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🖖Star Trek DS9 1x18-19 Full + Watch-Along (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-20 00:33:05
Edited:
2026-03-25 00:37:04
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

1x18 Dramatis Personae 1x19 Duet

*Watch-Along (no copy needed to sync) available! LINK BELOWThis week we had a double dose of DS9 starting off with a strange mystery affecting the main crew and then we got a really thoughtful ep that I really enjoyed. Let me know what you guys thought of these 2 eps. Engage! 🖖

🖖** Full Watch-Along (no copy needed) available HERE🖖

Direct link to Full Reaction

*Note: You can change the quality of the video by clicking the settings icon (little cog) and making it a higher resolution!*

Files

ST DS9 1x18-19 Full Length Reaction

Download options: https://www.patreon.com/posts/update-on-full-99864012 Main Channel https://www.youtube.com/@jenmurrayxo

Comments

Just Paul!

The title of the upload says episodes 17 and 18

rubberkidney

no tng very sad, ive been mentally preparing myself for the dark ages to come of waiting for voyager to start

Vina

There are several really good, even great, episodes in S1 but I consider Duet the first truly excellent episode of DS9

Slate

"This is complicated." Welcome to DS9, Jen.

Summer

Duet is hard to watch but powerful and important to Kira’s arc and character

Preaching to the Horse's Mouth

The question becomes do I want to slog it through Dramatis Personae first or just skip straight to Duet? "Slog" is probably the wrong word lol Dramatis is a decent enough episode but Duet is just so top tier it makes Dramatis feel like a slog by comparison, especially knowing what's next. I don't think it's an exaggeration to call Duet one of the best across the entire ST universe.

Squeesher

"No. It's not." Character. Development. God, I love this show 🥲

Jeremy Nuss

Dramatis Personae: meh Duet: A standout episode. One of the best of season 1.

Summer

Dramatis personae is the episode I watch the least of season one, that and the Passanger, but on rewatches it is more interesting but its between two much better episodes

Anthony Hernandez

Excellent reaction Jen! I could feel the emotion coming from you through this one, very strong episode

Mark Chrisco

Got to ask Nana Visitor about Duet. She admitted to becoming emotional during filming and having nightmares about Gallitep.

RSK1995

When you watch TNG alone it’s hard to find empathy for Cardassians after what that Gul did to Picard and what the Cardassian Union as a whole did to Bajor we're programmed to hate Cardassians, then you watch Duet and everything changes.

Interdimensional Cowlick

The Major is my all time favorite character in Star Trek. Nana Visitor is such an incredible actress. Her performance gives such a wonderful complexity to Kira's character.

Jeff Seely

Duet is an episode that really stands out in my mind when I think about the early days of DS9. Stellar performance from guest star Harris Yulin, and we got some worthwhile insights into not just Kira's history as a freedom fighter but also into the kind of person she is. When confronted with the truth of the matter, she immediately softened toward him and brought out her compassion. A small bit of trivia: Nana Visitor (Kira) and Armin Shimerman (Quark) consider Duet one of their favorite episodes.

Sykonee

For whatever reason, Trek loves giving its cast an opportunity to ham it up out of character at least once per season (in TNG, usually only Brent Spiner got that chance). Dramatis Personae was that episode for DS9 this season, but they'll get more creative than 'alien mind control' in the future.

librarianist

Harris Yulin and Nana Visitor turn in phenomenal performances in "Duet", my favorite episode of the first season (and one of my absolute favorites among the whole show). And he came in as a guest star and acted through all that latex... Every time I watch their final scene in the cell and see Marritza's breakdown, I end up sobbing. Tonight was no exception. This story is loosely based on (inspired by?) the play "The Man in the Glass Booth", which was turned into a film starring Maximilian Schell in 1975. While a lot of the first season is trope-y episodic Trek, you can see Kira's character growth over the year from her introduction in "Emissary", to arguing with Tahna Los in "Past Prologue", to being on the other side in "Progress", to now seeing her work through her trauma and prejudice toward Cardassians in "Duet". I'll be interested to hear your thoughts after next week's season finale!

librarianist

Same! I gave it a shot, mostly because I wanted to see the clock. lol. After about 10 minutes in, I jumped. Sorry, Jen!

