Another major change in the series [brought on by the third season] was the decision tor reveal the secret of Odo’s past. While this, too, seemed to address the viewers’ desires (a large percentage of the more vocal fans stated that Odo was the DS9 character they wanted to learn more about), it was, again, a plot twist that had been in the making for some time. […]
“We joked around all second season about the Founders being Odo’s people,” says Behr, “but we never thought they’d go for it in a million years. And then we were talking to Michael [Piller] one day, and Michael said, ‘I have this crazy idea and you’re going to think I’m nuts, but what if the Founders were Odo’s people?’ We just cracked up, and Michael said, ‘What’s so funny?’” Informed that they’d had the same idea for several months, Piller responded with some colorful references to their immediate lineage, then concluded that great minds obviously think alike. Piller and Behr took the concept to Berman, who agreed that it was a great idea. And then they called Rene Auberjonois and invited him to lunch.
When an actor is invited to lunch by his producers, it can mean any number of things, from the very positive to the very negative. In this case, the discussion was a very positive one, although there were some troubling aspects to it for Auberjonois, at least initially.
“Up until that point,” says Auberjonois, “I’d always joked that the day we found out where Odo is from is the day that they will be writing me out of the show. Because that was always the most interesting aspect of Odo’s character, that search for who he was. So Michael Piller and Ira Behr called me before the third season started, and we got together, and the first thing they did was to reassure me that they had no intention of writing me out of the show. But I still had some concerns, because I thought if we solved that mystery about Odo’s character, I didn’t know where we’d go with him.
“But it quickly became clear to me that these writers are very shrewd and very clever,” Auberjonois admits, “because what they did was to make the character more complex. This just added to Odo’s angst and to his depth, and it made him more challenging and interesting to play. And then they added into the mix his feelings about Kira. And the fact that he ultimately comes to understand that he can’t go back to his people, that he can’t go home again. They opened up more avenues for me to travel as an actor.”
— Terry J. Erdmann, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion
