Star Trek DS9 - Season 2 - Episode 16
Star Trek DS9 - 2x16 - Shadowplay
Originally Aired: 1994-2-20
Synopsis:
Odo and Dax try to solve the mystery of an alien planet whose inhabitants are disappearing without explanation. [DVD]
Filler Quotient:
2, filler, but an enjoyable episode nevertheless. You can skip this one, but you'd miss out on some fun.
- There's no essential plot or exposition in this episode that renders it unskippable, but it's a decent episode, even though it could have been better.
Problems
None
Factoids
- Omicron particles can only be created by rare matter-antimatter reactions, according to Dax.
Remarkable Scenes
- Odo denying that there are women chasing him.
- Odo beaming himself up to demonstrate his power to leave, but then returning to demonstrate good faith.
- Bashir eager to spy on Quark because he wants to try out the surveillance techniques he learned from Garak's lectures.
- O'Brien telling Jake to stand up to his Dad.
- Another mention of the Dominion. Rurigan mentions the Dominion conquered his race and he fled to the planet of this episode to set up a new holographic life.
- Jake standing up to Sisko.
- Odo shape shifting in the end.
My Review
This episode tackles the building up issue of Sisko trying to control his son's actions too much. In earlier episodes, Sisko makes plans with O'Brien for the internship featured in this episode. Even earlier, Sisko tries to dictate to Jake the "proper" dating procedure. Even earlier, Sisko tries to discourage him from dating at all, and even discourages him from being friends with Nog! In this episode, Sisko must finally confront the fact that Jake wants to shape his own life. There are some annoying things in this episode, such as the residents of Yadera Prime looking exactly like humans, and the fact that this is another episode which opens with the hope of exploring Odo's origins yet yields no answers. Otherwise, this is a largely successful episode; a decent offering.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Really dull I'm afraid, there is no real chance of discovering Odo's background in this episode and no real chance for his character to develop. As a result nobody really cares what is going on.
The B plot might be well handled but it could have been done during any episode and in a way that actually complimented an A plot.
Thankfully bigger and better things are just around the corner....
10 points for Noley Thornton and Odo. The stories were pretty good too. (I found out that Thornton is now a university student studying to become a director.)
Why are Dax and Odo so surprised to learn that one of the people in the valley is not a hologram? Doesn't it seem obvious that this must be someone's personal planetary holodeck? Why else would it exist?
A rather emotional episode, which lacks action, but is just very nice. Besides the Yadera holograms with the Odo-Taya friendship and the Sisko-Jake plot, the third story of Quark´s diversion was overlooked in the comment. He managed that Vedek Bareil came to DS9 and met Kira. This encounter is certainly the start of their relationship (already predicted by the orb of prophecy). Since this development is very important for the DS9 story arc, I suggest a reduction of the filler quotient.