too high for the budget. After all, this was a show where we had to cut out hundreds of thousands of dollars from the original draft." Reception Broadcast "What You Leave Behind" was first shown on June 2, 1999 in broadcast syndication. It is the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episodes of the seventh and final season and received Nielsen ratings of 5.4 percent on the first broadcast. It is the highest-rated episode of the season. Critical reception Keith DeCandido reviewed the episode for Tor.com and while praising the resolution to the Dominion War, said that it failed as the finale to Deep Space Nine, stating that the end of the war and the end of the TV series are not synonymous. He expressed disappointment in the series' failure to resolve Sisko's primary goal of getting Bajor into the Federation. DeCandido compared the episode to other Star Trek series finales, writing, "TNG revisited the trial of humanity by the Q from its first episode, Voyager got our heroes home from the Delta Quadrant, and Enterprise ended with Earth helping form the Coalition of Planets that would eventually mutate into the Federation. But DS9 blew the landing by treating the show like Star Trek: The Dominion War." He rated the episode 6 out of 10. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club referred to it as an imperfect series finale. He said that of the "handful of deaths in 'What You Leave Behind', ... Damar's is the only one that really stings." Reflecting on the way in which everyone went their separate ways, Handlen wrote, "That's what this finale is about to me. Not the end of the war, or the death of some bad guys, but the reminder that there are so many stories that go on without us." Jamahl Epsicokhan of Jammer's Reviews summarized the episode as a "poignant and satisfying end to the final arc and the series". Like Handlen, he was "somewhat disappointed" by Damar's death, as it came in "an action scene and with very little fanfare". As a key element of the story arc, Epsicokhan stated "it's almost as if there simply wasn't time to deal with the death of the man who would've been the leader of a new Cardassia. The notion seemingly is: He's dead; on with the story." He ultimately said that the episode made for a nice ending, writing that the "closing sense is