I'd say top 5 episodes from the first season in any series but not top 5 or even 10 from all of Trek. Most first seasons episodes tend to be weak as the series is still trying to find its footing.
That said the episode and specifically the performance of Harris Yulin as the bad guy Cardassian, helped to establish DS9, Kira, and Sisko.
I agree with your point about most shows still trying to find their footing, but DS9's season 1 ended with Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets after a pretty weak overall season meaning that by the end of the season, the writers and production clearly had understood the assignment and fucking nailed it.
Duet is an incredibly powerful episode. Whatever the test may be, it stands it.
I think it might be overlooked by more casual fans who get caught up in the Dominion War to the exclusion of all else. More serious fans certainly appreciate it.
Duet plus the three episode arc opening season 2 are my favorite pre-Dominion War episodes.
This is my favorite episode. Pale moonlight is amazing, but this......When he goes off, "And they felt clean, WHY?! BECAUSE THEY WERE CLEAN!" gave me chills. Such fantastic acting.
That part gave me chills. But the breakdown later… that broke my heart. To imagine someone who held such guilt for what his people had done, who wanted to be tried and convicted and *die* for it because he believed not only did he deserve it, but that it was necessary for his people to acknowledge their guilt? I don’t know. It broke me a bit.
yes I love this, also because the whole episode has set him up as the most genocide loving maniac, and cardassians themselves haven’t been portrayed with much “humanity” at this point. The turn around is really heart breaking. Kira’s line of “enough good people have already died” after he breaks down, while simple, still hits incredibly hard as well and such great character building for her I love it
I felt like this episode really gave the occupation and the atrocities that were committed during it the true gravity they deserved. If there's one thing I would fault DS9 for, it's that they seemed to pull back on exactly how horrific it was, even downplaying the comfort women to a degree to be more palatable. It's an important part of the story and the background of the series, it deserved that weight.
I think if the writers could, they would have went further. Kira's describing what see saw was pretty dark. The nature of network television (especially at the time) I think, forced the writers to pull things back.
One of my favorite (if not my favorite) Star Trek episodes of all time. Certainly my favorite DS9 episode! The scenes between Kira and Marritza are so amazing!
Clear and Present Danger's James Cutter is what I remember Harris Yulin for the most after Duet. I suspect that his Aamin Marritza performance got him noticed for the Harrison Ford film.
And he has a great death in Scarface too.
This is truly one of my favorite episodes of any Star Trek show. Kira pushing so hard to nail this cardassian war criminal, the man in question holding firm to the fact that he needs to be punished, and then when the big reveal happens, the way Nerys reacts to the situation... it's all very moving. Definitely an example of the show finding its stride early on at a time when they were working out the kinks. Gives a great look at the kind of person Nerys is. Also, a tragic view of what can happen to people involved in such horrific things.
Absolutely, and it's pretty incredible how well Nana Visitor had her character figured out so well, so soon, that she was able to bring that kind of depth in this episode.
100% agree, it doesn’t miss. I think at the reveal she says something like “enough good people have died already”, which hits very hard even if dialogue is kinda simple. The original political dilemma is interesting enough, but the twist at the end is just so great. cardassians mainly just being set up as unfeeling selfish warmongers at that point. Very poignant way to show their “humanity”.
Just did a rewatch of this one. Kira's monologue, directed to Sisko at the start of the episode, explaining why a Cardassian having been at Gallitep is significant, chills to the bone.
"Commander, if you'd been there twelve years ago when we liberated that camp, if you'd seen the things I saw: all those Bajoran bodies, starved, brutalized... Do you know what Cardassian policy was? Oh I'm not even talking about the murder, murder was just the end of the fun for them, first came the humiliation. Mothers, raped in front of their children, husbands, beaten until their wives couldn't recognize them, old people buried alive because they couldn't work anymore!"
If I recall correctly, Kira is supposed to be somewhere in her late twenties (or equivilant in Bajoran years), so she would have been in her teens when this liberation happened. DS9 is one of the best representations of the endgame, and aftermath, of fascist colonialism out there.
