The Delta Flyers - By Inferno's Light

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, By Inferno’s Light, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Terry Farrell.By Inferno’s Light: The Klingons join the Federation’s fight against the Dominion as Gul Dukat reveals his self-serving allegiance.We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, & Shawn RobbinsOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, & Jeff Allen.And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jason Eberl, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Cade Solsbery, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Andrew Golden, Daniel Friend, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, & Luke PachaThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Progressive: https://progressive.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/TDFAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Flyers Journey Through the Wormhole with Quark Dax and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your hosts for today are my fellow Trek actors, Terry Farrell, aka Terfair, Robert Duncan McNeil, aka Romick, and myself, Garrett Wong, aka Gawa. For the complete and exciting version of this Pauca, check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. Oh, hello. Friend, friends. It's like baby talk. It's like we've gone to baby talk.

Paca. Yeah. Paca. Fongca. On this Pauca. And you're really more like a rom-com. Rom-com. Oh, rom-com McNeil.

Okay. I like that, too. Yeah. How's everybody doing? How's everyone doing? Pretty good. Yeah? I'm feeling great.

I just worked out. Good for you. I will be perfectly honest with you. Physically speaking, I am not doing well because I threw my back out. And everyone knows people that are like 40 and above understand what that means when you just, when you try to walk and you look like 150 years old. And you can barely. Is it your lower back? It's my lower back.

Yeah. Do some yoga. And 40 and below. I had back issues even when I was a kid. because I have scoliosis and if I did too much on my, you know, like scrubbing the floor. I did not know that you had scoliosis as a kid. So that's something you dealt with this. That's curvature of the spine, correct?

Isn't that what that is? But it's always there. It doesn't go away. Oh, you didn't have, you don't have surgery to correct that is what you're saying. No, it's there. It wasn't bad enough to have a brace. But I have injured myself and had a bulging disc. And at two times in my life, I could not walk.

scary. Wow. Really scary. And I didn't have surgery, but the only time it really got better, I was on Becker, and John Aston told me, he was guest starring, and he said, you need to go see my physical therapist. And so I did. And that's what made the difference. Wow.

Not going to a chiropractor, or massage, or just the heat, ice, but. going to a PT. Yeah. And Robbie mentioned it earlier. You just need to work out. You need to strengthen your core, basically, right? And take your time. Oh, yes.

Your core 100%. But right now, because you're in acute pain and swelling. Ice? Yeah, ice. And it's going to be hard. It's bad for you to sit too long too. If you went to PT, even a couple times just to get the exercises. Well, thank you so much.

Let's say a very, very, very happy birthday to Chris Knapp on March 24th. Happy birthday, Chris. Happy birthday, Chris. Happy birthday, Chris. Our Aries friend, Fire Sign. I'm a Sagittarius, so I'll get along with you, Chris. I'm not as thrilled with today's Limerick. What?

I've been like, you know, winning, winning. Today I'm, well, we'll see. Okay. You guys listen. You can tell me. But this one was not as easy as they've been the last four or five times. Got it. All right.

Okay. My Limerick. The Dominion arrival means they're probably dead as fleets from the gamma quadrant seemingly sped. With Cardassia aligned, alone on the station they're confined, feels like the Dominion War is what lays ahead. That's good. What's wrong with that? When we self-criticized before we read it, then the other two are going, okay, I'm I'm looking for the mind.

I know. I know. It's just a mental condition, right? We can't help it. I've been enjoying finding a character's experience and kind of expressing that. And this one I couldn't, there's so many, so much happening that I was like, well, I can't, there's no character that I felt connected to that way. So it was more about what it felt like to be, have the war coming to the station.

That's what I tried to. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a lot. It was a lot this episode. The first part I felt like the Garrick story, the father-son story to me, just I connected so well to that. Oh, yeah.

Well, here we go. It's a little odd. A plant needs carbon dioxide rain, sun, to survive. A humanoid, air, water, food, but most of all, a tribe. As we join our tribes, in solidarity, we feel strong. battling the dominion is imperative we are all calculating with our brawn yes is that weird you're gonna some brawn and some muscle like a stun mungfish right now garrett no i'll tell you what it is because i was like oh my god the beginning of that it sounded like you were the giving your presidential speech like

you were the president of the united states it was so like oh my god I'll vote for you, Terry Farrell. That's what I was so shocked by. I was like, I liked it a lot, actually. You did? Thank you. Yeah, very creative. Well, it's like battling the Dominion collaboration and unity.

And then I was like, why didn't I add we needed that? I was just trying to condense it. But then there's a point where you're like, okay, this is what I've got. No, but I love how it began. The planet needs, the planet needs this, this, this to survive. and then humans need this, this, this. I like that. It was so different.

And I had to change it to humanoids. Humanoids. Yeah, human rights. Right. That's right. We've got Kardashians. Yeah. Romulans.

We've got Bajorans. All humanoids. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Here's my haiku for By Inferno's Light. And here we go. Wharf takes a beating.

Garrick has an escape plan. Fake Bashir foiled. Nice. Yes. I like that. That's a good haiku. You like it? It really is.

Yeah. I'm glad. I'm so happy that you guys like it. All right. Let's go through some of the details here, written by Iris Stephen Bear and our good friend Robert Hewitt Wolf, directed by Uncle Les Landau. Oh. Yay. We love him.

I love him. Who doesn't love Les Landau? I don't dare you to, I dare someone to stand up and raise a hand. hand saying that they know someone that does not like Uncle Les Landau. Okay, guest stars. Andrew J. Robinson as Garrick. Mark Alimaux as Golda Kott. Melanie Smith as Torah Ziyal.

J.G. Herzla as Martak, Ray Buktenika as Deos. James Horan as Ikat-Ika. Is he the lead, like the captain? Gem Hadar. Thank you. Is he? He's the main dude. I don't want to say what he does to ruin the whole thing.

Right. Carrie Stalber as Romulan and Robert O'Reilly as Gal Ron. We do have some co-stars. We have Barry Wiggins as a Gem-Hadar officer, Don Fisher as a Gem-Hadar Guard, and Judy Durand as computer voice. All right, so let's do a little bit of trivia. Garrick's role and actions in this episode are similar to Charles Bronson's in the 1963 John Sturge's film The Great Escape. Both men were forced to work in a confined area. and both suffered from claustrophobia. It is also worth noting that Andrew J. Robinson himself suffers from mild claustrophobia. And on the day the crawl space scenes were shot, he was suffering from the flu. He says of these scenes, I didn't have to act. I was there. 100%. It's funny that he was suffering from the flu because I thought he sounded sick a little bit.

Wow. You clocked that? Yeah. Can't you clock the nasalness? A little bit of like, yeah. And I thought, I thought it reminded me back in those days how we would just work through. Like one thing that's been good, especially since the pandemic that I've noticed, is that if people are sick, we send them home. We don't want the whole show going down.

So if anybody's feeling symptomatic of anything where people are much more cautious and careful. But back in the 90s, we'd work through with a fever and, you know, Andy obviously did. We'd throw up in your trailer and come back out. Go get to work. Yep. The show must go on. Yes. And we were so proud of what we work through too.

It's almost like, yeah, do you know what I went through last week? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's not good. So I'm glad that that's changed a bit. Yeah, self-care. Yeah. And also, pragmatically, you really don't want other people to

The whole crew will go down if you start bringing everybody in sick. That's what happened. We talked about this before, but I gave, I had chicken pox and didn't know it. I had the beginnings of my symptoms of chicken pox that I got from my daughter. During voyage. And I gave it to like two or three crew members and it ruined their holiday. It was right before Christmas. And it ruined their entire Christmas.

You probably felt pretty poopy about that, didn't you? It felt horrible. Yeah. It's more dangerous to have that happen as an adult. Yes. Wow. Yeah. And I think people are more on top of it, too, in general.

general in gatherings. Like I have more friends that will cancel at the last minute because, oh, I'm not quite feeling right. Don't want to get everybody sick? Yeah. Yeah, I don't want you to get me sick either. Good. A little bit more trivia here.

Although both this episode and in Purgatory Shadow were extremely popular with viewers, the producers were a little disappointed with how the two-parter turned out. As Iris Stephen Bear explains, I'm not sure if this worked as well as it could have as a two-parter, it might have been better as a two-hour block or even as a 90-minute show. We didn't really gain anything by splitting them up. The second hour moves like a house on fire. Events are happening at such an accelerated pace. If we'd had the hour or 45-minute build-up immediately preceded, I'd have liked it better.

