“Blaze of Glory”

I have to disagree with Jammer on this one. To have the Maquis wiped out by the Dominion, while probably logical given the way the events of seasons 4 and 5 played out, is emotionally unrewarding and lazy writing.

The Maquis represented a challenge to Federation ideals. Thus, from a narrative standpoint, the Federation should have been the entity to have a final hash-out with the Maquis, be it truce, massacre, forced relocation, whatever. To have the Maquis wiped out by the Dominion (who weren't even around when the Maquis were first introduced, and have no similar ideological conflict) simply lets the Federation off the hook from having to make any truly difficult decisions. Then it's off to the races to delve into the Dominion War some more.

It's noted in the DS9 Companion that TPTB decided to incorporate the entire Eddington/Maquis angle at the eleventh hour, without prior plotting or season storyboarding. To me, this lack of preparation shows.

I completely disagree...the Maquis, along with the Klingons, were the one-two punch that drove Cardassia to the Dominion. The slaughter of the Maquis simply had to follow, and just exactly the swift way it unfolded. That was the payoff of the lure...swift and severe.

I've always thought it ironic that the Maquis were handled better and given more to do on DS9 than they were on Voyager, the show they were specifically CREATED for. Scenes like the one in the runabout between Sisko and Eddington barely ever happened between Janeway and Chakotay.

Gotta love how dedicated Sisko is to stopping a war with the Dominion in this one, given what he does just three episodes later.

I agree that this is the best Maquis episode since "The Maquis" (or since "Defiant", if you count that as a Maquis episode), for the first time since Eddington's betrayal I really sympathized with his motivations and cared about him just as much as I cared about Sisko. I was actually surprised that there still seems to be some Maquis left.

The scene about Morn running around the promenade screaming "We're all doomed!!" is alone worth the price of admission.

Much of the dialogue, especially that prison cell coversation, is rendered less powerful by the knowledge that, unlike what Jammer says at the end regarding Eddington, he is in fact very much a man with something to live for: it is the entire reason he cons Sisko into this, and why his death scene didn't make as much sense as it should. Eddington is a married man and desperately wants to be reunited with his wife. Since he never intended to let Sisko *not* force him along, much of his dialogue is therefore suspect, especially as we know that in one key aspect, having nothing to live for, he is lying. He has his wife.

I always thought the Maquis were a horribly-designed component of the alpha quadrant politics. How could a tiny bunch of rag-tag colonists every be anything more than a nuisance to huge and powerful empires like the Cardassians, or the Federation? It's absurd.

Most terrorist operations work by causing civilians casualties often enough and random enough that the terrified population eventually demands that the government negotiates with them to reach a compromise.

But in the world of Star Trek, war is practically permanent, between large powerful races. The casualties caused by the Maquis would be barely noticed, and in any case the races involved would simply wipe them out in a few weeks.

So, all in all I just never found the Maquis concept credible, so it taints pretty much every story they are involved in.

However, in this episode in particular, I had a bigger problem with the starting premise; that if the Maquis managed to land a huge missile attack on Cardassia, that would start a huge war between the Dominion/Cardassian forces and the rest of the alpha quadrant.

Obviously, if the dominion thought that they could defeat the federation & co, they would already be doing it. And that's *with* a full-strength Cardassian empire on their side.

If the Cardassian forces were both weakened by the missile attacks, and distracted by rescuing survivors and rebuilding the damaged areas, then it's obvious the combined Dominion/Cardassian threat would be less than it already is.

So why would they attack the federation & co? To begin with, they would already know that the missiles came from the Maquis. And they would be certain to lose. Starting a war would be moronic.

The most likely outcome would be for the dominion to abandon their newly-weakened ally and retreat back to the Gamma quadrant to re-group and hatch another strategy. The Cardassians would be terrified of the Klingons and would beg the Federation to forgive them and protect them.

The missiles hitting Cardassia would be the best thing for the Federation in years. Sisko and Martok would be sitting back and watching, clinking champagne glasses as the missile strike landed.

But it gets worse, because we eventually find out that the whole thing was a plot by Eddington to lure Sisko to take him to a specific place to rescue his wife. So Eddington has to be able to predict that Sisko would think a Maquis missile attack on Cardassia would result in a huge war between everyone in the alpha quadrant. And he would have to predict that Sisko would try to avoid this by *begging* Eddington to take him to the 'launch site', alone.

The goal of getting Sisko to take Eddington into Maquis territory on their own could be acheived in a lot of ways that would be 100 times more beleiveable than this missile attack = universal catastrophe hogwash. A simple trick like a faked message from Sisko's other Maquis friend asking for help because of some old pact from the past, would be a more believable way to motivate Sisko into the exact situation Eddington wants.

So.. blech... my enjoyment of the sisko/eddington story (which I do actually enjoy) is seriously hampered by the moronic way the writers get things moving.

One more random criticism; not really about this episode but just in general... why oh why do federation ships not all have cloaking devices? The Klingons have had cloaks for as long as I can remember; definitely several hundred years by this point. Same with the Romulans. Are we supposed to believe that the scientifically advanced Federation has never been able to figure out how they work? Even with the hundreds of Klingon ships that have been captured? Even with the Romulans installing a cloak in the Defiant? It's just ridiculous. Every Federation ship should have a cloak by the time of the DS9 stories... there's just no excuse for having Sisko in a bloody little runabout with no cloak having to evade Jem-Hadar ships using technobabble of the week bollocks. The 'how do we conceal our warp trail' thing is one of those Trek tropes that is used to soak up time on every second episode. Here, it's used to show Sisko bluffing Eddington (again) into piloting the ship to prove he wants to live. But there are other ways to do that; it's just lazy for the writers to rely on such a tired old idea that shouldn't even exist because cloaking should be either common for *all* races, or not possible at all.

If only two races had the ability to cloak, they would be ruling the universe by now, because cloaking in reality would be an unbelievable tactical advantage in *any* military engagement.

@ Neil

Nominally, the reason is the Treaty of Algeron, and the TNG episode "The Pegasus" (and, atrociously, ENT's "These Are The Voyages") deals with this in some detail.

But I totally agree that the existence of the treaty itself is ridiculous, and I was almost rooting for Pressman in that episode...the Federation tying their hands in such a way strikes me to this day as incredibly shortsighted. It would be akin to the United States promising to leave space travel entirely to the Soviets after Sputnik in exchange for the promise of peaceful relations.

Thanks Jay. A quick Google search of for 'treaty of algeron' led to lots of information about it and several threads debating what a silly thing it would have been to sign such a treaty. Not much point beating a dead horse; this cloak issue seems to have been debated enough in the trek world already.

What I do think is interesting is the fact that recent technological developments has shown that a cloaking technology is actually not far off - one research team have already built a working cloak that only works for microwave wavelengths of light.

So it seems likely that if we *ever* achieve faster-than-light travel, it will almost certainly be a long, long time after various types of cloaking devices are in common use.

Of course, a visible-light cloak isn't that useful in a spaceship, because most surveying of surrounding space is done via various sensors of which visibility is only one.

The cloak would have to work with many different wavelengths of light outside the visible spectrum, as well as concealing other telltale signs of a space-ship presence, such as the gravity it would exert on other bodies, it's exhaust, it's communications, and more. It would also need to absorb and not reflect whatever is being used for radar-type sensors in the future too.