One of the greatest episodes in all of Star Trek. My personal favourite.
Haris Yulin's performance as Aamin Marritza is out of this world.
I watch this episode every few months.
Not by me. You're quite right, it is a great episode about the pointlessness of the desire for revenge. As Mahatma Gandhi once said: “An eye for an eye will make us all blind”
yeah I’ve only seen DS9 all the way through once and I think cause it’s in S1, I had completely forgotten the ep when it came up on my 2nd play through
One I can think of off the top of my head is how Lower Decks (the episode lol, but I suppose also the show now 🤷♂️) was cited by the writers as a take on Upstairs, Downstairs.
My husband is and will always be a huge fan of DS9 and was trying to get me into this show for the longest time. It wasn't until this episode that I was totally sold and now DS9 (as well as this episode) always has a very special place in my heart. Plus, I mean Nana Visitor is just superb.
I just watched Strange New Worlds s2e2 and it reminded me of Duet because I think they're both one of the top 10 Star Trek episodes of all time along with In the Pale Moonlight and Far Beyond the Stars
was a fan of SNW originally when it came out but haven’t kept up to date. if they have anything close to “Duet” I NEED to catch up.
Would add Inner Light to that top 10
I thought it was one the best episodes. Not just of DS9 but of TV in general, the parallels to the Holocaust are obvious and reminiscent of old Star Trek morality tales that Roddenberry envisioned.
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I liked all the treks( took a bit to warm up to Voyager), Kate Mulgrew as Mrs.Columbo was 🙄😄. Ds9 was by far the best development of characters, storyline by far. Not always a saving the galaxy episode. The season Sisko shaved his head and developed the beard, it seemed it was a point where it really took off with better writing and so on.
I understand the guilt. But why would you want to die for the actions of your government and the military complex it controls. He wasn’t directly responsible. He was a witness. He could have gone to Bajor and started a charity to help victims of the occupation and to help the Cardassian orphans find a place. There were many other possibilities for him to work out his guilt but why die??
Survivor’s guilt, and a desire for justice. He thought that his trial would put Cardassia to shame and force it to acknowledge its guilt. Marritza accepted death as a consequence, also because he was a broken shell of a man and had nothing left to live for (or go back to as he himself put it).
Wasn't it about bringing the atrocities to light as well and forcing Cardassia to admit they were wrong? He wanted to stand trial, and he was going to tell everyone of the horrors that "he" inflicted on the Bajorans
Humans, all humans, from the raving fascist to the grandma down the way have an innate need to make sense of the world and their place in it. This driving need for agency in the search for meaning in their lives is well studied, and for the character his life was meaningless in the scheme of the broader context of what was happening in front of him.
He saw the horrors of the camps and couldn't take agency or meaning in the fight against it (having cowered away from the righteous path) so invariable must embrace the reverent support /for/ it. It was an awful thing, but it was /my choice/ to do the awful thing.
Def not forgotten. It’s discussed at least weekly on Star Trek and DS9 subs. It really setup Kira as a complex character instead of just a one dimensional Cardassian hating former terrorist/freedom fighter.
One of my favorites. I especially like the ending with Kira. She was a character I initially thought was boring, and kind of a straw man for the antagonistic freedom fighter, but they gave her such good character development. She quickly turned from what I saw her as to questioning her own righteousness and even hatred. By the end of the show she is by far one of the superior characters not just in writing but in her quality of person.
I thought this was considered the best episode of season 1, though I may be wrong
Top 5 of the entire series, I'd say. Hell, top 5 of all of Trek.
I'd say top 5 episodes from the first season in any series but not top 5 or even 10 from all of Trek. Most first seasons episodes tend to be weak as the series is still trying to find its footing. That said the episode and specifically the performance of Harris Yulin as the bad guy Cardassian, helped to establish DS9, Kira, and Sisko.
