A fantastic end to season 2 gives us a deceptively small episode that grows bigger as it continues and ends with events that will shape the course of the entire series to come. This has a little bit of everything, starting with some lovely father/son bonding between Jake and Commander Sisko, juxtaposed by the funnier relationship between Nog and his uncle Quark.
In many ways, Quark is the real star of this one. His arguments with Sikso culminate in quite a beautiful speech about the nature of Ferengi vs. humans, and it serves to demonstrate the casual racism that everyone, noble Starfleet officers included, show towards Quark and the rest of his species. It seems like Quark's words are strong enough to actually register with Sisko.
The camping trip is a really enjoyable part of the episode, both Quark and Nog providing some really good humour. More so, though, is the continuing and very genuine love between Jake and his father. Any time they end up reminiscing about Jennifer always results in some quite heartbreaking stuff, and both Cirroc Lofton and Avery Brooks always hit the right notes.
Things change with the arrival of Eris (who we will later learn is a Vorta) followed by our first look at the Jem'Hadar. These guys are just great, and at this point it's all about displaying how intimidating they are. They have personal cloaking devices, great strength and a highly aggressive attitude. One of the most powerful moments of the episode is the way that the soldier on the station just casually walks through the force field the crew think they have him contained in; it's done in such a nonchalant way and shot so well that it becomes kind of unsettling.
If we needed a less subtle demonstration, they destroy a Galaxy-class starship. That could easily have been the Enterprise, as it was thoroughly overwhelmed and had no defence. There's a few moments here which don't track with later developments - Eris has telepathic abilities that will never be seen again, and she doesn't recognise what Odo is - but they're small enough things that it's easy to forget.
This episode hits me every time, and I always forget just how meaningful the plot is until Captain Keogh shows up with his intimidating Galaxy-class starship and I remember what's about to happen.
Ultimately, the episode title could not possibly be more relevant. Everything that happens eventually serves to paint the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion in full color, and we know exactly who they are by the end. We don't know what they want, precisely—even if we can guess from the name, "Dominion"—but we do know that agents of the Dominion will stop at nothing to carry out whatever orders the Founders have given them.
I did forget about Eris being a Vorta until they all made it back to Deep Space Nine, but I have to agree with @LeftHandedGuitarist on at least these points: Her telekinetic power is never displayed by any other Vorta in the Star Trek canon; and it's extremely odd that she should fail to recognize Odo as a Founder. Eris was meant to return in at least two episodes ("The Search, Part II" and "The Ship"), but Molly Hagan was unavailable. In the process the writers seem to have forgotten about the Vorta's supposed telekinetic ability. As for Eris failing to recognize Odo as a Founder, all I can think of is that the writers hadn't yet thought far enough ahead. Later we find out that the Vorta consider themselves "those who serve the Founders", and that the hierarchy of the Dominion government is essentially Founders > Vorta > Jem'Hadar > everyone else. But this early on, that structure likely hadn't solidified in the writers' room yet.
Certainly there are other little things I could nitpick, like how Jake seems to think putting back the single piece of the autopilot subsystem he removed would be too difficult, but overall this is a good, gut-punching (on account of the Odyssey's fate), first real introduction to the Dominion's true colors.
It starts slow and predictable. Whenever someone goes leaves the station for a vacation or a conference, guess what will happen? The only surprising thing is how much Quark is able to turn this into a comedy (and how useful he will turn out later).
Then the story picks up speed. It's also another preparation episode for the great overarching story arch. At the end of this "three-parter" the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar will be firmly established as a player in the sector. And the Jem'Hadar are fierce foes indeed. A well designed warrior race. Strongmen of an an evil organization. Awesome! And we know only very little of them yet. It's also one of the greatest season finale cliffhangers.
Truest quote:
"You have no idea what's begun here."
What has begun is the best-concocted story arch of all the contemporary shows of the franchise.
