S04.E26: Broken Link

[John Potts]

Quote

 

Odo contracts a mysterious and eventually fatal illness and is forced to seek out the Founders for help.

 

You know, if I was on a mission of mercy to ask the hostile Founders for help, I might consider the image it sends taking the biggest, baddest warship the station has to offer. And even if you're confident the Founders will allow you to enter the Gamma Quadrant unmolested (which is one hell of an assumption), you're providing a hostile force direct access to your cutting edge weapons ship designs. OK, maybe they thought the critical thing was speed and the Defiant was the fastest vessel they had (I guess Starfleet doesn't have any fast courier vessels). And again we're taking almost all the DS9 command staff into enemy territory and just trusting the enemy to allow them to leave (but that's a dead horse at this point)

But that aside, the characterisations are on point. Loved the Frenemy relationship between Quark & Odo (Quark's "I'm gonna make SO MUCH LATINUM while you're away!" is about as close as he can bring himself to saying he'll miss him), Odo admitting that he should face justice for killing another Changeling (let's just ignore that the Changeling was trying to kill him and everyone aboard too!), Garak pointing out the - admittedly suicidal - military opportunity being next to the Great Link presents ("Come now Mr. Worf, you're a Klingon, don't tell me you'd object to a little genocide in the name of self defence!" - he certainly has a point) and then meeting the Female Changeling ("They're dead. You're dead. Cardassia is dead. Your people were doomed the moment they attacked us. I believe that answers your question.") which I can see Garak really appreciating.

Spoiler

Her outright lie there also indicates that the Founders are highly duplicitous - they deliberately leak false information about Gowron to stoke the flames of war.

(I realise I'm spoilering a 20 year old episode, but it is a significant plot twist)

Minor niggles in that I had to wonder why Odo had to walk through the station when Bashir had a wheelchair fabricated in a prior episode and I thought Miss "Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever" was rather pointless (apparently, she was intended as a love interest for Odo, but TPTB decided against it. But other than that, a strong end to the Season.

[blueray]

I also wondered about why they didn't use a wheelchair or at least cleared the hallway for him, instead of having people stare at him when he struggled to walk by.

Anyhow, I've always loved this episode. Mainly because it features a lot of Odo and has Garak in it. I love how he thinks of an opportunity to attack and could mostly hold his own with a fight with Worf. 

[readster]

Something that always bothered me with season 3 ending in The Advistary was if Odo wouldn't have done anything, his fellow Changling was will to let him die on the Defiant. But, oh no, Odo killed him so he must be judged because no Changling had done that before.  That episode also hammered in who would be the best person to replace that no one would suspect which was Bashire as we found out later that he had been a Changling since early season 5 as Rick Berman and Michael Pillar revealed in past interviews on how long it wasn't the real Julian. If you also check how he was acting after the season 5 premiere it just wasn't... Julian. He was very coy about things and was lacking of a bit of emotions at times. However, back to this episode, it was well done from beginning to end and something that bothered me when the Dominion scrabbled their sensors to avoid where their new planet was. Really, there isn't tech int eh 24th century they couldn't have took a pic of the constellations  and used their Gamma Quadrant star charts to determine where they were?

Edited May 4, 2017 by readster

[SVNBob]

On 5/3/2017 at 11:40 AM, John Potts said:

Minor niggles in that I had to wonder why Odo had to walk through the station when Bashir had a wheelchair fabricated in a prior episode

I always thought it was Odo's choice.  He was always "the law" on the station, so he felt he needed to walk to the ship under his own power...more or less... as a symbol of that law.  If he'd been wheeled, hovered, or even transported aboard (although I think they ruled that out because of the nature of the disease), he would have been shown as weak, and his rule of law would have taken the hit.  Him walking to the port showed that he still had strength left, and so did the law he laid down.

[legaleagle53]

On 5/4/2017 at 7:52 AM, readster said:

something that bothered me when the Dominion scrabbled their sensors to avoid where their new planet was. Really, there isn't tech in the 24th century they couldn't have took a pic of the constellations  and used their Gamma Quadrant star charts to determine where they were?

The constellations that we know only exist in our own solar system, because they were invented here.  They'd be useless as a point of reference in the Gamma Quadrant or anywhere else in the galaxy.

[John Potts]

5 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

The constellations that we know only exist in our own solar system, because they were invented here.

That's true, but given a sufficiently powerful computer you could extrapolate the positions of the stars from any given point in the Galaxy. It would probably be beyond any presently (2017) existing computer to work out, but given the sophistication computers show in Trek, the position of the Founders' homeworld should be calculable (particularly as they know roughly how far they would have travelled in the Gamma Quadrant).

[readster]

6 hours ago, John Potts said:

That's true, but given a sufficiently powerful computer you could extrapolate the positions of the stars from any given point in the Galaxy. It would probably be beyond any presently (2017) existing computer to work out, but given the sophistication computers show in Trek, the position of the Founders' homeworld should be calculable (particularly as they know roughly how far they would have travelled in the Gamma Quadrant).

That's my point exactly. We know in the series finale when they had to go there, the Federation knew where they were at the end. Even mentioned briefly in Nemesis. 

[iMonrey]

What isn't clear is how they got home again (or found the Wormhole again) if they didn't know where they were. It's possible the Jem'Hadar that piloted them there took them back to their original location but we never saw that.

Overall, I felt Season 4 lacked urgency - which is endemic of the series as a whole, given its premise, IMO. A lot of time was spent on incorporating Worf into the story and bringing the Klingons into the conflict, which frankly I could have lived without. I don't mind Worf joining the show so much but I've never been terribly interested in the Klingons. 

[Maverick]

I'm sure the Jem'Hadar lead them back to where they started; it just wasn't interesting enough to spend time showing.  

 There may not have been a sense of urgency at this point  (that comes close to the end of season 5) but there is a sense of tension as there is both to cold war withe the Dominion and the very aggressive Klingons.  

 I had less of an issue with the Klingons being in the mix than with how Worf had a tenancy to eat the sow in season 4.  The episode with Kurn only marginally connected to the overall story because if Worfs acturns in Way of the Warrior but the you have episodes like Sword of Kahless which us pointless to the story and having to watch Worf whiNE about life in the station.  

[rmontro]

On 5/3/2017 at 9:47 PM, blueray said:

Anyhow, I've always loved this episode. Mainly because it features a lot of Odo and has Garak in it. I love how he thinks of an opportunity to attack and could mostly hold his own with a fight with Worf. 

Garak is such an interesting character, and I like the way Andrew Robinson plays him.  He has this little open mouthed surprised look that he does a lot, it's kind of funny.  Maybe it's a matter of acting with what he has available since he has a lot of makeup on.  Garak doesn't really come off as a tough guy but apparently he is.  Like Gul Dukat, he has layers to him.  Cardassians must be interesting people.

So that's the end of season 4.  I remember my impression at the time when they brought in Worf and brought in the Klingon conflict.  I thought that the writers might have regretted losing the Klingons as adversaries, since they were such favorites in TOS.  I did think from time to time they put a little too much attention on Worf, but that's okay.  On to season five!