Star Trek Deep Space Nine Feature Length Episodes: Ranked

These are excellent episodes. However, they could have been so much more.

Originally envisioned as season finale/opener, the two part story suffered from being pushed to mid-season. As such, the budget dropped considerably. So, while the story is still an excellent and tense tale of necessary evil and querying whether the ends justify the means, the filling of the episodes is slightly lacking.

The negatives first - for a city that is under martial law, New Orleans has about three security officers by the end of the first episode. There never seems to be any real sense of panic. Even Changeling O'Brien's chat with Sisko is muted, lacking in menace.

That out of the way, the reason the episodes feature so highly on the list is what it did with the resources available. First of all, Admiral Leyton is one of the great anti-heroes of Star Trek, and it was a pure shame that he didn't return for more episodes. The dog fight between the Defiant and the Lakota (the first Starfleet v Starfleet ship battle since The Wrath Of Khan) is both thrilling and heart-wrenching. However, the MVP of the story is Joseph Sisko.

Brock Peters' acting elevates every scene that he's in, bringing a depth and humility to every word of dialogue. While parts of this two part story may suffer because of the aforementioned reasons, the positives outnumber the negatives. An excellent story of betrayal and covert dealings.