[Morgan]

Yeah, there were definitely some early season episodes which stand up well in the later seasons, but the show really took off by the third season. Early on the writers didn't quite know where to take the show beyond the space station and wormhole concept -- stories were supposed to come to the station versus a ship going to a new planet every week -- but that soon became too much of a "bottle episode" concept. It's difficult to imagine DS9 in the days before the whole Dominion came into view.

"Q-Less" is actually episode #7 in the whole series, which seems awfully early to dip into TNG characters after the Emissary, but then there's also a Lwaxana episode later on in season 1, number 17. I had forgotten that DS9 dipped into TNG characters that much, aside from the very very cool Tom Riker episode, which was glorious in every way, and a definite Top 10 for me for the series. Until Worf, I think that was pretty much it for TNG characters. In retrospect it's kind of surprising that the Enterprise-E was not seen during the Dominion War seasons, but in retrospect that seems like something that would have been expensive to arrange, unless it was just an Enterprise character popping into Sisko's office to say hi. DS9 showed a lot of restraint when it came to TNG characters in the later seasons, as well as Borg episodes, which were in fact pitched by the writers but never led to anything.

I keep forgetting that "Duet" is in season one, that's another easy Top 10.

It's interesting, in hindsight, to look at how much of season one was about Bajorans coming to terms with the Cardassian aftermath. I don't know if the whole series could have gone on just with those types of stories for the entire 7 seasons, but looking back those are some of the most thoughtful episodes, even those they're by no means the "loudest."

Also, "Past Prologue" which is the second episode introduces Garak, but then he's not seen or really used all that much for a long while.