Dean

Yeah, I think Duet is seen as a paradigm shift in the writing for DS9. This will be much more often the standard of great episodes in future seasons

Kevin Sommerfield

Kira and Sisko WERE butting heads about the Valerians possibly shipping explosives, and that was BEFORE their minds were taken over. So that part of their personalities was real. I'm actually disappointed that we never found out what happened with the Valerian freighter.

Paul Peavler

Duet is probably one of my favorite episodes not just of DS9, not even in all of Trek, but in all of television. Absolutely love this episode and I’ve been waiting so long to get to this moment. For me, Duet is the first episode of DS9 that really pushes the show forward and sets the tone and standard for what the show can and strives to be.

Lee

"Duet" is rightly considered to be the gem of DS9's first season, but I really enjoy "Dramatis Personae" as well. It's not unusual for Trek regulars to play outside their characters' normal range once or twice per series, but this is an example where the actors really got to go over the top, and I'm willing to bet they enjoyed this opportunity as much I liked watching it. Jen, I have a suggestion that could be of some use for future reactions: please consider watching with the subtitles on. As you noticed during the Klingon's distorted log entries, it can be difficult to make out the dialogue at times. Unless you have an issue with using them, I think you'll find it a great help going forward.

Banes

Dramatis Personae - This is one I had no memory of before watching a couple weeks back. It was neat, and I enjoyed it even more on this re-rewatch with you. I think you caught on to the change in the characters earlier than I did. At first I was thinking it was just some season one shakiness in the characters, especially Kira - but it was just a well written, well acted piece with a really cool idea. I like that they don't give all the answers, like 'What's with the clock?' and whether this is a telepathic archive of a real mutiny, or a telepathic archive of some classic alien play or something. Like you said, it might have been a bit soon to watch these characters acting out of character. I liked it though! Duet - It's so powerful. The layers of deception the Cardassian is undertaking keeps the show ahead of us the whole way. Phenomenal job by the actors and writers. This series at its best tackles some seriously complicated areas. As thought provoking as TV gets. It gives Kira some heavy lessons to take in - and does the same for us watching it.

Ryan Fisher

Duet is one of those amazing episodes that we have been waiting to watch with you for a very long time. I grew up on DS9 as a teenager and revisit sections of it often but I haven't done a solid rewatch of the first season since my first watch thru, so thank you for this experience. One thing you may not have caught (or perhaps I'm the one confused) is Kira during the early portions of the episode says a line similar to "They're Cardassians - it's reason enough" and then by the end of the episode tells Marritza's killer that it's not a reason enough, and after everything she'd done and seen can articulate that not every Cardassian was guilty, and that's something deeply difficult for her to learn because she was a terrorist. She did terrible things trying to stop the occupation, and if not all Cardassians were guilty, then how many innocent people did she kill and what does that say about her culpability. Just quickly, I remember watching Battle Lines, the one with the Kai dying in the runabout crash, and realizing Kira was so bottled up leading to that episode and not until Opaka told her to let go of her rage did Kira start crying and break, that it was the first moment of her character growth, and you really see that happen here. No spoilers, but Kira has a great deal of healing still to do. If this were TNG she might be all better now. Healing is never a straight line. She'll feel rage at Cardassians and at times will probably forget the growth she made here, and then remember. This episode is just amazing. When we told you this series was more serialized, it wasn't just big plots. The character growth is going to be a lot more detailed because Kira's got a long road still ahead of her with a lot of drama still to come.

Nathan Burgess

Kira liberating the Gallitep labour camp where Bajorans were beaten, starved, raped and humiliated informs her hatred to Cardassians but seeing how devastated Marritza was, how he wanted to be punished, how is was broken, helped Kira grow and show empathy and compassion (something I’d struggle to do having witnessed what Kira saw). Compassion is something few could do, the man who killed Marritza couldn’t do it. Big character growth. We also understand more of Kira’s background in this episode. That she did terrible things that haunt her. Star Fleet officers rarely have such a complicated and difficult background. Tasha Yar had a terrible life before Star Fleet. Miles O’Brien saw the terrible things Cardassians did during a border raid, but this is the first major character who killed civilians, a terrorists who started fighting at the age of 12. Someone who gave up her soul for her people and struggles with her past. We saw in the episode were Kai Opaka died how Kira’s past weighs so much on her. Welcome Jen to DS9 where experiences carry over and it isn’t always obvious who is right and who is ‘clean’ in their actions.

