Yulin (played Darheel/Maritza in that episode) is a phenomenal actor who has a lot of great bit roles over the years (Stuart Smally Saves his Family being my favorite) and just killed it in that episode. It was also the first time Kira was not just a giant insufferable cunt bag. But the show really took off when they started using Garak a lot more and Avery Brooks won his fight to shave his head, grow a beard, and have some balls. The entire show had long character arcs, some good and some meh, but it did what Trek has never done before or since and have sustained constant character development. They even made Worf not suck.
And that episode was the clear standout of the first season, but its far from the best Trek of all time and I would not even put it in my top five DS9 episodes (Pale Moon Light, Sacrifice of Angels, The Siege, Pirgatory's Shadow, Way of the Warrior is my top five in order), which just demonstrates how good that show was. It stands up incredibly well in rewatch too, though I confess I tend to skip most of S1 and anything centered around Kira's Jihad shit for the most part when revisiting this series.
TNG with a bigger budget was wall to wall filler and a lot of garbage characters (Troi- both of them, Yar, Guinan for the most part, either Crusher, and any time Geordi tried and failed to get laid) but it did have two of the most outstanding Trek stories ever (Dalmok, Best of Both Worlds) and the third best movie (First Contact). Its just a shame that they waited so long to take real input from Frakes on the show and that the Borg thing got beaten to death in TNG and especially Voyager. Stewart and Spiner carried that show on their backs (and Frakes once he started directing more) for the most part. DS9 in comparison was carried by what were intended as secondary characters, namely Garak, Martok, O'Brian, Nog, and Weyoun.
