rocky carroll star trek ds9

Move Along Home (episode)

View history
1.2 Act One
1.3 Act Two
1.4 Act Three
1.5 Act Four
1.6 Act Five
2 Memorable quotes
3.1 Story and script
3.2 Production
3.3 Reception
3.6 Video and DVD releases
4.1 Starring
4.2 Also starring
4.3 Guest Stars
4.4 Co-Star
4.5 Uncredited Co-Stars
4.6 Stunt Doubles
4.7.1 Deleted scene references
4.8 External links

Summary [ ]

It's an important day aboard Deep Space 9 as an official delegation on behalf of the Wadi are due to arrive from the Gamma Quadrant for first contact . Commander Sisko is in his dress uniform preparing to welcome the ship , although he gets worried when he learns that Jake has been learning about Bajoran girls from none other than his new friend Nog . Sisko decides they need to set aside some time the next day so he can work 'damage control'.

The senior staff assemble in the airlock to greet the Wadi representative, Falow . Although Sisko is keen to make a good impression, he is put out to find that Falow and the other Wadi just want to head straight to Quark's in order to play games.

Act One [ ]

In Quark's Bar, the Wadi delegates are eager to play a new game. However, Quark has to make sure they have something to gamble with for dabo . Falow offers klon peags or alpha-currant nectar as items of value, but Quark refuses them. Then, he proffers a bag of gems, which Quark accepts greedily.

After about six hours, the delegates are winning almost every spin and both Quark and Commander Sisko are getting tired (in Quark's case, he is tired of them always winning). Sisko decides enough is enough and leaves the bar to go to bed. Before leaving, Sisko asks Quark to inform him when they stop playing dabo. Quark heads over to the table and pleads that the Dabo girl's hands are tired from all of those spins. Falow orders Quark to replace her. Quark gets Broik to replace her and instructs him covertly to begin fixing the table so that the Wadi do not win. He loses the next turn and becomes suspicious. He soon discovers Quark's deception and corners him at the bar. Quark tries to pass it off like he didn't know, but Falow is not fooled. He decides to start a new game and transforms the dabo table to a different board game, which he announces is called chula . He explains that the game involves four players , and that their objective is to "move along home". Quark decides to play the game, in hope that the Wadi will be lenient with his cheating.

In Sisko's quarters, he finds Jake still awake late into the evening. Jake admits to his father that he has been spending time with Nog, but on a school project, nothing more. Sisko tells him to go to bed, saying that is no excuse, and promises to have a chat with him about Nog and girls in the morning. However, as he is sleeping, he tosses and wakes up to find himself lying on the floor of a large, odd room.

Act Two [ ]

He tries to call Ops and attempts to end the program, if he is in a holosuite, but no luck. He has his Starfleet tricorder with him, so he searches around, trying all the doors until he finds an unlocked one. Sisko wanders a hall, opening another door. Behind it, he encounters an image of Falow, who, laughing mockingly, instructs him to " Move along, move along home! "

Hearing faint cries for help, he finds Doctor Bashir , who believes this is a dream and is trying to wake himself up. Major Kira and Lieutenant Dax show up moments later, also drawn by Bashir's screams. Sisko tells them of his encounter with Falow, which Bashir believes is a behavioral test, which deeply upsets Kira. They decide to split up and use their comm badges, which are still working, to keep in touch.

Early next morning, Jake Sisko informs Odo that his father is missing. Odo discovers that Sisko and three other senior staff members are not on board the station and launches an investigation. After scolding Lieutenant Primmin , who had assumed they were affected by the long party last night, Odo orders a full security sweep of the station and the docked ships.

Meanwhile, Falow keeps Quark in the game, forcing him to learn the rules as he plays. Quark nervously asks for a minimum wager and rolls. Falow goes to work, executing the next turn. Meanwhile, the four players reach a door, which opens to reveal a girl playing a hopscotch-like game, and singing a rhyme:

The players move into the room, and are sealed in. Moving across the room, Kira stumbles into a force field . The girl, however, moves through it. Bashir deduces that the pattern of the girl's movements allows her to pass though, but is also knocked backwards. Jadzia follows the girl precisely, both singing the rhyme and mimicking the hand actions, and successfully passes the force field. The others follow. The girl proclaims:

Back on the station, the Wadi cheer "Allamaraine!", as Falow moves the four pieces down one level on the board and hands Quark several jewels. He happily accepts them and believes he is learning the game.

Act Three [ ]

Falow asks Quark to choose a path for the players, either the difficult short route, with a chance of winning more prizes, or the long, easy route. He says to choose carefully. " Double their peril, double your winnings! " teases Falow. Quark excitedly tries to negotiate a licensing agreement to keep the game in his bar, when Odo barges in demanding to know if Quark has seen them. He brushes him off until Odo exclaims four officers are missing. Slowly, Quark makes the connection – four players, four missing officers. He nervously looks at the player pieces and then at Odo, who silently understands Quarks realization. Falow insists he choose, so he chooses the safer path and, with Odo watching, rolls the dice.

Moving through the corridors of the maze, the players find a room with Wadi in it, all drinking and laughing. They don't very well respond to the officers. Frustrated, Kira starts shouting and throwing a tray of food to the floor. Suddenly the doors close, and a toxic gas fills the room, causing the players to start coughing. Furthermore, Falow comes into the room, telling them to move home again, but otherwise not responding. Bashir notices that the Wadi remain unaffected and decides to try some of the drink that is being offered around. The drink relieves the effects of the gas. Sisko and the others also drink, and are also relieved. The Wadi all cheer. The image of Falow states that the players have progressed to shap four. At the table, the Wadi cheer " allamaraine " and Falow moves the player pieces ahead and Quark is happy to win more. Odo, concerned, leaves.

Act Four [ ]

Odo opens a door on the Wadi ship.

After some strange readings are detected on the Wadi's ship, Odo decides to visit the Wadi ship over Primmin's Starfleet objections. Odo retorts that he is not in Starfleet, and he orders him to beam him over and finds a room with an unusual energy signature. Stepping through the doors, he surprisingly ends up in Quark's Bar, to find Quark playing the game. Falow notices him, and reminds Quark to continue playing, choosing the next path. He chooses the safer path, but Falow says it's an "unfortunate roll."

In the game, they continue to move through the corridors when their tricorders detect an energy buildup. A bright light source appears and moves towards them. At the table, Falow selects a player piece. The light source scans them all, and then focuses on Bashir, who vanishes. Falow knocks over the piece, suggesting the player is out. Odo immediately orders them to give the officers back, but Falow ignores it, insisting they keep playing. However, he says Odo can have them back when Quark is done, albeit cryptically. Falow then tells Quark to choose which route to take, and he considers the risky path. Odo cautions Quark, but Quark realizes that the players were only one level away from "home", and the short route would take them there in only one move. Quark reassures Odo that he has spent his life assessing chance in games of all kinds, and that he has a good understanding of this one. With Odo's agreement, Quark decides to take the short route, but rolls a thialo – he must sacrifice one, so that two may live.

Act Five [ ]

Sisko holds onto Kira when she nearly falls into a chasm.

Odo is dismayed, and so is Quark, who is unable to decide which player to sacrifice. Odo says he cannot be forced to choose, but Falow says all three will be lost if he doesn't. He grovels dramatically and pleads to be allowed not to decide, and Falow accepts. He programs the computer to randomly select a player to be sacrificed.

In the game, they hear Bashir calling out. A door opens, and Dax heads into it. The others follow. They find themselves in a rocky cavern. In the distance, they can hear Bashir's voice calling to them, which entices them forward. Dax stumbles on loose rocks, and a large boulder lands on her leg. Fortunately, the leg is not broken, and they continue onwards. They see Bashir's figure, but instead of coming to help Dax, Falow's figure again appears and tells them they are on shape six. Dax eventually exhorts Kira and Sisko to leave her and reach safety, but they refuse, and insist on attempting to help Dax. Moving round a narrow outcropping on a steep cliff, they all fall off, appearing suddenly back in the bar, together with Bashir.

" What? You mean we were never in any real danger? "

The Wadi finish their game and change the table back to a dabo table, and are about to leave, when Commander Sisko demands to know what was going on. At that point, Falow's normally stern demeanor changes. He states, with a comical intonation, "It's only a game!" There never was any actual risk, and that Quark had cheated them in Dabo. Having just feared for their lives, Commander Sisko is miffed at the Wadi; the Wadi have committed a faux pas on the group by offering them a game that deceived them into thinking that they were playing for their lives, which understandably would annoy the players especially after finding out that their lives were not in danger all this time. After the Wadi leave, Quark chases after Falow, sensing an opportunity to market Chula.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" First contact is not what it used to be. "

" This is not what I signed up for! "

" Well, I'm not in Starfleet . "

" Do they have money? "

" Is it against Starfleet regulations to press a few buttons? "

" Constable Odo, good morning to you! "

" I just had a strange run-in with Falow. He said something about moving along home. "

" Use your tricorders for proximity checks every two minutes… and if all else fails, just yell again, doctor. We'll find you. "

" Please don't make me do this! I'm begging you. (gets down on his knees) Please, please! Please PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! (crumples under the table) Please, please. "

" Do you have sex on your world? "

" Move along home! "

" Choose their path! Double their peril, double your winnings! "

" Move along, move along home! " " You brought us here, you bring us home! "

" Trust a gambler. "

" That's not what you said when you were groveling on the floor. " " Oh, that's right… you were here for the groveling. "

" Major, I gave you a direct order! " " Court-martial me. " " I can't, you're not in Starfleet. " " If I were a superior officer, I'd court-martial both of you. "

" It's only a game! "

" You know, this game could work here. It really could… "

Background information [ ]

Story and script [ ].

A working title of this episode was "Sore Losers". ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library )
Ira Steven Behr commented that it was "tough to find character stuff" in this episode "in terms of the writing." ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 31)
Frederick Rappaport commented he had a different conception of the game environment: " Mine was an exterior setting, almost neo- Martian Chronicles , with a touch of Gaudi-type architecture. There were houses in a little village but they were distorted, as in a nightmare; everything was angular and weird. The setting for the game was much better inside than on a clearly delineated 'outside' set. They made the rooms and hallways almost Arthurian . It was much more of phantasmagorical image. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 8 )
Rappaport's original ending was different from the ending that appears in the finished episode. Rappaport commented, " Michael [Piller] was dissatisfied with my ending, in which Sisko and the others had to cross over a chasm. The chasm fell away, leaving Sisko essentially hanging by a thread. He was telling Kira and Dax to go on, because the passageway to freedom was on the opposite side, where they were. They had to save him, and it was Indiana Jones style. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 8 )
On writing the episode, Michael Piller commented, " I did the story on ['Move Along Home'] and a rewrite on the script […] I had a lot of fun working on it. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3 , p. 13)
According to one of the writers, Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci , the name of the game, "Chula", comes from " Chutes and Ladders ", as the maze game is a "three-dimensional form" of the game. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 38))
First versions of the episode were more complex, but history and scenographies were eventually simplified due to budget issues. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 37))
According to writer Rappaport, " in an earlier version of the teleplay, our people win the game, but they discover that Bashir has not been returned to the station. So Falow strikes a deal – Quark must return all his winnings if they want Bashir back. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 37))
Michael Piller said that this episode was inspired by the episode "Checkmate" of The Prisoner . In some early versions of the script, the characters who become trapped in the game were placed in a surreal village, similar to the village featured in that series. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 37))
In a scripted scene, Bashir whispered to Dax that he was considering having Garak make him a new dress uniform, although Jadzia wasn't sure it would be appropriate to have a Cardassian tailor make a Starfleet uniform. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library )

Production [ ]

This was the biggest-budgeted show since the series' pilot, " Emissary ". ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3 , p. 13)
"Move Along Home" was affected by budget issues that arose at the middle of the first season. Piller commented, " I would have thought based on my Next Generation experience that at the midway point of the season I'd be in great shape. I knew ['Move Along Home'] was going to be hugely expensive, but I thought that I'd have money to burn because we had done so many shows on the space station . " ("As the Space Station Turns", The Deep Space Log Book: A First Season Companion , p. 33)
These budget constraints made the filming of "Move Along Home" complex for the production team. David Livingston commented, " It was a killer. ['Move Along Home'] came at a point in the season where we were over budget. We didn't know how we were going to do the show. We had to make substantial changes in it, and yet it was still a huge episode. David Carson pulled it off. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 32)
The chasm scene was the most complex scene in the episode. David Livingston commented, " We spent a lot of time planning it along with laying the air bags that they fell onto. It just took a lot of time and a lot of thought. We had a lot of discussion about where the chasm would be and the logic of how one person that's injured couldn't get across and the other two could. We ended up putting on a matte shot to see the chasm and it just took a lot of planning to make the logic of it work and then be able to make it physically inside there. " ( The Deep Space Log Book: A First Season Companion , p. 33)
Terry Farrell 's work on this episode prevented her from appearing in TNG : " Birthright, Part I ", which was filmed around the same time. Siddig El Fadil guest-starred instead. Farrell commented, " I cried. I thought I should have fallen off the rock so I could have gone over there instead of Sid disappearing, because when we were filming 'Move Along Home' his character disappeared, and I was acting throughout the rest of it with Nana and Avery, and we got caught up together. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 48)
Shigemi Numazawa was commissioned by Paramount Pictures to paint spacescapes for the sets of Deep Space 9. His paintings would appear in quarters and in a classroom of the space station. "Move Along Home" was the first episode to introduce his paintings as set dressing.
Scenes from the filming of "Move Along Home" were part of a news report by Gerald Kolpan for Fox29 News. [1]

Reception [ ]

Avery Brooks has gone on record (did he?) as saying how much he hated the installment. ( citation needed • edit )
Frederick Rappaport commented: " The audience never really understood the game, and that was the idea. All the audience needed to know was that our guys were in jeopardy. They needed to know as much as the characters needed to know: How the hell do they get out of there? " In the end, Rappaport was disappointed that much of the threat present in his original script was removed by the reveal at the end: " The ending, where we learn it was just a game, undercut everything that went down for the previous four acts. It all seems pointless if there wasn't any jeopardy after all. I've heard from some fans who felt cheated that the characters were never in any kind of threat. I agree with those fans. " However, Rappaport was pleased with the episode up to the final moments, commenting, " On the other hand, I know others who were satisfied with it, too. Up to that point at the end, I was as spellbound as any viewer. I was hooked. The show was imaginative and well-realized, and it has gotten a great deal of attention. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 8 )
Director David Carson described this episode as "disappointing." ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. ? )) In a 2011 interview, he commented, " I'm a little vague on 'Move Along Home', but I do remember that it wasn't a very strong story. " [2]
David Livingston stated, " The cave sequence at the end with the stunts was amazing. " Another aspect of the episode Livingston thought successful was David Carson's directing. ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 32)
Armin Shimerman enjoyed aspects of the episode; " In its own cracked way, it's an okay show. It was the first time the writers allowed Quark to get somewhat serious. As Quark, I was once again screwing up, but they had given me a wonderful, almost heroic speech. They allowed Quark to, if not be a hero, at least have aspirations of doing something heroic. It's one of my favorite episodes. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 37))
Michael Piller commented, " It's one of the best premises of the season […] It's a little hokey, but there are many humorous and interesting twists in it. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3 , p. 13)
Rick Berman commented, " It was a big show that had a tremendous amount of problems. It turned out much better than I thought it would. There were a lot of Lewis Carroll elements to the whole thing which were always a little bit on the verge of being hokey for me, but when all was said and done, I was pleasantly surprised. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 48)
Ira Steven Behr commented, " You could just as easily say that 'Move Along Home' was a third season show and that you don't make your characters seem that potentially foolish the first year, but this is Star Trek . You want to believe your audience has a certain amount of sophistication, that they'll accept what you give them. " ("As the Space Station Turns", The Deep Space Log Book: A First Season Companion , p. 33)
Ronald D. Moore stated that, when he watched this episode prior to joining the DS9 writing staff, he was "wondering if everyone had lost their minds." ( AOL chat , 1998 )
In their book Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages (p. 32), Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman described this episode as an "ambitious" installment which "featured a number of intricate alien domains."
In The New Trek Programme Guide , the authors comment that "Move Along Home" was " an excellent and intriguing episode which cleverly uses its surrealism to present a very alien culture. Apparently there are some people out there, just released back into the community, who think this is the worst episode of the season. " ( The New Trek Programme Guide , p. 301)
Tor.com's reviewer wrote: " Okay, it’s not good, exactly, but the vitriol many throw at this episode is often on the same level as that reserved for the likes of " Spock's Brain " and " Sub Rosa " and it’s nowhere near that bad ". [3]
Ford A. Thaxton, one of the producers of La-La Land Records ' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Collection , likes the episode. When asked in an interview why, he commented, " I’ll tell you why. It’s a very TNG -esque show, right? But the best moment in that show – the memorable moment – is when [Sisko, Bashir, and Dax are] going through this whole thing about what they're going to have to do, and they go to Kira… and Kira just looks at these guys like they’re completely out of their minds. 'Hey, I'm not Federation! I don't do this!' Something along those lines – that was the moment I remember from that. She just says, 'Wait a minute!' " [4]
James F. Broderick wrote, " Perhaps the most interesting use of Lewis Carroll 's opus is in the Deep Space Nine episode 'Move Along Home'. Deep Space Nine lends itself more easily to Alice-based interpretations. " ( The Literary Galaxy of Star Trek: An Analysis of References and Themes in the Television Series and Films )
Chief Miles O'Brien ( Colm Meaney ) does not appear in this episode and is stated to be on Earth . As mentioned in the episode " Dax ", he and Keiko O'Brien went to visit Keiko's mother for her 100th birthday there.
This episode is not given a stardate, but the above reference suggests that it happened even later than "Dax" (which, according to its own stardate , occurred later than most other episodes of the season).
This is the first episode to feature Sisko and Dax in their dress uniforms. Bashir has lost his in transit to DS9 (referenced in the episode) and at this point in the series a dress uniform hadn't been designed for Kira, so she appears in her normal duty uniform when greeting the Wadi.
Broik 's name is first used in this episode.
This episode marks the second and final appearance of George Primmin ( James Lashly ) on the series, after " The Passenger ".
The Wadi ship was the first appearance of this studio model ; for more information, see DS9 studio models .
This episode shares several thematic elements with VOY : " The Thaw ". In both episodes, crew members are transported to a surreal environment, where causality and logic are deranged, and where they are mocked for their efforts to escape.
This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5, 4 October 1993
As part of the DS9 Season 1 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko

