S05.E04: ...Nor the Battle to the Strong

[John Potts]

Quote

 

Jake, reporting from the front lines, sees what war truly is.

 

After The Ship two episodes back, we get another reminder that while war is often depicted as glorious, it also (arguably, mainly) involves huge amounts of human suffering and death. In fact there is absolutely nothing glamorous about the fighting in this episode - we only see the wounded. dying and those tending to them - and even the fight itself if ultimately pointless.

Did love seeing Jake going from audience surrogate in saying, "What did any of that treknobabble mean?" at Bashir's ramblings to being excited at the prospect of seeing fighting up close to being horrified at the carnage it involves (and his own reaction to it). Similarly, I loved seeing Bashir going from pompous self promotion (oblivious to the fact that Jake is blatantly not paying attention) to all business once he learns of the medical needs of the colony. Even the black humour of the doctors felt real. All round, a brutal but effective episode.

[readster]

I agree, even later one when we saw more on the frontlines and Nog losing his leg. Something DS9 did was really show the horrors of a war, even with things with the Borg. You saw the destruction, but with the Dominion you saw carnage, loses on both sides, each sides POV, betrayals, alliances and even others taken advantage of the situation. It was war and something the show did well with.

[iMonrey]

This was one of those episodes that suffered a bit because of budget limitations. The scope of what they were trying to convey wasn't really coming across as well as it might have - the "cave" sets were too tiny, the extras too few. There are also too many off-hand references to Federation settlements on distant planets in the Gamma quadrant . . . what the hell are they even doing there? Seems like the Federation should be taking a keep-out approach to the Gamma quadrant until this whole Dominion thing can be put to rest. If not, the show should have spent more time exploring these ideas instead of wasting time on these tedious characters study episodes or silly episodes with Quark.