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Star Trek DS9 - Season 3 - Episode 26

Star Trek DS9 - 3x26 - The Adversary

Originally Aired: 1995-6-19

Synopsis:
One of Odo's people tricks Sisko and the crew into actions that could start a devastating war in the Alpha Quadrant. [DVD]

My Rating - 5

Fan Rating Average - 6.4

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 7 4 11 1 4 7 11 29 29 19 8

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Problems
None

Factoids
- This is the first episode to show the Defiant's engine room.

Remarkable Scenes
- Sisko promoted to captain! Cool!
- Two Bashirs.
- Computer: "Auto-destruct in seven minutes." Sisko, regarding the repairs: "Just tell me how long it will take." O'Brien: "Well I guess it will have to be less than seven minutes won't it?"
- Odo killing the changeling.
- Odo reciting the changeling's last words: "You're too late. We're everywhere."

My Review
Commence hidden changelings everywhere stories. The finale of season 3 isn't the big Dominion confrontation we expected, but is at least a natural progression for the story. Though it left me somewhat underwhelmed. Remarkably Odo kills a changeling. "No changeling has ever harmed another" isn't quite true anymore, and this action will certainly have serious repercussions for him later on. As O'Brien said, "finally" with regards to Sisko being promoted to captain. It was also nice to see the Defiant's engine room for the first time. Other than these details, there is little to redeem this remarkably average episode as a season finale.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From MJ on 2011-07-30 at 12:12pm:
    "newest and best captain in Starfleet". Well, this explains the awkward goodbye between O'Brien and Picard in the pilot. Maybe the Chief just didn't enjoy his time under Picard. It could just be an effort by the writers to cement O'Brien as a DS9 main character, which he wasn't in TNG.

    The episode certainly had plenty of suspense and illustrated the main problem Starfleet would have in dealing with the Founders. The main problem with this story, though, is that it seems hard to believe that an ambassador would have the power to assign a mission to a Starfleet ship without anyone at Starfleet Command knowing about it. I realize that some routine missions and actions could be decided at the station level, but something like this seems like it would've needed more communication between DS9 and Starfleet, not just an ambassador showing up and giving the green light. I guess one reasonable workaround is that Changelings infiltrating Starfleet made it possible on that end.

    Anyway, the episode was pretty good and I even enjoy watching it a second time despite knowing the outcome, so I give it a 6.
  • From Gaius Gracchus on 2021-08-26 at 6:14pm:
    "No changeling has ever harmed another" has been repeated so much this season, it deserved this level of payoff.

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