Does Odo Become a Changling Again?
"The Begotten"
Written by René Echevarria
Directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño
Flavor 5, Episode 12
Production episode 40510-510
Original air date: Jan 27, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Odo limps into the infirmary with a pinched nerve. Quark and so brings Odo an babe changeling that's ill, which he obtained from a Yridian trader, and which he sells to Odo for eight strips of latinum. (Odo's barely aware of the financial part of the transaction, so enraptured is he by the changeling. Quark pretty much places Odo's thumb on the padd to complete the deal.)
According to Bashir, the infant has taken on a lot of tetryon radiation. While Bashir starts treatment, Odo explains to Sisko that this is the size he was when he was plant in the Denorios Belt. Sisko puts Odo in accuse of the changeling, to Odo'due south glee, but also suggests asking Dr. Mora for aid, to Odo's lack of glee. Sisko, however, says it's Odo's call.
Bashir gets the radiation out, and and then goes off to take intendance of Kira, who's going into labor, leaving Odo to keep an centre on the babe. Odo talks to it, which Mora never did. Odo is determined to care for the infant better than he himself was treated.
O'Brien, Keiko, and a Bajoran midwife named Y'Pora are with Kira. They create a rhythm with two rattling percussion instruments (the one Keiko holds also has incense), and a gong. The rhythm is supposed to relax her, but she'south having trouble relaxing because Shakaar is running late—all the same, he does finally bear witness up. Unfortunately, by then it's too late, and Kira's body has stopped producing endorphins considering they're building up to toxic levels. It could exist days or even weeks before she goes into labor again. Kira insists on having the baby in the traditional Bajoran manner, which the O'Briens support. (Mostly because it would exist incredibly churlish to object given what Kira has gone through for them.) Shakaar says he can rearrange his schedule as needs be.
Odo brings the infant around the station, showing it the replimat and other parts of the station. While he's in the midst of telling the infant that he won't treat it like he was treated, the guy who treated Odo badly shows upwards—Mora heard near the changeling, and came to the station right away. Odo doesn't want his former tormentor's assistance, only he is willing, afterwards a lengthy argument, to let Mora detect. Even so, after a week, Odo has made no progress communicating with the changeling, nor in getting it to change shape. It's simply grown 17% in that time—after a calendar week with Mora, Odo had grown a lot more than. They again degenerate into an argument, Odo accusing Mora of all kinds of horrible things, Mora accusing Odo of being ungrateful and not understanding of the pressure he was under. Their yelling is interrupted by a bemused Sisko, who'due south been talking to Starfleet Command. They desire daily progress reports, and if Odo and Mora don't communicate with the infant soon, Starfleet will take over the project.
A dejected Odo finally allows Mora to take a more active role. They give the changeling an electrical shock—which, certain enough, works. Odo breaks into a huge smile, and Mora points out that he smiled when Odo did that, too. The changeling is making tremendous progress, irresolute shapes on its ain, to the signal where Mora suggests they show it simple lifeforms to mimic. Mora also admits that Odo's friendlier approach seems to be working better than his more analytical one. Odo admits that he did respect Mora. And then he orders upward two spectacles of champagne to celebrate.
Shakaar walks in on O'Brien massaging Kira's legs and he invites her to a operation on the Promenade. O'Brien and Shakaar kickoff pissing on each others' legs so much that they don't observe Kira saying that information technology'south time to have the baby. Notwithstanding, Shakaar and O'Brien go on to piss on each others' legs to the betoken where Kira throws them out of the room. Still, the birth goes smoothly, and Kira even lets the boys back in as long as they stay tranquility. And so Kirayoshi O'Brien is born and everyone is happy.
Odo shows upwardly in Quark'due south after hours to buy Quark a beverage in gratitude for bringing the infant into his life. Quark is freaked out by Odo being happy and voluble, and Odo waxes rhapsodic on how much he'due south enjoying his sorta-kinda fatherhood.
