“Soldiers of the Empire”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by LeVar Burton
Season 5, Episode 21
Production episode 40510-519
Original air date: April 29, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Martok is being treated for a training injury. Bashir lectures him on the subject of not accepting that he has a disability (to wit, his missing eye; he won’t get an ocular implant, either) and of turning the safeties off when he practices in the holosuite. He then gets a call from the High Council: they want him to take command of the I.K.S. Rotarran, a Bird-of-Prey, to rescue the I.K.S. B’Moth, which disappeared three days ago while patrolling the Cardassian border.
Martok goes to the Defiant to tell Worf about the mission and to ask him to serve at Martok’s side as his first officer. (We also find out that his shoulder injury wasn’t from a holosuite exercise, but rather him and Worf sparring. Marotk lied to Bashir because humans wouldn’t understand the need for personal combat with edged weapons as training.)
Worf explains to Sisko why he has accepted Martok’s offer: in the Dominion prison camp when Worf wavered in his determination to keep fighting the Jem’Hadar in the ring, he and Martok exchanged a moment of clarity (the Klingon word is tova’dok), giving Worf the strength to continue fighting. Worf feels he owes Martok a debt, and so Sisko puts him on detached duty to the Klingon Defense Force. Kira splits up Worf’s duties among O’Brien, Bashir, and Dax. Bashir bitches about taking on extra work while he’s off having fun on a Klingon ship, but Dax and O’Brien set him straight: a Bird-of-Prey is no picnic, and makes the Defiant look like a luxury liner. They also give Bashir and Kira the same speech about challenging your superiors if they act dishonorably that Worf gave to Riker in “A Matter of Honor.”
Kornan and Leskit walk into the bar, the former looking particularly mean, the latter wearing a necklace of Cardassian neckbones. This convinces Dax to take some leave and sign on as the Rotarran’s science officer, thinking that Worf may need the backup.
Worf takes his place as first officer, a ritual that starts with his declaring that he serves the captain but stands for the crew. Kornan then gives him the ship’s record of battle, which he does in as rote and bored a manner as possible, though Leskit snidely says that he won’t find victories anywhere in that record of battle. Martok comes on board, Worf then gives him the record of battle, putting the lives of the crew in the general’s hands.
Martok orders a less direct course to the B’Moth’s last known location, as he wishes to avoid the Tong Beak Nebula, in which the Jem’Hadar have been reported to be active. Leskit is surprised that Martok wants to avoid battle, and when Martok calls him on his tone, he very disrespectfully says he meant no disrespect. Leskit then sets the course, emphasizing that they’re going around the nebula.
As they go to warp, Worf tries to lead the bridge crew in the Warrior’s Anthem. But only Dax and Tavana sing with any enthusiasm, and Kornan and Leskit don’t sing at all. (Leskit, in particular, looks disgusted.)
Dax goes to the mess hall and—after forcibly kicking Ortakin out of her seat—ingratiates herself to the crew by announcing that she brought three barrels of bloodwine on board. There’s been no bloodwine on the ship for six months, and even Kornan seems happy about that. They drink and share stories and insult each other in manners both friendly and not-so-much. Leskit snidely points out that the Rotarran can run away from battle faster than any ship in the Defense Force. He also makes lewd comments about Dax, but she assures him that on this trip her bed is as empty as Leskit’s—only in her case, it’s by choice. That leads to some hearty laughter, which Tavana says hasn’t been heard on the ship in far too long.
Kornan then brings everyone down by saying it won’t last, the ship is cursed, and they’re all doomed—doomed!
Martok, for his part, is disgusted by the huge number of reprimands on the crew records (my favorite is one person cited for being “insufficiently aggressive”). He and Worf agree that what the ship needs is a victory to improve morale.
