Depths of DS9 S5 Ep. 14 - 'In Purgatory's Shadow' / 'By Inferno's Light' 

"I cannot defeat this Klingon. I can merely kill him" top 10 Star Trek lines easy.

The first rule of Jem'Hadar fight club is: VICTORY IS LIFE!

Holy crap, Razor. We went through a bit of a Depths of DS9 dry spell but now you’re back with a vengeance. Good for you, love this stuff

15:35 The best part about Garrack and Ziyal's story is how Ira Steven Behr tried to retcon the whole thing in 'What we left behind' by saying Garrack was ghey and had a buttcrush on Bashir the whole time.

To quote the NWO: When you're with the Razorforce, You're in 4 Life 😎🤘🏾

It's sad that while Garak grew as an anti-hero, Dukat's character fell apart as the anti-villain.

DS9 deserved at least one movie

I love how when Garak goes back in the hole, both Martok and Worf praise his courage. Because we get to see that even after all his "lying practice" and messing with Worf, Garak still manages to earn his respect.

Depths of DS9 is peak fucking youtub, gods fucking speed.

On Dukat. He wants to become leader of Cardassia precisely because he wants both power and his daughter by his side back on the home world and away from Bajorans. He foolishly sells Cardassia to the Dominion to be with her and have her close to him.

Obligatory "Gul Dukat did nothing wrong"

Duakt throwing in with the Dominion makes perfect sense. At this point he has nothing, he doesn't get to see his daughter, his family are outcasts on Cardassia, and he's an even greater outcast from the entire empire. So what does he do? He switches sides. Now he controls the empire and is playing for what he thinks will be the winning team. Give it time and he'll have his daughter back too...or so he thought. He comes so close to total victory with this one move and it sets up the rest of his character nicely.

One of the few things I didn't like about DS9 is how the Breen just appeared out of nowhere and were this big, scary force, even scarier than the Dominion.

Martok: "There is no greater enemy than one's own fears." Worf: "It takes a brave man to face them."

Watching the old trailers at the beginning brings back so many memories of that time. Sitting there watching WPIX, recording each episode on my VCR, editing out commercials with the pause button. Think I was a Junior in High School, too.

They better put that Breen in that song of theirs. He's the real hero

Worf getting to be an absolute badass is the highlight.

Definitely one of my favorite episodes, it gives Tain a good send off and gives us a look at my favorite Klingon, Martok

The writing in DS9 was just great.

This episode was spectacular. All the big highpoints are great, of course. But one of my favorite little details is Quark disarming the situation on the balcony by offering to by Garak a drink. An uncharacteristic gesture of generosity, made, I suspect, entirely just to piss off Dukat.

i really wish we heard part of martoks song in one of the other shows

Is it that Garak is Tain's affair baby, or is it that Tain, in his position, he can't claim Garak because if he did Garak could be used against him?

Man, another one this quickly?!?!? Razorfist out here spoiling us.

28:25 -- RE: Dramatic Reveals; No but seriously, *my single favorite moment in this series* when I first watched it. Martok has greatly improved from a writing point of view.

I forgot there was a Breen in the episode too. A regular Snake Eyes, GFS.

Riding hound? How did I not catch that line before. Now all I can think about is a Cardassian riding a giant dog 😂😅

I always loved the scene where Garak is trying to stop himself from having another panic attack and says to himself "Don't worry Elm your friends are outside you're safe."

As much love as Quark gets, he still doesn't get enough. Scenes like where he talks Dukat down by pointing out that Odo would *LOVE* to lock him in a holding cell, or where he convinced the Vulcan Maquis with SOUND logic. Guy's smarter than he looks.

I love all the Garak episodes, but a Garak and Worf adventure episode, pure perfection 🤘🤘🤘

DS9: The engineering extension courses at Starfleet Medical Bashir took are useless. TNG: Lieutenant Geordi La Forge: So, Worf, why the interest in this? It's just routine maintenance on the sensor assemblies. Lieutenant Worf: Simple, Geordi. Our Captain wants his junior officers to learn, learn, learn.

