DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (8)

 

“The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

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Review written by Mary Shaver

ODO:

 

Is that all you can think about?

Killing?  Isn’t there anything else

that you care about?

 

JEM’HADAR TEENAGER:

 

I… I don’t think so.

 

ODO:

 

But there’s so much more to life

than that… there’s so much for you

to discover… to experience…

 

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

 

Odo learns that not everyone can expand beyond the limitations of their natures.

 

EPISODE SUMMARY:

 

An abandoned baby, discovered in some cargo salvage, turns out to be a Jem’Hadar whose genetic engineering accelerates his growth.  Within a day he is an adolescent and Odo agrees to take the teenager under his wing in an effort to help the youngster grow beyond his warrior nature.  

 

EPISODE ANALYSIS:

 

 

Quark purchases some salvage from a Boslian trader and is surprised to discover a baby of unknown origin hidden in the wreckage. Bashir’s examination of the baby turns up a number of unusual readings, most significantly that the child has an abnormally high metabolic rate. Within hours the baby has grown into a child of 8 or 10 years. Not only is this mysterious child growing at an alarming rate; he also seems to have remarkable cognitive abilities. Without any external stimuli, he has learned language, speech and  has the capacity for reasoning and understanding.  Bashir concludes that this child is the product of genetic engineering that is far advanced beyond anything seen in the Federation. To add to the mystery, the child is missing a key enzyme and without a synthetic substitute, he will die. A culture that is capable of this level of technology surely wouldn’t have overlooked something so basic; it must have been a deliberate omission. Bashir is stymied.

 

“The Abandoned” is the first Odo-centric episode since the devastating events of “The Search.”  Despite whatever internal conflicts he might be experiencing after finding his people and learning that they are the Founders of the Dominion, Odo is soldering on in the humanoid world. And while he finds no common ground with his people as to their philosophy of the universe, Odo did take away some positive things from his encounter with the Great Link, and is beginning to embrace his Changeling heritage.

 

While Dr. Bashir is searching to understand the anatomy of the orphaned child in the Infirmary, Odo, searching for a better understanding of himself, is beginning a journey of self-discovery. The first step in this journey is his decision to move out of the stifling little closet at the back of his Security office that has been his make-shift home since the days of Terek Nor, and take regular crew quarters.

 

We learn this as Kira arrives with a gift for his new quarters – a houseplant. Odo answers the door chime and very deliberately chooses to greet her outside his quarters in the corridor. Unabashedly interested about the configuration of his quarters, Kira at first peers over Odo’s shoulder, trying to get a peek inside the room, and when he closes and locks the door she confesses her curiosity  – and she apparently isn’t alone. According to her, “everyone” is curious to see his quarters. For a painful moment Odo seems to be reliving the sort of curiosity he used to excite while a lab specimen. Kira is blissfully ignorant that her words and actions have caused the Constable some consternation, but Odo quickly recovers and invites Kira in. She looks in wonder at the strange collection of items that populate the room and seem to be scattered everywhere. Somewhat apologetically, Odo explains that he hasn’t finished organizing everything. From his expression Odo appears to be looking for her approval. When he then goes on to clarify the purpose for the objects – to practice and explore his shapeshifting gifts – Odo is acknowledging the next step in his journey. Shapeshifting is no longer something he does simply as part of his job when the need calls for it. His reluctance until now to change shapes arguably has its roots in the things he was forced to do when confined to Mora’s lab and when he was taken out ‘on parade’ for the entertainment of the Cardassians. Meeting his people and learning at the feet of the Female Changeling has altered his thinking and now Odo is beginning to understand what it means to be a shapeshifter. He has discovered that the ability to mimic various shapes, forms, textures and surfaces can be a joyful and pleasurable experience. For a man who has seen so little joy in his life, this has to be something of an epiphany to Odo.

DS9 Stories/News: Design Appreciation, The Costumes of Deep Space Nine (1)

Source: http://www.denofgeek.com/television/300681/design_appreciation_the_costumes_of_star_trek_deep_space_nine.html

Gaye Birch

Gaye salutes the majestic costumes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and suggests why they all work as well as they do…

Published on Aug 10, 2009:

The Star Trek series of TV shows did futuristic technology well enough. If what you needed was a computer display, ship controls or energy weapons, someone had the designs covered. What telly Star Trek wasn’t especially remarkable for was its sets. Most outdoor locations on alien worlds looked far too similar to Earth to suspend disbelief. Any cave or rock formation the crew happened to stumble across was unconvincing and a lot of interiors looked plastic-y.

The Deep Space 9 series had those shortcomings as well as an added challenge, taking place as it did on a space station, and not a very attractive one at that. Scenes on the station were limited to a few living quarters, a couple of shops and offices and Quark’s bar. It would be easy to grow tired of the confines of the sets and if you wanted a change of scenery you’d have to get the shuttle out of there.