Also starring [ ]

Rene Auberjonois as Odo
Siddig El Fadil as Doctor Bashir
Terry Farrell as Lieutenant Dax
Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko
Colm Meaney as Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman as Quark
Nana Visitor as Major Kira

Guest Stars [ ]

Joel Brooks as Falow
James Lashly as George Primmin

Co-Star [ ]

Clara Bryant as Chandra

Stunt Doubles [ ]

Anita Hart as stunt double for Terry Farrell
Patricia Tallman as stunt double for Nana Visitor
Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Avery Brooks

References [ ]

2355 ; 2363 ; 2366 ; administrator ; airlock ; allamaraine ; alpha-currant nectar ; ambassador ; Andolian brandy ; antidote ; Bajor ; Bajorans ; Bajoran fashion ; Bajoran transport ; Bajoran wormhole ; bed ; behavioral test ; bet ; case ; captain ; chief of security ; Chula ; cocktail party ; combadge ; court martial ; dabo ; dabo girl ; dabo wheel ; damage control ; dice ; docking bay ; dress uniform ; drug ; Earth ; echo ; energy flux ; explorer ; expression ; father ; fault line ; Ferengi ; figurines ; first contact ; flux pattern ; franchise ; gambler ; game ; Gamma Quadrant ; gemstones ; groveling ; holosuite ; hour ; Human ; ionic field ; juice ; klon peag ; laboratory ; laboratory rodent ; labyrinth ; leg ; lemonade ; licensing agreement ; logic ; lokar bean ; magnetic field ; Master Surchid ; maze ; McCoullough ; meter ; minute ; mirror ; model ; money ; morning ; night ; nightmare ; Nog ; O'Brien, Keiko ; Old Man ; ops ; painting ; path ; player ; poison ; proximity check ; pyramidic ; Quark's ; reactive ion impeller ; red carpet ; rehearsal ; replicator ; rhyme ; riddle ; rodent ; scan ; school ; security officer ; senior officer ; senior staff ; sex ; shap ; Starfleet ; starship ; stick ; sweep ; swindler ; tectonic shift ; thialo ; three-dimensional chess ; transporter ; tricorder ; Trill ; United Federation of Planets ; Vulcan ship ; Wadi ; Wadi homeworld ; Wadi ship ; wager ; waiter

Deleted scene references [ ]

Cardassian ; clothier ; Garak ; tailor

External links [ ]

" Move Along Home " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
" Move Along Home " at Wikipedia
"Move Along Home" at StarTrek.com
" "Move Along Home" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
"Move Along Home" script at Star Trek Minutiae
2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

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How ‘star trek’ pulled off one of its more disturbing episodes.

'Deep Space Nine' writer Ronald D. Moore reflects on "The Darkness and the Light," 25 years after it aired: "There was definitely some reluctance."

By Phil Pirrello

Phil Pirrello

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Star Trek has spent nearly six decades building science fiction stories on the backs of contemporary issues. From racism to eugenics, the Final Frontier has found significant success winding its space-based adventures and action around socially relevant themes. But rarely has it tackled a subject as dark as terrorism, and with such unflinching conviction, as it did with the underrated Deep Space Nine episode “The Darkness and the Light,” which debuted 25 years ago this week.

Written by Ronald D. Moore (based on a story and pitch by future Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller), “Darkness and the Light” explores the past of former Bajoran terrorist Major Kira (Nana Visitor) by forcing her to confront the consequences of her actions as a terrorist many years ago, when she defended her planet from a Nazi-like occupation waged by the alien race known as the Cardassians. Kira, now an officer aboard the remote DS9 space station, must find out who is murdering her former friends from her resistance fighter days before she becomes his next victim. Soon, Kira discovers that the killer is a Cardassian named Prin (Randy Oglesby) and he has a score to settle with her. It’s Star Trek ‘s disturbing take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None … , a gripping thriller that pits two murderers and war criminals against each other, with each believing they are “heroes” in a story that has none — only casualties. As “Darkness” celebrates its 25th anniversary this week, Moore shares with The Hollywood Reporter how one of Trek’ s darkest hours got made.

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30 Years On – A DS9 Season 1 Retrospective

It feels impossible that it’s been nearly thirty years since our Trek childhood was ripped away and we watched Commander Sisko’s life and family be ripped to pieces by the Borg and Locutus at Wolf-359.

Thirty years since we first got our big, sweeping view out of the starship window of that surprisingly alien-looking space station. Thirty years since we heard, for the first time, what many would contend is the best Star Trek theme tune ever written. Thirty years since “ The Emissary ,” and the beginning of Deep Space Nine.

In many ways, the first thirty seconds of the opening cinematic reflect how the show progressed over the years it was on-air, as well as its lasting legacy. The station, the namesake of the show, the place where (ostensibly) much of the action is to take place, appears on-screen as a small, strange, novel, but a peripheral gem.

It is only after the invitation to come closer and enjoy the intricacies that we find the beauty of the station. (And it is, obviously, a beautiful design. The cinematic continues to be sweeping views of the promenade and the docking arms, the glowing red core at its base, and at its head, ops.)

30 Years On!

But the show is instructive, thirty years on, in new ways, given the new landscape in which it can be enjoyed. It’s impossible for me to forget how I felt, as a young teenager, high on the success of the recent movies and the first five seasons of The Next Generation, watching “The Emissary” for the first time.

I summoned up the mixture of emotions easily when I recently re-watched the episode. I remember confusion at the darkness of the intro, as the Borg tore through the Federation in an episode I remembered distinctly from TNG (“The Best of Both Worlds”). It put me on guard rather forcefully that this was going to be a new kind of Star Trek .

Those seconds of Sisko looking back at the explosion of the USS Saratoga, the haunted, injured look in his eyes, is an indelible memory. Avery Brooks, for me, confirmed his aptitude for this role in those seconds. A family man, who lost his partner, raising his son alone. Obviously, I was in for a different Trek.

Up until fairly recently, it’s been impossible to describe how that felt to a newer fan who has had more than just TNG and TOS to lean on. In my family, though we ate dinner together nearly every night through the 80s and most of the 90s, presenting a very Norman Rockwell front, we coloured our virtue with convenience, and the fifth member of our dinner table was very often the television.

By the late 80s, once a week the companion at dinnertime (or immediately following, depending on the scheduling) would be Captain Picard and the team, on board the USS Enterprise. They quite literally felt like part of the family dining experience, with my parents and brother and me.

And on January 3, 1993, a week or so after we watched Picard’s triumph over Gul Madrid in “ Chain of Command ” we watched this brand-new character show us something in Star Trek that we simply didn’t get to see very much of back then: consequences.

As fans, we all knew that Wolf-359 was a horrendous event, a massacre, a tactical blunder, and a galvanizing event for Starfleet. It’s an event, like few others, that can be referred to simply by its location. Gettysburg. Waterloo. Khitomer.

Events that have all the feeling of inevitability, but only in retrospect. TNG touched, with only the softest of gloves, the fallout of Picard’s assimilation by the Borg. It remained a touchstone throughout the rest of the series and associated movies (and spin-off series!), but that’s all it was: a scar, presented on the psyche of Jean-Luc Picard.

It didn’t seem to do very much. It made him wrestle his brother in the mud once, another time he nearly ordered a genocide, and once the Federation actually side-lined him because they thought he might crumble under the stress of facing the Borg again, even though there was absolutely no evidence of that ever being an issue.

And up until his synthetic years, he could still hear the Borg “song.”

Picard Vs Sisko

However, I feel we didn’t get repercussions until DS9. Until we saw what Locus of Borg did to Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Sisko via the Borg invasion of Earth. Benjamin Sisko, the damaged commander of Deep Space Nine, the Emissary of the Prophets of Bajor, was the first time Trek really dug in and tried to tell a story that reverberated.

Allegories are great, and sci-fi is a tremendous vehicle in which to hide your message, but the reset button that was pressed at the end of the credits after every episode of Trek until then made the more complex messages too difficult to transmit.

That’s often why Trek has been accused of ham-fistedness throughout its storied lifetime—because up until very recently the serialized nature of Trek meant that one episode couldn’t really change the story of another, it is left to guest stars to transmit sudden character growth and present dichotomies for the main, unchanging cast to note and solve.

Sisko was the first captain (I’m going to call him a captain even though, ridiculously, suspiciously, he was brought into the role with the rank of commander) of a Trek show who was shown to have been damaged by Starfleet.

That’s big. Because Gene Roddenberry had already passed a few years prior, even though he knew about the production before he died, at least in concept, this was really the first outing of Trek that was doing so without the Roddenberry seal of approval, so to speak, and loyal viewers tuning in from home could feel that.

Not only was Sisko a character with loyalties outside of Starfleet, but half of his staff on this enormous Cardassian station would be Bajoran, another huge departure for Trek, and many of them would seek entertainment at the local bar/casino run by a cadre of Ferengi.

It’s simply impossible to explain just how much of a leap of faith the folks at Paramount were taking, jumping into new territory and simply assuming there’d be an audience there to catch them. In the 90s, that just didn’t happen very often, and it was unheard of for sci-fi.

We’ll only have hearsay and recollections of memories to go on now, so it’s hard to truly understand how it felt to be Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, and Rick Berman in this situation, making risky creative & business choices in a very corporatized Paramount environment.

ruined my Star Trek

But with the more-recent launches of Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, and Strange New Worlds, I was reminded of precisely how it felt to be a Trekkie at that moment in 1993. In a word, I felt betrayed. I was 13 years old, living in the middle of America. Most of the people I knew had lives that were very much like my own on the surface, looked a lot like me, and thought a lot like me.

Oh sure, I was an outcast in the greater picture because I liked books and sci-fi and computers, but as a (lower) middle-class cis white male, I know now that the number of privileges I was born with (many of which I still have, despite my disinterest in having them) would stagger a team of oxen. As an adult, I fight many of those behaviours my upbringing cultivated in me.

As a child, in the nineties, my mind wasn’t prepared to register that even as an option, let alone something that should be considered. No, back then, DS9 ruined my Star Trek .

It’s a refrain we hear rather frequently today if you’re at all involved with the social aspects of being a Trekkie, especially if engaging online. You don’t have to go far on Twitter or Facebook to find someone shaking their fist at the clouds over some new great offence they’ve suffered at the hands of the evil Alex Kurtzman and his cadre of social justice warriors- cum -writers and their needlessly diverse cast of woke evangelists .

I completely understand the perspective. It’s taken many years of therapy and self-reflection, but I can also say, now, that I don’t share the perspective. No, DS9 did not send me running to a therapist to find out why I hated the show so much. But in the examined life, I can take lessons I learned from one situation and apply those to other, completely different situations.

I have learned how to unpackage my emotional outbursts before they erupt out of my mouth or fingers and retrieve any nuggets of actual wit out of the sack of bile they arrive in and analyse them outside of such toxic environs.

Merely by existing, DS9 had already challenged me, personally, more than any Trek show prior, and that’s before even digging into the wealth of stories the show brought. Honestly, I wasn’t capable of doing that then, and consequently, I didn’t follow DS9 when it initially came out.

I didn’t have to, because it ran concurrently with TNG for another season, and finished up mostly concurrent with Voyager. So as a family, we just watched those. We had a VCR in those days, and my father invested in sufficient blank VHS tapes that we had (almost) every episode of TNG and Voyager on tape, recorded without commercials (my father was a patient man), in order of presentation. To my knowledge, we had none of DS9.

It wasn’t just that the lead was a black man, or that the second-in-command was a terrorist, or that the chief of security was a pool of jelly, or that the chief medical officer was a lecherous man-child, or that they weren’t even on a starship, but the show challenged other norms by presenting the absolute least human Star Trek ever.

And that, too, dear reader, upset my gentle boat. Before this episode, Star Trek looked at religion as a quaint historical footnote of humanity, and an otherwise charming aspect of lesser species still sharpening rocks for hunting. Consider “ Who Watches the Watchers ” or “First Contact” or “Ensign Ro” for how gently TNG looked at religion. You could almost hear the aww-shucks of it all. But even those religions were very human.

The unified faith of Bajor (amid a disunified political order, crucially) presented a very non-human group, a people even Picard suggests should be somewhat urged into the modern era so that they can join the Federation.

Major Kira, were she to arrive in newspapers in today’s world, would doubtlessly be called a religious fundamentalist terrorist, yet we are asked by this show to be a third party to the strife between Cardassia and Bajor, in spite of obviously favouring one over the other (this distinction becomes much more clear by the later seasons, of course, what with war and so on), giving us the opportunity to believe that alien culture isn’t, by default, bad.

DS9 Vs 2000s Trek

DS9, just like Discovery, is often driven by non-human characters (or, at least, not the Kirk-standard of humans), and Starfleet is merely responding to galaxy-upsetting events, not dictating them.

This show decentralized the average Star Trek viewer, and that was upsetting. Even early in the first season, long before the Dominion War and all its conflict brought to the shores of the Federation, it’s emphasized more than once that Bajor (and the newly found wormhole) are on the outskirts of “civilization” for our normal Trek characters, thrust into the wilderness that is, in actuality, the centre of civilization for many people. Just not us.

In much the same way as Picard, was interested in exploring the nuance and taking off the blinders over emotion that accompany those galaxy-shifting events, even if in so doing that reveals something that we didn’t like.

In TNG we never saw the real outcomes of Wolf-359. We saw pieces of Cardassian brutality in episodes like “ Ensign Ro ” and “ The Wounded ” and we tried sympathizing with terrorists in “ The High Ground ” but we never had to remain there for very long.

DS9 went ahead and put the trauma of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor front and centre in the form of Major Kira, then set the entire show on a station that placed itself geopolitically at the centre. A centre far away from us.

The echoes of complaints of “bad writing” and “unbelievable situations” “too much crying” and “leans too much on previous material without generating new stories” resonate in my mind in the current era.

So, it’s plainly obvious that I was not up to the challenge that DS9 was offering me, at least in 1993. I abandoned ship fairly quickly and kept up my habit with the far safer approach that Voyager took. It was a mistake, reader.

Thirty years on, however, after the varied successes of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds, it’s a great time to revisit and reflect on DS9’s launch and the first season through a lens only time can provide.

For this forty-something fan, it sure was a lot easier to let the showrunners take me where they wanted to go than it was for my teenage self. I know DS9 is no longer burdened with a lot of the baggage it had initially, and that it has enjoyed well-earned respect that has grown over the years.

I join the crowd who openly admits we were wrong about the show and invite others of my ilk who maybe haven’t made that journey yet. It’s a great time to come on board.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

“Rocks and Shoals”

Air date: 10/6/1997 Written by Ronald D. Moore Directed by Michael Vejar

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

"Do you really want to give up your life for 'the order of things'?" "It is not my life to give up, Captain ... and it never was." — Sisko and Remata'Klan

Review Text

Nutshell: Excellent. Powerfully envisioned and executed drama. The trend continues.

In last week's review to the gripping " A Time to Stand ," I said that I wouldn't want Trek to always be so gritty, dark, and intense like it's certain to be throughout this war, because "that's not what Trek' s about."

I still believe that, but, hell—if episodes were always as good as "A Time to Stand" and now this week's almost-as-bleak "Rocks and Shoals," we'd still have an awesome television series of powerhouse drama. Is it what Roddenberry would have wanted?—what he had envisioned? I don't know, but nor right now do I care.

"Rocks and Shoals" is another very strong hour of DS9 , further capitalizing on the thus far stellar trend of the war arc. The storyline has many notions and events that aren't very uplifting, but they're morally conscious in their conveyed ideals.

On the surface, the main plot is reminiscent of last season's " The Ship "—Sisko and the crew find themselves stranded on a barren planet along with a squadron of Jem'Hadar soldiers. The themes here are different however, with plot developments that analyze trust and dedication, treachery and betrayal. It's the deepest and most emotionally satisfying episode involving the Jem'Hadar yet created, analyzing with a scrutinizing eye their role in the Dominion—sort of like fourth season's " To the Death ," but with an effective, tragic slant of realization that proves so much more relevant.

The plot is rudimentary, of course, and that's the way it should be. Sure, it's a tad convenient for the story that Sisko's ship happens to crash on the same planet and in the same vicinity of where another Jem'Hadar fighter went down just two days before—but no matter. This episode is about the situation that ensues.

The stranded Jem'Hadar soldiers have with them their Vorta overseer Keevan (Christopher Shea), who was badly injured in the crash. Without medical attention he most certainly will die, and without his supply of ketracel the Jem'Hadar will die as well.

While surveying for survival needs, Garak and Nog are captured by the Jem'Hadar soldiers. Keevan uses the prisoners as a bargaining chip—and sends one of his soldiers to inform Sisko that he would like to make a deal: Sisko's captured men in exchange for a doctor.

Bashir is able to heal Keevan, after which Keevan reveals his intentions and also another proposal. You see, Keevan has a problem: Most of the ketracel white he was holding for the Jem'Hadar was destroyed when their ship crashed. He doesn't have enough to last until rescue arrives. All that remains in one vial, and when it's gone the Jem'Hadar will go mad, killing everybody—including Keevan and eventually each other. So Keevan wants to make a deal that will save his own neck. He informs Sisko that he is ordering the Jem'Hadar to attack the Captain's camp the following day. And he provides Sisko with the battle plan he has ordered the Jem'Hadar to execute. In short, Keevan has set up his own men for slaughter. In exchange for the attack plan, Keevan will surrender to Sisko and give him some communications equipment that was damaged in the crash—which O'Brien would likely be able to repair.

This puts Sisko and the crew in a moral bind. Even war has rules; but if they agree to Keevan's proposal, they would be killing the Jem'Hadar without a fair fight. I liked the scene where the crew acknowledges this problem, but, as Sisko notes, they don't really have a choice. Keevan is sending his soldiers whether Sisko chooses to use the information or not. Ultimately, it's either the deaths of the Jem'Hadar, or the deaths of everyone.

The moral dilemma is nicely addressed by the story, but even better is a scene that addresses the Jem'Hadar loyalty—a scene where Sisko informs Jem'Hadar squadron commander Remata'Klan (Phil Morris), that Keevan has sold them out—that the Jem'Hadar are locked in a crossfire with nowhere to go. Sisko asks Remata'Klan to surrender while he can.

