“Image in the Sand”

I have to say that I loved how Ezri Dax was introduced. For me it felt like a very special moment, very underplayed.

That Worf would sit around, essentially moping for his lost Jadzia, might be exactly how a human would respond to death, but for Worf, is completely out of character, and is only a continuation of the absolute bastardization of his character by the DS9 staff. Compare his actions in this episode to his words in The Next Phase, regarding Geordi's "death": "I am happy for Commander La Forge. He has crossed over." When K'Ehlyr was assassinated, he picked up his bat'leth and got his revenge. But here? He listens to holograms sing songs. Oh where, oh where, has my Worf gone?

Re: Worf; I think Jadzia really changed him. Remember how he behaved during "Change of Heart" The old Worf would never have put "feelings" over !Duty! That would've been unthinkable. Which is another reason, I guess, that Starfleet allowed both him and Jadzia on the same mission.

Also, I think it's devastating that she can't get into sto-vo-kor. Perhaps he even feels responsible for that; after all, he was the one who got Jadzia into the family.

@EP- this was specifically addressed in the episode, Bashir said that Klingons got over grief quickly and it was extremely unusual behaivour for Worf, and this was attributed to the reasons stated by the episode. Jadzia was slaughtered, after all- hardly a fitting death from Worf's perspective.

"Oh where, oh where, has my Worf gone?"

Exactly, EP. DS9's final season should've had Worf obsessively hunting for Dukat. That would've made things more interesting.

All the previous comments about Worf are certainly warranted, but as one reader observed Bashir explains it's unusual behaviour for a Klingon. However even though Jadzia certainly has changed Worf from his usual Klingon antics, I expected a little more exploration into the character's feelings of mourning and why they are present. This was probably not possible due to lack of time, but it's a shame nonetheless.

When did the Rozhenkos move from Galt to Russia?

Not a bad episode.

Anybody notice Sisko taking out the trash -- literally -- around timestamp 36:00?

You'd think that they would have figured out how to move beyond Hefty(R) bags...

If it aint broke dont fix it the bags just get hauled off to a replacator to be decompiled

Speaking of weird technology...why is it they need a data pad for every different thing? In some scenes, Sisko has half a dozen of them. Do they have an entire room full of the things?

Each PADD contaned diffrant infromation downloaded onto it there could be gigs of info on each PADD I guess you could say that the bluetooth network or cell network is to cloged to allow a single PADD to be used or ...

Its about giveing the actor a range of movement from the props it gives there hands someing to do and visualy looks good

Who needed a new Dax? this season has so many plots and subplots open, introducing a new character will only take time from the real story.

How could Sisko tell, based on the vision he had as presented, that he was on the planet Tyree in it?

I love the fact that Ezri Dax shows up. It really points to what i've always suspected that Dax and Sisko is a symbolic love story that survives through the changes in the Dax's hosts (Curzon, Jadzia & now Ezri). That's why it makes sense that Ezri shows up at Sisko's door. She carries within her that extraordinary love that began with Curzon (father-son relationship) onto to Jadzia (which curiously may explain Bashir's comment to Sisko in the funny episode "Fascination", that the crews actions may be due to latent emotions buried sub-consciously, ie. Curzon's love for Sisko) and ultimately to Ezri, which would explain why she had the impulse to seek out Sisko. Anyways, it may just be me but that's what I get from the Dax/Sisko relationship, a beautiful symbolic love story.

O'Brien says that it wasn't until the third bottle of blood wine before Worf mentioned Jadzia, but O'Brien only brought one bottle with him...

Jammer -- I'm with you except for the introduction of Ezri Dax. I thought they handled that just right.

The writers tried to tell too much in one episode, that's why things like the Romulan treachery felt a bit rushed.

The new Dax has the looks alright, now let's hope she acts better than Terry Farrell (her acting style got on my nerves).

Too many different story threads going on at the same time and none of them are particularly compelling.

5/10

And now, we have to swallow the idea that Sisko receives visions from the prophets even when he is on Earth. Pfui!!

I could swear I've been watching Star Trek for a few seasons. But maybe I just went through a confusing wormhole myself, without noticing. Pathetic.

Dull dull dull. The shark jumping continues.

I strongly disliked the sudden introduction of "Sarah", second only to the introduction of the concept of a "Borg Queen".

Star Trek predicted Tablets years before they existed. Now we just need replicators and I'll officially call this the future.

3 is probably fair. I might knock it up half a star for some good dialogue. This being my favourite exhange.

Re: Getting Jadzia into Stovokor with a great battle.

Quark: What if I let him beat me at tongo?

Hungover O'Brien: Not good enough. Unless he has to carve his way through a hundred Jem'Hadar to reach the table.

Cracks me up.

I'm not impressed with this season opener. I’m honestly not surprised as the writers regressed some characters in Season 6.

Star Fleet just lets Sisko go for 3 MONTHS?!?!? Really? … in the middle of a war? He's so damn important that he is selected to plan the attack on Cardassia and .... poof, he's gone?

Come on...

Kira’s “B” Plot. I understand that placing weapons on that moon should have been a transparent issue with the Bajoran government, or at a minimum with Kira, but I don’t see Kira’s position as a realistic or even smart one. Once the cat is out of the bag, why does she have an issue with this? The Romulan’s are on our side.

“KIRA: Not this time, Admiral. My government considers the Romulan presence on Derna to be a direct threat to Bajor.
CRETAK: This is ridiculous. I regret not informing your government about our weapon emplacements, but I didn't think it was necessary. We're your ally.
KIRA: Then remove the weapons.
CRETAK: That would leave the hospital unprotected.
KIRA: Bajor will guarantee its safety.
CRETAK: I'm afraid that's not acceptable.
KIRA: Either you remove those weapons, or we will.”

