Unfinished Business

"Civil Defense" Plot Summary:

When O'Brien inadvertently sets off a stationwide defense network left in place by the Cardassians who used to run Terok Nor, Sisko calls for Dukat's help to disable it...but the computer believes that Dukat is acting under enemy influence, and prepares to self-destruct the station.

Analysis:

I'm still waiting for the rest of this episode. Like where we find out that Dukat deliberately left the self-destruct program in the computer to make it possible to bring the Cardies back. Like where we find out Garak deliberately told them to destroy the life support, knowing that it would activate the next security level. Like where we find out that the wires which would have destoyed the station had been left in place for some weird reason because O'Brien's not stupid enough to have missed a flaw this big...

But it never came! Instead we got that idiotic scene with Garak accusing Dukat of - shock of shocks - hitting on Kira, that ridiculous scene in which Kira threatens to let everyone die rather than negotiate with Dukat, that moronic scene in which Jake Saves The Day (Can you say "Wesley Crusher"?), and so many other time-wasters that I almost cried. Such great potential squandered! They finally get O'Brien in an episode, and this is the best they could come up with?

To be fair, I liked the Cardassians. Especially when Dukat called Garak "tailor" as though it were an epithet about his sexual preference. But I refuse to believe that they would have destroyed the station to punish a Bajoran rebellion: that's just not Cardie style! Gassing everyone so they'd die slowly and agonizingly but not wreck the furniture is more Dukat's style.