Deep Space Nine 6x24 "Time's Orphan"

rating: **

the story: Molly O'Brien is lost on a planet, but when she's found again it's from ten years in the future, and time hasn't been kind to her...

what it's all about: This is one of those episodes that will probably please casual fans, a time travel plot that's as faithful to the general sci-fi origins of the franchise as you're liable to find in Deep Space Nine.  It's also the only episode of two different series (this one and Next Generation, where she was born) that centers around O'Brien's daughter Molly.

There's not much sense talking about the plot of the episode.  There's Starfleet failing to learn from its past again (shades of Next Generation's "The Offspring," in which Data builds himself a daughter and Starfleet wants to take her from him, where Starfleet apparently has failed to learn from the earlier "The Measure of a Man," which Starfleet still hasn't learned from by the time of Voyager's "Author, Author"), trying to step in where it shouldn't be meddling.

So anyway, it's the Molly O'Brien episode.  Molly was literally born during the course of Next Generation ("Disaster"), and actress Hana Hatae ended up playing the role, aging with the character, straight through the final episode of Deep Space Nine.  Even Naomi Wildman in Voyager was played by a couple young actresses, and artificially aged somewhere along the way, just like Alexander in Next Generation.  Hatae wasn't cast to be an actor, but rather to be adorable, and she kept on being adorable in all her appearances.  But she was too young even by the end to be expected to do much acting, so she was always incidental to any given story (she threw up once, off-camera, on Lwaxana Troi, "Fascination").  Until a gobbledygook plot sci-fi plot, of course.

While the older Molly in "Time's Orphan" isn't asked to do much more acting than Hatae ever did (she's feral, alas), the story is still about her, which is about good enough.  It's kind of the same trick the series played with Morn earlier in the season ("Who Mourns for Morn?"), making the sixth season not just the dawn of the Dominion War, but the season the writers pulled off the impossible.  Twice!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The standalone nature and sci-fi friendly storytelling here will be ideal for casual fans.
• series - Has nothing at all to do with the Dominion War.
• character - The one episode to focus on Molly!
• essential - It does what it has to, which is about as perfunctory as Deep Space Nine can get.

notable guest-stars:
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)

Deep Space Nine 5x5 "The Assignment"

rating: *

the story: Keiko is possessed, forcing O'Brien to comply with an insane request.

what it's all about: It's wildly curious that the debut of the Pah-wraiths should come off like a bad remake of the Next Generation episode "Power Play," which also features alien possession and the O'Brien family caught in the crosshairs...

A far more menacing version of this story appears late in the sixth season, "The Reckoning," which basically corrects all the horrendous missteps of "The Assignment," featuring a far more menacing possession and a much smarter plan on the part of the Pah-wraiths, just before Dukat appears in the sixth season finale ("Tears of the Prophets") and effectively sets up their integral part in the eventual conclusion of the series.

But really, it's hugely baffling that something like this could happen.  Clearly the producers had no idea at this point how important the Pah-wraiths (cast-out wormhole aliens the Bajorans worship as the Prophets, and as such the devil to their god) would turn out to be, and is one of the more egregious examples of how the series developed as it went along rather than was figured out from the start (Babylon 5 fans get a point in that regard).  Not that this is a bad thing, because in most other respects such organic growth actually helped make it feel more natural.

The worse part is that Odo's life as a "solid" is featured, as he attempts to figure out what O'Brien's up to.  If this had somehow involved Odo being more important to the plot rather than an add-on, this would've been better.  If, say, he were investigating someone close to Kira, but that's not the case, and another lost opportunity is found in one of the most pointless arcs of the series.

If you don't want to worry too much about the significance of...anything and just want to sample characters and concepts from Deep Space Nine, this is a curious way to do it, but I suppose it is available for such viewing.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - That this could've happened in any series is hardly a positive note.
• series - Inauspicious as it is, this is still the debut of the Pah-wraiths.
• character - Useless spotlights on the O'Briens and Odo.
• essential - One of the most truly poorly-developed episodes of the whole series.

notable guest-stars:
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)

Deep Space Nine 4x25 "Body Parts"

rating: ***

the story: Quark auctions off his body when he thinks he's dying.

what it's all about: This is probably the episode to watch if you want to see the extremes of Ferengi society, to see just how far their greed really goes, and how far Quark is willing to go...and how he's ultimately not as stolid a member of that society as he might sometimes think...

