The Forsaken (23 May 1993)

Lwaxana Troi comes for a political visit and instead hounds Odo for romantic attention.

Director:

Les Landau

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), Rick Berman (creator),

Stars:

Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Avery Brooks	...	Commander Sisko
Rene Auberjonois	...	Odo
Alexander Siddig	...	Doctor Bashir (as Siddig El Fadil)
Terry Farrell	...	Lieutenant Jadzia Dax
Cirroc Lofton	...	Jake Sisko (credit only)
Colm Meaney	...	Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman	...	Quark
Nana Visitor	...	Major Kira
Majel Barrett	...	Lwaxana Troi
Constance Towers	...	Taxco
Michael Ensign	...	Lojal
Jack Shearer	...	Vadosia
Benita Marti	...	Anara (as Benita Andre)

Storyline

Dr. Bashir has to take care of a couple of ambassadors visiting Deep Space Nine to take a look at the wormhole. In Quark's bar an ambassador from Betazed, Lwaxana Troi, gets robbed of her brooch. Odo is able to find the culprit and suddenly Troi is very interested in him, romantically. He doesn't like it. Meanwhile O'Brien is totally fed up with the Cardassian computer. It doesn't do the job right and gives opinions on every one of his commands. He suggests installing a new one from scratch. Then an unidentified object appears from the gamma quadrant through the wormhole. It looks like a probe, but has a very sophisticated computer. After downloading information from it, O'Brien notices the station's computer seems to be working better. Then several malfunctions appear, leaving Odo and Lwaxana Troi stuck in a turbolift.

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Plot Keywords:

brooch | diplomat | 24th century

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 May 1993 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When the station's computer is infected by downloading files from a probe, o'Brien creates a sub-program called "pup" - referring to a stray puppy that wants attention all the time - to isolate the infection. In more recent real-life computer history, ironically, a PUP is a "Potentially Unwanted Program".

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Goofs

Lwaxana Troi says that Betazoids cannot read "Ferengis". However, the correct plural term for Ferengi is still 'Ferengi'. As Lwaxana has had ample dealings with Ferengi before (in TNG: "Menage a Troi"), she should know that.

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Quotes

Major Kira: Great. Everything's in working order, except nothing's working.

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Connections

References Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ménage à Troi (1990)

User Reviews

Even computers want attention

While not one of the best episodes of Deep Space Nine this was still entertaining enough and featured a good turn from guest star Majel Barrett as Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi who is attracted to Odo after he recovers an item of stolen jewellery.

Several Star Fleet ambassadors are on board the station when an unmanned probe comes through the worm hole from the Gamma Quadrant. It appears to contain a computer program which Chief O'Brien transfers to DS9. At this point things start to go wrong; while the computer claims to be operating properly it clearly isn't as Odo and Lwaxana get trapped in a turbolift, communications fail and Dr Bashir and three ambassadors are nearly killed in a fire. As he tries to figure out what is wrong Chief O'Brien comes to believe that the computer is creating problems just to get his attention. This sounds far fetched but it is possible that the program they downloaded from the probe may be an life form which just wants some attention.

While the main story about the computerised life form was fairly average the side story where Odo was stuck in a turbolift with Lwaxana was rather touching as she was able to reassure him as he had to turn into his liquid form, a private thing he'd never let anybody see before.