10 Most Intense Star Trek Scenes
2. Sisko's Log - In The Pale Moonlight
It feels almost clichéd now to include this scene on any TrekCulture, such is the number of times it has popped up. Simply put - there's a reason it's here. One cannot discuss intense Star Trek scenes without including the one speech that changed the franchise forever.
Here was a captain admitting to serious crimes. The Romulan Empire had been tricked into joining the war. Several people were dead. Garak's mouth was now a different shape. Had Star Trek betrayed its ideals? Avery Brooks delivers this final monologue to the camera, forcing the audience to hear his words. There's no one else in the room to absorb the impact of what he's saying so it's like an actor on stage, holding the audience's eyes, refusing to let go.
It's uncomfortable. It's stark. It's something one could never imagine Kirk, Picard, or Janeway doing and saying - but then again, that's what Deep Space Nine brought to the franchise. It may have been easy to be a saint in paradise, but Sisko didn't live in paradise, did he?