Broken Link
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 17 June 1996
- ON
- First-run syndication
- STARDATE
- 49962.4
- DIRECTED BY
- Les Landau
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 498
WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Robert Hewitt Wolfe & Ira Steven Behr; story by George A. Brozak
Odo is struck by a mysterious illness that leaves him unable to hold his shape, and only his own people may be able to save him.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
Odo begins collapsing as he loses control over his shape, and he concludes that only the Founders can help him. Sisko takes him to the Gamma Quadrant aboard the Defiant, with Garak also on board, still haunted by the Cardassians lost in the failed attack on the Founders' homeworld. The Female Changeling reveals that the illness is the Founders' doing: Odo must join the Great Link to be judged for killing another changeling. While Odo is in the Link, Garak secretly tries to turn the Defiant's weapons on the planet, but Worf stops him. Odo emerges transformed. As punishment he has been made a solid, unable to change shape ever again. Back on the station he is still struggling with his loss when a hostile message from Gowron threatens open conflict between the Klingons and the Federation, and Odo realises something he sensed in the Link: Gowron himself has been replaced by a changeling.
- 01The Founders finally respond to Odo killing another changeling in “The Adversary”, the previous season's finale.
- 02Chalan Aroya was meant to be a recurring love interest for Odo in season five, but the producers felt the chemistry was not there.
- 03The Founders punish Odo by making him a solid, so the season ends with him as human as everyone around him.