Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-11: Rivals

Episode:

31

|

Writer:

Joe Menosky

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Air Date:

02-Jan-1994

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally writing some thoughts about Deep Space Nine's Rivals. Not Relics or Rascals or whatever else my brain keeps telling me to type.

I'm not getting back into writing about 26 DS9 episodes a year, because that turned out to be work, but I hope to throw in the occasional episode every now and then. Rivals is perhaps not the DS9 episode most people would pick to write about if they could only choose one, but I promised I'd get around to it eventually so I feel like I owe it to you. Even though I promised it way back in January 2018.

Another reason I picked this one to write about is because it's the next episode after Sanctuary, so it means I haven't skipped any yet. By the way the intro to my Sanctuary review has gotten hilarious wrong in the meantime, and it's getting a little more wrong all the time:

"There will never be more episodes of Trek airing in a year ever again. Unless Discovery gets three spin-offs and they're all released simultaneously."

2019 won't be breaking 1993's 55 episode record, but with Discovery, Short Treks, Picard and Lower Decks in production, plus the other cartoon, the Section 31 spin-off, and a possible Starfleet Academy series on the horizon, it seems possible we'll soon be getting more Trek episodes a year than ever before.

Rivals was the first Star Trek episode to air in 1994 by the way. 1994 was an important time for Deep Space Nine as it was the year that Star Trek: The Next Generation ended, leaving DS9 to represent the franchise entirely on its own... for a dozen episodes or so. Then Voyager started up and got all the attention. DS9 also got its very own nemesis that year, as Babylon 5's first season started airing a few weeks after this episode. (At least that's how it worked out in the US. For folks watching Trek on BBC 2 in the UK, Babylon 5 beat DS9 to television by over a year.)

Anyway there'll be SPOILERS for the whole damn episode below, and I'll probably end up spoiling something from an earlier episode of Star Trek as well. I mean an episode that aired earlier, not an episode from one of the prequels. No Discovery or Enterprise spoilers here.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-10: Sanctuary

Episode:

30

|

Writer:

Frederick Rappaport

|

Air Date:

28-Nov-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'd like to apologise for my inability to stick to my long-term plans for the site. I didn't actually tell anyone I was planning to get a Deep Space Nine episode review posted on January 3rd in time for the 25th anniversary, but I was. Also the plan was to have reached a good episode by then, so that I could celebrate the series, and instead I've ended up with... Sanctuary. By the writer of Move Along Home. I'm so sorry.

Not that I'm saying that Sanctuary's a bad episode. No, it would make much more sense to save that bombshell until later in the review.

By the way, every time I start writing about a DS9 episode I check the episode's air date to put in the box above, and then I invariably add '1993' to the post's labels because every single episode I've rewatched and reviewed so far was first aired during the same 12 months. That's 30 episodes in one year, how is that even possible? Well 29 really, seeing as Emissary aired as one feature-length story. But Sanctuary was the penultimate Star Trek episode of 1993, with Next Gen's Parallels bringing the franchise's busiest ever year of television to an end a day later. There will never be more episodes of Trek airing in a year ever again. Unless Discovery gets three spin-offs and they're all released simultaneously.

I'd also planned to make this one of my quick reviews, without the long recap, but it didn't work out. I ended up with a long rant about a four-minute scene that happens in the fourth act and barely mentioned anything else. So I've gone and rewritten the whole thing, to give you more SPOILERS and to give me just a little more reason to resent watching it.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-09: Second Sight (Quick Review)

Episode:

29

|

Writer:

Mark Gehred-O'Connell & Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe

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Air Date:

21-Nov-1993

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm starting to think they should've given Colm Meaney some sci-fi googles before setting off sparks right in his face.

I'm up to episode 29 of Deep Space Nine, the second season's Second Sight, which is the first episode to feature Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe writing together as a team. The two of them together would later give us some of the very best episodes of the whole series... and a bunch of those crappy Ferengi episodes too. There's no Ferengi in this one, but I remember hating it anyway, so I'm going to be lazy and only give it a quick review, without the long recap.

