Hm. The implication might have been that Starfleet was kinda loosy-goosy about the whole thing. Sisko even questions this in the pilot and Picard makes it clear that he's to do everything in his power short of directly breaking the PD to make sure the Bajorans are ready to join the Federation, which.. isn't entirely consistent with the approach we've seen before. And this was before the Fed and everybody else knew about the wormhole to the other side of the galaxy, after which I would not at all be surprised if there was some pressure just to keep the whole situation stable.
In allot of ways things just kinda worked out. Sisko was a religious figure to the Bajorans but he seldom ever
wanted to use this influence directly and felt uncomfortable by it because of the PD (I'm sure it was probably name-dropped at some point?). It does come up in that one episode where Sisko becomes a crazy person! But it doesn't really go anywhere too interesting because Sisko's not seriously reprimanded and everything just happened to work out because his ramblings happened to come true (Bajor joining the Federation would have jeopardized their safety when the Dominion claimed a foothold in the alpha quadrant).
Other times when the PD really did come up, they kinda just... didn't care all that much. Like in Way of the Warrior, when the crew felt it necessary to warn the Cardassian government that a whole gaggle of Klingons are coming to wreck shit up, they just ignore the PD and choose an option that won't trace back to them in order to warn the Carddies. ... and lest us not forget that Sisko
nuked an entire planet for reasons
not at all personal and got a slap on the wrist for it. Realistic consistency is not entirely consistent in DS9, although to be perfectly honest that last sentence is really just something I wanted to say because I like saying "Sisko nuked an entire planet". It's not something I thought about as much or is as relevant as the rest.
Agreed. TNG generally is stronger imo for being more consistent week-to-week. DS9 experiments allot which is something I genuinely appreciate, but it just so happens that it turns out more and bigger stinkers than winners. The winners are usually some of the best in the franchise though.
People have been citing some of their favorites, so I'm just gonna drop one I haven't seen mentioned yet - season 6's Waltz, the brilliant 40 minute breakdown of Dukat's character. Alaimo's performance as a broken man is near-impeccable, and so many of the lines are great stuff.
"On and on it went, year after blood-soaked year. Time and again I would reach out with an open hand of friendship, and time and again they would slap it away."
...
"So, why do you think they weren't appreciating this
rare opportunity you were offering them, hm?
...
"Pride. Stubborn, unyielding pride. From the servant girl that cleaned my quarters, to the condemned man toiling in a labor camp, to the terrorist skulking through the hills of Dahkur Province. They all wore their pride like some... twisted badge of honor."
"And you hated them for it."
"Of course I hated them! I hated everything about them! Their superstitions, and their cries for sympathy, their treachery and their lies. Their smug superiority and their stiff-necked obstinacy. Their earrings, and their broken, wrinkled noses!"
"You should have killed them all, hm?"
"Yes! Yes! That's right, isn't it? I knew it! I've always known it! I should've killed every last one of them! I should've turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should have killed them all."
I think the second to last sentence in Dukat's last line is a little much (in writing or performance, not sure) but the rest of it is so good, peeling away Dukat's tendencies toward bending the truth and his fake altruism to reveal the deep-seeded hatred for everything about the Bajorians.
Especially that part where he describes what about them bothers him, which degrades from a lack of compassion and understanding to full-on hatred for their physical appearances.