The ship cloaks when long-range sensors detect a Jem’Hadar patrol. It gets real close, doesn’t detect them while cloaked, then disengages. Martok does not order pursuit, even though they have the Jem’Hadar in their sights. Dax tells Worf that that was a mistake to avoid what could have been an easy victory, and it will cost them. Worf shares this concern with Martok, but the general insists that it would have been a mistake to attack—the Jem’Hadar could have gotten a distress signal off, which would have given away their position—and Worf agrees to support him.
But in the mess hall, things get ugly, as Leskit goes on a drunken rant about how the Jem’Hadar are stronger than them and better than them, and that they broke Martok and the general is afraid of them. This leads to a brawl, which Dax is only able to break up with a phaser, but not until Ortakin is badly hurt. Dax again warns Worf that this crew is falling apart, and if they’re not careful, what happened in the mess hall will continue to happen all over the ship.
Dax locates the B’Moth via a distress signal. Worf orders Leskit to set course and then informs Martok. But Martok is sure that it’s a trap—they wouldn’t have left survivors to send a distress signal without a reason. Worf thinks they shouldn’t speculate without evidence, and has to repeat that after Martok goes on a rather scary rant about how awful and soulless the Jem’Hadar are. The general agrees to go the border to investigate.
They find the B’Moth badly damaged, but intact. However, it has drifted into Cardassian space. Martok has orders not to cross the border, and he’s sure that if they do, the Jem’Hadar will attack. Worf points out that if the Jem’Hadar’s nearby, they’ll attack regardless of what side of the border they’re on. But Martok is insistent that they not throw their lives away on a futile rescue attempt, making it clear that anyone who brings it up again will be charged with treasonable disobedience.
Worf and Dax both agree that they can’t just leave the B’Moth’s survivors just sitting there in Dominion space. Worf has to challenge Martok for command of the Rotarran. However, Kornan, Leskit and a few others declare that Martok must die and that Worf should take his Trill and go. Worf says that’s unlikely, and then—backed up by Dax, Tavana, Ortakin, and some others—surprises everyone by ordering the ship to go after the B’Moth. When Martok comes out to ask what the heck’s going on, Worf formally challenges him.
They fight with d’k tahgs, Worf drawing first blood and having the entire crew on his side. They spar again, Worf getting the upper hand—and they exchange a glance, giving us the chance to see what tova’dok looks like. Worf then gives up the upper hand by head-butting the general, breaking the clash, and then lets Martok stab him. As Martok screams his victory, the crew now on his side, Tavana declares a tactical alert. There’s a Jem’Hadar ship on approach. Before Dax brings Worf to the medical bay (and says his letting Martok defeat him is a reminder as to why she loves him), they watch as the crew sings the Warrior’s Anthem, this time with feeling.
The Rotarran defeats the Jem’Hadar, and then rescues 35 members of the B’Moth crew. They return to DS9 to effect repairs and celebrate their victory. During the latter, Martok expresses gratitude to Worf for reminding him of his duty as a warrior and as a soldier of the empire. He also offers Worf a place in the House of Martok, which Worf gratefully accepts.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf gets to be first officer, and initially takes to it half-assedly. He does the “speak for the captain” part just fine, but it takes him a while to get to the “speak for the crew” part.
The slug in your belly: Dax actually fits in better on the Klingon ship than Worf does, at least initially, knowing that the quickest way to get Klingons on your side is to bring them booze. She also has to warn Worf twice about how dangerous things are getting on board.
Rules of Acquisition: Nog is assigned to help Worf retune the phaser array on the Defiant, and at one point, when Worf isn’t looking, he mimes strangling the Klingon when he orders Nog to do more tedious work. The very short Nog also gets stuck between the very tall Martok and Worf, which is not quite as funny a sight gag as they thought it would be, but Aron Eisenberg still sells it with his wavering, intimidated voice.
For Cardassia! Interestingly, all the references are to the Cardassian border, but the only foe anybody’s worried about is the Jem’Hadar. Nobody actually fears Cardassia, and there’s still a thought of them as separate (notably in Leskit’s rant comparing the Cardassian military to the Jem’Hadar), but it’s the Dominion that everyone’s concerned about.
