Deep Space Nine 5x12 "The Begotten"

rating: ****

the story: Odo finds himself in possession of an infant Founder.

what it's all about: Every time a character gives birth in a TV show, it's big news, one of the biggest events of the whole series.  And yet, when Kira finally gives birth to O'Brien and Keiko's baby (it's sci-fi, not your traditional surrogate route), the event is completely overshadowed by the summary I just gave above, and this is a very, very good thing.

Tangentially it solves the needless problem of Odo having lost his shapeshifting ability at the end of the previous season as a punishment from his fellow Founders.  Without comment it also reflects a story thread about the Founders, that they sent off hundreds of infants into the galaxy long ago to explore space and find out what the "solids" were like again (Odo himself was one of these infants, and he meets another in the seventh season's "Chimera").

But it's really about Odo finally finding some peace in his life, a sense of closure that finally allows his relationship with Kira to move forward (she herself becomes open to the idea in part because of the aforesaid birth, which presents a void in her life Odo is able to fill, which the end of the episode subtly reflects).

This is achieved by his second reunion with Dr. Mora, the Bajoran scientist we first met in "The Alternate."  Mora was responsible for studying Odo when he, too, was merely a lump of indeterminate matter, which the infant Founder seems to be without having learned anything about its nature on its own.  In fact, Quark is once again the agent of discovery (he was with a Jem'Hadar infant, too, in "The Abandoned"), handing off to Odo what seems to all intents and purposes already a lost cause.  Odo refuses to give up, but he makes very little progress until Mora shows up offering his advice.

Yet Odo remains extremely bitter about his treatment under Mora's care, regardless of the results.  Despite the fact that he retains the general appearance of Mora to this day (notably, the hairstyle), Odo's resentment at being considered a science experiment, with all the implied indignities, has never abated, and their prior reunion certainly did nothing to change his mind.

This is a season of remarkable change, however, perhaps most symbolic in "Begotten" itself.  A war was about to be shown in Star Trek for the first time ever, and this necessitated bold storytelling in order to justify, with all the safety nets frequency imposed in the franchise removed.  For the first time, there would be acknowledgment that even something a character thought was an immutable wrong had in fact been a good thing.  This is the very antithesis of Gene Roddenberry's original vision, and yet it shines boldly on the core of that vision, which is the search for humanity at all costs, the shattering of all illusions.

Anyway, this one always struck me as one of the defining moments of the series, even before I had properly experienced Odo and Mora's previous encounter in "Alternate."  It's hard not to be choked up when the infant Founder mimics Odo's face, or when the poor little dude dies.  It's a true cathartic moment.  You'd never think a face thickly covered in prosthetics could be so expressive, and yet this is one of Rene Auberjonois's best such feats.  For that matter, although James Sloyan (Mora) appears a number of times in the franchise with a variety of faces, this is his best performance.

Shakaar makes one final appearance, but unlike Bareil before him Kira finds it relatively easy to say goodbye, and that's another indication that everything is about to change...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Come for the birth, stay for the miracle.
• series - One time everyone loves changelings in this thing!
• character - One of Odo's defining moments.
• essential - As I mentioned above, this is a true catharsis.

notable guest-stars:
James Sloyan (Mora)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Duncan Regehr (Shakaar)

Deep Space Nine 4x13 "Crossfire"

rating: ***

the story: Odo's secret love for Kira becomes less easy to hide when her latest lover, Shakaar, shows up at the station.

what it's all about: The subplot of the Odo/Kira relationship was a slow boil during the series until it finally exploded in the sixth season and became a crucial element of the final episode, "What You Leave Behind."  "Crossfire" is the episode where it starts to bubble to the surface in dramatic fashion.

"Heart of Stone," from the third season, was really when what had been subtext to that point became something more obvious when the Female Founder tricks Odo into revealing why he really prefers to stay among the "Solids" (what the Founders call humanoids who can't change shape) rather than reunite with his people.  "Crossfire" has nothing to do with the emerging Dominion threat but instead harkens back to a comparatively more innocent age of the series, when "mere" Bajoran matters still mattered for reasons other than Kai Winn's meddling.  Shakaar, who debuted last season in an eponymous episode, was created to replace the relatively lifeless Bareil, who had probably come to symbolize the apparently bloodless Bajorans for a lot of viewers in the early seasons.  But this is Shakaar's second and last notable appearance, and his appearance isn't really about him at all, but an excuse for Odo to finally realize just how much he really cares for Kira.

Comparable to the torture sequence in "The Die is Cast," "Crossfire" eventually finds Odo in the most disheveled state we've ever seen him (again, except for that torture sequence), his hair out of place and everything, and having destroyed the quarters he's recently begun inhabiting despite needing only a bucket to regenerate in (this progress was, of course, prompted by Kira)...

