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Blake's 7 Season 4

Rescue

Blake's 7The survivors of the Liberator on Terminal begin to make horrible discoveries. First, Avon and Dayna discover that the escape craft Servalan left them was booby trapped as a native animal enters it and it explodes. That simultaneously detonates explosions in the control center underground on Terminal. Vila escapes after heroically rescuing Tarrant, but Cally is killed. The space vessel Scorpio arrives, with the enigmatic Dorian in charge. He takes the crew and Orac away from Terminal just as the planet begins to undergo a massive volcanic outbreak, but Avon takes him prisoner and hijacks the ship. Scorpio, however, is automatically set to take Dorian to his home base, where his gunhand and consort Soolin is waiting. It soon transpires that Dorian has been working on a teleportal and has also devised a near-perfect all-weather handgun. He also repairs Orac and reveals that he is over 200 years old. Dorian plans to sacrifice Avon and the others to a creature that renews Dorian when it is given fresh lives to feed on.

written by Chris Boucher
directed by Mary Ridge
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Steven Pacey (Tarrant), Josette Simon (Dayna), Peter Tuddenham (Orac, Slave), Geoffrey Burridge (Dorian), Glynis Barber (Soolin), Rob Middleton (The Creature), Jan Chappell (voice of Cally)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 19 Doctor Who

Castrovalva

Doctor WhoChaos ensues in the wake of the Doctor’s regeneration. Security guards at the Pharos Project arrest Tegan, Nyssa and Adric, who are just beginning to try to comprehend what has happened to the Doctor, let alone help him. They manage to divert the guards and get the Doctor back to the TARDIS, but at the last moment, the Master’s TARDIS appears, blocking Adric’s escape. The Master then disappears again, and Adric returns to help the Doctor, who is trying to find the recuperative Zero Room. Adric has also gotten the TARDIS underway to its next destination – which turns out to be the explosive event which created the Milky Way. The Doctor, still experiencing sudden changes of personality, is barely able to help Tegan and Nyssa evade disaster by jettisoning parts of the TARDIS, and Adric is nowhere to be found. But when the Zero Room is accidentally blasted away in the emergency, the Doctor’s friends must find a place where he can recover. And all too conveniently, the relaxing planet of Castrovalva is at the top of the list.

Season 19 Regular Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Janet Fielding (Tegan)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Christopher H. Bidmead
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Anthony Ainley (The Master), Derek Waring (Shardovan), Michael Sheard (Mergrave), Frank Wylie (Ruther), Dallas Cavell (Head of Security), Souska John (Child)

Broadcast from January 4 through 12, 1982

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

Mawdryn Undead

Doctor WhoA schoolboy named Turlough cons a classmate into “borrowing” a vintage roadster belonging to one of the teachers at his private school, naturally getting into an accident moments later. During a near-death experience, Turlough is forced into a deadly pact by the Black Guardian: Turlough’s new mission is to kill a Time Lord known as the Doctor at any cost. Soon afterward, the Doctor lands the TARDIS on a seemingly derelict spacecraft orbiting Earth in both space and time, only to find that somehow, someone on board is still maintaining the vessel. The Doctor soon becomes a pawn in alien renegades’ plot to end their pitiful immortality, and discovers that his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, now a math teacher at Turlough’s school, is a pawn. It also soon becomes evident that Turlough is no ordinary schoolboy.

Order the DVDwritten by Peter Grimwade
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Valentine Dyall (Black Guardian), David Collings (Mawdryn), Angus MacKay (Headmaster), Stephen Garlick (Ibbotson), Roger Hammond (Dr. Runciman), Sheila Gill (Matron), Peter Walmsley (First mutant), Brian Darnley (Second mutant), Lucy Baker (Child Nyssa), Sian Pattenden (Child Tegan)

Broadcast from February 1 through 9, 1983

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

Planet of Fire

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS has been set for a new course by Kamelion, who is attempting to go to the source of a distress signal which is overriding his every function. The Doctor manages to wrest control of the ship from Kamelion and lands the TARDIS on Earth to investigate. While the Doctor finds little of importance, other than a freshly uncovered batch of artifacts from an archaeological expedition, Turlough discovers the signal’s source and immobilizes the TARDIS to avoid going there. Turlough also spots a drowning swimmer on the TARDIS scanner. He rescues the girl, discovering that she has stolen the oddest of the artifacts that the Doctor saw earlier. When the Doctor returns, the TARDIS again takes off without his control, and apparently with a new passenger on board. The mystery of the new passengers unravels quickly, as does the mystery of who has been controlling Kamelion. But why is Turlough so keen to avoid a colony from his own planet – a colony of outcasts of which he may be a member?