Victory is life: The Jem’Hadar have been attacking ships along the border. Besides the B’Moth, Worf mentions that a Starfleet ship was attacked near the border, as well, and Worf later says that they should expect a Jem’Hadar ship to attack regardless of what side of the border they’re on.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Tavana reveals that her mother and Curzon Dax had a fling once, which is not only totally in character for Curzon, but apparently totally in character for Tavana’s mom…
Keep your ears open: “I can’t talk about it. All I can do is read these fascinating reports and analyses, and analyses of analyses and then keep it all to myself. Because no one else has a need to know. So I have to walk around this station feeling like— You don’t really care, do you?”
“No.”
Bashir lamenting the life of an intelligence officer, and O’Brien poorly feigning sympathy.
Welcome aboard: J.G. Hertzler returns as Martok, as does Aron Eisenberg as Nog. The Rotarran crew includes Rick Worthy as Kornan, Sandra Nelson as Tavana, Scott Leva as Ortakin, Susie Stillwell as one of the officers, and the late great David Graf in a superb turn as Leskit.
Trivial matters: The Warrior’s Anthem that is sung in this episode was originally written by Hilary J. Bader for the Star Trek Klingon CD-ROM game, and used here.
Your humble rewatcher made use of both Kornan and especially Leskit in his novels featuring the crew of the I.K.S. Gorkon. Kornan serves as first officer on the ship in A Good Day to Die and Honor Bound (in the latter book, he dies in battle), and Leskit is in all the books, also appearing in A Singular Destiny as a captain of his own ship. I also had Tavana make a brief appearance, also as a captain, in A Time for War, a Time for Peace, and Ortakin and Leskit both appear in The Left Hand of Destiny by J.G. Hertzler & Jeffrey Lang.
We learn that the Klingon dating system is “the Year of Kahless,” and 2373/Stardate 50000 is the equivalent of the Year of Kahless 999.
Worf becomes a member of the House of Martok in this episode, a family he will remain with for the rest of the series (and beyond in the tie-in fiction).
Ronald D. Moore’s original pitch was to have the Rotarran actually journey to Gre’thor, the Klingon equivalent of hell, but it was decided that that was too philosophical for this late in the season (whatever that means). It did provide the basis for one of Moore’s scripts from his very-brief tenure on the staff of Voyager, “The Barge of the Dead.”
This is the only mention of tova’dok, though your humble rewatcher made use of it in both The Art of the Impossible and The Klingon Art of War.
Walk with the Prophets: “Qoy qeylIs puqloD.” Even if the rest of the episode was dreadful, I would unreservedly love this episode and watch it over and over again for one simple reason: I adore the character of Leskit and how magnificently he was played by David Graf. When the episode first aired, I thought of him as the John Munch of Klingons, referring to Richard Belzer’s cynical character on Homicide: Life on the Street (and later Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), and the whole episode is worth it for his snide commentary and his drunken rants.
In general, what’s admirable about this episode is that it gives us a variety of Klingon personality types beyond “overbearing warrior type.” We’ve seen nuances and variations on that particular type, notably with Martok and also Tony Todd’s Kurn. (Worf is, of course, more complicated than that, but he’s also a series regular who gets the screen time to develop.) But in Kornan we get a depressed Klingon and in Leskit we get a snotty one, and it’s nice to see the variety.
The episode also cements Martok as a strong character in his own right. No one gives an emotional speech better than J.G. Hertzler does, and he gets a few here, and just in general, his natural charisma shines through. Plus, Martok has a very important journey to go on here, basically coming back from the dark place he was in at the Dominion prison camp (and knowing he was replaced by a changeling who did many yucky things in his name).