Within Remata'Klan's choice is where the story becomes a fully realized tragedy—and an exceptional piece of work. Remata'Klan is no fool. He's merely incapable of violating his Dominion ethics. He refuses surrender because it's not what his Vorta ordered. And if his Vorta wants Remata'Klan and his unit to die, then they die.

What's remarkable about this episode is that it almost paints the Jem'Hadar as victims. Ron Moore's probing teleplay is so fair to their situation and even-handed in its approach that we actually feel sympathy for Remata'Klan and his men. They may be fierce, merciless, efficient soldiers—but they're that way because the Dominion manufactured them that way. They have a rigid obedience code that prohibits them from defying the higher power of the Dominion. They believe in the Dominion's "order of things." The episode's most telling line comes when Sisko asks Remata'Klan if he really wants to die for "the order of things." Remata'Klan's reply: "It is not my life to give up, Captain ... and it never was."

It's quite a task to turn a terrible enemy into believably sympathetic characters, but "Rocks and Shoals" does it wonderfully, making Remata'Klan the most respectable and dimensional Jem'Hadar character yet created. Phil Morris' compelling rendition is one of a dedicated man not simply unwilling to go against higher forces, but incapable of doing so. He's the tragedy's central figure—he knows he has been betrayed by his Dominion superior, but it's not relevant . He follows his orders to the letter, because that's what the nature of his existence demands.

In watching Remata'Klan come to this decision without a single doubt in his mind, something occurred to me that I hadn't really considered before: One could argue that the Dominion are like the Borg in that they see individuality as inefficient and dangerous. Remata'Klan seems to be exactly what the Founders would've sought in their military: unwavering obedience and dedication until death. Jem'Hadar soldiers who seek independence (like the ones in "Hippocratic Oath") would likely be considered "defective products" of the Dominion. There's a lot of good meat in "Rocks and Shoals," and the episode raises many themes that prove interesting under scrutiny.

There's also a B-story taking place back on the station—which from the looks of things, will be an ongoing part of the story structure in the shows as long as the Dominion occupies the station. This week's example—which takes up much less screen time than the A-story yet proves equally powerful—skillfully documents Kira's bottled frustration of Bajor being on its way to Dominion occupation.

Consider her position: Every day she wakes up and goes to work for a presence she fundamentally opposes. Terok Nor has become a symbol of Bajoran limitation; and by relying on Dominion resources to sustain the economy, even Bajor itself has taken the first step in being sucked into the Dominion's assimilation process. And Kira—aware of the prospect of another planet-wide Occupation (note the capital "O")—has had to sit there and take it every day. Worse yet, her position has turned her into a bureaucrat who speaks in defense of the Dominion, telling other Bajorans not to turn to violence or opposition that could make a volatile situation worse. Nana Visitor's stellar and subtle performance shows how much it's eating away at her, and how powerless she feels.

When Vedek Yassim (Lilyan Chauvin) comes to Kira with concern over Vorta officials landing on Bajor, Kira finds herself defending a move that she herself disagrees with. Yassim remarks that "evil must be opposed." I'm sure that deep down Kira certainly agrees. But she also wants Bajor to remain neutral. Bajoran uprisings can not only lead to eventual trouble with the Dominion, but can also begin with divisions and trouble internal to Bajor.

It's truly wonderful to see the writers thinking about Dominion issues specific to Bajor. Bringing the Dominion storyline to Bajor is good; showing how it affects Bajor is great. Yassim's credible presence in the story feels like a return to first- and second-season Bajoran issues. Sensible scenes like Jake's interview with Odo and Kira keenly highlight how station life for Bajorans has changed. And Yassim's public protest—that is, hanging herself on the promenade as she reiterates "Evil must be opposed"—is a message that hits Kira and us with the force of a sledgehammer.

It's surprising how much the B-story accomplishes in so little screen time. Many of Kira's thoughts are conveyed through visuals that require no dialog. Michael Vejar's direction of these sequences is exemplary. A montage in which Kira wakes and begins her shift is done twice—once before the hanging and once afterward. The message is clear: Kira can not sit idly anymore. She can no longer live day to day on Terok Nor remaining silent and powerless. She decides she must fight back.

This notion is inspiring—and very appropriate given Kira's past. Her dialog with Odo about the impossibility of her remaining "neutral" is about as believable as anything Kira has ever said, and it's a key reason why these last two episodes have been so riveting. These characters are caught up in a really big mess, and how they react to it returns us to the basics of their personas.

Evil must be opposed, indeed. But how will it be opposed? How will Kira and Odo carry out the "New Resistance"? How will Kira undermine Dukat? Will Odo still be able to "walk the line" in his "collaborative" involvements with Weyoun and the local governing body? The answers will surely make things very interesting in the coming weeks.

Turning to technical concerns:

Michael Vejar actually gets to shoot in bright outdoor lighting this time (opposed to last season where the two episodes he directed—" The Darkness and the Light " and " Empok Nor "—were primarily shot in darkness). He definitely proves himself capable; "Rocks and Shoals" is a wonderfully executed and stunningly photographed episode that feels like a feature film. Also, Vejar's atypical use of slow motion is particularly nice, adding dramatic flourish to the episode's key moments of tragedy.
David Bell's score is terrific; I'm really beginning to think the " musical guidelines " on Trek have been relaxed or revised, because lately music has been a bigger, more noticeable factor in the episodes—more so than it has in years.
The special effects and tactical moments that opened the episode were pretty impressive. It was quite a sight watching the crew's fighter run out of control into the nebula and plummet toward the planet.

That about covers it. "Rocks and Shoals" is a very focused, powerful, and probing episode that continues to prove that the DS9 creators have been and will be thinking about the Dominion war in its larger themes, in addition to keeping us on the edges of our seats to see how the plot game will play out. In the process, it doesn't pull punches by sparing us unfortunate circumstances or giving us easy answers. The saga continues...

Next week: Worf's son Alexander returns, and with a more "Klingon" attitude than when we saw him last.

Previous episode: A Time to Stand Next episode: Sons and Daughters

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Comment Section

87 comments on this post.

How come they couldn't use the stun setting and have Bashier keep them in that condition?

There's an even subtler psychological element to Remata'Klan's unwavering and ultimately fatal obedience. At the start of the episode, he speaks of how he questioned the Vorta's orders and how it was not his place to do so. Whether his resultant feelings were guilt at what seemed a very mild disobedience or just a reminder/reinforcement of the Dominion's rules on the all-important Order of Things, I wonder if he would have been so willing to walk proudly into his doom had that incident not taken place. The seeds of dissent that he clearly had buried somewhere in him might have sprouted at a more opportune time and saved his and his men's skins. On another note, this past Wednesday was the 45th anniversary of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation. Having this somewhat fresh in my mind made Vedek Yassim's suicide hit all the harder upon re-watching the episode this evening.

Great episode, they were firing on all cylinders here. I'm SO glad they're not trying to wrap up the war arc quickly; the occupied DS9 brings a wealth of mine-able material, and they should tap that vein dry.

Aldo Johnson

I like the subtle touches of the episode. O'Brien saying 4-letter words but chastises Nog for doing the same. The way Kira looks up and sees, really sees, the Cardassians and Jem'Hadar working on the bridge. There were also some gorgeous shots, like the rope around the railing. Gave me shivers when I saw it. The view of the ship from above as it crashes was gorgeous. And so is Ensign Neeley ;-)

Yeah, Neeley (Lt.) was easy on the eyes. I remember on Ron Moore's Q and As on AOL, there were a good number of fans calling for her to make more appearances. I was highly impressed with the effects shot of the crashed Jem'Hadar fighter sinking in the distance. It was convincing.

I had to wait 24 hours before commenting on this episode, to let it sink it. This is probably the most disturbing episode of Star Trek I've ever seen, and not necessarily because the character's actions were questionable, but because there were no right decisions. Sisko and Kira essentially both made the WRONG choice in the end, but it was the least wrong choice from the options available. Ouch. On a more nitpicky note, it seems I am the only one who was under the impression that the Jem'Hadar unit that Sisko encountered on the surface was actually from one of the ships that attacked them in the teaser. This explains the 'convenience' of their meeting, and I also assumed that it had taken Sisko & co. two days to stabalize Dax's position and pack everything they needed into boxes so they could swim out. In either case, the CG shot of the ship sinking into water is what really makes no sense. It makes it look like they only had 30 seconds to get out of there.

Two words: TOP NOTCH. Thank you Ronald D. Moore for gifting us with a riveting story, a great script where each dialogue is entirely relevant (no empty words), and for keeping me literally glued to the screen for the very first time since I've started watching DS9 episodes. This episode not only does the Jem'Hadar a great service by making us truly understand their philosophy and role in the Dominion, it also makes for excellent television. This episode is foreshadowing of the excellence in writing Ron D. Moore later demonstrated with Battlestar Galactica. I am right with Jammer on this one: if episodes were always as good as "Rocks and Shoals", we would all have a fantastic time revisiting the series.

Hey are you THEE MARCO PALMIERI? of the DS9 continuation books?!?! Cool you like to rewatch the initial DS9 stories. I've got ALL of your DS9 post series books. The only version of the Trek universe that I follow.

The Vedek's suicide is one of the most powerful moments of Star Trek. It reminds us that in order to oppose evil we need to take risks and sometimes we must make the ultimate sacrifice.

What are the odds that shaking the head back and forth means the same thing in our language and Jem Hadarese?

I think this one has to be up there as one of the best of the whole series. As you say Jammer, it’s the little touches, and I think that's what separates it from other top episodes. A couple of things that others haven’t mentioned yet; - The way the Jem’Hadar all surround Bashir when he’s about to operate on the Vorta and he mistakes their child-like curiosity for hostile intent. Just shows us how little love there is between these supposed comrades. - The way the writers use Kira’s pragmatism (of all people! - only developed slowly over the years of the show) to lead us to dismiss Jake and later Yassim as being effectively overly naive. Before spinning us around full circle as Kira realises that she’s forgotten that not-acting is in itself a crime. Brilliantly written and superbly paced.

Just two nitpicks about this episode: 1. the continuity of the one I had with "A Call to Arms"; why is Jake allowed to roam freely on a Dominion/cardassian station ? I understand why from a storytelling point of view, but he ressembles too much a 20th century cliché journalist who asks horrible insidious questions. If the writers wanted to keep him in the loop (other than in a cell or an interrogation chamber), they could have done better than that. 2. If the Vorta dies, he'll be "resurrected" by cloning. So, even knowing that, I guess the survivor instinct has taken over :p.

Latex Zebra

Just watched this for the first time in ages. What a fool I am. An amazing episode. This is what Star Trek is about really. Excellent stories that make you think. Too many great moments to go into. Must say I love that the Vorta is a real slimey bastard. His last line about what would have happened if he had more white and his swagger was brilliant and chilling. Oh and I'm sure its mentioned somewhere that stun doesn't work on the Jem'Hadar.

Another good solid episode. 7/10

I liked this episode, but I can't say I love it like everyone else seems to. I have a problem with the ending. Why is the Vorta ratting out the his own soldiers "wrong"? Why is Sisko so pretentious about it? Why in the hell would he TELL THE JEM'HADAR? My problem is the Vorta is correct in every point. He does not have enough white to maintain the Jem'Hadar, so they will become killing machines then turn on each other. so how is getting them ambushed and than surrendering wrong? I don't get it. It seems to me a smart tactical decision. And I really don't get Siskos snarky attitude about it all. I really don't think there is an "moral issue" here, there is a problem, and a solution, and the Jem'hadar were going to die ANYWAYS......

Another "O'Brien must suffer" episode - he ripped his pants! Without any words spoken, Brooks wrenchingly communicated Sisko's realization that he lost a man because he tried to do the 'honorable' thing. A lot of parallels to 'The Ship' in terms trust issues with Vorta too. Great episode.

Nick P., Sociopaths often are confused by normal human emotions. The Vorta betrays his men, who he has promised to care for, in order to save himself. He did not seek any alternate solutions, even when given the opportunity by Sisko. Sisko has empathy for the inherent dignity of all living creatures, even his enemies (a defining characteristic of the Star Trek ethos). Sisko sought to avoid conflict by seeking a solution that would allow for everyone to live. The Vorta, on the other hand, used violence (against both Sisko and his own men) to achieve his goals. The real tragedy is that the Jem'hadar were bred and conditioned to be obedient killers. The inherent dignity of living creatures has been squashed in them, to the point where they refuse to save their own lives. It's heartbreaking. This episode shows that the Dominion is truly evil. Bioengineering and indoctrinating sentient life forms to sacrifice themselves for your own gain is sickening.

Only two episodes into season six and DS9 continues to pull no punches. Not only do they set this one up to continue the wonderfully-paced and well-written arc but also to stand alone to work on its own terms. If the previous episode is the gritty fallout that brings up difficult questions; then this is the brooding aftermath that has no easy answers. I've had no complaints watching this back in the day and I definitely don't have any now. Remarkable job. 4 stars.

Good and Gritty Drama, if it had been persistent, DS9 might have redefined television, but the next episode turned into fluff. 9/10 for what it is as an episode, 7.5/10 for what it represents in the greater scheme of the Dominion War and Early season 6

@Trekker: I read something interesting about DS9 that said it suffered from being between two eras of television. After DS9 went off the air, highly serialized shows, starting with "The Sopranos", started appearing. DS9, at its best, is like a lot of those shows, obviously including Battlestar Galactica. But, DS9 still tried to be too episodic. The six-episode arc to begin this season is quite strong -- but it's all resolved too easily. That life on DS9 essentially returns to normal after "Sacrifice of Angels" is tough to swallow. Even if you get past the Kira/Odo stuff, it's pretty weird that Quark and Rom are still treated the same way as they were in earlier seasons after their actions essentially allowed Starfleet to retake the station. Granted, Kira acknowledges those actions in "The Magnificent Ferengi", but it's still hard to get past. The seventh season is probably weaker than the sixth on this, because the early-season episodes like "Badda Bing, Banda Bang", "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", and a lot of the Ezri stuff is so far off the main war storyline.

Sisko's attempt to give the Jem Hadar a fair chance to surrender gets one of his men killed. One wonders how he would have felt about that if Nog or O'Brien had died instead of a random redshirt. Interesting that a man who would later become an accessory to murder can't bring himself to gun down enemy soldiers in self defense on the battlefield.

PetetongLaw

I just re-watched this episode on Netflix and was really impressed with the way the production values have withstood the test of time. I agree with the comments about Lt Neely. It's rare on Trek to have a red shirt who captivates your attention.

"Interesting that a man who would later become an accessory to murder can't bring himself to gun down enemy soldiers in self defense on the battlefield." Do you really not see a difference between senseless, purposeless murder and murdering a key person to swing the entire war your way? "To fight a battle under these circumstances would serve no purpose. I'm prepared to offer terms. Hear me out. I know that need more Ketracel White. My doctor can sedate your men and keep them alive until we're rescued. After that, we can put you into medical stasis until we secure a new supply." Sisko didn't want to murder them because it was pointless. They weren't trying to capture an objective, and the Jem'Hadar had lost the battle before it began. Sisko was trying not to have a massacre (and he ended up having it anyway). Ironically his attempt to stop it was so alien to them and their response so alien to him that it was doomed from the start. But he didn't see it that way. His failure to understand the Jem'Hadar cost him his man.

Robert, I guess I would argue that it's not "senseless, purposeless murder" in the situation they were in. It also seemed too sterile, even by Star Trek standards. The redshirt (whom never got a name, if I recall correctly) is barely mourned. If anything Sisko seems more upset about killing the Jem Hadar than losing one of his own, which is interesting because I'm pretty sure he doesn't have to write letters to the families of the dead Jem Hadar.... It strikes me as contrived. In the novelization of the episode (written by the same writers) Sisko even has a line about admiring the Jem Hadar's "quick assessment of the geology" or some such after his man goes down. What kind of CO feels anything but anger and/or regret watching one of his men die? What kind of CO places his men in harm's way so he can soothe his conscience? Sisko is most definitely not the person I would want to follow over the top, particularly if I was fighting an enemy as ruthless as the Dominion. As usual, Garek has the most poignant observation, "Correction, humans have rules. Rules that make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion."

Garak: "In case, you've forgotten we're in a war." O'Brien: "There are rules, Garak, even in a war." Garak: "Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that tend to make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion." This exchange seems very prescient considering the events of "In the Pale Moonlight." Great episode, I liked how it gave us an inside perspective on the Jem'Hadar. Also, great subplot involving Kira - her strongest one over the course of the entire 6-ep arc. As for those asking why they couldn't have used the stun setting on the Jem'Hadar, I read somewhere on Memory Alpha that the stun setting doesn't work on them, although it was never stated explicitly on screen to my knowledge.

This is one of my favorite episodes of ds9. Phil Morris has a lot to do with it. I can't believe that is the same man who played Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld. Ha. And since I like nitpicking here are are the only things I had an issue with. Why does Jake keep calling it an Occupation? Kira specifically said the the bajoran government welcomes the dominion plus they signed a non aggression treaty. The Bajoran government is perfectly fine with them on the station. Yet jakes keep calling it the occupation. Its annoying. Weyoun rightfully called him out on it. I wish when Jake was interviewing Odo that Odo or Kira had pointed out that this wasn't an occupation and any bajoran who had a problem with it should speak with their government. Now we all know the only reason they welcomed the dominion to ds9 was because Sisko recommended it. It's not an occupation. The other issue i have is Kira disobeying Sisko and forming a resistance. Sisko who she believes is a religious figure told her what to do. In a previous ep she told Sisko that the bajorans would do anything the emissary asks of them. I'm not a fan of the whole worshipping the wormhole aliens storyline but if the writers are gonna force it then let's be consistent. These are minor problems. I can watch this ep over and over. I find it fascinating to watch how brainwashed the jem hadar and vorta are. Plus you have have great battles, awesome scenery and Sisko and company agreeing to shoot them down in the valley to win. Something that kinda shows starfleet will do whatever it takes just like in pale moonlight. Of course Nog is brainwashed by starfleet and can't understand why they would go against their principles. Great ep.