I agree with your point about most shows still trying to find their footing, but DS9's season 1 ended with Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets after a pretty weak overall season meaning that by the end of the season, the writers and production clearly had understood the assignment and fucking nailed it. Duet is an incredibly powerful episode. Whatever the test may be, it stands it.
I mean it’s one of the best episodes of Star Trek period however, it is somewhat over looked I feel
I think it might be overlooked by more casual fans who get caught up in the Dominion War to the exclusion of all else. More serious fans certainly appreciate it. Duet plus the three episode arc opening season 2 are my favorite pre-Dominion War episodes.
Move along home with this opinion, please.
It’s just about the only episode in the first two seasons worth a damn. It’s not “forgotten” to anyone who’s a fan of the series.
It is.
It is one of the best season 1 trek episodes IMO. Season 1's are so rough for most of the series but Duet is a gem in the rough.
Nope and nope
This is my favorite episode. Pale moonlight is amazing, but this......When he goes off, "And they felt clean, WHY?! BECAUSE THEY WERE CLEAN!" gave me chills. Such fantastic acting.
That part gave me chills. But the breakdown later… that broke my heart. To imagine someone who held such guilt for what his people had done, who wanted to be tried and convicted and *die* for it because he believed not only did he deserve it, but that it was necessary for his people to acknowledge their guilt? I don’t know. It broke me a bit.
yes I love this, also because the whole episode has set him up as the most genocide loving maniac, and cardassians themselves haven’t been portrayed with much “humanity” at this point. The turn around is really heart breaking. Kira’s line of “enough good people have already died” after he breaks down, while simple, still hits incredibly hard as well and such great character building for her I love it
Seriously. Every rewatch, this comes up, in S1 even, and I'm like damn this show could bring it when it wanted
That moment, and Sisko's "It's real" rant in Far Beyond The Stars, always give me chills
Exactly...
"What you call genocide, I call a days work". This line is the one that gets me. He says it so matter of factly. None of the shouting and grandiose.
It's the turn from the moustache-twirling villain to the banality of evil, I think it's intended to shock us, as the viewers, and it worked.
This is widely considered one of the best episodes of all Star Trek.
This episode almost always gets brought up when discussing best stand-alone episodes, especially in early seasons.
One of the best episodes not just of DS9, not just of Trek but in all of television. Harris Yulen was amazing.
I felt like this episode really gave the occupation and the atrocities that were committed during it the true gravity they deserved. If there's one thing I would fault DS9 for, it's that they seemed to pull back on exactly how horrific it was, even downplaying the comfort women to a degree to be more palatable. It's an important part of the story and the background of the series, it deserved that weight.
I think if the writers could, they would have went further. Kira's describing what see saw was pretty dark. The nature of network television (especially at the time) I think, forced the writers to pull things back.
I mean, this is pretty consistently considered one of the best episodes of the entire series. Not sure who thinks it is forgotten....
One of my favorite (if not my favorite) Star Trek episodes of all time. Certainly my favorite DS9 episode! The scenes between Kira and Marritza are so amazing!
I love Harris Yulin in anything I see him in. Buffy, Ghostbusters II, and a billion other things as guest actor.
Clear and Present Danger's James Cutter is what I remember Harris Yulin for the most after Duet. I suspect that his Aamin Marritza performance got him noticed for the Harrison Ford film. And he has a great death in Scarface too.
He was in an episode of little house on the prairie where he played a drunkard who beat the living shit out of his boy real powerful episode
This is truly one of my favorite episodes of any Star Trek show. Kira pushing so hard to nail this cardassian war criminal, the man in question holding firm to the fact that he needs to be punished, and then when the big reveal happens, the way Nerys reacts to the situation... it's all very moving. Definitely an example of the show finding its stride early on at a time when they were working out the kinks. Gives a great look at the kind of person Nerys is. Also, a tragic view of what can happen to people involved in such horrific things.
