[DS9] Lynch's Spoiler Review: "The Abandoned"
Tim Lynch
ye enter this article.
In brief: When Odo gets *preachy*, it's gonna be a long ride.
Brief summary: When a young Jem'Hadar soldier comes to the station with no
knowledge of his people, Odo tries to persuade him that there are
alternatives to a life of violence.
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"A long ride" might be an apt description of "The Abandoned", too -- while it
tried to do some of the things that TNG's "I, Borg" did a few years ago, it
didn't have nearly the power nor the point that the latter had, from where I
sat.
The biggest bright spot of the show had to be Odo's *reasons* for helping the
Jem'Hadar youth: not necessarily the guilt over what the Founders had done
(though that certainly makes sense), but the fact that he'd been a lab
specimen himself and didn't want to subject anyone to that fate. As soon as
Sisko said that Starfleet was going to take the boy away for study, I thought
"uh-oh; hello, Odo's hot button." That's a far better justification for Odo
than simply "I want to make up for my race's atrocities", I think -- and the
combination of the two made his position compelling.
I also liked most of the Sisko-meets-Marta plot, even if it did play out to
be a little Cosbyesque. Part of its appeal was probably that Avery Brooks
has always been a pleasure to watch in the Sisko/Jake scenes, and this
subplot lent itself to some beauts. Watching first Sisko, then Jake, get
completely thrown by the turn of the dinner conversation seemed very
reminiscent of a few such conversations I've had, which made things seem
even more real. (I also loved O'Brien's line: "Sixteen years old and
dating a Dabo girl ... godspeed, Jake." Seems to sum it up pretty nicely in
some ways, yes. :-) )
So, so far things are true to form for the characters. Unfortunately, there
are also some downsides to all this.
The first one, though small, is the continuing Kira/Odo proto-romance. I'm
sorry, but the whole thing is screaming "artificial!" and "shoehorned!" at me
on a regular basis, and at no time was it more so than here. Yes, Kira and
Odo have been close friends and should remain such -- but I can't see Odo as
much for romantic love, and Kira's got a Vedek hanging offscreen. So
suddenly she's bringing Odo flowers and making big puppy-dog eyes at him when
she sees his new quarters. No, thank you. It's been grating on me for a
while, and came to a head here.
Odo's description of and use for his new quarters themselves, on the other
hand, was *excellent*. This is the sort of fallout from "The Search" that I
want to see; Odo trying to explore himself more and trying to take away the
good from his people without falling into the bad. A very positive sign,
this.
On the other hand, I thought a great deal of the main plot itself needed
help. While I was behind a lot of Odo's ideals in this, Odo got both very
stupid and very preachy in his efforts. The stupid side cropped up in his
quarters; when you have someone violent with you who's only being held back
by a built-in belief that you can do no wrong, the *last* thing you want to
do is immediately begin undermining that belief. Sheesh, no wonder the kid
caused problems. Start by letting him learn to deal with others -- THEN
break down your own reputation. Odo was basically inviting disaster.
Secondly, Odo's actions in the holosuite were not at all sensible. (Granted,
at least Kira referred to this a bit, which is a help.) One, Odo turned into
more of a stultifyingly preachy speechmaker than most any other character I
can think of (even on a bad week); and two, he went almost immediately to
saying "okay, go ahead and be violent, but only here", rather than even
considering eliminating the violent side entirely. Yes, it might not have
worked -- but it needs to be *tried*, or else you're only going half measures
on this.
Given those flaws, the rest of the episode was ... okay. Not thrilling, but
not appalling either. I'm not enchanted with the ending message, though:
the Jem'Hadar are now simultaneously victims of genetics *and* villains you
can kill by the score because they're beyond redemption. While some people
got annoyed at "I, Borg" because it rehabilitated the Borg somewhat, at least
it did *something*; all this one did was reaffirm the "they're thugs and will
always be such" idea we already had of the Jem'Hadar.
The Technobabble Virus also appears to be infecting DS9, alas. Most of
Bashir's lines could have been trimmed to a third their length and complexity
and been just *fine*. And what's more, there were lots of glitches in the
premise or in the dialogue that in aggregate tend to grate. For instance:
-- Bashir's giving him this drug at 3 cc's per minute? That's a HUGE amount
of material. Forget his health; he'll start bulging at the neck in short
order. :-) (He originally said milligrams, which is a bit more reasonable,
but the two aren't even measuring the same thing, much less interchangeable
units.)
-- The premise of "their bodies were engineered without this enzyme, so
they're addicted to it" was SillyScience [tm]. Engineering them without
something vital (a la a similar step in _Jurassic Park_ the novel) is fine,
and *is* a sensible way to control a populace; but it doesn't mean you've
created an addiction, just a flaw. The addiction by itself is fine, and the
natural lack of the enzyme by itself is fine; together they're silly.
That seems to about cover it. "The Abandoned", aka "Founder Knows Best",
wasn't particularly bad by any means, but it mostly just sat there.
Something needs to give this season a jolt of electricity, because so far,
while not *bad*, it's been rather listless as far as I'm concerned -- and
given the strength of the characters and the situations surrounding them,
that's a shame.
So, some smaller points and then a wrapup. Small points first:
-- One very interesting, and chilling, point we saw here was that the
cloaking ability of a Jem'Hadar is *natural*. Brr.
-- I wasn't enchanted with Bumper Robinson, but I can't really tell if that's
the acting at fault or the generally thuggish writing of the character. (I
did like a couple of his lines, particularly the "I don't THINK so" when
asked if there was anything else he thought about beyond killing.)
-- We've now established that there are still runabouts at the station.
Great. That removes one possible justification for why Sisko's taking the
Defiant out at the drop of a hat; now we *really* need to see some.
That's it. So, in sum:
Plot: Some premise problems, but nothing remarkably good or bad.
Plot Handling: Clunky in many places; the Jake subplot was mostly an
exception.
Characterization: Generally okay, except when Odo turns preachy.
OVERALL: 5. (Yes, I gave the same to "Second Skin" last week, which was
undeniably better; I've reconsidered that one and now consider it in the 6-7
range.)
NEXT WEEK:
Gul Dukat, Garak, and exploding panels. Never a dull moment...
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.ca...@hamlet.caltech.edu
"Is that all you can think about? Killing? Isn't there anything else you
think about?"
"I don't think so."
-- Odo and the Jem'Hadar
--
Copyright 1994, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
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