When it comes to aliens in Star Trek, it's kind of expected that if the character's in the main cast they're going to represent a fairly traditional member of the species, even if there are extenuating circumstances that otherwise present them as outsiders.  Spock, for instance, was half-human as well as half-Vulcan, but he seemed to only take his Vulcan half seriously, except his bond with Kirk (and McCoy) that betrayed a certain illogic that crept into his life over the years.  Worf was certainly Klingon, but he was raised by humans and thus actually associated better with humans than Klingons, even though he took Klingon culture very seriously. 

This was different in Deep Space Nine (as with pretty much everything else).  Kira was definitely Bajoran through and through, but it didn't take long for her to be able to accept Starfleet ideas that didn't always align with Bajoran orthodoxy, or to question decisions her people made that she didn't always think were in their best interests.  But Quark, he seemed as Ferengi as they could possibly come, certainly compared to his brother Rom and nephew Nog, both of whom eventually made a complete break from Ferengi norms.  Quark seemed to cling to tradition almost out of protest.  And yet, loathe as he would be to admit it, he was greatly influenced by Federation ideas.  He became less and less apt to sacrifice all for the sake of Ferengi tradition.

That's basically what this episode's about, regardless of what else may be going on.  In some ways it's the logical conclusion of all his experiences from the past two seasons, what his brother and nephew had decided, and his mother, and whether he in the end was what he thought he was.  And "Body Parts" seems to agree that he is as Ferengi as possible, but then Quark kind of has a Frank Capra moment.  He realizes his friends aboard the station are probably better than whatever he might get from the likes of the very Ferengi Brunt, for whom this is a culmination, too, for two seasons of demonstrating how much Quark does stray when it's so clear he doesn't.  So this is their epic showdown, once and for all, and so if you really want to know all about Quark, all about Ferengi, this may be the perfect episode to catch.

Also factored in is the funny subplot where Kira ends up carrying O'Brien's baby.  No, not because they have an affair, but because this is sci-fi and they literally transplant it from O'Brien's wife Keiko to Kira.  Nana Visitor was pregnant, but Kira was hardly likely to become pregnant (her lover, even if she doesn't know it yet, is a shapeshifter who couldn't help with that even if he wanted), so they came up with a solution that's pretty unique and actually helps soften the character further from the hardcase she'd been at the start of the series but really hadn't been for a long time.

So it's pretty appropriate to have these stories converging, if only for one episode.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - General audiences need not necessarily apply.
• series - Important moment in the arcs of two characters.
• character - Who would be Quark and Kira.
• essential - You caught "important," right?

notable guest-stars:
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Jeffrey Combs (Brunt)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)

Deep Space Nine 4x19 "Hard Time"

rating: ****

the story: O'Brien is sentenced by an alien culture to have a virtual memory implant of a quarter century prison sentence, which leaves him suicidal in the real world.

what it's all about: Let's-Torture-O'Brien was a favorite theme of not only Deep Space Nine but Next Generation, too.  This is the ultimate Let's-Torture-O'Brien episode.  As Colm Meaney gave the most relatable performances of any actor in the franchise, the sadistic rules of storytelling meant he'd be sympathetic enough to sell this concept over and over again.  Starfleet personnel suffering unjustly under alien penal concepts is hardly a unique concept, but "Hard Time" brings the trope, and Let's-Torture-O'Brien, to truly epic proportions, thanks to Meaney's ability to sell the emotional damage and O'Brien's increasing isolation.  In a lot of ways, it's a PTSD episode before "It's Only a Paper Moon" in the final season.

Because the fix was truly in, O'Brien's family, which had been absent for about a season's worth of material, was right there to experience the torture along with him, as is Bashir.  The trauma they share this time, unlike "Hippocratic Oath" earlier in the season, occurs organically rather than as a random instance of their diverging thought processes.  There's every justification for every creative decision in the episode, in other words, and it's as devastating to watch as it is for the character to endure.  I can think of only one other episode in the franchise, Voyager's "Mortal Coil" (which centers on Neelix, of all characters, the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek), that plumbs this existential depth, despite numerous other attempts, which I won't mention, at the same basic concept.  This is the emotional maturity of Deep Space Nine at one of its highest points, a kind of mirror image of "The Visitor" earlier in the season.

