Profit and Loss

Though Garak is his usual beguiling self, the words he and his equally adorable cohort Quark are forced to utter are high schoolish at best. All other actors are just phoning this in, as though everyone knows the script is toxic. DS9 didn't profit from this episode. What a loss.

Quark and his former lover, a Cardassian woman, meet when she, as a rebel, comes to the station, riddle with Cardassian "bullets." Quark is ready to give up everything to rekindle their romance. I guess my unfair appraisal has to do with their relatively unattractive presences. Of course, it's all in the eye of the beholder. Garak returns, playing a major role, speaking in metaphors and illusions. Great character.

Very boring ! And maybe the most disgusting scenes where that disgusting creature (Ferengi Quark) touch that flower Natima Lang (Mary Crosby) Yuck ! Bleh bleh bleh !

A cynical bar owner struggles to decide whether or not to help a former lover escape an oppressive regime searching for her.

This is an enjoyable episode for the moments of Cardassian politics and Andrew Robinson's entertaining guest performance.

As far a classic movie tributes go, there is no subtlety about this one, but for Casablanca fans I think it does a good job. There are lots of equivalent plot points and characters that work well with the Cardassian political situation.

Armin Shimerman is a very good actor but he is no Bogart when it comes to anti-heroic leading men. He does his best with the material, but Mary Crosby does not quite convince me as his leading lady. For me the chemistry between the two is patchy at best and feels very one sided.

Robinson, as always, is on great form as Garak and he has the strongest scenes for me. One scene in his shop where he banters with Quark about "fashion" is superbly written and performed by both actors.

Special mention of the scene in the cold open where Sisko and O'brien greet the Cardassian arrivals. One of the worst directed scenes of the show ever. Awful staging, embarrassing blocking, static camera, no coverage, eye-lines all wrong, occasional glances off-stage (cue cards?). This must have been either a tagged on reshoot or was simply done in 20 minutes at the end of a day. It's like it's part of a completely separate show. Seriously, go back and just watch that scene in isolation - it's staggering.

This was an enjoyable episode. Solid writing and a cohesive, complete story made a welcome return after the recent quality drought. Also some great performances from our regular cast and garak, although they're occasionally hampered by some not-so-great guest stars who vary in quality scene to scene.

I really like Garak. His showdown in sisko's office is brilliant. I also really like his extremely dry line delivery throughout the episode - "you've never been right about anything" was especially good in the finale.

I do find that his shop is very distracting as a location, though. It, and other station shops, are always so barren. It'd be a lot of costume design required to fill it, but then maybe don't make him a tailor if you don't have the resource to fill a tailor's shop.

Armin's ability to play scenes so sincerely through the makeup is amazing. He carries the absolute crap out of a lot of this episode. Many highlights, but in particular his impassioned plea to odo to help him save Natima. Just a top actor doing great work through a rubber mask. The fact the romance scenes work at all is a miracle, but they do. You buy it completely.

Cardassian necks and Ferengi ears get some serious rubbing which did distract a bit from the emotional core.

I mentioned it was nice to see a complete story again, but I do have to question what happened after the showdown. There's a heavily armed warship expecting 3 prisoners that somehow disappear. Surely Sisko and odo will face some serious diplomatic heat over this - shouldn't we see that?

Nonetheless, it's a really good episode overall. Probably a 7.5, but not an 8.