Really Kira? Just how can Bajor protect anything? How does this pose a threat to Bajor? What would Romulus want with Bajor? I understand this could be seen as a problem with the Dominion non-interference treaty and all, but you just go ahead and make this public knowledge by bringing this to the Council of Ministers? This is just stupid. Hell, the hospital can be considered a breach of this treaty. Kira just said "hey Dominion, looky what we have on this moon!!"

Worf & everyone else left on the station’s “C” plot:

I’m OK with this one I guess, although I keep wondering if all this is necessary if Worf doesn’t leap out of his character in ‘Change of Heart’ and Jadzia dies as a result of Worf completing his mission.

I’m guessing Sisko is receiving these visions via the Orb of the Emissary, but I didn’t think that’s the way it happened. I thought these visions came from the prophets in the wormwhole. Does this mean they reside in the orbs as the wormhole is cut off and all the other orbs are dark? It all seems like a plot convenience to me.

I can understand Sisko being upset with Joe because Joe kept the truth from him about his real mother, but it seemed to me like Sisko went a little overboard with this. He’s had a loving caring family his whole life…

Ezri, When I first watched DS9 I was so opposed to Ezri it wasn’t funny. (Jadzia lag I guess) but with more rewatches, I’m most impressed with Nicole as an actress and more welcoming to the Ezri character. I guess I was right; Sisko did need someone to call “old man” in season 7.

2.5 stars for me. Sisko’s plot dragged and I thought and Kira’s “threat to Bajor” tantrum didn’t make sense.

(boy, didn’t that hospital and 7000 torpedoes go up fast on the moon? :-))

@ Yanks:

I imagine that the one-two combination of transporter and replicator technology makes infrastructure construction a fairly short term affair :)

The DS9 episode where Joe mentions something about Ben hitting on a new neighbor while her parents were still beaming in the furniture was a throwaway line, but it made you realize the myriad ways that all this military technology is used in civilian life.

Jack,

Agree. Hell, they are talking about doing the equivalent of 3D printing on the Moon or Mars to construct buildings. :-)

What is the scientific explanation as to how Sisko is receiving these visions on earth? Is the show trying to say the wormhole aliens are beings like Q? Ds9 would be a perfect series if had handled the wormhole aliens better. I understand the bajorans are a primitive culture that worships these life forms but the show should give us some scientific explanation. Give me technobabble for all I care. Like later in the season when blood drops on paper and the words appear. Or what about the episode where dukat breaks open that statue and an alien enters him. Since the show didn't explain these scenes the show seems to be saying that there is magic in Star Trek now. Not just evolved aliens like Q. It seems the show is saying there are paranormal things going on too. I love ds9 but I can understand why people are mad that the writers did this. It's like ds9 is an alternate universe where Star Trek has gods and ghosts and spells and magic.

This is a pretty solid continuation of several major plot points. Like "Tears of the Prophets" this episode balances a LOT of stuff and still comes out well paced. The producers should get credit for that. Jammer's observation that this is more of a launching pad episode than a ratings-grabbing premier is correct.

My thoughts:

-The Damar and Weyoun bickering is particularly well done, especially centring on Damar's love of the bottle (which is arguably the lynchpin that resulted in the Dominion losing DS9 back in S6). It's simple, but a nice continuation of the uneasy alliance they have going. Weyoun's threat that “too much imagination can be dangerous” is yet another line that characterizes Weyoun as an accommodating but wary diplomat. He's probably had more than his share of experiences getting involved in the political maneuverings of races who think they're smarter than the Dominion while simultaneously depending on them. The story of Cardassia is, frankly, one of DS9's crowning moments. They do have ONE line that makes me cringe, though – the “debt of gratitude” they owe to Dukat closing the wormhole and how it shifted the momentum of the war. Damar I can KIND of buy making such a leap. He DID seem to admire Dukat (though that admiration sometimes came off to me as pure sycophancy) but it seems so out of character for Weyoun to be this willing to buy into that notion of causality.

-Worf, O'Brien, Bashir all get some good moments. The scene in Worf's quarters is nice. It's odd, though, that Worf has nothing to say about Dukat considering the circumstances of Jadzia's death seem to be common knowledge. I imagine it was a difficult sell to the studio to have a main character actively plotting a murder (regardless of the victim being a villain), but... it seems more like a missed opportunity. I do like what's here but it's a shame it doesn't fill out its potential. Martok's inclusion fits in well, too, and I like that the episode spares us his obvious conversation with Bashir about Stovokor. Maybe it's just me, but it's the clever little omissions like this that make the series feel alive – like the characters exist and interact outside of the confines of the screen.

-I think Kira and the Romulans is actually a strong story. It's good to see Kira kick ass again and in a leadership position as well. I wouldn't have minded more episodes with Kira in charge of DS9. She's nearly always great.

-I enjoyed Sisko being back on Earth. It gives the show a lot of scope just by breaking out of the confines of the station. Brooks plays a lot of his scenes well. It's always just NICE to see him interact with Jake, laughing and teasing. One scene I particular like is when Joseph confesses his mistake about hiding Sarah from his son. Ben tells his dad that “yes, you made a mistake” and gets up from the table. The scene doesn't end there, while I feel like most programs would have left it at that. The scene continues with some exposition, but I like that the rift isn't just smoothed over. Obviously we don't need any prolonged drama over this (which, frankly, I wouldn't buy anyway since the Siskos are actually heartwarmingly close) but I like that it isn't smoothed over. Ben getting knifed by that Bajoran is actually a pretty shocking scene, although that tension kind of fizzles once he comes home completely healed because of futuristic medicine.

- I'm... not really big on the plot twist Joe drops, though. It's the kind of thing that people (rightly) dislike because it comes straight out of nowhere and doesn't need to, like the producers are suddenly decided to tell a new story when what we're already getting is more than good enough. There's more to be said, but most of it doesn't actually take place until the next episode.