The other thing that shines through is how far Martok has to go to recover—his hysterical speech about how awful the Jem’Hadar are is an interesting pairing with Leskit’s similar rant, but the difference is that Leskit is drunk. Martok is not only sober, but this may be who he is now: someone who will avoid the Jem’Hadar at all costs rather than risk engaging them and being lost.
But most of all, this is Worf’s episode. He said back in “The Way of the Warrior” that he had a lot to learn about command, and what’s good is seeing how he’s progressed in this regard. The last time he was a first officer (in TNG’s “Gambit, Part II”) he struggled with certain nuances, which he and Data were able to talk out. This time, he has bigger problems, as he’s stuck between a captain with cold feet and a crew that’s fraying at the seams. It takes a few kicks in the ass from Dax to get him to figure it out, but the solution is his own—both in disobeying Martok’s orders, thus impressing the mutineers, who didn’t think he had it in him, and in throwing the fight, thus getting everyone on the same page.
The general story isn’t the most compelling in the world—it’s pretty much every “underdogs get their fecal matter together to achieve victory” story in the history of the universe—but it works because it isn’t really about that victory, it’s about the journeys that both Worf (a character we’ve been following for a decade now) and Martok (a very compelling new character who’s become a recurring character by the sheer power of his awesomeness) go on. It also helps that, in Tavana, Kornan, and especially Leskit, we have a superb supporting cast of Klingons.
Tellingly, we don’t actually see the Rotarran engage the Jem’Hadar—because that part doesn’t matter. The climactic battle isn’t against the Dominion, it’s Worf getting Martok to remember who and what he is. That’s the victory that we see, and it’s the one the episode has been building toward.
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido has had more fun writing Leskit than almost any other character in the Star Trek universe.
One thing this episode does that I’ve noticed a lot of other episodes do is give us a prelude to the central conflict in the teaser. In this case, Martok’s line in the infirmary of “The human facination with what ‘might have been’ is tiresome, Doctor” is a nice contrast to his “What if the Jem’Hadar had gotten off a distress signal…” later in the episode.
One thing that DS9 does is show the diversity in races. Previous to DS9 every race was pretty much defined by a single characteristic except humans (Romulans: devious; Ferengi: greedy; Vulcans: Logical; Klingons: Warrior). As you pointed out this helps show the diferent types of Klingons- this crew seems to have absolutely no desire to charge into battle and die valiantly. They’ll fight, but only to a point.
As far as your comment that no one seems worried about the Cardassians, it’s possible that the particular sector was defended by the Jem Hadar while another was defended by Cardassians. While it is one thing to serve under the same flag, different fleets have different tactics, logistical needs, etc. It could be that at this point in the Cardassian/Dominion merger that a) the fleets weren’t quite coordinated yet and/or b) the Dominion was still pretending that the Cardassians were equal partners in the arrangement. So it could be that there were no Cardassian ships around to fight anyways.
One other random thought… at this point in the series they should have dropped any notion that Dax was still a science officer, named her second officer of the Station and put her in Command Red. I can’t think of any point that she functions as a science officer moving forward and in later episodes is given command of the Defiant, which a science officer should not be doing (excepting a science vessel). It’s a minor point of continuity, but could have actually set up a few nice moments or even a B-Plot later (the ex-science officer versus the new science officer thing). It also would have made more sense for the post-series novels where Ezri Dax moves to the command field, w hich is interesting since none of her previous hosts, excepting Jadzia, where commanders of any type.
It took me a while to get to this episode. After the last two, I was burnt out! But thanfully, this episode got my juices going again.
Worf/Martok = awesome. And additional developmenting of this relationship, i would watch. If they wanted to put Worf and Martok in a hollsuite for the entire hour and have them sing Klingon opera, I would watch that and it would be better than going back to Ferrenginar.