Another truly outstanding episode. Keevan (Christopher Shea) is amazing. He IS the quintessential Vorta here. He's my second favorite Vorta behind Weyoun. Exchanges like these are extremely well played and written: "KEEVAN: Don't be too hard on him, young man. He just saved your life. Take them to a secure area. Third, I have a mission for you. I want you to find the Starfleet unit. But do not engage them. Locate them, assess their strength, and then report back to me. REMATA'KLAN: I understand. KEEVAN: No, you don't. But that's all right. It's not important that you understand, only that you carry out my instructions precisely." "BASHIR: And you spend the war resting comfortably as a Starfleet POW while your men lie rotting on this planet. KEEVAN: I see we understand each other. I'm going to order the Jem'Hadar to attack your position tomorrow regardless of whether you agree to my terms or not. So you can either kill them or they'll kill you. Either way, they're coming." Then of course, if you don't understand the Jem'Hadar by now, this painted the clear picture. "SISKO: Do you really want to give up your life for the order of things? REMATA'KLAN: It is not my life to give up, Captain. And it never was." I'm just riveted by this episode every time I watch it. I think it’s better than ‘A Time to Stand’. Outstanding performances all around. Easy 4 stars.

Fantastic episode. Wonderfully shot and fantastically written and paced. This episode feels a lot like some of the wonderful early-season episodes of Battlestar Galactica (combat drama cross cut with political drama). Without stealing Jammer's thunder by writing a novel-sized comment, here are some great things about this episode: -The Jem'Hadar plot is an amazing Star Trek episode. Sisko did everything he could to reach a solution that did not involve more bloodshed. It wasn't just internal stewing - he DID reach out and I think most viewers were even hoping that Remata'Klan would accept (even though it's more dramatic for him to refuse). -I say that it's more dramatic for the Jem'Hadar to refuse Sisko's offer, but I mean that in the best possible way. They're bred to do what they do and no way would they abandon the Founders. The soldiers who have done that in previous episodes are the exception, and it makes for a fantastic installment that Moore didn't do the same thing here. -Don't forget that Remata'Klan is the Third - NOT the First. That makes him less experienced and probably younger than his COs who died. Him suddenly being in charge is a great dramatic beat because (as mentioned in the intro) he really regrets disobeying the Vorta once already. But being so young he's also not disillusioned enough to do it again. The Jem'Hadar are tragic, and each appearance becomes more and more fascinating. For my money they're one of the highlight races in all of Trek. -Kira's storyline is fantastic too. It reminds me a lot of her story in "Progress" from the first season. The stakes here are much higher, though. I loved seeing her two-day routine. The first time it's mundane - her alarm wakes her up - and we can see how bizarre it is that an occupation should be this comfortable and routine. The second time, she realizes it for herself - already awake before the alarm - and it sinks in. -The suicide on the promenade is one of the most haunting scenes in the series. Sometimes DS9 has handled gestures like this too hamfistedly (the Vedek pushing another Vedek off the second level in "Accession" because of the new caste laws), but the hanging here feels earned and believable. It's pretty horrifying. -The Weyoun-Dukat-Damar-Kira dynamic is great, but I'll wait for it to come to a head before I write more. Well I wrote more than I wanted, but that's only because there's so much to talk about. Easy 4 stars. One of the best of the series.

My favorite season 6 episode.

Powerful, riveting episode. I concur with Jammer that it's probably one of the best episodes in DS9, right up there with In the Pale Moonlight. Andrew Robinson provided a stellar performance as usual, stealing the scene every time he appears (when does he not?). I agreed with his assessment that "Humans have rules in war. Rules that tend to make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion," which was a very nice foreshadoing of the events to come in 'Pale Moonlight.' I like how his Cardassian pragmatism is shown to always prevail over Federation hedonism, but how both sides of the argument are so subtlely played out. Another wonderful scene that really stuck with me was how the Jem'Hadar all crowded around Keevan when Bashir was about to perform surgery on him, in 'childlike curiosity' as a former poster pointed out. It foreshadows the Third's final dialogue with Sisko in a way, that the Jem'Hadar truly don't have any control over their autonomy and how tragic that is. As we see later in 'Treachery, Faith, and the Great River', neither do the Vorta. Both their species have been specifically programmed to obey the Founders' every whim, even if it means killing themselves. Others have gone into detail about how horrific Yassim's suicide scene sears into one's mind, so I won't elaborate on that. On a final note, I'm getting tired of Nog showing up in every scene. He didn't annoy me so much when I first watched DS9, but ever since I watched 'Valiant' yesterday, I want to strangle him every time he gets all self-righteous and pompous on screen. He's like the Wesley Crusher of DS9, and to be honest I think he's even worse than Wesley. At least we had the satisfaction of seeing Picard and Bev Crusher shut him up a few times.

This Dominion war arc invites comparison with B5 seasons 3 and 4: so far it hasn't seemed quite as epic and impressive. Plus none of the characters seem quite as fascinating as Londo and G'Kar. But this story was superb. The suicide and Kira's growing self-disgust, parallelled with the ending added up to great drama. It felt like watching a car crash: you can't do anything, but you can't take your eyes away either.

I don't want to be too harsh on her, but I didn't like Kira's reaction to the "protest". But since it's such a contrast to her previous day, let's start by saying I find it hard to believe she had the habit to wake up, literally smile at herself in the mirror, then basically enjoy (with a bit if whining alright) another good day's work with all the Cardassians and Jem Hadars around. The Federation and the Klingons are loosing the war and thousands of people, but it's not so bad until she has a single hanging corpse before her. The emissary told the Bajorans to bide their time and stay out of the war (for obvious reasons really). But the old women couldn't understand... Kira even repeats "You don't understand", when it's quiet simple. But then everything changes with the suicide somehow, so why not risk her whole world and start the resistance? She really should have had that distrusting look from the beginning, and she should still want to keep DS9 out of trouble despite the pointless suicide. But the way it actually develops, she just lost her nerves and wants to throw herself into action. It's selfish, she always seems to act according to her emotions. But then, I'm sure it'll all turn out to be the right decision at some point. Still a very good episode I must add.

Unlike Jammer, I loved "The Ship," but I agree with Jammer that "Rocks and Shoals" is even better! What a searing, probing, tragic episode! That final scene with Remata'Klan accepting his own certain death with such dignity and quiet calmness will always be with me. A beautiful, memorable episode!

I am glad Kira's Resistance plans never really got off the ground, except for getting the jem hedar and Cardassians fighting and getting Rom in trouble, it was over before it started. I watched Season 7 and realized how vicious the Dominion was when Damar's resistance was taking place. They leveled entire cities as a response. They would have did the same to Bajor. The Gamma Quadrant was terrified of the Dominion because they destroyed generations of people (The Quickening) when they resisted them. Vedek Yasim's suicide meant nothing to me. Still a great episode.

I seem to be in the minority here - didn't like the episode too much. I felt the SF officers were protesting an easy victory over the Jem Hadar too much. They were half suggesting not to take Keevan's intel and instead give the Jem Hadar a fair fight. Good luck explaining that to Keiko if Miles doesn't make it. Yes, Keevan could have agreed to Sisko's convoluted plan. But he didn't end of story. And even if, from what I've been told about the Jem Hadar, they would not voluntarily lay down their weapons to be sedated by Bashir. You can lament how the Jem Hadar have no say in their fate and how unfair all of that is, but we didn't shed tears for any of the thousands of them so far killed on the show. None of them had a choice either. The B-Story is equally ham-fisted.

I'm really surprised at the high rating, but maybe this episode hasn't aged as well as others. First off, unlike "To the Death", Keevan and the other Jem'Hadar come off looking completely one-dimensional. Despite Sisko's attempts to get the enemy to actually struggle with their beliefs, the Vorta and Jem'Hadar stubbornly cling to their racial programming, and the story plays everything by the books. At this late in the series, it would've been nice to show the Federation finally finding some sympathizers within the Dominion, but alas, no such luck. The B-plot wasn't particularly well-written either. Kira slipping into the role of a collaborator just doesn't fit with her character, and frankly isn't an accurate description of the situation. Unbeknownst to Yassim, Kira is actually biding her time to turn on the Dominion, and everything else is just a front. Kira should've found a way to communicate that to Yassim, or Yassim should've had a little more faith in a veteran resistance fighter. Either way neither of the characters acts believably, and we're forced to watch the quick death of character we hardly care about to learn something about Kira we already knew; she wants to fight the Dominion. The story overall has good acting and some good jokes, so I'd give this a solid 2 or maybe even a 2.5, but anything higher should be reserved for episodes that don't color so closely within the lines.

This is definitely one of the best DS9 episodes with me. It's too bad they couldn't have used Keevan more. Unlike Weyoun (who is awesome in his own right), this guy's actually really menacing and dark. 4 stars all the way!

Diamond Dave

Properly strong episode, this one. It is indeed something of a triumph to make the Jem'Hadar the sympathetic characters, and it helps by having a character like Keevan who is so well drawn as to be utterly contemptible. On the other plotline, the way Kira begins to realise that she has become what she hates is also brilliantly realised, and the shot of Yassim's death beautifully stylised. Some good dialogue and a gorgeous FX shot of the ship crashing too. 3.5 stars.

This was the third episode of DS9 I watched and one of the reasons I think it's the best show in the franchise.

If "A Time to Stand" was 10/10 worthy, "Rocks and Shoals" takes that 10 point scale, sets it on fire, dynamites it, builds a new scale from the ashes and then blows "A Time to Stand" completely out of the water! OH MY GOD, was this good! Before I discuss the A and B plots, I want to focus quickly on the acting, because everyone involved delivered absolutely top-notch performances. Avery Brooks, Andrew Robinson, Christopher Shea (Keevan).... hell, pretty much everyone in the Sisko plot.... was very much up to the task of taking a brilliant script and adding brilliant acting to it. Brooks' final scene where he shows his complete contempt for Keevan was a thing to behold, especially since Brooks has a reputation (often undeserved, I think) for somewhat below-average acting. And Nana Visitor.... well, she should have won a fucking Emmy for this episode! The fact that she wasn't even nominated is just one more proof for me that the Emmys (like the Oscars) are mostly a load of bullshit and a waste of time. As for the Sisko A-plot.... First, it's nice to see writers that actually understand the concept of gallows humor. "I tore my pants!" cracks me up every time. :-) Second, we actually have an "honorable" Jem'Hadar used correctly here, unlike previous attempts in "The Abandoned" and "Hippocratic Oath". Remata'klan is honorable not because he rebels against the Dominion, not because he wants to be free from their control, but because he has a code of honor that he follows religiously. That's a wonderful message, as soldiers on both sides of a war can be honorable people and find some common ground between them, even if they hold completely opposing philosophies. Third, Sisko's decisions here are wonderfully executed. Yes, he is right to declare that the decision is his call and not a debate; yes, he's right to try to turn the Jem'hadar against Keevan; yes, he's right to offer them a chance to survive; and yes, he's right, sadly, to ultimately gun them all down when left with no other choice - because he's right that in a choice between them and his crew there is no choice. Beautifully done! As for the Kira B-plot.... I don't often comment on the directing, because that's just not in my wheelhouse, but even I can see some mastery at work here. Whereas the A-plot is shot almost entirely with grand, sweeping panoramas to convey Sisko feeling like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, the B-plot is shot almost entirely in tight, close angles. You really get the sense of the walls closing in around the characters. If you put a frog in hot water, it will jump out; but gradually bring it to a boil and it will sit there and die. That's exactly what is happening to Kira in "Rocks and Shoals" - she's slowly being brought to a boil. Weyoun, just like he was doing in "A Time to Stand", is using a pleasant face to conceal the Dominion's true purposes. And it works so well that even Kira starts to fall for it. It takes Vedek Yassim's suicide to violently yank her out of her stupor and force her to see what is happening to her. Speaking of Yassim's suicide, that was a thing of story-telling/narrative/dramatic beauty! It's very minimalist, but ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING!! I remember when I first watched this episode, it made me quite literally gasp in shock! It works so well because it not only forces Kira to see what is going on (that she's already on the slippery slope to becoming a collaborator) but also violently yanks the audience back to reality. You almost get the sense that Kira is right to comply with the Dominion (to keep Bajor out of the fighting) and that Yassim is wrong. Well, that certainly changes once you see Yassim drop from the second floor of the Promenade and her religious hat go flying, doesn't it?! I only wish I had the eloquence to adequately describe just how intensely powerful this scene is, in an episode that was already quite emotionally powerful. "Evil must be opposed." As Bryan Cranston would say.... "You're god-damn right!" 10/10

I'm not sure the dominion would bother to rescue them since they're just clones and given that why would Keevan care if he died if he'd just wake up in a cloning lab? Maybe to avoid the pain I guess.

@Odyssey47 For the vorta being cloned and sharing the same consciousness are not the same thing. Each Weyoun clone has the same memories as the one before it but he is not the same person. If Keevan died he dies for good. On the Jem'Hadar I think they would be rescued just so they have experienced soldiers who can pilot ships.

Thought provoking review and comments all around - genuinely worth reading (for me) almost everything on this page. It's often jarring to be confronted with disconcern and/or unexamined ruthlessness regarding the deliberate termination of life. Irrespective of, for instance, whether it would ultimately prove necessary to kill the enemy soldiers, isn't an evolution in the thinking processes of mankind a central tenent of Star Trek? Yes there is war, but this isn't set in the 21st century and Cisco isn't Patton or Rommel. He is supposed to represent hundreds of years of conscious, progressive effort to place in check our destructive instincts. The world is gradually becoming less and less violent (no, really - I didn't believe it myself but Steve Pinker's evidence and arguments have convinced me). Certainly the Trek universe depicts humanity as having finally done most of the remaining work necessary to embody disciplined restraint and compassion at the expense of violence, whether reflexive or strategic. Attacking Cisco for trying to find a way not to kill those enemy soldiers (while understandable given the stakes) is, I would suggest, thinking in contemporary terms at the expense of incorporating some of the most defining elements of Trek into one's calculus. In the same vein, many comments here have characterized "Paul Gordon" (Joseph Fuqua), the handsome Starfleet "redshirt" who is killed during the climax, as a victim of what they see as Cisco's - or even the writers' - misplaced attempts at diplomacy. But Gordon was Star Fleet, and more, he was a man, a human, of his time. I would like to suggest that he was not a victim, and would not have seen himself as one. Perhaps I am out on a rhetorical limb here, but supporting evidence was provided when the crew confront the morality of Keevan's ambush. Gordon himself says, with obvious revulsion at the idea, "So we just...shoot them down?" Being killed, especially with most of your life still ahead of you, is not a choice most of us would make. But living by your convictions, especially when doing so is difficult or even dangerous, must be among lifes' most defining behaviors. Cisco did not carelessly or needlessly throw away Gordon's life. He pursued a course mandated by a philosophy of existence to which Gordon, and Star Trek, devotedly subscribe. With so much discussion here and elsewhere about "honor", what does honor have to "say" about acting in accordance to your considerd beliefs? This episode is repleat with subtlety, depth, thematicism, and depictional excellence. Brooks and especially Visitor knocked it out of the park, as did the writers and director. Moreover, the guest actors were outstanding. Phil Morris was riveting, and Lily Chauvin was excellent - yes, IMHO, excellent, as Vedek Yassim. She depicted Yassim as poised, profoundly serious, appropriately proclative, and, above all, crystal clear as to her purpose: to open the eyes of someone in whom she had placed her faith for the salvation of her people. In.Frakking.Credible. That this site persists despite the antiquity (in terms of the digital world) of the bulk of its content, obligates my sincere and evergreen gratitude. I began visiting here shortly after taking my first job out of college. Now closing in on two decades later, I find my occasional vintageTrek streaming greatly enhanced by re-reading Jammer's take, and catching up with opinions of other ST devotees. I love it when someone out there elucidates a point, whether or not I immediately or ultimately agree with it, that simply had not occurred. So thank you fellow commentators, and above all, thank you Jammer.

Tidesfromnebula

LT Heeley - shame she wasn't turned into a reccuring character, completely steals show with the limited time she's given! Not even an unamed random redshirt, how many 1 shot characters get the rank of LT!? Count me in the Heeley fanclub!

David Pirtle

Well that was grim. I never thought Star Trek would feature an old lady hanging herself in public.

Quarkissnyder

I agree that this episode was great. Nitpicks: Why did the Dominion ships fire on them? Weren't they in a Dominion ship themselves? The vorta could have ordered the Jem Haddar to commit suicide. Or Sisko could have suggested the stasis idea to the vorta. Why can't Bajor create its own medical supplies? That seems weird for a developed planet. It's not clear whether the Jem Hadar are brainwashed or if they genuinely, genetically lack free will. When they were introduced it was the latter, but a huge percentage of the jem haddar that have had close encounters with Sisko and crew have turned out to be much more complicated. Is that because a war machine is not that interesting as a character or as part of a story? Or are all jem haddar potentially capable of overcoming their programming?

@Quarkissnyder - In the first episode where we really explore the Jem'Hadar programming we're actually introduced to both halves of this answer in a very subtle way. In "Abandoned" Odo desperately wants the boy he finds to be more than his genetic programming the way that Odo is... but finds that he is wrong. We later see pretty significant hints that Odo has a hard time overcoming his own programming as well (starting with abandoning a ship in crisis because he's compelled to go to the Omarian Nebula), so it makes sense that he wants this to be true despite everyone telling him the boy is just a killing machine. ODO: Major, about the boy. You were right. We could just leave it at that and assume it was the writer's original intention.... BUT, in the same episode we're also introduced to some hope. Ketracel White. If no Jem'Hadar could overcome his programming would they need to be born addicted to a drug that only the founders can provide? Around a season later, in Hippocratic Oath we find a bunch of Jem'Hadar that want to be free of the white. Instinct is powerful. It's hard to say.... let a spider crawl across the back of your neck without feeling squeamish about it. But we can. Tiger's have been taught to let people place their heads in the mouths without eating us. Heck, some guy even had a pet alligator, which really shouldn't be possible. The Jem'Hadar are heavily programmed to obey the Vorta and revere the Founders..... but if the programming was perfect there would be no need for Ketracel White.

@Del_Duio/Robert In "To The Death", there is at least a company of Jem'Hadar who have enough free will to not only break from The Founders, but come up with their own plans to rule the galaxy. The issue of white never came up, but Weyoun admitted that the Dominion's appearance of control over the Jem'Hadar had been exaggerated. Between this and "Hippocratic Oath"'s portrayal of the Jem'Hadar, my take is that they're both a psychologically and physiologically dominated people, who can do well enough on their own when these controls are removed.

