I've been watching Season One of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD.

There's this sort of Star Trek ranking handicap that exists separate from other ranking systems... you know, if something is a good Star Trek episode, it doesn't necessarily mean it would be good elsewhere. I still enjoy it, but only because I'm willing to accept the lame along with the clever. Often this ratio is unbalanced toward the former.

However, I just watched the first great DS9 episode. One good enough that even without the Trek Handicap is still great. It's the penultimate episode of Season One called "Duet", and I hope the show continues like this. Strongly political, strongly philosophical, fantastic writing. Good stuff.