Order the DVDwritten by Peter Grimwade
directed by Fiona Cumming
music by Peter Howell

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Peter Wyngarde (Timanov), Barbara Shelley (Sorasta), Gerald Flood (voice of Kamelion), James Bate (Amyand), Dallas Adams (Professor Foster), Edward Highmore (Malkon), Jonathan Caplan (Roskal), John Alkin (Lomand), Michael Bangerter (Curt), Simon Sutton (Lookout), Max Arthur (Zuko), Ray Knight (Trion)

Broadcast from February 23 through March 2, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 21 Doctor Who

The Twin Dilemma

Doctor WhoThe seemingly harmless Professor Edgeworth abducts Romulus and Remus Sylvest, twin boys whose immense mathematical prowess is closely guarded for fear that it could become a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. Edgeworth’s paymaster is Mestor, the giant gastropod, who plans to have the boys calculate a way to plunge the Jacondan solar system into chaos – all for the sake of hatching thousands of giant larvae containing a future swarm of gastropods. Edgeworth is the alias of Azmael, an outcast Time Lord who is reluctantly working for Mestor, but unknown to him, a fellow Time Lord is about to come crashing into Mestor’s plan for universal domination – a Time Lord who is suffering from a severely traumatic regeneration, and whose actions and moods cannot be predicted.

Order the DVDwritten by Anthony Steven
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Maurice Denham (Edgeworth/Azmael), Kevin McNally (Hugo Lang), Edwin Richfield (Mestor), Barry Stanton (Noma), Oliver Smith (Drak), Seymour Green (Chamberlain), Paul Conrad (Romulus), Andrew Conrad (Remus), Dennis Chinnery (Sylvest), Helen Blatch (Fabian), Dione Inman (Elena), Roger Nott (Prisoner), John Wilson (Guard)

Broadcast from March 22 through 30, 1984

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Chocky Season 2: Chocky's Children

Episode 2.2

Chocky's ChildrenNear his aunt’s home in the country, Matthew finds a windmill – the same one that has kept cropping up in his sketches and artwork. He meets a 12-year-old girl named Albertine, who lives with her father near the windmill; oddly, the two children already know each other’s names. Albertine’s father, who is homeschooling her, explains to Matthew’s aunt that the girl recently suffered some kind of brain trauma. Albertine is invited to take pottery lessons with Matthew, and he’s stunned when his new friend scuplts an abstract shape that he recognizes as Chocky’s physical form.

written by Anthony Read
based on characters created by John Wyndham
directed by Vic Hughes
Chockymusic not credited

Cast: Andrew Ellams (Matthew), Anabel Worrell (Albertine), Angela Galbreath (Cissie), Prentis Hancock (Meyer), Michael Crampton (Luke)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

Terror of the Vervoids (Trial of a Time Lord, parts 9-12)

Doctor WhoThe Doctor finally gets his chance to present his defense in his trial. He presents an adventure from his own future, in which he and new companion Melanie are summoned to a posh space luxury liner by an anonymous distress call. While the ship’s captain – who has met the Doctor on a previous occasion – and the incompetent chief of security initially regard the Doctor and Mel as stowaways, they find themselves with other problems when murders begin to occur aboard the ship, and three scientists are being very secretive about their hydroponics experiment in the ship’s cargo deck. As more passengers die mysteriously, the ship’s captain asks the Doctor to help – but, according to the evidence, the Doctor isn’t really all that helpful…which isn’t how he remembers the story.