JJ not Abrams 8-)

Powerful episode ... Excellent commentary by everyone Who's to say the red shirt wouldn't have been killed even if Sisko had opted to shoot first and ask questions later? It's war, and the Jem Hadar are pretty good at their job.

Startrekwatcher

3 stars Definitely nowhere near as good as "Call to Arms" and a step down from "A Time to Stand". I was happy DS9 was choosing to do serialization with the start of the season--something it should have done and done more often rather than doing a mythology story here and there That said, while it was nice the episode featured Vorta and Jem'Hadar and picked up with the crew struggling on their damaged enemy ship--the episode wasn't particular compelling. No Dukat, no Weyoun, no Winn, no Founder. None of the interesting plotting--the last episode ended with the situation of Odo being part of the station council but that seemingly set aside and we get the story with the vedek. Odo was correct and so Kira initially. The Dominion aren't the Cardassians. The current situation on the station is apples and oranges. The Dominion are more ruthless and have more powerful and deadlier arsenal of weapons from biological to conventional. Not doing anything to jeopardize the non aggression pact was wise And I don't know about anybody else but the "looking at yourself in the mirror" technique employed here was quite pretentious The other plot with the Jem'Hadar was decent enough of not compelling or all that involving Dax being wounded didn't do much for me and seemed kinda pointless. Not much new ground was covered with regards to the Dominion. We already knew the jem'Hadar were ruthless soldiers bred to fight and be obedient. We knew the Vorta see them as cannon fodder. So no new intriguing insight was offered up to add to the Dominion mythology. The battles were fair enough--not riveting mind you Overall not the strongest episode as I was hoping for

Another powerful episode -- actually making me feel pity for the Jem'Hadar (which I felt before just objectively given their role) but here at the hands of a snake of a Vorta, I feel it even more. But they are true to the order of the Dominion and the Vorta certainly don't mind one bit. The Vorta has devised a plan for survival and it will cost all the lives of the Jem'Hadar -- but so be it. It's either them or the (former) DS9 staff. A pretty clever setup that hits on the theme that there are rules even in war. Several nice standoffs between Sisko, the main Jem'Hadar (who was Kelley in VOY's "One Small Step" -- another terrific episode), and the Vorta. Loved the outdoor filming as if it is a feature film -- the scene were Garak/Nog cross Bashir/Sisko was really cool. Really got the sense that they are on an actual planet as opposed to some Hollywood set. As for the B-story on DS9 - Nana Visitor shines in this one as Kira is becoming exactly what she hates -- trying to suppress the resistance. Really well portrayed. The scene with the vedic hanging herself is powerful and impactful and Visitor shows how it hits Kira like a ton of bricks. 3.5 stars for "Rocks and Shoals" -- more great insights into the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta and even with spending a very short amount of time on the B-story, so much is conveyed as a resistance cell is in the making. Ultimately the main story arc doesn't advance too much here but this makes for an excellent near-standalone episode.

I always found the Starfleet view in this episode of "We can't just shoot them, it's not fair if we know their plan!" as being incredibly flawed and probably the reason why they're failing so miserably at the war at this point, the idea of "fair play" doesn't work well in war especially against an enemy like the Dominion who barely values your race as worthy of life. Something I would have loved to have heard Garak say to Nog and O'Brien was the immortal words of Gul Dukat "Oh now don't go spouting off your holier-than-thou Federation fair play dogma". I mean whats the point of Starfleet Intelligence existing if they don't want to use "intelligence" to outwit the enemy? Put it into a historical perspective, when the Allies broke the German Enigma code during WWII they could study their transmissions and knew of their plans before they happened, which is a credit to why they managed to eventually win the war and prevent Europe from becoming a fascist dystopia that the Federation would become if the Dominion wins. Now imagine if some peoples personal moral view overided logic and we decided "Nah using the intelligence we gathered from breaking German codes is too "easy", it's not a fair fight. We should march onto the battlefield and meet the Nazis face to face and have a jolly old punchup like men!" we'd have lost the war within the first few years and millions would have been slaughtered in camps and massacres. The same applies here, the Dominion is the biggest threat to Humanity in probably the history of Humanity itself, they have the Cardassian "Space Nazis" on their side and their main fighting force, The Jem'Hadar are brutal, efficient killing machines in a very literal sense, programmed to follow whatever orders they're given and that's that. These are the same group of people who have already destroyed hundreds of Starfleet vessels containing thousands of personnel and within Dominion territory itself, have slaughtered likely billions of people over the years as well as performing chemical warfare (The Blight) against civilian populations, yet we feel sorry for this squad of Jem'Hadar because their "leader" double crossed them by given Sisko their plan of attack? This is what happens when Human Starfleet personnel "humanise" their enemy in every sense of the word, they're not Humans, they don't share our morals they don't share our view they don't even share much likeness to us or our culture. I'm not saying "slaughter every Jem'Hadar! They're not worthy of life!" or anything like that at all, I'm simply saying don't anthropomorphise them, they're not like us and as Lieutenant Neeley said "They wouldn't hesitate if the situation was reversed". There are times in war when people feel sympathy for the other side yes, this is not one of those times especially when being outnumbered 2 to 1.

What a great captain, Sisko is. In the middle of a war, he offers to save the enemy who have and are wiping out as many people as possible. Just what is the plan there? And why isn't Sisko held accountable for that? If anything went wrong or any other people died, he'd be to blame. It just seemed to me to allow the writers a get out clause... so that killing the JH wasn't seen as "un-Starfleet".

The image of the evacuation from the sinking fighter, as well as the arid landscape, seemed like a deliberate shout-out to the beginning of "Planet of the Apes". Near the end it started to feel like a classic Western. I love it when Trek shoots on location. I bet those costumes and make-up were very uncomfortable out there, though!

RandomThoughts

Hello Everyone! I think it comes down to this: If Sisko had found out about the plan through subterfuge, or found a map of the attack wrapped around a cigar (historical reference), he'd have had no problem with it. But he has some Honor left. And it just didn't feel Honorable, at that time, to massacre an enemy to save the skin of the Vorta who arranged it. Because the Vorta was despicable. If they'd shown Sisko, and to a lesser extent O'Brien and the rest, just wanting to execute them without a second thought, they would be no better than the Jem'Hadar... Enjoy the Day Everyone... RT

These episodes are so good, the last few and onward. I'm not commenting a lot since I'm doing a rewatch. But a few thoughts... It's nice to see that all of my favorite characters are around, now. Funny how none of them except Odo are in the opening credits. Given Odo's 'god' status, I think he could rule the station. He's smart enough not to pull that card...maybe he will? Jake on the station would be a prisoner of war. I think the Cardassians aren't terrified of the Dominion (though they should be), I wouldn't be surprised to see Jake being tortured to death eventually. (If it were my kid, I'd have gone back, AND put his butt in the brig for a while. I hope Sisko has a 'come to Jesus' meeting with him soon, if either survive.) Finally, wtf is Cadet Nog doing on such a grave mission? For that matter, why Sisko? Is he that unpopular at SF Command? I'd think Worf, maybe O'Brien or Dax, but Nog has had, what, a semester at the academy? No reason he shouldn't be treated like a minor, which he is, not an officer on a potential suicide mission. Bashir (especially in previous episode) didn't come off as developed to me - more like a different character, trying to act like a tough guy on the bridge instead of in sickbay. And the whole surprise genius stuff never seemed to work. I am happy to be in season 6 & will give no spoilers, but it's immense television.

"Rocks and Shoals" continues the fantastic station material from "A Time to Stand", but this time, the A plot is just as good. That's mainly due to yet another knockout script from the great Ronald D. Moore, and Phil Morris' compelling performance. I didn't really buy Sisko's respect for the Jem'Hadar in "To the Death". It came off as more than a little forced. Third Remata'Klan feels much more believable and honorable, and as a result the episode's tragedy hit that much harder. 4 stars, easily. A top ten episode. Thus far, I think my top ten list goes: "Duet" "Necessary Evil" "The Way of the Warrior" "The Visitor" "Rocks and Shoals" "Far Beyond the Stars" "In the Pale Moonlight" "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River" "It's Only a Paper Moon" "Tacking Into the Wind" That might change on re-watch.

Nice list Iceman. These lists always change over time :-) Here's mine. #1. Trials and Tribble-ations #2. Duet #3. For The Uniform #4. In The Pale Moonlight #5. Explorers #6. The Way of the Warrior #7. The Visitor #8. Call To Arms/Sacrifice of Angels #9. In Purgatory's Shadow #10. The Search

@Yanks-I don't really disagree with any of yours. I'm quite fond of "Explorers" as well, even if a lot of others find it boring. :) I am surprised to see "The Visitor" and "For the Uniform" on your list though. I recall you not being quite as on board with "The Visitor" as Jammer, and agreeing with his opinion that "For the Uniform" was a good, but flawed episode.

Iceman, True. This list is an old one. I might have to look at my ratings and reevaluate. I graded 'The Visitor' 3.5. I still think it will make the list but I did dock 'For the Uniform' a point for there being no repercussions for Sisko's actions. Maybe a 3.0 episode shouldn't be here. I shall return!! :-)

Vladimir Estragon

Aren't the Vorta as much an engineered species as the Jem'Hadar? Keevan was played as a treacherous villain, but can't you make the argument that he was just saving his life so he could continue to serve the founders?

Vedek Yassim was so well written and played, I thought she had been on the show previously and I had missed it. Sisko’s angst about the situation seemed out of place, and certainly discussing the Vorta’s plan in the presence of junior officers like Nog was inappropriate. They’re at war, behind the lines with an enemy preparing to attack. That Keevan is a sleaze ball is irrelevant.

Watching and commenting: -Sisko and company crash on a desert island. --Some Jem Hadar is also stranded there, with limited White. --The Skipper and Gilligan, aka Garak and Nog, are quite the odd couple. --Asking the right questions, "you don't understand" - we're seeing and hearing that several times. Obedience, disobedience. --Does Sisko still have those 84 canisters of White? --Nog turning his back on Garak now, I see. Lots of trust talk. --It's all too much for Kira. Very nice sequence showing how the realization truly, deeply hits her: OMG, the Cardassians are back. OMG, the Cardassians - they're back. And I'm doing nothing. --So that's some strange "order of things." Vorta coming off as so very weak, underneath it all. --Hoping we'll see the consequences of the destruction of their White supply. Good ep.

Thunderchild

@Startrekwatcher - I think the idea of having Dax injured was due to the fact Terry Farrell had extremely sensitive skin. Having her laid up in the cave for the majority of the episode meant she wouldn’t have to film any exterior scenes. I remembering reading that her skin condition played havoc with the filming of “Let He Who Is Without Sin”.

Short notes on this episode, just some of the many reasons it's so great: - it's the best Jem'Hadar episode (building on The Abandoned, Hippocratic Oath and To The Death, but more successful than any) - and easily the best Vorta episode (Treachery, Faith and the Great River in S7 never worked that well for me; here, in the form of Keevan, the Vorta are shown at their most duplicitous and self-serving) - on top of that, it's also a fantastic Kira episode... her storyline is brilliant and told in just a few scenes, many non-verbal; the dialogue is perfect but Vejar's direction and Visitor's acting do the heavy lifting - Lilyan Chauvin is superb and incredibly memorable in her small but crucial role as Vedek Yassim - excellent use of Garak too For me, while A Time To Stand is strong, this is considerably better - so for me A Time To Stand is 3.5 and this is 4.

Bobbington Mc Bob

Gave me tingles, and had to pause the playback at the hanging. Did I really just see that? In *Star Trek*? Bold.

This was my favourite section of the arc, no doubt. Everything on display here is top-notch. It's visually stunning, to start off with. The extreme harsh daylight of the setting makes everything feel more threatening. The feeling of being slowly boiled alive hangs over the whole show. It's a hell of a directorial job in general -- back on Terok Nor, we've got the shots of Kira having to wake up and look herself in the eye every day, and that really drives home how soul-crushing her predicament is. Intense moments here. Vedek Yassim hangs herself on the Promenade; Starfleet puts the Jem'Hadar to the slaughter. This is extremely weighty subject matter on both sides, and aptly-handled -- with a hell of a lot of moral complexity in both. Kira's plot shows how easy it is to get caught up in day-to-day life in a situation like this -- to lose track of the bigger picture. Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, noticing no change when the heat's ramping up bit-by-bit. It's an insidious display of Dominion technique. It'll take something drastic before she can realise, and Yassim is the one to provide that -- it's just as much a shock to Kira as it is to the audience, and it's the shock she needs. The final showdown between Starfleet and the Jem'Hadar is difficult to assess from a moral perspective. At what point does this stop being combat and start being a massacre? Their opponents aren't defenceless, and do manage to cause one Starfleet death in the end, but it's so heavily weighted in Starfleet's favour. What matters more is the purpose of the assault: Keevan's sending them into battle purely to have them die, with Starfleet as the executioners. Sisko talking it out with the Jem'Hadar changes the nature of the situation. He wants an option other than life or death, but for the Jem'Hadar, there's no such thing. We know how they see things: they are dead, and victory is life. So to them, it's a simple matter. If there's no chance of victory, there's no chance at life. They simply stay dead. And they cannot/will not diverge from that. So Sisko is forced to play by their life-and-death rules. Effective use is made of the individual characters on Starfleet's side; the close-ups during the massacre show us the different perspectives. Seasoned soldier O'Brien has lived through more than enough death in his life already; young cadet Nog has never had to see or do anything like this before. Garak, with no moral compunctions, is grimly relieved to get the dirty job done; Sisko has to agree with Garak despite wishing it could be otherwise. He gives the order; he bears that guilt. Special mention to the early scene between Garak and Nog, just before they're caught by the Jem'Hadar. Empok Nor was Nog's most brutal Starfleet experience before now, and it's good to see he hasn't forgotten it... or come to trust Garak again. Garak might be on Starfleet's side for the purposes of this arc -- participating in the group scenes, joking with the others, taking his place on the Defiant -- but they do well to give us reminders that he's not one of them. Leaves just that little bit more tension in there.

Regarding "aren't the Vorta an engineered species too". Sure they are, but they are also effectively the "managers". A good (and honourable) manager doesn't hang their employees out to dry, they shield them and take the blame themselves. Which is exactly what Third Remata'klan did as an honourable commander. Just as in real-life, insanity or following orders or what not does get you off in some circumstances. Some things, however, are too despicable to be forgiven despite the situation -- which is the same type of concern Kira is dealing with and chewing herself up over.

I was thinking about it just now and realized there may be another parallel connecting the A and B stories. When the Federation crew crashes and sets up camp in the cave, IIRC they're joking about the hotel-like accomodations they've now got. They're doing it to boost morale, but the spirit of the joking is to try to at least pretend their situation is ok to avoid despair. This is not unlike Kira, who on the station is also trying to pretend that her situation is ok and that she needs to bide her time. Her comparatively cushy surroundings make it all too easy to trick herself into thinking she's not also stranded, swimming for life among the rocks and shoals of the Dominion. The difference is that she allowed herself to believe it briefly, but she was no less stuck on a planet with the Dominion than Sisko and the Fed crew were.

Another good episode in what was probably the strongest run of episodes across all of DS9. In some ways, the B-plot is arguably stronger than the A-plot, with Kira lifelessly trudging through her daily routine under Cardassian rule. The scenes where she forces herself to get up and go to work are deeply poignant. And the self-martyrdom of the Vedek bordered on a cliche, but still packs an emotional punch. (Though I have to ask: with the number of falls and deaths from the upper promenade walkway, why has the station never fitted any safety nets, or some form of future-tech solution, such as a movement sensor and a low-power tractor beam...) By comparision, the A-plot isn't as great, not least because it relies on a heavily contrived setup, in having the DS9 crew land within a convenient walking distance of the already-stranded Jem Hadar. But still it does have it's moments, especially when Keevan appears on screen. For my money, he's a much better "negotiator" than Weyoun, with his devious plots and more sarcastic nature. It's a shame we didn't get to see more of this character going forward (except for... well, you know... spoilers!) Equally, it's a bit of a shame that the writers decided to go for a turkey-shoot ending. Especially since there were two possibilities which could have been explored: 1) The 84 cannisters of Ketracel sitting on the sunken Jem Hadar fighter. Even if it's sunk too deep for a human to swim down to, surely one of the genetically-enhanced Jem Hadar could have made it down there... 2) The Jem Hadar could have been sedated. It would have been nice if the writers had at least considered this possibility - after all, it wouldn't be too hard to make up some reason as to why they couldn't be sedated, tied into their genetically engineered nature. Still, a pretty decent episode when all's said and done...

Is this maybe the darkest Trek episode? That hanging scene was shocking. Grey ep!

One of the best DS9 episodes ever made. Perhaps a scene that doesn't get noticed enough but is key for the story's thematic undertone is when Sisko first meets the Jem'Hadar Third and tries to manipulate him to serve his own ends (a fact Dax them comments on). The core of the episode seems to be about how war is fundamentally about manipulating the troops to do the bidding of the higher echelons without regard for their own lives. This is what "the order of things" inevitably is, and Sisko isn't above it either. In the end, however, Sisko's actions do show that there is indeed more to war than that.

Tannhaeuser

Remata'Klan is a sympathetic character the moment we realize that he is fully intelligent but has no freedom of choice.

@Tannhaeuser "Remata'Klan is a sympathetic character the moment we realize that he is fully intelligent but has no freedom of choice." I think what makes this even more powerful is that he does have a choice and still decides to obey the Vorta. We've seen a number one kill a Vorta before (Weyoun). Caught this on BBC the other day. One of DS9's best in my opinion.

This one has a remarkable line from Keevan, about the “famed Starfleet engineers that can turn rocks into replicators”. This is gold, because the early years of contact with the Dominion appeared quite insurmountable. Keevan is throwing out his Vorta charm with that line, but it’s legit— he’s trying to save his own ass. He clearly believes that the Feds can seemingly perform technological magic, which means the Dominion believes that too.

