Day 83: DS9, Crossfire

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S4EP12, “Crossfire”

 Summary: Odo’s life is about to get a lot more complicated, for two different yet related reasons. First, Minister Shakaar is making a visit to the station to discuss Bajor’s entrance into the Federation, and Odo’s gotten wind that there’s going to be an assassination attempt on the Minister’s life, meaning he has to increase his security measures. But secondly, Shakaar clearly has an interest in Kira, an interest that Odo shares but hasn’t expressed. The realization that he may have missed his chance bothers Odo, to the point where it starts impacting his work. This is a new situation for Odo, and he’s left at a loss. Given his nature, though, he’ll eventually bounce back; it’ll just take a little adjustment.

Standalone Thoughts: What’s fascinating to me about this episode is that, while it could have been a serious story about a threat on Shakaar’s life and the station trying to stop it, the writers chose to make it a character piece instead. And what’s even weirder is, it works really well. Instead of feeling like a missed opportunity, the story gets you really invested in Odo’s conflict, and you don’t mind that everything else is pushed to the background. Obviously, it helps that Rene Auberjonois really nails the required emotions, from his usual dry humor to the more emotional scenes. You can pretty much always tell what Odo’s feeling, which is pretty impressive given the makeup Auberjonois has on, and it always feels genuine. If you don’t feel at least a little bad for Odo at some point in the episode, then something has gone wrong.

All the other actors with major roles do a great job as well. Visitor manages to play Kira in just the right way so that we simultaneously are upset that she can’t see how Odo feels, but also understand that she’s not doing what she does out of malice. Shimerman keeps Quark in-character, but also allows us to see his more caring side, though his approach is a little closer to the “tough love” variety. Duncan Regehr as Shakaar comes across as a decent guy, which muddies the waters when it comes to the love triangle. And while Avery Brooks only gets a few scenes, his last scene where he discusses the situation with Odo is the sort of command style I remember; stern but understanding as long as you acknowledge your mistakes. It’s all good across the board, and I don’t think the episode would work nearly as well without performances like these.

Is this the best episode of the season? No. But it’s very good, albeit a little painful on an emotional level, and keeps up Season Four’s trend of mostly strong episodes. And given that the title leads you to expect something a little darker, I’d say the episode overall is a very pleasant surprise.

How it Relates to the Whole: The biggest item here is Kira getting into a relationship with Shakaar, though I don’t remember how often it comes up. There’s also a second mention of the True Way, the Cardassian terrorist group that caused all that trouble in “Our Man Bashir”, which suggests that they might be a recurring threat for awhile. Also, while it’s mostly in the background here, we see that Bajor is taking steps to join the Federation, which will be brought more to the forefront in a later episode. Besides that, it’s hard to say where the character interactions will lead, but based on what I saw, I’ll be interested to see where this goes.

Other: *I love the small beat early on where Kira expresses disbelief that Quark could hear Odo skittering around in his quarters when he shapeshifted into a mouse. Quark just points to his ears and exasperatedly says “Hello?!”, and there’s something amusing about that. I’m not sure if it’s because it feels vaguely like a nod to the audience or if Quark feels annoyed that they aren’t taking it seriously, but whatever it is, I really enjoyed it for some reason.

*O’Brien only appears once in this episode, when Shakaar first comes on board. What makes this interesting, though, is that O’Brien actually comments that he has no idea why he’s there, since he’s not an officer, and we never actually get a reason why. It kind of feels like a meta commentary; out-of-universe, it’s clear that O’Brien’s there so Colm Meaney could have some screentime, but they appear to have had some trouble finding an in-universe reason to use him, so they just shoehorned him in there and admitted that they had no idea what they were doing. If I’m correct, than I appreciate the honesty.

*There’s a bit of a routine in this episode involving Odo wearing a belt on his uniform because Kira says she likes it. It works for this specific situation, but it’s also a callback to the evolution of Odo’s costume. According to the DS9 Companion, they’d redesigned Odo’s costume after Rene Auberjonois liked the look they’d created for his counterpart in “Crossover”, and that included the belt. The new look made its debut at the start of Season Three. After a little while, though, Auberjonois decided that the belt looked too cheesy (“Buck Rogers” was the phrase he used), and they got rid of it after “The Abandoned”. Why they decided to call back to it here, I don’t know, but it’s a nice touch, especially when you know the backstory.

Best Line/Exchange: There are a lot of good character interactions here, but the most heartwarming one for me, oddly enough, was this one;

Worf: I prefer a more…orderly environment.

Odo: We have that in common. My people have an innate need for order.

Worf: How do you tolerate living here?
Odo: I make order where I can. For one thing, I have a daily routine which I follow unwaveringly. The shopkeepers on the Promenade joke that they can set their clocks by me.

Worf: Unfortunately, I have found it difficult to establish a routine here.

Odo: There are other ways to create order in your life. Your quarters, for example. Everything in mine has its specific place, and it’s all arranged just so.

Worf: Mine too. Even with my eyes closed, I would still know where everything was.

Odo: Exactly.

Worf: I would not tolerate it any other way.

Odo: I’ll tell you what else to do. Make sure everyone knows they can’t just drop by your quarters to say hello. If someone does, whatever happens, don’t make them feel welcome.

Worf (almost indignantly): Of course not! That would only invite subsequent visits.

Odo: Precisely.

It’s oddly endearing to see these two finding common ground. Odo’s always been an outsider, and Worf’s still settling into the station and is an outsider himself. Seeing them bond over a love of order and security is kind of sweet. The fact that it seems in character for both of them is just a bonus, and a sign that the writers really knew what they were doing. May it continue to be so.