Still, it's a weird idea to agree not to *catch up* with an enemy's tech in exchange for peace. On earth we already have treaties like the bans on biological weapons and chemical weapons, where all parties agree not to develop specific technologies in exchange for peace. But it's practically inconceivable that the US today would agree not to acquire tech that an enemy already has.

Agreed, Neil. Especially a defensive technology.

I've always assumed that the Federation signed both the Treaty of Algeron and the Cardassion treaties for the same reasons. The Feds were forced to because they lost or were afraid of loosing. In the first treaty they gave up the right to get a cloaking device. In the treaty with Cardassia they gave up Territory to them or placed it within a DMZ. I don't know the circumstances of the fight with the Romulans but I assume that they must of lost or were losing. With the Cardassians the Feds were coming off of losing half of the fleet to the Borg and was having soured relations with both the Klingons, the Romulans, and Cardassia.

Honestly we've never seen the Feds fight well in any war. Apparantly the Roms beat them and forced a bad treaty on them, In Yesterday's Enterprise the Feds are getting there asses kicked by the Klingons, (after the Roms faked a Federation attack so the Roms must have been willing to go to war at that point) and then the Borg come and then the Cardasian threat is enough to force the feds to sacrifice their own colonies. And then there is Bajor. Where the Feds stood by and watched the Cardasians enslave the planet and only when they have used up the place and the Feds give them new fresh colonies to exploit does the Morally Superior Feds come in to help Bajor. The Feds are idiots and it's a true wonder that they haven't been wiped off the map a long time ago.

I must have missed something: In several threads, posters here have said that the loss of 39 ships at Wolf 359 led a weakened Federation to give up too much in the peace treaty with the Cardassians.

While that's an interesting theory -- which would seem to reflect some tidbits in episodes like "The Wounded" and "Chain of Command" -- it's far from rock solid and never really mentioned on screen. Hell, the Cardassians had just been forced off Bajor by a bunch of terrorists with sub-impulse fighters (when they become big players in TNG season 6). They were regrouping after a big loss -- just like the Federation. So I don't see why we can assume the Cardies had a clear advantage circa 2367.

IIRC, the peace treaty also put Cardassian colonies on the Federation's side of the DMZ -- and not just the other way around. I always figured the Federation's extreme efforts to reach peace combined and simple miscalculations led to the bad treaty -- but that the deal wasn't all that one sided. That's just as workable a theory as one that says the Cardassians had the Federation over a barrel after the Borg attack.

Now, I know there's a certain amount of disagreement as to why 39 lost ships at Wolf 359 was viewed as a devastating blow in the TNG years -- "We'll have the fleet back up in less than a year" -- when late DS9 shows that Starfleet is made up of thousands of ships. It's pretty clear that the writers needed to change the rules of the game for the Dominion War, and never really explained themselves. I've said before that the change could have been attributed to a post-Wolf 359 buildup along with the curtailing of exploratory missions that brought ships out from the edges of the Federation and beyond. Given that we see a lot of older starships in the Dominion war (Miranda class, Excelsior class) and that the Federation had more than two years to prepare (and were regrouping because of the Klingon war) it's a plausible, if unexplored, theory.

But that's not even that important in this debate. Unless there's something I'm not aware of, the bad treaty is just as easy to chalk up to Federation desires for peace and arrogance (Our colonists would never become terrorists!) than concessions made because of the loss of 39 ships.

Really, there must be far more ships even than the thousands we've seen in one battle, since having virtually all of your ships in one place fighting one battle would leave the rest of your territory as a sitting duck.

This episode is one of my favorites of the series, but it is amazing that Eddington would have come up with such a convoluted plot and assumed it would have worked so well. It kind of reminds me of the TNG episode where DaiMon Bok has the world's most complicated plan to get revenge on Picard.

This episode doesn't go that far, thankfully. But several things need to happen for the plan to work.

-- Rebecca's message would have to be recovered by someone who can decipher the meaning. Considering that Eddington was captured BEFORE the Klingon-Federation treaty was reinstated, Eddington would have had to hope that someone in Starfleet would understand what the hell Rebecca's intimating or that the Klingons would turn to Starfleet for help. That, to me, is a major plot hole.

-- Moreover, why would the Maquis need this plan if not for the Dominion alliance with Cardassia, which Eddington didn't know about when he was captured? Was this something Eddington had ready if the Cardassians had turned the tide against the Maquis? It doesn't seem all that necessary, given that the Cardassians were in such bad shape when Eddington was captured. Was this a plan to get Eddington out that was delayed by the Dominion-Cardassian alliance and the Jem Hadar's attack on the Maquis -- and then used when the Maquis survivors had the opportunity/had no other options? I guess it's possible, but the episode doesn't say.

-- That message would have to get to Sisko, and Sisko would have to be the one to contact Eddington. This is possible, but what if Sisko had been away? He and the Defiant crew were in the Gamma Quadrant around the time of this episode. Without Sisko's presence, does Eddington's plan have a shot of succeeding?

-- Sisko would have to want to stop the missiles, and he would have to decide that tracking down Eddington was the best way to do it. The first part makes some sense, the second part is questionable. Granted, Rebecca dropping the name 'Michael' in the message helps -- Sisko might have figured that Eddington was the guy to go to -- but why trust Eddington again? We know from dialog in 'Voyager' that there are other Maquis members in Federation prisons.

-- Sisko would have to buy Eddington's con initially. Eddington probably figured he could pull this off because he conned Sisko several times previously. But it's still another domino.

-- All of this would have to happen before the Maquis survivors were found by the Dominion. Another timing issue.

as a Canadian, I LOVED the "lucky loonie" reference... I had to go back and check and this was done before we snuck the loonie under the ice for the Olympics

the profits were guiding the writers.

Great episode that set up a another great episode, but not of DS9, of Voyager - "Extreme Risk," where B'Elanna self-harms as a way of dealing with survivor's guilt after finding out that the Maquis have been wiped out. I consider "Blaze of Glory" and "Extreme Risk" as parts I and II of the Tragedy of the Maquis. Both episodes are classics.

With regards to the Federation being weak I'm reminded of Way of the Warrior when Martok says he does not wish to anger the Federation. Clearly there is respect there. Not to mention the spanking the Klingons got the same episode.
I think it is more likely a concession made by the Federation to acheieve peace, much like the DMZ with the Cardassians. You make a small concession for peace which is what the Federation values most surely.

It's certainly plausible to buy the Federation being eager for peace at all costs...look at the way they tied their hands behind their backs with the Treaty of Algeron...probably the single most short-sighted, dumbest acquiescence ever...

This is a point I have made often, namely that in the TOS era the Federation was that era's USA. The wealthiest most powerful power in that part of the galaxy. In TNG it turned into a politically correct bag of mush.
Of course, that is still a political decision, the USA has had both strong and weak governments as well as made some foolish decisions, but on balance we are still a "hyperpower." rather than a just a superpower.
Somewhere along the lines it was decided to turn the Federation into a weak, constantly losing former power. It was all but stated as such in TNG.
The idea of counselors, no more cowboy diplomacy etc...
It was forgotten that ideals are wonderful, so long as you can actually defend them...

