Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 2x19 — Blood Oath

Aired 1994-03-27

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:7.56

Synopsis

Dax risks her life and her future with Starfleet to fulfill a blood oath made with three aged Klingons.

Filler rating: not filler

This is the first episode to feature Kor, Koloth, and Kang since the original series. The DS9 incarnation of Kor will also recur later in the series. Kor's relationship with Dax and the events of this episode will be relevant later.

Remarkable scenes

Kor and Koloth's appearances.
Odo lamenting about having a "Klingon afternoon."
Koloth: "A sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye."
Kor, regarding the albino: "I will cut his heart out and eat it while he watches me with his dying breath!"
Dax dueling Koloth.
Dax describing her alternative tactical strategy.
Kang killing the albino.
The silence when Jadzia returned to her duties.

Review

Introducing Kor, Koloth, and Kang. Oh, do you remember them? Yep, seems Klingons live for an extremely long period of time. These were some Klingons who gave Kirk some headaches in the original series. The three Klingons and Dax's previous host Curzon swore a blood oath to avenge the death of their Klingon sons murdered by a treacherous albino Klingon. In this episode they band together for one last glorious battle together. I very much enjoyed this episode.

7 reader comments

I'm not a fan of most DS9's Klingon episodes from the first four seasons. It got better with "Soldiers of the Empire" and "Once More Unto the Breach", and I do really like what they did later with Martok's character. But this one was pretty good.
The personality differences between the three Klingons reminded me a bit of the Three Musketeers. You have the lover of life, women, and drink, you have the ambitious, arrogant one, and the quiet, secretive leader of the group. They are also old friends seeking one final adventure together. Dax is d'Artagnan, the one who wants to join the group and is seen with affection by them, but not quite one of their own until later.
There are some nice moments in this episode, such as the conversation between Kang and Jadzia about their friendship, about the blood oath, and the Klingon glory days. Overall this was very well written.
I also mark it down somewhat because Jadzia just isn't as convincing as a Klingon warrior as I'd like her to be, and because I would expect a bit more in the way of consequences for her actions. Remember how in TNG: Reunion that Worf was reprimanded formally for his vengeance killing of Duras, despite Picard's sympathies. It would've been nice to see some kind of consquence for Dax, but instead this would seem to reinforce the privileged relationship she enjoys with Sisko simply because of Curzon.
by MJ | 02/10/2011 at 6:46 pm

So, here we go again with the new Jadzia who's decided that she's Curzon.
I love the use of the three TOS Klingons although I find it an interesting 'device' to make all the other races long-lived… Romulans, Vulcans and now Klingons all live well into their hundreds.
The episode itself is good enough and I would give it a solid 7. Just wait for Worfs arrival for plenty more where this episode came from. This episode marks the start of a run of high quality toward the seasons end.
by Bernard | 03/29/2011 at 2:40 pm

This was a great episode. The three Klingons are exceptionally interesting, unique characters. They make for a very believable team of old warrior friends. The final raid on "the Albino" has a bit of a Three Musketeers (+ 1 Dax) quality to it, and also a bit of a Tom Clancy quality to it… the premise and execution of this episode is almost feature film material.
There were some good subtleties around Jadzia's uncertainty, which at times reached almost palpable levels. As Dax with her 7 lifetimes she is an experienced warrior, no stranger to battle, hand-to-hand combat, and death. As Jadzia, she is a fairly delicate, innocent creature who's never personally killed anyone in her life. As Jadzia Dax, about to enact an ancient vendetta, she's, well, visibly uncertain, torn, unsure of herself. It's interesting to watch her resolve these things, put on some armor and pull her own weight in battle, but stop short of personally executing the albino herself. Interesting how the Klingon interprets this too, as saving the deathblow for himself.
This is a fun episode, and also an interesting exploration of what some less compatible elements of Dax, and specifically Curzon Dax, mean now, for Jadzia…
by int | 08/29/2011 at 7:41 pm

Kor is played by John Colicos, who among other roles played Count Baltar, the principle villain in the original Battlestar Galactica series. He also played Kor in DS9: The Sword of Kahless and DS9: Once More Unto the Breach. His first appearance as Kor was in TOS: Errand of Mercy way back in 1967, 27 years before this episode. Colicos was thus one of the longest running guest stars on Star Trek ever. (It would be an interesting study to find out who holds that record.) According to Memory Alpha, it seems that Colicos was also the first major character to appear on screen in a Star Trek episode playing a Klingon. Thus, Colicos defined the initial look of the Klingons.
by Jeff Browning | 10/25/2011 at 12:13 pm

A solid story line with some very unconvincing performances from Dax (Terry Farrell, who conveys nothing of the great Curzon, but chews through her lines in the most stilted, smarmy way) and William Campbell, who is hopelesslu mis-cast as Koloth. He exudes about as much noble Klingon aggression as a retired suburban Jr high school teacher. Kang's character is adequately stolid, but it is Kor (John Colicos) who salvage the episode with more believable & impassioned delivery.
by Joseph Angeles | 01/10/2013 at 9:18 am

I know I'm responding to what is now a very old set of comments, but I think you're being (were being?) unfair to Terry Farrell. I think she possesses an outstanding ability to convey emotion with her expressions, and think she did so here.
Of course Jadzia's not Curzon. She's a 27-28 year old woman. But she feels what he felt and I think Farrell did a good job conveying that dichotomy.
One of my favorite DS9 episodes.
by Scott Nolan | 05/18/2018 at 1:11 am

I thought it was really neat getting all 3 of the Klingon commanders from the original series, with their original actors, into the same episode. And I really liked the “Klingon-ness” of the episode’s resolution, it feels like a look into part of Klingon culture. Instead of Dax acting like a proper Federation officer and finding some clever way to ethically deal with the problem, she just goes along with them killing everyone they see so they can flat out murder the guy to gain vengeance. I guess she really does make a good Klingon!
Issues: It was somewhat jarring having a comedy Klingon from a comedy episode (Koloth) along with the two serious Klingons from serious episodes, I tend to think the character would have been better utilized in a less serious story. Jadzia never suffers any consequences from doing far worse than Worf ever did when he was reprimanded for seeking vengeance. The idea of disabling all high-tech equipment is necessary for the episode to work but hard to take seriously; if this were possible, everyone would be disabling everyone else’s equipment all the time.
by Christopher Alexander | 07/22/2020 at 3:21 pm