5-12. The Begotten.

Odo bonds with an infant Changeling.

THE PLOT

The time has come for Kira to give birth to the O'Brien's baby. She has opted for a traditional Bajoran birth, with Miles and Keiko at her bedside. The birth is complicated by the delayed arrival of the final guest: Shakaar (Duncan Regehr), whose duties as First Minister to Bajor have interefered with his ability to be there for Kira. Once Shakaar finally arrives, the delivery is further complicated by the increasing competition between Shakaar and O'Brien, each of whom is territorial about his place at Kira's side.

Meanwhile, Odo receives an unexpected delivery: An ornate container Quark obtained from a Yridian dealer. Its contents? An infant Changeling. Odo obtains permission to work with the child, to try to teach it how to shapeshift and establish communication with it. But when Odo's progress is too slow, Dr. Mora (James Sloyan), the Bajoran scientist who unlocked his own shapeshifting skills, arrives to push him to deliver results - bringing with him all of Odo's old resentments about being used as a test subject.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Sisko: Initially willing to leave the Changeling child in Odo's care.  Still, when Stafleet becomes impatient over the lack of progress, he's the one who delivers the message that Starfleet will take over if Odo gets no results. I'd tend to suspect that Sisko is the one who alerted Dr. Mora to the situation with the new changeling, as well.

Major Kira: The episode's "B" plot is mostly played for comedy, with the competition between Miles and Shakaar allowing for some amusing broad moments. But the subplot also parallels the main plot, as is made evident when Kira meets up with Odo at the episode's closing. She talks about how she never wanted a child, echoing Odo's own words to Quark earlier in the show, but how much carrying the O'Brien's child meant to her and how she wishes now that she could just hold the baby one more time. As ever, when these two characters are on screen, it's a wonderful moment - a perfect note on which to send this show off to credits.

Odo: Instantly entranced by the infant Changeling. He is parental as he talks to it, assuring it (like many parents before) that he will "not make the same mistakes" that were made by Dr. Mora in raising him. But it isn't long before, as it has for many parents before, reality shatters Odo's ideals about being the perfect parent out of necessity for simply raising the child. Odo's bond with the young Changeling brings out a new facet in Rene Auberjonois' performance, and Odo's emotional journey throughout the episode rings true at every point.

Dr. Mora: James Sloyan returns as Odo's discoverer/surrogate father for the first time since Season Two's The Alternate. Sloyan remains excellent, and Rene Echevarria's script balances Mora's roles as scientist and parent. As a scientist who successfully prompted a Changeling to grow, he is impatient with Odo's overly gentle tactics. As a parent, he is proud when Odo's efforts finally bear fruit. Despite his protestations to Odo, he does feel some guilt at his harsh tactics, and when Odo finally acknowledges that Mora's efforts made his life possible, the scientist's relief at hearing this is evident.

Shakaar: Returns to watch Kira give birth to the O'Briens' child. I question the priorities of using the character here and not in the previous episode. Here, it would have been easy to have redrafted the Shakaar subplot so that he was too busy to come, while the last episode seemed to cry out for his participation. In any case, while there's some mild amusement in his rivalry with the protective O'Brien, there really isn't much interest, and I find myself mainly waiting for the producers to realize how substantially the Kira/Shakaar romance has failed so that it can be cut off.


THOUGHTS

The Begotten is another excellent episode in a season that's already met its quota for excellent episodes. Odo's story is pushed further along. We see him experiencing what it is to be a Changeling again by working with this young Changeling. The end result might have felt like a cheat... but it doesn't, in part because it's been foreshadowed in earlier episodes, but mainly because that result comes with a real emotional cost.

Speaking of emotion, I'm going to veer into discussing another, lesser Trek series for a moment. A few weeks ago, I reviewed the Voyager episode Real Life. That episode has some superficial similarities with this one, as it showed the holographic doctor experiencing what it was like to have a family. The endings to the two episodes are particularly similar.

Real Life had Voyager's strongest regular responding emotionally to a quite decent child actress. The Begotten has one of DS9's strongest regulars responding emotionally to a lump of gelatin. And yet I found the emotion in this far more genuine and compelling than the emotion in the Voyager episode. Because of the well-scripted reactions of Odo and Mora to that lump of gelatin, I shared and believed in their responses in a way that I just didn't to the saccharine manipulations of Real Life

Rene Echevarria's script focuses on Odo's reactions in a way that is authentic to his character. The scene in which he is truly happy and shares that happiness with - of all people - Quark is a gem. Of course Odo would bring his joy to his nemesis, his unspoken friend, and of course Quark would react with suspicion to this strange behavior. When it becomes clear why Odo is happy, Quark drops his pretense and is genuinely happy for him. For a second, they are genuinely friends - Until a security alert tears the rug out from underneath Odo.