"Hard Time" is also a kind of answer to the earlier "Whispers," in which O'Brien (or a replicant who thinks he's O'Brien) finds himself equally isolated, but so convinced he can gain control of the situation he never freaks out.  Well, "Hard Time" is one long, fascinating freak-out.  Think of Spock's bloodlust in "Amok Time," but without a cathartic fight ready to take it out of him, or a handy fake-out aided by a sneaky doctor friend.  That's the big difference between the storytelling of Deep Space Nine and the rest of the franchise (other than another Voyager episode, "Latent Image"), that the characters never get easy solutions to their problems.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Part of a long tradition of Starfleet officers suffering because of the decisions of an alien culture.
• series - As well as the running theme of throwing the worst at O'Brien in Deep Space Nine as well as Next Generation.
• character - Needless to say, is an important O'Brien experience.
• essential - It's kind of O'Brien's greatest traumas, and those of the other characters in this series, condensed into a nutshell.

notable guest-stars:
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
F.J. Rio

Deep Space Nine 4x17 "Accession"

rating: ***

the story: Sisko unexpectedly finds a challenger to the role of the Emissary.

what it's all about: The most revolutionary thing Deep Space Nine ever did was include as one of its central elements the idea of religion as something to be embraced rather than dismissed, as it is in virtually every other corner of Star Trek.  In the first episode ("Emissary"), Sisko finds himself identified as the savior of the Bajoran people, the embodiment of their gods, the Prophets (whom Starfleet refers to as "wormhole aliens," since they reside in the wormhole that sits just to the side of the eponymous station).  He immediately chafes at the idea, and it takes him seven seasons, really, to figure out what it really means.

"Accession" is one of the few episodes to tackle the idea headfirst.  In the third season, he's tasked with determining whether or not a prophecy is true in "Destiny," which is the first time he takes Bajor's faith seriously.  In the fifth season, he gets a sense of the mystical nature of the role during "Rapture."  Yet in "Accession," he's forced to decide whether he personally takes the idea seriously. 

The wormhole spits out a Bajoran poet two hundred years after he disappeared.  Anyone who steps out of the past will affect the present, but this is an extreme case, and it's one of the episodes where we really get a sense of what it means to live in Bajoran culture when the poet-cum-Emissary tries to set back the culture two hundred years, basically to what he used to know.  Seeing Kira humbled is an unusual experience, and probably this is the only time we see it played out, but somehow she is, and it's the mark of her evolution as a character that she no longer fights everything, as she did at the start of the series (Voyager's characters actually had a similar arc, but fans always had a hard time with that). 

Meanwhile, O'Brien is reunited with his wife Keiko, who announces that she's pregnant, but as much as he hated the idea of her leaving last season, he's grown comfortable with the freedom he's had to live the bachelor life again, which is what helped solidify his bond with Bashir (the absence of which was what made "Hippocratic Oath" early in the season so jarring).  "Accession" actually marks the beginning of the rest of the series for O'Brien and Bashir, and even Keiko's new willingness to live peacefully at the station, so it's ironic, and clever storytelling juxtaposition, to watch this unfold as Sisko struggles with whether or not it's okay to walk away from his role as the Emissary.  Whereas "Destiny" had him realize the prophecies aren't always what they seem, here he learns that sometimes the truth is exactly what it always seemed.

