Star Trek DS9 - Season 4 - Episode 07
Star Trek DS9 - 4x07 - Starship Down
Originally Aired: 1995-11-6
Synopsis:
A fierce battle with the Jem'Hadar leaves the Defiant trapped in a planet's volatile atmosphere and the crew in danger. [DVD]
Filler Quotient:
1, partial filler, but has important continuity. I recommend against skipping this one.
- This episode features some minor continuity regarding Sisko's discomfort with being regarded as the Emissary to the Prophets. It's also the first episode to feature open combat between the Dominion and the Federation since season 3.
Problems
None
Factoids
None
Remarkable Scenes
- Quark revealed to have been exploiting the Karemma.
- The Jem'Hadar attack and the Defiant entering the atmosphere.
- Quark bragging to Hanok regarding cheating the Federation.
- The probe taking out the Jem'Hadar ship.
- Kira trying to keep Sisko awake.
- A torpedo lodged in the hull of the room with Quark and the Karemma representative.
- Kira praying for Sisko.
- Quark and Hanok disarming the torpedo.
- Worf destroying the other Jem'Hadar ship.
- Morn Appearances; 1. Bashir is talking with him at the end. Appears mystified that he has 17 brothers and sisters. Jadzia rescues Bashir from the conversation with Morn.
My Review
This is very obviously the writers trying to do a submarine episode in space. ;) But I don't care because it's very well done. Besides the fun action which is convincingly portrayed, there's a lot of fun character development as groups of characters are singled out. Bashir and Dax get to explore their attraction with one another, Kira gets to tell Sisko stories and express her undying respect for him as the Emissary, even prays to for him to live. Worf has to learn to go easy on a bunch of enlisted men, and gets some hardcore Defiant command experience. Quark even gets a decent showing with the Karemma representative. I absolutely loved the torpedo disarming scene! I wish Quark had gotten more props saving the ship. ;) Overall, I was very impressed. It was a highly exciting episode and every character got a good showing.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
A DS9 version of TNG: Disaster! Awesome. It was a little disappointing to see the Defiant practically incapacitated so easily, but they made up for it. Always nice to see Jem'Hadar ships destroyed too.
I was really hoping for a sonar ping sound while running the 'active scan'.
Although it was difficult to tell with all that makeup, the Karemma representative, Hanok, was played by James Cromwell, a very well known star from many films and TV shows. It would be hard to identify a single work that Cromwell is most known for, he has been in so many. He plays the farmer in the movies "Babe" and "Babe in the City". He is a major character in the movie The Green Mile. Also a major character in the movie Star Trek: First Contact (where he plays Zefram Cochrane). Also a major character in the Movie I Robot. He also appears in TNG: The Birthright Parts 1 and 2 as Jaglom Shrek and TNG: The Hunted as Prime Minister Nayrok. A very, very well known actor in other words. Here, it is pretty hard to recognize him, but his voice is quite unmistakable.
As the review says, a Star Trek submarine episode. I also liked it a lot (season 4 so far has been more or less perfect as far as storytelling goes).
The only thing that slightly annoyed me was when Bashir "absolutely had to" close the door on Deck 2 because it was so crucial for the ship, and ran out to get Dax, drag her into the turbolift, taking his time to shut the door, which took more than 30-40 seconds, while nothing of consequence happened to the ship. He could have easily grabbed her and dragged her back with everyone else, but the writers obviously needed to get him and Jadzia to be alone...