‘THE ADVERSARY’ (DS9)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
At last! We’re on the finale for Season 3 of ‘DS9’. Season 3 of ‘DS9’ has been a great season with introducing the Dominion and featuring some gripping episodes to enhance many of the characters.
The episode begins with Commander Sisko now promoted to Captain Sisko! Yes! At last! Sisko gets promoted to become captain in the ‘DS9’ series. Something many were looking forward to, I’m sure.
Jake is the one who pins the new pip onto his collar during the ceremony in the station’s wardroom. Many people congratulate Sisko on his promotion such as Kira, Dax, Odo, O’Brien, Bashir and Quark.
Even Kenneth Marshall as Eddington congratulates Sisko on his promotion. There’s also Lawrence Pressman as Abassador Krajenksy who visits DS9 to brief Sisko on a mission his crew need to take on.
The Tzenkethi, an alien race with a history of hostility towards the Federation, have unseated their ruler during a coup d’etat. Krajenksy is worried a new ruler will renew hostilities to the Federation. 😐
He orders Sisko to bring Defiant on a ‘sabre-rattling’ mission along the Tzenkethi border. Krajenksy says he’ll be coming along too. Sisko hopes Krajenksy will be impressed as the Defiant’s ‘a fine ship’.
Soon, the Defiant is out in space heading for the Tzenkethi border. Along the way, oddities occur as the ship becomes sabotaged. O’Brien suspects Bashir’s involved, having crawled in the Jeffries tubes.
But after screening people for radiation whilst in the Jeffries tubes, Bashir turns out to be innocent. O’Brien is relieved. Bashir is confused since he wasn’t in the Jeffries tubes to begin with. Wait, what?
It then turns out Krajenksy is the one who caused the sabotage and he is revealed to be Changeling infiltrator. Soon, the Defiant is in trouble with a Changeling on board and ready to cause destruction.
The ship is locked onto the Tzenkethi border to the point it could instigate a war. Phasers and photon torpedoes are locked on. The Defiant is out of the DS9 crew’s control as it’s been sabotaged.
This episode is full of tension as the DS9 crew try to find the Changeling through hours of searching. The crew have got very limited time as Chief O’Brien attempts to override the Changelings sabotage.
Dax also gets knocked out by the Changeling, making it hard work for O’Brien to work along. The DS9 team also have to go through some blood screenings in order to check none of them is a Changeling.
It gets problematic when the Changeling becomes too clever. Eddington gets assumed for being a Changeling until it’s revealed its Bashir. The real Bashir was trapped in own his quarters that time. 😮
Things get really tense when Sisko readies the Defiant to self-destruct. Kira has to give her authorisation too before Sisko marks for a 10-minute countdown. This could be the end of our crew.
Thankfully O’Brien manages to find a way to override the Changeling’s sabotage to the Defiant’s system. Odo pursues the Changelings where O’Brien is. It gets confusing once another Odo turns up.
O’Brien doesn’t let two Odos bother him as he continues to work on disabling the Changeling’s sabotage. Soon, the fake Odo reveals himself and attempts to stop O’Brien in disabling the sabotage.
The real Odo fights the Changeling in main engineering. It was said ‘no Changeling has ever harmed another’. Yet, Odo proves to break that rule as he ends up killing the Changeling to save the Defiant.
Thankfully, O’Brien disables the sabotage and the self-destruct is aborted on the Defiant. As Odo sees the Changeling die before him, the Changeling whispers something disturbing to Odo in his ear.
Back at DS9, it’s revealed the real Ambassador Krajensky was kidnapped, possibly killed and replaced by the Changeling. The Tzenkethi coup had been set up by the Dominion to cripple the Federation. 😐
Odo later reveals to Sisko the cryptic message the Changeling said before he died. Apparently he said, “You’re too late. We are everywhere.” That does not mean good news for the DS9 crew here. 😐
Overall, ‘The Adversary’ is a satisfying, compelling finale to Season 3 of ‘DS9’. I was looking forward to finding out what would happen next in the TV series and how the DS9 team tackled the Dominion.
On Disc 7 of the ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 3’ DVD, as well as the ‘Time Travel Files – ‘Past Tense’ documentary and the ‘Sailing Through The Stars – A Special Look at ‘Explorers’ documentary, there are the documentaries ‘The Birth of the Dominion and Beyond’, ‘Michael Westmore’s Aliens: Season 3’; ‘U.S.S. Defiant’ and ‘Crew Dossier: Odo’. There are also some Section 31 hidden files.
‘The Adversary’ (DS9) rating – 9/10
‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 3’ DVD rating – 9/10
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