"Rocks and Shoals" is a little masterpiece, with that unmistakable Ron Moore touch. Essentially a Sum Fuller movie squeezed into 45 minutes - Sam Fuller made low budget WW2 movies, in which little squads of opposing troops found themselves lost in little morality plays - this episode finds Sisko and the gang stranded on an alien planet. Also with them are a gang of Jem'Hadar under the command of a wounded Vorta. As others have mentioned, the Vorta here is superbly acted by Christopher Shea. IMO it's a performance even better than Jeffrey Combs' Weyoun. Shea's Vorta has an otherworldly quality. He feels like those images of Hindu Gods, humanoid but inhuman, and with a serene, but detached and haughty quality. The guy moves like he's on an entirely different astral plane, and feels far more alien, and even divine, than Weyoun. Much of the episode plays like a superior version of "Nor the Battle To The Strong", "To The Death" and "The Ship". The Vorta wants Sisko's medic, and Sisko wants the Vorta's communication's relay. Standing in their way is the Jem'Hadar, who the Vorta sacrifices to Sisko in exchange for a pampered prison sentence. It's an interesting triangle, with Sisko torn between the survival of his crew, and the survival of the Jem'Hadar, a species he continues to have sympathy for. Good location photography, some good fleshing out of Garak and Nog (Nog refuses to ever stand in front of Garak), some great Miles moments, and some great secondary characters (compare Moore's redshirts with Fuller's caricatures in "Empok Nor") help complement Moore's writing, which has a muscular, confident quality. Equally good is a subplot back on DS9. Here Kira's become complacent with Dominion rule, comfortably pampered and corralled and attuned to a life of submission. It's a slow and gutsy piece of writing, the episode simply watching as a tired Kira goes about her dull daily routines, sipping raktajino and manning her console. When a Bajoran Vedek commits suicide to protest the occupation (the Vedek is played with rare gravity and class by seasoned actress Lilyan Chauvin), Kira snaps out of her fugue. She realizes she's essentially become a collaborator, and resolves to form a resistance movement. This, of course, echoes Sisko's plight, in which Sisko and the Vorta, Federation and Enemy, collaborate with one another to ensure their comfort and survival. The victims of Kira's collaborations are Bajor and the Entire Alpha Quadrant. The victims of Sisko's are the Jem'Hadar, who in this episode are also asked to swear fidelity to one of two causes.

Icarus32soar

So great it's in a class of its own, even watched as a stand alone episode it makes superb viewing. Dialogue, pace, themes, dramatic development, cinematography are all superlative. The acting equally impressive, with Brooks not chewing the scenery for once. Christopher Shea as the Vorta brings a unique menace to the role. His performance is a counterpoint to Jeffrey Combs' lighter and ironic character. They should have kept him on some more. Have seen this episode several times and it never loses it luster. The Kira subplot is superb too, achieving complexity in every way. I wish such episodes would be "the order of things" in all of ST. One of my top fave pieces of TV within ST and in general.

@Icarus32soar Thanks for an excellent and concise review. I agree with you on all major points. Actor playing Third was very good. He portrayed perfectly an reasoning and sensitive being, trapped by structure and fatalistically attached to the drug of loyalty. Actor playing the Vorta (Christopher Shea) reminded me a bit of 30's-40's era film noir actor Peter Lorre, exuding an almost magical force of intellect, staying cool while simultaneously being on the verge of panic. 4 stars; happy having seen it.

Personally, the entire planet story arc was .....meh , it actually reminded me of a very terrible voyager crash landing on an alien planet episode (and lord knows they are numerous), ironic because without warp they were stuck 17 years in space unless they turned themselves in to the Dominion. That being said, the real meat of this episode that makes me give it a 3/5 are the growing tensions between Kira and Dukat, especially the office scene where she calls him for being a power drunk lunatic and honestly thought and insists he will have his way with her (although it was obvious in season 4 Dukat had something for Kira before he was empowered).

One of the best episodes yet! I shed a tear for the Jem'Hadar. The Vorta was brilliantly played.

*shakes fist at the Vorta* The B story on occupied DS9 was also perfect.

Great episode. My only problem was how it should have ended. Sisko confines the Vorta uncomfortably in the cave, galled at the fact that a small bit of discomfort is all he can manage for the Vorta's crimes. Garak, however, somehow arranges an opportune moment to grab some alone time with the Vorta. They have a conversation where Garak says something to the effect of "Oh, the Federation, such a stickler for rules, regulations, principles, coming in good faith, and remaining above board. It's one of their most annoying, yet... strangely... endearing qualities. Unfortunately for you, I have no such qualities." With a wicked smile he approaches the Vorta. In the morning they find the Vorta dead from apparent complications from his surgery. The doctor bemoans that he must have missed some internal hemorrhaging or perhaps the Vorta being up and about so soon after surgery aggravated his injury. But Sisko is not so sure. He turns to Garak who's standing in the mouth of the cave with a suitably bemused look on his face, clearly wondering what all the fuss was about. Sisko opens his mouth and raises his hand to get Garak's attention, but no sound comes out. Some questions are better left unasked. He lowers his hand after a moment and turns towards the communicator that O'brien and Nog just finished fixing to call for extraction.

It is very good and feels epic. I agree with the other poster that Shea's Keevan really does seem otherworldly and not like an actor wearing prosthetics. Jeffrey Combs is as extremely talented near chameleon but I don't think he as well as Shea. Unfortunately, Keevan was completely squandered in his second appearance in a Ferengi "comedy" episode. A minor nitpick, but why doesn't Kira tell Yassim that the Emissary himself wanted Kira and Bajor to stay out of the fighting?

Gilligan’s Starship

Trek or not, this was just one fine piece of television drama. It shows how multi-episode arcs give the characters & stories a chance to breathe and expand, rather than having to reset everything with strictly episodic fare. Since your audience is already familiar with the on-going plot, you don’t have to spend as much time on the set-up and you get the wonderfully nuanced character moments we’ve been seeing here. SPOILER ALERT ! The suicide scene was unexpected & I literally gasped out loud when it happened!

Such a perfectly planned, written and performed episode by all concerned, which deftly marries war and ethics (on the planet) and politics and ethics (on the station). Is there anything more Trekkian than humanising your erstwhile enemies the way the Jem'Hadar are portrayed here? Keevan is a repugnantly smarmy Vorta as well, so brilliantly played that you get a visceral reaction to his betrayal of his own men at the end - the road to hell is paved with smug intentions. No Weyoun obsequiousness and calculated flattery here.

Now, in 2024. I've been catching some DS9 episodes on Pluto TV in no particular order. I had a rough knowledge of the series beforehand and I've read a fair number of these reviews and comments about various episodes throughout the series. This is a really good episode and the first where I can agree with Jammer's gushing enthusiasm that permeates his reviews of this series.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Rocks and Shoals (Review)

The opening arc of the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is one of the most ambitious storytelling experiments in the history of Star Trek .

To be fair, it is not entirely unique. In some ways, it mirrors the storytelling arc that unfolded across Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Both Kirk and Sisko are separated from their home and from their first officer and from their iconic command, before eventually finding their way to reunite with both. Obviously, a three-film trilogy is distinct from a six-episode arc, even before talking about the tonal, thematic and plotting differences between those three iconic films.

The Jem’Hadar warship that fell to Earth…

More than that, the success of the this arc would embolden the production team. They would attempt an even more audacious experiment to close out the seventh season of the series. The sixth season opened with six interconnected stories following the Cardassian reoccupation Terok Nor, building to Sisko’s retaking of the station. The seventh season pushes that even further, with a much more tightly integrated ten-episode arc that attempts to tell a single cohesive story. It is an even bolder creative decision than this arc, committing more strongly to the premise.

Ronald D. Moore’s departure from Star Trek: Voyager early in its sixth season would turn these experiments in serialisation into an evolutionary dead end for the franchise. It would be four years before Rick Berman and Brannon Braga would attempt to a tell a story on that scale. Indeed, faced with declining ratings and the spectre of cancellation, Star Trek: Enterprise attempted what was (on the surface at least) the even more ambitious attempt at a season-long arc across the entirety of the third season.

Between a rock and a hard place.

Still, the six-episode arc that opens the sixth season of Deep Space Nine remains an impressive moment in the history of the franchise. Indeed, contrasted with the sprawling ten-episode arc that closes the series or the season-long arc on Enterprise , it could reasonably be argued that this six-episode stretch does a stronger job of balancing the integrity of individual episodes with the demands of the larger arc. These six episodes are all very strongly connected to one another, with a clear sense of story and character progression, but they also retain their own identities within that.

Rocks and Shoals might be the best example of this, an episode that delicately balances its own storytelling with the needs of the arc as a whole. Rocks and Shoals is at once a great episode in its own right and an essential part of a much larger story.

Express elevator to hell.

The sixth season of Deep Space Nine was controversial, for a number of different reasons. Most obviously, the whole idea of the Dominion War represented a challenge to Gene Roddenberry’s utopian ideal. Many fans, and some members of the larger Star Trek family, took exception to the idea of building a Star Trek series around a large-scale intergalactic conflict. This was especially the case among the more traditionalist segments of the base, those who tasked themselves with curating the legacy of Gene Roddenberry.

However, there were other tensions at play at this point in the run. The six-episode arc at the start of the sixth season comfortably pushes Deep Space Nine into a very serialised approach to storytelling. This represented a challenge to a franchise that had long prided itself on its episodic storytelling, the cornerstone of its success in syndication. The idea was that most Star Trek episodes could be enjoyed in any order by anybody, rendering the franchise accessible to those who might watch casually at home without needing to catch every episode.

No guts, no glory.

To be fair, it is not as clear-cut as that made it sound. The franchise had done any number of impressive two-part stories; Deep Space Nine had even opened its second season with an ambitious three-parter in The Homecoming , The Circle and The Siege . However, the story that opens the sixth season cannot readily be described as a “six-parter.” Most obviously, Rocks and Shoals and Sons and Daughters stand alone, while Favour the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels are a pseudo-two-parter.

These writers had been trying to sneak long-form storytelling into the franchise for a long time. Writer Ronald D. Moore got into a debate with producer Rick Berman over the open-ended closing scenes of Sins of the Father , the story that kick-started the Klingon story arc that would run over ten seasons of television. Similarly, Moore found himself facing opposition from Gene Roddenberry when he wrote Family about Jean-Luc Picard trying to come to terms with the events of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I and The Best of Both Worlds, Part II .

Pooling resources.

Deep Space Nine spent its first five years inching closer and closer towards a more serialised type of storytelling. Character threads were developed across a number of episodes, while major events were allowed to have significant repercussions. Kira Nerys found herself drawing closer to the Federation in stories like Past Prologue , Progress and In the Hands of the Prophets . Winn Adami was introduced in In the Hands of the Prophets , and her scheming to become Kai would pay off in The Collaborator .

Indeed, Deep Space Nine ‘s interest in long-form storytelling allowed it to draw a more complex picture of twenty-fourth century politics. The failed Obsidian Order attack on the Founders in Improbable Cause and The Die is Cast led directly to the Klingon invasion in The Way of the Warrior , which in turn paved the way for the Cardassians to join the Dominion in In Purgatory’s Shadow and By Inferno’s Light . Events tended to resonate across various episodes, with decisions having long-term consequences.

Floating ideas.

Even allowing for these experiments, there was a massive leap in the series’ commitment to long-form storytelling between the fifth and sixth seasons. In the late fifth season, there was a clear lag between the stories where events happened and the stories in which the consequences of those events played out. After Cardassia joined the Dominion in By Inferno’s Light , episodes like Doctor Bashir, I Presume , A Simple Investigation and Business as Usual largely glossed over it. It was not explored until Ties of Blood and Water , four episodes later.

In contrast, the stories in the early sixth season need to be more strongly integrated with one another. So Rocks and Shoals picks up directly after A Time to Stand , with the crew trapped on a disabled Jem’Hadar ship. Then Sons and Daughters picks up directly after Rocks and Shoals , assuming that the crew have been rescued by the Klingons. This is to say nothing of how carefully the events in Behind the Lines need to tie into the closing two-parter of Favour the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels .

“Don’t worry, Dax. You’ll make it until at least the end of the season.”

This plan was ambitious, but it was also controversial. In the late nineties, syndication was still the primary target market for long-running television shows. Any series wanting to endure (and earn money) after its initial broadcast relied upon syndication deals with local and international networks. There was a lot to be said for syndication as an essential part of the television life cycle, even beyond the obvious financial considerations. In some ways, syndication had helped the original Star Trek find an audience after it was cancelled, keeping the franchise alive.

While Deep Space Nine was on the air, syndication was the most likely long-term future for a television series. Star Trek and other genre shows were available on VHS, but a combination of cost, quality and space made it a model unlikely to offer long-term sustainability. To be fair, home media was on the cusp of two technological revolutions that would revolutionise the way that audiences consumed television shows, but online streaming and digital versatile discs were largely aspiration at this moment in time.

Bajoran Netflix’s autoplay feature is a monster.

A Time to Stand aired in September 1997. The first consumer DVD player had only been released six months earlier . Warner Brothers were only just announcing releases of their back catalogue in the format . Sales were sluggish; numbers would only really pick up in 1999, when Titanic became the first DVD to sell more than a million units and The Matrix became the first DVD to sell more than one-point-five million units . The release of Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact in the format was still one year away.

As the six-episode arc aired, there were no public plans to release Deep Space Nine on DVD . The series would not see its first DVD release until February 2003, more than three years after it ended. Even accounting for the trend toward serialisation in late nineties series like The X-Files or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer or Babylon 5 , the idea of a highly-serialised syndicated science-fiction adventure series ran counter to the expectations and experience of executives. After all, Star Trek had traditionally been a narrative conservative franchise.

What vial behaviour.

As such, the writing staff on Deep Space Nine faced considerable challenges, not just from the fanbase invested in the franchise mythology. There was considerable resistance from inside the Star Trek family. However, Ira Steven Behr was committed to the idea of long-form storytelling :

Well, we had talked about it for years, the thought of, “If only we could be more serialized.” Look, we were drunk on wine and women. No. I felt the end coming. Obviously, we all did. We knew it’d be seven years and out. It was just, “Look, what do we want to do? Whatever it is, we should do it now.” Someone asked me on the last day of shooting why I was hanging around so long and I think the line I said was, “I have the rest of my life not to be here. So while I’m here, I’m going to stay until the end.” So it was the same thing. “What do we want to do?” One of the things we wanted to do was experiment with serialization and with the kind of space-opera war that spoke to a lot of the mythologies the show had built up. I thought we could do it. I knew we could do it. And then it became horse trading. I don’t even remember how many episodes we did, but I know we wanted more. Rick (Berman) and I went back and forth. Nothing terrible. No fights or anything like that. But we horse traded a bit and we came up with whatever it was.

Ira Steven Behr is a phenomenal Star Trek producer, like Michael Piller and Gene L. Coon before him. As with Piller and Coon, a large part of Behr’s brilliance lies in his willingness to push Star Trek in new directions; the franchise, and not just the characters, must boldly go.

Nog the battle to the strong.

Deep Space Nine has one of the best television writing staffs in the history of the medium, a fact frequently overlooked owing to its status as a “genre” show. More than that, Deep Space Nine was staffed by an assortment of writers who clearly relished working together and bouncing ideas off one another. Behr clearly led the writers’ room, but he also trusted his staff to do their jobs. Deep Space Nine owes almost as much to Moore, Wolfe, Beimler and Echevarria as it does to Behr.

A lot of that was down to the freedom that existed within the writers’ room. Part of that was a rebellion against the more conservative tendencies on The Next Generation , which Behr described as “the Connecticut of Star Trek.” Moore has talked about how the production team repeatedly tried to strain against the confines of “the Roddenberry Box.” Of course, the Star Trek franchise owes a great deal to The Next Generation , but innovation and iconoclasm are an essential part of creative evolution.

There were many casualties on the path to serialisation.

Even following his traumatic departure from the franchise, Ronald D. Moore still spoke fondly of the lack of restrictions imposed upon the writers on Deep Space Nine :

There really weren’t any. I mean, we really felt free to go as far as we… Ira certainly would let us go wherever we wanted for a first draft, and then kind of figure out what worked, what didn’t, and then fight the battle with Rick if you had to. But I don’t really remember there being a stricture about what we could, and could not, do there.

This attitude stands in stark contrast to the mood on Voyager , where Michael Piller had been forced to resign at the end of the second season and where there were very clear creative restrictions imposed upon otherwise adventurous writers like Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.

That sinking feeling.

Unlike Voyager , Deep Space Nine was airing in syndication and so was not subject to the whims of a single broadcaster. The biggest obstacle for Deep Space Nine was frequently the studio and the more conservative leanings of executive producer Rick Berman. Berman had been working on the franchise since the earliest days of The Next Generation , and tended to see himself as the custodian of the franchise. He brought a level of professionalism and stability to the franchise, particularly in those early years when The Next Generation needed to establish itself.

Behr also demonstrated a canny knack for managing upwards. He was a great writer, but one of his strengths as a producer lay in his ability to manage upwards, fighting to ensure that that his staff were afforded the opportunity to do their best work. Although there is a tendency to exaggerate the extent of their disagreements, this could occasionally bring Behr into conflict with Berman. Berman was anxious that Deep Space Nine adhere as closely to the Star Trek template as possible. Behr wanted to break the mould.

Caving under pressure.

The Dominion War was understandably a source of much debate between the two creative figures, with Berman strongly objecting for reasons both philosophical and pragmatic :

The whole idea of the Dominion Wars, the idea that Ira wanted an arc that was going to last a season or perhaps longer, he and I had a lot of disagreement about that. And that was all based purely on the fact that Gene had been very specific to me about not wanting Star Trek to be a show about intergalactic wars, interspecies wars. He didn’t want it to be about humans fighting wars against other species. I felt that the whole arc of these wars was something that could get done in half-dozen episodes. Ira felt differently and he pushed it, and it went longer than I’d hoped it’d go, but it wasn’t like a situation of, “Wow, Ira is in his ninth episode and Rick thought he was only going to do four.” I mean, I read every story. I read every script. I discussed every story and script with Ira and whoever the writers were. I was aware of it. I was not necessarily happy that it went as long as it did. But these are the kinds of disagreements that people involved with a television show have.

Berman’s position is certainly defensible. Indeed, in objecting to the idea of turning Star Trek into a war story, Berman was giving voice to a very vocal contingent of the Star Trek fanbase. Even today, Deep Space Nine is still not entirely accepted by certain sections of that base .

A Jem in the rough.