What do you think of that? It did feel like two different tonally, two different shows. And they didn't quite fit together well to me. Did less direct the first half? No. No. No. See, that's part.

Gabriel Beaumont. Yes. Why wouldn't they have the same director do both parts for? Because you can't prep and also, is that what it is? Like you have to have somebody. Yeah, you have to prep. Once you get into a pattern with production of, you know, one episode's prepping one hour and another shooting at the same time, once you get into that pattern, it's not just the director's

schedule, but it's all the departments, the art department, the prop department. They can't suddenly go to a different pattern of, prepping. You can't prep a two-hour. Unless it was written as a two-hour to begin with, then less could have directed the entire thing, right? If you prepped it as like a pilot. Oh, right. Yes. And you shot the whole thing. Yes. If you do it at the beginning or at the end, yes, you could do it. You could do it that way. Or an hour and a half, I guess it would be, right? Two 45-minute shows, yeah. Yeah. But that only works at the beginning if it's the pilot, right? Because right now, this is in the middle of the season.

So what happened is Gabriel Beaumont would have had a direct and prep for the next episode being the very first director of the first of the two players. Yeah, but see, that's what I need help understanding. Because if in the middle of the season you had a two hour, why wouldn't it be that Gabrielle or less would be prepping while we're shooting the uniform, prepping for the two hour and a half show? Or an hour and a half show. Oh, if this one episode was longer.

Yes, if they made this how Ira spoke. You'd have to look at like how many days each department has needs and has for prep and make sure that it would fit that. But you could maybe do it. Yeah. But it messes everything up. If, you know, the normal schedule is a week and a half prep, a week and a half shoot. Basically, everybody's in that cycle, you know, the, all of it. And so once you change that cycle in the middle of the.

season, it's hard to kind of go back. It's like a factory. You know, once the assembly line starts rolling, once it's moving, you can't just stop it and then like stop it and start it up again. But you wouldn't have to stop it. It would just be longer. It would just be like a 10 days shoot or a two week shoot. And then while we were shooting that, they could be prepping for the next one. It might work. Yeah, but I understand now what you're saying because everybody that's working on it, you know it's too long to be able to even leave the set. Yeah. Suddenly you've got a different number of days, a different pattern and suddenly, you know, budgets and rentals and everything gets kind of thrown off. Yeah. Well, let's dive into this,

this episode. There is a recap. I won't go through the recap because we just did a podcast about it. If you need a recap, go listen to our previous podcast. Yes. We'll tell you all about that episode. Exactly. Basically, we know that that the diminution. They seem to be headed our way, and Wharf and Garrick are prisoners on an asteroid, basically. That's all you need to know. So we come back into part two. We're on the bridge, very active camera in this scene, like shots moving, very different than Gabriel Beaumont's last episode that she directed, where she was much more traditional and sort of elegant and a lot of, you know, sitting and talking close-ups.

Smooth moves. Yes, this is very active. So, and Les is great with the camera. He moves the camera all the time. So Kira's in the captain's chair. This is the bridge of the defiant, by the way. Kira is in the captain's chair. Dax is piloting the defiant.

And they release the docking clamps. They take the defiant out. And we learn that Duccott is going to be joining them in his bird of prey ship. So Ducotte's, at this point, on our side, they're waiting for orders from Cisco to fire on these Dominion ships that just came through the wormhole at the end of the previous episode. Those aren't good odds, though, Robbie, right? That's Descartes, bird of prey, two runabouts, and the Defiant.

That's four vessels. There were hundreds of ships. Hundreds. Yeah. It was insane. I will say, too. I just want to add. Yeah.

Loved the combination of Kira and Dax working together on the Defiress. working together on The Defiant. I did too. I did too. I think that should have been the spin-off. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I liked it.

I did too. It was fun to see. You guys were good. Thank you. We'll get to the scene where you basically save everybody later on. But anyway, they're on the Defiant. They're waiting for orders to fire.

We cut to ops. Miles says they're not responding to Hales. They're, you know, calling these dominion ships, but nobody's responding. Suddenly, the Gem Hadar changed course. And they check, they're going. They're headed off to Cardassia. Miles says straight for Cardassia. So we cut back to the Defiant Bridge. On screen, Dukot said, says he's made an alliance actually with the dominion.

He's not going to help them out. Yeah. And Cardassia is becoming part of the dominion. And Kira tries to fire him, but he's hit warp. He's out of there. Well, they think he's going to be a hero first because he starts following all the Geminiath ships. So everyone's like, he's going to attack them and everyone thinks this is a suicide mission. And that's when he says like, nope, I'm just joining them. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, what? Did you expect that, Robbie? No, but I will say in this episode, Ducaut is getting back to old Ducaut. And I'm kind of happy about it. Yes. Me too. We need our good bad guy. Yeah. He's better as kind of just a bad guy. Like, we were getting to know him and we were getting to understand him. But I don't really.

think I care about that. I want him to be a bad guy. May I read this little excerpt for you? Oh, please do, because it's probably the thing that's in my head, too. This episode ends the process of depicting the character of Goldaqat in a more sympathetic light, a process which began in the episode The Maquis Part 2 and was carried on in episodes such as civil defense, defiant, the way of the warrior, indiscretion, return to grace, apocalypse rising. Ever since Machi Part 2, Descott's role as a clear cut villain had been rendered more and more ambiguous, especially in the aforementioned three episodes from the fourth season.

Whereas the character had initially been introduced as a typical bad guy, it seemed that the writers were on course to completely turn him around and eventually have him as a protagonist. However, according to both Iris Stephen Bear and Robert Hewitt-Wolf, they had always intended Duccott's change of heart to be temporary. And they always knew, even when writing episodes like Defiant, that somewhere down the road, he would show everybody just how truly evil he really was. As Bear explains, they never had any intention of turning Ducat into a good guy. Quote, Ducat is a self-deluded, opportunistic, egomaniacal sadist.

In other words, he is the Richard Nixon of Deep Space Nine. He will do whatever it takes to come out on top. Some people thought Richard Nixon was a good guy. I'm just saying. Maybe some people think DuCott's a good guy. There you go. Flip side of the coin. Flip side of that coin.

Okay. They can think bad guys can do nice things. But it's usually because it benefits them. Exactly. Or how people perceive them. I thought you were going to say DuCott says to Kira at the very end, goodbye major. You and I are on the same side.

You and I on the same side. It never seemed quite. right did it. Oh, that line. It was like, yes, thank you. Ducaut even says it. It didn't. Yes. All right.

Well, we've got some opening credits after Duquette takes off. And then we come back to the barracks, which are in the gamma quadrant on an asteroid, on this little bubble that they can't escape from. In the barracks, we see the Romulan woman again, who we met last time, keeping watch at the barrack door. She's looking out this little window. That's her job. this whole episode, really. She just stands by the door. She's the lookout.

It's a very important job, though, Robbie. You always need to look out. You need a lookout. But what I'm confused about is, where did that Romulan dude come from? Like, in the beginning, you just see her with the boys. And all of a sudden, later at the end, there's a Romulan guy.

Oh, really? Maybe he was outside. I didn't really pay attention to any of the extra characters. I was so focused on our guys. Okay, because at the end, that's the first person to get... Oh, I thought that was her. No. She gets beamed up.

Oh, that's right. That's why he's weird. It's like, what? Where did he come from? Yeah, it just showed up. Maybe he was also in the wall, another part of the wall. I have a question. Yeah.

So she's standing. He was in the wall. Well, if she doesn't get killed in the end, if it's a guy, then my joke won't make sense. But I was like, is the Romulan guy wearing a red shirt when he gets? Yes. He had a little red piece of underwear. where poking out.

Yeah, a little red. I'm sure he had red in somewhere. Yes, that means red is dead. So, okay. All right. Well, the Romulan woman is the lookout at the door. Worf asks where the transmitter Tane used is. And we learn it's in this hole in the wall.

You've got to slide your way inside. It's very tight in there. Bashir grabs this metal piece and Jimmy's open a panel and says they have to crawl inside to go very deep. And Worf says he wants to reprogram it to use it as a transporter to go back to the runabout. And I'm thinking this whole time, they just left the

runabout, like the GemHadar just left it floating. Yeah, apparently. Seems sloppy to me. Little. Right? Little. Yes.