One of the biggest disappointments in my life regarding movies and entertainment was the fact we never got a deep space nine movie. DS9 was the best Star Trek hands down in my opinion, and Star Trek died with DS9. Voyager was kinda weak, and everything after was just terrible.

Ya'll need to make "There's something coming through the wormhole!" a Superchat, with that 1000-times-reused animation from episode 1 as the icon

I love reminiscing about DS9 with you guys; you are hilarious. It's such a nice thing to have some discussion because I watched the all the series by myself :)

My week is already infinitely better now that we have another Depths of DS9, God fucking speed.

Baby! How cool this is back on RU-vid ❤

I just watched the DS9 episode where Gowron met joe Biden lol... "We are pakleds... We are dishonest traitors... Your Klingon teleprompter is hard to understand " I never knew Brandon did TV cameos. Damn this show needs a come back... With a different show runner in these dark times

They absolutely made Gul Dukat's heel turn occur too abruptly...but then I also think they never expected Marc Alaimo to portray him with such charming swagger. Credit to him, he took the "every villain is the hero of his own story" to heart and really ran with it. I still say as brilliant as this show was, I would always want to see from this point on, Dukat still written as a grey character who ultimately ended a villain, rather than going full on psychotic genocidal demo possessed who kicks blind puppies on Christmas.

if the writers were not so determined to make dukat a cartoon-villain a heel-turn to become a "charismatic leader of his people" into a decline to madness as the very nature of reality bent to prevent his otherwise well planned ascension could have been done so much better. instead we saw the lessening and mentality-swap of a character that until now had been affable if gloating/ruthless in his handling of those he deemed worthy of attention.

Let's go boys.

I think this two-part episode is my favorite out of all of DS9. It's a Warf/Klingon episode. It's a Garak/Bashir episode. It's a Sisko v Dukat episode. It's a Federation v Dominion episode. It's everything a man could want out of DS9.

I miss good star trek

Two possibilities for Dukat that are better options for that would be better storyline. 1. Dukat has been replaced with a changeling much like Dr. Bashir. 2. Dukat has been talking to the dominion for weeks, but in reality this is him being a duplicitius but towards the domnionion so he acts as a spy for the alliance aginst the dominion.

Gul Dukat's heel turn reminds me of a darker version of Prince Zuko at the end of Season 2 of Avatar: He's in the process of becoming a better person, but the allure of his original goals was too much, so he backslid into being a bad guy again... only Dukat kept falling. The problem is that Dukat should have died in the episode where he was trapped in the shuttle with Sisko and Dukat was going crazier and crazier. EDIT: And yeah, this is one of THE episodes of Deep Space 9.

Dukat was my Favorite next to Khan and Kluge. And i hated what they did to him in Season 7 in regards to the Pah Wraith stuff. To think he's stuck in limbo with the Pah Wraiths. he should have gotten a better ending. I loved the interaction between Dukat and Sisco during Waltz. Seeing him talk to and combat his manifested Delusions was great.

I don't know about Terran's mirror-universe idea. Wasn't this series keeping the mirror stuff pretty self-contained as schlocky fun? Isn't bringing it into the main plot not in keeping with how they used the concept?

Remember Worf was still a child when Kitamor happened. so his views of the Klingon ways was still in the lenses of that boy. In Canon we see a young Worf devouring Klingon philosophers works or going to monasteries so he learned the romanticized version on being Klingon. Also with no other Klingons around him he had to focus on inner honor and not outward honor .....his personal honor. This caused him to challenge the council when they blamed his father for the massacre....and to accept exile to prevent the civil war from happening early. This drove him to put the blade through Durass, but spare his son. His personal honor i what caused him to defy galron in war with cardassia. He is what a Klingon inspires to be. He is all that is Klingon and the Jim'hadder realized that. He knew the Dominion would never defeat the Klingons....all they could do was kill them after a long struggle of attrition were even they...breed to be the wrath of gods...would get sick of it.

who doesnt have a crush on garak?

