Shatnertage's Mostly-1st-Time Watch Thread

[free2131]

Odo links with the female changeling and makes her change her mind on a lifetime's worth of hatred and distrust of the solids in about half a minute .

Honestly, I have always viewed that very differently. Odo almost died because of a disease that Section 31 tried to use to commit genocide against his people. Add that to the fact that the Federation was perfectly happy to let him and his people die, and I would think that everything that the Female Changeling tried to tell him about solids finally sunk in. I think when he linked with her, he expressed this feeling and told her he would build up the Dominion and cure his people, and her surrendering would give him the time he needed to do it.

If there would have been a DS9 movie, Odo should have been the main villain. He would have been perfect, his reasoning (though flawed) would have made sense to him (and that's one thing that a good villain always needs, to believe that what he or she is doing is the just and moral thing to do). He would have been conflicted over turning against his friends on DS9, and that would have been the thread that would have been used to ultimately defeat him.

 

[MacLeod]

The first 45 minutes are great, and then the pacing goes all wrong and for a series that prided itself on coherent story arcs, the story jumps around all over the place. I like the flashback scenes, but some story elements seem to fly in the face of all that the series built up. Odo links with the female changeling and makes her change her mind on a lifetime's worth of hatred and distrust of the solids in about half a minute . God, if changeling linking was so powerful Odo would have been a founder from the second episode of season 3.

Maybe that cure was saturated with love? Hell Voy's Endgame is way better (and if they had added just another 30 minutes to that episode it would have been legendary!). Whereas with What You Leave Behind you could add all the time you want, the problem lies in the plot and how the scenes are arranged.

No wonder the DS9R books are so strange and odd; for they emulate the last 45 minutes of this episode; weird rambling adventures with offski pace.

Perhaps it was something as simple as you shouldn't distrust all solids based on the actions of a few. And in true Star Trek spirit the war is ended with the hand of peace.

As for which finale is better

"All Good Things"
"What You Leave Behind"
"Endgame"

"Endgame" has it's own issues. Lets introduce a plot element where the Federation monitors the timeline and corrects it. Promptly ignored in "Endgame". In the original timeline Voyagers journey takes another x years(?) during which it effects numerous other races/people. But no Janeway decides its better that those encounters didn't occur just so she could be selfish and save a few more lives of her crew.

As for "Turnabout intruder" and "These Are the Voyages" they rank about equal.

 

[apenpaap]

Since TOS and TNG have both the final episodes of their series and their final movies, and Enterprise has both its real finale and that stupid TNG episode they accidentally filmed after it, I guess there are really eight finales in Star Trek. I would probably rank them like this:

8: These are the Voyages. Unbelievably awful, as everyone probably knows by now. The only good thing about it is the very final scene with the three Enterprises,which is kind of beautiful. Fortunately the relaunch did a good job retconning it all.

7: Nemesis. I really wondered whether I like Nemesis or TATV less, but in the end I figured Nemesis at least starred its own crew. And Picard's wedding speech and the escape from the Scimitar (flying the shuttle through the ship) were at least fun scenes.

6: Endgame. I consider it a bad, very poorly thought-out episode, and it's a poor rehash of Timeless, but with Borg added as well. If they had at least shown some nice homecoming scenes at the end, at least it would've distracted from the bad deus ex machina/god mode business before it. There were some nice things about it, though; some of the future scenes were quite fun.

5: Turnabout Intruder. Only qualifies as a finale because it happened to be the final episode, and it's pretty bad and rather sexist too. Not awful, but certainly not good either.

4: All Good Things... An enormous gap between Turnabout Intruder and this one for me, as it's really a good episode, a nice follow-up on the very first episode. Picard and Q are always fun, and this episode combined it nicely with flashbacks to Encounter at Farpoint and a look into the future. Everyone got at least something to do too.