It seems a little sloppy. It does. All right. Well, I guess the runabout is floating nearby with nobody on it. I guess there's no room for it on the asteroid, though. There you go.

I'm guessing on the other side of the asteroid must be one of their ships. You know what? How the hell are they getting on and off? There's no garage. Shuttle valet parking was full. There's a cave on the other side that the ship is in. Like a bat cave, like Batman's cave. Exactly.

Well, Wharf wants to transport back there, get back home. Bashir says, that sounds great, but none of us are engineers. I don't know how to reprogram this thing. Right. But Bashir says, Garrick is a man of many talents. Maybe he could do it. Of course. We don't talk about this, but Bashir did take some courses.

Yeah, he's a very smart guy. So, yeah. So it's a little odd that Mr. Lenny Bean isn't the one going in the wall. We should have said other, and I've made this joke before, other than that one week learning annex class that I took on this. Yeah. The extension course. Yeah. UCLA extension.

I think that's what you said after I said that the first time around this. Thank you. Yes, exactly. Garrick has voted the guy to go inside the claustrophobic space. A guard off camera says all prisoners assemble immediately. I repeat, all prisoners assemble immediately. We go into the lobby area. Beautiful high shot.

We didn't see that in Gabrielle's episode, I don't think. No. It was a big high wide shot, so we got to see that space. Deos, who's a Vorta that's in charge of this place, makes an announcement. He says he's pleased to announce the hospital. hostilities between our people has ended. So as of today, Cardassias joined the dominion. So big, big news to all the Kardashians and Bashir and Garrick look a little worried about

their plan because if all the Cardassians are leaving, then Garrick won't be there to crawl in the hole. Yeah. Good thing he took that annex class. Yeah, they had learning innings class. But as, yeah, as Deo says, listen, all the Cardassians come forward, you're going to be put on this shuttle and sent back home and Garrick starts walking to. And then Nope, not you. And Garek's like, well, last time I checked, I was Cardassian. And he says, yeah, but you're not a very well-liked Cardassian, and the leader of the Cardassian government doesn't want you.

And he's like, who's that? Gold Ducat, your old enemy. So there you go. That's what you get for flirting with his daughter. You shouldn't have said anything to her. I'm a little confused how Gold Ducat went from traitor, outsider, you know, to suddenly. He's the head of the government.

That seemed pretty easy. Yeah. He just made a deal. Weren't the people in Cardassia angry with him, too? Well, he... I guess they got over it. Yeah. I mean, he was... He brokered the deal.

He was not at the... Obviously, he was on his Klingon bird of prey when he negotiated this deal. So he just contacted the Dominion. Contacted Cardassia, yeah, and said, listen, I'm going to make this happen. And he did it. So... Yeah. However he did it, it happened off game right now.

Now he's the leader of Cardassia. Yeah, of the entire government. Yeah. I would have liked to have seen. that episode. Yes. Yes. How that happened, right? That would have been a great episode. And to see how the Dominion strong armed the, the Cardassian government that wasn't allowing Goldacott in to have Goldacot in. Right. Yeah. But I think it's an easy sell, though. If you think about it, all of Cardassia knows that the entire Obsidian Order was wiped out by the Gem Hadar. They know their entire,

you know, Orses. The fleet was gone. So I'm sure Golda Kopp was like, listen, guys, we can join the conquerors or we can be completely wiped out. So what do you think? And they all said, sure, I think it's an easy sell for sure. Well, he's the leader. We cut to Cardassia and we see a jumbotron.

I always love a jumbotron on a planet. Yeah. Didn't it? It looked like a jumbotron. Not even a great, it was like a small jumbotron. Well, I think we spent enough money on what we have been seeing that they probably... That's true. Right?

I mean, they have to use that... It's reused footage, guys. So they even saved even more money. It's from the episode where O'Brien was on trial by the Archon, Macbar. Remember that? He was on trial for being crimes against the Cardassian people. And then they had that whole monitor thing on there. But instead of the Arcon, the judge speaking on there, it was...

They just put Galticott's, you know. So it's the same background actors? You got to save money where you can. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, he's on the Jumbotron talking and he says, you know, you might ask, should we fear the dominion?

And I tell you, not in the least, we should embrace the opportunity. The dominion recognizes us for what we are. So I guess he's taken over and now he's just trying to kind of let the people know this is going to be good for us. Yeah. Kind of dictator style. is what it was, it seemed. Yes.

Robert Hewitt Wolf based the depiction of an economically depressed Cardassia on the brink of cultural collapse on the Weimar Republic, the government of Germany between the two world wars from 1919 to 1933. The Dominion's takeover of the Cardassian Union was likewise inspired by Anschluss, where the Austrian National Socialist Party, after gaining control of that country's government, invited Nazi Germany to send in their military forces. and effectively absorb the country. So there's some real-life parallels from history.

Sound of music. To what's going on in Carnacian. Sounded music. I love that. I love a musical reference. Thank you, Terry. I also wanted to say, the makeup on the Vorta, I think they did an excellent job because how they modeled it,

you could still see that he had stubble. So they had to have done that on the latex. Yeah. Because a lot of times, like on Wayoon or other people, you'll see it like, look suddenly too smooth. Too smooth, yeah. I just wanted to give a little shout out to the makeup department. Yeah.

Always love a good shout out to the makeup department. We cut inside the ward room and Dukot continues. They're watching his speech as well. He promises to regain all Cardassian territory, everything the Cardassians ever had. And no Klingons will be left alive or any Maki colonies. And he vows to destroy. destroy anyone that tries to stop them. Dax says she's going to kill him the next time she sees him.

I like that. She doesn't hold back. I think Kira says that. Kira says that. Really? Yeah. And I say, somebody tell me this is a bad thing. Oh, yeah.

I'd love to take credit for it, but it's not my line. Yeah. Yeah, it's the, I think of you guys as a team because you're piloting the dimension. Oh, thank you. They're not happy with Dukot. And Miles explains that whoever sabotage the emitter array, that they were going to use to seal the wormhole. They made it do the opposite of what Starfleet had intended.

It actually made the wormhole much more stable when they used this array. And Bashir, creepy Bashir, as I call him, creepy Bashir suggests it could be a changeling. And they wonder, why would you suggest that? But they agree, yeah, it could be possible. So Cisco wants to screen everyone's blood. And we push in on a whole new Bashir. So the whole thing about Bashir bringing up, like, maybe, maybe we need to go through blood screenings. And then the Dax is like, why do what makes you think it's a change? Like, it just reminds me when your kids, when you say, he who smelt it, dealt it, you know, whoever. Yeah.

Talking about passing gas, right? Like that. Yeah. No, we know what that mean. Right. Who doesn't know what that means? But there may be some Europeans that don't understand he who smelt it dealt it or Asians that are listening to this. Right. Because they are. Childish. Childish. saying that Garrett still uses on a regular basis. He's melted. He's married. And I'm sure it's mostly his fault. Oh, God. We cut to the barracks next.

The gang's waiting. They say Garrick's taking a long time. He's been in there almost an hour. We cut inside this crawl space. It is very tight in there. I made a note. No thank you. I don't want to go in there either.

I'm claustrophobic. Are you? Oh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. For that, that's too intense. Do you have claustrophobia tearfare? Do you have any?

But just a little, it's those kind of spaces that make me feel like it's going to crush me. Yes. Yeah. But airplanes don't do it to me. Like some people, the airplane is like claustrophobic. Yeah. Can you make a distinction between I get claustrophobia both in spaces and with people? Like I could be in a, you know.

at a concert outside, but if I'm crammed with people, that makes me claustrophobic. Me too. Big crowds are scary. Yeah. So for me, it's both. But some people are just people and some people are just spaces. I'm spaces. All, most of the spaces.

Yeah, I'm okay with crowds of people. In crowds of people. My gosh. I'm with you, Robbie. Yeah, it's a combination. Yeah. Well, Garrick is stuck inside this crawl space. He's working.

There's some sparks. He complains about it. He says, this would make a wonderful interrogation. chamber. Tight quarters, no air, bad lighting, random electric shocks. It's perfect. Random electric shots. Yeah. It's a torture chamber for him. And it's interesting that Andy Robinson had real claustrophobia. I didn't know that. Yeah. And the flu at the time. That's why that scene where later, when he goes through that little, he starts getting into it, right? What he's saying like, okay, you don't need another attack now. It was so believable.

