A Season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 13 Episodes - Season 1

1x01/02  Emissary

1x03       Past Prologue

1x05       Babel

1x06       Captive Pursuit

1x08       Dax

1x11       The Nagus

1x12       Vortex

1x13       Battle Lines

1x14       The Storyteller

1x15       Progress

1x18       Dramatis Personae

1x19       Duet

1x20       In the Hands of the Prophets

Season 1 is a shorter 20 episode season, rather than a 26 episode season for most other 90s Trek. Every show struggles in the beginning, throwing things against the wall, to see what sticks. Often the wormhole just spits up a plot conflict, and the characters react. Odo's odd man out sheriff is tested (A Man Alone), but doesn't really advance him.  Q's one and only appearance (Q-less) on this show is good for just the one line, "You hit me. Picard never hit me!" but really has no place on DS9.  Bashir gets an early story (The Passenger), testing his frontier medicine, but ultimately it is a one and done and not that memorable. In a strange throwback to TOS, the wormhole spits up a race of gamers, in a strange premonition of Jumanji (Move Along Home). Again the wormhole spits up an alien race that lets everyone's imaginations run wild (If Wishes were Horses), but outside of a rather unfit Asian baseball player as the last, greatest baseball player, the episode is a wash. Speaking of wash, I have saved you a mental scrubbing by scrubbing this season's Lwaxana Troi episode (The Forsaken). So, all of those pieces were what I cut... what stayed in?  After trimming out those 7 episodes, this season comes into sharp focus, and really shows the coalescing greatness that DS9 would become.

As for what stayed in, "Emissary" is probably the strongest Trek Pilot. It takes something well known, spins it on its head, and really sets up the series nicely. Each of the stories until "Duet" are all attempts to draw in the details of the characters. "Battle Lines" is an interesting sci fi conceit, but also clears the way for a certain Vedek Winn to appear in the season finale. "The Storyteller" is our first O'Brien/Bashir buddy story, but a weak start. But oh, "Duet" I don't know of any other post-TOS series that had an episode so powerful in the first season. The actor, Harris Yulin, plays the Cardassian butcher/file clerk so well. This may have been the first television show that made me cry at the end and I was 12 when this aired. If you watch nothing else from Season One, you must watch this. "In the Hands of the Prophets" leads to the rising tension on Bajor coming to the station, and the struggle to put their world back on track. It has some nice Keiko/O'Brien material, and plays with the Emissary story.