Logan Bruin

Duet gets my vote for best episode of all Treks.

John DiGiantomasso

Jen, a brilliant reaction. And not just your words. The goosebumps show how invested you are in each episode - that and the expressions on your face. You not only watch it, you FEEL it. That's very impressive. You go "all-in" for the ride, and are a great passenger picking up all the little details that the writers wanted the most clever viewer to notice. It is a joy to revisit each episode with you. Thank you.

William Rosmer

given voyager started the next year after tng ended and the list she's said she's using, there should be almost no downtime between tng and voyager.

Ian

Really enjoyed both episodes , small things like Dax giggling to herself are just moments of gold , even if many say they don't particularly like that episode, for me it's the little moments much like the random stuff in Seinfeld that always make every episode worth watching . It's as you say Jen the fact you noticed the changes In the characters shows you're getting to know them little by little . Duet was great people have already said what's great about this episode below so all I will say is I had tears on both cheeks at the end of this one war stuff is emotional, brutal and hard . Your reaction was wonderful as always cheers Jen and happy Easter and happy next Jen Sunday 🖖🔥

jon bolton

Great reaction to both as usual. These are both amongst my Season favourites. I think you were told DS9 gets a lot darker than TNG, you just had a taste of that.

phillip giroux

Best single episode of trek in my opinion

Guy Gordon

I get the reasoning for wanting the subtitles, but I see more issues with having them than not. On a lot of others' reactions that have them on, it's not uncommon to have them notice things that are about to be said or happen before they do on screen because the subtitles for the shot already reveal it ahead of the performances. If not truly needed, I think it ruins too many moments and distracts from too many performances. But, that's just my opinion and it's up to the reactor if they think it's a good idea and if it's better or not, which of course is totally fine.

Guy Gordon

A lot can be said for Duet, and others have already said much of it here. I've been anxiously awaiting as the viewings got closer to this episode. It's a taste of the range that DS9 will go to and definitely a moment where the series pivots and starts to find its footing and its own identity. Nana Visitor and Harris Yulin both bring their best to it. It's definitely when I realized that DS9 had the potential to become my favorite Trek series, which it eventually did. Was interesting to see somebody else get to this episode in the show and get kinda knocked back by it and stop to think. Give the series some more time and it'll start doing so plenty more times. I definitely look forward to the rest of the journey here watching along through the rest of the series. I've rewatched it all the way through probably a dozen times since watching it on first airing. It's fun doing so again, but with somebody else watching along and enjoying it.

Opti_Frog

Everyone will be commenting about Duet, so I'll skip it. 😄 I think the weak aspect of Dramatis Personae is that it feels very obvious and straightforward. We're watching the events unfold exactly how we'd expect without surprises, twists or even much of an explanation. Still, it's fairly entertaining, with Quark, Kira and Dax being the comedic highlights for me.

Henchman Twenty1

Episode 18 was DS9 still trying to find its footing. Episode 19 was the show nailing a triple somersault back flip off the balance beam for the Gold.

George Foot

For sure, and I think although there was a telepathic influence, the characters' actions and interpretation of that influence was their own.

George Foot

I especially like the way the doctor was just completely clueless and wanting somebody else to tell him what to do, which group to follow - very true to his character!

George Foot

For some reason I'd had it in my mind that he was ashamed of being a weak-minded filing clerk, and his way of dealing with that shame was to pretend to be the mastermind of the labour camp. I had forgotten that he was genuinely repentent by the end. It is sad that he was killed, and I wonder what justice applied to the man who killed him - I'm sure Gul Dukat would be demanding extradition. Speaking of Gul Dukat, I loved the scene with Odo, where we see Gul Dukat being obstructive, but not unreasonably so - it is great to see the extra layers in the character, being more than just a one-dimensional villain. If you reversed the positions, I expect Sisko would have demanded and said much the same things, were the Cardassians holding a Feredation citizen unfairly.

