Weird Trek Episodes - The Alternate aka "That One Where Odo Turned into a Goo Monster"

Mora: What does it say, Odo?
Odo: It says that you're one overbearing father figure. Apparently, my people had those too!

Why did I get away from doing these? Not only are they easy to write, but they can provide some nice Trek entertainment. I was planning on talking about the episode around Halloween since it's kind of a monster feature, but that didn't happen. "The Alternate" was from the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This was one of the few DS9 episodes I found recorded on a VHS along with some X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons from when I was younger. At this point, DS9 was still kind of in its learning phase, but they did have a better grasp of what they wanted to do with the show. Today, it's an Odo episode.

In the episode, Odo's "dad" comes to the station. Mora Pol, a Bajoran scientist, was the one who realized that Odo was a sentient life form and tried to foster him a bit. While Dr. Mora's come to visit Odo, he also comes with news that he may have found Odo's home world in the Gamma Quadrant. Even though their relationship is a bit fractured, Odo's curious, so he accompanies Dr. Mora, Commander Dax, and another scientist to the planet. All they find there is a statue, a lifeform similar to Odo, and volcanic gasses emanating from the ground.  The gas affects all of them except for Odo who's able to transport them outta there.

I bet Quark got a little fun of out meeting Odo's "dad".

Back at the station, the crew recover from their little adventure and start to study the statue and lifeform they found. However, they later find that the lifeform escapes from its containment unit and makes a mess of the lab. Later, "The Awesome Chief O'Brien" finds the creature's remains in a Jeffreys tube. They think that all is good, but then the creature comes back and attacks Dr. Bashir while he's in the infirmary studying the dead creature. While the crew try to figure out this creature's patterns, Dr. Mora kinda comes to his conclusion on his own.

Dr. Mora finds Odo and figures out that he may be the creature. Odo can't remember, but he thinks that may be the case. They surmise that the gases from the planet may have done something to Odo and that Mora needs to further study him. During their argument, Odo loses control, transforms into the creature and escapes into the station. Dr. Mora and the crew figure out a way to lure Odo to the Promenade and sedate him. In the end, they save Odo from the effects of the gases. The episode ends with Odo and Mora hashing things out and coming to a bit of a reconciliation. 

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This was a decent episode overall. It's DS9's version of a creature feature. I wondered if this came out at the same time TNG's "Genesis" aired since they're both horror-centric, but "Genesis" came a couple months later. This was the second episode this season that tried to explore Odo's backstory, and all of that is handled well. We later find out that the statue the crew finds is similar to one that's on the Changlings' homeworld  in Season 3. It made me wonder if that planet was abandoned by the Changlings because of the volcanoes. I don't think this one gets mentioned again.

The main thrust of the episode was Odo and his relationship with Dr. Mora. We find out that Mora's the one who helped Odo with his abilities and acclimate to being solid. We also find out that Odo didn't like being experimented on and considered some of the experiments to be abuse. Mora's the perfect example of a doting, overbearing dad, but James Sloyan adds some humility to the role. We also got a nice scene between Sisko and Odo where they talk about their fathers. I also liked how they set up that Odo was the creature. You really don't expect it until the fourth act. 

As for any negatives, the effects for the creature were a bit poor. They were still working on Odo's gelation state at this point, so I know they had to work overtime to make the creature look somewhat good. It's hidden in shadows most of the time, so we don't see the full thing until the end where its quickly taken down. They really rushed that final conflict, but to be fair, the main push of the episode was Odo and his adoptive dad. In the end, it's an fine episode that's decent but not too noteworthy. Well, I got to see where I put my keys and jacket from last night. Who knew having a stomach bug would create so much brain fog? Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.