Order the DVDwritten by Pip Baker & Jane Baker
directed by Chris Clough
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Honor Blackman (Professor Lasky), Michael Craig (Commodore Travers), Denys Hawthorne (Rudge), Yolande Palfrey (Janet), Tony Scoggo (Enzu/Grenville), Malcolm Tierney (Doland), David Allister (Bruchner), Arthur Hewlett (Kimber), Simon Slaters (Edwardes), Barbara Ward (Mutant), Sam Howard (Atza), Leon Davis (Ortezo), Hugh Beverton (Guard), Mike Mungarvan (Duty Officer), Peppi Borza (First Vervoid), Bob Appleby (Second Vervoid), Barbara Ward (Ruth Baxter)

Broadcast from November 1 through 22, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 24 Doctor Who

Time And The Rani

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS crash-lands on Lakertya with such force that the Doctor is forced to regenerate. He is promptly removed from the TARDIS by the evil female Time Lord biochemist known as the Rani, who is behind his rough landing. Melanie, also knocked out by the landing, is kidnapped by Ikona, a birdlike Lakertyan whose people are behind forced to cooperate with the Rani’s scheme. In the meantime, the Rani gives the newly-regenerated Doctor a drug-induced bout of amnesia, trying to use him to help her complete her latest experiment – but she doesn’t count on the rebellious nature that the Doctor carries through all of his incarnations.

Order the DVDwritten by Pip Baker & Jane Baker
directed by Andrew Morgan
music by Keff McCulloch

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Kate O’ Mara (The Rani), Mark Greenstreet (Ikona), Donald Pickering (Beyus), Richard Gauntlett (Urak), Wanda Ventham (Faroon), John Segal (Lanisha), Karen Clegg (Sarn), Peter Tuddenham, Jacki Webb (Voices)

Broadcast from September 7 through 28, 1987

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 24 Doctor Who

Dragonfire

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Mel pay a visit to Svartos, an ice planet with an enormous habitation complex which extends far above the surface. Though it seems innocuous enough on the surface – the TARDIS materializes in a frozen goods store – a chance encounter with Sabalon Glitz, bumbling intergalactic treasure-seeker not-so-extraordinaire quickly leads the Doctor into trouble, and introduces him to Ace, a sarcastic teenager from Earth who inexplicably found herself on Svartos and now works as a waitress. Glitz has obtained a map of the caverns beneath the planet’s surface, where a dragon is rumored to lurk, guarding a priceless treasure. The Doctor agrees to accompany Glitz on his search, more curious about the dragon itself than what it may be guarding. Mel, left behind with Ace, finds herself in very deep trouble when the younger girl runs afoul of the authorities and brings herself to the attention of Kane, an alien who cannot leave the sub-freezing portions of the complex. Little do the Doctor and Glitz realize that the dragon is all that stands between the people of Svartos and Kane’s plans for a bloody reign of terror.

Order the DVDwritten by Ian Briggs
directed by Chris Clough
music by Dominic Glynn

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Tony Selby (Glitz), Edward Peel (Kane), Patricia Quinn (Belazs), Tony Osoba (Kracauer), Stephanie Fayerman (McLuhan), Sean Blowers (Zed), Stuart Organ (Bazin), Nigel Miles-Thomas (Pudovkin), Shirin Taylor (Customer), Miranda Borman (Stellar), Ian Mackenzie (Anderson), Chris MacDonnell (Arnheim), Leslie Meadows (Creature), Daphne Oxenford (Archivist), Lynn Gardner (Announcer)

Broadcast from November 23 through December 7, 1987

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Season 02 Star Trek The Next Generation

The Child

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 42073.1: Counselor Troi, impregnated by an alien entity, gives birth to a child whose mind is not that of a child but of an alien wishing to discover the variety of human experience. Meanwhile, the ship’s newly promoted chief engineer, Geordi, and newcomer Doctor Katherine Pulaski are faced with the possibility of a fatal shipwide epidemic…

Order the DVDswritten by Jaron Summers & Jon Povill and Maurice Hurley
directed by Rob Bowman
music by Dennis McCarthy

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher), Diana Muldaur (Dr. Pulaski), Seymour Cassel (Lt. Commander Hester Dealt), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), R.J. Williams (Ian), Colm Meaney (Transporter Chief), Dawn Arnemann (Miss Gladstone), Zachary Benjamin (Young Ian), Dore Keller (Crewman)

Notes: This story was originally conceived in the mid 1970s as an episode of the aborted late ’70s Star Trek Phase II series, which was to have been a new series with the original crew of the Enterprise. (That production later morphed into the first Star Trek movie.) The script was dusted off to serve as the delayed season premiere after a Writers’ Guild strike brought American TV production to a halt in the summer of 1988. It is also notable for being the first appearance of Guinan.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 03 Star Trek The Next Generation

Evolution

Star Trek: The Next GenerationStardate 43125.8: While the crew of the Enterprise races against the clock to launch a space probe for a critical experiment, a culture of experimental microbe-machines accidentally released by Wesley threatens to render the Enterprise uninhabitable.

