Blood Oath

Not a huge amount to say about this one. It was fairly paint-by-numbers trek and offers up no big surprises. You follow along and it's not bad, but there are no real mysteries to unfold, and the moral dilemma faced by Dax is played more like an afterthought. Benjamin is Curzon's closest friend and we dedicate, what, three minutes of screen time to his objections?

There's some downright bizarre exchanges between characters, particularly Dax and Kira, and the performances are middling at best.

Also, like the previous episode, there's a really distractingly rubbish scene in the cold open and I'm once again left wondering how the ball was dropped so far in a production of this scale. Odo sitting in his office then getting pranked by Koloth's appearance is so oddly staged and directed that it seems like it's actually missing shots. The risk of doing it as a single, slow panning one-er left the editor with absolutely no ammunition to fix the scene.

It's a real slow burner of an episode - not a bad thing - and by the time we're in the shuttle above the planet there's some good tension built, and the strategising is great. Top marks from Terry here. The reveal of it being a suicide mission doesn't actually impact the story at all, though it does build up the insurmountable odds in a good way. We're cooking with gas now.

Theeeen we're kinda betrayed by technology, scale and budget. The exterior assault on the base is rubbish, although all the choreo in the throne room is pretty cool. Some nice fights, and good commitment from the cast.

I'm rambling because I have so few thoughts about this one. It did not leave an impression.