Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.

[DSN] Episode Synopsis: "Dramatis Personae"   **SPOILERS**
=============================================

Episode Number: 418
Air Date: 5/29/93

There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned.
Ye who enter here, all hope abandon of remaining unspoiled.


	As the episode opens, Cmdr. Sisko and Major Kira are in
Sisko's office, having an administrative dispute about a 
Valerian transport ship which is requesting permission to 
dock at DSN.  Kira proposes to deny their request, as the 
Valerians have a long history of shipping weaponry to the 
Cardassians, and are likely still doing so.  Sisko, 
however, is unwilling to bar the Valerians from the station 
without proof of wrongdoing. Kira suspects the ship of 
carrying "dolamide", a mineral which can be used for 
producing armaments, and wants to forcibly search the 
vessel to prove her suspicions, but Sisko points out that 
even finding dolamide on the ship is not proof of 
arms-running, as dolamide has peaceful uses as well.  They 
have no reasonable excuse for boarding and searching the 
ship.  The commander tells Kira that if she brings him 
proof that the Valerians are shipping weapons-grade 
dolamide, he will get the Federation to put diplomatic 
pressure on the Valerians to bring an end to the trade.  
Kira is unconvinced that this will be sufficient, but she 
agrees to follow Sisko's directions -- for the time being.
	In Ops, it's business as usual.  Odo enters and Kira asks
him for a report on the captain of the Valerian ship, 
which he provides. Dax comments that something is coming 
through the wormhole, and summons Sisko to Ops.  The new 
arrival is the Klingon ship "Tokaht", which is not due back 
from the Gamma Quadrant for another month. Sisko orders 
hailing frequencies opened, but just as he does so the 
vessel explodes in a huge fireball.  O'Brien reports an 
incoming transport signal that left the ship just before it 
was destroyed, and begins trying to bring the transportee 
aboard the station.  Something is interfering with the 
transporter, however, and O'Brien and Dax have to do some 
quick technical work before the transport is successfully 
completed. A Klingon officer materialises in Ops, and 
immediately collapses.  Bashir rushes to the fallen 
Klingon's aid, reporting that the new arrival has been hit 
by weapon fire and is seriously injured. With his dying 
breath, the Klingon gasps "Victory!", and expires.
	A staff conference is held to discuss these strange and
violent events.  The Tokaht was supposed to be on a 
routine bio-research mission to the Gamma Quadrant, which 
does not seem to fit with the dead Klingon's injuries or 
his final word.  Odo comments that the ship stopped at the 
station before going through the wormhole, and Sisko asks 
him to find out if anyone heard them saying anything about 
their mission.  The commanders also directs O'Brien and Dax 
to take a runabout out to try and retrieve the mission 
recorder from the Klingon ship so they can find out why it 
exploded.  Everyone heads off to their tasks except Dax, 
who sits at her station, looking bemused, with a rather 
vacant smile on her face.  As O'Brien calls her to the 
turbolift, she giggles for no apparent reason, then gets up 
and joins the Ops Chief.
	At Kira's station, the Bajoran Major receives a call from
the Valerian transport requesting docking permission. Kira 
refuses to give it, citing some non-specific delay, to the 
displeasure of the Valerian captain.  Sisko walks in on the 
conversation, and is displeased with Kira for stalling the 
vessel's arrival.  Kira insists that the behaviour of the 
ship is highly suspicious; they were making the same stops 
in the same order that they used to make when they were 
shipping weapons.  Sisko is not impressed and personally 
clears the Valerian ship for docking, to Kira's 
exasperation.
	Odo goes to questions Quark about the Klingons' earlier
layover at the station.  Quark is not appreciative of 
Klingon business; although they are big spenders, they 
damage they made to his holosuites ate up nearly all of the 
profits.  Quark says that the Klingons talked about their 
"glorious mission"; when Odo presses him for details, Quark 
realises he's being pumped and starts to be difficult.  He 
and Odo haggle over Quark's information, until Odo 
threatens to divert the work crew assigned to repair 
Quark's holosuites for Odo's own needs, which convinces 
Quark to be more helpful.  Quark states that the Klingons 
were talking about coming back through the wormhole with 
"something that would make the enemies of the Klingon 
Empire tremble".  As Odo, satisfied, leaves Quark's, he 
suddenly spasms in pain, staggering and groaning as if in 
agony. Quark watches in alarm as the shapeshifter's head 
wavers, then morphs out of control, and Odo slumps to the 
ground, unconscious.  Quark charges from the bar yelling 
for Bashir.
	Odo awakens in the infirmary with no memory of what caused
his collapse.  Bashir is baffled as well; his instruments 
can't make anything out of Odo's strange body chemistry.  
Odo, apparently recovered, excuses himself and starts to 
head out of the room, but Bashir calls him back.  The 
doctor attempts to engage the security chief in a seemingly 
gratuitous discussion about the Valerian ship and the 
tension it is causing between Kira and Sisko; he implies 
that the Federation/Bajoran alliance on the station is in 
danger of dissolving, and wants to know which side Odo 
supports.  Odo is more than a little puzzled by this 
unexpected conversation, and asks Bashir why he thinks 
there is a problem; the doctor reacts oddly, insinuating 
that Odo is playing some kind of political waiting game.  
Odo, now seriously perplexed, again excuses himself, with a 
dubious backward glance at Bashir.
	In Ops, Kira walks into Sisko's office, finding him at work
