I am 100% more compelled by the first five minutes of this episode than the sci-fi idea behind it. Bashir is a legitimately good doctor and has every right to take criticism as validation instead of a humbling gift. I just really like Bashir. This is the first of a duo of episodes without O'Brien, and so we get Diet Caffeine-Free O'Brien, which is bizarre. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we to the Starfleet security versus Odo thing but better later in the series.  Maybe that feeds into the "we forgot how this universe works" thing I've brought up a few times. Like when characters beam into a hostile environment for the first time ever because we forgot that we can scan for that kind of thing in advance, and maybe bring gear if it's bad. Similarly, we kind of forget that Dax and Kira should have staff. But they just...don't. Also, because we bring it up: does Star Trek have immortality now? Nine Deeps of Space is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine watchalong podcast. New episodes usually go up Sunday evenings at 10 PM CST. Episodes are hosted on Anchor, but are available on most podcast platforms. This episode is a rough edit. I'll post a final edit later this week.