Just a note on the Feds not using cloaks. The real problem here is that Gene Roddenberry thought that using cloaks was cowardly and 'our people don't sneak around.' Unfortunately, like a lot of Gene's later ideas, (humans not having money or religion, no conflict between Starfleet officers), it doesn't make a lot of sense if you're trying to analyze the Star Trek universe as a real, coherent setting, but the writers feel compelled to follow it anyway. I don't mean any disrespect to Gene Roddenberry, without whom none of us would be having this discussion, but he often seems to have put idealism above practicality and logic.

As for the Treaty of Algeron, we don't know enough about the situation that led to the Treaty to know if it was preceded by a defeat for the Federation, but it can't have been too crushing, or the Romulans would have abolished the Neutral Zone and resumed their expansionism, rather than settling for the cloaking ban. I suspect it can be chalked up to the Federation desire for peace at even a high price, based on Roddenberian idealism.

Similarly, it seems pretty clear to me that the first Federation-Cardassion War must have ended in a stalemate considering that both sides ceded colonies to the other, (which I always thought was a bit ridiculous considering there is little or no need for a linear, Earth-style border in space).

As a 1-time African Studies minor, the fact that I haven't noticed Sisko's race, really, since Season 2 is saying something.

Then there was that bit where Eddington accused Sisko of trying to rule the world or something like that. For some reason, it just seemed so... like something nobody would ever say that way in the 21st century, even if they meant the exact same thing.

Sure, black people are in power all the time, but the fact that it's 100% obvious that Eddington probably couldn't even TELL you what race Sisko is if you asked him later, is just... interesting?

Someone wondered how the Maquis could be such a major factor in Federation affairs, internally and externally. They're like the Jewish settlers on the West Bank. A relative handful of people can affect pretty much the entire geopolitical balance of the world. The settlers drive Israeli policy. Israel drives U.S. policy. U.S. policy drives the world.

At any rate, I agree. Great episode. I don't think the various Treks utilized the Maquis as well as they could have, but overall, I enjoyed Maquis storylines.

Just rewatched this one for the first time in years. Holds up really well.

Interestingly, it's something of a bottle show, with much of the episode focusing on the interaction between Sisko and Eddington. Sisko's point about the Cardassians running right into the hands of the Dominion is telling, and strikes me as a believable consequence, perhaps precisely because it can only seem anticlimactic.

Loved Eddington's mention of his "lucky loonie". I think that's about the third or fourth mention of Canada on Trek, notwithstanding the Iconian gateway's preference for Nathan Philips Square back in "Contagion".

If people put as much effort into debating real world issues as they do a fake treaty from an old tv show, humanity would be a step closer to the ideals represented on said show.

Another very good episode. The marquis can never catch a break.

7/10

Finally, a Maquis Eddington episode that truly works. I still vehemently disagree with the sudden plot-turn of him being Maquis in the first place. But this one is actually good despite that.

3 stars.

This episode was okay. It's strange how many episodes I find utterly indifferent that Jammer loves.

Eh, we just don't see Eddington enough on the series to really hate or like him. He's just kinda there.

The Maquis should have been a temporary thing. The Federation and Cardassia should have pulled their heads out of their asses and fixed the damn treaty.

I love every episode Eddington is in. Kenneth Marshall played the part to a tee.

While we can debate plot-holes all day, Eddington sells the part very well. It still just makes me shake my head that Sisko doesn't show more empathy for the Maquis than he does.

I loved the twist at the end. Very "Eddington"

3 stars instead of higher from me because you can really see where the writers didn't put much thought into this one.

I'm not huge on this episode even though I feel like I should be.

Part of it is that I never really warmed up to the Eddington storyline. I really enjoyed "For the Cause" but that episode also had the Kasidy drama going for it as well. Eddington's plot was also a bit more palatable (to me) there. His digs at Sisko were well done and I believed him as a member of the Maquis.

But the "For the Uniform" and "Blaze of Glory" arc is just too lukewarm for me. They became more about *Eddington* than the Maquis. I guess that's partially what drives Sisko in all of it, and I suppose it was good to finally put a face to the enemy, but it also ties the Maquis too closely to this one character. Suddenly the Maquis effort all comes attached to Eddington's bravado and sense of theatricality and they seem written a little too much for the benefit of a couple of climactic episodes than for the satisfaction of the series-long arc. Compared to the Klingons, Bajorans, Cardassians, and Dominion, they just don't seem to have the same range of characters that other antagonists do. Then Eddington dies in a scene that almost seems like its a given. It didn't really impact me the way it should have.

All that said, this is still a fair episode on its own merits because of some decent scenes and tension. I like how it hammers home how the Maquis have affected the Alpha Quadrant. The writers began them as victims, turned them to aggressors and then led them completely to ruin - a nice, dynamic arc that fits in well with the stories of DS9's other players. Sisko has a great line about how the Maquis pushed the Cardassians right into the arms of the Dominion, a visceral line that both gave me a chill and showed off how well plotted DS9 as a series really is.

3 stars for me, but with an asterisk. It works on its own as a decent episode of this series, but never really feels like the climax it wants to be (and should be).

The writers seem to be completely oblivious to real life. Here we are presented with a situation where a renegade terrorist faction wants to commit mass murder against A CURRENT GENOCIDAL ENEMY, and the allies are upset that this may case the said genocidal enemy to become... genocidal. It makes absolutely no sense.

Let's take WWII (always a good example): Churchill gave the order to bomb German civilians by the thousands. Hitler was furious, so he intensified the bombing of English cities. This actually ended up being a good thing because the Nazis were having great success with their military targets. But Hitler could do nothing except carry on what he was doing anyway - conquering.

In the same way, that's all the Cardassian's and the Dominion could have done. This also brings up a further HUGE plot problem: The allies would be using any and all means to obliterate their enemies, and vice versa; yet, for the duration of this war, no weapons of mass destruction are ever deployed. Let's take DS9 - all you'd need to destroy that thing would be one major weapon. You wouldn't send a fleet.

But the writers suspend all logic and all reason simply to peddle this unrealistically written war.

The B story isn't any better as it concerns Nog trying to be a bad-ass.

This review is just wrong, as always :P Its issues have been discussed to great lengths here already. I could have forgiven it for putting two people who don't like each other on a shuttle AGAIN... if it were good characters and a good combination. Sadly, Eddington is the most unsympathetic and plain annoying character in the entire series, it could only go wrong.

He's just a huge pain in the arse with his constant over-the top sarcastic self-complacency. Dukat gets away with it because he has the personality and nonchalance to back it up, Eddington just tries much too hard and makes it only worse with every word he says.

It's good that he starts talking a few non-rubbish sentences over the stretch of the episode, but this episode's greatest achievement, eventually, is that Eddington dies.

I loved watching, and not trusting Eddington ever since he sabotaged the Defiant on the orders of a Starfleet admiral. I wish we could have seen him not as a Maquis, but as an operative of Section 31.

Bad episode.

Firstly, I don't like the premise. Our ever-scheming Eddington let's his lovely wife send out a fake message and obviously knows a) the Klingons will pick it up b) will relay it to Sisko and c) Sisko comes to him for help. Yeah, I believe that.

Secondly, the Dominion and the Federation ARE AT WAR already. They have repeatedly shot at each other, the Jem Hadar have repeatedly captured and imprisoned Federation personnel, changelings have repeatedly infiltrated Federation organizations. And yet for several episodes Sisko and the others are acting like it isn't a war.