on some sort of drawing which he does not wish her to see. 
Kira states that she has examined the Valerian ship's 
itinerary, and concluded that they *must* be carrying 
weapons-grade dolamide.  She wants to forcibly board the 
vessel and seize their cargo.  Sisko refuses to allow it, 
and the confrontation becomes very tense, and ends 
inconclusively as Kira walks out of the office.
	Dax and O'Brien, in a Runabout, search for the Klingon
ship's mission recorder.  O'Brien begins to question the 
strength of the Federation/Bajoran alliance, much in the 
same way Bashir did, and asks whether Dax's loyalty is to 
Sisko or Kira.  Dax appears to be having a hard time 
focusing on the conversation; she keeps drifting off into 
nostalgic reveries of former times.  O'Brien ends the 
conversation by stating his own unswerving loyalty to Cmdr. 
Sisko, just as the mission recorder is located.
	Kira enters the Security Office, and approaches Odo in an
uncharacteristic fashion, her manner flattering and 
manipulative.  She tries to talk Odo into using his 
shifting abilities to sneak aboard the Valerian ship and 
determine what their cargo is; Odo is reluctant, recalling 
Sisko's order of non-interference.  It becomes clear that 
Kira is doing this on her own initiative, without Sisko's 
permission or knowledge, and Odo, stunned, refuses.   Kira 
withdraws her request, but warns Odo that he should 
remember who his friends are.  She departs, leaving a very 
disturbed Odo behind.
	O'Brien dictates his station log, stating that they've
managed to access some of the recorded logs from the 
Tokaht.  He comments that Kira became aware of this almost 
immediately -- "She must have spies everywhere."
	In Ops, the staff listen to the badly distorted recording
from the Klingon ship.  Commander Sisko seems monumentally 
uninterested in the proceedings.  Only a few words on the 
tape can be understood -- "spies", "executions", "energy 
spheres", and "medical officer." Kira suggests that the 
Klingon's mission may have failed, and the failure caused 
problems aboard the ship, but Sisko appears not to care. 
O'Brien says he and Dax have started working on an 
interpolation program to let them understand the rest of 
the tape, and Dax begins to wander off on another verbal 
tangent in a dreamy voice.  Sisko cuts her off with a 
request that he not be bothered, and goes to his office.  
Odo witnesses all of this in growing apprehension.
	In Quark's, Quark presents Dax with a colourful drink as
Kira enters and sits down next to the science officer. The 
Major orders Quark to go away, and then asks Dax if she 
would call Starfleet and lodge a complaint about Sisko's 
handling of the Valerian matter.  Dax is distracted and 
bemused, her conversation disjointed and wandering. Kira 
throws subtlety to the winds and tells Dax she plans to get 
rid of Sisko, one way or another, and suggests to Dax that 
Dax not force her to do the same thing to Dax herself.  
There is a loud clatter from nearby, and Kira looks up to 
see a shocked Quark picking up pieces of a dropped bottle.  
Kira grabs the eavesdropping Ferengi by his lapels and 
demands to know what he overheard; he claims to have heard 
nothing. Kira throws him into  the wall in back of the bar 
and strides out.
	Later, Quark walks into the Security Office wearing a neck
brace, and complains loudly to Odo that Kira attacked him. 
Odo presses him for details, and Quark reports Kira's 
attempt to suborn Dax's loyalties.  Odo asks whether or not 
she succeeded, and Quark says that Dax appears undecided.  
Odo realises that matters have gotten out of hand and are 
rapidly getting worse.
	As Odo enters Ops, the tape from the Klingon ship is
playing on the main viewscreen, watched by a spaced-out 
Dax. The officer is saying something about getting control 
of the ship.  Odo heads to Sisko's office, only to discover 
O'Brien sitting in the commander's seat, also listening to 
the Klingon tape. On it,  the first officer states that he 
has hidden some sort of device near the reactor core of the 
ship and plans to destroy the vessel and transport to 
safety.  He says something about the medical officer being 
right about the "energy spheres", but finishes by saying 
"The captain must die!."  Odo comments that there was 
obviously a power struggle on the Klingon ship, which 
O'Brien doesn't find out of the ordinary for Klingons. Odo 
points out that it's out of the ordinary for the 
Federation, however, and O'Brien replies that he's ready 
for anything Kira might try. O'Brien gives Odo access to 
the Klingon logs, saying, "Don't the Commander and I always 
try to make you happy?"
	Odo goes to Sisko's quarters and finds two Federation
security men on guard at the door, posted by O'Brien.  
Sisko is inside, working on his mysterious drawing.  Odo 
confides his worries about the crew's strange behaviour and 
the alarming parallels to the situation on board the 
Klingon ship to Sisko, but Sisko isn't at all interested, 
and tells him to take it up with O'Brien.  He then shows 
his completed drawing to Odo, proudly telling the security 
chief that "It's a clock!".
	Odo returns to his security office to find Kira draped
suggestively over his chair.  Kira tells him she's locked 
the docking clamps on the Valerian ship; it will take 
O'Brien a day to fix them, "And by then, it won't matter."  
Odo confronts her about her intentions, and she states that 
she is planning to take out Sisko and O'Brien so that the 
station can get a more suitable commander, one more easily 
controlled.  That way, Kira will run the station.  She 
tells Odo that with her in command, Odo will be allowed to 
do whatever he sees fit to keep the station safe, without 
having to justify his actions to any authority.  He asks 
what her plans are, but she won't tell him more than "When 
the time comes, you'll know it; and I'll be counting on 
you."
