April 19th, "Vortex"
I get that they had to lay the groundwork for Odo's Gamma Quadrant origins, but this wasn't the way to do it. Helping a known murderer is something that Odo would never do.
No fiver
The Episode
QUARK: The usual, Odo?
ODO: Nothing.
QUARK: The usual.
This seems like a rather weak attempt at humor. After all this time Quark should have better material.
QUARK: Paranoia must run in your species, Odo. Maybe that's why no one has ever seen another shape-shifter. They're all hiding.
I don't like this statement. Other shapeshifters exist, we've seen them. I was going to do a breakdown of all of the appearances of shapeshifters prior to this, but let's sum up:
Category 1: Surface-only shapeshifters. Like Garth, they can rearrange their surface tissue and maybe adjust their skelecature to appear like another person, but this isn't really meant to fool tricorders. Garth, Suliban, Salt vampires, etc.
Category 2: Advanced aliens who can project images of humanoids that can fool tricorders, but nobody is saying that their actual bodies are morphing all that much. Q, Travelers, Dowd, etc. On a lower level we also have the Rigelian hypnoids from "Mudd's Passion", the Ornithoids from "Catspaw", and Vendorians ("Carter Winston" from "The Survivor").
Category 3: True shapeshifters like Changelings. They can be anything they want and fool sensors, but this is still strict biology, not external power sources or extraordinary physics or chemistry manipulations. Silver Blood, Coalescents ("Aquiel"), probably Species 8472, etc.
So at this point the only true shapeshifter other than Odo that was known about, it was probably the Coalsecents. But even they were relatively obscure and it didn't seem like they had the full range of species as available targets.
(Quark goes upstairs, Croden leaves, Rom puts four glasses on a tray then goes to get a bottle. When he returns, the tray has five glasses on it.)
It's been a longstanding debate whether or not Odo's mass changes when he changes form. I'd say that it has to, there are too many contradictions to allow for it to say the same.
QUARK: A question has been raised about the origin of this bauble. A similar one was taken during a raid on a Vanoben transport just two light years from here.
Ugh, they really need a scientific advisor on staff. Two light years won't even get you to the next star system. Unless you're going to tell me that the transport was in the Badlands literally next door. Couldn't they have said twenty light years?
(The broken glass reforms into Odo)
I could've sworn that if any part of a Changeling was separated from the whole that it defaults to protoplasm. Something like this should've been established better earlier.
AH-KEL: Have you known any twinned Miradorn, Commander?
SISKO: I haven't met any before now.
AH-KEL: In my species, we are not just twin brothers. Together we are a single self, two halves of one being. I am incomplete now.
There was something here that could've been developed in future episodes, but the Miradorn only got a mention in "Call to Arms".
AH-KEL: My brother and I purchased it from a passing Altoran trader.
Only mention of Altorans. Makes you wonder why a better-known species wasn't used.
ODO: You know what else is curious? It's curious that Croden had a Ferengi phaser.
QUARK: Available in many a port.
Yeah, that's pretty circumstantial evidence. Although if I was Odo I'd have secretly tagged every phaser owned by the Ferengi in hopes of using it as evidence in a future case.
Even that disassembled one that Quark got as ship's cook. I wonder if Rom ever fixed that thing, and if Quark ever hit him over the head with the box...
CRODEN: Don't you feed your prisoners?
ODO: The fact that you just killed a man doesn't affect your appetite?
I'm pretty sure that the Federation would insist on Odo giving regular meals to prisoners...
DAX: It won't be hard to find Rakhar. According to the logs, Croden was found in a damaged shuttlecraft about three light years from the wormhole. There aren't many M class planets in that area.
You haven't identified and made contact with all M class planets within three years of the wormhole? What have you been doing all this time? At least make it thirty light-years!
ODO: That's because your favorite charity is your own pocket. Speaking of odious motives, I hear you've been making inquiries about finding a small ship to go through the wormhole.
QUARK: That had nothing to do with any of this.
