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The second that the timey-wimey machine re-appeared, I sensed we were in trouble. When its awesome new abilities were then used to send a sandwich back in time, I knew the episode was doomed, and it indeed proved so bad that I would rather that we had followed the adventures of the sandwich. Appalling dialogue, ST:Voyager-level paint-by-numbers plotting, this is just trite, trivial filler. Just about every single aspect of this episode stunk. Even if one grits one's teeth and accepts this piffle on its own ridiculous terms, how the hell does the Orville manage to make its escape from the attacking Kaylons when their "navigational array" has gone offline? With a magnetic compass?? Aarrgh. Just, NO. In a time where "The Expanse" bestrides the TV space sci fi genre like the colossus it is, nonsense like this cannot help but come off looking like just what it is -- silly, juvenile and trivial. The new series has been a major disappointment thus far, veering wildly between mawkish sentimentality and risible space opera clichés. The primary charm of the preceding seasons was that it never took itself too seriously, but if Season 3 continues in this vein, I'll be warping the hell out and re-watching "The Expanse".

Nearly every time, after "City at the Edge of Forever", that ST has gone "timey-wimey", it just turns into a big, dumb, embarrassing mess. Nothing in this episode makes the slightest sense, and it does nothing to advance the main story in any way. I couldn't wait for all the people on this planet of idiot space hippies to cease to exist. I only wish that this entire episode had ceased to exist as well. Compared to even the relative lightness of the preceding episode, which was terrifically funny (I'd watch Jeffrey Combs read the phone book aloud) this is just a complete waste of time. It epitomizes everything that was wrong with DS9 -- silly, preachy, puerile, sentimental, illogical, pointless, zero emotional consquence, and utterly irrelevant to the main story arc. Remember how The Dominion is about to invade and take over the whole Alpha Quadrant? Well, that puts you several steps ahead of the writers of this nonsense. 0/10. Fail.