-No more Vic please. He's an indulgent waste of time on the part of (from what I've read) Ira Steven Behr. I'm not usually one who re-writes a scene to his own taste, but there's no reason we had to sit through a Vic song so Worf could have an outburst. He could have done that sitting in Quark's among people playing tongo and coming in and out of King Arthur holoprograms – you know, things we've actually seen Jadzia enjoy. If the song was a definable thing that we'd associate with Jadzia, it might work. But it isn't. The whole thing just strikes me as a contrived situation when something so much simpler and relatable would have worked just as well if not better.

That said, this episode still balances FOUR separate plot threads and treats them all with the beats they deserve. I'm not down with the implications of the major Sisko plot twist yet, but this is still a surprisingly well executed stepping-stone episode. 3 stars.

Am I the only one who found Sisko's stabbing to be excessive? It would have been more effective for the Bajoran guy to have simply stayed with ominous threats. The stabbing added nothing to the story, and in the next scene it's as though it never happened (or that stabbings are routine in 24th century New Orleans). The stabbing scene was also weird. Sisko's on this quest to reconnect to the Prophets. A Bajoran guy shows up, and Sisko's body language indicates that he couldn't care less. Or is Earth filled with Bajorans?

I agree with Yanks that Kira's reaction to Cretak and the Romulans was a bit over the top. Isn't the main priority at this point defeating the Dominion, rather than internal fighting? And Bajoran security, as everyone knows, doesn't count for much.

I may be in the minority here, but I've never found the Bajoran storylines or their race in general to be particularly compelling. As for their Prophets, there's just so much inconsistency there that it brings down their credibility even more. This may have been discussed somewhere else, but I just can't buy that the Prophets would stand by and allow Bajor to be subjected to brutal colonisation for 50 years without doing nothing, yet send along Sisko as an Emissary for the Dominion War. In fact, if they were capable of wiping out 2800 Dominion ships, then why didn't they do that every time the Dominion sent reinforcements? Why let the Dominion through to the Alpha Quadrant in the first place? At this point, a more credible explanation is that the Prophets are just an illusion perpetrated by Q, who's once again trying to test the Federation.

As $G pointed out, the Cardassian arc is frankly the best thing about DS9, and that was one thing they got completely and utterly right. I don't think I would have wanted to continue watching if not for them, and they get better with every viewing. As Admiral Ross said, thank God for the Cardassians. Oh, and Martok and Weyoun of course. In fact, thank god for most of the recurring cast, whom I ended up liking much more than the main cast.

Went slightly off topic there, but I'll finish by sharing my favourite scene in this episode:

BASHIR: Miles, I don't know what to say. I'm touched.
QUARK: You're both touched.

Armin Shimerman's delivery cracked me up. The man's a born comedian.

Vic Fontaine is the shark DS9 jumped over. And Sisko's dad continues to try to upstage him in the bad-acting-department. "She's nobody at all!" Most daytime soap operas are better than that drivel.

^^ If it weren't for "It's Only a Paper Moon' I'd agree with you ,Stark. ^^

Low key and not entirely engrossing season opener for me. Mostly feels like set-up, and the whole Sarah story seems like it's coming a little from left field at the moment. So the Prophets always had a plan for Sisko? Hmmmm, OK...

The Cretak storyline actually looked it was introducing a nuanced and interesting character, but no, devious Romulans again. The Worf story I have some sympathy with others that it just doesn't sit right - listening to Vic Fontaine sing Jadzia's favourite song? Nah. And the adding of Vic to everything is starting to get a little wearing now.

Ezri? Good entrance. But only 2 stars overall.

@Diamond Dave

I think lounge culture was bigger back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, so the writers probably had some nostalgia to their glory days when writing Vic into every scene.

I like Vic, but by season 7 I start to wonder why they couldn't have more scenes back at Quark's and less in holosuites. (Isn't Quark letting Vic run him out of business?).

An appreciably quiet opener with some good moments, but a little too low-key. We must wait, of course, for part 2 to see how these play out, so for now, in ascending order of rank:

Worf (and Julian, Miles, Quark, Vic, Martok, Jadzia [deceased]): Worf and Miles reminiscing about the Enterprise always works for me (particularly because they did not go to that well too often), and Barclay is a great conversation topic -- though it makes me wonder how much everyone knew about Barclay's secret holoprograms that Miles and Worf are both aware of Geordi musketeering. Maybe Geordi encouraged Barclay to show the part of the program that made fun of Geordi himself as a way of opening him up. Anyway, the attempt to get Worf to talk is reasonable. That Worf is sad because Jadzia is not in Sto-Vo-Kor is fairly interesting, and here would be an opportunity to think through the implications of the multidenominational spirituality that the main characters will have to navigate -- I mean, Jadzia's a Trill married to a Klingon who died praying to the Bajoran gods/wormhole aliens, right? But, okay, Worf says she's a Klingon and Julian says that is what she'd want, so we go for that. Additional annoying points: That in the weeks past "His Way" Jadzia developed a "favourite song" that was *so important* that it becomes the locus of Worf's manic rage is pretty hard to believe. And maybe Keiko should be annoyed that we learn in this episode that if Julian jumped off a bridge, Miles really would too. Anyway, following up on Jadzia's death and attempting to allow the character to be mourned in-series is a wise choice, even if I'm not sure right now about this particular story.

