Deep Space Nine 526 "A Call to Arms"

OK, so I've been out doing the holiday partying thing for a while, but fear not my faithful public, for the great all-consuming Deep Space Nine rewatch continues apace.

I'd also like to qualify this by saying that I've gone through this particular seven-episode arc about four times in its entirety before I've made comment about it here, but that said, it is THE most important arc of the entire show, with some of the best (while not THE best) episodes of the series.

First... Season Five's finale, "A Call to Arms".

OK, so we know the Dominion has been building up for a while after Dukat has shown his true rat-bastard qualities by volunteering Cardasia to become a sort of Vichy France to the dominion's Nazi Germany (the comparison isn't perfect, I know, just go with it). Then Sisko, whose balls clang together when he walks, decides to mine the wormhole. Rom and O'Brien come up with the idea of cloaked and self replicating mines (a great area denial weapon, but if I do say so, something very UN-Federationlike. You'd think this would've been something they could have just ordered out of the Romulan catalog...), and they just flat-out shut down the wormhole.

Watching the game of false-diplomacy brinkmanship between Weyoun and Sisko was cute. Seeing Dax command the defiant in what is to become a recurring theme is very very awesome. The whole "the storm is coming" vibe of the first four acts of the show are a great tension builder. The battle over the station was a great deal of eye candy. Sisko's rounsing and somewhat Dickensian speech (shades of Carton in A Tale of Two Cities) as he leaves the station with the rest of the Federation crew was rousing, but I REALLY would have liked to have seen something of the Fed/Klingon fleet wrecking the Dominion shipyards at Taurus 3. Watching Sisko's slash and burn tactics with the station gave me a smirk, as well as watching the Rotarran and the Defiant fleeing away, taking an odd pot shot, and then cloaking. Federation ships cloaking. I still can't get over it.

Watching the Defiant and the Rotarran swinging around to join the freaking massive combined Federation/Klingon fleet (presumably the one that had been tasked to destroy the aforementioned shipyards) was certainly rousing. So this is it. The war is here. All ambiguity is gone (for now) as to who's wearing a black hat and who's wearing a white one. Cry havoc. Except for Kira and Odo, who are in for a marathon session of bad decision making. Speaking of poor decisions, Jake Sisko has apparently not had enough of being terrified in war zones. Oops.

Oh, also Rom and Leeta get married, reaffirming ugly, annoying, socially awkward men's hopes that they can land an extremely hot lady if they just have a great big heart.

Quote of the episode:
Sisko: "We're losing the peace. Which means a war might be our only hope..."