Sam Rolfe got an Oscar nomination for co-writing The Naked Spur, one of a cycle of five Westerns directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart. By hiring Rolfe to write "Vortex," Peter Allan Fields closed a circle, having broken in with Rolfe's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Rolfe also co-created Have Gun - Will Travel, a key credit for Gene Roddenberry.
Unfortunately, the above makes a better story than this episode, which loses much of its appeal now we know about Odo's people.
Like The Naked Spur, "Vortex" uses the stock plot where a lawman protects a prisoner in transit. Here, the threat comes from a vengeful Miradorn, the survivor of a meeting gone awry (at Quark's) where his twin was killed. Like the Trill, and later the Dominion, the Miradorn are a joined species, but it makes little difference.
A shape-shifting pendant gives Odo personal interest in the journey, as he seeks his origin. But his bumbling charge Croden is bluffing, and the constable learns little except that his kind are sometimes called "Changelings." (According to The Deep Space 9 Companion, this is the first episode in which Odo smiles.) Croden is a Rakhari, another race unworthy of a sequel.
Recalling Season One-era comparisons to Gunsmoke and The Rifleman, "Vortex" is well-paced filler. While crowded with aliens, their motivations are as familiar as greed, survival and familial bonds. The major sci-fi note is the climax, a reprise of the ignite-the-vapors ploy.
** The smuggled object (for which Quark schemes) resembles a Faberge egg. Hard to say whether the writer knew about the prop, but in this context, the glimmers of revolution against the repressive Rakhari regime evoke Russia. (The 1917 Bolshevik revolution doomed the Romanovs, for whom the eggs were fashioned.) **
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| Odo sneaks a prisoner from DS9 |
Like The Naked Spur, "Vortex" uses the stock plot where a lawman protects a prisoner in transit. Here, the threat comes from a vengeful Miradorn, the survivor of a meeting gone awry (at Quark's) where his twin was killed. Like the Trill, and later the Dominion, the Miradorn are a joined species, but it makes little difference.
A shape-shifting pendant gives Odo personal interest in the journey, as he seeks his origin. But his bumbling charge Croden is bluffing, and the constable learns little except that his kind are sometimes called "Changelings." (According to The Deep Space 9 Companion, this is the first episode in which Odo smiles.) Croden is a Rakhari, another race unworthy of a sequel.
Recalling Season One-era comparisons to Gunsmoke and The Rifleman, "Vortex" is well-paced filler. While crowded with aliens, their motivations are as familiar as greed, survival and familial bonds. The major sci-fi note is the climax, a reprise of the ignite-the-vapors ploy.
** The smuggled object (for which Quark schemes) resembles a Faberge egg. Hard to say whether the writer knew about the prop, but in this context, the glimmers of revolution against the repressive Rakhari regime evoke Russia. (The 1917 Bolshevik revolution doomed the Romanovs, for whom the eggs were fashioned.) **
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