The Circle

This is the second episode in a three-part series about the Bajorans and their power struggles. It is also the first three-part series in Trek history.

When the show begins, Major Kira is spending time with Vedek Bareil. She hates meditating and he introduces her to the 'third orb' and she has some goofy visions. Then, the scene switches back to DS9 and Quark, oddly, is quite helpful in uncovering a plot by someone to arm Bajoran dissidents and help perpetuate chaos on Bajor--and considering how annoying and unlikable the Bajorans generally are on the show, this will NOT be hard to do! When the action (such as it is) switches back to Bajor, Kira learns who is behind some of the plotting against the provisional government (hint: he has a really cool voice).

Overall, while I did dislike the Bajorans (as usual), it was a better episode than episode two--mostly because the Commander and his Starfleet staff began to behave sneaky and proactive. Interesting and it does start to get interesting here...that is apart from the silly religious visions at the beginning of the show.

The Circle makes a play for power on Bajor.

This is an enjoyable second part to the Bajoran story with more of strong political scenes.

It does a great job of turning the potential whine-fest that is Kira leaving DS9 into a humorous situation where everyone piles into her room to bid her farewell.

I enjoyed the political manoeuvring from certain characters and although certain revelations are easily telegraphed it all makes good sense. That is as much as I will share about the plot not to spoil anything.

All performances are strong, particularly Frank Langella, Louise Fletcher, Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois.

For me it's a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.

The Circle is a self serving group of terrorists led by a man everyone initially trusted. The goal is to drive the Federation and all non-Bajoran persons out. This, of course, would make the average Bajorans vulnerable once again to the Cardassians. Kira is a soldier. I didn't like her at first, but she is a formidable entity. Due to political reasons and the Prime Directive, the Federation finds its hands are tied. But Sisko will do what he can without disobeying orders. This is a real thriller and I believe it goes on for a couple more episodes.

This middle segment of the West Side Bajor Story featuring Richard Beymer as Li Nalas (who I have often mistaken as Russ Tamblyn "without-a-beard") continues with the Odo/Quark "conflict" that shows the beginning of their eventual close friendship and respect for each other.

Between the two of them, they fringe out who is actually responsible for "the circle" having more armaments than a galaxy class ship.

This is also the first time Nerys encounters "the third orb"- which actually shows her everything that is going to happen in most exact detail. It was too bad that she could not put it all together, but that is the nature of prophecies from the prophets, Bajoran or Biblical.

Li shows his usefulness during a Federation raid, he has a very good eye for where to plant a phaser blast.

Admiral Chekote (no relation to the second officer of Voyager) proves to be a bean counting pencil pusher, does not see the importance of not defining the prime directive as some kind of exact law that must be adhered to in only one way, fortunately The Sisko sees a way around it, this is the first time he is depicted as a clever strategist, a real Sirna Kolrami... who makes use of everything that he is left with. Which is not much.

Every great story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. This is a very fine middle episode, considering nothing like this had ever been done before in Star Trek, ever. And it will not happen again until Enterprise season four.

I highly anticipated the final entry back when I was watching this during first-run. It includes the meat of the tale.

In this second part of the 2nd season opener we find Nana Visitor at Vedek Philip Anglim's retreat and Prime Minister Frank Langella tightening his grip on Bajor.

Louise Fletcher as head of the fundamentalist sect is busy working herself into Langella's confidence. There is enough intrigue in here for about six episodes.

An encounter with a Bajoran orb gives Visitor some interesting insights into who is behind what. It gets her taken prisoner by the nativists.

And Avery Brooks gets an order from StarFleet that this Bajoran internal matter might necessitate abandoning Deep Space 9. Not an order he likes.

This is a stay tuned episode for the 3rd installment.