Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 7x24 — The Dogs of War

Aired 1999-05-26

SpaceOpera.com rating:9

Average reader rating:4.68

Factoids

The USS Sao Paulo: NCC 75633, named for the people of Brazil. The dedication plaque had the names of various people involved in the development of DS9, as well as the creation of Star Trek, including Gene Roddenberry's name.
Garak's 37th episode.
Jeffrey Combs plays two characters in this episode. Both Weyoun and Brunt.
Mila's second appearance.
The footage of the Dominion eliminating rebel bases in Weyoun's address to the Cardassian people were all actually just recycled visual effects scenes taken from earlier in the show.
When Quark declares that his bar will be "the last outpost of what made Ferenginar great," the line oddly parallels the Ferengi's fist appearance in the coincidentally named episode TNG: The Last Output. At the end of that episode, Riker suggested the Ferengi would evolve into exactly the more benevolent society that Quark is so eager to resist.

Problems

Weyoun claims that "the Dominion has never surrendered in battle since its founding 10,000 years ago." But in DS9: To the Death, Weyoun said: "The Dominion has endured for 2000 years and will continue to endure long after the Federation has crumbled into dust." These statements would seem to contradict each other.

Synopsis

Bashir and Ezri's feelings for each other increase, as do the consequences of the Dominion war.

Filler rating: not filler

Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Remarkable scenes

Sisko getting another Defiant class starship.
Bashir regarding the Sao Paulo: "I hate the carpet."
Admiral Ross pointing out the special dispensation from the chief of Starfleet operations to change the name of USS Sao Paulo to USS Defiant.
The commandeered Jem'Hadar ship being destroyed.
Bashir informing Odo that he infected the founders.
Zek's conversation with Quark, with the nicely timed distortions. ;)
Weyoun's address to the people of Cardassia announcing that the rebellion has been completely crushed.
Quark's reaction to the socialist programs being introduced on Ferenginar. My favorite of his quotes while he complained: "What's the point of being in business if you can't corner the market and gouge your customers?"
Quark: "The line has to be drawn here! This far and no further!" Nice reference to Star Trek VIII: First Contact.
Ezri and Bashir finally falling for one another.
Zek declaring Rom the new Grand Nagus.
Kassidy declaring she's pregnant.
Morn Appearances; 1. At the bar when Brunt arrives. 2. Is present when Zek and Ishka arrive at the bar to declare Rom the Grand Nagus.

Review

And so the series begins to wrap up. Loose threads are being tied up left and right. Sisko got a new Defiant, Odo is fully cured, Zek is stepping down as Nagus, Rom is to become the new Grand Nagus, Damar is inciting revolution among the common people of Cardassia, Ferenginar is becoming more socialist, more like a Federation world, Ezri and Bashir have finally gotten together, Kassidy is pregnant, and the Allies are about to mount their D-Day invasion. This episode was both great fun to watch because of the unusually large set of guest characters and running plot threads, but at the same time was obviously setting up for a real thriller of a finale. Though one wonders how long this new Ferengi government will last. Perhaps "Ferengi civil war" will be the title of the next series. Quark mounts a strike against the evil Communist Grand Nagus Rom! The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! ;)

3 reader comments

So the Dominion is retreating into Cardassian space - what about the Breen - couldn't the Federation et al attack Breen space (or is it too far away?)
by Hugo von Ahlenius | 05/03/2013 at 6:12 am

A minor problem: When Kasidy reveals she's pregnant, they say something about one of them forgetting an injection, presumably the modern method of birth control for men and women. Sisko admits it must have been him. But both partners have to be taking an injection for it to work? That doesn't make sense. If both partners were on it, it would serve as redundant protection in case one person forgets. Even now, we have methods that work for months or years at a time; wouldn't they have permanent reversible birth control for both sexes by the 24th century?
Otherwise, I'm really enjoying the suspense leading up to the finale! I've been making my way through DS9 (with breaks here and there) for a few years now. Enough time to start the series over again! This time leaving out the bad filler (so thanks for your filler quotient ratings!).
by Damien Bradley | 09/28/2013 at 7:55 am

The story of the Cardassian rebels continues to be exciting and well done.
They are starting to wrap up the series, starting with the Ferengi, but I don't really see why they thought it was necessary to wrap up the Ferengi at all. It was a good idea to complete the “women’s liberation” storyline because the idea of naked Ferengi females is basically of an awkward legacy of the silly cartoonish TNG-style Ferengi. It was really inconvenient that you could not film Ferengi females because they were naked and thus could barely have female Ferengi at all. And the whole idea didn't seem to fit well at all with the DS9 recharacterization of the Ferengi. Their purpose was to be absurdly ruthless businessmen, having them be misogynists didn't add anything interesting to this and was mostly just annoying. So it made a lot of sense to just wrap this up and get rid of it.
But having Ishka completely transform the whole society and political system in, apparently, a year or two just seemed trite and hard to believe and entirely unnecessary, it only seems to weaken the usefulness of the Ferengi as an element in future stories. And making Rom the Grand Nagus is, again, overly trite. Sure, it does cap off the long running storyline that Rom starts as the dumb subservient brother and grows into the smarter, more dynamic brother. But it has been well established this is partly because Rom’s genius lies in engineering rather than business. And while he has been shown to have grown courage at standing up to his brother to promote social causes, he is still an engineer with self-confidence, not a politician. It would be more believable to assume that Moogie is now the real Grand Nagus behind the scenes, with Rom as her nepotism puppet.
by Christopher Alexander | 08/26/2021 at 2:36 am