“Vortex” is a few notches closer to the kind of episode that I want from DS9 as compared to the previous few, and there’s some engaging material with real potential floating around in it. Unfortunately, it also suffers from a wandering plot and general narrative incoherence. Is it a story about how Odo is alone in the universe, doesn’t quite fit in, and years for a sense of belonging? Or is it more about Odo’s suspicious and cynical nature, and whether or not he can rise above it and show empathy for a stranger? Is its main interest supposed to lie in the hints that it offers about Odo’s origins and the possible existence of others like him? Or is the story not really about Odo at all, but more about the fate of the (rather underdeveloped) guest character of the week? Or, is it actually about Quark’s shenanigans, and the Odo/Quark relationship? The answer is that it’s a little of each of these things, but ultimately not really quite any of them.
Certainly, what I remembered of it from previous viewings was mainly that a character from the gamma quadrant provided Odo with some clues about other changelings—which makes sense, both because this is the most interesting character hook in the episode and because, looking back, it looms large as the first instance of the show starting to point toward what will turn out to be the Dominion. But…okay, looking at the story from this point of view, what do we actually have here? A stranger on the station who ends up in a holding cell for murder tries to gain the sympathies of Odo, his jailer, by bonding with him over their mutual outsider statuses and dangling the prospect of information about other “changelings” (the first time we’ve heard that word, and seemingly the first time for Odo, too) in the gamma quadrant. But he does so in a pretty transparently shady and non-trustworthy way, and Odo, while intrigued, doesn’t actually fall for his “free me and I’ll take you to the changeling colony” ploy. Then, circumstances beyond either of their control promptly conspire to put the two of them alone in a runabout in the gamma quadrant anyway, and all but force them to go to the exact place that he had been trying to manipulate Odo into going with him (!). One there, it quickly becomes even more obvious than it already was that the dude wanted to go there for reasons of his own, rather than merely as a favor to Odo—but before they actually get to his objective, and at a point when Odo could still thwart him, he ‘fesses up in response to Odo’s angry questioning (“Was any of it true?”, etc.); he’s heard old stories about changelings all his life, but has no actual knowledge of them, and has merely been using Odo to get to the Only Thing He Cares About. In response, Odo…shrugs, and lets his prisoner go do the thing (whatever it might be) that he has been lying his ass off all episode long in order to get himself here to do (!). And then, it turns out that that thing is actually something totally innocent and sympathetic (collect his daughter from a stasis chamber), and that he and his daughter are essentially political refugees! So: We have a guest character who has been acting shady throughout the episode for no solid reason and actually turns out to be a decent guy, and we have the setup for a “temptation” storyline for Odo, but one that does an end run around the fact that he’s not dumb or weak-willed enough to “bite” and maneuvers him into position anyway, and we have the prospect of back story regarding Odo and his race that evaporates into mere rumors and legends. Why doesn’t Croden (who so “craftily” plays on what he perceives as Odo’s weaknesses to get what he wants) make it clear to Sisko and Odo up front that he is a refugee fleeing political oppression, or that he has a helpless daughter in need of collecting? (Why not go out of your way to seem trustworthy and legit, rather than doing the opposite of that?) And why couldn’t the writers have come up with a genuinely hard choice for Odo to have to make between his duty and his curiosity about where he came from…and then let him actually make it, and allow its natural consequences to play out (i.e., either he violates his values/duty, or he doesn’t find out what there is to find out)? And also, why couldn’t we have gotten at least something a little more “real” in the way of information about the existence of other changelings? That rumors and lore exist on the other side of the wormhole isn’t absolutely nothing, but it ain’t much; we wouldn’t have wanted all the beans spilled this soon, but couldn’t we have started the episode at “rumors and legends,” and ended by learning some nugget of definite information (however small)?
