A Man Alone (OB 17 Jan. 1993) score: 4

The heavy lifting here is character development, with the emphasis on Odo as stubborn loner even as he realizes the stance is increasingly untenable.  As one character says, his enemy (Quark) is the closest Odo has to a friend.

DS9 is the least science-fictional Trek, an occasional problem as the series finds its legs: there's nothing in "A Man Alone" that couldn't be crime drama or Western, until the last-act reveal of cloning.  It doesn't help when the motivations are flat and broad, down to comic relief: watch the extras milk Jake and Nog's prank.

Still, I can't be too hard on this one, as it further develops the complicated backstory -- genocidal Cardassians, traumatized but proud Bajorans, canny Ferengi, alien-to-be-named Odo -- soon to yield better narratives.
The character-name "Ibudan" is a near-anagram for Danube, perhaps an early German/Nazi reference.
In retrospect, as TV matured past comforting cliches, so did Trek: Odo will stay a misfit, Kira's loyalties remain divided, and Julian spends six years vainly chasing Jadzia.