3: The Undiscovered Country. If I liked the TOS crew more this one probably would be on 1, but they've never really drawn me. It's a good movie with an exciting plot and a cool villain.

2: Terra Prime. As Enterprise's real finale, it does a very good job. I really liked this one, and it was a nice look at what Earth and the rest of the Solar System are like in the 22nd century, as well as a proper send off to the NX-01 crew (even Hoshi got to do things!) unlike a certain other episode. It seems so approppriate that the finale of Enterprise should essentially be about how our current world became the Federation (or rather, one step along the line).

1: What You Leave Behind. While it does certainly have its flaws, it's by far the best send off to its crew that there's been. The first hour is very exciting, and lets the Cardassians, especially Damar, be heroes and help win the war. I like the second hour too for the most part, it was very good that they showed the characters saying goodbye. It's a real shame the Pagh-Wraits business completely took over from getting Bajor in the Federation. The series was never about the Prophets fighting the Pagh-Wraits, it was about Bajor and I think it's a big shame Bajor didn't become part of the Federation in the series.

 

[MrJ]

Bajor not joining the Federation kinda bugged me at first, it was Siskos primary mission given to him directly by the almighty Picard. But then I thought about it more, the Bajor joining the Federation plot line was wrapped up in Rapture back in the 5th season. After that episode it was clear that Bajor will join the Federation some time, but Siskos mission became Bajors survival.

 

[intrinsical]

Odo links with the female changeling and makes her change her mind on a lifetime's worth of hatred and distrust of the solids in about half a minute .

You got it all wrong. Odo promised two very important things to the Founder and that is why she surrendered.

1) Odo is returning to the link permanently. This has been something the Founders have been desiring above all else since day one.

2) Odo will be bringing a working cure to the disease back to the link. She knows it works and is not a hoax because Odo cured her.

 

[Sindatur]

Odo links with the female changeling and makes her change her mind on a lifetime's worth of hatred and distrust of the solids in about half a minute .

You got it all wrong. Odo promised two very important things to the Founder and that is why she surrendered.

1) Odo is returning to the link permanently. This has been something the Founders have been desiring above all else since day one.

2) Odo will be bringing a working cure to the disease back to the link. She knows it works and is not a hoax because Odo cured her.

Agreed, I've never seen it as the Female Changeling feeling guilty, or caring/trusting the solids or having her mind changed in any way. It was Odo returning home and providing the cure that will save their race that made her surrender, I don't believe her feelings about the solids changed, in any way

 

[apenpaap]

As for the punishment the Founder suffered: in the Relaunch she gets a life sentence, however since she is essentially immortal a clause is added that her punishment is given another look every fifty years.

 

[Shatnertage]

^ Back in one episode, I remember the Founder did say that Odo returning to the Link was worth more to her than the entire Alpha Quadrant, so that makes sense.

The question I have is, if she hadn't changed her mind and instead called Odo's bluff, would he have let the Great Link die?

 

[TheGodBen]

All Good Things is probably my favourite of the finales. I think it encapsulated what TNG was (good and bad) really well, it provided some closure while indicating that the adventure would continue once the cameras stopped rolling.

What You Leave Behind is my second favourite. It has a number of problems, but I really liked the Cardassian angle of the story and how the Cardassians end the story in the same position that Bajorans started it in. And I like that this is the only finale that takes the time to properly say goodbye to the characters, other than the Fire Caves stuff the last 30 minutes is devoted to the characters moving on with their lives. Sure, the montage was cheesy, but if any Star Trek show earned the right to do a montage then it was DS9, those characters changed a lot over the course of the show. It's certainly better than Voyager fading to black right at the most important part of the story.

I also liked Sisko ending up where he did, although I would have preferred it if they had stuck with the original intention of him being trapped in the Celestial Temple with no hope of returning. I can understand why Avery Brooks wanted it changed, but I think it hurts the story that he can return whenever he wants. I also think it was a mistake that Sisko spoke only to Kassidy and not Jake as well, that was an unfortunate oversight by the writers.