Season 3 Regular Cast: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher)

Order the DVDsteleplay by Michael Piller
story by Michael Piller and Michael Wagner
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Ken Jenkins (Dr. Paul Stubbs), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Mary McCusker (Nurse), Randal Patrick (Crewman #1)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Red Dwarf Season 03

Backwards

Red DwarfWhilst giving Kryten flight lessons in the Starbug vehicle, Rimmer and the hapless mechanoid wind up diving into some kind of time and dimension warp, arriving in a strangely different late 20th-century Earth. On this Earth, everything moves backwards – and Rimmer and Kryten are forced to use the novelty of being “forward” to land a job at a nightclub. Lister and Cat manage to track the others down, only to find by now that they’ve actually gotten to like the idea of watching ancient history unfold…or as the case may be, watching it fold.

Season 3 Regular Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly)

Order the DVDswritten by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Maria Friedman (Waitress), Tony Hawks (Compere), Anna Palmer (Customer in Cafe), Arthur Smith (Pub Manager)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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M.A.N.T.I.S.

First Steps

M.A.N.T.I.S.Paralyzed after being shot while trying to rescue a child from an inner city riot, Dr. Miles Hawkins is roused from his recovery by a letter of resignation from John Stonebrake, a brilliant cyberneticist working at Hawkins Industries. Stonebrake has been working on a powered suit that could restore Hawkins’ mobility, and Hawkins demands to try it out, control helmet and all, with John following closely. During their test of the suit, Hawkins overhears a woman screaming, and races to intervene, discovering that he can hurl her attackers a great distance as a result of the suit’s superhuman strength. But after stopping the assault, a malfunction brings Hawkins to his knees and John rushes him back to the lab.

Hawkins is called in to offer his medical advice on what seems to be an outbreak of a fatal disease. Hawkins immediately recognizes the genetically engineered virus from its effects: it’s a biological weapon that he created. Despite the fact that he informs Lt. Leora Maxwell she is almost certainly infected from even a brief exposure, she breaks quarantine to try to find who’s responsible for spreading the virus. Hawkins also breaks quarantine to visit an old business partner of his, Solomon Box, who was ordered to destroy the virus. After his confrontation with Box, Hawkins survives an attempt on his life, and is then stunned when Taylor Savage, a witness to his foray in the suit has tracked him down and “wants in” on whatever Hawkins and John are up to. With his help, Hawkins discovers that Box plans to sell the virus to North Korean operatives, and the only solution may be to once again don the Mantis suit.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Bryce Zabel
directed by David Nutter
music by Christopher Franke

M.A.N.T.I.S.Cast: Carl Lumbly (Dr. Miles Hawkins), Roger Rees (John Stonebrake), Christopher Gartin (Taylor Savage), Galyn Gorg (Lt. Leora Maxwell), Kenneth Mars (Reese), Cordelia Gonzales (Dr. Rivera), Brion James (Solomon Box), Clabe Hartley (Tony), Lorena Gale (Lynette), Jerry Wasserman (Detective Paul Warren), Kevin McNulty (Fred Saxon), Ric Reid (Rex Hauck), Suki Kaiser (Ashley Williams), Martin Cummins (Dog Face), Cathy Weseluck (TV Interviewer), Robin Douglas (Manager), Madison Graie (Hassled Girl), Brock Johnson (Punk), Harvey Thomison (Dr. Zoom), Jason Lee (Korean Official)

Notes: M.A.N.T.I.S. has undergone a significant rethink to become a weekly series, walking back some elements of the pilot movie aired in January 1994. The fictional “Ocean City” setting is now “Port Columbia”, though it still has all the hallmarks of a major coastal California city. With the sole exception of M.A.N.T.I.S.Carl Lumbly as Dr. Miles Hawkins, the entire cast of the pilot, and their characters, have been jettisoned by the weekly series.

