Crossfire

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Odo finds himself recreating the movie 'The Bodyguard', but with more shapeshifting.

Kira has a fine new rebound boyfriend in Bajor's First Minister Shakaar. Of course, Odo missed his chance to tell Kira about his long-term crush on her, and now he's spending every minute of every day watching over them and grinding his fictional teeth.

Odo must protect the Bajoran lovebirds while they get down to some serious doinking. And there's nothing quite as safe and warm as the embrace of a soul-crushingly jealous man of jelly.

The Constable, frustrated in his job and in his love life, retreats to his room for a tantrum, throwing around the house-warming plant Kira gave him and disturbing his downstairs neighbour with the huge ears.

A big-eared neighbour, in fact, who's got some sympathy in his soul after all.

And, because it's an ongoing space opera and things don't work out neatly in 47 minutes anymore, that's as good as it gets for the changeling.

"Crossfire" has at least one thing to recommend: it is not Threshold. It's more than that, of course. It's painful for me to watch this one because (like a lot of young men) I was terrible at expressing my feelings well, especially to women I wanted to court. It's all worked out wonderfully for me so far (and a trillion thanks to my wife for that) but the pain of loneliness is a common thread in a lot of SF. Spock and Data would know where Odo was coming from, and so does Quark. Though somehow it never occurs to me that Quark might be lonely, too. If he is, it's probably his own fault.