Thirdly, the sarcastic back-and-forth between Eddington and Sisko gets old, quickly. When did Eddington turn so smug?

Fourthly, blaming the Maquis for the Cardassia-Dominon-alliance is stupid. The Maquis was never portrayed as anything but a thorn in Cardassia's side, it was the Klingon War that almost annihilated Cardassia and that forge the alliance.

I suppose that in some ways we needed a Maquis resolution episode, but I'm not sure we needed to come back to Eddington. Most of the episode seemed to be treading over old ground and old arguments. It is a good twist to have him play Sisko yet again though.

To have Eddington go out as a martyr I suppose makes sense given the extensive exploration of that aspect of his character last time out - but he's hardly a man with nothing left to live for if he's done all this to rescue his wife. So it just doesn't quite jibe for me.

The mental image of a naked Morn screaming "We're all doomed" is almost worth the price of admission alone however. 2.5 stars.

First off, I do think that the Dominion wiping the Maquis out was a good story move -- the Maquis storyline had somewhat sputtered, and it really does get at the horror of the Dominion's sudden intrusion into the quadrant that these sizeable shifts happen.

A lot of my problem with "For the Uniform" is the sense that a larger conflict is reduced not just to two men (Sisko and Eddington), but their *egos* -- that Eddington seems to have little interest in the Maquis' plight as such but wants to play tragic hero, and that Sisko is really mostly motivated by Eddington's betrayal. It is one thing to personalize the story by having avatars for different sides, but it's another for those avatars to not seem to care about what the overarching issues are supposed to be. "Blaze of Glory" doesn't have any whole planets being poisoned, so, that is to its credit, but I think that it mostly still focuses too small to tell a Maquis story, without getting me sufficiently engaged in the character story. One moment that sort of sells Eddington-as-Maquis-leader/avatar is Eddington talking about the experience of tasting his own food that he grew, etc., etc. I don't know if I fully believe it considering how many traditionalist anti-replicator types we have seen living on Earth or other Federation worlds (Robert Picard, Joseph Sisko), but I think the point is that Eddington found Federation life too stale and a lot of the Maquis breaking away was actually a certain yearning for freedom, for a place that was their own, etc. And yet this still confirms me overall impression of Eddington from this and "For the Cause," which is that he really joined and apparently led the Maquis because he had romantic notions that life was more authentic if you're a rebel and didn't seem to have that personal a reason for caring about their plight in particular as anything but a particular cause for himself to get involved in. (By contrast, Cal Hudson watched the region, Chakotay's people were on one of the planets in the DMZ, Ro became involved due to her personal connection to and sympathy for Macias....) It does eventually turn out that the idea that the Maquis are launching a massive super-secret cloaked WMD at the Dominion is just a cover for Eddington to have a reason to go rescue his wife. And in that sense, it does make me wonder if we are meant to extend this to the Maquis as a whole. Certainly we are led to believe that Eddington's warlike persona was just a cover for the mushy romantic underneath. I dunno. Anyway, some of the dialogue between Sisko and Eddington is amusing and some is pretty pointed, but a lot of it falls flat and a lot of it is devoted to the extended dance of Sisko getting Eddington to start playing his role, which as we know was what Eddington wanted all along, and...I dunno. Eddington's motivations for joining the Maquis are still so sketchy, so that the focus on him really *does* seem to be as symbol for the Maquis, to the point where his heroic noble last stand (admittedly stirring) is taken as a bit of a synecdoche of the possibility of other Maquis out there (some are maybe in the Delta Quadrant!), but...I mostly don't think Eddington is actually that representative, and what motivations are given to him are mostly shallow.

The Nog subplot seems to tie in with the main plot a little bit in that I think Nog getting Martok's respect is in some senses what Eddington wanted -- why else was Eddington so fixated on what Sisko thought of him? -- and is fairly amusing on its own. It's also actually good set-up for "In the Cards" in a way, which, more on that in a bit.

I agree with those above who said that this plot is incredibly convoluted. I'm not really sure how I feel about the episode as a whole; I think the dialogue is snappy enough that I can maybe go to 2.5 stars.

Aside: Regarding the Treaty for Algernon discussion and such above, it actually seems to me that the Federation seems in general to be more powerful and have more territory than the Romulans, especially since the Romulans seem to have retired to their own space. It may well have been that the Romulans sacrificed several star systems in order to keep their right to cloak, because they would rather have that particular kind of security over territory -- and, in fact, the choice might have made perfect tactical sense for both parties, especially since the Romulans presumably need much more cloaking technology etc. to do things like spy on their own people (which, eventually we learn about Section 31, but it does seem as if the Tal Shiar is much more openly powerful and dissent is much more strongly crushed).

By far the absolute worst episode of the season, and the bottom of the barrel for the series. This was absolutely garbage from start to finish.

First of all, thank god for the glaring plot hole of Sisko not taking the strategically sound option of just warning Dukat and handing Eddington over to the Cardassians for interrogation. And even if that is too much, the Romulans, who are now friends, have plenty of interesting ways to get secrets out of people as we have seen multiple times in the past.

Second, if you edited out every scene where Eddington talked, youd lose nothing except about 20 minutes of awful overacting. I just walked away every time he opened his mouth and it changed nothing. Marshalls delivery makes nails on a chalkboard sound like tribbles.

Third, there was no reason for any of this. The episode was completely inconsequential. The Maquis manage to fly to and land on some planet but don't have any escape plan better than sending an encoded message into space and hoping it finds its way into the hands of a prisoner in a starbase... AND IT DOES (how convenient). Sisko and Eddington have no issue escaping the Jem'Hadar after moving five wires and turning a runabout into an awesome weapon never seen before and never used again, yet the equally experienced other Maquis leaders couldn't manage to do this on their own and chose to rely on some sort of half cocked convoluted escape plan instead.

And finally, enough with the "I'll just slow you down, tell my wife I love her" joke. That didn't make Eddington a hero. That just made him a cliche, thankfully killed during a bad escape plan. And not even a mild surprise, the moment his wife said "I'm staying with you", his death was certain. I'm so glad that's the end of Marshall.

The writers tried to provide some follow up to the Maquis' destruction by the Dominion, but no follow up was needed. Nobody cares about the Maquis. And the follow up failed to show us anything anyways except how awful Marshall's character is.

Zero stars, and a facepalm for Jammer.

Come on, people. Over seven years since the first comment was written on this episode and not one Jon Bon Jovi "Blaze of Glory" joke yet. I am disappoint!

The A-plot is indeed powerful and a very worthy story, but it's far from perfect. I simply cannot forgive the writers for completely destroying the Maquis off-screen. That was not only unforgivable, it makes no sense. The Maquis have been one of the most wonderful elements in the "Deep Space Nine" tapestry and yet their downfall isn't even shown?! WTF! But then, given that they have always been treated as little more than an afterthought by the writers (even on the series they were specifically created and designed for!), I guess it's not really surprising that their final "Deep Space Nine" appearance is also an afterthought. Though, I will point out that both "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine" ended up treating the Maquis with more respect as a concept than VOY ever did! What we are told about what happened off-screen also doesn't make much sense once you stop and think about it. So Eddington was leading this guerilla campaign against the Cardassians but was also able to run his own farm and grow his own food, not to mention find the time for romance (ending in marriage)? How the hell was he able to pull all of that off? And I really could have done with the asinine scene of Eddington complaining about the replicated food. "It still tastes like replicated protein molecules to me." Oh, so it tastes like food then? Just because something was encased in dirt at one point doesn't mean it's not made of protein molecules. God, I hate it when the writers go off on their little pet project of "replicated food doesn't taste the same" nonsense!

