OK, so as soon as the episode title came up I was assuming this was going to be standard plot 8, a dying alien transfers their ‘life essence’ into Dr Bashir.
Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happens in this episode. Without the suspense of ‘who is the alien’, this episode falls very flat. The overacting of Bashir-as-Vantika was a bit too much, and the ‘Odo is territorial’ b-plot is fairly dull and by-the-numbers. Oh, and then we have a classic ‘magic technobabble’ ending, where the situation is only resolved by some magic trick involving the tractor beam.
If the episode hadn’t telegraphed itself quite so badly I might have enjoyed more, but as it is I think this is about the worst episode of DS9 so far.
258 down, 479 to go.