It's definitely an episode for the thinkers among the fans, which is to say, the truly dedicated Deep Space Nine fans.  Best easter egg for those fans?  An appearance by the warmest Bajoran presence the series ever had, Kai Opaka, who was written out all the way back in the first season.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Kind of directly smacks the face of Star Trek tradition.
• series - A necessary story in the overall arc of Deep Space Nine.
• character - If the whole season were a crisis of faith, this is the episode where it's dramatized by Sisko.
• essential - Crucial to a deep understanding of a deep series.

notable guest-stars:
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Camille Saviola (Kai Opaka)

Deep Space Nine 3x10 "Fascination"

rating: ***

the story: Lwaxana Troi's visit unleashes a lot of awkward romantic confessions...

what it's all about: "Fascination" is one of those episodes that could have been a disaster.  If it had been done in the first season, it would have been a disaster.  In fact, it looks almost exactly like a first season episode, except the third season saw such an advanced understanding of the series, this would have been very hard to accomplish.  So while it's something of a farce, "Fascination" also happens to have the distinction of being grounded thoroughly in the lore of Deep Space Nine, with a lot of interesting and fruitful observations to make.

The presence of Lwaxana is itself a notable aspect of the episode, even though it serves in that regard as somewhat trivial compared to the two other episodes of this series she appears in ("The Forsaken" and "The Muse"), she at least helps Odo realize that he has feelings for Kira, which is crucial to the whole series arc for both of them.  For the rest of the episode, Lwaxana is a glorified McGuffin, the magical reason why everyone's acting strangely.

So let's put her aside.  There's also Bareil, the normally stuffy, repressed Bajoran love interest of Kira, who joins everyone else in the complicated tangle mentioned in the story summary above.  But it gets better!  There's Jake Sisko admitting he loves Kira, which is one of the most hilarious things the series ever did, and because this is how complicated things get, Kira's too busy kissing Bashir to really notice (Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor were married for a time after this; must have been terrible days on set!).  And so on.

But the real meat of the episode, it turns out, is O'Brien and Keiko continuing to hash out the status of their relationship, which was a recurring element of the season.  While everyone else is worried about whether or not they're being honest, these two are agonizing over very real concerns, and it grounds the whole thing nicely.  That and a look at Bajorans celebrating one of their favorite holidays, one of the few times a holiday is celebrated at all in Star Trek lore.

"Fascination" is indeed fascinating.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This one looks like a typical anything goes farce you'll find elsewhere.
• series - But it's another one perfectly grounded in Deep Space Nine logic.
• character - Good character work all around, especially for the O'Briens.
• essential - I'll stop short of calling it a classic, because it points more than it leads.

notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry (Lwaxana Troi)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)

Deep Space Nine 2x14 "Whispers"

rating: ****

the story: O'Brien starts to suspect a massive conspiracy has been woven against him.

what it's all about: This has long been one of my favorite episodes of the whole franchise, on the basis of its cleverness alone.  That and the fact that it's one of O'Brien's best episodes (which tend to be among the best of the franchise, too).

The whole thing is a mystery, and yes, you find out what's really going on at the end, and yes, it absolutely delivers, in a way that surpasses any other Star Trek mystery you could think of, because suddenly everything makes perfect sense without even needing to be explained at any great length.  In the meantime, however, "Whispers" also functions as one of those quintessential O'Brien-is-having-a-hard-time episodes.  You'd think, because he technically just had one of those (with Bashir) in the previous episode ("Armageddon Game"), the impact might be dulled.  But this was a character who thrived on having miserable experiences (there's another near the end of the season!).

At heart, O'Brien was one of the most relatable characters in the franchise, which is why this sort of thing was so easy to pull off.  It's not so hard to imagine things going wrong in your life, is it?  O'Brien was known for being humble (eventually retconned to be one of the few crewmen, which is to say he enlisted Starfleet, to be regularly featured, which is why in Deep Space Nine he's referred to as "Chief" rather than by rank).

So anyway, for the majority of this episode he's faced with, yes, a massive conspiracy that just seems to get deeper and deeper, so that he can't even trust his own wife Keiko.  The clever thing about this is that it may be the first time in the season Sisko is portrayed in a way that truly flatters him.  There were moments when even Picard was less than fair, at least apparently, to his crew, when otherwise he was presented as the consummate professional.  But here's Sisko being the most professional of anyone aboard the station, not only as he should be, but in a way that is totally in-character for him, certainly as he was originally depicted, someone who came to the station just to do a job, who has yet to find a real reason to care, but who nonetheless performs his duties impeccably and with remarkable compassion.  The same goes with O'Brien in this case, even though O'Brien eventually sees through it.  (In a lot of ways, Sisko's first few seasons saw him behave in exactly the way management in the real world was to start performing thanks extensive corporate training, although never as well as he did, but then Sisko had the benefit of being a fictional character.)