Yes thank you for putting these on RU-vid, idk if I can handle another app

1:04:40 Wounded? What the hell are klingons doing with wounded? They execute the wounded. If they can't recover on their own, they don't usually treat them. This was actually revealed in an earlier episode of this series.

I remember how pumped I was watching this on a borrowed VHS as a young punk in 1998. This is after I wore out the VHS of "Way of the Warrior".

Dukat's actions make sense when you think about Cardasian culture, of Cardasian first (Garak's favorite book The never ending sacrifice) . Then what type of personality would to be a death camp general, a psychopathic narcissist.

There's one thing that makes Dukat being in secret negotiations "for weeks" work: He's lying. In the dialogue in which he claims it he's actively trying to sting Kiera, and if he makes out that his actions were planned and enacted a significant amount of time ago then that makes his conversations with her that episode seem all the more duplicitous and hurtful in the context that he's already outmanoeuvred not just her but all the rest of them too. That to me is exactly in character based on his past actions and for his current motivations.

I can understand why Garak is distancing from Ziyal. He is problably the equivalent of mid thirties to forties for a human while Ziyal is just out of high school.

Absolutely Great show in DS9, and a Phenomenal breakdown by the awe inspiring Razorforce.

I feel like this is the first time I have heard someone recognize the Breen for going full Breen and Breening against the genetically engineered super soldiers.

On the plothole of only Garak being able to do the job in the wall, I always took it to be that Tain had jerry-rigged it in a very specific way that only Garak would understand, so no amount of Federation bullshit magitech would get it done without starting from the top

1:23:30 Not just in a solar system. They went to warp in Earth's atmosphere in Star Trek 4. They beamed up the whales and just booked it directly out of the blue sky with no worries and no comment.

Villain Dukat is a great character. He's just not the same person as Frenemy Dukat.

I'll admit there are better episodes and all in the series, but this two parter is my personal favorite of DS9 and darn near all of Star Trek.

"I assume that's a joke!" "We will see..." 😂 Great work, Captain Fist and Lieutenant Commander Gell! I am absolutely loving these DS9 retro eps. Keep them coming! Thanks for all your hard work and great content. Liked and shared. Engage!

I love the nostalgia, I was completely oblivious to it at that time as a kid, but I'm glad I get to catch up with you guys.

These 2 episodes are among my personal favorites of all Trek. Just excellent from beginning to end.

I’d love to see you guys debate Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media.

Ask you shall receive, praise Razör!

One of the best series on the internet

The important thing to remember about Dukat is that he's extremely proud. To be reduced to fighting a one-ship guerilla war against the Klingons for months has to be infuriating for someone who was once the Prefect of Bajor. But worse than that, seeing the state of his home. The Klingons are slaughtering their way through Cardassian space. The Maquis are launching bio weapons on their colonies. The Dominion threaten to invade the Alpha Quadrant at any moment. And the new civilian government are still dead set on trying to find a diplomatic solution. After being worn down by months of fighting a hopeless war, it's not unreasonable that he'd be open to alternatives. By joining the Dominion, Dukat eliminates all threats to Cardassia with just a single treaty. And who better to lead Cardassia into a new golden age? Why Dukat himself, of course. But yeah, Dukat leaving Ziyal to die is completely out of character. And there really is no excuse for anything post-Waltz.

Such great episodes peak absolute peak ds9

These two introduced me to Star Trek. From there I had to see everything, but nothing topped this two parter for me.

Yes! I love these episodes. Without a doubt my favorite episodes in DS9. Worf is great. Garak is great.

When did warp inside a solar system become a problem? The first warp test (for humanity) was inside their own solar system. Without warp it would take months to get out of the solar system. The Enterprise warped into the Sol system to fight the borg. etc. etc.

