Station log: stardate unknown

Rene Auberjonois directs this episode that was written by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe. This Quark (Armin Shimerman) story first aired on 15 May, 1995, and allowed for a brief respite before plunging towards the season finale.

Quark and Rom (Max Grodenchik) have to return to the Ferengi homeworld when their mother, Ishka (Andrea Martin) breaks the Laws of Acquisition by wearing clothes, and earning profit.

It’s a fun, light episode that gives us our first look at the Quark and Rom’s childhood home.

Jeffery Combs who would later be a semi-recurring Andorian character on Enterprise appears here as a Ferengi, and we also get our fist look at Kassidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald).

Yates is being set up as a romantic interest for Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the build up has been going on for a couple of episodes. And while Quark and Rom are dealing with their own family issues there is discussion of Rom’s son, Nog (Aron Eisenberg) applying to Starfleet.

As the story plays out, we learn that Ishka is as devious as Quark and may have had more influence on him than he believed, and while he won’t necessarily change his ways, he slowly begins to realize that she’s an important member of the family an society.

The baseball stuff with Kassidy and Sisko really shines, and you can’t help but hope that a relationship between the pair develops.

Station log: stardate 48764

Gordon Dawson pens this episode that first aired 22 May, 1995. Kira (Nana Visitor) takes center stage in this story as the story focuses on the provisional government of Bajor when Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher) becomes its new leader.

The new leader turns to Kira for assistance in reaching out to some of her resistance colleagues including their leader Shakaar (Duncan Regehr) and have them return farming equipment that she wants to reassign somewhere else.

Not exactly the most exciting sounding episodes. It does continue to explore the Bajor arc, as well as Kira’s feelings about Winn, and the Kai’s manipulation of things for her own good. It also continues to explore Bajoran culture which continues to be central to the series, and sets up some new political opposition for Winn.

The b-story is fun featuring Quark and O’Brien (Colm Meaney). It seems O’Brien is on a winning streak playing darts, and Quark is doing everything he can to keep cashing in on it, and prevent the station engineer from getting hurt.

Next week we come to the conclusion of season three as I continue to explore The Complete Series on DVD, which is now available from Paramount Pictures.