On the other hand, maybe the changeling stuff is just supposed to serve as light foreshadowing, and this episode is really supposed to be about Odo overcoming his rigidity and cynicism enough to let a (relatively) innocent man escape his fate? But if so, I find the story pretty under-baked. We’re given so little about what’s really up on his home planet and why he’s a wanted man there, for one thing; for another, he’s still the guy who was part of some underhanded business with Quark at the start of the episode, and ended up murdering someone else (a criminal himself, sure, but still!) on the station. But these are just the reasons why Croden‘s story doesn’t really gel; what of Odo, who after all is the character we care about? Well, apart from Croden poking at Odo a few times about his suspicious nature and whatnot, there isn’t anything resembling a character arc wherein Odo begins by being overly distrustful, but has experiences that prompt him to change his attitude. His initial distrust, in fact, seems entirely warranted, and even more so once he finds out that Croden has been lying to him the whole time. And then, sure, he finds out that the guy has a sympathetic goal, but that’s not a character arc; it’s just learning a crucial piece of information about the situation. (Croden does also save Odo’s life, but that alone doesn’t really do it for me, either; plus, it feels like a bit of a cheat. That he doesn’t abandon Odo is fine, but would he really not take advantage of Odo’s unconsciousness to try to take charge of the situation and avoid being handed over to his people?1) Also, while I buy that Odo would be hesitant to turn Croden over to his people once he has a fuller picture of what’s going on, I don’t know that I really buy him abandoning his duty, breaking all the rules, and planning to lie to Sisko about it when he gets back to DS9. Is this who Odo is? (And also, why is it that fugitives keep turning up on the station, and the featured main character of the week keeps feeling like he has to go rogue and help the fugitive to escape?)
It’s not really anything more than a minor sub-thread (I exaggerated, in my first paragraph, when I offered this as a candidate for what the episode is maybe supposed to be about), but I do actually like Quark’s role in the story this time around. It’s somewhat clever (both of Quark and of the episode) to let Odo/the audience assume that he’s straightforwardly dealing in stolen goods with the Miradorn raiders, when actually he’s being sneakier than that (although, apparently, Odo still does figure out what he’s up to). Then, later, there’s the bit where, having sent the Miradorn guy after Odo and Croden (mostly to save his own skin), he is clearly worried about the possible consequences for Odo. To me, this is the right way to portray Quark; he’s self-interested and fairly amoral, and he does the highly sketchy thing, but he also does have a heart and experience qualms, which keeps him from being hateable. Rom, meanwhile, comes across as completely heartless in that scene, but one gets the impression that this is mostly a matter of him being too fucking dumb to take in the reality of what they’re talking about. In general, in fact, Rom could scarcely be much dumber in this episode, and it’s a bit much. But…whatever.
Once again, I seem to be coming down fairly hard on an episode that I don’t actually dislike, per se, and one that seems to be fairly well-liked by others, too. I like Odo, and I like that the episode digs into his character a bit, acknowledging the vulnerability underlying his gruff aloofness and reinforcing the idea that he really does want to know more about his own past and about the possibility of there being others like him out there somewhere. I just don’t think that the story being told here knows what it wants to be about, really, nor do I think that Odo has enough agency in it. He ends up on the ride that Croden wants to take him on without having chosen to be, and the one significant choice that he does make, in the end (to let Croden go and lie about what happened), doesn’t feel connected enough to what should have been the main character issue at stake, and also just strikes me as somewhat out of character. (It’s perhaps not totally unconnected, because we can interpret it as him understanding Croden to be motivated by his own version of the same longing for belonging and connection that he himself is experiencing—but it still doesn’t quite come together, in my opinion.) So, while I’ll certainly take an episode like this one over the cartoonish Ferengi dipshitery of “The Nagus,” or the infuriatingly dull and nonsensical “Move Along Home,” or the total hackery and inept fan service of “Q-Less” (an episode utterly unencumbered by integrity)…I still want so, so much more from the show!