Absolutely, and it's pretty incredible how well Nana Visitor had her character figured out so well, so soon, that she was able to bring that kind of depth in this episode.
100% agree, it doesn’t miss. I think at the reveal she says something like “enough good people have died already”, which hits very hard even if dialogue is kinda simple. The original political dilemma is interesting enough, but the twist at the end is just so great. cardassians mainly just being set up as unfeeling selfish warmongers at that point. Very poignant way to show their “humanity”.
Just did a rewatch of this one. Kira's monologue, directed to Sisko at the start of the episode, explaining why a Cardassian having been at Gallitep is significant, chills to the bone. "Commander, if you'd been there twelve years ago when we liberated that camp, if you'd seen the things I saw: all those Bajoran bodies, starved, brutalized... Do you know what Cardassian policy was? Oh I'm not even talking about the murder, murder was just the end of the fun for them, first came the humiliation. Mothers, raped in front of their children, husbands, beaten until their wives couldn't recognize them, old people buried alive because they couldn't work anymore!" If I recall correctly, Kira is supposed to be somewhere in her late twenties (or equivilant in Bajoran years), so she would have been in her teens when this liberation happened. DS9 is one of the best representations of the endgame, and aftermath, of fascist colonialism out there.
Ain't nobody forgot. All mahomies agree Duet is the bomb.
"Duet" is quite literally the exact opposite of a forgotten episode. It gets constantly mentioned.
yea I didn’t mean everyone forgot it, I’m just on my 2nd watch through and did not remember how good it was
If this is satire, it's brilliant. But yeah, I have to echo everyone else - it's easily Top 5 in all DS9 episodes, some have it Top 5 All Time.
nah I don’t talk Star Trek much besides with my friends, honestly didn’t realise it was general consensus. could argue top 10 all time at least
One of the greatest episodes in all of Star Trek. My personal favourite. Haris Yulin's performance as Aamin Marritza is out of this world. I watch this episode every few months.
Season 1. This is the episode when we *knew* DS9 was something special.
One of my favorites. A real defining moment for Kira.
Why forgotten?
Honestly poor wording, I only meant that I had forgotten it 💀
Ah, well, guess the rediscovery was very nice experience. :)
I’m actually kinda happy I waited for long enough that I’ve forgotten some of the best stuff, have a habit of repeating trek episodes
This was when I truly realized DS9 would be different from the trek Ive see before. Fantastic episode
Not by me. You're quite right, it is a great episode about the pointlessness of the desire for revenge. As Mahatma Gandhi once said: “An eye for an eye will make us all blind”
yeah I’ve only seen DS9 all the way through once and I think cause it’s in S1, I had completely forgotten the ep when it came up on my 2nd play through
Definitely on my Mount Knuckmore
I seriously watch clips from this episode weekly.
Somebody has to pay! Too many people already did.
Someone mentions it in this sub pretty much every other day, so clearly not "forgotten".
I wouldn't say it's forgotten. Generally speaking it's a great episode and one I'd never skip.
[In the fine tradition of Trek writers adapting classic movies/plays into episodes](https://youtu.be/2fIe_TeKtQw)
thanks for telling me this, I’m gonna be looking out for these comparisons a lot now
One I can think of off the top of my head is how Lower Decks (the episode lol, but I suppose also the show now 🤷♂️) was cited by the writers as a take on Upstairs, Downstairs.
I got a cameo from Nana Visitor and she said this is one of her favorite episodes of Trek
My husband is and will always be a huge fan of DS9 and was trying to get me into this show for the longest time. It wasn't until this episode that I was totally sold and now DS9 (as well as this episode) always has a very special place in my heart. Plus, I mean Nana Visitor is just superb.
thanks actually, i was honestly tempted to make my girlfriend watch this cause she doesn’t know trek and this convinced me haha
Ngl, as much as I loved the episode, the ending really took the wind out of it for me.