I love these and am sad that some are no longer available to view.

Late 90s early 00s star trek games were fantastic

ALso I do love that this is RIGHT after "The Uniform" I can imagine a HUGE portion of the Federation clammoring that Eddington was right, but should have gone for Cardassia Prime.

Razor starting the DS9 review made me want to watch DS9 from top to bottom many moons ago as before I skip many of em. It's great that we are now starting to get into the really fucking good episodes of DS9. Can't wait for later episodes.

AY UP RAZORFIST

I really want to play system shock again.

20:45 -- RE: Worf on TNG; Some of his best work was during poker scenes in Riker's cabin, which weren't infrequent but also relatively short. And yeah, that one episode where he has to unravel a multidimensional puzzle, on his birthday.

Bashir is also an Augment

Deep Space Nine! It's so fine! Gonna have to watch it all 1 more time! CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP ... CLAP CLAP

These episodes have more plot than 5 seasons of a Netflix show.

Worf meets Martok and a true power couple is born!!

Probably the Yangztse or however you spell it

Honestly, Dukat's personality's volatility just reinforced how insane he was. Someone who is completely deluded as to the reality around him. But I agree that if he needed to be space Hitler, he should have been from the beginning. Marc Alaimo should have gotten an Emmy.

thank you. missed this!

1:14:44 I mean there's a couple Excelsiors and Mirandas, older ships but not too badly armed. So SOME of starfleet showed up.

So. Fucking. Glad. These are back. I think the criticism of Dukat's arc here was a bit harsh though. While there are small inconsistencies, the heel turn was in Dukat's self interest and realize that any inconsistency can be construed as part of his endgame and the necessary lies. Yes, he didnt kill his daughter. He wanted her to leave the station, come back home, and be a princess. Win. Yes, he sacrificed his career for her. But he's getting it back, plus much more, with her at his side. Win. Yes he could have had her leave long beforehand knowing what was coming. But he presumed, incorrectly, that she would come when called. Unforeseen loss. I always liked the villain turning hero eventually showing why he was a villain in the first place. Power hungry. Egotistical. And cunning as hell. Those traits don't go away because he was fired as prefect a few years prior. I always hoped back then the Dukat would give up the Kira fantasy badguyturnedgood and, boy, did they fulfill his evil persona. Overall, I love Dukats arc including the painful, but necessary, reformed horny for Kira altar boy behind enemy lines war hero bits.

Maybe moustache man is a sympathetic character, and they wrote it true.

If the Dominion War was like World War II then the Klingon-Cardassian War would be like the Chinese-Japanese War.

It still feels bad that they never bothered using the back-of-the-Runabout set that they were loaned from the TNG budget.

For those who want to know, this link has a full list of everything Dukat did wrong over the course of DS9:

This was a cracking two parter!

I always thought the Worf/Dax romance worked. They had already established her affinity for Klingon culture and her connections to prominent, if not politically powerful, individuals. So when they struck up a friendship, then romance it made sense.

Ahh, been waiting years for this one..

Godspeed!

Seriously, how are you getting this past the paramount copybots? I know a channel that can't get 10 consecutive seconds. Probably a favorite episode from an enjoyment standpoint. There are better episodes, but I could rewatch this again and again.

I guess my last comment got deleted... I was actually wondering why the last 2 depths of ds9 episodes haven't been uploaded to your paysite. Or should I stop paying and just watch on RU-vid? Not looking for trouble. Just an answer.

"For a long time, Star Trek videogames sucked; by the late 90s they started to improve..." The F***? The early 90s gave us 25th Anniversary, Judgment Rites, AND Final Unity. Those were some of the most acclaimed Star Trek games of all time!

War has been declared.

Man, you guys talking about the shit Sisko is willing to do, I really hope you cover “In the Pale Moon Light” when you get to it, cause that was a great one

56:46 or Dukat could have just asked Zial to visit his ship, under whatever pretence, and then just keep her til he leaves.