'Is Odo your first name or your last name?'
'Yes.'
It's funny - this episode has a lot of the ingredients I've complained about in previous episodes. Schlocky writing, slapstick goofs, no real A-story and a reliance on recurring characters from TNG... But I can't help but quite like it. Rene is, again, an absolute gem and is quickly becoming my favourite character. He plays comedy and drama with equal conviction and it's hilarious. Playing opposite Majel Barrett - trek royalty for numerous reasons - creates a great slapstick double act and odo's little pleading faces of discomfort had me lolling. Third act is also quite touching for a comedy episode.
There's something really odd with the conversation pacing in this one, though, almost as if they're reading off cue cards SNL style. Can't decide if it's in the direction or the edit, but either option would be unusual form for Les Landau. Majel even fully flubs a line in the turbolift and they just keep it in, and a lot of the scenes are cut with very little coverage which leads me to believe they were suuuper short on time to get this in the can. Leaves a lot of slightly awkward lingering reaction shots in Sisko's office and in the turbolift.
Nice to see some experimentation with vfx and bluescreen to create a new style of turbolift shot we haven't seen before. Also makeup + vfx for odo's Cronenbergian transformation into liquid looked great. Horrendously expensive to do shots like that at the time!
Shout out to Colm's whole performance, too, though it's weird that his relationship with the computer never appears again.
There's something really odd with the conversation pacing in this one, though, almost as if they're reading off cue cards SNL style. Can't decide if it's in the direction or the edit, but either option would be unusual form for Les Landau. Majel even fully flubs a line in the turbolift and they just keep it in, and a lot of the scenes are cut with very little coverage which leads me to believe they were suuuper short on time to get this in the can. Leaves a lot of slightly awkward lingering reaction shots in Sisko's office and in the turbolift.
Nice to see some experimentation with vfx and bluescreen to create a new style of turbolift shot we haven't seen before. Also makeup + vfx for odo's Cronenbergian transformation into liquid looked great. Horrendously expensive to do shots like that at the time!
Shout out to Colm's whole performance, too, though it's weird that his relationship with the computer never appears again.