 

[BennyRussel]

The question I have is, if she hadn't changed her mind and instead called Odo's bluff, would he have let the Great Link die?

I think he would have made every effort to save the Great Link. To not do so would have gone against his values and the values of the Federation he was fighting with (although he himself was not a UFP citizen)

He would have arrested her and gone to appeal to the link itself, but that would have been a problem since the Jem'Hadar would have carried out her last orders to the death. They would have had to continue fighting for a good while until they got a Founder to issue the Cease Fire order.

Maybe they could have convinced the surviving Vorta to stop fighting but it was proven that the Jems did not always obey the Vorta especially when they were low on White.

 

[Shatnertage]

The Vorta and Jem'Hadar considered Odo a Founder...could he have given the cease fire order?

And didn't the Jem'Hadar all commit suicide when they let a Founder die? So once the Founder was dead, wouldn't they have all committed suicide? You'd still have the Breen to worry about, but I get the sense that, as soon as things started going the wrong way, they slinked away.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'm not sure Odo was able to give such orders. And there were ways around that; the Jem'Hadar did fire on the shuttlecraft with Odo and Weyoun 6 in it.

 

[Sindatur]

If the Female Changeling had died, then, yea, I think Odo could've stepped in and had the authority of any Founder (especially if Garak had killed her instead of Weyoun. Weyoun would've ensured Odo's orders were followed). But, with her still alive, and him being an outcast, no, his orders wouldn't mean much to the Jem Hadar

 

[MacLeod]

I'm not sure Odo was able to give such orders. And there were ways around that; the Jem'Hadar did fire on the shuttlecraft with Odo and Weyoun 6 in it.

Wasn't that because they weren't told a Founder was onbaord?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

That may have been. If that's how it happened, what that tells us is that it is possible to manipulate them by not giving them full information--a contingency that the Female Founder could have foreseen.

 

[apenpaap]

Another reason why they wouldn't obey Odo might be because of simple majority. They knew the Female Founder essentially represented the entire Great Link of thousands, if not millions of Founders, while Odo was on his own.

 

[Sindatur]

That may have been. If that's how it happened, what that tells us is that it is possible to manipulate them by not giving them full information--a contingency that the Female Founder could have foreseen.

Yea, Weyoun knew, and because he was so anxious to take care of the problem of his predecessor turning traitor, he allowed Damar to talk him into witholding the information from the Jem Hadar that Odo was also on the Shuttlecraft containing the traitorous previous Weyoun clone that he ordered them to destroy

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Whatever the case, Odo's estrangement from his biological people and loyalties to enemies of the Dominion must have been problematic. I recall how the Founder declared in her first episode that "the Changelings ARE the Dominion". Until Odo's refusal to come home, that was no doubt true for all intents and purposes. Loyalty to the changelings was loyalty to the Founders was loyalty to the Dominion. With Odo in the equation, they'd have to confront some ambiguities and, either way, it drives a bit of a wedge between the three concepts. Changeling, Founder, Dominion: not actually the same at all. Regardless of what the policy was regarding orders and Odo's involvement in the conflict, it forces a rexamination that could sow uncertainty in the Dominion - though to what degree I'm not certain.

 

[BennyRussel]

I doubt Odo could have ordered an end to the fighting. The Jems and the Vorta were surely warned that Odo was a rogue Founder. He was was to be treated with respect but his orders would surely need to be verified.

Otherwise, Starfleet could have had Odo broadcasting messages on all Dominion frequencies:

"This is the Founder Odo."
"You are ordered to cease fire and surrender your ship."
"This is the order of things."

Also I am sure the Founders would have a Cease-Fire code already prepared and that code would have been given to the soldiers or even coded into their DNA before they were "hatched"

 

[Shatnertage]

What if Odo had just impersonated the Female Founder? He did it once and fooled a Vorta?