Still, the plotline does have many more positives than negatives. Good action, good special effects, otherwise good dialogue and a nice look at the opposing sides of the Maquis situation. I've sided with the Maquis pretty much since they were first hinted at back in TNG: "Journey's End". These were good people who were forced into a desperate and ultimately hopeless situation, not by Eddington and his personal need for glory, but by the failed policies and decisions of the Federation. A negotiated peace is what royally screwed them over to begin with. I doubt they would have even been willing to consider another one. They deserved better than to have their own leaders in the Federation turn their backs on them, hound them at every turn and to be finally obliterated by the Dominion. So it's nice to see Sisko finally coming to have some sympathy for them in the end, even if it required their slaughter for that to happen.

As for the B-plot, it's serviceable. Nothing particularly good or bad about it either way. I suppose it makes sense that Nog would be so paranoid and desperate for respect from the Klingons, given how aggressive they are and how most people view the Ferengi. Still, while it's not bad, it probably didn't need to go on as long as it did - as it does detract from the much more important and enjoyable A-plot. The only truly stand-out scene in it is the confrontation between Nog and Martok, and then only because it shows how great a character Martok is. He is not the usual clumsy, oafish Klingon we've seen so many times in so many episodes. Nog stands up to him and he offers respect in return because he sees what Nog is doing. That was nicely handled.

8/10

@Luke - Do you think that's what the writers were trying to say? I thought they were just painting him as eccentric. Like people who think food tastes better when you cook it yourself (just because of the effort/mental association... not taste).

Or you know, people who swear they can taste the pesticides on their non-organic fruit or how people think "all natural" food tastes better, etc. I personally just took it that he was a spoiled little mental brat.

Sorry for any offense I'm giving to anybody like that! And I'm not saying that nothing organic tastes better or anything like that (I actually particularly like the organic milk brand that I buy...), but I swear you could stick an organic label on something and there is a subset of the population who would fawn over it.

@Robert

Well organic food wouldn't be quite analogous, because truly organic food would be free of hormones and other harmful additives. From my understanding of replicated food, it's actually *healthier* than non-replicated because it's the same product right down to the atom, and hasn't been sitting around potentially rotting in storage.

I agree though, Eddington's line about grown food sounds quite spoiled. I can't imagine Kira making the same complaint while she was fighting in the Resistance; she just wouldn't have had time to worry about such things. Maybe spending too much time farming and not enough time planning escape is what led to the Maquis downfall?

"Because truly organic food would be free of hormones and other harmful additives"

I'm not saying organic food is bad, as I said, I buy some. My point was that #1 some of it DOESN'T taste better, it just has less garbage in it, #2 some of it may actually TASTE worse because some of that garbage is supposed to make meat juicier and whatnot and #3 the definition (in the US) as to what is organic is bizarrely unregulated. But a lot of being human is in the mind and some people will SWEAR that stuff tastes better if you stick an organic sticker on it!

That's the phenomenon I was getting at. Not that organic food is bad. My food isn't all organic, but some of it is. And all food is organic in the other sense of the word anyway :P

@Robert

I'm not sure if I've ever heard people say organic food tastes better. In fact, I've heard the reverse (likely because additives are often preservatives that maintain taste). And I'm not getting into national definitions, as we can reach an understanding here that organic means no additives.

So yes, it's a psychological preference. Which is fine. There's a huge difference between people here in the U.S. who have the luxury of time to choose and eat organic and Eddington who has *neither* but decides to anyway.

@Robert

" Do you think that's what the writers were trying to say? I thought they were just painting him as eccentric."

I don't think so. Eddington isn't the first character to mouth this sentiment. Admiral Leyton says practically the same thing in "Paradise Lost". Joseph Sisko virtually lives by the dictum that "real" food tastes better. Even Sisko himself is seen countless times cooking his own food. Hell, you can even go as far back as TNG Season Two when Riker cooks eggs for the others in "Time Squared".

I agree that it does make Eddington look like a spoiled brat, but I honestly get the impression that the writers are trying to say that replicated food isn't as good a "fresh grown" food. If they're not, then why do they have others (even characters we're supposed to sympathize with) mouthing the exact same thoughts?

If I had unlimited funds I could go to a restaurant for every meal (or just have a chef). But cooking can be fun. Sisko in particular likes to cook.

But seriously, shouldn't you be able to take whatever barrel of blood wine is a really good year, scan it, and then make a million more? After all... if the transporter can make 2 William T Rikers why can't the computer replicate my blood wine? I think it should! So let's assume it can.

But then think about something spicy, like Yamok sauce? Presumably they use peppers in there. Anyone who's ever had a really good homemade hot sauce knows there's some interesting variety the peppers. But what if the computer's synthetic peppers are all the same. Every bottle of Yamok sauce and every glass of blood wine would be identical.

Would you really want your hot sauce and wine to be exactly the same every time? That'd be boring. On the other hand you say... well then program in every vintage and variation of bloodwine! If Spot can have 47 feline supplements why can't I have 47 blood wines! And then I wouldn't have to pay that Ferengi a finders fee for it!

Ok well, you'd probably be right. So I'll counter with Gagh! Gagh is best when served live after all. And besides, maybe Janeway's senior thesis involved programming all of the replicators and so everybody's food is always burnt unless they cook it themselves.

That said though, I just always assumed Sisko liked to cook and most of his ingredients were replicated. Who the hell has time to grow fresh peppers when there's a war to fight?

I apologize for the above post, I'm not even sure what it's about anymore.... nothing to see here, just haven't had my coffee yet, move along people.

If Yamok sauce is spicy, I'd take a bottle. It has to be cheaper than that syrup of Squill they're selling down at Whole Foods.

I know a guy who can get you a case of syrup of squill at cost if you can ply him with a box of self-sealing stem bolts....

We don't have replicators so hard to know. However, enjoyment of food has a lot to do with the brain. If you THINK this tomato from your garden will taste better than the one from your friends garden; you will likely taste it and feel that way. Replicated wine or chicken may be 100% identical; however, the knowledge that it is 'not real", can affect perception when tasting it

How it should have ended: Sisko picks up the red phone and calls whoever is in charge of Cardassia. "You know how you can find cloaked ships because of their exhaust stream or whatever mumbo jumbo Dax was saying? There are some cloaked missiles coming towards you. You need to hunt them down."

"Thanks for the heads up. We'll take care of it."

The end.

This was a far better send-off than the character Eddington deserved. His last-minute conversion into a Maquis spy by writers was one of the most poorly handled characterizations in a show known for its great characterizations. I would have been happy never to have had it referenced again.

I think I read all the comments, or maybe I have missed it anyway but...

