"To the Death" (season four, episode twenty-three; 13 May 1996): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: One day, "For the Cause;" seven days later, "To the Death;" those were grand days, & we knew it. We knew we were living through the Golden Age of Star Trek.
"To the Death" gives us a close look at Jem'Hadar culture, a great companion piece to "The Abandoned" & "Hippocratic Oath," & the later episodes, "The Ship" & "Rocks and Shoals." This is when we find out the Jem'Hadar are not just genetically engineered, but bred in artificial birthing chambers; there are no female Jem'Hadar; no Jem'Hadar has ever lived thirty years, & those who survive to age twenty are "honored elders." "To the Death" is also a great counterpoint to "Hippocratic Oath," which was about a group of Jem'Hadar trying to break their addiction to ketracel white, & thus break free of the Vorta's control; the Jem'Hadar in "To the Death" are loyal to the Founders even though they know their Vorta has kept vital information from them, & are tasked with hunting down a renegade group of Jem'Hadar, who are experimenting with a technology that could set all Jem'Hadar everywhere free. (That technology is the Iconian gateway, a callback to "Contagion," season two of The Next Generation.)
The scenes between Clarence Williams III (playing First Omet'iklan) & Avery Brooks (playing Captain Benjamin Sisko) are particularly great, each of them smoldering. Williams is a volcano of barely contained fury! "To the Death" also introduces Weyoun (played by Jeffrey Combs), who was so great as a Vorta that even though Omet'iklan vaporizes Weyoun at the end of the episode, the producers brought Combs back as Weyoun in season five (& throughout seasons six & seven), revealing that the Vorta are clones.
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