DS9 - "Babel"

While O'Brien struggles to keep DS9's systems running, the station becomes the victim of a virus that makes its inhabitants unable to understand each other. Just as the virus becomes lethal, a cure is found.

Here we've got a classic viral epidemic story (a la "The Naked Time," "The Naked Now," "Angel One," etc.). It's nothing we haven't seen before, really. It follows the generic plotline of "Virus infects entire cast one by one; characters initiate quarantine; a cure is found at the last possible moment." The good news is that this story is done decently well. Unlike in "The Naked Now," there's no weird character absurdities going on, and the virus is genuinely interesting. The problem is that even a well-done generic epidemic story is still generic.

The most remarkable things about this story are actually the little bits we get with O'Brien trying to fix the station; it establishes the ongoing idea, basically, that DS9 is a giant broken hunk of Cardassian crap. It'll be interesting to see how the station progresses over the show's lifetime.

Ultimately, there just isn't a lot to talk about here. It's a plot that's only moderately interesting at best, and boring at worst.