Besides Worf, my favorite characters on DS9 are the Ferrengi. More specifically…..Quark, Rom and Nog. But any time we have to deal with the Grand Nagus or Quark and Rom’s Moogie, it seems to cancel out my happiness to get a Quark/Rom/Nog episode. I think I’d rather sit through another Lwaxana Troi episode than deal with Ferrenginar again.
Actually, Lwaxana Troi visiting Ferrenginar sounds like an episode that should have happened.
I have to admit that while I did enjoy this episode in terms of the character development and general storyline, I had to do so through gritted teeth while ignoring the obvious inconsistencies in the setup.
We’re told right at the start, this is an important mission. So important, nobody but General Martok himself could be entrusted with it, and he and Worf discuss what a great adventure it will be. And so Klingon High Command equip him with apparently the crappiest Bird of Prey in the fleet, one with a reputation for running away from battles, which apparently currently has no Captain or First Officer, and also either has no Science Officer and is no rush to get a replacement, or else has one that can be replaced, last minute and for no apparent reason other than that the First Mate’s girlfriend fancies coming along for a jolly.
Why would sick bay have carpet on the floor?
“On this mission, my bed is as empty as yours, Leskit, except mine is empty by choice.”
One of the best burns in all of Star Trek.
Back when these aired, I recorded them on VHS, cramming as many episodes on a tape as would fit. Lousy quality, yes, but good economy. I created one line caption for each, something that would fit on a 3×5 card. This proved very handy for remembering exactly what each episode was about (e.g., “Odo’s ‘bedroom eyes'”), but also means that my family is lousy at identifying actual titles.
I’ve been enjoying this rewatch with my youngest daughter. When I remarked, “Today’s episode is ‘Soldiers of the Empire,” she confessed to not remembering it.
But when I said, “General Martok–chicken or not?” she knew exactly which episode!
Even after we got DS9 on DVDS, the kids insisted I keep the index cards they grew up with.
#5
Wall-to-wall carpeting is a guaranteed right under Federation law.
Worth mentioning that my novelette in the DS9: Prophecy and Change anthology, “…Loved I Not Honor More,” begins shortly after “Ferengi Love Songs” and overlaps the events of this episode, ending on the same day. I did this because most of this episode takes place away from DS9, so I used the story to explore what was going on back at the station at the same time. I felt that the continuity was jammed pretty tightly as it was, so there wasn’t much room to insert new stories between episodes; thus I looked for an opportunity to do a simultaneous story. Really, given how often DS9 did stories focusing on just a couple of the regulars off on some mission somewhere, it would’ve been easy for them to say that two or three consecutive episodes took place at the same time — except that they always felt the need to give every regular (except Jake) a token scene even if it was just one or two lines, which made it harder to interpret episodes as overlapping.
Speaking of what was going on back at the station, why the hell did they have to divide Worf’s duties among the science officer, the doctor, and the chief of operations? Don’t they have someone who does the same job as Worf on another shift? This was the recurring problem with DS9 — they forgot there was a whole crew onboard. Instead of establishing a supporting Starfleet or Bajoran crew for ops or the Defiant, they kept giving key jobs to people who really shouldn’t have been given them, even extending to Rom, Nog, and Garak at times.
As for the Klingon stuff, I don’t remember that much about it, but I think I found Martok’s timidity arc a little forced and broad. But I agree it was good to see a little more diversity of personalities among the Klingons.
Only a 7? That’s it? This episode is the reason I buy all those Klingon books you write, Krad! I love it but I’m admitedly a Klingon groupie. As you said, I love how it shows the differences in Klingon personalities- realistically they simply can’t all be the same.
It also really shows what a “textbook Klingon” Worf is, especially as you pointed out, the way Dax actually fits in better than he does.
And as much as I love Worf and Jadzia together, I think Martok is truly Worf’s “better half.” Those two are like peanut butter and jelly.
but it was decided that that was too philosophical for this late in the season (whatever that means).