ODO: I think it does. I think you were trying to secure passage back to the Gamma Quadrant for Croden in exchange for staging this tragic little robbery of yours.
This will always be a problem on the show. Each and every ship approaching the wormhole would have to log their flight plan with DS9, or else Sisko would send a runabout after them. You can't just sneak into the wormhole, even cloaked ships must decloak to enter (which is a screed by itself, trust me).
AH-KEL: Understand me, shape-shifter. He killed the part of me that made existence bearable. I cannot stop until I kill him.
ODO: You're not going to kill anyone. Get back to your ship and stay there. If I find you here again, I'll lock you up too.
Why not lock him up? He's publicly declared his intent to commit murder!
CRODEN: (holding out a locket) From the colony of the changelings.
(Croden opens the locket and a stone morphs into a key, then back to a stone.)
Just because the people are shapeshifters doesn't mean that their technology would be as well.
Oh, the screed I could write about how the Founders never could've invented warp drive. Or learned how to assume humanoid form, for that matter.
SISKO: On our space station. Perhaps I should explain where we come from.
HADRAN [on monitor]: We are well aware of the traffic through the newly discovered passage. We simply have no interest in contact with anyone from your quadrant.
Which is their right, but they could've done more with this. You'd think fear of the Dominion would make everyone want to gain powerful allies as soon as possible. Unless you're going to tell me that the Dominion doesn't know about the wormhole yet, a dubious claim at best.
BASHIR: It's an amalgam of organic material and some sort of crystal.
ODO: You mean it's alive?
BASHIR: More or less. It's almost like a transitional stage between organic and inorganic matter. I've only seen one life form that even remotely resembles it.
ODO: Me.
Yeah, that's not how Odo works in the slightest. Nothing about him is crystalline.
CRODEN: Well, that's too bad. I was hoping you'd feel sorry for me, seeing as we're the only two here from the other side of the passage.
Really? There's regular bus service to and from the Gamma Quadrant and there aren't any other visitors here at the moment?
This is one place where "wormhole" is really the wrong word to use, the Universal Translator must be having trouble with the more obscure technical terms with all these new species. I'm not saying that "passage" is much better, but at least it's a simpler word to translate.
CRODEN: In my sector, there is a nebula called the Chamra Vortex.
How is this helpful, the locals don't seem inclined to give Sisko that kind of information.
SISKO: Constable, I want you to escort the prisoner back to his home planet.
Why Odo? Any Bajoran deputy who can fly a runabout could handle this mission.
CRODEN: How do you stand it, changeling, living where you don't belong. Are you happy?
ODO: I'm as much a part of the place as anyone else.
CRODEN: I doubt it. They tolerate you, but you're not one of them.
I'm not sure that Odo is capable of "happy" this early. Even so, the Bajorans have shown respect and admiration of him on many occasions.
CRODEN: Your computer's not going to outsmart him.
ODO: I'm a security chief, not a combat pilot.
And there aren't any combat pilots among the Bajoran deputies?
Memory Alpha
* First time Morn's name is used.
* First time Odo smiles.
* First appearance of "Changeling".
* Odo is knocked unconscious and retains humanoid form. Oops.
Nitpicker's Guide
* Even if Ferengi phasers are available in many ports, Croden is from the Gamma Quadrant. The only place he could get one is from Quark.
* How some Odo let Croden keep a piece of jewelry? Wouldn't prisoners only be left with the clothes on their back?
* Phil wonders when Odo learned how to pilot a runabout? I don't have a problem with this one, it's not a stretch to think that Sisko would want all the senior officers to know how to fly one. It also stands to reason that the Cardassians would give him some basic piloting lessons.
* For that matter, how can Croden fly a runabout?
* Why would Odo let Croden escape to Vulcan, he's still a criminal!
* Bashir just said a few episodes ago that tricorders aren't good at declaring someone dead, yet he uses one for that purpose in this episode.
* For some reason Odo uses Cardassian handcuffs on Croden. Wouldn't the Bajorans have rid the station of all unnecessary Cardassian stuff?