Star Trek 458: Tacking Into the Wind

458. Tacking Into the Wind

FORMULA: A Time to Stand + Reunion

WHY WE LIKE IT: Damar's new Cardassia.

WHY WE DON'T: Sorry Gowron, but you turned out to be an idiot.

REVIEW: It's weeks later and the Gowron situation has become untenable. Worf knows it, Martok knows it, and Sisko knows it. Gowron is systematically destroying Martok's career and reputation by sending him on stupid, unwinnable missions, and it's put the entire quadrant in jeopardy. Ezri's take on the Empire is that it has grown corrupt and deserves to die. She makes a great point about its hypocritical nature, one that strikes a chord with Worf. He challenges Gowron in the Klingon tradition (get rid of bad leaders), which he might as well do since he helped him rise to power in the first place. The ensuing fight is dramatic enough, but a an obvious stuntman is used in too many shots. You just can't fake those googly eyes. And so the mantle passes to an honorable man - Martok - perhaps for the first time since Gorkon. Sorry to see Gowron go, to be sure, but it won't be the last change of regime we see before the end, and the Klingons were probably due.

The more interesting story is Kira and her gang's theft of a Breen weapon. The heist job itself is well done, with a good Mission Impossible feel and good, tense scenes. Given his difficulty with faces, Odo can really only impersonate another changeling, can't he? But the scene is directed in such a way as to make you believe the Founder Leader really has shown up to screw with their plans. Most of the tension is internal to the cell, however, as it becomes more and more obvious that Rusot is defying Kira's instructions on purpose. He learns his lesson about pushing Kira when she quite literally "hits a nerve", but it's not until their Mexican stand-off aboard the ship that Damar has to make a choice. He makes the right one, in part because he recognizes the need to reforge Cardassia if it is to survive. Fascists like Rusot are products of another era. Damar's family being killed, and Kira subsequently making him see that it's just the sort of thing Cardassians used to do, has had the right effect. Is Damar suddenly a "good man"? What he has always been is a patriot. How he expresses that patriotism, which Cardassian values he chooses to represent, that's what's changed.

Since it HAS been weeks since the last episode, Odo's condition has naturally degenerated. He's hiding it from Kira, and she's hiding the fact that she's known all along. Garak, just as much on an ethical journey as Damar, is perhaps wonderfully awed by this show of love from the two of them. Back on the station, Bashir hasn't come close to finding a cure for the disease, but O'Brien hatches a plan to lure a Section 31 operative they might capture and learn the answers from (leading into the next episode).

LESSON: Resist all you like, you must eventually recognize the need to change.

REWATCHABILITY - High: The Klingon story is well-reasoned even if it means losing an iconic character, but it's the Cardassian resistance thread that keeps the viewer truly engaged.