There'll still be SPOILERS though, for this and earlier episodes of Star Trek, so consider yourself forewarned.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-08: Necessary Evil

Episode:

28

|

Writer:

Peter Allan Fields

|

Air Date:

14-Nov-1993

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Deep Space Nine's Necessary Evil, by writer Peter Allan Fields and director James L. Conway. I'm mentioning those names because they happen to be the same ones you'll find in the credits for season one's Duet, which is maybe the best episode so far. In fact looking at the other stories they'd later work on separately (Way of the Warrior, For the Cause, In the Pale Moonlight for instance) it seems like neither of them really understood how to make a bad episode.

Though I did watch an episode of The Orville that Conway directed a few weeks back... and my research for that reminded me he did that episode of Next Gen where Wesley Crusher falls into a flower bed and is given a death sentence. And then dies. R.I.P. Wesley. Or maybe he doesn't, I don't want to spoil it.

But if you continue past this point you will find a huge variety of SPOILERS for Necessary Evil and perhaps a couple of earlier Trek episodes as well. It's a detective story based around a couple of mysteries, so you might want to be more careful with this one if you haven't seen it before/in a while.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-07: Rules of Acquisition (Quick Review)

Episode:

27

|

Writer:

Ira Steven Behr

|

Air Date:

07-Nov-1993

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about second season Deep Space Nine episode Rules of Acquisition (originally known as 'Rules of Aquisition', without the 'c', but they fixed the title for later broadcasts).

I started listening to a Deep Space Nine podcast called The Rules of Acquisition a while back, and I was a little disappointed to discover that they're not just covering this one episode every week, over and over again. They could've Star Wars Minute'd it for the first 43 podcasts, then started to delve more deeply into its themes and philosophy over the next few years, but nope they had to move onto episodes people would actually want to hear about instead. Though they also keep spoiling Westworld and Game of Thrones, so I may have to pause listening to them until I've experienced all popular entertainment released up until the podcast airdate. But that's fine, as I've still got quality DS9 podcasts like Greatest Generation: DS9, bOrgcast and soon Misson Log to listen to if I want to remind myself how redundant my own website is.

I've been giving Deep Space Nine episodes a full screencap recap up to this point, but there's 26 of the bloody things this season and I've got other things I want to write about too, so this is one's going to be a quick review instead (because it's a Ferengi story and I hate 'em). There'll still be massive SPOILERS for the episode and possibly earlier Trek episodes too, but I'll not spoil anything released later.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-06: Melora

Episode:

26

|

Writer:

Evan Carlos Somers and Steven Baum and Michael Piller & James Crocker

|

Air Date:

31-Oct-1993

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures it's two-thirds of the way through October and I'm only up to episode 6 of Deep Space Nine's second season. I'm starting to think that I'm going to run out of year before I can finish the season off.

It's not the worst time to watch this episode though, as Melora originally aired in October. In fact, it was shown on the 31st, but I don't think it's a horror episode. At least, not deliberately. Though it's an episode with a character's name as its one-word title and they're rarely ever good in my experience.

I should probably have made this one a quick review and gotten it over with, but instead it's getting the full recap treatment, with maximum SPOILERS. I may also spoil events in earlier Trek episodes, but nothing that came later.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-05: Cardassians

Episode:

25

|

Writer:

James Crocker

|

Air Date:

24-Oct-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about an episode of Deep Space Nine that's probably about Cardassians.

I won't bore you with a long introduction this time. Just be aware that I'll be recapping the whole episode and referring back to earlier Star Trek episodes, so there'll be massive SPOILERS. You'll not see any spoilers for episodes aired afterwards through (Star Trek or otherwise).

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-04: Invasive Procedures

Episode:

24

|

Writer:

John Whelpley and Robert Hewitt Wolfe

|

Air Date:

17-Oct-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about more Deep Space Nine. Season 2, episode 4: Invasive Procedures, to be precise.