More than that, there is a legitimate argument to be made this minor creative disagreement enriched the show. Berman and Behr both had good intentions, and were both acting in what they felt to be the best interests of the series. Berman’s conservatism was rooted in the fear that the Star Trek franchise might slip from the mainstream and become a niche property. Behr’s concern was that the Star Trek franchise might grow stale unless it was willing to try new things. Both arguments make a certain amount of sense.

After all, both Berman and Behr were veterans of television production. There was no massive imbalance in terms of power and experience like there would be when Brannon Braga took control of Voyager . Indeed, it could reasonably be argued that Berman’s reluctance and hesitation forced the Deep Space Nine writing staff to justify their storytelling choices in those instances where there was some conflict over the best direction to take.

Serial hero.

The length of the Dominion War was one such point of contention, with Berman and the writing staff arguing over how long the war should last. According to Ronald D. Moore, the writing staff came up with a rather disingenuous solution to this disagreement :

“I remember when we got into the Dominion War, Rick was adamant at first that the war would only take three or four episodes at the most, and we just said, ‘Sure!’” Moore said. “We lied. “We just knew that once we got the ball rolling, that we’d never wrap it up in three or four episodes, so that was just trickery. And then, as the war went on, Rick would weigh in periodically about how heroic the characters are, and ‘Why does this one have to be so depressing’ and ‘This one’s too violent …’ And we’re like, ‘It’s a f#%kin’ war! What do you mean it’s too violent?’”

This myth has grown in the telling, occasionally portraying Behr as a quick-witted Thomas Magnum trying to slip past Berman’s Higgins. Still, there is no denying that the Dominion War went on much longer than Berman intended.

Hat’s off to them.

Indeed, the original promise for the Dominion War arc was three episodes. Then it became four. Then it was five, but Favour the Bold was so large a story that it had to be broken out into two parts. Even then, the writing staff cleverly wrote their way out of the problem presented to them. Although Sisko retook the station and defeated Gul Dukat in Sacrifice of Angels , the production team made it clear that the Dominion War was continuing in the background. It just happened that Deep Space Nine was no longer a battleground of itself.

There were any number of disagreements between Behr and Berman over the direction that the show took in these final two seasons, right down to specific story points. When Terry Farrell declined to return for the final season, there was considerable debate about how best to write Jadzia Dax out of the series . When Nog was wounded in battle during The Siege of AR-558 , there was even an extended argument about just how badly the character could be wounded that ended with most ridiculous compromise .

“Don’t worry, the writers would never kill you off in such an arbitrary and senseless manner. Certainly not without awkward foreshadowing in the episode directly prior.”

Of course, it is very easy to exaggerate these conflicts and turn them into something ridiculous. The truth is that most television shows are the result of creative compromise. Berman has acknowledged that he finds these rumours somewhat frustrating :

I’ve read a lot about tension between myself and Ira Behr and his writing staff on the show. I’ve read a lot about Ira pulling the wool over my eyes and Ira kind of tricking me into doing things that I didn’t want to do. I find that a little bit hurtful because it’s by and large not true. Ira had a very specific vision of how he wanted to run the show. This is after Michael had left. And there were certain things that I agreed with. In fact, a vast majority of what he and his staff did I agreed with. But there were certain things I didn’t agree with and, having been one of the two creators of the show and being an executive producer of the show, I felt I had the right to air my feelings to Ira. Unfortunately, it’s come out over the years as Ira tricking me into this or getting me to believe he was going to do X and then doing Y. I was never quite that foolish.

In fact, these sorts of rumours are often cited against Berman, as evidence of his alleged responsibility for the cancellation of Star Trek . There is something rather unfair about those criticisms, given the multitude of factors that contributed to the franchise’s decline.

“I think we can call this a wash.”

At the same time, it has been suggested that Berman’s occasionally difficulty keeping the Deep Space Nine writing staff in line with his vision of Star Trek might have contributed in some way to his management style on Voyager and Enterprise . By all accounts, Berman took a much proactive approach to micromanaging Brannon Braga on Voyager than he did towards Ira Steven Behr on Deep Space Nine . When the time came to produce Enterprise , Berman was frequently credited on teleplays.

In interviews after the end of Enterprise , Brannon Braga has talked about his thwarted ambitions for Voyager . The young (and relatively inexperienced) producer had originally envisaged two-parters like Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II or Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II as extended arcs in the style of these extended stories on Deep Space Nine . Braga’s vision was repeatedly compromised, with his big blockbuster two-parters serving as the boundaries of what would be permitted.

“And Janeway called her year the Year of Hell?”

In The Fifty Year Mission , writer Bryan Fuller suggested that Berman’s very conservative attitude towards Voyager was in some way a response to what was happening concurrently on Deep Space Nine :

I was coming into Voyager in Jeri Taylor’s last year, and so she was handing the baton over to Brannon, and Brannon was very much a new showrunner. There were things that he really wanted to do and should have been able to do, and which would have made the show better and bolder and bright, but he was not allowed to. Rick Berman more or less told him, “No, you can’t do that, because I can’t control Ira Behr on Deep Space Nine and I have to control you.”

This is a very revealing contrast, one that reveals a lot about the differences between Deep Space Nine and Voyager , even as the two shows were produced side by side.

A rocky road ahead.

History has been kinder to Behr than to Berman. Changes in media consumption have allowed Deep Space Nine to age much better than Voyager . The series holds up to the marathons and binge-watches of the DVD and streaming era, feeling almost like a show balancing between the end of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first century. In fact, when binge-watched, the six-episode arc that opens the sixth season stands as one of the most ambitious and enjoyable Star Trek stories ever told.

In contrast, Voyager often felt dated as it was airing, and feels particularly dated when watched in hindsight. Fourteen years pass between Encounter at Farpoint and Endgame , but there is little appreciable sense of progress of evolution in the way that Star Trek constructs narratives. In contrast, only four months passed between the broadcast of Call to Arms and A Time Stand , but there has clearly been a tangible progression in how Deep Space Nine tells stories. Deep Space Nine aged well, as Behr predicted that it would .

The heat is on.

For his part, Ira Steven Behr has made it clear that has buried any hatchet that existed between himself and the other producer, acknowledging that the pair work together at least as often as they worked in opposition :

If I saw Rick Berman on the street today I would hug him. We ran into each other during the writers’ strike and we hugged. Did we agree all the time? No. Could we talk about that? Sure, we could, but what’s the point? Given the fact that we were part of this monolithic franchise, DS9 pushed the envelope as far as we could at that time in that situation. Could we have gone farther? Sure. Would the fans have gone with us? Not all of them, clearly. On a day-to-day basis I would say over the course of seven years we had a pretty good working relationship. We disagreed on lots of small and large things, but he went in there with me to fight for Avery Brooks, to shave his head and keep the goat. We walked across the lot together to the executive offices. We were jazzed and we had this disk of how he looked, and we were a team to do that. We got there and they immediately gave up, which was funny after three years. We were all set to go in with guns blazing and they said, “OK.” So it was a little anticlimactic, but we were a team at that moment. It’s one of the things that profoundly confuses me about the whole Star Trek (experience), is my relationship with Rick Berman, why people care or what that even means, what my relationship was.”

This is a very classy and pragmatic perspective on their relationship, and one that speaks to both Behr and Berman as professionals who understand the dynamics of the industry within which they work.

Shipwrecked.

And so the sixth season brings a more heightened and interconnected form of serialisation to Deep Space Nine . The six episodes that open the season consciously and organically lead into one another, with events in each playing across into the next. However, there are stronger and broader continuity ties from these six episodes to stories from earlier in the run and foreshadowing of plot developments yet to come. There is a sense that Deep Space Nine is being bound together in a manner much tighter than it had been.

The Jem’Hadar craft from The Ship is quite useful in A Time to Stand . Nog and Garak discuss Empok Nor while Sisko relates the events of To the Death to Remata’klan in Rocks and Shoals . Martok references the events of In Purgatory’s Shadow and By Inferno’s Light in Sons and Daughters , while Odo makes it very clear to the Female Changeling that he has not forgotten the events of Broken Link in Behind the Lines . Even minor continuity threads build across the episodes and beyond, like Damar’s alcoholism as first suggested in Behind the Lines .

Kee(van) details.

Still, the production team take great care to ensure that each of the six episodes can stand on their own term. Each episode in the arc represents its own discrete unit of story. Unlike a lot of modern prestige drama, there is a minimal attempt to tell multiple stories at once. Worf barely appears in A Time to Stand , and does not appear at all in Rocks and Shoals , but he then gets to single-handedly carry the primary plot of Sons and Daughters . Similarly, the ruling powers on Terok Nor are entirely absent from Rocks and Shoals , despite appearing in the rest of the arc.

Each episode in the six-part story accomplishes something of itself. A Time to Stand has the raid on the Jem’Hadar ketracel white facility. Rocks and Shoals has the ground war between Sisko and Remata’klan. Sons and Daughters juxtaposes Worf’s interactions with Alexander against Kira’s relationship to Ziyal. Behind the Lines splits its focus between Dax’s first mission in command of the Defiant and Odo’s seduction at the hands of the Female Changeling. Favour the Bold pushes everything to the brink, and Sacrifice of Angels pushes it all over the edge.

Pro-protest.

As explained in The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , the writing staff worked hard to ensure that each episode retained a distinct identity even with everything else going on:

The writers though they had a pretty good idea of where they were going after the initial break sessions. “We wanted to do one show about the war, so we all sat down and watched None But the Brave, the 1965 Frank Sinatra movie,” Behr recalls. The film, which deals with the interactions of the crew of a downed American plane and a Japanese army patrol during World War II bears “certain similarities”, he allows to the team’s planned ground war episode, Rocks and Shoals. Beyond that, he says, “we knew that Favour the Bold and what became Sacrifice of Angels were going to be the big broad-canvas shows. And we knew that we wanted to do Behind the Lines, which would be a show about being on an occupied station.”

This is a smart approach, and one that helps the storytelling a great deal. In fact, episodes like Rocks and Shoals and Behind the Lines stand out as some of the best storytelling Deep Space Nine has ever done, and can be enjoyed whether as part of a six-episode-marathon or even on their own terms.

Must try Hadar.

This is in some ways an important distinction. This six-episode opening arc would not be the last time that Deep Space Nine attempted a storytelling experiment this bold and audacious. The series would close out its final season with a ten episode arc that brought the Dominion War to an epic conclusion while wrapping up most (if not all) of the dangling story threads. It is undoubtedly a breathtaking piece of television in the context of the late nineties, enough to qualify as a full season of modern prestige television .

However, that closing arc does not work quite as well as this opening arc. There are various reasons for this; it is generally easier to begin a story than to end it, certain pacing issues affect the ten-episode arc, some very basic storybeats are missed in the rush to tidy everything up. However, there is also a sense that the closing arc doesn’t balance the demands of individual episode against the needs of the larger arc. Too often in the final arc, it feels like the series is trapped between one extreme and the other.

Nerys-ing the end of her rope.

Many of the episodes in Deep Space Nine ‘s final arc tend to blur into one another. There are exceptions, of course. When It Rains… and Tacking Into the Wind form a stealth two-parter buried in the larger arc. Extreme Measures is very clearly one last Bashir and O’Brien buddy comedy episode that neatly wraps up the lingering Section 31 threads and The Dogs of War tidies away the series’ long-standing interest in the politics of the Ferengi Alliance. However, it is very difficult to distinguish the first four episodes of the sprawling arc from one another.

Rocks and Shoals might depend on the events of Call to Arms for its status quo and pick up (almost) directly from the climax of A Time to Stand in terms of plot, but the episode very clearly tells its own story on its own terms. Following a daring raid into Cardassian territory, Sisko and and his crew find themselves trapped on a harsh planet facing a platoon of stranded Jem’Hadar soldiers. What follows is a meditation on the morality of war, and the strength of loyalty and duty in the face of simple reality.

Dirty tactics.

As with Hippocratic Oath and To the Death before it, Rocks and Shoals finds a perverse integrity in the Jem’Hadar. These genetically-engineered drug-addicted fighting machines are presented as the ultimate soldiers, but soldiers who appear to be developing their own strange concepts of honour. These are the soldiers who fight the wars dictated by the Founders and directed by the Vorta. The Jem’Hadar are the soldiers who die face-down in foreign soil in service of those born to higher stations.

The Dominion War is heavily influenced by the Second World War in terms of tone and aesthetic. After all, the Cardassian Union and the Dominion are both clearly analogues for Nazi Germany, with the black and white morality of the Federation’s opponents evoking the moral clarity of that defining twentieth century conflict. However, other influences do creep in around the edges. The Vietnam War is an obvious influence on episodes like The Siege of AR-558 , for example, even if the script includes some Second World War ballads.

Make war, not love.

There is something of the First World War in the portrayal of the Jem’Hadar in Rocks and Shoals , the idea of masses of lower-class grunts laying down their lives at the direction of those perceived to be their social betters. After all, what is the Dominion’s genetic engineering but a rigid encoding of a class structure? It recalls the narrative of the First World War that was popularised by the anti-war historians of the sixties, arguing that it was a war fought by the working class on behalf of the political establishment.

This view holds considerable sway over depictions of the war in popular culture. It is evident in the idea of the British army as “lions led by donkeys” , and is treated as black comedy in films like Oh, What a Lovely War! and television series like Blackadder Goes Forth . These have become cultural touchstones for the discussion of the First World War, informing the popular perception of it. There remains some debate over this interpretation of the First World War, with some suggesting that the reality was more complex .

Face of the enemy.

While more members of the working class did die in service of the United Kingdom, the counter-argument suggests that this was simply a matter of harsh mathematics; more working class soldiers dies because the working class made up a greater percentage of the population at large. The matter is a source of controversy in the United Kingdom, with people like Michael Gove objecting to the narrative of the conflict as “a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.”

Of course, the truth might be more complex than the broad stroke narrative that has built up around the conflict. However, there is no denying that one of the great tragedies of the First World War (and many other wars) is the sad reality that those who die in service of their country are rarely the ones to benefit from the war. This tends to get lost in the noble myths that build up around such conflicts . This is also true of African Americans who served in the American armed forces in the Second World War, or during the Vietnam War. It is universal.

‘klan warfare.

As such, there is something potent in the portrayal of the Jem’Hadar in Rocks and Shoals . Remata’klan is a compelling and intriguing character, particularly given the pettiness on display around him. When Limara’son suggests that Remata’klan is now the unit leader, Remata’klan corrects him. “I questioned the Vorta’s orders,” he explains. “He will not forget that. As long as he lives, I will remain Third.” It is not the worst thing Keevan does, but it is perhaps the most petty. And, yet, Remata’klan serves with distinction.

Indeed, the closing scenes of the episode almost play out in homage to the iconic closing moments of Goodbyeee , the closing episode of Blackadder Goes Forth . In that iconic episode, the title characters of the series all go “over the top” and wander into no man’s land. They know that this means certain death, but they simply have no other option. Goodbyeee is a bleakly nihilistic depiction of the Great War, a condemnation of the folly of war and an acknowledgement of its grotesque farce. Honour and duty mean nothing, abstract concepts used to justify atrocities.

Garak-ed with guilt.

The final scene, as Remata’klan marches his men into battle echoes that depiction of the First World War, although Remata’klan does not even make a token gesture of trying to resist his fate. “Do you really want to give up your life for the order of things?” Sisko challenges. Remata’klan responds simply. “It is not my life to give up, Captain. And it never was.” As the lone figure of the Vorta Keevan wanders through the dust cloud kicked up by the ambush, it provides a nice visualisation of the moral fog of wall, while also recalling the mist at the end of Goodbyeee .

It is a powerful and visceral piece of television, one that plays as a response to many of the criticisms of the Dominion War as a concept. Many fans and critics were shocked by the decision to portray an interstellar war on Star Trek , perhaps worried that Deep Space Nine might glorify or trivialise the realities of combat. Rocks and Shoals demonstrates a more nuanced perspective. Sisko’s decision to participate in the ambush and massacre of an enemy that refuses to surrender is portrayed as something logical, but also something horrifying. It is not heroic and valourous.

They’ve got this covered.

A large part of this is down to the performance by veteran Star Trek guest star Phil Morris as Remata’klan. In an interview looking back over his career, Morris acknowledged a fondness for the material that he was given in his various guest shots :

I’m not a Trekker or Trekkie or whatever you call them. I’m just an actor who enjoys great work, and when you play on Star Trek, in any iteration or variation of it, you’re gonna be guaranteed to be given amazing material, passionate, high stakes to play. And I got that in every episode I did.

Morris is fantastic in the role of a soldier who is so committed to his duty that all other considerations, including his will and his life, must be treated as secondary.

How far will Sisko go?

Rocks and Shoals benefits from a great guest cast. Morris is wonderful as Remata’klan, but he is gamely assisted by Christopher Shea as Keevan. In some ways, Keevan feels very much like the first Vorta to have been conceived and developed after Jeffrey Combs got to define Weyoun. Technically, Kaitlin Hopkins played Kilana in The Ship a few months after Combs made his debut in To the Death , but there was still a sense that the production team were struggling to find a proper voice for the species.

Eris, Borath, Weyoun and Kilana never really felt like they were cut from the same cloth as one another; no other Vorta would every demonstrate Eris’ telepathic abilities from The Jem’Hadar , while no other Vorta would demonstrate as short a temper as Borath in The Search, Part II . In contrast, Keevan feels very much like he belongs to the same species as Weyoun. The two exude the same sort of smarm and disdain for other people, along with a clear affection for the sound of their own voice.

Smiles to go, before he sleeps.

Of course, Weyoun and Keevan are very clearly distinct characters. There are obvious differences between Weyoun and Keevan, in that Keevan seems a lot more self-interested and irreverent about the Dominion than Weyoun. However, there is a sense that the production team have finally figured out what makes the Vorta unique, what gives them a voice distinct from that of the Founders or the Jem’Hadar. Keevan and Weyoun are both recognisably Vorta in the same way that Martok and Gowron are recognisably Klingon.

The loyalty and devotion of the Jem’Hadar is pointedly contrasted with the selfishness demonstrated by Keevan. The Vorta official in charge of the stranded Jem’Hadar platoon is primarily motivated by his own survival. He cannot even be bothered to pantomime the rituals of devotion around which they have built their lives. “Obedience brings victory,” Remata’klan prompts. Keevan eschews the “… and victory is life” response, opting for a simple, “Yes. Yes, it does.” Keevan is a delightfully slimy character, unworthy of the authority instilled in him.

