This is an episode which at its core is essentially a TOS episode about a body swapping villain, but by adding the B story about Odo dealing with Federation security it feels like a real DS9 story. As always the scientific explination of the body stealing is about as thin as one can imagine, but if this were TOS they would have just showed an animated ghost outline leaving one body and going into another which isn't exactly hard science either. As a side note for the first time in my Trek watching I find I have the DS9 theme music stuck in my head. Nothing against the TNG theme, but it was taken directly from The Motion Picture and it kinda feels like it. DS9's theme reminds me a lot of the Superman theme and that isn't a bad thing.
We begin with Bashir being a total jackass bragging about what an amazing doctor he is. And not just an amazing doctor, an amazing person, and so humble! But his self love is interrupted by a distress call from a nearby ship. There has been a fire. Kira and Bashir beam over and find a woman with a man sealed in a cell. The cell is on fire but she insists they not open it, but since Bashir is smarter than everybody he opens it and finds a man dying on the floor. Since he is as uncautious as he is smart he bends over the dude who grabs him around the neck before dying. The woman insists that the man is still not dead and makes them all promise to double and triple check he is dead. Especially since his next destination before she captured him was DS9 and that is where he is now. In the station we learn that security has been raised since they are expecting a shipment of deuridium ore from the gamma quadrant. Odo confronts Quark about the shipment but gets confronted himself by a dude from starfleet security who is here to protect the shipment and doesn't like Odo blabbing to the head of the local black market about it.
Sisko tells security guy to work with Odo and he goes to Odo's office to semi apologize. Odo accepts but is stunned to find his security plans gone, in fact the entire computer memory on the station has been dumped to get it. Suddenly the idea that the criminal isn't dead seems a little less unreasonable. We see Quark meeting with the criminal as well, but neither we nor Quark see his face. He is having Quark get a group of mercenaries together. Dax has learned that he may have transmitted his consciousness into someone else through his fingernails so they immediately suspect the lady who arrested him instead of Bashir who he grabbed just before dying in front of Kira, but I guess she wasn't paying attention.
Just before the shipment arrives Odo learns starfleet security dude isn't where he was supposed to be and storms off to find him. Odo is about to start the chewing out but dude shows him the sabotage device he pulled off the waste reclamation system that would have taken down the station otherwise and Odo finally accepts him. As the shipment comes through the wormhole Quark takes the mercs to a runabout. They find Bashir aboard and Quark is surprised but of course the audience isn't. He tries to get away but gets stopped by a tractor beam and Dax manages to feed something through the beam to wake actual Bashir up long enough to lower the shields. They use the transporter to get the gunk out of Bashir and restore him to normal.
Review: A fun episode, but some of the plot holes drag it down a little. I wish that parts with Odo had been a little more of the story, but overall it is a fun one if not a particularly deep one.
6 out of 10
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