Kira (and Odo, Ross, Cretak): The most valuable thing about this plotline to me is actually seeing Kira pretty comfortably in command of the station. There are quite a few episodes that make me doubt whether Kira really is ready for full-on command ("Wrongs..." being the most recent example), but in this episode it seems like she has mostly stepped up in Sisko's absence, and the promotion makes sense given the increase in her responsibilities. (SPOILER This is also pretty important for the finale -- having had some time to establish that Kira can do this job makes that part of the ending feel right to me.) There is a kind of easy chemistry between Kira and Odo which shows progress from the shmoopiness of their first few episodes (and the creepiness of the period leading up to it). And the developing bond between Kira and Cretak is well handled. The build-up to the realization that the Romulans have set up weapons is well done -- nice exchanges in the interest of friendship -- and actually, for this episode at least, I'm not convinced that Cretak is being written as a villain, so much as someone who despite her condemnation of her people's arrogance, fundamentally shares Romulan excessive caution and need for control and secrecy. Unlike the escalation in something like "Shakaar," it also makes sense to me that Kira would violently oppose Romulan military stronghold in Bajoran space (and that the series would support her) -- Bajoran history basically demands being *extremely* cautious about who sets up military installations, even if the Romulans hadn't compounded it with secrecy. I think my favourite of the main stories, for this episode anyway. That said, given the ostensible importance of the Prophets stuff, it is a missed opportunity to use Kira as a way of exploring what the large-scale effect on Bajor is of the Orbs going dark -- and, yes, this was briefly addressed in the teaser, but it seems like this is the best time for some sort of Bajor political story, if ever there is one.

Sisko (and Jake, Joseph and Ezri): Hey, so apparently Sisko not only got indefinite leave, but he got to keep the Runabout the whole time. This is one time where Jake really impresses me -- Jake going with his father after Ben loses himself when he did stay on the station during dangerous time is touching, though it also smacks of laziness on the writers' part not to give any indication of how Jake is passing his time besides restauranting (is journalism on hold?). Anyway, a lot of DS9 feels a little proto-BSG, and this story seems to me to be most connected to (SPOILERS) Kara's late s4 material, in particular "Someone to Watch Over Me," with our somewhat distracted, addled destinied hero playing piano and trying to connect to...someone of spiritual significance (and an opposite-gendered parent, or are they?). And I am of two minds about this -- Sisko seems frankly to be a little around the bend at this point, underlined quite dramatically when the Siskos are packed and about to go out the door when Ezri shows up and in the couple of seconds it takes Joseph to talk to her through the door Sisko wanders over and starts playing piano, with a kind of disordered, mercurial attitude that is coming to define him more and more. Further, the set-up for the Sarah Sisko story relies on Jake happening to discover that photograph which had been kept from Ben for his whole life just as Sisko gets his vision, etc., and besides is *not* a story I'm happy about in the long run. The idea that people ditched the Prophets and started rooting for the Pah-Wraiths seems bizarre and hard to process, and the incident of the guy stabbing Sisko is a weird go-nowhere cliffhanger act break. On the other hand, there is something infectious about the Siskos preparing to embark on a great journey, about old family secrets finally getting let out and three generations (and a family friend who is in her own way nine generations in one!) going out to the desert to find spiritual answers. I guess we'll see how "Shadows and Symbols" pays this off.

Weyoun and Damar: Oh right! They are even higher rank than Sisko! So apparently the Orbs going dark have...changed the momentum of the war so that now the Dominion is winning, in a way that is only possible to attribute to Dukat's interference. Really guys? (I guess it's better than an alternative, which is that everyone universally attributes the change in the tide of the war purely to Sisko's absence.) We see that Damar has, as Weyoun puts it, a vivid imagination and a certain flair for the epic, given by his description of the Prophet/Pah-Wraith drama, which (especially taken with Weyoun's bureaucratic attitude that any and all imagination is dangerous) provides a nice bit of set-up for Damar's role in the coming story. And so maybe I could see Damar attributing the change in momentum of the war at least privately to, uh, magic, but Weyoun? And most of all, I think we are meant to somehow believe that the, what, lack of good vibes from the wormhole is not only devastating Bajor but actually the whole of the Alpha Quadrant and making the Dominion win because, like the Pah-Wraiths, they are also evil, I guess? I can get behind a certain amount of abstraction in some works, that the moods of the Gods affect the moods of the people proper, or whatever, but this is Star Trek; I don't see how they can just throw out "the wormhole is closed and therefore, uh, Dominion victory because...!" without some further explanation, even a weirdo SF explanation. It's also the kind of line that makes it hard when the series ultimately separates these two plotlines so strongly at the end.

Anyway, it's a mishmash of pieces which mostly only sort of work. 2.5 stars.

Ezri watch part 1: We know basically nothing about her at this stage. However, my girlfriend (who hasn't seen the show) immediately pointed out that it's annoying to immediately bring on a new Dax who is so superficially similar to the previous one -- Nicole de Boer is also a white brunette female, with similar lipstick etc. (I defer to her observations kills on this point). She's also a Starfleet blueshirt. A lot of the Trill concept is that one *can* explore how much people are basically the same/different hen the body changes but part of the inner self remains constant, so why not take this opportunity to go further, and have a Dax who is totally different from Jadzia?

That said, I can see the limitations here -- for one thing, the cast is almost entirely male, so if a new Dax character is to be introduced (and made a regular), I guess it makes sense for her to be female. And besides Winn, who might be hard to integrate as a regular, Keiko -- I think Rosalind Chao is pretty busy -- there aren't really any recurring female players who could reasonably be promoted to regular. Making Ezri be more physically different from Jadzia still would have been possible (yes, she's shorter, so that's something), though. And I could see making her non-Starfleet. Ultimately as it turns out her blueshirt occupation is sufficiently different from Jadzia's that I will let that slide.

@William B

You can almost tell that Terry Farrell's departure was not amicable with the staff. Like you mentioned in your previous review, her death was fairly unceremonious. And now we have almost the same character which flags that the writers already wrote shows that demanded someone similar to Farrell's Dax.

It would've been nice to see someone dramatically different like Kes being replaced by Seven of Nine, but for the reasons I've mentioned along with it being DS9's final season, Berman probably decided it wasn't worth it.

@Chrome, I agree. It is as if there is a desire not to go too far off-format. Ironically, Ezri ends up getting more material this season than Jadzia did in any previous individual season (though obviously significantly less total).