	After she leaves, Odo tries to contact both Starfleet HQ
and the Bajoran High Council, but discovers that 
communications have been cut by Kira and O'Brien, 
respectively.  He listens to the now-completed journal of 
the Tokaht's first officer, and hears the Klingon 
describing a discovery made while looking for a suitable 
site for a Klingon colony.  Apparently the landing party 
found a set of energy spheres containing a telepathic 
archive of a race called the Saltah'na which destroyed 
itself in a massive civil war.
	In Sisko's office, the commander is assembling his clock as
O'Brien describes how Kira is taking control of the station's 
systems. O'Brien fears an assassination attempt by Kira on 
Sisko, and Sisko wants to arrest her and her cronies; 
O'Brien points out that the Federation people are 
outnumbered on the station, and counsels that the two of 
them leave on the Valerian ship.  The Ops Chief has already 
made arrangements with the Valerians; he plans to leave the 
station, raise a Federation task force, and return.  Sisko 
agrees.
	Odo enters the infirmary, and finds Bashir giving a small
device to a supposedly insomniac Bajoran which is supposed 
to help him sleep.  Odo wants information about the autopsy 
on the dead Klingon, but Bashir would rather talk station 
politics.  He cautions Odo that he should choose a side 
before he winds up without any friends at all. Odo loses 
patience and grabs the doctor, slamming him into the wall 
with a demand for information on the Klingon; he then says, 
in a suggestive manner, that Bashir's information could 
determine the outcome of the power-struggle on the station. 
This catches Bashir's attention, and he tells Odo that the 
only odd thing he found was a change in some of the 
Klingon's brain cells, which could have been caused by any 
of a number of things.  Odo suggests a telepathy matrix, 
and explains about the Saltah'na archives the Klingons 
found. He suggests that the matrix might have come aboard 
with the Klingon and affected everyone in Ops except for 
himself, since he does not have a humanoid brain. Bashir is 
unconvinced -- after all, *he* isn't behaving any 
differently than normal.  Odo plays along, saying, "But 
what if you and I are the only two unaffected?" The 
security chief manages to convince Bashir that finding a 
way to counteract the telepathic matrix will put the two of 
them in a controlling position on the station, and the 
doctor, convinced, goes to work on figuring out how to do 
it.
	In Ops, Sisko asks O'Brien how much longer and is told
he'll be ready in a few minutes. Sisko is approached by a 
Bajoran with a report; the Bajoran, who is the same one who 
was consulting with Bashir in the infirmary, is very 
insistent, and when Sisko turns to look at the pad the 
Bajoran attempts to use Bashir's device on the commander.  
O'Brien warns Sisko with a shout, and Sisko savagely 
attacks the Bajoran. Dax calls for Kira, and O'Brien 
backhands her, knocking her down.  Sisko's vicious assault 
on the Bajoran is halted when Kira arrives in Ops, phaser 
drawn, with more Bajoran guards. O'Brien hits his control 
panel and he and Sisko beam out. Kira chides Dax for not 
sabotaging the transporter as directed.
	Sisko and O'Brien materialise in a corridor, and O'Brien
says that Kira must have erected a forcefield to keep them 
from getting to the Valerian ship; the transporter must 
have bounced them to this location.  O'Brien suggests 
calling Odo to get him to clear them a path to the ship by 
overriding the force fields; Sisko is unsure Odo can be 
trusted, but they have little choice. They call Odo in the 
infirmary, and he immediately gives them directions on how 
to get to Docking Port Four, which he will keep open.  
Sisko and O'Brien drop their comm. badges on the floor and 
run.
	In Ops, Kira and Dax notice the elimination of the force
fields, and are not fooled by the dropped comm. badges.  
Kira calls Odo to accuse him of helping Sisko escape, but 
Odo calmly replies that he has only led Sisko to a dead end 
so that Kira could capture him easily.  Kira is pleased, 
and Bashir compliments Odo on his duplicity. Odo demands to 
know how his neutralisation project is proceeding, and 
Bashir says he's just finishing it.  Odo taps on the 
control panel briefly, and then he and Bashir head for 
Docking Port Four.
	Sisko and O'Brien arrive at their destination only to
discover that the last door is still sealed.  O'Brien 
tries to override it manually but discovers that it's been 
completely shut down, something possible only for Sisko 
himself -- or Odo.  Kira and Dax walk in behind them, 
accompanied by Bajoran guards; Kira levels a phaser at 
Sisko.  Sisko berates Kira for her ingratitude as Kira 
gloats over her enemy.
	Odo and Bashir walk in upon this confrontation, and Odo 
immediately tells the computer to run program Odo-One. A 
shrill vibration fills the room, and the crew clutch their 
heads in agony as a strange glow appears above each of 
them.  The individual glows coalesce into one, as Odo yells 
for everyone to grab something solid. The crew, confused, 
does so, and Odo opens the docking bay door upon empty 
space.  The air in the bay rushes out into the void, 
carrying the glowing field with it. Odo quickly reseals the 
room and restores the atmosphere, saying, "Welcome back, 
everybody."
	Later, Sisko comments into his station log that the
telepathic matrix has dispersed, and everything else on 
DS9 has returned to normal.  Kira comes to see Sisko in his 
office, where the commander sits staring at the clock he 
built in puzzlement.  Kira apologises for her attempted 
mutiny, even though no one was responsible for their 
actions while under the influence of the telepathic matrix. 
Sisko replies, "We'll forget about it. This one time."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne.  All rights reserved, 
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.