There’s strong evidence to suggest that the series and the pilot movie are not in the same “universe”. This episode seems to portray the first time Hawkins has tried on the M.A.N.T.I.S. suit, which he had already used prior to the pilot movie. Unlike the pilot’s plot point that Hawkins had worked with the city government of Ocean City, here he says that the investigation into the outbreak is the first time he’s consulted with the police since being paralyzed. In the pilot, M.A.N.T.I.S. is an acronym for the suit’s technology, whereas here it’s a term invented by Taylor Savage. It’s probably best to view the pilot movie and the series as two very different tellings of the same story.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Babylon 5 / Crusade Season 2

Points Of Departure

Babylon 5Within three days of the president’s assassination, Sinclair has been recalled to Earth. Captain John Sheridan of the starship Agamemnon is assigned to take command of B5, which is visited by Kalain, commander of the Minbari warship Trigati which has been missing since its crew defied the Grey Council’s sudden cease-fire order that ended the Earth-Minbari War over a decade before. The Minbari protest the choice of Sheridan to command the station due to his service in the war, and Grey Council envoy Hedronn warns Sheridan of Kalain’s presence and hostile intent. As it turns out, Kalain has made his way to Delenn’s quarters to kill the cocooned ambassador, but is apprehended before he can do any harm. Lennier reveals the reason for Sinclair’s recall and the end of the war: the Grey Council believes that the noblest souls of dead Minbari are now being reincarnated as the newest generations of humans, Sinclair included. The Trigati emerges through the jump gate, ready to attack if Kalain is not released from custody. Sheridan, who has been described by nearly every Minbari so far as a dark omen for the hope of peace, faces the prospect of renewed bloodshed on his hands.

Order now!Download this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by J. Michael Straczynski
directed by Janet Greek
music by Christopher Franke

Cast: Bruce Boxleitner (Captain John Sheridan), Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters), Stephen Furst (Vir), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Robert Rusler (Warren Keffer), Mary Kay Adams (Na’Toth), Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar), Peter Jurasik (Londo), Richard Grove (Kalain), Robin Sachs (Hedronn), Robert Foxworth (General William Hague), Jennifer Anglin (Deeron), Jonathan Chapman (Ambassador #1), Joshua Cox (Tech #1), Kim Delgado (Dome Tech #3), Russ Fega (Merchant #1), Bennet Guillory (Merchant #2), Catherine Hader (Young Woman), Mark Hendrickson (Ambassador #2), Kristopher Logan (Ambassador #3), Michael McKenzie (Vastor), Debra Sharkey (Tech #2), Brian Starcher (Other Pilot), Kim Strauss (Ensign), Thomas Valinote (Security Guard #2), Greg Wrangler (Security Guard #1)

Original title: Chrysalis Part 2

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Deep Space Nine Season 04 Star Trek

The Way Of The Warrior

Star Trek: Deep Space NineStardate 49011.4: As the crew of Deep Space 9 try to prepare for a possible invasion by the Dominion, a fleet of Klingon ships decloak and take “shore leave” on the station. The Cardassians have sealed their borders after a rumored coup on their homeworld, and Klingon ships are stopping ships leaving Bajoran space to search them for Changelings. To get answers, Sisko calls on the aid of Lt. Commander Worf, who has been among the Klingon clerics on Boreth following the Enterprise’s destruction, and is considering resigning Starfleet. Worf learns that the Klingons plan to invade Cardassia on the suspicion that the new civilian government is run by the Founders. Sisko uses Garak to warn the Cardassians, and Gul Dukat manages to save the Detepa Council as the Klingon fleet advances. But the Defiant is needed to get them to safety – and its aid will have far-reaching consequences for the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

Season 4 Regular Cast: Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko), Michael Dorn (Lt. Commander Worf), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Terry Farrell (Lt. Commander Dax), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir), Nana Visitor (Major Kira)

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
directed by James L. Conway
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Andrew Robinson (Garak), Penny Johnson (Kasidy Yates), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Deep Space NineRobert O’Reilly (Gowron), J.G. Hertzler (General Martok), Obi Ndefo (Drex), Christopher Darga (Kaybok), William Dennis Hunt (Huraga), Patricia Tallman (Weapons Officer), Judi Durand (Station Computer Voice)

LogBook entry by Tracy Hemenover