"The Die Is Cast" (Part II; season three, episode twenty-one; 1 May 1995): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: Holy smoke! Before "The Die Is Cast," the Dominion is a dangerous foe, having destroyed the Galaxy-class starship U.S.S. Odyssey in "The Jem'Hadar" (a sister ship to The Next Generation's Enterprise-D) & captured the U.S.S. Defiant in "The Search, Part I." The aggression & genetic manipulation of the Dominion's Jem'Hadar soldiers was seen in "The Abandoned." But it is only with "The Die Is Cast" that we see the Dominion is the most dangerous foe the Federation has yet faced, more dangerous even than the brute power of the Borg. The Founders, the shapeshifting Changelings who "are the Dominion," provoked the Romulan Tal Shiar & the Cardassian Obsidian Order, the two most ruthless & efficient secret police organizations in the Alpha Quadrant, into a brazen strike at the very heart of the Dominion, where a fleet of one hundred fifty Jem'Hadar fighters (to this point, far & away the largest fleet every assembled in any Star Trek episode or feature film) annihilate the combined fleet, effectively eliminating both the Romulan Star Empire & the Cadassian Union as viable threats to the Dominion.
This was the handiwork of one Changeling, having kidnapped (based on later experience) & replaced the Tal Shiar's Colonel Lovok. Yet the writers of Picard season three want us to believe that hordes & hordes of Changelings are defenseless against the sheer awesomeness of Jack Crusher, who is the most Gary Stu of all Gary Stus. (A "Gary Stu" being the male equivalent of a "Mary Sue.") Rubbish!
The drama at the heart of "The Die Is Cast" is the conflict between Odo & Garak, who were reluctant allies one episode eaerlier, in "Improbable Cause." Garak, his exile seemingly at an end, is assigned to interrogate Odo by Tain & Lovok. Cardassian interrogations almost always involve torture, but how does one torture a Changeling? The Obsidian Order has created a prototype device that inhibits Changelings from shapeshifting. Odo switches from smug disdain in the face of Garak's interrogation to panic in an instant as he realizes he cannot change shape; it is a particularly brilliant bit of acting by the always impressive René Auberjonois. As Odo, who periodically needs to revert to a liquid state to regenerate, dessicates rapidly, Garak switches from sinister confidence to panic as he begs Odo to give him the smallest scrap of information, even a lie, so that Garak can deactivate the device. Later, when Garak asks for Odo's forgiveness, the constable is reluctant to do so, but does concede that he can at least understand Garak's desperation to return home from exile, as Odo himself, despite his rejection of the Founders in "The Search, Part II," wishes to return home & rejoin the Great Link.
No comments:
Post a Comment