On the surface, this episode appears to be a competent if not overly exciting examination of Odo's personal issues. Within that context, I could rate this a solid 7. The problem is, the writers were so determined, so laser-focused on the moral of the story that they had to turn every character in the episode into an idiot. We can leave aside (though we shouldn't, I'm just keeping it simple) the fact that all of the Odo issues here have already been thoroughly, and a bit exhaustingly, examined in the arc with the female Changeling on the station during the Dominion takeover. (Y'all remember when Odo's behavior led to tens of thousands of Federation deaths because they felt they had to launch a suicidal desperation attack to save the minefield, and the fact that literally no-one, least of all Kira, ever calls him on the fact that he essentially got tens of thousands of people killed, right?) But let's assume those episodes never happened and DS9 desperately needed to plumb Odo's psyche and his feelings about Changelings and their relationships with the "solids." So we have an episode that addresses the issues of bigotry and personal identity and relationships. In order for it to work, the writers needed to:
1) Make Odo an idiot. He literally doesn't seem to understand why a being that has expressed overt hostility toward every other lifeform on the station might not be welcomed with open arms. It doesn't occur to him that this same being, after expressing this hostility, after clearly declaring to Odo he wants nothing to do with the humanoids, might have ulterior motives when he went out among them. It doesn't occur to Odo that the being was acting in a deliberately provocative manner, not even when the being can't wait to use the fall-out of the situation to argue that Odo has misjudged them and should leave.
2) Make Sisko and other senior officers idiots. They barely touch on the fact that the Changelings are literally trying to destroy them, and have come close to doing so through infiltration. They then leave that issue behind as if it isn't an extremely good reason for having serious reservations about a Changeling that doesn't bother hiding its contempt and loathing for them. They don't bother dwelling too long on that, and prefer arguing jurisdictional issues over the fact that had a humanoid done the same thing to another humanoid then, yes, there would still be an inquest. Their reticence to make this argument clearly perhaps hinges on the fact that, somewhere deep inside, they realize Odo is currently a blithering idiot.
3) Make Quark the Voice of the Writers, where he clearly lays down exactly what the writers want the moral of the story to be. It's pompous and obvious, and at no point does anyone provide a more intelligent counterpoint, such as the fact that the other Changeling was deliberately trying to create an incident. No, it must be all about short-sighted primitive genetic heritage. The only reason people accept Odo (the very same Odo who has demonstrated his shape-shifting abilities countless times in front of these people without a single cry of "WITCH! HANG HIM FOR NOT BEING LIKE US!") is that he keeps a humanoid form. Makes perfect sense...to an idiot. Luckily for Laas, Odo is currently an idiot.
The central tension of this episode was heavy-handed and even more heavily-contrived. What seemed like a harmless standard DS9 episode became a fairly unpleasant insult to the viewers upon close examination. The only time any of the characters behaved in a believable fashion was when Ezri, Miles, Julian, and Kira reacted like they'd just been confronted by a jackass at Quark's, which, of course, they had. One accompanied by an idiot.
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