I was feeling it too. I was like, oh, my God. Where he was talking himself off the wall. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. And then when they shot him right after that and he's laying in bed, it's like he looked, he looked gray. I mean, I know it was, but he looked.

Yeah. He was sick. Yeah. Yeah. Actually sick. Yeah. For real, in real life, sick. Yeah.

Well, from the torture chamber, we cut back outside into the barracks and the Romulan lookout warns them somebody. is coming. Bashir has to close the panel with Garrick inside. Oh God. Ecotica and his minions arrive and they tell Worf that it's time. We kind of know from the previous episode that they make the Klingons fight. So Worf is ready. He's looking forward to it. They take off. They leave. And then as they start to open the wall, the Ramadan says, no, no, no, don't open it. They're too close. So Bashir just kind of tells Garrick inside, it won't be too long. Don't worry. It won't be too long. He's freaking out in there. Inside the ring,

we cut out to the lobby area where this fighting ring is. Worf's preparing to fight and Martak is kind of his coach in the corner second there. Is it this episode where Martak says this is what they did to me while I was in this prison

and sure. It was in the previous episodes. The prior episode, okay. Yeah, so we know that that he lost the eye from ecactica. Yeah. And Icoctica, whatever's name is, he's, I can't say it. You said it, Ikataka.

You did. He's a really, he's like the prize fighter of the group. Yeah, he's the most experienced. And Worf really wants to fight him. He does not like this guy. And Martak says, you know, be patient. In time, you probably will. Oh, yeah, he does say it in this episode.

Or maybe he reminds him that he's the one. This is his handiwork. Yeah. So he's very dangerous, too. Ruthless, I would say. Because that's obviously not playing fair. Yeah, he gouged his eye out. And that's pretty ruthless.

In a wrestling boxing match. I know. It's like, um, all right. Well, bare fisted. Yeah. He does remind Warf to touch the post. If he hits the ground, he has to touch the post every time he hits the ground and gets back up or he forfeits the fight.

So that explains why they're doing that. Did you find yourself going touch the post? I felt like every time, like, don't, don't, don't forfeited. Although I think forfeiting, like, what's the punishment forfeiting? So you lose. You get a prisoner anyway. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

You get to go back to your barracks. That's what not touching the post is. Yeah. I would be touching. I would be hanging on to the post, plugging the post. Yeah. Thank you. That would have been funny.

You're the winner. Ecotica tells the Gem Hedar that this training is, to battle clangons, it's for practice and to learn because they're going to have to fight them. When they invade. Yeah, when they invade. And so Worf starts his first fight. Worf goes down first, but then he wins the next round. And the fight continues.

We go back inside the barracks. I did like that instead of cutting right inside the barracks that Les was outside with a guard for a second. Yes. You could see that Romulan looking deep in the background. And then the guard wanted to get a closer look in the fight. stepped away. Then inside the Romula says, you know, it's clear. Because a lot of times on Star Trek, we just cut inside and they say something off camera. Like, okay, it's clear out there. You never see it. But it was a nice detail. I also want to give kudos to the makeup department because of all the different

Gem Hadar makeups. Even though they're all similar, they were very different looking in this. Like the guard at the door looked different from Ikatika. One guy that comes in, later, he looks more like a rat face, you know, like it comes out more. It's like, wow, good job. So I was very impressed with that. Yeah, I wonder that must be too, because Mike Westmore probably had to do molds of everybody's face, right? And then design the makeup. It's not just, yeah, it's not just one mold. It's a lot of work. Yeah. That's super cool. So I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. The Romulan says that it's clear and they open up. the panel, Bashir lets Garrick out. And Garrick needs a break. He's claustrophobic clearly and not

comfortable in there. And Bashir says, stop for the day. Try again tomorrow. But then Garrick angrily sort of yells at him, do you want to get out of here or not? So Garrick really is wound up and wants to just get this over with. Right. Bashir says at least take some breaks, you know, now and then every hour or so, doctor's orders. So we can see that. Garrick's getting affected by this question. We cut back to Worf's fight. The fighting is good.

It's actually really like Michael looks great at it. He's doing a lot of this stunt himself, a lot of the fighting. Great coverage, fight coverage from less. I just thought the fighting stuff was really well done. But Worf wins. And he's like, is that the best you've got? That was easy.

I love the bravado that he has. He has, is that the best you have to? And then Ecotica, it's like, well, he was our younger. and worst fighter of all, you know, basically. This person has no skills and you won that. It's going to get harder. Good for you.

Good for you. Yes. You beat the one Gemadar that doesn't even know how to make a fist. So we go back to the promenade. This is on the upper level. And Zial is looking at the wormhole by the window. Kira joins her. Says the view is much better on Pylon 2.

And then Zial shares that she says, She's very worried about Garrick, says her dad has told her that Garrick is dead. He's got to be dead if he's in the Gamma Quadrant. But Kira, Kira says, don't believe your father. And Zial asks if Kira thinks that he's a bad guy. And I did like that Kira says here, you know, judge people by what they do, not what they say. He may say sweet things. Yeah.

Yeah. And I thought that was a great life lesson. I do love Zial. I do love Kira's response to Zial's comment that my father says, is Garrick's dead. And Garrett says, right now, I wouldn't believe your father if he said rain was wet. Yeah. I did L.O.L.

I rewound to hear that again because I was like, she said, what? Because I thought, I couldn't have heard that right. And you did. And I did. Rain was wet. I'm sorry. That was funny to me. We got a captain's log here.

A large contingent of Klingon warships has arrived from Cardassian space. but its intentions, at least for the moment, remain unclear. So the Klingons have shown up, but we're not sure if they're going to help us or work with us. So we'll see. And inside Ops, we get a message from Gowron. He's hailing the station that he's got wounded on his ships. His war against the Kardashians has taken a turn for the worse. Yeah.

Cisco says. So the Klingons are here, but we don't know how much help they're going to be because they're all beat up. And we don't have our treaty back. Yeah. We're still like separated. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, with Galron, with the heavy losses, his whole plan is I'm just going to fix my ships,

heal my wounded here, and then head back to the home planet, the Klingon home world, and prepare for a last stand. He's literally thinking he's going to be General Kuster at this point. And that's the end of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's a Klinga. Yes, exactly.

It's honor. It's all about honor. honor as we hear over and over and a lot in this episode too. Yeah, which also gives Wharf a lot of kudos in his battles because he's been so honorable. Yes. Yeah. Yes. But it is Cisco who does suggest to Gowron.

Well, there could be a different way, a better way. And they do agree that there should be an alliance between the Federation and the Klingons as they had way back in the day a long time ago with that treaty. So they agree. And they said, okay, well, let's join forces. a better place to attack them anyway from where we're at this this area here meet them head on galron has a great line he said where the tides of fortune take us no man can know it and it was just such a beautiful sentiment right after they come yeah they're coming back together again it's it's made me think of uh frenemies right so you really what does that mean like are you complete

heating with them. I think generally that kind of thing or you don't know them that well. And it feels like, okay, we're frenemies. So the truth is, we know we can, we're honorable men. Both of them are, Cisco and Galeron. But life took us apart. But now we need to come back together again and reinforce the things that we do like about each other and we do feel are valuable. And this whole scene when they're having this conversation is in the infirmary because of those wounded he had. They're both, that's where they are. And so creepy Bashir is nearby. Yes.

So creepy Bashir is hearing all this, by the way. That's probably what makes him go to the docked runabout afterwards. He hears this happening, right? Yeah. Okay. I love what you wrote there, Robbie. Robbie writes, nice evil profile. That's a last talk.

It was. It was a good evil profile. You're right. But just seeing it written that way is very funny to me. Nice evil profile. I mean, there's something about, here's a director insight. When you're straight on, like me on the Zoom right now, you've got two eyes. It tends to feel like you're getting inside the character's feelings if you put the camera there.

But if you put the camera on a profile like this, it conveys subconsciously, I guess, or symbolically a bit of like a confrontation to something. Oh, okay. You know, so even though it was kind of silly, the profile, you know, nice evil profile, in a way, he's confronting something. He's, you know, there's, there's going to be a, yes, Bashir is, there's a, there's a, well, he's dropping. Yes.

Well, here in the runabout, this is when he's working in the, he's working on the, on the panel. Presetting that runabout too. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because if you remember later, they're like, they fire on this runabout. And it doesn't do anything. So when Nana or Kira says, what just happened? How come that that's doing that? And then they realize that some modifications have been made.

So these are the modifications he's making right now to the shielding on this shuttle. Right. And doing prep work to putting the bomb as well in there. We're in the internment center right now. And it is yet another match. And it's Wharf, he's fighting this Gem Hadar, and surprisingly enough, he actually breaks the neck of the Gem Hadar, which I'm wondering, did that get a higher rating over in the UK? We've talked about that in the past where in past episodes of DS9, when someone's neck has been broken and you hear the cracking, it is then considered you have to be 17 or 18 years old or older to watch it in the UK. I see what you're saying.

When you said higher rating, it made it seem like, oh, they like it even better. Oh, right. They got a 9.5 for that back for that crack. Did you like how Michael yelled, I'll be waiting at the end? Oh, my God. That scream. 100%. Oh, the bloodlust.

He was really good. He was good and he was into it. It's almost like he'd been so restrained being raised by non-Clingon parents, being in the Federation and Starfleet. And the minute you threw him in. this thing where it was just pure combat, he just turned into his true self. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Also, he's being kind of contained on the ship, too. I mean, on the space station. On the station as well, yes. Compared to his next generation life. Yes. We learned that this is his fifth match, that he's won,

because Martak is incredulous. He's like, five matches, five victories. You truly have the spirit of Kaelis with you. So Martak is, is, is, literally Worf's biggest fan during this entire melee. And so he's ready for another match. It caught to guess. I was just, it's another father-son relationship that's happening. Yeah, a little bit.

Oh, I like, thank you for, I didn't catch that, but thank you for bringing that up. You did not see that. One of my issues of this episode, it felt tonally completely different than the first part. This one felt like a whole different. I wanted something to connect. them other than just the plot.

Well, then that is the connector. I wish it had been the same director would have made a big difference. Yeah. But, but Rob, but Robbie, that is the connector. You just, Terry just came up with it. That's a great connector. If you had had a father, son kind of story with Worf and more talk, that would have been great to him.

Yeah, then Jake and Cisco too. Echo the same thing. Yes. Okay. I have another thought. What if, if it was a two-parter, what if you shot it every other one in terms of editing and how long it takes to do the post-production, if they would have shot less doing part one, a different show in between, and then less doing part two, there's still enough time for them

to pull that together. That would have worked. Okay. I just feel better having that direction. You should be a line producer. You should be a showrunner. In line producer, exactly. You should be the new Mary Howard.

What the hell? I can't be a showrunner because I can't write like that. Okay. Yeah. That's what you say. You say you can't. I haven't tried. You haven't tried it.

So who knows? Okay. All right. They're back in the barracks now. And Worf is beat up. Bashir says, okay, you've got broken ribs. Three, maybe four. Worf says they're going to heal.

Bashir says not if you keep fighting like this. But Martak says, look, it's the honorable thing to do, you know, to fight. Yeah. Martak is on Wharf's side. Yeah, he's telling Bashir, like, he's got a fight. Hey, then I will die, but I will not yield. Yeah, he's not going to yield. They can't yield.

That's not in them. Yeah. Martak, his coach is like, bandage the ribs. Get him back in the ring. So he's going to fight. Put Vaseline above his eye. Yeah, but here's my nitpick. Here's my nitpick.

They're in prison. What are you going to bandage his ribs with? What are you going to? I guess you got to tear fabric off of your clothes, maybe. Yeah, the t-shirts. Yeah, the red sheets. T-shirts. The Romulan, who's about to get phasered.

Yeah, take his clothes. Wait, I have a question. In the future. In the future. Yes. Dead men walking. Do they have bed sheets on the space station? Like, you'd think in the future they would come up with something better than bed sheets.

Do they have sheets? What would be better than bed sheets, Robbie? I don't know. But they've got to figure that out. Seriously. You need something more advanced. Then you've got to wash them. You got to dry them.

Yeah, but you're not throwing them away. That's true. Now that you brought this up, do you remember when they come looking, when they can't, I know it's ahead, but I'm so afraid. I'm going to forget. Yeah. When they come in looking for Garrick and they can't find him, he's not outside. The Jim Hidar look between under the mattress and it's like seriously?

Yeah. Like he's taped to the bottom of the mattress. Yeah, exactly. I'm right here. You don't see me. In the future, you can do that. You can fly yourself out. Apparently.

Micro me. Yes. Odo teaches everyone how to be liquid, like how to squat. There you go. themselves okay all right so wharf's gonna go fight some more we cut inside the crawl space there's uh garrick still using um you know this some kind of fiber optic light to yeah work by i guess he tore that off of a power yeah okay oh how about his father put it there yeah his father put it there it's yeah when taine was working in there okay it's like from a power relay or something it's just some

yeah well this is basically a long monologue of garrick freaking the heck out And freaking me out. Yeah, trying to calm himself down. The tightest shots I've ever seen in Star Trek. They were like in his nose. Up his nose. Up his nose, yeah. Super tight.

Super duper tight. He is kind of giving himself a pep talk. People are depending on you. He says to himself, he does bring up Zial. Zol's depending on you. You promise you'd come back. I have an issue with the whole Zol-Garic relationship. I don't understand it.

It seems icky to me. But he does say here that young ladies had quite. enough disappointments in her life. And it makes me feel like maybe his motivation isn't selfish, but maybe he really does connect with her in some way, maybe not romantically. I don't think he does. I think it's like a daughter. Yeah.

A friend. Yeah, it helped. That little speech. A mentor. Yes. Yeah. Someone she can rely on and, you know, not her dad, not. So are you less ick then?

That helped me a little bit. Okay, good. I saw that he was seeing it that way. And for her, maybe it's that little princess and every girl that wants her dad. And it gets sort of mushy when you're little. It's like, I remember, you know, just when they're little, it's like, no, she's my mommy. Yes. I'm going to marry her.

I'm going to marry daddy. It's the thing that happens when you're little. Only she's going through it now because she didn't have the same. healthy father, right? No, definitely did not have a healthy father. And so maybe for her it's getting mixed up with feeling romantic, but definitely not for him. I hope the writers can clarify, because to me, the story going down this road, if they don't clarify it, if it's just purely romantic from Garrick and from her, seems inappropriate.

No, but it also doesn't track with the storyline that he was attracted to Bashir. No. I mean, it could. If he's fluid, it could. But yes, that's true. He finishes that the tightest close-ups I've ever seen in Smyr-Trek, and we go back inside the barracks. Bashir's doing his best. Warf says he feels great. He's a big, fat liar. I'm sorry, he can't feel great. And then there's banging.

They hear banging inside where Garrick's working, and they quickly open up the panel, thump, thump, thump, thump. Gare is a mess. We cut inside. Bashir has crawled in there. Garrick is just, you know, a ball of nerves, and he's having a meltdown, basically. What do you think the thumping came from, Robbie? Because I thought it was his head, but he didn't do his head.

It was... I think the... He says the light went out. So I wonder if he was trying to, like, bang on the walls. Like, where am I? Okay. Disoriented. Keep him out.

Panic attack. Get me out. Yeah. Yes. Panic attack. We cut back to the barracks. Bashir's putting Garrick in the bed. He's...

And Bashir realizes now he's got really bad claustophobia. That's what's going on. Mm-hmm. And Martak says, you know, Garrick has to make this work or they're going to be stuck here forever. And we're not going anywhere. So it doesn't look like this is going to this escape plan is going to work out. I do have a question for you.

Robbie and also Tara Fair. Did you like that shot with Garrick lying in the foreground sort of like just shell-shocked? I did. Yeah. And the far right that the gang- I think it illustrated a lot. Right. I think it was really important for us to feel desperate.

And oh my gosh, what's going to happen next if this falls apart? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Les did a great job, I think. And because Andy Robinson was so sick, it really helps sell the scene that he was miserable. He looked miserable in the foreground. Although he's such a great actor, he wouldn't have needed that to be believable.

It's just, yeah. But it didn't hurt. No, it did not hurt. Well, we go to ops next cool shot outside in space of the station with all the Klingon ships there. I like that shot. It's Gowron's fleet. We learn in ops that Starfleet's getting closer.

