DS9 -Season 3

For the first two season, one of the critical barbs thrown at the show was this series was not living up to Roddenberry's idyllic setting of no conflict with the peoples of the Federation. And that because DS9 was set in one location and the stories had to come to them instead of the crew going out "where no one has gone before", that the late creator would be saying all of it was wrong. So of that was true, as most of the key demographics -young males -felt DS9 did not measure up to TNG -especially in the action and excitement department. And while Odo and Quark where by far the most popular characters, most felt Sisko was too low-key and by being that way, viewers were not embracing the political and religion stories on the whole.

And because of the events in the season two finale, "Jem'Hadar", the crew were going to need more than three runabouts to stop a possible invasion from the Gamma Quadrant. The arrival of the Defiant solved two problems off the bat. The ship would be give the crew the chance to travel beyond the space station, and with the ever-increasing threat from the Dominion, it would ramp up the action quotient.

"The Search" introduced us to the Defiant and the Founders, the rulers of The Dominion. And, surprise, they turn out to be Odo's people. The two-part episode revealed much of Odo's past and it began to set up the conflict that would become so much part of the series in later years.

Highlights of the season included the opener, "The Search" to be followed by "The House of Quark", "Second Skin", "The Abandoned", "Defiant", "Past Tense, parts 1 & 2", "Improbable Cause", "The Die is Cast", another journey to the mirror universe in "Through the looking Glass" and "The Adversary".

Along the way, even the episodic shows began to take on the running story of the Dominion. Quark and his Ferengi family, while used as comedic results, grew deeper, becoming something TNG never could do, make them: interesting.

And unlike its sister series, DS9 never really ended on a big cliffhanger. As a matter of fact, it liked to leave you on a more threatening note. The final lines delivered by Odo -the last words from a dying changeling Odo killed in self-defense -left you feeling that a large conflict with the Dominion was coming.

"He said 'you're too late, we're everywhere'"