04 July 2005

DS9 -Season 2

Building on the success of season ones finale, the producers and writers seemed to understand that this show was going to be much different than what came before. And despite some fan irritation that this was bad Trek because everyone came to them instead of the crew going "where no one has gone before", they seemed to generally ignore them. So much for the good.

Season two launches with an ambitious 3-part story ("The Homecoming", "The Circle" and "The Siege"), as Sisko and his team reluctantly become more involved with the politics of Bajor. It was also the season that the series would begin to lose some of its episodic roots, as the show slowly began to add continuing story lines and recurring characters. It would also introduce us -through a comedic Ferengi episode "Rules of Acquisition" - to the concept of The Dominion, a great power in the Gamma Quadrant. They would be mentioned again in "Sanctuary" and "Shadowplay".

Season two -while still having problems -did shine on several occasions, with episodes like "Cardassians", "Necessary Evil", "Armageddon Game", "Whispers", "Paradise", "Blood Oath", "The Maquis, parts 1 and 2", "Crossover" (a sequel of sorts the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror") and the "Jem'Hadar", which fully introduced the Dominion and there genetically engineered stormtroopers, the Jem'Hadar.The introduction of Dominion was done subtly, and that's what made their rise to be so much better than the in your face Borg. And while season two struggles to balance the stories so they appealed to everyone, you felt and saw that below the surface, there were stories that were not going to resolved in one hour.

And as the season concluded, we were left with a portentous warning, as Eris warns the crew..."you have no idea what has begun here."

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