Basically, this is a really excellent episode for fans of the series.  Deep Space Nine increasingly centered its focus on its own fans rather than Star Trek fans in general, which was to eventually make it a "cult within a cult," and it's thanks to episodes like this one where that was possible.  The fourth season began as an experiment to see how far back into general Star Trek fun the series could be pushed after the strong serialization  efforts of the third season, but by this point the producers had realized what really worked, and "Crossfire" represents the shift back to the slow march to the way everyone remembers the series, the heavy serialization of the final seasons intermixed with "standalone" episodes that still were mostly relevant to series matters first and foremost.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - If you're a casual fan this episode probably won't apply to you.
• series - Long-term fans will eat it up.
• character - Most important as an Odo episode.
• essential - But of course it deeply informs his later relationship with Kira.

notable guest-stars:
Duncan Regehr (Shakaar)

Deep Space Nine 3x24 "Shakaar"

rating: ***

the story: Kira is reunited with a friend from the Resistance, who will become a significant part of Bajor's future thanks to a power play from Kai Winn (just not in the way she thinks).

what it's all about: Bajoran stories at their heart were always a mix of church and state, and so in that regard they may actually be the most fundamentally American stories of the whole franchise.  The trick was always to find a balance between these impulses, which had already created compelling figures and arcs earlier in the series, but had failed to find a truly likable figure, outside of Kira, with which to rally stories around.  Well, "Shakaar" finally finds that figure.

Dipping into Kira's past (and present), which some might consider a cheat since until this episode the title character somehow didn't exist at all, despite a lot of heavy drama surrounding Bajor in the early seasons (the Bajorans will always be the Kazon of Deep Space Nine; Voyager fans will know what I'm talking about).  Putting that aside, he comes at an opportune moment.  Kai Winn had just vanquished the other likeliest contender to her personal little Game of Thrones in "Life Support," where the perennially bloodless Vedek Bareil finally ran out of luck with the writers.  She used a lot of political reasoning then, too, just as she attempts to use here, but Kira won't let her get away with it this time, which is actually kind of ironic, since Winn actually enlists her into the cause, given Kira's past association with the man hogging all the valuable farm equipment Winn wants to use to bolster her public image, I mean support Bajor's future (of course!).

Duncan Regehr is instantly a more charming actor than just about everyone else (besides Michelle Forbes and Nana Visitor) who's ever played a Bajoran in Star Trek.  It's good, too, because he was last seen in the franchise playing a thankless role in one of the worst episodes ever, Next Generation's "Sub Rosa.  But a lot of the story falls, as usual, on Kira, who is once again asked to mediate a difficult situation (it turned out horribly in the first season, but apparently Winn never heard about that).  Eventually it becomes a full-blown Bajoran Western.

It's good stuff.  It works on every level that usually falls apart in Bajoran episodes, and even manages to give the poor world a break, a happy ending for a change, when Shakaar is elected to the role of first minister, which Winn had attempted to usurp and thereby control everything for her people.  It's the easiest Bajoran episode to recommend, so of course it comes from the third season.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This belongs more to the fantasy TV genre of perfect political figures than to Star Trek.
• series - It works wonders for the Bajorans.
• character - Once again Kira proves to know what's best for her people.
• essential - It's the episode any fan should watch who would otherwise groan at the prospect of a Bajoran adventure.

notable guest-stars:
Duncan Regehr (Shakaar)
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Sherman Howard
William Lucking

The Next Generation 7x14 "Sub Rosa"

rating: [no stars]

the story: Crusher unwittingly uncovers a creepy secret about her family.

what it's all about: This is legitimately one of the worst episodes of the whole franchise.  Frankly, it's kind of the worst, if you take into account that it comes along when there's absolutely no reason for something like this to have happened.  I mean, the other worst episodes of this particular series occur in the first season, when Next Generation was struggling desperately to find itself.  "Sub Rosa" technically fits the pattern of the seventh season, in which dark family secrets of the past are exposed.

The problem with this one is this, and it's simple enough to explain: it's creepy.  It's really, really creepy.

Oh, if I could leave it at that..."Sub Rosa" takes all the wrong lessons from all Crusher's previous spotlight episodes.  I've talked about the remoteness of Crusher's personality in other reviews, and how it forced her to take positions that only further isolated her.  But "Sub Rosa" takes it to a thoroughly unlikeable extreme.

And it's so unfortunate, too, because we'd just had "Attached," where the carrot of the Crusher/Picard relationship was dangled so enticingly.  Instead, not just Crusher, but everyone woman in her family line, becomes the dupe in the dumbest romance ever, one of those parasitic beings who pop up in the franchise every now and then ("The Man Trap" from the original series, "Exile" from Enterprise) in desperate need for some lovin' and doing their best to screw it up as royally as possible (I mean, even Harry Kim wasn't this bad in Voyager! not even Geordi!).

It's supposed to seem like a classic romance of the 19th century, but yeah...just really, really creepy.  And Crusher is the last character capable of selling something this insipid and having it come off as anything but.  I have no idea why "Sub Rosa" isn't touted as the worst episode ever.  Because it basically is.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - makes Star Trek in general look bad.
• series - makes the series itself look bad.
• character - makes Crusher look bad.
• essential - it makes everything look bad!

notable guest-stars:
Duncan Regehr