Nobody has mentioned the trivial way in which Rebecca accepted her husband staying behind to die when Sisko tells her during the escape. She just makes a move, Sisko stops her once and she accepts and moves on, all within 5 seconds, choosing to let her husband die. I don't know.. The Maquis are known for being survivors against the odds and getting out of impossible situations. Yet, Rebecca gives up on him, just like that with little emotional response, in half a second. It was a bit too 'austere'..

That was the only black eye for me in an otherwise terrific episode. Jammer's review is great.

Eddington is a tiresome character, but this is a good episode.

This episode had a better version of Eddington than "For the Uniform" but it still or more so feels like demonizing and strawman-ing the Maquis overall, as ruthless fanatics. I really disliked that the episode so much identified Eddington as The Leader of the Maquis, that seems pretty simple minded-they're bad guys, he's really bold and ruthless and was already a Lieutenant Commander so everyone else accepted and followed him.

3 stars

I liked how after the Cardassians joined the Dominion the remainder of the season spawned stories on how this alliance effected certain groups like here with the Maquis. I enjoyed seeing the differing perspectives and dynamics between the various groups and the Dominion

If the writers were ever to provide a sort of payoff or resolution to the Maquis this was the best way to handle it--much like the Israelis and Palestinians who have been fighting over land for decades I saw the same sort of situation with the Maquis--a kind of endless back and forth with no closure. But thanks to the Dominion, we got it with the Maquis.

I was never really all that interested on Eddingtom as a character. So I can't say I was clamoring for closure with him but this eposode he WAS put to good use

The maquis planet was a very grim looking place in its own right atnospherically coupled with the piles of dead bodies. And the fight sequences were very exciting. I have to say Avery Brooks was born to kick ass and loved when he got into it with Jem'Hadar. A lot of the DS9 characters didn't IMO present a formidable challenge to the Jem'Hadar but Sisko most definitely yes!

And I'm usually not a fan of DS9's filler B plots but I actually liked this one with Nog trying to earn martok's respect. It felt like it had a purpose and it provided a couple good scenes. First when Nog fell off the barstool and when Martok showed Nog some respect. Nog was one of those characters the writers brought a long ways and really did a good Jon developing him. And Aaron Eisenberg did a great job. I love Nog's laugh

The whole plot with the refugees is contrived. Jem Hadar just hanging around with them people in a room? As a gift for the Cardassians? Right. The whole Sisko vs. Eddington is a boring rehash of stuff done before. And the B plot with Nog is just deplorable. 1.5 stars for this mess of an episode.

Great compelling episode with Sisko and Eddington making uneasy allies -- really liked Kenneth Marshall's acting and the Eddington character examination is quite powerful. I also really liked the 2 scenes Jammer describes in detail -- Eddington has no purpose left in the earlier scene in the prison cell but he plays Sisko very well and, of course, the best scene is on the ship when both men really air it all out. It does cause Sisko to do some introspection ultimately.

Both are complex characters and it's too bad not more was made of the Maquis and using the Eddington character. The end where Sisko shows his respect for Eddington is quality -- Eddington goes out in a blaze of glory, never giving up his beliefs although he knows the cause is lost.

I do think it's a bit contrived in that it's just Sisko (with no support) and Eddington -- either Sisko has a tremendous understanding of what makes the Maquis leader tick or he's foolhardy. And as for believing in the cloaked missiles, I think this was glossed over quickly just to set up Sisko and Eddington to get on with it. Nevertheless, how it is set up is less important than the end result which is solid.

The B-plot with Nog gaining Martok's respect was a bit silly and actually detracted from the powerful main plot for me. Just not what I wanted in terms of interruptions from the main plot.

But the Maquis added a good dimension to the greater DS9 story and the effect it had on Sisko (obsession, personal vendetta) was terrific -- great stories and a cause that seems believable as well. Sisko wonders if the Federation failed the Maquis.

3 stars for "Blaze of Glory" -- Incorporating the Maquis after the Cardassian/Dominion alliance is good to tie up any loose ends. Eddington turns out to be a terrific character -- a capable foil for Sisko who is truly dedicated to his cause and ultimately earns the captain's respect. Good scenes at the end in the fight with the Jem'Hadar, although some aspects of the action/story are a tad farfetched (evading the Jem'Hadar ships, Sisko's extreme risk taking, getting past so many Jem'Hadar soldiers).

"Blaze of Glory" isn't quite up to the quality of the previous two Sisko/Eddington stories, but it's pretty damn close. The best part of the episode by far is their dynamic, and the early scenes with them are delightful. The episode did struggle to hold my attention for a section of it, though. The plotting in the middle was quite messy. It regains its momentum at the end though, and Eddington sacrificing himself for a noble cause was fitting for his character. And yet it still feels slightly like an anti-climax for the Maquis story as a whole. Tying that resolution to Michael Eddington may not have been the best choice.

3 stars.

Of course, Sisko's "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" speech back in the second season showed that he already understood the plight of the Maquis. The character conveniently forgets that when he's betrayed by Cal Hudson, and then Eddington. I'm not sure I like Sisko taking those betrayals so personally. Would he really ascend to the rank of captain by being such a hothead? At least he makes up for that somewhat here by swallowing his pride enough to ask for Eddington's help. Great episode.

Watching and commenting:

--Uh oh, the Maquis are up to no good. They've launched deadly cloaked missles at Cardassia, expected to kill millions. They're in pure revenge mode. Intriguing start!

--Sisko is worried the missiles will start a war with the Dominion. So they don't already expect a war with the Dominion? (Note to self: Don't try to understand the Dominion threat.)

--Eddington. I agree with Sisko, Eddington talks too much.

--Everybody wants to be a hero, or at least make a lasting impression, be remembered, be respected, including Nog.

--Lots of David vs Goliath type imagery. Little ship against the Jem Hadar warships. Sisko with a pipe against the armed Jem Hadar. Nog against the Klingons. The Maqui against the Federation, Cardassia, and The Dominion. Big ol' Morn and a barstool vs Quark. Naked Morn vs Kira :) .

--You gotta know when to hold up, know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run. Sometimes you get Goliath, sometimes Goliath gets you.

--A good ending for Eddington, just what he wanted, fighting the good fight ( in his eyes at least), going on a blaze of glory. Like Nog with General Martok, Eddington even earned some respect from Sisko. Though if you didn't understand that about Eddington, Jadzia and Sisko tell you explicitly here at the end.

A good ep that held my interest throughout.

Vaya con dios, Maquis.

Something has always bothered me about this episode and the maquise struggle in general. It is rooted in my belief that eddington was the one who should have come out on top in his conflict with sisko and the federation.

To start with, i knew he was doomed when, as a white man they pitted him opposite sisko. So in that respect the end came as no surprise. Plus, he was doomed going up against the protagonist of the show. Plus, his band of rebels were doomed as a declared enemy of the federation. With all that going against him why should anyone believe in success?

Everything Eddington said in objection to the federation in previous episodes, and this one, was true - hypocritical being the one that sticks with me. In some respects through the writing of the shows this hypocritical aspect of federation attitudes and actions was acknowledged. In the face of the acknowledgment of hypocrisy and all the strikes against him to begin with, eddington lost and in a dissatisfying manner. Lost personally with sisko. Lost his wife. Lost his maquise family. Lost his life. And his struggle never achieved any of their laudable and justifiable aims.