But the drawback of a stagnant station also gave DS9 what is, for our gold-pressed latinum, its greatest design accomplishment – its costumes.

Because each weekly show did not have to venture out to find alien races and the various lifeforms made their way to the station, the show always featured many costumed actors, all decked out in their alien finery. And a great deal of effort went into each design, whether they featured on the episode for a good chunk of its runtime, or merely passed behind leads and were gone in seconds. (It’s satisfyingly fitting that a main character of the show, Garak, pictured first below, was an accomplished tailor and sometime spy.)

Deep Space Nine did a fantastic job of costuming alien races with common wardrobe elements, yet gave individuals a unique look within their group. This might be a barely perceptible pattern on identically or closely coloured materials, but careful viewing revealed the refinements.

Patterns in the universe:

And what patterns! Some costumes were pieced together from more than a dozen separate fabrics, layered and inset to make up a whole. It will be impossible to display adequately in the space we have here, but some pieces had exquisitely intricate designs in knits, silks, chiffons and brocade textiles.

DS9 Stories/News: Sci-Fi Lessons – Crazy things I’ve learned from years of Sci-Fi

Source: http://scifilessons.wordpress.com/

Lesson #11: How to tell if someone is a vampire.

Lesson #10: In space, no one can hear your explosions.

Lesson #9: Most aliens are bipedal.

Along with speaking English, most intelligent aliens look a remarkable amount like humans.  It is amazing that creatures developed so similarly, even though we lived in different planets and different galaxies.  Even the Breen, a species in Star Trek whose bodies are never seen except completely encased in suits, are bipedal.  The Breen are mysterious, with only guesses regarding why they wear the suits and what they look like underneath.  They seem so foreign, yet at the same time, so similar in their two-legged-ness.  Not only are they bipedal, but like humans, they also have two arms and one head.  I know that the Alien Actors Guild (AAG!) only allows bipedal aliens to join, making it extremely difficult for film or television to employ non-bipedal creatures.  However, producers could make more effort towards equal representation of the non-bipedal variety.

Farscape does the best job so far on Earth at including aliens with multiple extremities in major and positive roles.  Pilot is one of the few non-bipedal aliens to serve as a main character.  Moya, the spaceship, is also without legs, although with great propulsion, and is a major element in the show.  Indeed, the series could not exist without some form of Moya.  I hope she asked for a raise.   Although Rygel XVI isn’t exactly without two legs, the fact that the deposed Hynerian leader flies around on his Thronesled most of the time, rarely walking or showing his legs, makes him appear non-bipedal at times.

Shows are making progress towards the inclusion of more or less legs.  However, it will be a long time before the leggy or leggless creatures feel accepted in the hearts of earthlings.

Lesson #8: Zombies come in two speeds: slow and fast.

Lesson #7: The cuter something is, the more dangerous it may be.

Lesson #6: Sci-Fi has a complex relationship to black leather.

Lesson #5: What to do when I accidentally become invisible.

Lesson#4: Mutants are hip.

Lesson #3: Red blinking lights are generally bad.

Lesson #2: Looting corpses is a crucial survival skill.

Lesson #1: Most aliens speak English.

It may be British English, American English, or Australian English, but indeed, most aliens speak English. Perhaps this all began because “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” many spoke English. Maybe that’s where we learned the language from. At the time of the Stargate film in 1994, aliens in the Stargate universe did not in fact speak English. Between 1994 and the beginning of 1997 series, aliens in multiple galaxies had all learned English. Perhaps Daniel Jackson taught them while he was living on another planet or they simply heard Earthlings were coming (just the American English speaking kind) and they wanted to be prepared. I appreciate the effort, especially in such a short time.

There are a few aliens out there who don’t speak English, such as all sorts of species in Star Trek and in Farscape. Apparently those crews were able to travel far enough to find areas of space that English hadn’t pervaded, at least until a wormhole brought Ben Browder and Claudia Black to Stargate Command and the world of English-speaking aliens. Oddly though, the translator microbes in Farscape gave an Australian accent to those speaking, even though the listener spoke with an American accent. What an odd translation quirk!

The tenacious Star Trek crew was able to understand alien-speak via the “universal translator.” The universal translator worked on the basic scientific principle of magic. With a click of a button, magically everyone could understand each other and the camera could record English-speak. For the uninitiated, “universal translator” is code for “writers’ pitiful attempt to deal with alien communication problems.” At least they made an attempt, albeit a sad one.

The influence of English across the universe is amazing and unbounded. With this sort of power, I don’t see how non-English speaking cultures here on Earth have any hope.