Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 5 (1996–97)

Star Trek: DS9: Season 5 (1996–97)

26 episodes, approx 44 minutes each

Looking back, quite a lot of significant events and reveals happened in S5, but not all of them are in episodes that I'd call completely memorable. Along the way we learn more about some of the primary cast members, and a few of the secondary ones get more screen time than they'd had previously.

The threat of the Dominion/Founders builds, with both the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar on the front line.

A trio of old faces make a return, separately, and stay around for differing amounts of time. Interestingly, all three influence Sisko's moods, with one of them being a lot more direct than the other two.

As before, the best episodes are the ones that revolve around either Odo or Garak, or is that just my bias showing? Yes, they're two of my favourites. But let's not forget the Chief, who also gets a lot to do.

The crew get some new uniforms, bringing them up to date with the threads that The Next Generation crew got for the successful Star Trek: First Contact (1996) film.

Episode 06: Trials and Tribble-ations is a definite high point of the season and a respectful celebration of 30 years of Trek. It's a "temporal violation" episode in which some of the crew jump back to the 23rd Century, to the exact point in time that the TOS episode The Trouble with Tribbles (S2 : Ep15) is set. It's fairly tongue-in-cheek but without crossing over into outright parody. It uses footage from the original TOS episode, even going so far as to have some station crew members interacting with characters from the earlier episode, matching lighting and locations in the same way that Forest Gump met the US Presidents in the 1994 film of the same name. It's a genuine fan-pleasing gem! If I'd the software to enable me to do it, and the time to devote to the task, I'd love to make a fan edit of the TOS and DS9 episodes that keeps the flow of the story intact but shows as much of the two sides as possible.

Episode 08: Things Past takes us back once more to when Terok Nor was run by Cardassians, during the Occupation of Bajor. It's noteworthy mostly because of Odo, but I also really liked how the ambient sound of the location was different, more menacing than how it is normally.

The penultimate episode (Ep 25: In the Cards) takes time out to give us a story of simple pleasures that aren't so simple to acquire before we're launched into the final episode of Season 5, beginning something that Season 6 will deal with in more detail.

Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser / Dimensions: Length, 639.75 meters; Beam, 568.44 meters; Height, 204.97 meters / Mass: 4,215,000 metric tonnes (est.) / Speed: Warp 9.6 (observed)

Armament: Directed Energy Weapons and Torpedoes / Defences: Deflector Shields