“Broken Link” brings Deep Space Nine‘s fourth season to a close with an episode that is more about character than plot, more about consequence than action. In many ways, it’s a counterintuitive approach to a season finale — but works, for the most part. There are clear issues in terms of pacing and superfluous scenes. A lot of time is spent “in between” important events. But the end results are clearly worthy of a finale.

The episode begins with Odo suddenly becoming very ill. Inexplicably, his changeling form has started to deteriorate, and Bashir can do nothing for him. Indeed, there’s only one thing Odo can do: return to the Founders and join the Great Link. So Sisko and crew (minus a pregnant Kira) head off in the Defiant in search of the Founders. Before long they are intercepted by Jem’Hadar warships and are escorted (blindly) to the Founders’ new homeworld where Odo is judged for killing a Changeling in the season three finale, “The Adversary.”

Almost all of the episode occurs between the sudden onset of Odo’s illness and his judgment, meaning that just about every scene is one of minor character moments. The results are mixed. Many scenes are enjoyable, but not all of them work particularly well. For example, Garak is on board as a Cardassian representative. And while Garak is always entertaining, his scenes are almost entirely superfluous to the main plot of the episode. (He gets a solid scene with Worf after trying to sabotage the Defiant but it really has no bearing on the overall story.)

Perhaps the best moments come from Odo’s interactions with the Female Changeling he has met before, and who escorts the Defiant to the Founders’ homeworld. Through their conversations, Odo learns to accept judgment from his people for his actions. As he explains to Sisko: As a man of law himself, how can he (Odo) shy away from the laws of his own people?

And I think the decision to have the Founders sentence Odo to live as a solid — as a human — is an especially interesting one. There’s a risk of this change proving to be too melodramatic for Odo’s character down the road, but for this episode at least, it works quite well (a truly inspired moment has Odo, naked from his change, reaching toward the Female changeling in a pose similar to that of Adam reaching toward God on the Sistine Chapel).

More ominous for the series is Odo’s revelation that Gowron is a changeling. This would go a long way to explain why Gowron is so much more … ridiculously aggressive than he was in TNG. I can understand some variation in his character, but what DS9 has presented makes Gowron seem completely different. If he is indeed a changeling … well … that explains a great deal.

Oh, and the Klingons are on the verge of attacking Federation outposts — a claim they had given up centuries earlier.

So there you have it. Odo is now a solid. Gowron is a changeling (so says Odo). And the Quadrant is on the eve of war. Not a bad way to end a season. Unfortunate, though, that so much of the episode was filler.

“Broken Link” is almost a classic — well, it is a classic for the monumental events that occur. But so much of it meanders and falters that it doesn’t make for a solid episode in and of itself.

Filed under: Deep Space Nine