“In The Pale Moonlight” shifts the status quo for the series’ biggest ongoing storyline, but Sisko’s musings, self-recrimination, and self-doubt are the heart of the story. The episode turns the entire Dominion War into an opportunity to consider what lengths a man might be willing to go to try and do the right thing—and how the “right thing” can cease to lose its meaning past a certain point. In that respect, the hour plays like a miniature film noir, full of big gambles and shady creeps; you can even, if you squint, see some of the antihero signifiers that would become so important to modern television drama. Sisko takes shortcuts, offers bribes, works with criminals, and keeps the truth from his friends, and he does it all with, as he himself notes, the best of intentions. He does it for a cause greater than himself, but the sins still stain. The escalation is elegant, all small steps from here to here to here, and then suddenly you look back to where you came from and you can’t see home anymore.

zack handlen, av club review