Imho, a better point would have been made if sisko would have acknowledged that his actions and attitudes were wrong and that everybody would have been better off if he had just walked away as eddington first suggested. But, for all the reasons eddington was doomed to begin with, that just could not happen.

I’ve always felt that Sisko was projecting the anger and betrayal he felt about Kasidy Yates onto Eddington.

Remember, she was a horrible horrible person. First she was like “a big step? That’s all you have to say?” as she was planning to move her smuggling operation onto the station. She asked Sisko for special favors to avoid a “health inspection” to ensure a meeting time with the Maquis. And when she was caught, she says “I’m not going to stand here and apologize.” And then when she came back to the station after incarceration, she got all bitchy again right away. Meanwhile, Sisko keeps cooking and wasting his nonreplicated veggies on this ingrate.

Not a particularly great episode.

The revelation that the Marquis have been wiped out makes perfect sense - after all, they were only able to exist through an uneasy balance of factors, the two most important of which were the non-aggressive nature of the Federation and the fact that the Cardassians weren't able to bring any significant military force to bear, as it could be deemed a violation of the treaty and retrigger the war.

When the Dominion arrived and joined the Cardassians, that balance vanished - after all, the Dominion and Jem Hadar had no interest in maintaining the treaty with the Federation. And their solution to any threats or attempts resistance is to respond in overwhelming force.

And so, the Marquis were doomed as soon as the first Jem Hadar ships appeared through the wormhole.

Admittedly, it's a shame there wasn't more time spent on this; instead, 5 seasons of plot development are essentially dismissed in a single sentence so that this episode could focus on the tempestuous relationship between Sisko and Eddington.

Or, as I like to call him, Blandy McBlandface. And therein lies the problem; Eddington's personality is flat that it's just not interesting to watch them cross metaphysical swords.

There's also the fact that this episode is heavily contrived; not only is the method of delivering the message distinctly suspect (and overly reminiscent of the message Tain sent out to Garak during In Purgatory's Shadows, just ten episodes earlier) but given that Eddington knows that the fake message is actually from his wife, his decision to play such a hardball bluffing game with Sisko is odd, to say the least.

It can be argued that Eddington knows Sisko well enough to be able to predict his actions, but even so, it's a chancy game, especially when he then repeats the same hardball bluff with a set of Jem Hadar ships closing in on their stationary ship.

And I'm still unsure as to why the writers thought they needed to keep trying to draw parallels between Eddington and Les Miserables, and Blandy McBlandface's alleged desire to be a hero. Because once more, he just doesn't have the personality for it...
From there, things go down fairly well-worn channels.

I agree Wharf, the implied scene about Morn temporarily losing his sanity really cracked me up. One of the most successful comedy moments in Trek

I might give this episode half a star less than Jammer did. It does raise a bunch of very interesting questions and it takes time running through the ideas that they bring up, without stooping to giving the viewer an easy answer about any of it, but at the same time, it feels really forced.

Looking at the big picture, and thinking as a TV Producer, you have to admit, having this many Bad Guys in a TV Series could get to be unmanageable by a certain point (I shudder to think of what the writing room whiteboards looked like by this time). When the Dominion 'allied' with Cardassia, I feel like it was meant to consolidate the Bad Guys in the show so that the episodes would be easier to write without having to give a lot of exposition.

We all know certain sequences of lines in movies, TV, or whatever, that come off as transparent exposition. If a show does this badly, it shows. Characters talking about recent events in an extremely specific way that is a not-so-subtle *wink-wink* to audience members who might be having trouble keeping up.

DS9 had its hands full with this kind of thing for a while. With this episode (and logically speaking, "By Inferno's Light" before it), it basically did what it had to do; reduce the number of players on the chessboard to streamline the overall plotline of the series.

I can't deny that it was an effective decision; choosing one path and focusing on it is always better than letting oneself be carried away by a multitude of concerns. But the way in which it was done feels just a tad, a tad and a half, maybe two tads rushed.

Random woman contacts "Michael." Says missiles are launched. Then we find out that this random woman is Mrs. Eddington? Then they are forced to separate, and Eddington is killed. We get one reaction shot from her, and that's it. Her fate is sealed; she never reappears in the series (or any Trek series) again.

That's a waste of a scene, waste of a character, and a waste of a plot thread. If they were just going to kill Eddington anyway, parading around a beautiful woman he has just had nuptials with has a 'salt on rice' effect... it makes it taste more like something, but the flavor isn't very good, and it would have been better just to have steamed rice, after all, bland as it may be that way.

Eddington breathing her name in his last breath is the only reason I remember Rebecca's name. Let's put it that way. It just felt a little bit lame. I wish they'd devoted at least a bit more time to playing up the drama of this horrible tragedy; I have this problem with a lot of DS9. It tells you that these events are horrible and tragic, and looking at them on paper, you would agree, but it doesn't SHOW you the tragedy. It doesn't make FEEL the tragedy.

I'm not saying that it's a bad episode, it was pretty good, honestly. But I'd rate it a hair lower than Jammer did. It just has a couple of typical DS9-ish rushed beats.

A great big WHOLE CARES from me. Don't like Eddington, didn't buy the scene where Sisko was going to let them be destroyed. I guess the rest of the cast were on vacation? Big boring waste.

DS9's final Maquis episode, "Blaze of Glory" offers two thematically related plots. In the first, Nog struggles to earn the respect of General Martok. In the second, Sisko and Eddington begrudgingly learn to accept each other. In each tale, a figure deemed pathetic or unprincipled is rehabilitated in the eyes of the other.

IMO, all of DS9's Maquis episodes are interesting. There are hints of sophistication in them, and they tend to play well when watched sequentially, rather than over six years, as they were initially released.

They also tend to have the same problems. Avery Brooks typically plays Sisko poorly in these episodes (his excellent performance in "For the Cause" is a rare exception), and the Federation's approach toward the Maquis and Cardassia is never convincingly or robustly explained. We needed, for example, scenes showing the Federation actively resettling some Maquis onto other planets. We needed scenes in which the Federation challenges Cardassia for breaching laws and withdrawal agreements (after all, the Federation pulls out of the DMZ with the understanding that ex-Federation settlers would not be persecuted. By committing a soft genocide, you'd assume the Federation are thus legally obligated to reclaim these planets). And we needed scenes in which Sisko faced repercussions for using biological weapons on a planet, and scenes explaining how he knew human citizens had evacuated before these weapons detonated.

In other words, DS9's Maquis episodes tend to oscillate from Trek at its most politically complex, to its most goofily simplistic. Complex situations are rushed by. Motivations go unexplained. Political relationships aren't convincingly laid out. These episodes tend to be as frustrating as they are rewarding, cool as they are annoying.

What "Blaze of Glory" does well, though, is rehabilitate Sisko after his bizarre war crimes in "For the Uniform". Here we see a softer Sisko who learns to somewhat respect Eddington. Eddington, meanwhile, begrudgingly grows fond of the Federation. A Federation that is epitomized by one brief scene in which Sisko instinctively gives Eddington a weapon and turns his back on him (because he believes only Eddington can stop missiles heading for Cardassia). It's an incident which recalls Sisko's relationship with the Jem'Hadar in "To the Death", in which Sisko takes a knife to the gut for the enemy, all so that a "technobabble gate" doesn't lead to millions dying.