Assorted other points: In the scene where Croden and Odo talk one on one for the first time, Croden says that he has “always wondered why changelings are so distrustful of other species”—then, seconds later, admits (or claims?) that on his world, centuries ago, changelings were persecuted and driven out. It’s not clear how much of this is true, of course (though it does seem to mesh with what we later learn about the changelings), but regardless of that…does he not seem fairly ridiculous here? Gee, why would a people who have been persecuted and driven away become distrustful of others? Then again, his implication that Odo himself is distrustful because it’s some kind of racial trait, rather than a learned cultural thing (which I find irritating), makes it seem like he genuinely can’t connect these dots, and even somewhat gives the lie to the idea that he has every truly “wondered why” changelings have this trait (since, if it’s just innate, there wouldn’t be much of an “explanation” to be wondered about). Also, speaking of Odo’s traits: When his runabout first comes under attack, he panics, observing that he’s just a security officer and is out of his depth in a space battle type scenario, and even goes as far as to let his prisoner take the controls to save them. But then, when they again come under fire inside the “Chamra Vortex,” suddenly his tactical prowess outshines that of Crowden, and we see him pull off a (supposedly) impressive trick to get them out of the situation….I guess, because he’s our protagonist, so he needs to seem cool? Dumb. And finally, speaking of the “Vortex”: Really? This random-ass region of space is what the episode is named after? Is there some level of meaning or significance that I’m not catching here?
- Also, of course, there’s the whole issue of falling rocks knocking Odo unconscious, which (as many others have pointed out before me) does not seem consistent with what Odo is and how he works. ↩︎
Is there some double meaning here I’m not thinking of with the name of this episode? They flew into a vortex at the culmination of the episode, so that’s why they named it “The Vortex”? It’s sort of like if they named “Back to the Future” “The Lightning Bolt,” but even the lighting bolt is more central to BttF than the vortex is to this episode. Not that this story is in any way comparable to BttF in quality… but just spend a minute thinking about your title, why don’t you? Even “Odo’s Cousin” would have been a better name, and it’s not a good one.
The opening with Quark plotting with the Miradorns and Croden is nothing special, but it works well enough to set the episode up. After that, it feels like the episode employs a lot of contrivances to get a story about what I guess (?) is Odo’s sense of duty. That isn’t exactly a thrill ride, though, since although Odo is tempted, it doesn’t appear that he is ever seriously questioning whether he’ll shrug off his responsibilities to go find his people. I guess that’s our Odo, and that’s fine; it’s just a bit dull as far as it goes, and of course, he *does* change his mind at the end once the stakes have changed. I mean, given the new information that’s come to light, that choice does make sense, I guess; the problem with this is really just that he only finds this out at the end of the story when it should probably be driving him much earlier. Also, the Bajoran government just releases prisoners to unknown governments without asking any questions at all, and likewise Sisko on behalf of Starfleet? The episode doesn’t even offer a motivation for them to turn Croden over—they have to decide to go looking for the culture he’s from, and then Sisko just decides to turn him over without any deliberation or consultation, even without knowing anything about what he’s alleged to have done. They don’t even ask their prisoner his perspective on what’s happening. Not only that, but Croden, who appears later on to be a victim of political persecution (although we don’t really even get a great sense of what’s going on with that or why he was a dissident to begin with), doesn’t seem to make any effort to tell them, when you’d think that would be something he’d be highly motivated to do. In other cases, aliens in similar positions have had the opportunity to apply for amnesty, but everyone is so incurious in this case that no one even gets far enough along to propose this, or suspect that Croden might be lying about his claims of political persecution.
Come to think of it, though, even as they’re not interested in whether his homeworld has a valid claim on him, no one takes Croden’s murder nearly as seriously as it should have been taken, not even Odo. I know they jail him for it, but accidentally killing someone in the course of committing a crime is a pretty big deal, and it kind of seems like Odo forgets about that by the end of the episode mainly because it appears that Croden’s own culture is persecuting him (and because Croden is generous enough not to leave him for dead). That’s another contrivance.
Other weird contrivances that are created to set up the situation:
Early on, how is Sisko reacting when the prisoner tries to tempt Odo with info about his origins? He’s standing right there while Croden tells Odo about changelings (things that are revealed later to be mostly lies, and that he ought to see as attempts to manipulate Odo), but we don’t get a reaction shot from him, probably because one would assume he would be thinking this whole situation is rather sus. But apparently not, because he doesn’t address it with Odo at all at any point, and then he sends Odo to take the prisoner back to his home planet by himself, apparently without considering the potential conflict of interest here. Mind you, I do essentially buy that Sisko would trust Odo to do his job properly despite the conflict of interest (although from his point of view, Odo ultimately doesn’t!), but we should at least see that the issue here actually occurred to him and he wasn’t just spacing out during that conversation.