I think it took me writing out about Jadzia's desire for a baby for me to pinpoint what bothered me in "Tears" about her death, and I think I still didn't quite get to it until today. But hey, Jadzia is a brilliant scientist who is interested in anomalies, someone who is interested in multiple cultures, a tongo champion, a partier, a command officer who led the Defiant into battle and who was certainly the ranking officer on the station. The series sometimes failed to integrate all these elements into a coherent character and pushed too hard on the Jadzia Is Awesome! train, but it is annoying that "Tears" has none of these Jadzias; she is a mommy-to-be and that's mostly it. She does thank Julian for being a good friend and we get a bit of her love-of-diversity in her going to the Bajoran shrine, but that's pretty little. She doesn't really get to do anything cool in "Tears" that reminds us of essential qualities of what she was like. At least "Skin of Evil" took time out for Yar's recording, and of course ST2 had several scenes of, well, Spock being Spock. It doesn't bother me that Jadzia isn't given a heroic death, though they probably could have done that, and even it being a pointless death could be handled well, but they also failed to do right by her character by underlining something of her essence and giving a proper send-off. Sigh. That Terry Farrell pushed for them to kill her off in "Change of Heart" does make some sense -- and actually, among other things, while focused on Worf/Dax that episode did showcase more dynamic aspects of Jadzia's personality, and I found that episode's "It's been a great couple of months" to be far more moving (and with an almost ironic edge, far more...Jadzia) than "Our baby...would have been so beautiful."

I know you wrote this decades ago, but this line "Avery Brooks' restrained performance." made me crack up. I have never watched DS9 and I am watching it for the first time. The one thing that is so obvious is Avery Brooks chewing on the scenery most of the time. I am enjoying the show but it was called a sci fi soap for good reason. Mr. Brooks treated his performance like he was doing Shakespeare.

@Mike

I am rewatching it on Netflix this fall and got to this episode tonight. Yeah, Brooks really chews it up at times..... he was very restrained in this episode... I remember first time watching it wondering why he was so subdued at the news of his mother;i figured he would go into a passionate rant on his dad and chew the restaurant down.

All I noticed from this episode is Kira's new hairdo.

Why can Sisko just leave Star Fleet in the middle of the war? Why can he come back whenever he wants to?

Has he never seen his birth certificate?

For a man who had been so deeply in love and so very heartbroken, Sisko's father must have gotten over it pretty quickly to have found someone else to marry soon enough that Sisko would not remember a time without her.

I don't understand Kira's chain of command. Why would she report to Star Fleet, or take orders from it? Now that she's in charge of the station, does that mean that the station has been returned to Bajoran control?

Why would Jadzia's favorite song be lounge music from the 1950's? She's a trill. The alien culture she identifies with is Klingon.

3 stars

It wasn't as great as I was expecting but it did a fair enough Job getting the ball rolling on the final season of DS9 which I consider to be its best, it's most consistently good, Trek's best final season and the best final season in tv history. Most shows like The X-Files, Lost, TNG come off the rails. DS9 on the otherhand was firing on all cylinders and effectively using everything set up in the previous six years. It was the one trek series that felt it had more story to tell

As for this episode I'd rate the three plots:

The best and most interesting was Sisko's discovery of Sarah and his investigation. I also liked the idea that there would be Bajorans who felt anger at the Prophets for doing nothing during the Cardassian occupation while they suffered. So a cult of path wraith was actually for me a long time coming into the mix

The Kira/Romulan plot was neutral. Nothing spectacular but nothing bad. One of those plots that is set-up but unlike traditional set-up you can't really pass judgment on til you see it in a larger context. I did however like the idea of a Romulan contingent on DS9. Afterall the Klingins got one last season. Nothing important but nice Kira got a promotion and I think this hairdo is my favorite Nana sported on the series

The weakest and least interesting plot by far was the Worf one. It simply didn't resonate the way such a story should have and that's due to the fact I never really could invest in Worf/Dax or even Jadzia as a character. As this season would demonstrate the recurring characters were more interesting than most of the main cast. That's probably why this subplot did so little for me--it featured the less interesting characters Worf, miles bashir and to some extent Quark going on yet another Klingon honor quest

It was interesting seeing a very cordial and compliant Romulan - makes me wonder if she's secretly plotting something or if that's really what's she's like (seemed like Kira was wondering the same thing) - maybe the writers are just trying to add some depth to them by not making all members of species act the same.

It's not that I dislike Vic Fontaine, it's just that the show's creators clearly like him a whole lot more than the rest of us do.

{ I also question the wisdom of "Starfleet officers go on rogue mission to help get Jadzia into Stovokor," arising here when O'Brien and Bashir decide to go with Worf and Martok on an honorable suicide battle mission in the name of Jadzia, a gesture that would assure her a spot in Stovokor. The sentiment is nice, but would Starfleet really permit officers to abandon their assigned posts so arbitrarily? }

I just don't like how the this episode and the last one beat us over the head with this "Quark and Bashir are madly in love with Jadzia and they can't get over it" crap. Yes, Bashir had a thing for her for a long time and cared about her, but he hasn't been like this about it in several seasons. And Quark never showed anything beyond his general anything-with-boobs-is-fair-game sleaziness, but now he suddenly always had a deep affection? Not buying it at all.

{ I particularly enjoyed Avery Brooks' restrained performance. It was subtle and much less prone to histrionics—which I think is a good thing. While I generally like Brooks' performances anyway, he does have a tendency to break out into Stage Actor Mode [TM] when his character gets worked up }_

YES. I loved when he got pissed at his Dad and just got in his face and actually *yelled* rather than just raising his voice while tal king in a real ly forced sta ca to cad ence.

A lot of separate storylines going on here -- these in-between or follow-up episodes after an epic like "Tears of the Prophets" can be a bit scattered. But it does set the stage for a great season and I liked the fact that it didn't go for all-out wild action to kick off the season.

