3.26 — “The Adversary”
Plot: Following Sisko’s promotion to captain he receives orders to take the Defiant to the Tzenkethi homeworld, a race we have never heard of before, but which used to be at war with the Federation. O’Brien finds sabotage indicating that an enemy is present aboard the Defiant, seeking to use the ship in a plot to restart the interstellar war.
Thoughts: Third Season concludes with the first episode in a while involving the Dominion and the long-simmering conflict with the Gamma Quadrant. So far DS9 is not quite living up to its reputation for serial storytelling, but an interview with Ira Steven Behr included on the special features disc of my DVD set indicates that while the DS9 producers made up a lot of continuity by the seat of their pants, this episode provides a something of a tipping point towards serialization. Behr says: “’The Adversary’ was the first one where we really knew we were going to be starting to get the S-word, serialized, just a tad. In spite of all the finger-wagging and knowing we weren’t supposed to, it was just a little bit, a little bit.”
The episode provides a tonal shift, for sure! Online sources confirm it was an effort to make a suspense film similar to The Thing (1982), itself based on The Thing From Another World (1951) and the John W. Campbell short story “Who Goes There?” (1938). I don’t quite love this episode, but they pulled it off fairly effectively. I also just downloaded a free version of “Who Goes There?” to my Kindle, so watching it wasn’t wasted.
I appreciate receiving a better sense of the size and scope of the Defiant and its complement of 47 crew. I hope the escalation of Odo’s conflict with his kinsmen pays off handsomely in Season Four.
4 out of 5 shifty Founders.
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