Hawthorne's Deeply Spaced Review: "Dramatis Personae"
Review by Jen Hawthorne <jen@athena.mit.edu>
============================================

One-sentence opinion summary: Effectively moody, and a nice
Odo story; the plot was kind of shaky, though, and being 
possessed for the entire hour doesn't do much for the 
characterisation of the rest of the team (though it was 
entertaining to watch everyone acting against type.)

There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned.

Ye who enter here, all hope abandon of remaining unspoiled.



Stay Alert.
Trust No One.
Keep Your Phaser Handy.        -- paraphrased from
"Paranoia", Steve Jackson Games

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't
going to get you."

Normally when I review a DS9 episode, I concentrate on
three primary factors: theme, plot, and character.  I'm 
going to find it hard to review "Dramatis Personae" along 
my usual lines, however, because, of those three, only the 
plot of this episode can actually be commented on in any 
detail.  "Dramatis Personae" was primarily a mood piece, 
and the first such that we've had on DS9; as a result, 
there isn't any theme, per se.  In addition, it was an 
"alien take-over" episode, which pretty much eliminates any 
discussion of the characters since they simply weren't 
themselves, with the exception of Odo (and a little bit of 
Quark.)  As a result, I'm going to judge the episode based 
primarily on how successful it was as a mood piece, then 
spend a fair bit of time commenting on the plot, and finish 
up with a brief comment or two on characterisation.

