The sixth season begins three months after DS9 was lost to the Dominion. The war is not going well for the Federation. Out of a 112 ship attack fleet sent to engage the advancing enemy, only 14 survived. The Defiant, with the escaped command staff of Ds9, has been under attack and pursuit for nearly four days straight.On DS9, things are better, but still tense. Quark seems comfortable with life during wartime because, unlike the original Cardassian occupation, there are no starving children or Bajorans lying about dying from overwork. Odo agrees that as far as occupations go, this one is not so bad.
Kira has different ideas. Dukat has been trying hard to warm up to her. The time when she tolerated him for the sake of his daughter, Ziyal, has come to an end. She does not much trust the Dominion’s non-aggression treaty with the Bajorans, either. No Bajorans have been allowed as part of the security force sice the Federation left.
Jake too, is upset because his news reports are being jammed by Weyoun because he feels they are biased against the Dominion. If Jake agrees to be more eve-handed--prit propaganda--perhaps the newscan flow again.
Amidst the numerous defeats, Adm. Ross appears to relieve Sisko of command of the Defiant. Before I go any further, I want to say something about Ross--really the actor playing him. Ross is a character who will be a semi-regular throughout the rest of the series. He is played by Barry Jenner as a straight laced, non nonsense professional type who becomes more willing to tolerate underhanded tactics that would normally violate his moral code under less desperate times.
At the risk of revealing some of my juvenile tastes I the early ’90’s, Jenner also played Carl Winslow’s cop boss on Family Matters for two seasons. On that show, he was also astraightlaced, non nonsense guy who was obsessed with his job and would do anything for advancement. He even changed his name to Lieu once he was promoted to lieutenant
The point is he essentially played the same character on both shows. He exaggerated the character towards absurdity for laughs on Family Matters while exaggerating the character as a dead serious military man for DS9. I am not going to tell you Jenner is some fantastic actor by ay stretch, but he deserves credit for believably playing the same character in a silly comedy and then in a drama.
Sisko and his crew are reassigned to take the stolen Jem Ha’Dar vessel from “The Ship” and attack a tetracil-white production facility. They do so I an intense encounter that cripples their warp drive to the point it will take seventeen years to get to the nearest starbase. We end the first of a six part story on that note.
“A Time to Stand” is a fine start to one of my favorite seasons in all of Trek. The Dominion War story is where Ds9 really made its name in fan circls. It is the first time it truly feels like the Federation may be doomed. After a number of running themes which have bashed Federation ideals, such as the Maquis storyline and the general skepticism of theBajorans, we get the sense that even with its flaws, the Federation is still worth saving from destruction.
There is a lesson there about some of the things the United states has had to do during the war on terror, but there will be plwty of opportunities to draw parallels in subsequent episodes.
Rating: **** (out of 5)
