‘BROKEN LINK’ (DS9)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
And now we come to the season finale of Season 4 of ‘DS9’. Season 4 overall has been pretty good and it’s so fitting that we end the season with an episode about Odo and how his character changes.
In the episode, Odo experiences difficulties in maintaining his form, causing him to have spasms and eventually collapsing in Garak’s shop. Odo is soon taken to the infirmary where Bashir examines him.
Bashir can’t find an explanation for why Odo is like this, but he advises him to take a rest from his duties. Odo is reluctant to do so and he soon leaves the infirmary to investigate a crime aboard DS9.
This causes him to collapse into a puddle on the floor of a cargo bay. By then, the situation has grown worse and the only people that can help save Odo now are his own people – the Changelings.
It’s a dangerous step as the Changelings are of course the Founders of the hostile Dominion. Sisko agrees to take Odo to the Gamma Quadrant aboard the Defiant and soon the crew are on their way.
Andrew Robinson as Garak also comes for the ride since he wants to find out what happened to the Cardassians that fought during the battle in ‘The Die Is Cast’. He wants to know if there are survivors.
Once they’re in the Gamma Quadrant, the Defiant is met by a number of Jem’Hadar ships. Soon, a number of Jem’Hadar transport on board and the crew meet Salome Jens as the Female Shapeshifter.
It’s occurred to me that Salome Jens’ character is the only who speaks on behalf of the Founders. Nobody else! Why aren’t there more Changeling characters for Odo and the rest to interact with? 😐
Anyway, the Female Shapeshifter meets up with Odo and tells him that the only way he can be cured is to physically join with the Founders within the Great Link. There, Odo will ‘be judged’ for his crime.
Yeah, this is a follow-up to ‘The Adversary’, the Season 3 finale to ‘DS9’ where Odo killed a Changeling to save his friends. According to the Founders, ‘no Changeling has ever harmed another’.
Odo chooses to go through with his judgement since he won’t be free of the pain he’s experiencing. Odo deduces that the Founders infected him in order to coerce him into returning to the Great Link.
Garak gets to meet up with the Female Changeling and asks whether there are any Cardassian survivors from the failed Cardassian-Romulan attack on the Founders’ homeworld. She tells him ‘no’.
It’s interesting how the Female Changeling’s interaction with Garak is different to how she interacts with Odo. She is clearly blunt to Garak since she despises ‘solids’ and says that Cardassia is doomed.
Later, Garak tries to fire the Defiant’s weapons on the Founders’ planet, hoping to destroy the Dominion forever and commit genocide. Worf catches Garak in the attempts and stops him doing it.
Sisko and Bashir accompany Odo and the Female Shapeshifter to the Founders’ planet where the Great Link is. The Great Link could easily be called ‘the great lake’ since it’s a sea of shapeshifters. 😀
Soon, Odo and the Female Shapeshifter walk into the sea and join in with the Great Link, whilst Sisko and Bashir wait. Eventually, Odo gets expelled from the Great Link and he becomes…a human being.
Yeah! This is how Odo gets punished by the Founders. He becomes a solid and is no longer a shapeshifter. It’s considered to be a cruel punishment by the Founder as Odo cannot rejoin the Link.
It’s sad how this has turned out for Odo since he’s been rejected by the Founders for protecting his friends. But hopefully, it will provide an intriguing new direction in terms of developing his character.
Back on DS9, a message from Robert O’Reilly as Gowron, the leader of the Klingon Empire, gets transmitted and is shown on every monitor aboard the DS9. But Odo realises something so shocking.
When Odo was joined with the Great Link, he realised the Founders were trying to hide something from him. It appears that Gowron, the leader of the Klingon Empire, happens to be…a Changeling! 😮
‘Broken Link’ is a satisfactory conclusion to Season 4 of ‘DS9’. It’s not the most action-packed, but it sets up some exciting new developments that I’m sure are going to be explored in Season 5 of ‘DS9’.
On Disc 7 of the ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4’ DVD, there are the documentaries ‘Charting New Territory’; ‘Crew Dossier: Worf’; ‘Michael Westmore’s Aliens: Season 4’; ‘Deep Space Nine Sketchbook: John Eaves’; ‘Robert Blackman’s Designs of the Future’ and the ‘Jim Martin Sketchbook’. There’s also the ‘Deep Space Nine Chronicles’; a photo gallery and some Section 31 hidden files.
‘Broken Link’ (DS9) rating – 8/10
‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4’ DVD rating – 9/10
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