• Odo says he’s not really a pilot and can’t really fly the runabout in a situation where things get tense. But it’s not like the possibility of something happening that required piloting skills was particularly remote. Why wouldn’t they send someone else along who can fly the thing so it doesn’t require Odo to let the prisoner take the controls? That definitely seems like an unorthodox response to being fired on to say the least! It can’t be Starfleet regulations for prisoner transport, and more than a bit sloppy by what I would expect Odo’s standards to be. Also, how is it that someone who knows nothing about Federation technology can effectively pilot a vessel they’ve never been in before? Actually knowing what the different buttons do seems like a rather critical part of one’s pilot training.
• The first thing that happens when the Miradorn approaches the runabout from Odo’s perspective is the runabout gets hit by a blast. The vessel doesn’t warn them someone is approaching? I guess Odo really doesn’t know how to fly; he can’t even operate the sensors. The computer is also amusingly verbose in describing the attack to the point where it would be a real problem if this kind of long phrasing was what usually happened when the ship was under attack. (It reminds me of when I get frustrated with GPS systems that give me way more information than I need to know where to go—except when I’m driving, the GPS usually isn’t telling me that I’m about to be shot at.)
• I know it’s not exactly unusual to depict people like this in fiction, but realistically, no one who was facing execution, no matter how noble they generally might be in their intentions, would willingly subject themselves to that punishment by rescuing the person who was escorting them to die. If Croden is a really fantastic guy, and I’m not sure he is, I can buy that he would inconvenience himself to avoid leaving Odo stranded on an asteroid by putting him behind a force field and bringing him along, but no way would he allow himself to be captured again and presumably toted back to his home planet to be murdered by an authoritarian government.
• An asteroid somehow has an oxygen atmosphere, a cozy temperature, no danger from radiation, and Earth gravity. This is extremely silly. It should be pretty obvious that an asteroid would lack the mass of an Earth-sized planet, and almost certainly any means of holding an atmosphere or anything but microgravity. And of course, oxygen exists on Earth because it was a waste product of life that preexisted animals. It’s not an element that just naturally occurs on planets without life. Why not just have this happen on a moon or something? Planets teeming with life that don’t have inhabitants seem to be pretty common in Trek, and while this is definitely silly, it’s not nearly as silly as an asteroid that can support life as we know it.
• Odo gets knocked unconscious and has to be carried back to the runabout. First of all, how do you knock unconscious a being that doesn’t have a central nervous system? They really need to think more about the strengths and weaknesses a changeling would logically have. If you do want to take Odo out out of the action, maybe they could have him sustain an injury sufficient to disrupt his form (though they undermine this logic in the very same episode when Odo, in glass form, shatters, but has no resulting injury—does stress to the shape he is in have no effect on him as an organism? That’s one way to go with it, but it makes changelings absurdly impervious). It seems like a better way to take him out of the action would be to force him to revert to ooze. It could create an interesting scene where Croden has to scoop Odo up in his hands and accidentally get soaked trying to take his liquid body back. It could have been a little comical, but I say go for it rather than do what they did, especially the part where makes a crack about him being heavy, which is a strange writing choice given that he weighed less than a pound earlier in the same episode.
Complaints aside, I do find the episode passable as a character study for Odo, and I enjoy the depiction of his desire to find his people, his curiosity about his “cousin,” and his smile at the end of the episode as he finds connection to these people. I also like that he starts to obtain a sense of his identity as a “changeling” in this episode (even if that word is being used here to refer to something completely different than it does in real life—hey, the universal translator can’t always work perfectly). So overall, the episode is okay. Call it a three, if not a particularly high one.
