Ah, the glorious turning point in the war against the Dominion. The entire plot is fantastic and mostly without fault, and this episode gets special mention for the beautiful beat down Damar finally receives.
7.5/10 (points deducted for Odo's continued... suffering) shudder
When Sisko said Bajor was his home :crying_cat_face:
Great episode. It's tense. It's exciting. It's important. It touches very personal matters as well as strategic affairs. Not a single bad dialogue. It's my x-th rerun of the show and yet I'm again surprised what low point Odo has reached. I honestly can't remember how this always grumpy guy gained trust again and became on my favorite characters. It's almost as I watch the show the first time. I know he will recover eventually but that's DS9's quality: people have ambiguous personalities.
Best scene: Morn is politely asked by Kira and Quark to smuggle a message. Apropos Quark: he's doing great as a serious, cynical and still funny character.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-10-20T18:55:31Z
[7.8/10] Up until now, Star Trek had largely been free of table-setting episodes. These are the “calm before the storm” type outings that are more common in the age of serialization, where there is less actual plot movement and more setting the stage for what’s to come. The single-serving nature of most Star Trek stories to this point has its downsides. For one thing it’s often meant sweeping the consequences of major happenings under the rug in time to reset for the next adventure. But the upside is that what you’re seeing matters for this story, right now and isn’t just a prelude to something bigger happening soon.
Well, this Dominion occupation arc marks a change, with Deep Space Nine justifiably leaning into more serialization given all the groundwork it laid for this broader confluence of conflicts. But “Favor the Bold” (shouldn’t it be “Favor*b*s the Bold”?) is very much a table-setting episode. The scenes we get here are good. The character moments are engrossing. But it’s hard to deny that this exists to get everything in place for a rollicking mini-finale rather than something that tells a story in its own right.
That’s okay! We’ve had close to six hundred single-serving stories in Star Trek at this stage of the franchise. It’s alright for one to try something a little different, especially in service of an inflection point the series had been building to for five years. But it’s funny watching this one from modern eyes, in an age where many are a bit nostalgic for this era of network television, and watching Deep Space Nine indulge in the storytelling rhythms that current T.V. shows often face criticism for.
But something big is happening! Captain Sisko is going to make a move to retake the station! Damar is on the verge of being able to neutralize the minefield! The Dominion knows that the Federation forces are coming in and are battening down the hatches! The Starfleet and Klingon cavalry may or may not be able to join Sisko’s fleet in time! Jem’Hadar reinforcements are waiting in the Gamma Quadrant! Things are about to go down!
But...not just yet. If there’s a main credit to “Favor the Bold” (that improper conjugation is going to bug me every time I type it), it’s that the episode heightens your anticipation for what’s to come. You can practically taste the space battles, the resistance rising up, Sisko making his play, in every line of dialogue here. This remains more of a setup for big things to happen than a script where big things actually happen, but it’s easy to leave this one licking your chops with anticipation.
And yet, as good as this arc has been, there’s a part of me that wishes Deep Space Nine stretched it out a little longer. We have two major changes of heart here, or at least moments where significant characters rethink their loyalties and associations, and both feel pretty sudden.
The first is Ziyal and, cards on the table, I don’t think the character’s ever quite worked after her first appearance. It doesn't help that the performance is so-so at best, but she’s more of a prop than a character. Adding something that Dukat cares about beyond power and Kira is a good choice, but Ziyal’s simply never done much of interest, nor has her relationship with her father been particularly fleshed out to this point.
So when Ziyal spurns her father after he refuses to pardon Rom, it’s supposed to be a big deal. This is supposed to be shattering Ziyal’s image of her dad as a compassionate man who’s been unfairly vilified, and expose his faux-benevolence as the facade it truly is. Her siding with Kira is supposed to be a grand betrayal. But the truth is that we haven't actually seen Ziyal spend much time with Dukat or Kira. The importance of those relationships has been more told than shown. The person Ziyal’s spent the most time with is Garak (don’t get me started there). So the end result is that this supposedly momentous turn in her loyalties invites a shrug, not a gasp.
To some degree, the same goes for Odo. He’s obviously a much more developed character than Ziyal is, and his relationships with the others on the station (Quark, Kira, Garak, Sisko) are one of the series’ high points. His connections, and his loyalties, matter.
Which is why there’s power in he and the Female Changeling surveying the Promenade and looking down, literally and figuratively, upon the solids as so tiny in comparison. Odo is truly becoming timeless and detached, divorced from the needs and concerns of his former friends, in a way that’s sad yet understandable. His change of heart has a certain Dr. Manhattan quality to it, a demigod losing touch with humanity when exposed to wider possibilities that make their comparative squabbles seem picayune by comparison.
Except that mode lasts all of about one scene. The Female Changeling mentions “breaking” the solids, in her paternalistic lecture about them, and that’s all it takes, seemingly, for Odo to realize the error of his ways. Odo returning to the side of the angels seemed inevitable from the jump, and his feeble apology to Kira, which falls on deaf ears, is a nice dramatization of his remorse. But we haven't gotten enough time with him siding with the Dominion, or at least the Founders, for his sudden second thoughts about the association to come with real meaning.
All of that said, the real winner here is Kira. She gets to tell Odo off for his disloyalty and put the deaths that might ensue on his shoulders. She works with Quark, Jake, and Morn of all people to smuggle a message and a warning out to Sisko. And not for nothing, she gets to knock Damar’s block off after several episode’s worth of barely-restrained bigotry. Nerys truly gets to shine here, which gives “Favor the Bold” a gold star on its own.
Kira aside, the episode is full of nice scenes, even if they’re more of a tapestry than part of a unified story. Nog getting a field promotion to ensign, and an attaboy from Chief O’Brien is wholesome as hell. Sisko talking about how he plans to make a home on Bajor is low key stirring. Weyoun lamenting the Vorta’s weak eyes and lack of appreciation for aesthetics is humanizing for one of our most dapper villains. Worf and Martok resolving to convince Gowron to join the fight is a good tease. Rom caring more about his friends using their resources to maintain the minefield than his own life is noble as all hell. And Kira, Leeta, and especially Quark doing everything in their power to save him anyway is sweet as all hell.
That is the funny thing about table-setting episodes. They’re not inherently bad. At their best, amid the piece-moving that is necessary to get everything in place for the big crescendo, they sprinkle in important character moments, time outs to remind us who these characters are, something harder to do in the midst of heaping doses of high octane action. This isn’t a mode Deep Space Nine adopts on a regular basis. And I’m not exactly asking for more of it. But at a time like this, with the show trying something bold and daring for the franchise and the times, it fits just right.