379. The MuseFORMULA: Sub Rosa + Requiem for Methuselah + The Forsaken + Cost of Living
WHY WE LIKE IT: Odo's touching scenes.
WHY WE DON'T: Neither story has any real room to grow.
REVIEW: There are two stories here, and neither one is willing to accept the status of B-plot, nor do they intertwine. And ultimately, they each go by too fast and leave you with an unsatisfied feeling.
The first story deals with Jake's writing method and is a nice bit of character development. His meeting with a vampire that drinks "creative juices" is played like he's about to lose his virginity, but it's of course more sinister. She sees the same thing in him that we did in The Visitor, a potential or a destiny, call it what you will. The aborted novel Onaya was helping him write is titled Anslem, just like his novel in the alternate future, and it was lovely to see him sign it. Onaya herself just gets away... Like I said, unsatisfying.
The second story sees Lwaxana return one last time to the station, this time pregnant and on the run from a possessive husband (always nice to see Michael Ansara, even if all too briefly). Odo lets her into his quarters and makes a new discovery: intimacy. It's quite a sweet story, and one that may reveal why Odo suddenly allowed himself to love Kira in the first place. Lwaxana "unlocked" that part of him when she accepted him as he was in The Forsaken, you see, and that simply opened up a world of possibilities. Still, his affection for Lwaxana has become genuine and the twist is that he means it when he asks her to marry him. Her (former) husband believes it, and so do his friends. Lwaxana then has to go break his heart. No happiness for Odo.
LESSON: Choose one and stick with it.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Fundamentally flawed structurally, it still yields some nice character moments for Jake and Odo. Either could have been turned into a proper A-plot.
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