Starts off a little slow but otherwise a great episode!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-03-15T01:25:55Z
[7.8/10] The weird thing about “The Jem’Hadar” is that half of it’s a coming out party for the Dominion, with badass enemies, interstellar firefights, and dramatic reveals, and half of it’s a zany sitcom tale about two parental figures and two songs going on an odd-couple road trip together. The two tones don’t fit together at all. Some of the hour feels like it was written by Ira Steven Behr, the rising showrunner who would oversee the complex drama over the next five seasons, and some of it feels like it was written by Ira Steven Behr, the guy who penned Picard’s zany romp on Risa years earlier.
Despite the lack of fit, I like both halves. I’ll confess, Quark barging his way onto a father-son trip so he can sidle up to Commander Sisko, only to find himself plagued by lobe irritation and limb conflagrations and general bad reactions to all this “nature” plays like the broadly comic drek you might find in nerd-adjacent “comedies” like The Big Bang theory. There’s not a lot of subtlety to the interactions between the Ferengi and his human counterpart, especially when Quark is waxing rhapsodic about turning a bucolic planet into a strip mining operation or constantly griping about the bugs.
And yet, there’s some of Deep Space Nine’s and Behr’s trademark willingness to look on the Federation from an outside perspective amid all of that cheesy humor. Quark is annoying and ridiculous here. We’re supposed to find his over-the-top aversion to vegetation silly and groan-worthy, and his devotion to turning everything, no matter how minor, into a business opportunity misguided. The episode wants you to react to these antics the way Sisko does.
But Quark has a point when he tells Benjamin that for all the Federation’s supposed ecumenical spirit toward other races, it’s typically reserved for species who remind them of themselves. He’s not wrong when he contends that humans look down on Ferengi, or that Sisko probably couldn’t name a single Ferengi that he likes, or that he’d have qualms about Jake marrying a Ferengi woman if he’d deign to consider the possibility. There’s reason to be skeptical about Quark’s venal motives and self-interested attitude, but there’s also reason to recognize the general aversion to his people from everyone except Dax as a form of prejudice.
That’s particularly true when it comes to Nog. Again, the material of he and Jake having to bumble their way through a rescue plan without the help of the grown-ups seems like the sort of plot you might see on Full House. Still, there’s something well-observed about the panic, jury-rigged solutions, and relief when more adults show up to help the young men that’s endearing. For however much of a pain Quark can be, seeing his nephew and Jake together makes you appreciate how the next generation is overcoming the communal antipathy between their peoples, and how Nog in particular is taking an open-minded interest in the Federation's way of life.
Hell, one of the most striking speeches in the episode comes in the midst of some of that broad comedy. Quark makes the point that for however misplaced the Ferengis’ priorities may seem to humans, the Ferengis apparently never had slavery, or genocide, or the other ills that Captain Picard tends to mention in his “My, how far we’ve come” speeches about humanity’s past. (In fairness, they’ve seemed plenty warliike in various interactions with Jean-Luc, but maybe we can write that off as early installment weirdness.) The Ferengi may have a lower ceiling, but they also arguably have a higher floor than humanity does, which is worth something.
For all the grousing and griping and accusations of bigotry, “The Jem’Hadar” is ultimately an episode where Sisko and Quark come to appreciate one another, just a little. Sisko’s his normal capable, intelligent self, finding ways to negotiate with their captors, after a fashion, standing up for Quark against their captor, and figuring a way to use their fellow captive to escape from containment.
Quark, meanwhile, is able to get their jailer’s attention, use his lock-picking skills to remove the alleged telekinesis-dampening collar off their fellow prisoner, and even fire a weapon to stop a random brute from harming Sisko. For all the pair may bristle at one another, Quark proves his worth here, in a way even Sisko appreciates. Plus, it’s almost heartwarming that for all the friction between the Quark and Odo, it’s DS9’s resident constable who wants to come along on the rescue mission to look out for his resident Ferengi irritant. Odo may be right that nobody on the station like him, but there’s enough people who appreciate him for it to matter when it counts.