Other things:
It does drive me crazy that Odo can be a small glass and that Rom can carry him in unknowingly on a tray with four other glasses… do they care even a little bit about physics here? I’m not sure when he managed to change form *in public* at Quark’s bar, either. Even in a diverse multicultural society like the one that exists on the station, watching the station chief of security turn into liquid and slither across the bar to transform into glassware would surely be a noteworthy sight for the other patrons. Also, Odo apparently mimics the very molecular structure of glass to the point where he shatters like glass when he hits the ground, which doesn’t seem like what should happen when he takes a blow—or if it is, then it should have an effect on him and not just be something he can immediately shrug off. (And less importantly, the special effect of his transformation from broken glass was not quite up to snuff.)
There’s a Vulcan science vessel handily nearby in the Gamma Quadrant? I guess they’re sending all kinds of ships through the wormhole now. It does feel like they haven’t really set this kind of thing up properly in previous episodes.
The Miradorn Twin thing is kind of interesting, but I feel like it would be better if this had been set up previously, or if it ever came up again, or if they did anything at all more with it than just use it as a justification for this guy becoming obsessed with murdering Croden.
It kind of made me go “what the fuck” for a second when they slipped in some random dialogue about Croden being a chicken murderer. Okay, okay; I guess fowl-slaughtering is his cultural custom (just like it is in most modern human societies). I thought at first it was an odd thing to include, as to me it implies a rather casual attitude toward brutality toward the less powerful when the episode seemed to want us to sympathize with him. But then I remembered that Croden is also *awfully* blazé about having killed the Miradorn, even if it *was* an accident, and even if the Miradorn was in fact up to no good—so I almost wonder if the writers were *trying* to portray him like this? His indifference to his (admittedly accidental) murder especially should make him a lot less sympathetic, even if Odo forgets about it pretty fast (as the audience is apparently expected to).
Actually, Croden’s emoting in general seems to err on the extremely understated side for the whole episode. Most of the time, it’s almost like he isn’t even totally taking his situation seriously. The dude seems halfway resigned to being killed. He asks for Odo to take care of his daughter, but even that feels fairly low stakes, and he doesn’t once plead for his own life. He seems about as invested in his life and his daughter’s as he might be about, say, his vacation plans next week. It would probably make more sense to think of what he does as a form of emotional manipulation to get Odo to let him go (which actually ends up working). That actually fits with the facts a lot better, doesn’t it? I may be forgetting, but I think he’s the only source on what happened on his homeworld.
It doesn’t add up at all that the first person they contact on the planet not only knows who Croden is personally, but doesn’t have to consult with anyone else about how to advise Sisko. Do just a few hundred people live on this planet? Is Cronen so anomalous as a dissident among his people that he can be remembered by name off the top of everyone in the government’s head? Like I was saying, Cronen seems to be characterized as weirdly emotionally disengaged. This is not to say that someone with a good heart might not traffic in stolen commodities, but nothing about him suggests he has the kind of resolve that one might expect from someone brave enough to oppose a government of this sort, and it brings up a lot of questions that our crew (and the episode) aren’t at all interested in exploring. This kind of thing really undermines my sense that this planet could be a real place. Also, if you don’t want to waste episode run time with them cutting through the different channels that it would take to talk to the right person when establishing contact with a new civilization, just cut to Sisko finally, after an unknown period of time, establishing a link to some relevant person of note on that planet—like, someone in the justice system or something (it would also be a chance to see how Sisko reacts to bureaucracy). And is it really necessary to depict the person they talk to—the person sitting at the com when alien civilizations come calling—as an irritable and seemingly not very pleasant person with no interest whatsoever in new alien species? Apparently this is just the norm in the universe… it’s teeming with incurious, unreasonable grumps, everywhere you go.
I don’t have much to add other than to agree with the complaints in your final paragraph. I’m really tired of the shortcut/hack that crops up in so many Trek episodes, where the leader/contact person from the planet of the week is just, for no particular reason, an impatient, irritable, single-minded dick. It keeps things nice and simple–they don’t want to talk to us, so the episode can quickly move on to the next thing w/o needing to dig into what’s actually up on this planet, etc.–but besides that being disappointing in itself, it’s also just silly and implausible that our people would run into this kind of reception so often. (One wonders how amicable relations between worlds have EVER manged to develop…yet somehow, we have an entire federation of planets…!)