Review

In the Pale Moonlight exemplifies everything that made DS9 great. It's an episode in the middle of the Dominion war, which is the best arc ever written on Star Trek and it's a pivotal episode in that arc. Also, it manages to stand on its own very well; even without the backstory as a premise, it would remain most touching. For Avery Brooks puts up one of his best performances ever as Sisko in this episode behind some of the most spectacular directing ever featured on Star Trek. Moreover, the episode's narration is unique. Few, if any Star Trek episodes are told in this original manner, nor is there is a single bit of wasted dialog. Every line is carefully crafted. Every discussion is nicely pointed.

But most importantly, this episode examines the moral center of the human condition at its deepest levels. Captain Sisko is overwhelmingly distraught over the nonstop casualties the Federation is facing in the war with the Dominion. He knows that if the Federation doesn't procure an advantage, a big advantage soon, the Federation will either crumble before the Dominion, or exhaust most of its resources defeating the Dominion. To rectify this situation, Sisko decides he must determine a way to bring the Romulans into the war on the Federation's side. But convincing an empire of billions to go to war for you is no small task...

Well, that's where Mr. Garak comes in. How fitting for the best episode of DS9 to center itself around my favorite character? Sisko approaches Garak, asking him to steal proof from his former homeland that they're planning to attack Romulus so the Romulans will join the war. Garak responds by saying that such a mission would use up all the favors owed to him on Cardassia. And that would be a very messy, very bloody business. Garak asks Sisko if he's prepared to accept the consequences of his services. Sisko responds by saying he's already involved in a very messy, very bloody business. It seemed Sisko didn't realize at first the full extent of what Garak was proposing, perhaps consciously anyway, but subconsciously Sisko knew he was willing to do anything to lessen Federation casualties and if that meant cooperating with Garak in some shady business, then Sisko was willing to do it.

Even more interestingly though is Garak's plan in the first place. Garak knew exactly from the beginning that blowing up Vreenaks's shuttle and making it look like the Dominion did it would be the only way to get the Romulans to declare war on the Dominion. From the impressions I get from Garak, he'd have already done something similar to this deed by now if he had the chance. Yes, Garak skillfully manipulated all of the events of this episode to achieve the result both he and Sisko wanted, even if the means weren't quite what Sisko expected. I saw it in his eyes from his very first scene in this episode: Garak was actually using Sisko to get the Romulans into the war just as much as Sisko was consciously or unconsciously using him.

In the end, Sisko and Garak both knew the same thing: winning the war was going to require the assistance of the Romulans. And as Sisko said in DS9: Rocks and Shoals, "given the choice between us and them, there is no choice." There's no choice but to pay any price to get the Romulans on his side. In this episode of deception and great moral dilemmas we get to see the darkest side of Sisko's personality. We watch as he turns a blind eye to atrocities like murder because the "cause was righteous" and the ends most certainly justified the means.

But even when it was all over, that wasn't the end of our story. Sisko couldn't personally forgive himself for his actions and he felt that maybe recording it all in his log would make him feel better. In the final scene, Sisko tries to convince himself that he can live with what he did, but it's clear that he's having trouble doing just that. So instead of trying to live with it, he tries instead to forget it all by erasing his entire log entry. That act signifies the hypocritical nature of human morals and how easily we abandon them when the situation calls for it. That said, there is certainly enough evil done in this episode in the name of good. And so you have it, the best episode ever done on Star Trek.