The Worf mourning for Jadzia seemed more like just Klingon moodiness, rage -- ho hum. But it gives Worf purpose when he signs on with Martok -- that's a good development for future episodes. But this was probably the weakest part of the episode. O'Brien and Bashir pitching in to get Jadzia to Stovokor is a bit hard to believe. So what about their DS9 duties and no checking with Kira on this?

Kira and the new Romulan head on DS9 was more intriguing because of the Romulans' seemingly constant subterfuge and Kira's suspicion. Good to have Romulans getting involved on the station -- again more promise for future episodes. Finally at the end Kira confronts the Romulan which was well done (I would not want her mad at me). It was as if Kira had to hold this back for a whole episode. "Romulans, they're so predictably treacherous." -- Weyoun's great line to Damar.

As for Sisko back on Earth and the revelation about his real mom leading to the Orb of the Emissary revelation, the knife attack etc. -- this was another change of pace altogether. Sisko did his huffing and puffing acting when he confronted his dad over not telling him, but the elder Sisko's acting explaining the whole thing was good. Ben Sisko had some contemplative moments too, which conveyed his predicament. As for a new, younger, smaller Dax showing up -- of course somebody had to fill in for Farrell, but I wasn't thrilled about seeing the little Dax pop up at this point. But ultimately, I guess another small story arc will be Sisko's quest for the orb -- perhaps Indiana Jones style.

2.5 stars for "Image in the Sand" -- hard to get too excited about this episode, it's more about what has come before and what comes after. Definitely a ton of stuff going on all independently. That is lot of juggling that this episode has to do -- it does a reasonable job.

Watching (more like binging) the series for the first time. Getting really sick of Vic!

A little note on Kira's new hairstyle. I've seen various comments on the Interwebs about this insignificant change, but while watching "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night" from the sixth season, it dawned on me that perhaps the production staff or Nana Visitor chose this new, unique look (with Kira's longer hair covering only the left side of her face) as an homage to Kira's mother. As you may recall, Meru used her hair to conceal a scar on her face. Kira's feelings about her mother became quite complicated after her orb experience, but it's possible she decided to honor her in some small way. Or it could just be a coincidence. Any thoughts?

It wouldn't be mentioned so much is it was "insignificant"

While I understand what your saying about why they may have done it, I personally didn't like it at all.

Wow, interesting theory, Walrus! I hate the hairstyle but like the concept.

The edgy comments about how it’s preposterous how demonstrable gods can do things that gods do from the likes of Sean and others is pretty disgusting, as is the notion that a culture with religion is primitive. Taking us out of the show for a moment, filthy-white-man-Sean must think himself more superior than most humans, because most humans have religion. Sean, on what basis do you decide that cultures are primitive? Because they don’t conform to your white, western, wealthy (and yes you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have internet access) urban/suburban notions of civilization? Newsflash white boy, you represent about 5% of humanity and that number is shrinking. White westerners are not the standard for humanity, most people live in Asia and Africa, their cultures are the standard.

This franchise is implicitly bigoted by equating white western urban culture with human culture but at least they made a tiny tiny tiny bit of progress away from the anti religion (that is white supremacist, because it is only in white countries where that is a culturally acceptable stance) and that makes white boys cry.

^Great parody of a hilarious overreaction!

Watching and commenting:

--Kira is now a Colonel. Her outfit really isn't much different than Seven's. Her curves aren't quite as eye popping, but her outfit is skin tight. I think it's gotten tighter every Season.

--I'm just going to watch and comment later.

Kira’s new outfit is awful - not enough for a Major to wear heels, stick all your Colonels in corsets! No wonder they couldn’t repel Cardassia - but her new hair is great in a 90s way.

I loved Jadzia so I’m not excited about mini Jadzia at all. I understand that she’s a counsellor not a science officer but could they not have had her in red or yellow, even for a stupid reason? It’s too much for her to be in blue like her predecessor. That’s aside from her appearing to be Jadzia’s little sister or daughter facially.

I really liked the dynamic between the Romulan woman and Kira. I hope she’s coming back and that they can fix their working relationship but I’m not holding my breath.

This two parter was garbage and this episode simply awful. I usually like Siskos Acting but he was dreadful in these two episodes.

DS9 also really strains credibility with their world building. So wait... Siskos dad just loves running a restaurant? I guess for no money. And he loves peeling potatoes? What? Im not following. I guess DS9 makes explicit that “real” food is better than Replicated food but..... I thought the whole point was that we don’t need to grow food in a post scarcity society. How many farmers are needed in this future? Are there factory farms? Or all small homegrown farms?


What was the point of the violent commercial cliffhanger of Sisko getting stabbed if they heal him in like two second after it happened?

I guess Sisko is both an awful son and father, dragging around his elderly dad in the desert?

Just wierd all around. Im glad the series has improved since this ep.

@BRIAN
"DS9 also really strains credibility with their world building. So wait... Siskos dad just loves running a restaurant? I guess for no money. And he loves peeling potatoes? What? I'm not following."
Yeah, there are people who do things and money is only a byproduct. Cooking for people, creating something unique that makes people happy is a very respectable profession.

"I guess DS9 makes explicit that “real” food is better than Replicated food but..... I thought the whole point was that we don’t need to grow food in a post scarcity society."
It is post scarcity because of replicators but given the choice quite a few would probably enjoy a meal made out of real vegetables and so forth. It is certainly not forbidden to grow food.

"I guess Sisko is both an awful son and father, dragging around his elderly dad in the desert?"
I thought the Ben's father wanted to come.

I don’t recall DS9 ever saying homegrown food actually tastes better as a matter of fact - rather, it’s an opinion. It could be that the labor put into growing, picking, and preparing your own food has a psychological value that feels good regardless of the actual flavor.

