I won't recap the basic plot, as a couple of prior reviewers have already done so. What I will say is this is a good performance from Alexander Siddig, in Bashir gradually finding out over the series his strengths, but also his limits, as a physician and researcher. DS9 cast member Rene Auberjonois directs, and I think does a fine job in steering what could be a melodramatic or by the numbers episode into something with genuine emotional gravity. Ellen Wheeler also deserves considerable applause for her great guest star acting - she does much of the legwork in relating to the audience the depths and pains the Quickening disease holds for her people.
This episode however is most memorable for me overall for what it says indirectly about the Founders' prejudiced and sociopathic stance towards other races, at this point in the series. It's interesting to imagine Odo being in this episode, and what that would have been like, but then the subtlety would have been lost. How paranoid and fearful the Founders are, that they have lost track so completely of the suffering of others, being blindly and tragically obsessed about control and order over others. A lesson some people could do with thinking about today outside of the Star Trek Universe.
Stands up well on re-watch value, nearly 20 years after I first saw it.
This episode however is most memorable for me overall for what it says indirectly about the Founders' prejudiced and sociopathic stance towards other races, at this point in the series. It's interesting to imagine Odo being in this episode, and what that would have been like, but then the subtlety would have been lost. How paranoid and fearful the Founders are, that they have lost track so completely of the suffering of others, being blindly and tragically obsessed about control and order over others. A lesson some people could do with thinking about today outside of the Star Trek Universe.
Stands up well on re-watch value, nearly 20 years after I first saw it.