I know fans of this show aren't going to like it, but this episode is boring. Worf and Jadzia walking through the jungle is boring. The writers' attempts to give them some snappy Joss Whedon dialogue is boring. Miles O'Brien and Doctor Bashir playing Quark in a game of cards is boring. Heck, watching Jadzia bleed out as Terry Farrell gets increasing amounts of gray makeup put on her face is boring.
Star Trek plots often require a lot of contrivance to work, that's not what makes them good, but they can be good in spite of that. This whole silly business of two low-level Starfleet officers who are supposed to be running a space station being required to take a shuttle deep into space on a top secret mission to extract a high value double agent to Starfleet Security that will involve walking through the jungle for two to three days like a low budget remake of The Predator is just bad. I get the writers don't understand how the military works, but come on.
This show doesn't even try to make an excuse for why a cast-member needs to get pulled off the station to do a job which they are manifestly unqualified for, a trick it pulls way too often. If the Cardassian had secrets that worthwhile, why didn't Starfleet Intelligence have a team to extract him? Why do they not have ships? We're told this is a post-scarcity society with hundreds of ultra-advanced worlds, and we're along the front line of an existential war... but they don't have any ships available. Why don't they have commandos specifically trained for this? Why two junior space ship officers? Why don't they have ships and technology specifically prepared to defeat this situations?
And if your answer is, because it's a silly TV show about space adventures and they set up ridiculous situations to create their plots, you'd be right. So this silly, boring episode shouldn't then turn around and try to pull of some eye-rolling ending about Worf making a tough call to save his wife instead of perform his duty... ughhh. No, he walked around a jungle set in a circle to fill time, had long conversations with his new wife to fill time, and it was all boring because it was just a way to cheaply fill time.
Also, Starfleet leaves men (or women) behind? Really? That's sad. Also, how dumb is it that Worf tries to bring a wounded Jadzia along with him for the rest of the trip instead of leaving her there or sending her back to the ship where more medical equipment is? He literally has no idea what he's doing because he's a space navy lieutenant trying to play military commando. He didn't even set up a contingency plan with the defector in case a Jem'Hadar patrol squad walked three days into the jungle to stumble on them and cause an interruption to the plan (great use of personnel by the Dominion by the way, that had to be the first time in a trillion patrols into surrounding jungles to ever actually accomplish something). Because he has no idea what he's doing. Definitely skippable.
Star Trek plots often require a lot of contrivance to work, that's not what makes them good, but they can be good in spite of that. This whole silly business of two low-level Starfleet officers who are supposed to be running a space station being required to take a shuttle deep into space on a top secret mission to extract a high value double agent to Starfleet Security that will involve walking through the jungle for two to three days like a low budget remake of The Predator is just bad. I get the writers don't understand how the military works, but come on.
This show doesn't even try to make an excuse for why a cast-member needs to get pulled off the station to do a job which they are manifestly unqualified for, a trick it pulls way too often. If the Cardassian had secrets that worthwhile, why didn't Starfleet Intelligence have a team to extract him? Why do they not have ships? We're told this is a post-scarcity society with hundreds of ultra-advanced worlds, and we're along the front line of an existential war... but they don't have any ships available. Why don't they have commandos specifically trained for this? Why two junior space ship officers? Why don't they have ships and technology specifically prepared to defeat this situations?
And if your answer is, because it's a silly TV show about space adventures and they set up ridiculous situations to create their plots, you'd be right. So this silly, boring episode shouldn't then turn around and try to pull of some eye-rolling ending about Worf making a tough call to save his wife instead of perform his duty... ughhh. No, he walked around a jungle set in a circle to fill time, had long conversations with his new wife to fill time, and it was all boring because it was just a way to cheaply fill time.
Also, Starfleet leaves men (or women) behind? Really? That's sad. Also, how dumb is it that Worf tries to bring a wounded Jadzia along with him for the rest of the trip instead of leaving her there or sending her back to the ship where more medical equipment is? He literally has no idea what he's doing because he's a space navy lieutenant trying to play military commando. He didn't even set up a contingency plan with the defector in case a Jem'Hadar patrol squad walked three days into the jungle to stumble on them and cause an interruption to the plan (great use of personnel by the Dominion by the way, that had to be the first time in a trillion patrols into surrounding jungles to ever actually accomplish something). Because he has no idea what he's doing. Definitely skippable.