Making progress...
- O'Brien (who's getting a LOT of screen time lately) and Sisko find that "Paradise" isn't what it's all cracked up to be. The episode is similar to TOS's "This Side of Paradise"--except this time it's megalomania rather than weird plant spores.There's also a prison/slavery motif.
- Dax and Odo team up to investigate missing persons at a remote colony in "Shadowplay". The missing villagers turn out to be variables in a really big holodeck. There's not much to the storyline, so they add subplots with O'Brien teaching Jake life lessons, Kira and Bareil bickering and canoodling, and Bashir keeping an eye on Quark. The little girl in the episode (Noley Thornton) also played a guest role on TNG (in "Imaginary Friend").
- Dax tutors a Trill trainee in "Playing God". There's an appearance by a "Cardassian Vole" (what looks like an ugly puppet)--they are infesting the station. How do they get up there in the first place? While we do learn some more about Dax's backstory, she is saddled with a goofy story about "subspace seaweed". The trainee is played by Geoffrey Blake, who's spent the last 20 years in minor and guest roles.
- Quark gambles on love in "Profit and Loss". I think the producers finally realized they were making Quark the comedy relief on the show, so this episode gives him a bit more texture. Mary Crosby aka the answer to "Who Killed J.R.?" plays the love interest under badly done Cardassian make-up. The episode ends up as a Casablanca knockoff--"look, you're getting on that cloaked ship..."
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.