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Star Trek DS9 - Season 6 - Episode 26

Star Trek DS9 - 6x26 - Tears of the Prophets

Originally Aired: 1998-6-17

Synopsis:
A valued Deep Space Nine crewmember meets an untimely end. [DVD]

My Rating - 9

Fan Rating Average - 6.87

Rate episode?

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# Votes: 12 3 6 2 3 2 5 6 11 41 17

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

Problems
None

Factoids
None

Remarkable Scenes
- Martok: "By this time next year, the three of us will drink blood wine in the halls of Cardassia Central Command!"
- Dukat showing up at Cardassia Central Command.
- Romulan senator: "Klingons can be quite entertaining, can't they? Every Romulan zoo should have a pair."
- Quark: "What, is he a telepath?" Vic: "No, I'm a hologram." Not exact, but I'll count it. Count 24 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- Jake: "But Dad! We're talking about the invasion of Cardassia! A savage thrust into the very heart of the Dominion!"
- Damar: "How do you fight a god?" Dukat: "I'll show you. You see, we have an ally we never knew we had."
- O'Brien to Jake: "If you ask me, it's an ungodly hour to go to war. You can quote me on that."
- The Jem'Hadar mounting kamikaze attacks on the Klingons.
- The joint Federation and Romulan fleet destroying the weapon platforms.
- The weapon platforms becoming operational and destroying Federation and Romulan ships.
- Dax saying a prayer to the Prophets.
- Dukat attacking Jadzia and sealing the wormhole.
- Kira taking command of the Defiant.
- O'Brien tricking the weapon platforms into attacking their own power generator.
- Jadzia's last words: "Our baby... would've been so beautiful..."
- Worf performing the Klingon death ceremony for Jadzia.
- Sisko taking his baseball with him...
- Morn Appearances; 1. Behind Worf and Dax as they exit the holosuite.

My Review
Got mixed feelings here. It was rumored quite a bit before the season finale that Terry Farrell wanted to leave the show because of her inability to come to terms with the producers regarding a contract for season 7. So they had to kill her off in this episode and the writing reeks of a scramble to achieve that goal. As a result, we have a story where Sisko leaves Bajor at a critical moment, allowing Dukat to attack the wormhole, to seal off the Bajorans from their Celestial Temple and he kills Dax in the process. While I love the way the writers wove everything together, there is one major inconsistency. Why is Dax on the station at all? And Bashir for that matter? Bashir and Dax always joined the Defiant for missions. Personally, I find it funny how Kira goes and they don't. Oh... wait... I remember... the writers had to kill off Dax and they needed them to stay. ;) Aside from this minor inconsistency, the story is pretty concrete. I'm willing to bet they already had the finale written and that they revised it to include Dax' death. Though perhaps it is unwise to speculate about what the writers did and did not intend. The idea to get the Dominion to appeal to the Pah-wraiths was intelligent writing and despite my unhappiness with how Jadzia died, the episode is fantastic. I loved watching Dukat meticulously carry out his plan, I loved the anguish in Sisko's eyes when he realized he never should have left, and the battle for Chin'Toka was spectacular. I like how Garak once again very clearly chooses his side, he's a bridge officer on the Defiant in this battle! I may complain, but this season finished off with just as big a bang as it began with. This has possibly been the best season ever done on Star Trek.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From TheAnt on 2013-09-18 at 4:13pm:
    This is the episode where DS9 really loose track and derails completely.
    Our favourite Cardassian villain becomes some sort of ersatz 'Dart Dukat' and Sisko feeling a disturbance in 'The force' etc etc.
    I have no idea what the scriptwriters thought they were doing, or had they taken a vacation and left the stage to some juvenile fan of another fiction universe?
    A lot of 'Boom crash bang & fireworks' and very little substance.
    Many fans have been screaming blue murder over this episode, so do I.
  • From MJ on 2019-03-11 at 7:21pm:
    ROSS: "Starfleet has chosen you to plan the invasion of Cardassia."

    Um, wouldn't an operation like this involve a bunch of admirals with years of experience coordinating fleets of starships, rather than a captain who'd been running a space harbor and serving as a Bajoran liaison? Don't get me wrong, I like the Sisko character, but having him plan something like this is a stretch. It's like if Eisenhower had told Lt Col Rudder that he was responsible for planning the Normandy invasion.

    The storyline involving the Chintaka battle was pretty cool. I liked watching the difficulties in getting all three alliance members on board with the same plan. Seems pretty realistic. The orbital weapon platforms were a cool idea. The Dukat storyline was a bit of a bore, but that may be because I agree with Ant that this Pah-Wraith stuff is where Dukat goes off the deep end.

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