Time's Orphan

This episode get's dinged a lot. I understand the complaints. But at the same time for some reason I connect with this story. The first time I watched this episode I hated it. There are a few plot points that are simply ludicrous. At the same time, it is that typical late season episode we see on various Trek series. Not part of the story arc, fleshing out background characters, either comical or poignant. Despite the trainwreck of the plot in the third act I like the poignancy of this story. I suppose it is something that came to me after I had experienced loss in my family. And also having children in your life makes you sensitive to the wounding of their innocence.

At this point it's a good idea to hip folks to how TV shows and movies get made. There is a perception that it simply get's written, they shoot the actors doing stuff. Then edited and that is it. In actuality it is more complicated. Quite often scenes and characters in a screenplay/teleplay do not survive to the shooting schedule. And even then, various scenes may end up taking longer or working out differently once they are committed to film. One of my good friends started off as a screenwriter, but instead had a slight career shift to set writer. She hangs out on the set all day and does on the fly re-writes for situations or dialogue that are not working out. That sounds niche, but it's fairly common. She bought a house and built a second house behind it with her re-writes.

I think that this screenplay started off as a good story, was shot and rewritten when some part or another wouldn't work and they just kind of kludged together the preposterous 3rd act to wrap up the story. After all, it's pretty competent up until that glitch. How else that could have been worked which makes more sense I do not know.

Nevertheless, nearly every time I watch this episode it gets the waterworks going. So on that alone I rate this at least a 6 or 7. My criteria for any episode is how well the story works. As entertainment, as a moral parable. As a tearjerker. If that story does that job it works. There are certainly episodes that do none of these!

If one is willing to accept what happens to the little girl in this episode, it's still a stretch to accept the ending. Once in a while, people who experience things they have never observed are able to paste together solutions. In these Star Trek offerings (most of the time) they work to cure the problem. If the time thing is at work here, how could they have the science to deal with it in a few short days. From Poltergeist to Twilight Zone, the idea of a child lost in some supernatural realm has been explored. The solutions have always been suspect. We know from the outset that some magical thing will rear its head and take care of everything.

Season six of "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" was odd. While there were many great episodes, there also were a far larger than normal number of bad episodes...really, really bad episodes. Try watching "Resurrection", "Statistical Probabilities", "His Way", "Valiant" and "Profits and Losses" and you'll see what I mean! Yup, there were some pretty bad season six entries and "Time's Orphan" might just be among the worst.

The show begins with the O'Briens off world for a picnic. While scampering about, Molly falls into a hole and enters a temporal distortion (and temporal episodes are usually quite bad). When they manage to get her back, she's 10 years older--and a wild maniac of a child. Can they get the original Molly back or will they have to take her out of pre-school and get her a kennel instead?

While you must suspend disbelief to enjoy sci-fi, this one required you actually turn off your brain. The worst parts clearly are at the finale--as the O'Briens' behaviors make little sense. Overall, pretty weak and one you would just as soon skip.

With so many possibilities open to the fantasy/science fiction writer, I wonder why so many scripts tend toward the prosaic.

On the surface, it's a sentimental concept based on time travel: Colm & Chao's cute 8-year-old kid accidentally falls through a time portal and when they rescue her she's aged 10 years. Now Molly's back and she's become a wild child -after being alone on a deserted planet surviving for 10 years. She can't relate and complications due to her violent behavior turn the show into melodrama. It's irritating to watch, as the script piles it on the poor kid. The contrived sort of-happy ending is utterly phony and illogical. A subplot with Worf is pure soap opera, too.

Basically this is a stupid sci-fi riff on either Franocis Truffaut's "Wild Child" or Werner Herzog's "Every Man for Himself and God Against All".

Every shows hits its weak phase - and Deep Space Nine started struggling around this time. The previous (very weak) comic Ferengi episode was followed by this very serious Molly O'Brien episode.

So much of it is rushed and shallow. The O'Brien's give up on getting back "their" Molly after a 20 second existential discussion on the nature of being - which they adjust to with little emotional consequence. Ultimately they decide to send her back to her primitive world 300 years previous, alone, with little or no discussion of whether they should all go as a family, or if they could settle on another uninhabited planet s a family. Just send her back to her cavewoman life - end of discussion.

All the while, Worf's inferiority complex about being a good father is thrust upon the viewer as a subplot with very little setup or explanation. At first it seems like it is going to be for comic relief - then it turns very soap opera like.

DSN is a great show, and had more great story lines subsequent - but there is a string of episodes at this time that show how dry the creative well had run.