DS9: Nor The Battle To The Strong

I often talk about how Jake is one of my favorite characters and the season five story "Nor Battle To The Strong"is a great Jake-isode. Basically, Jake is doing a profile on Dr. Bashir but isn't as interested in the doctor's anecdotes as he'd hoped. They end up responding to a distress call from a medical facility on the frontline of the Klingon conflict and Jake's courage and his presumptions about war and the excitement of it are challenged. He does a lot of growing up in the course of forty-five minutes.

I've actually been meaning to write about this episode for days but it's been very difficult and I'm not sure why. It may be that Jake's chosen path is very like my little sister, who's just entered the NAVY and hopes to someday be a journalist on the frontlines of various dangerous situations.  I don't have children and don't plan to but I'm the oldest of four siblings (my closest is eleven years younger and my farthest is twenty years younger) and I have a tendency to be a little protective. So when Benjamin and Dax discuss their worries about Jake's safety I tend to get all choked up.

This is a bit of an unsung episode. I wish that Jake and Bashir's friendship had deepened and continued beyond the scope of this story but it is a good watch.