Time travel, the Maquis’ last hurrah, a 90’s-style thriller, a wacky bottle show, and a war begins to finish off the fifth season of DS9.
- It’s “back to the future” in “Children of Time”. Stay with me—the Defiant discovers a planet inhabited by their descendants! The ship will be thrown back in time and crash, leaving the a small settlement that lasts until the 24th century, including a small group of quasi-Klingons who worship Worf. Oh—and the Odo from the settlement declares his love for Kira, who’s going to die due to more technobabble if they don’t escape. It turns out the settlement’s leader (a Dax descendant) wants them to crash, so the settlement will exist. After a lot of speechifying and farming, they decide they can’t kill the settlement, and agree to follow fate and go back in time. However, the flight plan changes, and they escape—due to the older Odo, who wanted Kira to live. The two Odo’s linked, so our Odo knows what happened. Oooooh!
- The Maquis return (and this time it’s personal) in “Blaze of Glory”. They have sent cloaked missiles to destroy Cardassia, forcing Sisko to get the traitor Eddington to help him. They wind up in a shuttle with a lot a dialogue—we get Sisko doing his OVER E-NUN-CI-A-TION bit as well. A few skirmishes in the Badlands later, they reach the missile launch site—and find the Jem’Hadar and a Maquis massacre. They find some survivors, and Eddington announces there were no missiles—just a final escape plan for his followers. In the end, Eddington sacrifices himself to save the others, but the Maquis is finished.
- There’s technobabble trouble on DS9, so it’s off to identical station “Empok Nor” for parts (a good way to reuse existing sets near the end of the season). O’Brien, Nog, Garak (remember him?), and some metaphorical red shirts enter the other station. I’ll give you two guesses on who survives. Two Cardassians on psychotropic drugs (turning them into killing machines) were left in stasis on the station, and now they’re awake. Two of the redshirts are taken out, but Garak kills one of the soldiers—and takes the drug himself to even the odds. A third red shirt is killed, then the fourth one is attacked—by Garak! The story becomes a cat-and-mouse game. O’Brien uses engineering knowhow to take out Garak, who is then purged of the drug.
- The lead up to a Trek season finale tends to be a “bottle show” (use of existing sets and characters, no special effects) in order to spend more money on the finale, and this season is no exception. “In the Cards” features Jake trying to cheer up Sisko (it appears war is imminent—aren’t they already in a war?) by purchasing an old baseball card at Quark’s auction. Of course, it doesn’t go as planned. Quark is tone deaf about the card—he misses a great opportunity to butter up Sisko. We meet a mad scientist who believes he’s cracked the secret of immortality. Senior officers let Jake walk all over them. There’s a bit about how Earth has abandoned money—while the rest of the galaxy hasn’t. Not sure how that can work. Jake ends up risking his life—all to give his dad a baseball card. Shockingly, the B-story is about a potential non-aggression pact between Bajor and the Dominion. Overall, the episode is too wacky—even for DS9.
- So, onto the season finale—“Call to Arms”. The episode switches back and forth between military drama and soap opera—we get a lot of character moments. The Dominion is massing in the Alpha Quadrant, so the Federation authorizes Sisko to mine the wormhole. Of course, no reinforcements are provided, so DS9 is on its own. Odo and Kira decide to hold off their relationship until the hostilities are over. The Dominion demands the mines be removed, so it’s war. Bajor signs the non-aggression pact after Sisko recommends they do so—the Feds can no longer guarantee their safety otherwise. Meanwhile, Rom and Leeta hold their wedding, just before she leaves as part of an evacuation of the station. Dukat arrives with a huge attack force, and he is reminded by Weyoun that the Dominion is in charge. We get to enjoy a HUGE space battle. Sisko orders that DS9 be abandoned. Dax tells Worf they will marry after the war—she’s off to the Defiant, and he’s off to a Klingon ship. The evacuation is completed, and a secret Sisko program takes out the station’s critical systems before the Cardassians board. SIsko leaves his baseball on his desk—he’ll be back. The final shot is the largest set of Federation and Klingon ships seen onscreen to to this point in Trek history, and the last using any practical (physical) models—everything after this is CGI.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.