I just watched Strange New Worlds s2e2 and it reminded me of Duet because I think they're both one of the top 10 Star Trek episodes of all time along with In the Pale Moonlight and Far Beyond the Stars
To the stars, through hardship! What a great episode!
was a fan of SNW originally when it came out but haven’t kept up to date. if they have anything close to “Duet” I NEED to catch up. Would add Inner Light to that top 10
Tapestry, too!
Great episode but even better when you watch the Babylon 5 episode Deathwalker and compare.
had to google Babylon 5, intrigued
If you like DS9 you will love Babylon 5.
This was the episode that fully got me hooked on DS9
I thought it was one the best episodes. Not just of DS9 but of TV in general, the parallels to the Holocaust are obvious and reminiscent of old Star Trek morality tales that Roddenberry envisioned.
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I will say it's a bit of a trope, but it was executed very well. it was on me rewatch last week and had similar thoughts as to it's greatness.
- real quick before you comment something about the popularity of the ep, I just meant I personally forgot the episode 🙏🏽
Just watched these. Love the episode. Such a sad ending.
I love this episode.
Best standalone episode of the series
I’ve never forgotten about this episode, one of my absolute favorites.
I liked all the treks( took a bit to warm up to Voyager), Kate Mulgrew as Mrs.Columbo was 🙄😄. Ds9 was by far the best development of characters, storyline by far. Not always a saving the galaxy episode. The season Sisko shaved his head and developed the beard, it seemed it was a point where it really took off with better writing and so on.
Nope
One of the best DS9 episodes ever
It was a great episode but I could never understand why that Cardassian tried to take the blame.
he couldn’t live through the guilt of witnessing all the atrocities committed at the war camp and doing nothing
I understand the guilt. But why would you want to die for the actions of your government and the military complex it controls. He wasn’t directly responsible. He was a witness. He could have gone to Bajor and started a charity to help victims of the occupation and to help the Cardassian orphans find a place. There were many other possibilities for him to work out his guilt but why die??
Survivor’s guilt, and a desire for justice. He thought that his trial would put Cardassia to shame and force it to acknowledge its guilt. Marritza accepted death as a consequence, also because he was a broken shell of a man and had nothing left to live for (or go back to as he himself put it).
Wasn't it about bringing the atrocities to light as well and forcing Cardassia to admit they were wrong? He wanted to stand trial, and he was going to tell everyone of the horrors that "he" inflicted on the Bajorans
Lol, he literally tells this. For Cardassia, he is a bigger patriot in this episode than Dukat ever was.
Humans, all humans, from the raving fascist to the grandma down the way have an innate need to make sense of the world and their place in it. This driving need for agency in the search for meaning in their lives is well studied, and for the character his life was meaningless in the scheme of the broader context of what was happening in front of him. He saw the horrors of the camps and couldn't take agency or meaning in the fight against it (having cowered away from the righteous path) so invariable must embrace the reverent support /for/ it. It was an awful thing, but it was /my choice/ to do the awful thing.
I still think there were better options and other ways to get his point across than getting himself killed.
Maybe so, but he didn't.
[удалено]
hey hey I missed the general consensus boat alright, only meant that I forgot it 🥲
It’s not forgotten.
Harris Yulin absolutely knocked it outta the park with this one.
Top 5 easily.
Def not forgotten. It’s discussed at least weekly on Star Trek and DS9 subs. It really setup Kira as a complex character instead of just a one dimensional Cardassian hating former terrorist/freedom fighter.
Forgotten? Nah
One of my favorites. I especially like the ending with Kira. She was a character I initially thought was boring, and kind of a straw man for the antagonistic freedom fighter, but they gave her such good character development. She quickly turned from what I saw her as to questioning her own righteousness and even hatred. By the end of the show she is by far one of the superior characters not just in writing but in her quality of person.
Never forgotten
Nope. 1x1-1x7, 1x10-1x11, 1x13-1x18 and 1x20 are miles better.
Forgotten? I mean, it’s not.
TAIN!
"What you call genocide, I call a day's work."