Kira shows up, says that Odo told her someone sabotaged the industrial replicator on the ship. And they need that for weapons and fighting the dominion. They need that industrial replicator. So that's a bad news, having that sabotaged. But I didn't catch who it was. And Cisco suggests having Gowron's men help Odo with security, guard everything. Like, you know, they don't know who's doing. this but it's not it's not good so maybe the clangons can help yeah and they also do not know

what was replicated because of the memory core being wiped yeah cisco says these are interesting times i thought that's funny interesting times yes uh but cisco gets a call from gould ducotte our evil villain he's now back to his evil self he says he'll take it in his office cisco sits there and they have a phone call it's a long scene where duccott tells cisco the federation needs to join the the Dominion, just like he did. The Federation needs to do what the Cardassians have done. Join the Dominion, or billions of lives will be lost. And I went, wait, billions?

Really? Do you think that's possible? I don't know. What do you guys think? Billions? Seemed a little. Well, he was being hyperbolic. Yes, billions.

Ducod also says in the scene, he wants all Cardassian property. That includes the state. And Dakot says, all you have to do is convince everybody to follow the Cardassians example, and you guys will be good, or you can try to fight us. But if you try to fight us, good luck with that. And Cisco doesn't back down at the end of the scene. He's like, bring it on. You're welcome to try. Bring it on.

Yep. So we cut back to the barracks. Worf has won seven more battles now. So we skipped a lot of fighting, seven battles. Martak says they're going to write songs about your victories. warf, you're going to be immortal. Bashir says, maybe they can include me. And he's like, Martaq says that.

The healer, the healer that helped. Yes, he does say that. The healer who bound the warrior's wounds so he could fight again. Bashir wants a copy of that. I thought that was funny. Yeah. But Bashir does say here, we need a new escape plan. That's when Garrick wakes up.

And Garrick says, nope, the old plan will work. And he prepares to return to the. dungeon. So he's heading back in there. And Worf does make a comment. It takes a brave man to face your fears. Yeah, there's no greater enemy than one's own fear, says Mar-Tock. It's so true. Yeah, that's a great, one of my favorite lines in the episode, Martaq's line, there's no greater enemy than one's own fears. That is absolutely relatable. Yes. We go to the infirmary back on the station miles comes in to find it uh comes to find an engineer he needs this engineer that had gotten some plasma burns to help him with the cling on ships it's one thing that miles o'brien is not good at is

cling on ships he needs this other guy anyway creepy bishir tells miles that the engineer he's looking for just left and then they talk about mollie and caco a little bit which i liked that you know something that armin brought up in the last episode about who was escaping you know that people should be mentioning their family that, you know, Miles should talk about getting Kiko and Molly off the ship and the new baby. And Cisco should talk about getting Jake off the ship. And they didn't really address that. Do that. Not in the first part. So I like that they did it here. Yeah. Yes. But Miles says they're safe on Bejor. And Bashir mentions, oh, these special darts that we wanted to get. They're going to be here next week. And Miles is like, what are you talking about

darts at a time like this when the world's about to end. And creepy Bashir says, oh, it's going to work out. It'll be fine. So that should have been a clue for Miles. Like, what is wrong? How many clues. Yes. Yeah. But that was huge. Did you think Sid was acting different enough that people should have noticed? No. Well, it seemed that way to us, but we have the perspective, right? And we're in on it. So I don't know. I was mixed about it. Sometimes I was like, why? aren't they going, Bashir, what's wrong with you? Why are you just weird? But nobody did.

Yeah, because also the last time we did these blood tests, the person who was saying, we need to do the blood test, was a changeling. Yeah. I don't remember what episode it was, but. And Cisco said earlier in this episode, we're going to blood test everybody. So how did creepy Bashir get around that? Was it Cisco that said that? Yeah. So why did my character say, where do you get that from?

It's like if that's what we've been doing. If that had happened before. Another little hole. That's okay. A little bit of a, seems like somebody should have picked up. I'm just saying that Bashir's acting different or something's up. Exactly. Nobody did.

I want to just say this next scene that's coming up. Yes. I think was crucial to have a little comic moment, bring us back to the station and have Zial and Kork not talking about what's going on in a negative way. that she spins it. Yeah, I like that Cork had that turn where he comes in depressed. Like, you know, this is the end of, you know, the Dominion's going to ruin the place. And Zial's got the answer. She's like, well, maybe the Vorta could be, you know, alcoholics and sex fiends and gluttonous.

And you're going to sell lots of stuff. And Cork's like, oh, yeah, I never thought of that. I wonder what their favorite food is. Yes, it was very funny. He's scheming right away. Yeah. I love that, though. That felt like, yes, that's a little jewel we all needed.

Yeah, just a light moment, a little downbeat in this action. I can breathe for a second. Yeah. Well, we're back to action in ops because we learned Starfleet is in Bajor in space, and they're going to be here soon. And back to the internment center in the Gamma Quadrant, Wharf has beaten everyone that they've brought. And Deos thinks he's a barbarian.

He calls him a barbarian, driven by nothing but honor. He contrasts the Gemhidar that they fight because that's what they were designed to do. They're like, you know, Gemhadar are fighters and they're doing it because of this efficiency and this, you know, this focus, whereas you are just a barbarian. So I thought that was interesting. Well, contrasting the two kinds of fighters, fighter aliens. Yeah. And Martak says, you know, you're worthy fighters, but you have no sense of honor. There's part of that, too.

We're to defend that Klingons have honor. Yeah, exactly. I like the contrast of how the Jem Hidar fight and how the Klingons fight and why they fight. There's heart. I also like the fact that the Jemindar have a saying, just like the Klingons do. The Klingons say, today is a good day to die. And the Jemadar say, victory is life. So they have their little chant that they do before they go into that.

Well, we cut back to the barracks. The Romulan's still on lookout. Breen is still there. Bashir's very worried. They're just waiting, very worried. Inside the crawl space, Garrick wishes. Tane was here, which touched my heart. I loved that connection.

I wish there was more of that in this episode. I wish he was driven by what, you know, the last episode, kind of the win of being his dad being proud of him. I wish that could have driven this whole story for Garrick. But he does mention it here, which I thought was great. But he kind of undercuts it because he says, I wish you were here instead of me. And I was just like, oh, you want your dad to be in the claustrophobic space.

Well, his dad started it, right? So maybe he thinks his dad could have fixed it quick. Right. Yeah, that's true. We cut back to the fighting ring. What's his name? Ika ticatikha. That guy.

He beats up Worf very badly. It was sad to see Worf getting beaten up this badly. And he wouldn't give up. And everyone's encouraging him. Even Martak saying, you've already satisfied the honor portion of being honorable. Don't do this. Just tap out. Please.

Everybody's saying that. Even the Vorda is like, really? What are you doing, dude? Just stop. And nobody wants this to continue. Well, inside the barracks, while Wharf is being beaten up so badly in the barracks, three Gemhaddara arrive. They want Garrick.

For the first time, they're like, wait a minute. Where's that guy, Garrick? They hit Bashir really hard. Bashir asked them, you know, why they want him. And inside the crawl space, Garrick can hear them. And the Gemhidar say they want him because they're going to put him to death. Bad. Oh, oh.

Yes. Wow. They find the key for the panel. They threaten Bashir to tell the truth. So things are falling apart. Wharf's getting beaten up. They're going to kill Garrick. We cut back to ops.

The Klingons are in position now. Cisco tells Kira, good luck. And Kira and Dax, our favorite duo, head off in the Defiant. Very exciting. We cut inside the runabout Yukon, and this cool wraparound shot reveals creepy Bashir is in a runabout. He's in the pilot seat. Miles calls the runabout. Creepie Bashir then speaks like a woman in a woman's voice, I guess, in the same voice that was of the person

that was supposed to be there. Can changeling suddenly speak in other voices? Well, they can now. And they can now. Well, maybe because he's actually from the great, whoever the changeling is is from the great pool. I mean, yes, because he speaks exactly like Bashir. So he copied Bashir's rules.

Yes, of course. So he's going to copy the female pilot, right? All right. You fixed it. I did. He knocked out the crew. They're all on the floor of the runabout, but he's talking like the female pilot.

So the runabout heads out. He's not busted here. He heads out. He's kept his cover. Back up in ops, the Romulins decloak. They want to join the fleet. What? Romulins are joining.

