DS9 – Broken Link

Plot – The teaser is one of DS9’s best because it veers in mood so dramatically from one genre to another with absolute confidence and shows that DS9 is not a show that is afraid to pull the rug out from beneath its audience. Who is the last person in the world that you would ever expect to set Odo up on a date? That’s right – Garak! How the teaser twists from gentle romantic comedy to the horror of a medical emergency is shockingly done and it left me with dramatic whiplash. Rene Auberjonois really goes for it too and you’re convinced that this is the most painful trial that Odo could go through.

Ultimately the war with the Klingons proves to be something of a dramatic cul de sac. It’s something that is brought in to this show to spice things up and show how insidious the Dominion can be and once it has outlived its usefulness it is quietly tucked away so we can get on with the real threat that DS9 has been brewing. However, at the time of Way of the Warrior it was the most exciting thing ever, it gave the show a brand-new focus, a more stylish sense of action and brought in Worf that had the effect of stirring up the characters into even more conflict. As a re-tooling of the show it worked a treat. As a sustained arc, it kind of bombed (especially compared to the Dominion War arc which showed you exactly how this sort of thing should be done).

Picking up the threads from last season’s arc spectacular The Die is Cast, Garak is keen to head into the Gamma Quadrant with Sisko to see if there are any survivors from the fleet that Cardassia assembled. At least that is what he is saying. We know – thanks to developments later down the line – that his father was amongst those caught in the crossfire and I’m sure there is a personal interest in what he is doing, rather than simply a patriotic one.

We’re also picking up from developments in The Adversary where Odo murdered one of his own people, the first of his race to do so. This whole plot has been an elaborate method of getting him back to the Great Link to force him to stand trial for his crime.

Character – Odo has always been one of the more fascinating characters on DS9 simply because he was such a mystery in the pilot and there has been so much to learn about this brand-new species. And what we do learn doesn’t disappoint. He’s such a swot that the best present anybody could bring him when he is laid up in bed is some work. He’s always been extremely proud of his role as chief of security so that makes perfect sense. So does trying to prevent a crime when he is physically incapable of doing so. I adore the fact that he refuses to be molly coddled and decides to walk the length of the Promenade to the Defiant no matter how difficult it is. How everybody stands back in deference to him just goes to show how much he is respected on the station. Proving what an honourable man he is, Odo is willing to face the judgement of his people and doesn’t want his friends to interfere. As a man of the law he has to respect their system of justice and he will not duck out of punishment when he has broken the rules. The punishment he suffers is both extremely cruel and perfectly in tune with the changeling’s sense of superior distinctiveness – he has his identity stolen and is forced to live the rest of his life (well, half a season) as a solid. It definitely has possibilities and you can’t ask for more than that. Imagine living as a shell of a human and finally being able to embrace eating and drinking and sleeping and shagging. On the other hand, imagine having the ability to turn into and experience life from the point of view of anything and having that snatched away from you. In the back of his head he always thought he would return home one day but now that possibility has been taken from him. Oh Odo.

Watch how our crew go from talking to solemnly about the inevitability of War with the Klingons to counting how many pregnant sneezes that Kira explodes with. This is a smartly characterised bunch at this point and can slip from drama to comedy in a heartbeat.

Sisko needs a reason to bring Garak along and spells out clearly that he doesn’t need a tailor or a spy but he can keep Odo company for the journey and fill his head with enough obfuscations and bald-faced lies to keep him distracted through his pain. ‘If there’s one thing that Cardassians excel at, it’s conversation!’

People blame Dax for being the gossip of the station but listen to O’Brien on the Bridge. He can’t wait until they are underway and he can start having a natter. Sisko, like most men, likes to pretend he’s better than all this, but gets involved despite himself.

Performance – In a sneaky moment of behind the scenes chicanery, Sisko points out that Kira cannot come along on the mission because of her pregnancy and she throws Dr Bashir (Alexander Siddig, the father of Nana Visitor’s child) a look. Next season they would be even more overt.

Salome Jens is one of the unspoken performance heroines of Deep Space Nine. She appears in fourteen episodes and material she is given covers a wide range of challenges. Here she is playing the concerned mother to Odo, until she is confronted by Garak and then the sadistic warlord breaks free and she blast him down with a poisonous condemnation of his people. It might not happen the way she suggests, but it does happen. She cannot say she did not live up to her promise.

Production – Over time CGI has become so sophisticated that pretty much anything from the mid-90s looks dated in the extreme. Odo’s morph effect (for me) is the exception because he is an alien creature and so frankly it isn’t down to me to decide precisely what that should look like. Perhaps it just looks like a naff mid-90s CGI effect. I really liked the subtle use of the morph effect in Broken Link; Odo’s hand tragically reaching out from the puddle of goo for help when he completely destabilises and how his body can’t hold it together as he walks along the Promenade.

There is something wonderful surrealist and dreamlike about the Great Link. It looks kind of fake but in a really creative way. It’s certainly vivid enough to have stuck in my head over all these years. When I think of the Link that burnt orange sky and rock amongst the sea of changelings comes to mind.

Best moment – I love Bashir suggesting this could be a normal biological process for Odo, the changeling equivalent of puberty of the menopause. Odo’s reaction to that is a scream.

‘They’re dead. You’re dead. Cardassia is dead. Your people were doomed the moment they attacked us.’ This leads to the glorious scene where Garak attempts to bombard the Link with quantum torpedoes with absolutely no issue with the fact that Odo, Bashir and Sisko are down there. He comes to blows with Worf in an explosive way (there was no way he was going to win this fight) and it leads to their unexpectedly rich relationship in the coming seasons of DS9, particularly in the two parter at the heart of season five. This scene in isolation is probably the best of the episode, a true moment of desperation from a man whose people have been threatened with genocide. Honestly, had Garak been successful in what he was trying to do here it might have cost a lot less lives than the long, bloody Dominion War. Or maybe the reprisals would have been worse. It’s enticing to think about. ‘You fight well, for a tailor’ says Worf. Always with the consequences…Garak suffers a stint in prison for his actions here.

A reason to watch this episode again – Is this season finale material? Some scenes, certainly. But Broken Link is far more an intense character drama that offers some enticing possibilities in its final few scenes. Any episode that gives Odo the focus is buoyed by the extraordinary talents of Rene Auberjonois and Broken Link gives him some very powerful material to play. It’s quiet in the plot department and that does feel strange for a season finale but if the climax to a season is to lure you back with future developments then Odo living his life as a human, Garak heading to prison, the death sentence of the Cardassian race and the promise that Gowron is a changeling in disguise might just do it. And this is a quiet episode!

**** out of *****

Clue for tomorrow's episode: