O yes, there’s time travel, too, as in “Past Tense” (#s 11-12). And in the first three episodes of season 3 “The Search” parts 1 and 2 “The House of Quark”) is the potential of DS9 to effortlessly bounce from spacefaring drama to side-splitting sci-fi comedy. The station is provided with a sort of mini-starship the Defiant, in order to peruse the Gamma Quadrant. Season 3 – Now things kick into high gear as DS9 becomes the flagship of the Star Trek TV universe with the conclusion of The Next Generation. The season-closing “Jem-Hadar” introduces those badass killers along with their leaders, the Dominion. The evil “mirror universe” concept, from which DS9 got lots of play through the seasons, in “Crossover” (episode #23). Season 2 is perhaps most notable for the increasingly humorous interplay between the hypercapitalist Ferengi and Odo.

The conspiratorial threat of “The Circle” pops up for a few episodes, but is vanquished immediately. Season 2 – More warmup? Yes, essentially. Through seasons 1 and 2, the “A” listers of the Star Trek writing/production team were assigned to The Next Generation while DS9 was left with the generic sorts of plots that allowed exploration of character: Episodes like “Past Prologue” (Nerys’s loyalties are divided thanks to a terrorist friend), “Babel” (the automatic translator breaks down), “Dax” (The symbiote is accused of a murder she didn’t commit) and “Vortex” (Odo delves into his origins) and more are cookie-cutter stuff designed to flesh out characters and the environment rather than advance the ST mythos. Season 1 – Like all of the “new” Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine required a warmup period. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The seasons, the key episodes

Mirror universe ds9