Ol’ blue eyes…

(Indeed, Keevan’s disregard for the rituals taken so seriously by the Jem’Hadar provides an effective juxtaposition with Weyoun. It recalls the impatience demonstrated by Weyoun IV when asked to distribute ketracel white while eating dinner in To the Death . However, it also provides a nice contrast with the devotion demonstrated by Weyoun V when hosting the same ritual in A Time to Stand . It seems like, on the sliding scale of Vorta cynicism, Keevan falls closer to the previous version of Weyoun than the current incarnation.)

The dynamic is all the more tragic for the fact that Remata’klan desperately wants to believe in Keevan, even though he knows that he cannot. He is well aware of Keevan’s shortcomings, but continually acts as if believing that he will be proven wrong. When Keevan outlines his plan, Remata’klan replies, “I understand.” Keevan responds, bluntly, “No, you don’t. But that’s all right. It’s not important that you understand, only that you carry out my instructions precisely.” Remata’klan’s response of “obedience brings victory…” almost seems like a gesture of goodwill after a snide putdown.

Point of principle.

Christopher Shea’s performance is fantastic, building a wonderfully odious (and yet entirely understandable) character with relatively little screen time. Keevan is hardly the most nuanced character to appear on the show, but Shea invests him with enough personality that he feels fully formed. There is a delightful non-chalance to Shea’s delivery that contrasts well with Morris’ earnestness. There is a sense of cold detachment from his responsibilities that plays very effectively as a counterpoint to his subordinate’s unwavering devotion.

This is particularly apparent in his scenes dealing with Sisko. “I’m ordering the Jem’Hadar to attack your base camp in the morning,” he bluntly informs Sisko. “But I will provide you with their precise plan of attack. You should be able to kill them all.” Bashir reacts with horror. “They’re your own men.” Keevan doesn’t even blink at the implied horror of that statement. “Yes,” he states simply, as if responding to a very basic question of fact. It seems almost as though Keevan believes that it goes without saying.

All fired up.

Indeed, Shea makes Keevan so wonderfully sleazy that the audience almost roots for Sisko as he considers just phasering the prisoner of war as he strolls through the carnage that he has wrought. That small character touch was not in the original teleplay. According to writer Ronald D. Moore, it was improvised during filming by actor Avery Brooks . Then again, a lot of the episode had to be improvised, including Dax’s injury in the teaser. According to Moore :

Terry has a skin condition that prevents her exposure to direct sunlight. We’ve worked around it in the past, but the large number of exterior scenes in Rocks and Shoals made it impossible this time. (The days we went on location this year were also some of the very hottest and most miserable days of the year, by the way, and the entire crew was suffering in that airless, baking rock quarry, not to mention the actors forced to work in already stifling makeup and appliances.)

Indeed, when Farrell was on location for the scenes early in the episode, the actor would use a parasol to keep her out of the sunlight; this made her the subject of considerable mockery from the cast and crew working in the scorching heat and burning sunshine . That plot modification is a great example of the sort of tweaks that the production team had to make to their scripts as they were going along, something obviously even more difficult in the context of a longer arc.

Don’t leave her hanging.

This sort of improvisational on-the-fly thinking had always been one of the strengths of the Deep Space Nine writing staff, particularly in the middle seasons. Although the Maquis had originally been intended to serve as a launch vehicle for Voyager , the writers on Deep Space Nine used them to tell all manner of interesting stories. When the studio vetoed a third season cliffhanger, The Adversary was written at short notice. When the studio insisted upon involving the Klingons, it led to The Way of the Warrior .

The writers on Deep Space Nine always seemed to have a rough idea of where they wanted to go with the series, but their plan was never mapped out in too much detail. There was always freedom and leeway to work around outside and unplanned factors. However, this approach would create some challenges during the sixth and seventh seasons of Deep Space Nine , particularly when it came to tying it all together and embracing a more serialised model. Indeed, the writers would brush up against these issues particularly when plotting Sons and Daughters and Behind the Lines .

“I think we may have voided the warranty.”

Indeed, Rocks and Shoals was retroactively affected by these plotting issues. The episode originally had a very different subplot on Terok Nor, but it had to be adjusted as the station plot in Sons and Daughters began to take shape. As Moore confessed to The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion :

“The station storyline on “Sons and Daughters” changed while they were doing it, which meant that my station-based storyline had to reflect that change… we couldn’t keep it straight in our heads and we kept stepping on each other. Had something already happened, or was it happening the following week? It became very difficult to get the whole thing under control.”

In some respects, this can be seen. Kira’s subplot is told effectively, but it is also very much truncated. Dukat, Weyoun and Damar do not appear. Scenes are short, the transitions abrupt. There is arguably only the vaguest thematic overlap between primary and secondary plot, in contrast to the arc’s other stories.

Lifting her spirits.

To be fair to Moore, the station-based subplot in Rocks and Shoals works very well. It certainly works a lot better than the similar plot thread in Sons and Daughters , which largely covers the same ground in a much clumsier manner. Kira’s moral crisis and awakening in Rocks and Shoals is executed in a very lean and effective manner, particularly the wonderful contrasting “a day in the life” montages at the start and the end. Unlike the station-based plot in Sons and Daughters , the subplot in Rocks and Shoals manages to convey a lot in a very efficient way.

Rocks and Shoals is a superb addition to the larger Dominion War arc and a wonderful episode in its own right. It is a fantastic demonstration of just what Deep Space Nine can do when it pushes itself, already delivering on the potential of one of the franchise’s most ambitious story arcs.

You might be interested in our reviews of the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine :

A Time to Stand
Rocks and Shoals
Sons and Daughters
Behind the Lines
Favour the Bold
Sacrifice of Angels
You Are Cordially Invited…
Resurrection
Statistical Probabilities
The Magnificent Ferengi
Who Mourns for Morn?
Far Beyond the Stars
One Little Ship
Honour Among Thieves
Change of Heart
Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night
Inquisition
In the Pale Moonlight
The Reckoning
Profit and Lace
Time’s Orphan
The Sound of Her Voice
Tears of the Prophets

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Easily one of my favorite Star Trek episode.It is one of the few Star Trek episodes where the B plot is just as powerful as the A plot. I think the moment where the Vedek hangs herself is one of the most chilling moments in Star Trek. I also really like the juxtaposition of Kira’s two mornings, as I always appreciate whenever Star Trek goes into non-verbal storytelling. It is too bad that the next episode has Kira go through the exact same arc of realizing that she is becoming a collaborator, as it undercuts the power of this episode.

“This is also true of African Americans who served in the American armed forces in the Second World War, or during the Vietnam War.” Sadly, not just those wars, but the American Civil War and World War I as well. 179,000 African Americans served during the Civil War for their freedom, and though technically freedom was achieved, the eventual process of Reconstruction led to hardship for the African American community in the years to come. Also, in WWI, over 200,000 served with regiments, such as 369th received equal acclaim for its combat performance,as well as being the first American troops to reach the Rhine. What was the reward of the African Americans who served in WWI? Increased racial violence as there were 83 lynchings in 1919 with at least 11 being soldiers from the war. Furthermore, in October 1919, whites in Elaine, Arkansas, massacred hundreds of black people in response to the efforts of sharecroppers to organize themselves.

Yep, you’re entirely right. It’s not as if those experiences are unique to the Second World War or Vietnam. The figure of the “soldier who will never be treated as anything more than meat for a grinder” is sadly universal, but I think it taps into the poignancy of the Jem’Hadar as a concept, the soldiers who die in service of gods indifferent to their suffering.

In comparison to Babylon 5, which excels in ways that DS9 faltered, I think Ron Moore did a better job of capturing Army life. Better, it felt like after years and years of teasing, we’re finally on “the frontier”.

The hardships of location shooting meant that these episodes are rare…and sparkle in ways that controlled shoots in an a/c studio don’t.

The shot of Keevan strolling along with his drug briefcase. Very “Lord of War.” One of the best shots of the series, no special effects needed.

One more thing I want to point out. Garak with a combadge. This is a great gag. The more he identifies with the Federation, the less effective he becomes.

You keep waiting for Garak to inevitably don a Starfleet uniform like every alien character before him (and after him), but nope.

That’s a good point. I do love that small moment where Garak tries to talk his way out of the situation and Keevan (who is bleeding to death at this moment) still makes a point to interrupts him in the smuggest manner possible.

Ed, Keevan strolls onto the battlefield not with the last supply of Ketracel White but the comm unit they need to signal for help.

A very interesting review about a very interesting episode. I have to admit the First World War analogy hadn’t occurred to me before.

I’ve seen statistics (from Niall Ferguson and others) that point out the British officer class actually suffered disproportionately heavy casualties compared with the men who served under them so I very much take the ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ myth with a grain of salt. I think I’ve pointed out before that of the leaders of the three big British political parties in 1914 – and it is difficult to think of more elite – Asquith had a son killed at the Somme, Bonar Law lost two of his sons and John Redmond (whose son served on the Western Front but survived) lost his brother.

Yep. I suspect there is a broader “truthiness” to that sentiment, for lack of a better word. The statistics might suggest an equivalence, but there’s also the fact that the lower classes are MUCH larger. So there’s a sentiment that on that scale the proportions don’t quite capture the sentiment. I mean, it’s reasonable to argue whether that’s fair, but I suspect that’s a large part of what that sentiment is rooted in.

Interesting that you didn’t note that the shooting location for the episode was the same hellish quarry used for “The Ship”, which means the captured Jem’Hadar ship ends up, in a way, right back where it started.

Also, in terms of metaphors, I’ve read that Vedek Yassim’s suicide was inspired by the Buddhist monk(s) that committed suicide via self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam war.

Ha! I had never noticed that. A nice bit of symmetry there! And in the second episode of consecutive seasons… well, broadcast-wise, at any rate.

The actress playing Yassim was the daughter of Holocaust victims too. I think.

I think you did make the connection in your review of The Ship Darren. But yeah, it is a nice bit of symmetry – events in DS9 always seem preordained to me.

Yep. DS9 has a nice symmetrical structure, even if it developed by accident. The echoing of The Visitor in What You Leave Behind is one such example.

Rocks and Shoals continues a trend of honourable Jem’Hadar that we’ve seen in episodes like Hippocratic Oath, To the Death and By Inferno’s Light and Remata’Klan may be the best example yet. Even suffering the effects of Ketracel White withdrawal, Remata’Klan remains quite personable and keeps his word in each of his dealings with Sisko, while at the same he retains his loyalties to the Dominion, even in the face of overwhelming defeat.

This is neatly contrasted with Keevan who wouldn’t know honour if it shook him by the hand. He’s more than willing to surrender as a POW, even if it means trading the lives of his own soldiers just so he can arrange passage off of this world and ensure security for himself. We’ve always known the Vorta lacked a backbone, but Keevan is the slimiest one we have yet to encounter and gets a well-deserved comeuppance in The Magnificent Ferengi (his second encounter with Nog).

This is the first of Dax’s brushes with death this season, with the next in Change of Heart, until finally her luck runs out in Tears of the Prophets. Her injury in Rocks and Shoals was driven more by necessity than artistic licence, but it does foreshadow Terry Farrell’s departure from the series everytime I see them.

Even in such a grim episode with multiple deaths and public suicide, it’s nice that Rocks and Shoals can make time for a moment of levity when O’Brien cracks everyone up after he starts whining about tearing a pants leg on the long swim to shore after their ship crashed into the sea.

DS9 didn’t see a DVD release until 2003 – the series ended in 1999 so that was four years instead of three; isn’t it a three-month wait between seasons; you say Favour the Bold pushes everything to the bring, but I think you mean brink Darren.

Thanks David. Those corrections have been made. And Keevan’s two appearances are a nice example of how subtly confident DS9 is getting with long-form storytelling and carrying continuity.

I wish I could say that I admired this episode. It had potential. But I thought its execution seemed off base. It was like watching two completely different episodes shoved into one. The clumsiness of this episode reminded me why I wasn’t that impressed with the whole arc regarding the Dominion/Cardassian occupation of Deep Space Nine. It did not quite live up to its potential.

I quite liked the a-plot/b-plot dynamic myself, juxtaposing the reality of life on the front with Kira’s own relatively sheltered position on an outpost well behind the lines. Watching the characters struggle and suffer helps sell Kira’s frustration at the comforts with which she has surrounded herself.

I strongly agree-and think that Rocks and Shoals deserves a spot in the Top Ten DS9 episodes, if not the entire franchise. It’s precisely because of the symmetry. It doesn’t feel like two stories crammed into one. It feels like two stories that fit perfectly together and complement each other-like Treachery, Faith, and the Great River. Not to mention the superb script by Ronald D. Moore and Phil Morris’ engaging performance, and it adds up to a stone cold classic.

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The amazing women of Star Trek are explored in Open A Channel, a new, upcoming book by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Nana Visitor.

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Open A Channel: A Woman's Trek , a new book celebrating the women of Star Trek by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor Nana Visitor has released first-look images. Inspired by Nichelle Nichols' Lt. Nyota Uhura of Star Trek: The Original Series , Nana Visitor, who plays Colonel Kira Nerys on DS9 , interviewed almost every woman who has starred in Star Trek , including Star Trek: Voyager 's Kate Mulgrew, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Terry Farrell, Star Trek: The Next Generation 's Denise Crosby, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' Rebecca Romijn, Melissa Navia, and Christina Chong.

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Star trek boasts amazing female characters, there is no lack of great women in the final frontier.

Starting with Nichelle Nichols' Lt. Uhura, the Star Trek franchise boasts one of the greatest rosters of female characters in pop culture . Today, Star Trek features Starfleet admirals like Kate Mulgrew's Kathryn Janeway , starship captains like Sonequa Martin-Green's Michael Burnham and Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine, doctors like Gates McFadden's Dr. Beverly Crusher, and nurses like Jess Bush's Christine Chapel, pilots like Melissa Navia's Erica Ortegas, scientists like Terry Farrell's Jadzia Dax, and heroic survivors like Christina Chong's La'an Noonien-Singh.

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User reviews

Rocks and Shoals

Episode aired Oct 6, 1997

Phil Morris in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)

Sisko and his crew crash on a barren world when their commandeered Jem'Hadar ship is shot down. They encounter Jem'Hadar who crashed there earlier, and have taken Nog and Garak hostage in ex... Read all Sisko and his crew crash on a barren world when their commandeered Jem'Hadar ship is shot down. They encounter Jem'Hadar who crashed there earlier, and have taken Nog and Garak hostage in exchange for medical aid for their Vorta overseer. Sisko and his crew crash on a barren world when their commandeered Jem'Hadar ship is shot down. They encounter Jem'Hadar who crashed there earlier, and have taken Nog and Garak hostage in exchange for medical aid for their Vorta overseer.

Michael Vejar
Gene Roddenberry
Rick Berman
Michael Piller
Avery Brooks
Rene Auberjonois
Michael Dorn
13 User reviews
4 Critic reviews

Colm Meaney in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)

Captain Benjamin 'Ben' Sisko

Constable Odo

Lt. Cmdr. Worf
(credit only)

Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax

Chief Miles O'Brien

Doctor Julian Bashir

Major Kira Nerys

(as Andrew J. Robinson)

Remata'Klan

Limara'Son
(as Paul S. Eckstein)

Vedek Yassim

Lt. Lisa Neeley

Ensign Paul Gordon

Various Aliens
(uncredited)
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

Trivia During filming at a rock quarry in Sun Valley, temperatures reached as high as 128 °F/53 °C. It was the hottest period in that part of the country in over ten years; so hot that the makeup was melting on-camera. If you look closely, you can see the eyes of the Jem'Hadar are quite red, due to the makeup dripping into the actors' eyes as it ran off their foreheads.
Goofs No one notices Vedek Yassim on the promenade until the moment before she jumps. Yet a crowd has gathered, expecting her to lead a protest, and she had to take time to tie her noose around the railing and/or her neck.

Keevan : Once you've taken care of the Jem'Hadar, I'll give you the com-system, and surrender to you as a prisoner of war.

Doctor Bashir : And you spend the war resting comfortably as a Starfleet PoW, while your own men lie rotting on this planet?

Keevan : I see we understand each other. I'm going to order the Jem'Hadar to attack your position tomorrow regardless of whether you agree to my terms or not. So you can either kill them or they'll kill you.

Connections Featured in Star Trek: First Contact Review (2009)
Soundtracks Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Dennis McCarthy Performed by Dennis McCarthy

User reviews 13

Jan 28, 2022
October 6, 1997 (United States)
United States
Official site
Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
Paramount Television
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 47 minutes

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Here's Where Else You Recognize NCIS Star Rocky Carroll From

If you've watched "NCIS" or any of its several spinoff shows, you will more than likely be familiar with the stern, yet good-natured character Leon Vance . First appearing in Season 5 of "NCIS," Vance joined the main cast of the show and inherited the mantle of director of the titular NCIS organization. To this day, Vance is still one of the most prominent characters across the franchise, having appeared in the main cast in every season of the original "NCIS" since his debut and popping in sporadically on the spin-off shows — except for the newly-released "NCIS: Hawai'i," but that only feels like a matter of time.

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He helped make history with Law & Order

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Carroll played a relatively major role in the 1995 war film "Crimson Tide," an action-thriller movie that isn't necessarily about fighting a war , but the risk of starting one. Set during the Cold War, the movie focused on a power struggle between two officers in a U.S. military submarine over conflicting orders to launch missiles at Russia as a pre-emptive defensive maneuver. The central conflict pitted Denzel Washington's Executive Officer Ron Hunter and Gene Hackman's Capt. Frank Ramsey against each other and forced all other members of the crew to choose their loyalties.

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Carroll engaged in some body horror on Grey's Anatomy

Rocky Carroll also appeared on another long-running procedural show in the form of the medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy," which focuses on the lives of a group of medical practitioners based in a fictional Seattle hospital. In the 5th episode of Season 4, titled "Haunt You Every Day," the actor guest-starred as James Miller, a patient with intense body dysmorphia who believes his foot does not belong to him.

Miller requests that the doctors amputate his foot, and takes matters into his own hands when they refuse. In a particular gross-out scene , the practitioners discover Miller in one of the hospital rooms, halfway through cutting off his own leg with a chainsaw and with blood splattering everywhere. After assessing the damage, the doctors have no choice but to complete the amputation. It goes without saying that watching this Carroll credit is certainly not for the fainthearted.

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