“While an alien entity wreaks havoc with the station’s computer, the irrepressible Lwaxana Troi sets her sights for romance — with Odo.”
I didn’t really remember this from the blurb. I thought, “How lame, they’ve already done this with Picard.” However, after talking with Phil, he mentioned one scene which I then remembered, and thought it might not be so bad. I’d guess that I thought it maybe a B- back in the day. I know Phil really hated it, but I don’t read his reviews before I write mine. Let’s see if it holds up in my opinion.
Stardate 46925.1, getting near the end of the season. So Sisko’s stuck Bashir with handling some delegation of ambassadors on a “fact-finding” mission about the wormhole. They’re conversing in typical bureaucratic fashion (bickering), when Lwaxana Troi starts loudly fretting about her Latinum broach gone missing. Odo steps in to help, noting with characteristic honesty that it’s not Quark’s style, and recovers her brooch. She takes interest in him. So far the episode is progressing satisfactorily.
O’Brien is arguing with the Cardassian computer again. This is one of the things I liked about the show, it added variety and also illustrated that they were essentially running a captured station.
The delegates arrive at ops when a probe of some kind comes through the wormhole.
Then Lwaxana finds Odo and starts hitting on him.
The computer uncharacteristically helps them transfer some data from the probe, I suspect it will have some virus to mess with the station.
Odo runs to Sisko to complain about Troi, in a humorous conversation. Odo’s a highly successful man who takes little interest in women. Sisko tells Odo he has to deal with it himself. I’m definitely liking this episode, it’s sitting at a solid B for me.
The probe is discovered to contain an overabundance of computing power.
Lwaxana corners Odo into an elevator which then gets stuck. They are unable to beam them out, as the transporters are down, too.
Kira warns Odo not to shapeshift out as there’s a danger due to the power supply, so he and Lwaxana are forced to pass the time in deep conversation. (She characteristically bores him to death with nervous chatter).
Bashir complains to Sisko about his babysitting assignment, and again a funny conversation ensues.
O’Brien reveals that the station computer now has the personality of a child. In a command staff meeting, he prescribes a plausible solution to the issue, of evicting this alien personality from the computer.
Concern is raised for Odo not being able to get to his pail in time before he is forced to return to his liquid state. Though, if it was really serious, I’d expect he’d have a contingency plan.
To no surprise, O’Brien’s plan isn’t as easy as he’d envisioned.
Back to the stuck elevator where we get to hear some background on Odo.
They use a clever trick to slow the computer down by using its resources while they attempt to transfer the data by hand, but something breaks and a plasma explosion endangers Bashir and the ambassadors.
O’Brien figures the issue out and attempts to lure the computer entity rather than chase it away.
There’s a touching scene between Odo and Troi as he’s forced into his liquid form.
Hero O’Brien succeeds in luring the computer entity, keeping it in a dog house of sorts, and Dr. Bashir succeeds in protecting the delegation.
Final Grade: B
I really enjoyed this one more than I expected, especially after hearing Phil didn’t like it, but my previous opinion of it matches up. I appreciated the computer stuff even more now than I did back then. O’Brien got to shine as the hero, and we learned a little about Odo. Here are a couple pictures of Odo to enjoy:
