This was, without a doubt, one of the episodes of all time.
Bottle episodes can be really effective - in fact we've seen several good examples in the show's run so far... This is not one of those examples.
Pretty poor execution of what could have been quite a good concept if the script had dared to take a few more twists and turns, and bang-average acting from everyone involved. Rene definitely only had a 2 day week on this one and he's sorely missed.
There's nothing overtly terrible here, it just feels slow, cheap and predictable. You have the entire plot mapped out from around minute five, and it's then just a matter of watching it play out. Shot almost entirely in mids, with very limited coverage, so you're just trapped at the pace of the sleepy performances.
Interestingly it's Les Landau's third episode of DS9 as director, and i rated his previous episodes a 4 and 5 respectively. I just don't think he really understood the language of Trek yet, and his episodes feel very old-school and uninspired.
He figures it out eventually - Counterpoint is one of the best episodes of Voyager's run, but that's four years after this utterly skippable episode.
The most exciting moment of the episode was when I realised one of the Klingons was Tim Russ - had no idea he'd played on DS9.
Super disappointing run of Quark's character development lately - I've mentioned on previous episodes it's ridiculous he never faces serious comeuppance for his crimes, and this one seems irredeemable. He'd get booted off the station (Kira threatens to do so, but they play it for comedy?!) You can't have him cross lines to this extent and not suffer any consequences - my suspension of disbelief is not strong enough to cover such a huge security risk being allowed to go about his way.
Just as a final matter of note, it must be said Terry Farrell is outrageously attractive in this episode.