I think it means this is the kind of story that would require major rewrites that would delay production too long. This was the season’s 21st episode. They were in crunch mode, and needed everything to be done ASAP, including a working script. It was too late to try and produce something this philosophical and complicated at this point. That’s why Barge of the Dead was Voyager’s 3rd episode in season 6.
Regardless, this was a solid episode, finally giving some closure to a season 3 TNG arc, that being Worf’s family dishonor. Now, he has a new house. A new place where he can belong and achieve honor. It also sets up the Rotarran, which will remain in the show until its end.
Sometimes, I’m amazed Ron Moore’s able to find new ways to explore Klingon culture, even after eight years as a ST writer. One would have thought an episode like Rightful Heir would have been the limit. Klingon cowardice is fresh material, worth exploring.
Sadly, this episode’s followup is Sons and Daughters, which doesn’t work as effectively as a Klingon story, thanks in no small part to Marc Worden’s wooden portrayal of Alexander, but that’s me getting ahead of myself.
Richard Belzer as a Klingon.
If only :-)
I should like this episode better than I do. The concept of the broken, demoralized crew that needs to be kicked back into shape, to rediscover their essential Klingonness is a good one. And paralleling that with Martok undergoing the same journey is an excellent idea. But the way the crew is played just feels off to me. I don’t think I can quite put my finger on it or articulate it, but it’s almost as though less that they’re broken and more that they simply resent Martok and Worf as outsiders.
I also agree with CLB @10 about the production staff forgetting that Worf ought to have had some people under him to take over his duties. Sure, it’s amusing for Bashir to have to suffer the more bureaucratic side of intelligence work (a facet Garak has apparently ignored), but there must be someone else on the station already. Would that have been Eddington? It’s been long enough for him to be replaced.
One thing that annoyed me in this episode is that Worf wears a Klingon Defense Force uniform, but Jadzia keeps her Starfleet uniform. It seemed to me like they were each as on-loan from Starfleet as the other. Wish they’d let Jadzia look as badass as she acted in this one.
@@.-@, Later on, we see that Martok’s popularity is perceived by Gowron as a threat, so maybe he was already acting in ways to sabotage him.
-Andy
@1 CLB… you hit on one of my common complaints… the idea that there is only one guy on the station who does anything. While DS9 isn’t as bad as TNG was (O’Brien refrs to his engineers, suggesting that people other than him fix things) several others seem to have no backups or support. I get that Worf is the intelligence officer, but I presume he has a intel staff who helps go through reports, cross-check, do presentations, etc. Likewise, I have to imagine that Dax has a science staff who works for her (although to be honest, I’m not entirely how much science one does on a space station that is holding at a point in space and doesn’t do exploration per se). Their jobs shouldn’t have to be farmed out- it’s not like either one was doing any old job that could be done by any idiot with a combadge.
And bonus points to Andy @15 who brought up the inconsitency about Gowron giving this to Martok yet setting him up to fail. Perhaps he was on a popularity high (the guy who survived the Dominion camp and escaped!) and Gowron gave him a bad ship with a crew of screwups to try and take him down a peg. He wasn’t actively trying to get him killed off, but figured that Martok would fail and his popularity take a hit.
@10
I agree they shouldn’t be pushing key jobs on people that shouldn’t be doing them, and that the writers forgot there was a whole crew available.
However, I disagree with your objecting to them giving these duties to Nog. Maybe not Garak or Rom, but Nog actually makes sense. He’s a cadet, soon to be ensign, and in dire need of experience.
@12, Yeah.
Like Weyoun, the decision to make Martok a recurring character was one of DS9’s best choices.
Pairing him with Worf really benefited both characters. It’s a beautiful friendship. :)
@16: “(although to be honest, I’m not entirely how much science one does on a space station that is holding at a point in space and doesn’t do exploration per se)”
But it’s a space station orbiting next to the only stable wormhole in the known universe, a construct of an incredibly advanced alien species occupying a realm beyond spacetime as we understand it. There should be an enormous amount of science to do there. Good grief, it should be a Mecca for astrophysicists, propulsion engineers, and xenobiologists. People could build entire careers on the study of the wormhole and the continuum and life forms within it.
