Time's Orphan

A number of highly unlikely things have to go wrong for this episode to begin another amount for the ending and in the middle the seemingly worst parents ever.

Would you quit your job to be with your daughter? O'Brian thinks theres a better way..

Just watch it for how bad it is.

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.

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!

The premise is actually interesting, but instead of diving into the trauma, ethics, or even the sci-fi potential, the episode opts for melodrama and half-baked emotional beats.

While Rosalind Chao and Colm Meaney give it their all, even their seasoned acting can't make up for a script that treats time displacement like a bad case of summer camp. The emotional stakes feel oddly low, the pacing drags, and somehow the solution to this temporal tragedy is something that I as a parent would never ever do.

Decisions with potentially devastating consequences are made on a whim, and more often than not I completely fail to understand the characters' actions. The ending comes off as a cheap escape from the and emotional ethical dilemma. Nothing has consequences here.

Worf's sub-plot about proving himself as a dad is kinda heartwarming though. I'm giving this episode an extra star just for that.

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.