I'm sure the food tastes differently regardless. Even food grown on different farms can taste different, and I'm sure the few varieties programmed into the replicator are quite different from what you'd grow in your back yard, depending on soil, etc etc.

That said I find it amazing that the amount of complaints DS9 in particular gets that comes from all sides. Some people don't like the pretense of being beyond economics and claim that the Federation as stated is a bunch of nonsense; therefore the criticisms of the Ferengi green are ill-founded. Others argue that DS9 puts way too much emphasis on Jake getting a job, and here on the Sisko restaurant being some kind of throwback to capitalism. No matter what Trek does it will either be too fantastical or not fantastical enough, so it's hard to win under those conditions.

Peter G.
Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 10:11am (UTC -5)

"That said I find it amazing that the amount of complaints DS9 in particular gets that comes from all sides. Some people don't like the pretense of being beyond economics and claim that the Federation as stated is a bunch of nonsense; therefore the criticisms of the Ferengi green are ill-founded. Others argue that DS9 puts way too much emphasis on Jake getting a job, and here on the Sisko restaurant being some kind of throwback to capitalism. No matter what Trek does it will either be too fantastical or not fantastical enough, so it's hard to win under those conditions."

DS9 gets no more of less than any other Trek series. ... and for the record I don't ever remember seeing any form of payment in Sisko's restaurant.

I am no expert in military law but I doubt servicemembers are the "property" of the military.

@ Jason R,,

I think you replied in the wrong thread...

As season starters go, this is a bit of an odd one, as it doesn’t really resolve any of the plot threads from the previous season’s finale. Instead, it’s more of a middle-act, designed to set things up for the next episode.


First, we get a bunch of mumbo-jumbo chanting devil worshippers... also known as the cult of Pah Wraith. Less said about this plot thread the better - even the writers didn’t really know what to do with it, other than to send Mr Stabby off to have a poke at Sisko in a highly conveniently timed attack on Earth.

(I suppose you can argue the cult ties into the later stories involving Dukat, but they’re arguably used as little more than window dressing…)

Sisko meanwhile spends his time getting yet more mumbo-jumbo visions, this time of a vision of a woman’s face in sand. Which is somehow enough for him to identify the planet where the vision came from, despite the fact that as Doctor Who has demonstrated over the decades, one bleak quarry or beach looks pretty much the same as any other bleak quarry or beach, regardless of which planet it’s meant to represent. And then it turns out the woman in his visions is his mother, which he knew nothing about as his father lied to him - all the way up to marrying another woman who was willing to also keep this great secret!

As with the revelations about Kira’s mother, it’s not quite a Dallas dream-sequence, but it feels a bit late in the show’s lifespan to be revealing twists of this nature, especially when there’s been little or no buildup to it.

(Equally, and without spoilering future episodes, the fact that Sisko’s real mother was conveniently killed in a hovercraft accident before Joseph could find her is distinctly disturbing. After all, this was highly convenient for the Prophets, as it reduced the risk of Sisko discovering the truth about his origins. Could it be that Prophets are really just as nasty as the Pah Wraiths?)

Be that as it may, Sisko discovers that his real mother had a connection to the prophets, giving him a clue to a previously unknown Orb. Naturally, this is when the aforementioned Mr Stabby turns up, in one of those highly contriv… I mean convenient bits of timing which happen so often in Star Trek. Quite how Mr Stabby arrived at the right place at the right time - and to have knowledge of something no-one else on Bajor has ever heard of - is glossed over quickly than Ferengi graffiti on a Star Fleet base.

Worf spends pretty much the entire episode brooding, all the way up to - pardon me while I fast-forward through the crooning - repeatedly trashing Vic Fontaine’s cabaret club. Because it turns out that if someone doesn’t die in combat, they can’t go to Klingon Valhalla unless their loved ones go out and massacre hundreds of other people in battle. Once more, you really have to wonder how the Klingons didn’t wipe themselves out several thousand years earlier, never mind developing an advanced scientific society and then going into space to inflict their stupidly lethal rituals on the rest of the quadrant. Thankfully, here’s Martok with a neat little suggestion on a forlorn hope which will allow them to massacre a large bunch of enemies. And look, Bashir and O’Brien want to come along and join the fun, even if the odds of survival are minimal.

And then there’s trouble in’t’pit, in the shape of the Romulans sneaking a few gazillion weapons onto their hospital base. Their rationale for this is plausible, but then, so is Kira's response - after all, the Romulans have a tendency to annex any rock larger than a baseball in the name of the Empire.

And so, the pieces are prepared for the final act in this particular arc.

No, wait. What’s that knock on the door? Could it be…?

Wow... acting abysmal.

Vic... WTF... obviously Quark's was removed due to budget but couldn't they do better than this fanny?

This show disintegrated entirely... "I NEED TO KNOW WHO SHEEE ISSSSSS!" HAHAHHAHAA

Computer begin recording, personal log, Miles Edward O'Brien, to Keiko, Molly and... the new one. As you know - or don't know actually - before I go into a life threatening battle I always record a message to you. And tomorrow I will be departing on a special and dangerous mission. You see, Jadzia died. We all knew she had to go, but it was a really dumb death. And Julian loved Dax. And I love Julian... and Garak loves Julian... I think.

Anyway, we have to help Jadzia get into to Stovokor. Actually I'm not the one helping her, Julian is, or actually Worf is, but Julian used to have the hots for her and wants to go for some reason. Quark thinks we're both touched.

It's probably good that you're not on the station. Captain Sisko left three months ago and the last I heard he's scrubbing clams. Not those kind of clams. Molly you didn't hear that. No he's in New Orleans, working in his father's restaurant and probably not coming back. And the station will be without a doctor, and it's Chief Engineer, and without me nothing works right. And I guess our tactical officer will be gone too.

[PAUSE]

Replicator, four drams of Highland Park. Make that six. Eight.

