Station log: stardate 49930.3

Avery Brooks directs the penultimate episode of the season, which was written by Hans Beimler from a story by Louis P. DeSantis and Robert J. Boliver. It had its premiere on 10 June, 1996.

Quark (Armin Shimerman) learns he is (apparently) going to die soon he and Rom (Max Grodenchik) decide to sell of his body and organs to raise some latinum to pay off his debts before he passes.

It does allow Quark to ruminate on his life a bit, and of course, start to wonder who is willing to pay to have a piece of him as a memorial.

When he learns that he’s not dying, he’s relieved, but when the buyer, Brunt (Jeffrey Combs) shows up, still expecting to collect what he paid for… trouble arises.

But when he makes a final decision, it has a huge impact on his life, and his business. It has a nice payoff for him at the end of the episode for him though as he realizes he is a part of the community after all.

Meanwhile, after a shuttle accident, Bashir (Alexander Siddig) has to remove Keiko O’Brien’s  (Rosalind Chao) unborn child and place it inside Kira (Nana Visitor) to keep it alive, and allow Visitor to continue to appear on the show, as her actual pregnancy came to term.

This adds an interesting dynamic to the relationship between the three of them, especially since Kira outranks O’Brien (Colm Meaney).

This one ends up being a character piece, and while not necessarily lighter subject matter, it gives us a brief respite from the Dominion arc, which will obviously figure in the next episode, the season finale.

Station log: stardate 49662.4

Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe pen the teleplay for the last episode of the season from a story by George Brozak. It first aired on 17 June, 1996.

There’s something wrong with Odo (Rene Auberjonois), he’s been hit with some sort of plague that prevents him from holding his shape. As a last ditch effort, Odo and Bashir decide to travel, with the command crew of the Defiant, to the Gamma Quadrant and seek the aid of the Founders. Interestingly enough, Garak (Andrew Robinson) decides he wants to tag along.

It is revealed that the Founders infected him, so that he would have to return to them, and they would judge his actions of killing another changeling, and as part of them, they would understand him better. And then they judge him, and his sentence will be unexpected.

While Bashir, and Sisko (Avery Brooks) await Odo on the planet, Garak tries to convince Worf (Micheal Dorn) to lead an attack against the Founders with the Defiant.

Meanwhile back in the Alpha Quadrant, the Klingon Empire led by Gowron (Robert O’Reilly) and the Federation draw closer to war. But upon their return from the Gamma Quadrant, Odo also realizes that Gowron is in fact a changeling… which leads us to the end of the episode. Not a to be continued, just an ominous realization that the Founders are truly everywhere, and manipulating the Federation and Klingon Empire to war, to make it easier to conquer both of them.

Next week we begin season five of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as I continue to explore The Complete Series on DVD from Paramount Pictures. The Human Adventure continues…