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Treachery, Faith, and the Great River Airdate: Week of November 2, 1998 Written by: David Weddle and Bradley Thompson (teleplay); Phillip Kim (story) Directed by: Stephen L. Posey File Photo || Mission Log || Opinion Poll Short Take: Fantastic plot twist and a wonderful character episode Brief Summary: Odo is summoned to a secret meeting place - where he finds Weyoun, defecting. Review: I knew this would be good. So good that I knew I wouldn't be let down. While the episode has its flaws, without a doubt it's the best DS9 has done so far this season. Any episode with two Weyouns is going to be good. But not so fast - I'm still not sold on all these Weyouns. I'd prefer to see Weyoun 5 die on screen, or I'd just prefer to have Weyoun 5 decide himself to defect, perhaps because the Founders wanted to kill him for incompetence. We had hints the Weyoun 5 wasn't completely happy with his life - remember his complaining about his lack of aesthetics? Weyoun 6 didn't have taste buds and complained about. It's just a good idea in general to use the characters you have, I think. This felt like a stunt... In either regard, Weyoun's characterization was outstanding, with one caveat I'll mention below. Weyoun waking up from a dream, for example, could have come off as a clumsy way to advance dialogue. But it wound up being a nice scene where Weyoun realized the gravity of what he was doing, which in turn led to the episode's huge revelation. The revelation came a bit easy I thought - made Weyoun 6 should have been somehow responsible for the disease himself? - but it's still a good one. Coming in, I had hoped that Weyoun had information abou how to kill the Founders... that way, by helping Weyoun, Odo was killing his own people. It sure would make his position more interesting. Either way, it works well, for it places Odo with the responsiblity of the Dominion's future. I hope that they do explain this... for example, a Section 31 plot to kill the Founders would be nice. As it is, the Founder suddenly getting sick is awfully convenient. But, in the end, Odo loses, no matter what happens. My little idea would have given the episode another amibiguity in an already ambiguous situation. The episode was full of so many decisions, so much Treachery. Weyoun 5 deciding to allow Odo to die to preserve the lives of the other Founders. Or was it because he simply wanted to win the war? Weyoun 6 cryptically revealing the Founders' possible demise to Odo - because he wanted Odo to rule the Dominion, or he because he wanted Odo to rule with himself as second in command? I love episodes where everyone's motivations (well, except Damar, he is suppose to be one-dimensional) are in doubt. Faith. "Why be a god if there is no one to worship you?" is Weyoun's justification for the Founders' molding of him. It is a convoluted logic yet one I can see one believing in. Just enough, at least, to not point out that these Vorta are a bit too inspired by a race that directly created them through scientific means and not the usual god magic. Some time it got too heavy, as with "My faith will keep my warm." Stuff like that was over the top, a sort of reductio ad absurdum (Latin speakers? I'm sure I'm wrong) approach to characterization, allowing *everything* to boil down to religious beliefs that I'm not sure were even religious beliefs. For the most part it was good, culminating a surprising (to me) suicide - it just needs to be toned down for any future Weyouns. Finally, the Great River, or the Chicago School of Economics. The B-plot probably took up too much time, and we knew how it was going to end. Heck, it was similar in many aspects to the one from "Progress" way back in season. And I'd also like it to be more relevant. Yet it was still fall down funny in spots. Nog goes through all these exchanges he has - and it's based all on a rumor. Sure, we knew Nog would pull through, but to me it was great to see a Ferengi in Starfleet succeed by being a Ferengi. Treachery, Faith, and the Great River is a notch above anything else we've seen from DS9 this year, though that may no be saying much in a season of decent but not great episodes. The episode had strong, careful characterization. Some of the religious talk didn't ring true at times, and the B-plot could have been more relevant, but as with all great DS9 episodes, it was built on characterization. Some short takes: -I'm guessing this Gul Odo mentioned is the one from Improbable Cause. - To those that complain about Weyoun having to tell Odo about how to destroy a Jemmie bug, remember, he isn't in Starfleet and wouldn't know these tricks. Thought it DID seem easy. - Weyoun said the vorta use to be no better than apes. Apes? - It did seem odd that there was a shortage in this world of replicators... -Rating: A- Next week: This one sounds good. Hopefully no ceremonial mumbo jumbo... | |
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