The series' second season kicked off with a big flashy three-parter with a phaser fight every episode, plus location shoots, Odo morphs, an elaborate dogfight sequence, stuntmen falling off cliffs... it was basically a two-hour apology for season one. But those kinds of episodes come at a cost, and in this case, the cost was money, so I expect these next few stories are going to be on the cheap side. Though they did pay to put a smokey space-fog background behind the station this week, which is cool.

We're also done with serialisation for a while, probably because certain people in certain positions of authority wanted to keep everything contained to single episodes that could be watched in any order. To be fair though this was still a fair few years before DVD season box sets and Netflix, and the ridiculously expensive VHS tapes only had 2 episodes on.

Anyway, I'm going to sharing screencaps of the whole episode and writing down my thoughts underneath, so there's going to be massive SPOILERS past this point. Plus I'll probably end up spoiling something from an earlier episode of Trek along the way, but nothing from anything that came after this. As far as I'm concerned it's October 1993 right now, and I don't even know what a DVD or a Netflix even is.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-03: The Siege

Episode:

23

|

Writer:

Michael Piller

|

Air Date:

10-Oct-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm back to Deep Space Nine, watching second season episode The Siege, which is something entirely different to seventh season episode The Siege of AR-558 and should definitely not be mixed up with third season episode The Search... even though that's what I accidentally ended up writing on my notes.

The Siege is the dramatic conclusion to the 'The' trilogy, following on from The Homecoming and The Circle (I suppose you could also call it 'The Circle trilogy' if you want to be a soulless minion of orthodoxy). I can't see any strange Babylon 5/Deep Space Nine coincidences to mention here, but slightly space-stationy Stargate spin-off Stargate: Atlantis also starts its second season with an epic three-parter that's resolved with an episode called The Siege, so that seems like something worth mentioning.

The episode's by writer/producer Michael Piller and director Winrich Kolbe, the folks who kicked off Next Gen's first good season with the episode Evolution and would later work on Voyager's pilot Caretaker, so they've brought out the big guns on this one. Doesn't mean that it's going to be good, they've made a lot of crap between the two of them too, but I'm hopeful.

Okay, I'll be recapping the episode and writing my commentary under fuzzy DVD screencaps, so there'll be massive SPOILERS. In fact I'll probably end up spoiling things from other Star Trek stories too, but only ones that came before it. Anything released after 10th October 1993 is safe.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-02: The Circle

Episode:

21

|

Writer:

Peter Allan Fields

|

Air Date:

03-Oct-1993

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This month on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching The Circle, which is the very first episode of Deep Space Nine to have a 'previously on' clip at the start. That's because it's the second part of the The Homecoming, though you wouldn't know it from the title.

Up until this point, two-parters in Star Trek have been clearly labelled, so we've had The Menagerie, Part II, The Best of Both Worlds, Part II, Chain of Command, Part II etc. and Voyager would later continue the tradition. DS9 just had to be different though... except for the couple of times when it wasn't.

This is Peter Allan Fields' first story for the series after Duet last year, which was an oasis of awesome in that desolate wasteland of a season. I'm hoping that this is a: better, and b: pretty average for season two, because the series could really use a sharp increase in quality.

I'll be recapping the whole episode with beautiful SD screencaps from the Region 2 DVDs and throwing in some of my commentary along the way. This means that there'll be SPOILERS for the whole episode and I'm considering anything else with the Star Trek name on it released before October '93 to be fair game too. I won't spoil what comes after though... or things that came before in prequel.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-01: The Homecoming

Episode:

21

|

Writer:

Ira Steven Behr

|

Air Date:

26-Sep-1993

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the first episode of Deep Space Nine season 2! It's also the first part of the first three-parter in Star Trek history, and the first multi-part story in the franchise where each part has a different title.

It's not the first episode by Ira Steven Behr though, as he wrote that bloody The Nagus episode last season. But that's fine, even the best writers have their off days. Though if I ever see more than three Ferengi on screen at once I'm turning it off.

I'll be screencapping the entire episode and writing my thoughts underneath as I go, so expect SPOILERS. I'm considering any Star Trek episode made before it to be fair game, but I won't be spoiling anything that aired after it.