Kira says that the Dominion and Cardassian ships are 10 minutes away. Sisko is very happy to see the Romulans. His response is like, well, I'll be damned. Permission granted. He's so into it. He's like, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah.

Well, yeah, we need the more the merrier. Mm-hmm. Yeah, unlikely friends, all of these. Right. Klingons, the Romulan, the Romulan, Starfleet, very unlikely. Yeah. Yeah. It's like cats, dogs, and mice all together.

Yeah. Yeah. We cut back to the barracks at prison. The Gemhidar asked one last time, what is this, you know, tool for? And Beshear says, well, it's either a self-sealing stem. or a reverse ratcheting router? I'm just not sure. Aaron Eisenberg will be very proud of the self-sealing stem bolt that he had to say with his teeth.

Yeah. But the Gemhadar shoots the Romulan, vaporizes the Romulan. This is the guy. This is the guy that appears out of nowhere, Robbie, the male Romulan. All of a sudden, he's in their barracks. He's never shown in the beginning parts, but all of a sudden. He was outside. He was outside.

Well, I said he was in another wall. Remember? he's in another third wall. But I think he was outside. Okay, that's fine. He was outside. He was outside smoking. He was taking his cigarette.

He was in the smoking section. Clearly. Exactly. Well, they vaporized this poor Romulan that we didn't know well. And then they start to open up the panel there. Oh, I was losing it when that happened. It's like, no. And Garrick hears this.

So it feels like, you know, there's no way out. We cut back to the to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, Wharf, who got beat up really badly. Martak says, your honor has been satisfied. Just stay down. But Worf gets back up. He gets knocked down again. Inside the barracks.

He looks in the crawl space, the soldier that opened it up. But he doesn't see anything. He said, I don't see anything. It's too dark. Yeah. Thank goodness that light went out. That moment, unfortunately, the lead Jim Hidar has his attention on that crawl space with his soldier there, the underwing. That that's when the brain walks up behind him, pulls his weapon out and just vaporize.

is him. He's out. At that point, the Breen then turns towards another Gemhadar. They vaporize each other. I love that. Didn't you love that? Yes. That was super cool. But shear does pull out a knife and end the life of the one Gemadar who's in the crawl space. A ship. Pulls out a prison shiv. Whoa. Love it. Wait. Was there a shift? No, Robbie. You're just saying that. It was a knife. It was a knife from one of the Gemadars, right? He took it from the... Oh, yeah, it was. But, but... I don't think you, you were being completely literal. You were being funny, too. Can we just nitpick for a quick second?

That one device that opens up the wall, the one that just prize, where do they get that from to begin with? That's what? In prison, you make use of whatever you can find. Find. After these guys get vaporized, these last two, then Bashir says to, I said Andy, Garrick, you've got to work fast. They won't be long. And they're going to be flooding in here. Right.

Right? I mean, Bashir says how many trams... Yeah, how many circuits do you have left to work on? And that's when Garrick says three. So he says, work fast because soon all the other Geminiard guard is going to be exactly, Terry. They're going to give me in here. So hurry up and finish this. It's going to be flooding in.

All right. We go back to Worf's fight. He's nearly dead at this point, honestly. He's almost dead. Yeah, Deos tells Ikataka. Whoever's name is... Eikotika. Deos tells Tika to finish him off.

Yeah. And Tika Tika, Ecotica, tells Deos that killing holds no interest for him. He has a little empathy, which we don't see from these Gem-Hadar often. Correct. He yields, actually. He yields, yes. Yeah, I think that's because he's impressed because they talk right before they battle when that whole thing was going on about how Gem-Hadar are versus Klingons, that they both get each other.

Yeah, they do. It takitat. It's toky talk? Yes. Tic-Tik-Tik. Just pick your, whatever you want. Tiki-Tiki. Tiki.

Tiki. Is impressed with Worf in his honor. And he just didn't give up. Yeah. You have to be impressed with that. Exactly. Most definitely. Let me read very quickly to both of you.

This episode shows the audience the third honorable Jim Hedar. This is the third one. So the first one was Garonagar in the episode Hippocratic Oath. He was, you know, empathetic, I guess. And then the second one was Omet Iclan into the death. And then now, tika tika in this one. So there we go. Tiki Tic-Tik-Tuk.

This is the one who's honorable. But what does that show you? It shows you that the Gemmodar, even though they're bred as killing machines, they can be reprogrammed? anomalies. In a way, I think. Or maybe genetically, just like all of us. Yeah.

There's always been, there's going to be anomaly of the one that actually has empathy and honor and morals and ethics, right? There will be one out of a thousand, we'll say. Yeah. Okay. Wasn't the first one really young one? He said, oh, yeah, I made a month old or something. There was a young one, but he wasn't very honorable. He kind of got a little crazy, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did. He did. He was like a teenager. He was rebellious and all that. Yeah. Yeah. But we do see two prior ones. Like I said, Gironagar and Hippocratic Oath and Ametiklan into the death or the two adult Gemadars that were kind of, you know, hey, you guys are standing out.

You're the anomaly a gemadar. Okay. Yeah. Well, when Tiki Tick-Tik-Tik-Tac says he yields, Deos says, shoot them both. So he's going to kill Tiki Tic-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-K and Worf? That made me mad. I was so mad at Deos. The Vorda are the worst.

So far, we've seen a female Vorda, right? Which we're okay with. Yeah. We've seen our good friend, I'm not blanking on. Jeffrey Combs. Yes, thank you. We've seen Jeffrey Combs as a Vorda. We're okay.

But this Vorda is especially kind of ruthless. And I think he's going to take them both out. We cut in the crawl space. Garrick says he got it. Finally. Yeah. Back to the internment center. just as the guards go to kill Wharf and Tiki Tic-Tik-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T, but Worf and MARTK-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T, but poor T-E-S. It was like, yes.

Yeah. And poor Tiki-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-E-R. He did. He gets shot. He gets shot immediately. He doesn't get to live his good life, the best life that he could. I know. We should have left the Gem-Hadar. But I like him. It's a heroic move.

It is. We go in the roundabout. We go in the runabout next. And Garrick jumps in the pilot seat. Bashir checks on Worf. Worf tells Garrick that he did great. And Garrick says, so did you. Aw, a nice moment here.

Because they were an odd couple on this mission. Yeah. And I love that Worf, especially in all of the pain he was in, gave that to Garrick. Yeah. There's a little issue here with the beam in. Because if you notice, they're all beamed into the runabout at the same time. Now, it has been established in a prior Deep Space Nine episode that the runabout transporter can only beam two at a time. So it should have been two, two, two.

Like you see them come in like in succession and pairs that if they all came in together. So that was they kind of cheaters. Yeah. Cheater, cheater. I guess the answer is they modified it. You know, maybe the transporters are more modern or more advanced now than. Well, hold on. Yeah.

The thing that was beaming them wasn't the runabout transporter. It was the thing that Garrick adjusted down in the crawl space. That was the transporter. So maybe it superpowered it. Okay, so this might answer Robbie's comment about maybe the transporter originated from the tech on the ground. Regarding how the transporter identified the escapees, Ronald D. Moore commented, I think that Garrick programmed the transporter to beam out anyone who wasn't a Gem Hadar or a Vorda within a given area. So that sounds like he's saying that he programmed the transporters.

Well, that could be either. He could still program it remotely, right? It could be either ground or remote, I suppose, from that. I think because all of this is make-believe. Exactly. We're just going to go with Ron Moore. Let's go with Ron Moore. I agree.

He's a smart guy. From that quote, though, what are you going to go with on that one? Would you say it's the ground? transporters. That's what I would say. Yeah. Okay. All right. I would say that. All right. Well, we go back to the battle in the alpha quadrant. We're in ops.

Big intercut scene here. Now we're into our final battle. The Dominion fleet should be there, but they don't see them. They don't see anything and they can't get a lock on a target. So it's very... No, they see them on the view screen, right? No. They do not see them on the view screen.

They just sense... On the sensors, they say they're coming. Yes. Cisco says on screen, there's nothing there. He says, where are they? So they can't see them. They can't get any kind of lock on them. So they can't attack them? Right.

Cisco says, chief, I need targets. And O'Brien's like, well, they're everywhere, but I can't lock on anybody. So something is up. Something is weird. Something's up. We cut to the defiant. Kira sees the same thing. She says there should be dominionships all around us, but we can't get any targeting locks.