The Begotten ends with a major event for Odo, but to the episode's credit that event is actually less memorable than Odo fretting over the Changeling child. It's achievement is that its standalone story resonates. Excellent writing and acting fuse to make for another excellent episode.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

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2-12. The Alternate

Odo and his foster father (James Sloyan).

THE PLOT

Dr. Mora (James Sloyan), the Bajoran scientist who worked with Odo in the laboratory before the shapeshifter struck out on his own, comes to the station. Dr. Mora has discovered traces of DNA similar to Odo's in the Gamma Quadrant, and would like Odo's help in investigating this discovery.

Mora and Odo discover an artifact on the planet. When Mora has it beamed up to the runabout, it triggers volcanic tremors, which release a gas that incapacitates everyone except Odo. The security chief gets them all back to the ship and then to the station, where Dr. Bashir is able to tend to them. But one of the organic samples brought back reproduces rapidly before escaping into the station's air vents. Soon, Dr. Bashir is attacked in sickbay, leaving Odo spearheading a full-fledged monster hunt: a hunt for a creature that may not be too dissimilar to himself!


CHARACTERS

Commander Sisko: When Odo asks for the use of a runabout, Sisko grants the request even before Odo fully explains his reasons for needing one, which shows that he has developed a tremendous trust in his security chief. Even so, he is very much a pragmatist, moreso I would say than any of the other Trek series' leads. When it becomes clear that it is necessary to endanger Odo in order to ensure the safety of the station, he doesn't hesitate to give the order, even telling his men to set their weapons to "Kill" if "Stun" fails to work.

Odo: It remains true that the most certain way to catch Odo's attention is to dangle some clue about his origins in front of him. It worked for Croden back in Season One, and it works for Dr. Mora here. Rene Auberjonois gives another excellent performance, particularly when we see hints of emotion from him beneath his stoic surface, such as when he visits Mora in sickbay.

Dr. Bashir: Is conscious of Dax's enjoyment of their eternally unconsummated little dance, and it frustrates him. "One day, I'm going to stop chasing after her," he muses after one particularly flirtatious encounter, "and then we'll see." Shows quick thinking in using a laser scalpel to fend off an attack by the creature.

Dax: Is strangely "off" in this episode. There's something a bit distant and artificial about her responses to characters. I actually suspected at a few points in the episode that Dax had been replaced by the shapeshifter, simply because she seemed so cold in her interactions with Odo and particularly Mora. On the other hand, she is nicely perky when teasing Julian, so it could be that Terry Farrell was having on off day when some of her scenes were recorded. Either that, or it was a deliberate attempt at a red herring that just didn't quite come off.

Dr. Mora: James Sloyan is very good as Mora, the scientist who essentially became Odo's foster father. Various turns in the episode see him behaving in both roles. He expresses pride at the excellence with which Odo does his job, and shows genuine feeling as he tells Odo that he wants to be a part of his life. But he also tries to bully Odo into returning to the lab, showing frustration at Odo's departure thwarting his ongoing studies.


THOUGHTS

Any Odo-centric episode gets an immediate boost from Auberjonois' consistently excellent performance. Odo is an interesting character, with a lot of layers hidden beneath his stoic exterior, and Auberjonois reliably gives just enough of a reaction to events to hint at what's going on underneath that exterior.

This episode gives us a look at Odo's immediate past, while hinting a bit more about his ultimate origins. It has already been made clear that Odo was left with emotional scars from being put on display in the lab on Bajor. Now we see his complex reactions to the man most responsible for his development within the lab. He does react to Mora very much as a foster parent, even in his resentment toward him. At the same time, he makes it clear that he will never go back to that laboratory.

The scenes between Odo and Mora are quite effective, and Rene Auberjonois is typically reliable in carrying the scenes in which Odo investigates the creature's escape. The actual "monster hunt" scenes, particularly near the end, are far less effective. There's a third act twist that genuinely surprised me, but it doesn't come off as well as I'd have liked. The implications of that twist are brushed aside, with an ending that provides a seemingly complete reset.

More intriguing is the artifact retrieved from the planet. I have hopes that this column, and the potential clues it represents toward Odo's people, will be followed up in future episodes. That open question, plus some effective character scenes, helps to elevate the episode above its weakest elements. Not one of Deep Space 9's best, but still a solid piece.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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