I'd have to say that as a mood piece, "Dramatis Personae"
worked pretty well.  Well enough, at least, that the 
problems with the plot didn't occur to me until after the 
show was over, which is a pretty good indicator that the 
show itself captured my attention. It was pleasantly eerie 
to have all the characters except Odo behaving so much in 
contrast to their regular personalities, and the actors 
deserve a lot of credit for pulling off the transformations 
credibly. I particularly liked the way that the changeover 
seemed fairly gradual; at first, only little things were 
off, small mannerisms and certain attitudes, then later a 
more serious dislocation of personality became evident, 
until at the end the characters weren't at all recognisable 
as themselves.  A slow but inexorable change in personality 
is much creepier than a sudden abrupt shift, and I think 
that was well done, especially as balanced by Odo's slowly 
dawning realisation that something is Just Not Right on the 
station.  It rather reminded me of the TNG episode "Night 
Terrors", not in terms of the plot but in terms of the tone 
and feel of the piece.   About the only real problem I had 
with the feel of "Dramatis Personae" was the standard one 
that I get with episodic television: if it's really going 
to put you on the edge of your seat, you need to really 
believe there's a threat to the characters, and I just 
didn't.  But it's tough to get around that with a series, 
so I can forgive it.

As for the plot: well...I'll say this for it: it was a
one-plot show for a change, which was refreshing (and also 
a good thing, as having a second plot intruding would have 
thoroughly spoiled the mood), and the station was never 
endangered, which is good. Some of the plot holes were 
nicely and believably covered, namely the lack of Jake, 
Keiko, and Molly due to the field trip.  Also, as I said 
above, the errors weren't glaring enough to jerk me so far 
out of the episode that I lost the mood of it.  But a lot 
of it doesn't hold up too well on close examination.  Some 
of it was just not plausible, and some of it was so 
confused I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be saying.


First of all, the distribution of the teams was very
forced, and in order to achieve any sort of balanced sides 
they had to completely reverse several prominent character 
traits of the regulars.  Given that they wanted Odo as the 
central character (which I agree is the best choice), they 
were then forced to scramble like crazy to figure out who 
else would be likely to side with Kira.  I simply do NOT 
buy Dax siding with Kira over Sisko. No way.  I also don't 
buy Bashir as a play-both-sides-against-the-middle type.  I 
had gotten the impression the writers intended to have the 
telepathic force simply amplifying loyalties and preying on 
character weaknesses that were already present, but in 
order for Dax to go against Sisko her loyalties would have 
to be completely reversed.  And in order for Bashir to turn 
into a slimy conniver (fun though it was to watch) you just 
have to throw out all of his former character traits except 
his native intelligence. This sort of thing is the reason I 
don't feel that the characterisation in this episode can be 
effectively discussed for most of the regulars; instead of 
seeing the effect of the take-over as an amplification and 
distortion of what was already present, I think that it has 
to be viewed as a complete reorganisation, and that none of 
the characters' actions can be taken as a comment on the 
true personalities of the characters.  If they wanted to 
keep the team divisions more in line with the real 
characters, I think a more reasonable line-up might have 
been Kira, O'Brien, and J. Random Bajoran versus Sisko, 
Dax, and Bashir. I base this on the fact that of all the 
Starfleet people, Kira seems to have the most in common 
with O'Brien. (Although it just occurred to me that the way 
they did it pitted the female regulars against the male 
regulars; I doubt that was intentional but it's a trifle 
odd.)

The other really hard to justify problem was the total
ignorance of everyone else on the station to the problems 
with the senior staff.  I liked the fact that they 
plausibly explained the fact that only the regulars were 
hit by saying that the telepathic energy only affected 
those present in Ops when it arrived, but that means that 
most of the fifty-odd other Starfleet personnel and however 
many Bajoran officers are on board were just fine.  The 
Starfleet personnel at least should have suspected 
something was up.  (As I said in my review of "The 
Passenger", this sort of thing happens so often in Trek 
that there has to be a standard Starfleet Manual for how to 
deal with possessed crewmembers. Chapter One: "What to do 
if you think your superior officer is being influenced by 
an outside force.") Didn't anyone else notice that the 
senior staff were blasting at each other with phasers in 
Ops?

