he stories are rich and textured, the characters have new layers being uncovered at every turn, and the episodes have an underlying arc that's easy to follow over the course of the year. Deep Space Nine's fourth season has all of those things—and more—but it's the subtle touches that make this year so special. The ongoing friendship between O'Brien and Bashir; Kira and Dax's penchant for King Arthur holosuite adventures; Odo's continuing quest for humanity. For everyone, the stakes are irrevocably heightened this year, the year that might arguably be the series' best.
The season starts with "The Way of the Warrior," a tense episode that introduces Worf (Dorn), a transfer from the Enterprise crew (recently destroyed in the Trek timeline in Star Trek: Generations). The episode sets the edge-of-battle tone for the season, and sets the stage for several Klingon-focused episodes (such as "Sons of Mogh," "The Sword of Kahless," "Rules of Engagement"), the Klingon-Federation brink-of-war arc that carries through the end of the season, and the finale's stunning revelation.
There are some episodes that are not as compelling as others, but the season as a whole is strongly written. Some of the standouts include "Rejoined" (a slow but moving story of forbidden love, including a same-sex kiss between Dax and another Trill); the ship-in-crisis piece "Starship Down" (a fresh variation on Next Generation's "Disaster"); the comical James Bond-like holosuite tale "Our Man Bashir"; the terrific Federation-gone-awry two-parter, "Homefront"; "Shattered Mirror" (another alternate-universe story); and "Body Parts" (a clever way of handling Visitor's real-life pregnancy). The finale—Broken Link—is not a cliffhanger, but does introduce a new element that will change the course of the series, and the impending battle with the Dominion, for season five.
The finest season gets the finest extras
Paramount has again done a great job with its extra-features section for Deep Space Nine. The clever design of season four's extra-features menu is the same as with earlier installments in the series. What's noteworthy here is not only the caliber of the content—there's real substance to the interviews—but also the high production values of that content. Unlike those in other box sets, the interview clips are relevant, well organized and clearly labeled to distinguish between archive material and recently conducted interviews.
The centerpiece is the nearly 20-minute-long main documentary, Charting New Territory, where producer Ira Steven Behr and writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ronald Moore reflect on the challenges of season four—including how to integrate a new lead character, Worf, into the ensemble. Other episodes discussed are the then-controversial "Rejoined," the comical "Little Green Men," the emotional "The Visitor" and the finale, "Broken Link."
This outing's Crew Dossier focuses on DS9's new arrival from the Enterprise, and it doesn't disappoint: Through a 14-minute-long clip montage that covers TV and movies, and interviews with Worf's alter ego, Michael Dorn, that span from 1995 (archival material from when he joined the show) to 2002, we get to better understand the character, his future relationship with Dax, and even Dorn's view on his contribution to Star Trek.
Michael Westmore again discusses the aliens we meet in season four, in a meaty, 11-minute segment that looks at the difficulties of coping DS9's demanding alien roster, and shows how a varied range of aliens came alive that year.
Think of the 10-minute featurette Deep Space Nine Sketchbook as a shorter, video-annotated version of one of the many Trek design books. This piece features illustrator John Eaves reflecting on some of season four's concept designs and footage of the final products; episodes discussed include "The Way of the Warrior," "The Visitor," "Indiscretion," "Starship Down," "The Sword of Kahless," "The Sons of Mogh," "Hard Time," "The Quickening" and "Our Man Bashir."
As in the past DVD sets, scattered around the image of the space station are the one-to-five-minute snippets that comprise the Section 31 Hidden Files. The 10 segments include: Alexander Siddig on "The Quickening"; Armin Shimerman on "Little Green Men"; Nana Visitor on "Our Man Bashir"; director David Livingston on the father-son relationship in "The Visitor"; Susanna Thompson on "Rejoined"; visual-effects coordinator Gary Hutzel on improvements in multiple ship visual effects, such as those in "Way of the Warrior"; writer Ronald D. Moore on the story for "The Sons of Mogh"; Chase Masterson on joining DS9 as Quark's barfly Leeta; Dorn on "The Sword of Kahless"; and Robert O'Reilly on playing Gowron.
The still image gallery is our one complaint with this set: When played via a PC-based DVD player, the gallery was not accessible. Still, we considered this only a minor loss; a series of publicity stills is not what's going to compel you to buy this set. Nor is the Indiana Jones on DVD preview—after all, it's Indiana Jones.