Just then the estimator alerts him to a problem. The infant's morphogenic matrix has apparently been damaged by the radiation more than they realized and it'southward dying. Bashir and Mora are unable to relieve the infant. Odo pours the child into his easily and asks it not to die. But then the changeling absorbs itself into Odo's body—and then suddenly he finds that he can modify shape over again. The infant'due south terminal act was to make Odo a changeling again. Odo is happy almost it, but he wishes it had happened another way. He also apologizes to Mora for not including him in his life. They share a hug and Mora returns to Bajor on the aforementioned shuttle Shakaar is on. Kira and Odo talk about how they experienced parenthood and and then lost it and then go for a walk.
The Sisko is of Bajor: When Sisko suggests Odo invite Mora to aid out, he reminds Odo that sometimes it'due south nice to have someone to help change the diapers, a metaphor that proves sorta-kinda prophetic.
Don't ask my stance next time: Kira finds that she withal has an attachment to the infant that she originally only agreed to carry as a favor to the O'Briens. She never wanted a baby, but she finds that she wants to concur Kirayoshi and never let go.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo is bound and adamant to do a better job with this changeling than Mora did with him, but while he does succeed in doing so with Mora's help, he likewise comes to realize how much skillful Mora did in addition to the bad—and how much of the bad was due to force per unit area from the Cardassians.
His last words to the baby are a desire to one day teach it to become a militarist, and after he gets his mojo back, he immediately turns into a militarist. (In a nice affect, his uniform flops to the floor when he changes shape, since that'southward an bodily existent uniform now, and has been since "Apocalypse Ascension.")
Rules of Conquering: Quark is the one who brings Odo the infant, and he's and then totally freaked out when he sees Odo acting happy, to the point where he actually quotes William Butler Yeats (maxim "the heart cannot hold," from "The 2d Coming").
At that place is no accolade in being pummeled: Worf is only in one scene, and he has goose egg to do with the delivery of the baby, which is, like, the biggest missed opportunity in the history of the universe, particularly after they went to the trouble of reminding us in "Accretion" of Worf'due south traumatic delivering of Molly in "Disaster" on TNG. Instead, they do nothing with it at all, not even acknowledging it. To which I say, fooey!
Victory is life: This is the second of the 1 hundred changelings sent out as infants by the Founders that we've seen, Odo being the beginning (we'll meet a third in "Chimera"). Sisko asks Odo why the Founders would do such a matter to innocent children, and Odo says that it'south a great mode to get together information, especially in seeing how solids treat the helpless.
What happens on the holosuite stays on the holosuite: When Bashir suggests a stretching regimen—or Worf's mok'bara class—to help Odo with his back, Quark counters with a holosuite program he has that includes three Orion slave women (as seen way dorsum in "The Menagerie, Function 2").
Continue your ears open: "Do me a favor. Side by side time you take a babe, leave my girlfriend out of it."
Shakaar being snarky at O'Brien.
Welcome aboard: James Sloyan reprises his role as Mora, following "The Alternate," while Peggy Roeder makes no impression whatsoever as Y'Pora. Rosalind Chao is back as Keiko, while Duncan Regehr makes his final onscreen advent as Shakaar. And an uncredited infant doll debuts the new recurring office of Kirayoshi O'Brien.
Trivial matters: Mora has been on Globe, consulting with Starfleet on how to observe changeling infiltrators. Presumably, this started some time after "Paradise Lost," since if Mora had been on Earth prior to that, Odo would accept mentioned it (or information technology would have been mentioned to him).
O'Brien missed Molly's birth, as it happened in Ten-Forward on the Enterprise-D while he was stuck on the bridge in "Disaster," so he's particularly pissed that he (initially) got kicked out of the room for Kirayoshi'due south nascence as well.
While neither Mora nor Shakaar will be seen again onscreen, they will continue to be referenced, the onetime in "In the Cards" and "When It Rains…" and the latter in "Children of Time," "Call to Artillery," "Resurrection," "His Way," "The Reckoning," and "The Audio of Her Voice." Shakaar besides continues in several post-finale DS9 novels.
Again, the Bashir who treated Odo, supervised the final stages of Kira's pregnancy, and treated the changeling baby is apparently a changeling in disguise, based on what'south learned in "In Purgatory'south Shadow," that Bashir was replaced before the uniform change fabricated just prior to "Rapture."