There were a couple of other little problems, too.  It
struck me as kind of...well...braindead for a Klingon who 
was planning to kill his own captain and blow up his own 
ship to make a tape recording of his intentions.  I realise 
Klingons look on these things differently than the 
Federation does, but *still*.  And my "We don't need no 
steenking science" blooper of the week goes to the 
flush-the-energy-out-the-door trick.  In order for the 
outrush of air to blow the telepathic matrix out into 
space, the matrix would have had to have some sort of mass, 
which I disbelieve.  You can't flush pure energy out into 
space any more than you could flush light out into space, 
guys.  Up to that point I could live with the technobabble 
and suspend my disbelief about contagious telepathic 
matrices without much trouble, but that little bit just 
blew it for me.  And the "Hunh??" award goes to that whole 
routine with Sisko's obsession with the clock thingy.  Was 
that supposed to mean something?  If he'd gotten obsessed 
with a picture of his dead wife or some such I'd have 
understood where it came from, but the clock thing -- 
especially given that he didn't know what it was for after 
the alien influence was gone -- came out of left field and 
reinforced my opinion that it's impossible to use any of 
the events of this episode to comment on the real 
characters.  In essence they were just totally different 
people for most of the hour.

This brings us at last to characterisation.  Odo and Quark
are the only two about whom I feel anything can be said 
from this episode, for reasons outlined above.  Quark only 
had a couple of little scenes, but I liked them; first, his 
apparently genuine concern when Odo collapsed was nice, and 
second, his casual eavesdropping on Kira and Dax was well 
handled and very fitting.

Odo got the rest of it, and he came out of it looking very
good, too. Odo's usually so straightforward that it came 
as a pleasant surprise to find that he can be one *devious* 
shifter when he has to.  He's not just intelligent, he's 
crafty and sly when it's called for.  This makes it a lot 
easier to believe that he managed to do his job under the 
Cardassians and still hang onto it when the Bajorans took 
over.  (Of course, it could make him the target of even 
more xenophobia if it becomes obvious just how sneaky he's 
capable of being...)  This sort of streetwise character is 
a new thing in Trek, and I like it a lot, particularly as 
it really fits in the DS9 setting the way that it would not 
aboard the Enterprise.  I particularly liked the way he 
deduced what was going on with the telepathic matrix, kept 
both sides of the conflict off his back while 
investigating, and deftly manoeuvred Bashir into providing 
what parts of the solution he wasn't capable of handling 
himself.   And he did all this without panicking, even when 
the situation started to get seriously out of hand. 
Auberjonois did a very nice job of bringing Odo across as 
very worried and anxious, but keeping it firmly under 
control so he could deal effectively with the situation.  I 
like Odo much better this way than when he's just being a 
grumpy curmudgeon (which isn't to say they aren't both 
valid facets of the character, just that he's a lot more 
entertaining to watch in action this way.)

Short Takes
===========
-- So what do you suppose the Valerians thought about all
of this?? And what sort of report are they going to make 
to their HQ? "Everyone on that station is nuts!"

-- I wonder how Sisko's going to feel about finding out
that while under the influence of this thing he beat the 
snot out of one of the Bajoran crewmembers?

--  Odo's gone back to being called Constable again, at
least by Bashir.  Is this Bashir being inconsiderate, or 
is Odo (or the writer) just being inconsistent? Odo made 
such a fuss in an earlier episode about being called 
"Security Chief" instead of "Constable" that this really 
surprised me. (Personally, I prefer Constable, it sounds 
better. But no one asked me.)

-- Quark in a neck brace made my eyebrows go up -- Trek
medicine resorting to something so primitive? -- until I 
realised he was playing the whiplash game. Then I was 
amused.

-- The Klingons had said they were going on a mission that
would "make the enemies of the Klingon Empire tremble."  
But apparently they were just looking for a colony site.   
Is this supposed to indicate the Klingons were just full of 
hot air about their mission, making all of it a red 
herring? Or did someone slip up somewhere?

-- As other people have already reported, there was a 
rather obvious continuity screw-up in the docking-bay scene 
where Sisko's commbadge that he supposedly left behind in 
the corridor magically appears and disappears.

Next week:  A rerun of "Captive Pursuit", giving me a
much-needed breather. (**Phew**)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne.  All rights reserved, 
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.