@17: I don’t object to giving duties in general to Cadet Nog. I object to giving him the specific jobs that realistically should go to full-fledged officers with more experience and seniority. Often the writers put him in a job simply because they didn’t have any other characters available to fill it. And my point is that they should have had those characters. They built such a huge ensemble cast on DS9 that it’s a bizarre lacuna that they so completely failed to flesh out a cadre of Starfleet and Bajoran junior officers, people other than the core cast whose job was to man ops and the Defiant.
@19
Well said.
Not only the wormhole itself, but the Gamma Quadrent as well! There should be an armada of science officers going back and forth through the wormhole to study new planets and solar systems over there.
Like Keiko.
So yeah, Dax should have a huge staff.
“So yeah, Dax should have a huge staff.”
I believe Curzon had one.
*goes off and sniggers behind the bike sheds*
@21, LOL.
@@.-@. Martok was certianly far from “100%” as well as being a very popular general with an ego to match. To say he was rusty (as this episode shows) would be the understatement of the season.
Locating the Bah’Meth (sp) is little more than a standard SAR operation, i.e. a milkrun to the border of Dominion space. Calling it an “important, critical mission for the Empire” sounds more like a sop to Martok’s ego than a truly critical mission, (unlike the later epside, where the mission when Worf gives Kor a commission on the Rotarran was critical to the wars success).
I’ll have to read through the comments in a bit, but I don’t know that I can muster up a 7 for this episode – although Klingons are not quite my thing. I think it had some interesting points – such as exploring Martok’s trauma after being captured by the Dominion, and his recovery from that, or Worf learning how to command. And there were a few fun moments (like Dax and the bloodwine – her expression when she mentioned her three barrels just nailed it)…but other than that, it was an episode where I kept finding myself going down to the basement to get some laundry to fold, etc, and I got kind of sick of Dax constantly warning Worf abouut the danger because it was just so darn predictable that of course things are going to boil over, and of course nobody is going to do anything about it until the last minute.
Why are Klingon ships alway so misty/dusty?
Also, kind of random comment – what was the deal with Kira assigning out Worf’s duties to the engineer and the doctor? Aren’t there other people in Worf’s department (who would ostensibly be better trained for such a thing) that can handle his duties? And then what happens when Dax decides to leave too, guess they are just totally screwed! (But seriously, come on, aren’t there hundreds of people on the station who can do these jobs?)
To address a few of the other comements:
1)I assumed that the “important mission” was not really that important and that he was basically given a mission/crew/ship nobody else wanted to see if he could succeed. And if not, well…no big loss (to the Klingon High Command, at least).
2)Yeah, there should be loads of science to do. I kind of wish Dax got to do more science, to be honest.
I dig Klingon bird-of-prey episodes in general but this one was a little tedious, redeemed almost entirely by the look on Martok’s face when Worf tells him he didn’t know Martok would ease up when Worf intentionally dropped his guard.
After Odo in The Begotten and Quark in Ferengi Love Songs, Worf now regains some (if not all) of his former standing by joining the House of Martok. 23: the name of the ship they were trying to rescue was called the B’Moth.
This episode takes very long to get to the point, which is reinstalling Martok as a “fearless leader”.
Little fun fact, my wife is actually trying to learn klingon with the help of the Duolingo app, so it was nice that she could translate what Sisko and Worf where saying to each other: Success. :)
Cool that your wife is becoming Klingon-fluent.
Lockdown rewatch. I think this works right up until the knife fight.. I don’t believe the crew would A. not realise Worf had thrown the fight. and B. Let Worf just be dragged off the bridge, they would expect Martok to finish him off… It’s A Klingon ship they don’t have tap out