Quark quotes "The 2nd Coming" when he's freaking out over happy-fun Odo. Your humble rewatcher used that poem for the titles of the original serial eBook miniseries Mere Anarchy.
Walk with the Prophets: "Lawman, why are you talking to your beverage?" You know, it's funny, only I didn't realize until I rewatched this episode for this particular occasion that this script has pretty much the exact same story beats as René Echevarria's commencement Expedition script, "The Offspring." Outsider character (Information, Odo) manages to accept a kid (Lal, the babe), goes through the pains of trying to teach the kid how to survive in a globe where it is unique, gets unwanted assistance from a cranky potency figure (Haftel, Mora) as well as pressure level from Starfleet Command to make progress or else, and and so the whole thing ends in tragedy as the child dies from unforeseen circumstances, but the child is absorbed into the "begetter" in the terminate (Information by storing her memories in his positronic encephalon, Odo by just having the kid suck into his hands and brand him all changeling-y once more).
This isn't a bad thing, mind you, just amused that Echevarria dipped in the well once again. Besides, information technology mostly works here, in office because of the continued excellence of Rene Auberjonois, who actually sells Odo's enthusiasm for the task, his bitterness toward Mora, his growing dearest for this infant, his joy at the infant's progress, and his destruction at losing information technology at the end.
Unfortunately, the rest of the episode doesn't quite live up to Auberjonois's operation. For starters, sledgehammering a hearts-and-flowers resolution to the Odo-Mora disharmonize is unconvincing later the events of "The Alternate." Basically, when we first met him, Mora was a prick, and a manipulative one at that. This episode would've been much stronger if it let Mora however be a prick, but take Odo come up to the realization that there were factors in Mora'southward piece of work that he never considered—indeed, must accept wilfully ignored, since Odo knows too as anyone what crappy taskmasters the Cardassians are and how unpleasant their version of pressure from above would exist.
But still, the shiny happy resolution to this conflict only works because the Mora of this episode is, basically, a nice person, unlike who he was last time we saw him. When Odo is enumerating the bad things Mora does, he conveniently leaves out trying to manipulate him into going back to the lab with him in "The Alternate," which was an appalling thing to do.
As for the B-plot, it'southward pretty much simply paperwork. Nana Visitor actually went into labor several episodes previous (after the filming of "Trials and Tribble-ations"), so Company's been wandering around with a basketball under her uniform for the past few episodes, and she doesn't have to do that anymore. But the story they build around it is the hoariest nonsense always, with a manufactured conflict between Shakaar and O'Brien that's there to create artificial suspense that always comes across as only that. Information technology'south nonsense, and while it's played for laughs, to make O'Brien leave the room before the birth is unimaginably cruel, given that, as he points out, he missed Molly'south birth thanks to the Enterprise hitting a quantum filament. I wasn't a hundred percentage serious above when I said they missed an opportunity past having Worf deliver yet some other O'Brien baby, but that would've been preferable to the paint-by-numbers nonsense we got hither.
Having said all that, the parts that involve Odo being a male parent to a changeling are magnificent, seeing his determination to be a improve father than Mora was to him, and him learning the hard truth nearly how difficult it is, particularly with a Starfleet-imposed timetable, and his wonderful outpouring of happiness to Quark (abetted past Armin Shimerman doing a wonderful chore of showing Quark both freaked out still morbidly curious about this side of his nemesis).
Warp factor rating: half-dozen
Keith R.A. DeCandido has a new book coming out this fall: a Sleepy Hollow novel based on the FOX Boob tube series, entitled Children of the Revolution, to exist published by Broadway Books. For more on this and other SH books, cheque out the Sleepy Reads web site. Also check out his latest Star Trek book The Klingon Art of State of war (ordering links on his web site), which he talks about on several podcasts: The Chronic Rift, The Chiliad & T Testify, "Literary Treks" on TrekFM, TrekRadio, The Sci-Fi Diner, Two Geeks Talking, and Keith'south ain Dead Kitchen Radio.
citation
Source: https://www.tor.com/2014/06/11/star-trek-deep-space-nine-rewatch-the-begotten/comment-page-1/#:~:text=Odo%20pours%20the%20child%20into,make%20Odo%20a%20changeling%20again.
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