Still, Colonel Kira and Odo should have things under control, although they are a couple now finally - yes FINALLY - and one has to wonder about just how things are for them in the sack, with Odo being able to shapeshift like he does and... you know what, computer delete personal log.

IMO the Dominion arc becomes uninteresting from here on in.

Sisko becomes space-Jesus (complete with immaculate conception!), the wormhole aliens can now send messages across the entire galaxy (have we seen them do this before?), the orbs can now influence the fate of battles, and Bajoran religion becomes a strange amalgamation of Biblical tropes, in which devils are cast out of heaven, God "allows suffering" because of elaborate far-future plans, and an upcoming Judgement Day is on the horizon, when the forces of Good and Evil fulfill their destinies and clash.

The show veers too suddenly in too many new directions, most of which don't work. You also sense that Behr and his writers vastly misread how interesting their digressesions are. They really do believe sticking Sisko on Earth (and giving him a quasi-religious quest) is something artistically bold, portentous and transgressive. But this is what almost all 90s TV scifi was doing.

Can you get episodes with VF edited out ? How the heck do you bust up a hologram ? Aaaaaargh!

Ezri is bleh. Vic is blech.

The "Sisko is half prophet alien" plotline is tolerable because it kind of retroactively makes sense of a) his status as the Emissary, and b) the prophet-aliens' familiarity with him and their willingness to help him. He's one of them, after all. And, since the prophets are non-linear beings, maybe its some kind of causality loop - "Sarah" going back in time to conceive Sisko after having met him in the Celestial Temple.

I don't know. It doesn't bug me nearly as much as Vic Fontaine and all the oxygen that character will SUCK OUT OF THE ROOM over the final season.

Re: Kira's Showdown with Creetak...

The Bajorans are not members of the Federation. Not even sure if they're technically members of the Alpha Quadrant Alliance (Feds/Klingons/Romulans) at this point. Maybe the writers didn't even know or care. Last time anyone speaks of their status it was as a neutral power enjoying a nonaggression pact with the Dominion. Was that NA Pact dissolved? Maybe that's partly why the Bajorans are so unhappy with the Romulans installing weapons. A hospital is one thing, tactical emplacements by an enemy of the Dominion might be a treaty violation.

Also...once the Romulans get entrenched somewhere they never leave, and I think everybody in the setting knows that.

Starfleet sure likes to throw its weight around considering they're a GUEST of the Bajorans and technically operating in non-Federation territory. Bajor needs them, sure. But I think the writers/plot forgets that the Federation needs Bajor's cooperation as well.

The Dollar-Tree Mel Brooks is easily at once THE most boring and THE most annoying character. And for a show that has Keiko, Dodo, and Jake on it, that says tomes and volumes! This is my first viewing of D.S.9 and I wish I'd not have read the comments stating he's now going to be a permanent feature throughout the season because that alone is enough to make me just not want to see this thing through to the bitter end.

I see paw-paw Cisco is still the crotchety, ornery old sourpuss he was a few seasons back. What a joy to behold...and to watch...not. The whole New Orleans story was tedious. Don't care about Cisco or the Bajoux religious nonsense or the visions or the "prophets" or the orbs or any of that crap. I sure hope TheRealTrent (three comments up) overstated the prominence of these elements in Season 7 because otherwise this show is going to become totally unwatchable. This is supposed to be science goddamn fiction not fantasy fiction.

Also, Jake... What's his purpose? I mean generally, in life. Nice enough a young man, for sure, but what does he contribute to the show?

Re the Keera and Rommie senator relationship, I concur with Jammer and I hope something does become of it in the future episodes... - with the proviso that by "something" I do NOT mean their sitting down and talking about some repressed memories from their childhood for twenty frikken minutes!

Funniest line in quite a while: Quark saying he's worried Worf would tire of trashing the holographic bar and come down to trash his! And then, when reviewing the idiocy of the mission to get Jax into the Starblahblahwhatever: "Can't you just make a donation? Or bribe somebody!"😂😂😂 Man, I love that guy! Top quality!

Anyway, this was maybe a couple stars, as in two, for me. The Worf C-story was the most interesting (using the word loosely), which says it all. Sad.

P.S. The new Dax? Meh. Jadz was hotter so this one better be a firecracker if she wants to measure up.

You can count me as one of the viewers who wasn't a big Ezri fan. The only times she really shined was when her wisdom and poise came through. The ditzy, confused, histrionic displays of weakness really made her character grating in a way I couldn't empathize with. Even *if* the symbiont confused her, the symbiont should have also contained all of the knowledge of how past hosts adapted to joining. The constant identity crises being acted out about choosing the wrong food/beverage, being space sick, getting her own name wrong etc... it was novel and understandable in the first couple of episodes, but as they kept rehashing it throughout Season 7 I started to really hate that valuable screen time was taken up by such banality.

Honestly, the first 30 seconds that Ezri showed up when we were left gazing at the mystery of her were magical. Then she went into her story of joining and all the problems she was having and I thought, oh damn, this is not a good sign. Not just the dialogue itself but also how it was acted out.

Terry Ferrell made a huge mistake leaving DS9 for Becker. She got black-balled from that show as well. Makes you wonder what the heck was going on with her.

I didn't mind the idea of Ezri's introduction in the final minute. It could have been a nice surprise twist, especially with so much attention focused on getting Jadzia into Stovokor but nothing said about the fate of the Dax symbiont up until that moment. Alas, it was ruined in the opening credits: "Nicole deBoer as Ezri Dax." Pow!, you knew right then it was coming. Why, just for this one episode, couldn't they have created an opening title omitting deBoer and listing her as a guest star (without character name)? Did SAG rules or deBoer herself not allow it? (Or did the trailer give it away and this is all a moot point?)

@wanderer2575
Many such cases throughout Trek and I've never understood it either.