Back in ops, they're super-contracting. confused. Miles gets an incoming message from creepy Bashir. They locate his his location. He's on a runabout, not on the station, because Cisco calls, ask the computer, locate. Right. Yeah. Locate Dr. Bashir. Computer says Dr. Bashir's not in the station. Last known location was runabout Pad E. So they know he's on a runabout. And they know the Yukon left Patty. So that's why they know that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. So Cisco calls to Kira and says, Major, got new orders, I want you to find the Yukon and destroy it. Take out that runabout.

And he says, at any cost. So this is very serious. We learn from Dax that the Yukon is headed straight for the Bajoran sun. What? Yeah. He headed to the sun? Great shot in space where we see the Yukon heading towards that sun. Yeah, Bashir too, the creepy Bashir, switches a device on the console.

That was the thing he was working on in that cool profile shot. And he looks even creepier now. Yes, very creepy. On the defiant, Kira and Dax realized that creepy Bashir modified the Yukon that he's turned the runabout into a bomb, basically. He plans on going into the sun and making the supernova sun and it will destroy everything for light years around. So maybe there's the billions of people. Yeah, that's what it was. I kind of wish, though, that once he's in the Yukon by himself and we're at this stage, that he would have gone back.

to his changeling self instead of being. Oh, great. No. Thank you. That would have been cool to see a changeling there. But as liquid, he couldn't have pushed the buttons as well, though, right? I don't know. But like the changelings when they took the form.

Oh, you mean just their little kind of like shimmery shape, right? Their neutral human form still. Yeah. So that would be cool. We already know this whole time. It's not really Bashir. Right. Yeah.

So why is he holding that shape? Or tear fare fare. It fluctuates. As you're seeing his face, you see a little, you know, it's morphing a little. That would have helped anything. It's a great note. It would have been great. Thank you.

Our heroes, Kira and Dax, decide to chase it, to tractor it, pull it away from the sun just before it explodes. Cool moves. But it's dangerous, though. You're not supposed to warp. Oh, I'm not saying it's not. No, no, no. I'm saying you, Dax mentions, because when you fire on the Yukon, they have my modification so it doesn't do anything, right?

So that's when they say, we got a tractor beam it. And so Dax says, we're too far away. Kira says, won't a bet. Take us to warp. And Dax says, like, inside a solar system. So you're not supposed to go to warp. I know this is all made up, but you're not supposed to go to warp inside the solar system because you could end up causing damage to a planet nearby, whatever it may be.

And Kira's like, look, if we don't do this, there won't be a solar system left. So you guys take that huge risk. I just want to bring that up because that's an important. important point that I didn't know about. I had no idea. No, it was a buildup that was important. Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea you could not go. You're not supposed to go to warp within a solar system. But it's very cool looking. Oh, it's very cool looking. Super cool. Back in ops, they see that the runabout has been destroyed. Cisco says scan for the Dominion fleet. It's not there. Creepy Bashir set this whole fake trap up. Sisko says, you know, he wanted to destroy everything without

ever firing a shot without ever they the fleet was never coming they weren't sending it wasn't what we thought it was all a con and a trap yeah yeah the ultimate chess move by the dominion make a move without making a move cause them to do their own destruction basically yeah there's the end of that war adventure for now oh now it's reunion time we cut to quarks garrick and ziol have a have a have a warm and fuzzy moment um what did you pick up from from Garrick's attitude there. Was he happy? I couldn't quite tell.

Like, uncomfortable a little? I don't know. I think because of her romantic feelings towards him, it's a mixed kind of. He's relieved and happy, but it's like, how do I expect? It's like somebody having a crush on you. And you sing the friendship, I think it's purposeful so that we don't find Garrett creepy about his relationship with her. It's her.

and she's so young, it's just misguided. Yeah. But I think Andrew Robinson played it perfectly because there was that sort of like, hey, I don't know what. That's what we're saying. It's almost like he didn't know how to feel himself, but that's the way it should have been. Because if he was all like, oh, hey, baby, let me kiss you on the cheek too. We would have been like, ew, what's happening?

Yeah, no, no. That was never the intention. Yeah. In the infirmary of Bashir, real Bashir is back. He's not creepy at all. Doesn't Bashir say, like, you didn't even. suspect that it wasn't me this whole time? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And O'Brien's like, well, he was just easier to get along with. Yeah. Yeah. So they're kind of teasing each other, I guess. It's like,

yeah, nice banter between the old friends. And I like the transition panning over to finding Worf and Dax back in the back of the infirmary. They have a very romantic reunion. I wrote a little too much PDA for the infirmary, don't you think? No, no, because when At the beginning of this, she was so mad at him for having to go on that. And she took his Klingon operas. And then she was in a much more dangerous position that he even knew. Right? Yeah, that's true.

So I'm assuming they've heard, I mean, she can see what condition he's in. Yes. Yeah. It's a nice couple moment. You know, it's a nice reunion couple. And we're already a couple. So it's not like. No, it's not inappropriate at all.

I just thought. I almost felt like there wasn't enough, like during the whole. interment camp fighting thing. He doesn't mention Dax. I almost felt like there should have been something like, well, you know, but I guess he can't really say anything when he's about to go to battle. Today is a good day to guy. I commemorate this battle to my girlfriend, Dax.

He's not going to say that. Well, he could have said something to Bishir if I don't make it out of this one. Tell Dax this. Yes. Yes, that would have been nice. That would have been really nice. Tell her she can keep the Klingon operas. Great.

That's a great line. We cut to the promenade next and Cisco is meeting with Galron and Martok and the Klingons make a deal to keep a permanent presence by the station right there with them. They're going to team up with them and help defend the Alpha Quadrant and the station from the Dominion. And Cisco has one requirement and that is I want to choose who's in charge of this Klingon detachment of guards here and Gowron agrees to it. And that's when, you know, Cisco looks over at Martak and says, I think you'd be the best person for the job.

And Martak is very, very, you know, ecstatic. Super touch. Super touch to receive this, you know, posting now. He's in charge of the Klingon's Adi. And on top of that, after this major bonding with Wharf, it's even better that they're both there. Yes. It's just, yeah. Yeah.

We go inside the captain's office. Dukot calls. Cisco says, you know, Zial might have died here. and Duccott says she's no longer my daughter. She made her choice. She's dead to me. She's dead to me. Yeah.

He is definitely an evil guy now. He's no question. He's going back to the evil. I thought it was bad when he said on the celebration of my son's birthday. It was like, you have daughter too. Yeah. No. He Uber emphasized sons on that one, didn't he?

Yeah. He sure did. He's hurt, though. He's hurt that his daughter didn't come along with him. I think he's absolutely just inside. He's ripped apart. He's just trying to hide it. Like Kira said, you know, watch what people do, know what they say. Very true. Look what he's doing. Very true. Yeah. Yeah. Cisco says he was wrong. He thought DuCott had changed. I thought it was good for him to say that explicitly because we see it as an audience. Yeah. DuCott says Cardassia is

building a monument to him that they will be strong again. And Cisco says, okay, we'll see. So clearly we've got our villain back. We've got alliances we never expected. And this feels like the beginning of this Dominion War that I've heard about for years now. My lesson is Martak's line, there is no greater enemy than one's own fears. To me, that captures a sprawling epic episode that has so many different storylines. But that was my favorite takeaway, I guess. And a great lesson for life in real life outside of Deep Space Nine as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Chairfare. Me too. Because that spoke to me the most. That resonated. The things that hold me back are my own fears, right? So that and all of us, everybody on the station, all of us.

I think that's true. But yeah, that stood out to me very much so. Yeah. Mine was kind of, I said no change from the prior episodes theme and lesson, which was expect the unexpected because there's so many twists and turns. But I also have an additional one which is be a person of action, not a person of words. I think Terefer has the Patreon Paul winner for theme less and more of this episode. I do and it's submitted by Jenny.

You can't judge people by what they think or say only by what they do. Yeah, they gave it to us in the episode. Beautiful. Well, that is the end of our recap and discussion on this episode. Please join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing. the episode, Dr. Breshear, I presume. That will be with Armin. Thank you to Terfair for joining us and hosting on this one.

Thank you, Terfair. Oh, thank you. Both of you and everybody out there. Thank you so much. This is so much fun. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. For everybody else, we'll see you next time.

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