Armageddon Game

End up being the worst bad guys.

Dr. Bashir and chief O'Brien are helping two races, the T'Lani and the Tellerun (probably named after somebody who worked on the cast of the crew of Star Trek- see my review of "the most toys -TNG", Kivas Fajo was named after Lolita Fatjo, who worked on the production of these Trek shows). That aside, these two alien races have great haircuts but they become, again in guardians of the galaxy terminology, real "A Holes".

One thing I notice with Star Trek, especially Next Generation/Deep Space 9/voyager/Enterprise, is that all of these aliens wear a kind of uniform, and that is precisely what is going on in this episode as well. The T'Lani and Kellerun have specific uniforms, don't any of these alien races have casual attire?

Even with the Maquis, they also have a kind of uniform, even though it is closer to what casual attire would look like in the 24th century, they still have a touch of a kind of uniform that, when you see somebody dressed like this, you immediately identify them as being a member of the Maquis.

The Cardassians, that's a different story, because everybody who is Cardassian in deep space nine is generally a member of their military or one of their covert operations like the obsidian order, so it is appropriate for every Cardassian to be shown wearing the uniform. But there are Cardassian individuals who appear on the show occasionally, who do wear unique casual clothing, like Mr. Garak, and a few other Cardassian individuals who are members of their government or old girlfriends of Quark. This is the only race that actually was shown to have individuals who wore casual attire rather than an entire species uniform. About it, when the changelings take human form, they choose to all look like Odo. But maybe that is for his comfort.

But the two races in this episode are easily identifiable not just by their unique haircuts but by their unique outfits as well.

Without giving away too much of what is happening in this episode, Dr. Bashir and Chief Brian are being pursued by these people for something that we really don't understand at this point. They had been helping them get rid of a dangerous biotech, but in the process chief O'Brien became infected.

So they are on the surface of a planet within some ruins from a war torn region, and O'Brien is getting worse by the minute.

Dr. Bashir has to use his rudimentary technological class from the Academy to try to rig a means of getting help, this was before we knew that he could have repaired the thing with hardly any effort, due to his genetic "improvements".

You have to watch these episodes in retrospect, in terms of what we know about the characters later in the series, this was something that had not been introduced and of course at the time Dr. Bashir was keeping his abilities secret from everybody, for good reason. And, it is just more fun to not think about it too much until this is revealed later in the series.

Keiko O'Brien, who knows her husband extremely well, notices something in a video transmission that eventually can be used to help save O'Brien and Bashir. But how well does she really know her husband? They have only been married really for about four years at this point, maybe three.

Has she made a mistake?

Dr Bashir and Chief O'Brien are presumed dead on an away mission.

This is an enjoyable episode with some nice character moments.

The plot has a couple contrivances but it is generally good and it sets up the characters for some good scenes.

Bashir and O'Brien's double act starts off feeling a little bit forced, but it gets better as the story develops. Some of the heartfelt scenes are very good.

I think the character-driven scenes onboard DS9 are also good, such as the reaction of friends and family to what is happening. Although one of the major contrivances for me is how blindly the crew of DS9 accept the word of complete strangers about the fate of their crew members. This obviously makes it possible for a certain person to save the day, but it's not too big a deal, as with all good Star Trek resolutions it involves brains over violence.

Easily my favourite scene is the one involving Quark.

Colm Meaney, Alexander Siddig, and Avery Brooks lead the cast well and the support is great from everyone else.

It's a 7.5/10 for me but I round upwards.

This Deep Space 9 story has both Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien presumably killed while destroying chemical weapons that a planet has developed in a disarmament move. Only an attempt was made on their lives and Alexander Siddig and Colm Meaney are on the run.

And the Chief has been exposed. Good thing he has a doctor along.

As for the reason for their plight. Hearken back to the Boris Karloff classic The Mummy and you know why the Doctor and the Chief are in such as mess.

1- VIEWERS CHECK THIS OUT!..................

*THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT STARFLEET HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT TRAINING........ When the lab Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien are in is attacked by two gunmen (7:27), O'Brien disarms one of the gunmen (and by so doing, saves Bashir) and the doc disarms the other.

*HAVING EACH OTHER'S BACK CAUSES CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES TO BECOME FAST FRIENDS..... As O'Brien and Bashir relocate to the planet to escape the assassins on the space station above, they begin to talk to one another about the deeper things in life (17:28). They begin to discuss what it means to fall in love and to get married. This time together on the planet's surface, hiding for their lives and awaiting rescue is a pivotal point in the relationship of the two characters. From this moment on they will remain the best of friends.

*The crew on DS9 are notified by emissaries from the space station that O'Brien and Bashir have perished. However, they are told a lie that O'Brien made a mistake and set off a security laser that killed everyone on the station - vaporizing everyone without a trace. Meanwhile, O'Brien and Bashir are struggling to survive on the surface of the planet.

2- Final Reflective Analysis and Final Grade: *The character development of Bashir and O'Brien take massive leaps forward with this episode. Keiko, O'Brien's wife has an interesting role in this episode as well. The pacing is swift and the action non-stop. A question of Cosmic Ethics is raised: Is it ok or prudent to murder a small number of people for the greater good. The communist party in 1917 created the "Dialectic: Performing a variety of unsavory tasks (allowing people to starve, children to die) to accomplish the greater good for the greater number of people." In the wrath of Khan when Spock sacrifices his life to save the Enterprise crew from destruction he quotes a paraphrase of this concept: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - or the one in his case. Representatives from both planets are willing to murder their own people (and in turn people from DS9) in order that those who knew the chemical warfare recipe would all be dead so the remainder of both worlds could live in peace. These ethical viewpoints have been debated, argued and applied down through the 20th century and beyond.

Final Grade: B.

The Doctor and O'Brien go to a planet where two factions have been at war forever. The create a method by which a deadly biological weapon called "harvester" can be destroyed. They are jubilant but at the height of their excitement, a group of terrorists come in and kill everyone except our two guys. Ot turns out that these guys feel that in order to keep harvester from ever returning, they need to kill anyone associated with it. Bajir and O'Brien escape, beamed out. Once Sisko gets wind of the reason for their "deaths," he investigates. This was remindful of the pharaohs who killed all the slaves when someone was buried in a pyramid.