DS9 - "A Man Alone"

This is an Odo episode, and one that really doesn't do much with him. If anything, it establishes that he holds his own personal convictions above the law itself. A memorable moment in this episode has Odo and Sisko arguing about whether or not to follow Federation law, when Odo makes an extremely insightful comment: "Laws change, depending on who's making them. Cardassians one day, Federation the next. But justice is justice." If this episode succeeds in any one aspect, it's this one. We see that Odo is not merely a strict security chief, but a belief-driven man.

Other minor relationships are established here. Jake and Nog meet and become friends very quickly, much to Sisko's chagrin. To date, Jake has been nothing more than an annoyance in the show, and he doesn't get any better here. Nog is somewhat more entertaining.

Bashir's pursuit of Jadzia gets borderline-creepy in this episode. She seems ready to put the hammer down and tell him to stop, but he comes off as pathetically persistent. It's actually somewhat uncomfortable to watch.

There's one aspect of this episode that's particularly bothersome. Doctor Bashir accidentally grows a clone of someone, then that clone is apparently offscreen allowed to go his own way and live his own life. How is that possible? Does the clone retain all of his template's knowledge? If so, that would be rather troubling, since the template was a murderer. If the clone does not, in fact, contain all the memories and personality of the template, then is he simply a blank slate with no ability to function as an adult in Bajoran society? There doesn't seem to be a good answer to this one, and yet we're supposed to just gloss over this major point with happy faces. It's not enough to majorly bring the episode down, but it's concerning how little attention this detail was given.

"A Man Alone" is nice, but ultimately not too amazing. It's just another DS9 episode that has the characters doing very little that's actually exciting.