In each case, Sisko - without drama or complaint - quickly and sacrificially gives up his life for both an enemy and for The Greater Good.

It's a brief moment, but via it Eddington finally gets a sense of how "principled" the Federation's "unprincipled" stance on the Maquis is. The Maquis will die, because risking war with the Cardassians and the Dominion will lead to more deaths. And though Sisko thinks Eddington's a misguided fool to the end, seeing countless slaughtered Maquis lining corridors nevertheless fills him with some kind of sympathy.

There are some other good scenes here. Nog's arc with Martok is pretty much perfect, and some of the phaser battles are better than average, including one scene in which Sisko guns down some cloaked Jem'Hadar like Clint Eastwood in "Where Eagles Dare".

But there's some bad stuff too. Avery Brooks' performance veers from good to wacky, Dax gets another tonally insulting scene at the end (which echoes a similarly offensive scene at the end of "For the Uniform"), and the episode's stance on food is a bit odd; Sisko's family appears to be eating real meat, and Eddington has an unbelievable hatred for "synthetic food". The episode could also using a line explaining the nature of Eddington's prison and prison sentence, as the cell he is kept in seems at odds with the rehabilitation centers seen in "Voyager". Granted the guy is an outright terrorist, but you'd expect the Federation to have jails and rehabilitation programs a bit more "advanced" than contemporary prisons.

Still, whatever its flaws, "Blaze of Glory" ends with Sisko no longer being an a-hole. And it ends with some sympathy for Eddington. After the bizarre "For the Uniform", this ending is about as Trekkian as these two can be allowed. Indeed, of all of DS9's arcs, I'd say its Maquis arc is one of the few which lands its ending well.

Not hugely impressed by this episode. As others have noted, Eddington grates. The thought that Sisko would undertake a difficult mission with no one else on board, but this insulting terrorist, stretches credulity.

So unlikable is this Eddington....so glib while pushing away his rations. I wish Sisko had said: "I've heard that you Maquis had brussels sprouts so fresh that they sang the Ode to Joy within the steamer....NOW SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR CARROTS SUCKA!"

So many of the lines on the planet took the form: Eddington: "I think what we're looking for is up ahead." Sisko: "Are you sure?" Two levels below the filler dialologue between Star Wars droids.... Sheesh!

Two stars from me, and one of them is for Nog. I haven't seen Ken Marshall in anything other than this role, but yikes, was he not up to the task of being wily and secretly brave and whatever else the script meant him to be. It didn't help that the witty repartee between Eddington and Sisko was flat, and didn't go anywhere.

I get the whole "they're more alike than they admit" thing, but that didn't carry the 20-odd minutes of verbal sparring that came across like the actors were in separate rooms. Avery Brooks' stentorian bombast didn't mix well with Marshall's rote, uninspired delivery, either. Listening to the, "You care!" "No, *you* care!" debate was beyond boring - it was annoying.

Worse, the ignoble end of the Maquis was tragic in the bad way. All the thorny issues and pointed indictments of Federation culture, swept under the rug, unresolved, nor even examined in much depth. There certainly wasn't any examination in this episode.

Almost as annoying as knowing from the title card that Eddington was going to die "heroically," so everything he did the entire episode mattered that much less. They could have used Eddington and Sisko to give us some resolution on the debate between Maquis and Federation principles, or given us a character study of the two men, or built Eddington up for his fall, but instead, we got this episode. Boo.

Did anyone else cheer when Eddington got shot?

Ah, Randall is the first person to mention one of my biggest peeves about this episode. It's titled "Blaze of Glory," which is part of a well-known phrase about how to die, and since it obviously can't be one of the main cast who does that, it's got to be the guest star. Who is . . . Michael Eddington. So, no suspense for me there.

My other major kvetch is the portrayal of Eddington. Both the writing and the acting make him a smug jerk. I'm sure we're supposed to think he's bitter, but that's not really how he comes off. So he does nothing but annoy me, and the only reason I care when he ends up dying is that his wife presumably will feel bad.

A third, lesser kvetch is Sisko's approach to persuading Eddington to help him. I thought this man was supposed to be intelligent? But he comes on as super naive, almost showing off his Federation Morality Medallion. It can hardly make Eddington any more annoyed at him than he already is, but it just sounds pompous to me.

There were some good points made during their long, long argument over multiple scenes, but it was all an intellectual exercise IMO. My favorite line was , "For a dead man, you talk a lot."

The Nog plot was paper thin, but it was well written and well acted, and looking back from the 32nd century as I am now, it gives a good foundation for how Nog ended up having a starship named after him.

When I originally saw this eppy when it first aired, I probably liked it more, but now, although not really bad, it just seems forgettable.

I don't like this episode. It raises too many questions. Such as....why are cloaked missiles not used all the time. Or impact weapons in general. A Klingon cruiser can absorb torpedo after torpedo, many phaser/disruptor hits but is mortally damaged by a kamakazi jem Hadar fighter. Which unfortunately makes me ask why weapons such as high velocity "railguns" aren't ever seen. From what we've seen....they would shred even a shielded ship to pieces.

Ok. I admit it. I just finished watching a Michael Eddington trilogy: "For the Cause" (aka- the Eddington evil mastermind one) followed by "For the Uniform" (aka- the Sisko war criminal one) followed by "Blaze of Glory" (aka- the Eddington last stand one).

It was a fun exercise filled with a fair number of good scenes. I confess that I even began to like Eddington. I just think that the last scene should have had Sisko pulling the "Lucky Loonie" from behind Dax's ear and placing it next to the baseball.

"Cloaked missiles"? Really? It makes for an interesting plot but if such a thing is possible--and there should be no reason why it wouldn't be--, why on, um, earth is it not used constantly, especially by the less scrupulous elements who seem to be chock-a-block in the galaxy!?

The repartee and battle of wits between Eddington and Cisco was enjoyable if smartass-y at times, especially when under fire.

The plot twist was unexpected and quite exhilarating although the reasoning and background to it all pretty convoluted.

A sad ending. I had a love-dislike relationship with Eddington (and a tolerate-hate one with the Macquis); I was gutted to see him killed.

The opening scene with Nogg leaping to his feet ready to give Murtoq a piece of his mind was hysterical. Loved it! And then:
Nogg to Jake: "You never get past the talking stage [with a woman]."
Jake: "That's a scurrilous lie!"
Nogg: "Scurrilous? Is that worse than a regular lie?"
😂😂😂

I loved the B-story with Nogg finding his voice and courage.

Overall, the ep. was dynamic and exciting; much better than the previous one. Very nice. I agree with Jammer's rating.

BTW, anyone else find it 🙄ing when they prepend some nonsensical demonym to a real thing to make it "Trekian," like blahblahdian stew or craponian bear (or beer, for that matter)?

@Michael
>"Cloaked missiles"

It's not the only technology that's forgotten about but would of come in handy for numerous situations. The wide beam phaser for example, that was used by Tuvok in Voyager's "Cathexis", or Rom's self replicating mines from DS9.

Somehow to theatrical and constructed.

Great episode! Sisko and Eddington spar really well, and the twist at the end where we realize there are no missiles, worked great. I loved Eddington's last word as he took his last breath. I don't agree that Nog's story line distracted from the plot. Nog is a great character, and it's cool that he got the respect of Mardok. Great episode.