Preaching to the Horse's Mouth

I don't think the clock is supposed to mean anything other than to give us a sense that each of the characters were taken over by the personalities of individual people. In the case of Sisko he became this detached leader in decline, fascinated by his own hobbies while things crumbled around him. Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burns, that sort of thing.

TC Green

Duet is an all time Trek episode

Andrew Roach

Duet has a standout line in it by the villain at that time, what do you think it is?

Strong Decaf

Wow. An entirely forgettable episode followed by an epicly haunting episode. "Desk murderers" are people who don't physically kill others, but maintain the bureaucracy that enables it. "Just doing my job" isn't an excuse. If you are a file clerk for a corporation destroying the environment, are you complicit? Stuff like that can keep me awake.

Joe Concepts

It's funny how if this episode went how you may have thought, the fake Darheel seemed far too over the top, being so gleefully evil. But then it all makes sense because he was just playing that role.

Joe Concepts

Kira gets more and more depth as we go. As does everyone of course, but I think her first few episodes she was a little one-note, just being angry all the time.

Joe Concepts

This one REALLY hammers home the idea of the Cardassians and Bajorans being stand-ins for Nazis and the Holocaust. Though it varies how close that analogy is over the series, it's always there.

TigerMyth

one of my favorites. Tremendous acting. BUT..... Nobody calls for Bashir? That has always bugged me. One stab and he is instantly dead. Not the way it works. Once again, NOBODY called for medical assistance. Weak ending to a great episode. We've seen Bev bring people back from much worse damage. One last time. NOBODY called for Bashier. Not Odo, not Kera. None of the worthless bystanders. NOBODY. Sure Jan.

TigerMyth

This is a good episode for her but the standout was Marritza. And she is still mostly angry the whole series. lol. Harris Yulin always had a lot of steady work, but this is easily my favorite acting from him.

Tony Bain

I think you might well like the show Babylon 5. For future consideration certainly.

Richard Powers Hardt

The thing is, Duet is a fantastic episode. I would rate it about 6th best DS9 episode. That's how good this series becomes.

Patrick

I knew aa soon as I heard the voice of the Cardassian that it was character actor Harris Yulin. He's brilliant.

Patrick

I quite like how Lower Decks makes fun(quite early on in the series) at the very thought of anyone in this time period suffering a fatal wound from most injuries.

Bobby Coolbreeze

Master class of acting between the two. Kira’s arc throughout the series is remarkable in that she goes through a lot because of past and how she grows as a character as the series goes on. She is the heart of Bajor on DS9.

SteelPookie

Kira was written and played to perfection. I will always stand on DS9 is the best Trek primarily because ALL of the main characters and quite a few of the recurring characters are developed better than any other main character group in the Trek universe and it isn’t even close. Love this show!!

sash

I forgot about this episde. it is already showing how good DS9 will become.

Robert 'Jemimus' Kloosterhuis

One of my favorite episodes of Trek of all time. I cannot watch Aamin Marritza break down in that scene without becoming emotional. Its so powerful.

Matt Poppell

Duet is the episode that truly sets DS9 on its own path from TNG to me. That episode showed a darker tone and a moral gray area that is a common thread through the series. People you think of as “the good guys” aren’t always so. I feel it is the Trek most grounded in reality.

Laura Thornley

Duet is he best episode of season one - and it was originally written to be a filler episode to save on the budget! Just goes to show (and will be seen in future Trek in general) that the 'small' episodes with a limited scope are often the best ones. And DS9 gets better from here onwards too. Its a fan favourite for a reason!

Desmond

To answer one question, Ferengi don't have SUPER-hearing...but they do have excellent hearing.

Clay F

Duet has high IMDb 9.0 rating.

Clay F

I see that VOY 1-1 starts immediately after DS9 3-12 per the air date schedule.

Clay F

Dramatis Personae is ok. Kinda funny. Duet is a great Kira episode. As others have noted in comments below, Duet is a great episode overall. Thanks for the reaction.

Curran Dobbs

You know, you can really imagine the Cardassian dude from Duet threatening to have the Ghostbusters burnt at the stake...

Kevin Sommerfield

Duet was the first great DS9 episode, and stands with any of the greats from later seasons as well. An emotional masterpiece.