Star Trek: Paradise Lost

Episode: "Paradise Lost"

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Season 4, Episode 12

Original Air Date: January 8, 1996

via Memory Alpha

"Paradise Lost" is the second installment in a two-episode story begun the previous week with "Homefront."  Whereas Part 1 devoted significant material to the Benjamin/Joseph Sisko relationship, Part 2 goes all in on the Changeling invasion scare.  Benjamin and Odo piece together the truth: Admiral Leyton has engineered the crisis himself with the intention of carrying out a military coup.  Fortunately, our friends save the day before he does too much permanent damage.

Overall, the story plays like a classic, counter-espionage thriller.  There are crosses and double-crosses.  Sisko is arrested, then rescued.  Doubts rise and are then assuaged.  Rock solid storytelling.

Of course, the Changelings are already on Earth.  One of them reveals himself to Sisko, part of how our captain was able to piece the puzzle together.  But the plan is more long-term and insidious than the crisis Leyton has invented.  

Allusions

The names Sisko reads off as former crew members from the USS Okinawa - Daneeka, McWatt, Snowden, Orr and Moodus - are all characters from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Captain Benteen is named for Frederick Benteen, a US Cavalry Commander who survived the Battle of Little Bighorn.  Meaningfully, the real Benteen and his battalion survived because he failed to follow orders.

Worf's line "Bartlett and Ramsey are dead, sir" is likely a reference to two characters in The Great Escape.

Acting Notes

via Transformers Movie Wiki

Robert Foxworth (Leyton) was born in Houston, November 1, 1941.  He graduated with a BFA in acting from Carnegie Mellon.  As with many screen actors, he got his start on stage, primarily at the Arena Stage in Washington.  He was offered the role of JR Ewing on Dallas, the one that eventually fell to Larry Hagman.  Amazingly, Foxworth turned it down.  Probably a mistake.

Mind you, he's done alright anyway.  On television, he had principal roles on both Falcon Crest and The Storefront Lawyers.  He has a long list of guest appearances, including West Wing, Law & Order and Columbo.  His tangential Star Trek association goes way back as he was the star of Gene Roddenberry's 1974 film The Questor Tapes.

Foxworth's second wife, Elizabeth Montgomery (Samantha of Bewitched), was more famous than he is.  In total, he's been married three times.  He has two children.