is an old man. He needs to tell it. Distinguished kudos all around for great writing and great acting. Tony Todd is superb as the adult Jake Sisko. Not only does the man age from twentysomething to 80, he also nails Cirroc Lofton's mannerisms and body language. Lofton's expressive performance as the young Jake is a standout as well. Avery Brooks is a profoundly gentle Sisko here--a father who obviously loves his son. And Rachel Robinson is absolutely luminescent as Melanie, the young writer. (She's also the daughter of Andrew Robinson, who played Garak in the series.) Kudos to the design team for using color and lighting to express Jake's mounting depression. Honorable mention to Aron Eisenberg as Captain Nog. Watch for the "future" uniforms that seem to come from TNG's "All Good Things." "The Visitor" is an amazing episode and it belongs in every Trek fan's collection. --Kayla Rigney

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 72: The Adversary [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 72: The Adversary [VHS] Review

The threat of the Dominion has hung over Deep Space Nine since the Federation discovered the existence of the shapeshifting Founders in the third-season opener (episode 47, "The Search, Part I"). In the third-season finale, the Founders infiltrate the Federation. The newly promoted Captain Sisko leads a special mission to the Cardassian sector aboard the battle cruiser Defiant, which turns into a fight for survival when a tubular parasite infects the power and communications centers and a shapeshifter spy takes over the ship. Echoing elements of Alien mixed with John Carpenter's remake of The Thing (including a smartly plotted twist of the blood-testing scene from the latter), the crew scours the ship in nervous search--the agent could be posing as any one of them--while the spy tries to lure Odo away from the "solids" (as they call non-shapeshifting races) to their cause. Balancing action with an atmosphere of paranoia, the episode injects some much-needed adrenaline into the show with a series of tense standoffs and a race against time. We're no closer to understanding the Founders' motives, but by season's end we have a good idea as to the threat they pose to all races on this side of the galaxy. --Sean Axmaker

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 113: By Inferno's Light [VHS]

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 113: By Inferno's Light [VHS] Review

Picking up where "In Purgatory's Shadow" left off, this action-packed episode starts with a bang and never lets up. A Dominion fleet has just invaded the Alpha quadrant, and when scheming Cardassian Gul Dukat announces his alliance with the Dominion, Sisko dares him to seize DS9 by force. Worf, Garak, and Bashir are still imprisoned on a Dominion-controlled asteroid, while a changeling, posing as Bashir, plots to weaken DS9's defenses and turn Bajor's sun into a quadrant-destroying supernova. As this plot unfolds with breathtaking momentum, Garak fights claustrophobia to jerry-rig a life-saving transmitter, and Worf survives seven brutal fights with Jem'Hedar combatants. It all leads to a rousing climax, deepening Andrew J. Robinson's superb portrayal of Garak, and giving Worf one of his most honorable Klingon adventures. Chock-full of noble heroics and riveting suspense, this episode was partly inspired by The Great Escape, matching that classic film with its own prison-break plot line. --Jeff Shannon