It definitely counts right now. I’ll confess, I know about the Jem’Hadar, the Founders, the nature of the mysterious telekinetic alien who runs into Sisko and Quark by their campsite from watching this show as a kid, so there’s less intrigue here than there might be for someone coming in cold. But in hindsight, it’s still impressive how much menace and guile the episode is able to create around these new foes.
Until now, the Dominion has just been whispers, stray mentions here and there, without much of a sense of form or character. Now we see shock troopers who can cloak themselves like in The Predator and seem to yearn for battle against the likes of other warrior races like the Klingons. We see technology like a forcefield that can kill whoever touches it, transporter beams and weapons that can penetrate Federation shields, and brutes who can stroll right through a level-3 containment field. However little our heroes may know about the Dominion, they now know that they may very well be outgunned and outmatched.
More to the point, the Dominion knows plenty about them. The Jem’Hadar footsoldier Sisko talks to knows about humans, Ferengi, Klingons, and Cardassians, and a variety of other Alpha Quadrant details. They have a plan to spy on DS9 further. They’ve wrecked a host of ships who’ve made it into the Gamma Quadrant, and even destroyed the Bajoran colony who settled on the other side of the wormhole. In short, they have the upper hand, and there’s very little our heroes can do about it.
To boot, just to show they’re not kidding, they destroy a galaxy class starship while it’s retreating. The act feels a little cheap, but it successfully shows that these people mean business and have the firepower and mettle to fuck up ships built the same as the Enterprise if they want to.
It instantly raises the stakes for Deep Space Nine. Despite Sisko discovering the wormhole in the series’s first episode, the Gamma Quadrant hasn’t been much of a factor to this point. Sure, a few species would pop over, or Starfleet officers would go for a jaunt to see what’s on the other side. But the unique spatial anomaly was mostly relevant because it changed Bajor’s importance to the rest of the Alpha Quadrant, not because of anything Starfleet or its allies found on the other side.
Now, not only is there a belligerent, overpowering alliance waiting for them, but it’s declared that the entire Gamma Quadrant is their territory. Its reptilian, pointed representative forbids any more intrusions and has the firepower to back up those threats. Suddenly, there’s an equal and opposite force to the Federation waiting for them, and DS9 isn’t just an outpost above a major world; it’s the first line of defense against an unknown but fearsome enemy.
As an introduction for the Dominion, which becomes a major factor in the show going forward, “The Jem’Hadar” is outstanding. If anything, it makes these new erstwhile antagonists seem too dangerous and strong, to where it seems downright impossible for anyone on our side of the wormhole to stand up to them. There’s enough mystery and hints about them to make the viewer want to know more. And their drawing a line between one quadrant and the next complicates everything about Sisko’s mission here.
In short, it’s a game-changer, arguably the biggest one in Deep Space Nine writ large. It’s odd, to say the least, that this spine-tingling debut is paired with a goofy tale of Sisko taking Jake, Nog, and Quark on a field trip. But this episode is a dividing line, in more ways than one, for the series, and lives up to that billing.
All that said, the conventional wisdom may be that Deep Space Nine doesn’t become great until Sisko grows his goatee, but I have to tell you, season 2 is pretty darn good. It has its low lights. What twenty-six episode season doesn’t? But even before the Dominion arrived to shake things up, the show found ways to dig into the unique cast of characters aboard the station, the fraught political environment our heroes are caught up in, and the imaginative high concept adventures that the franchise is known for. The rise to prominence of Behr, and the Jem’Hadar, does kick the show up a notch, but it rose from a strong foundation in season 2.
(SPOILERS for people who’ve seen the rest of the show: I’d absolutely forgotten that the Vorta have telekinetic powers. Does that come up again or is it another dose of early installment weirdness? I’d also forgotten the finer details of this one and wondered if what might stop the fighting and/or deception would be the Jem’Hadar or Eris laying eyes on Odo. Keeping the reaction cryptic is the right call though.)