I'd rank "Whispers" with the likes of Next Generation's "Conundrum," an unexpectedly stellar experience that seems to have nothing much to say, just excellent storytelling behind it, the kind of sci-fi Star Trek often aspires to but doesn't really nail as often as you'd think.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Can easily be held up as exemplary of Star Trek storytelling.
• series - By exploring O'Brien's plight you get a window into the whole series.
• character - But this is certainly an O'Brien showcase.
• essential - A typically great one.

notable guest-stars:
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Susan Nimoy

Deep Space Nine 2x3 "The Siege"

rating: **

the story: The rogue Bajorans calling themselves the Circle have sieged Deep Space Nine!

what it's all about: The biggest problem with the ambitious three-part episode that opened the second season is that it spent so much time focusing on Kira, it kind of almost totally forgot Sisko.  Now, this is a problem.  A lot of fans think Sisko in the early seasons is pretty weak, and while on the whole this isn't really true, his appearances in material like "The Siege" certainly don't help.

Again, this is a problem, because by this third episode in the arc, it's arguably Sisko's turn at driving the story, and instead it just seems as if he's trying desperately to play catch-up the whole time.  And thus we discover the essential weakness of this arc: the series was by no means ready for it.

As we would see later in the series, whether in "The Search" or "The Way of the Warrior" (which are, essentially, similar stories that opened the third and fourth seasons, respectively), or even the comparatively minor but vastly superior "Civil Defense," getting Sisko right is absolutely imperative in pulling off a story like this.  If you put the station in peril, its commander has to have a commanding presence.  Which just doesn't happen in "Siege" (not to be confused with the seventh season "Siege of AR-558," another episode unfortunately regarded as vastly superior). 

Simply put, if you're going to pull the trigger on a big moment, such as putting the station in peril, you really need to think it all the way through, especially if you try to do it so near the beginning of the series.  This is probably the very episode the producers started to realize the importance of this, because by the end of the season, a truly credible threat (the Dominion) was introduced, and it ended up defining the series far more than Bajoran politics.

Again, this is not to say fans who think Bajoran politics ruined the early seasons are right.  Clearly they could produce great drama, with or without direct Cardassian involvement (although that's another gaping hole in this episode, the absence of Gul Dukat, which even by the two-part "Maquis" later in the season, and the Dukat-heavy third season and beyond, had been identified by those same producers).  But you can't let Bajorans overrun the station.  You just can't.  I don't care how many admirals are telling Sisko they can't do anything about that sort of development. 

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this was exactly the episode that needed to happen, not just to galvanize the storytelling, but to clear the Bajoran problems that were the original basis of the series.  The bottom line, though, is that "Siege" feels like an underwhelming conclusion to what should have been a shining creative moment for the young series.  There's something wrong with that, anyway.

Still, the best moment in the episode, Dax joining Kira in some antiquated fighter unit, helps shine a renewed light on Dax, her lively personality, which would come up again later in the season ("Playing God").  Seeing these two women bond is probably one of the better moments hindsight can give, from an era where that has become increasingly important.  This had never happened before in the history of Star Trek, but soon, in Voyager, it would become a welcome new staple.  So that's the best way, probably, to think of "Siege."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Not essential to the franchise per say.
• series - Pretty important to the series.
• character - Has good character work from Dax and Kira.
• essential - Not essential.

notable guest-stars:
Frank Langella
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Hana Hatae (Molly)
Steven Weber
Louise Fletcher (Winn)
Max Grodenchik (Rom)
Aron Eisenberg (Nog)
Philip Anglim (Bareil)

The Next Generation 6x7 "Rascals"

rating: *

the story: Picard, Guinan, Ro, and Keiko are de-aged.

similar to: "One Little Ship" (Deep Space Nine), "The Counter-Clock Incident" (The Animated Series), "Before and After" (Voyager), "Too Short a Season" (Next Generation)

my thoughts: This is one of those episodes I have a real conflict with.  On the one hand, it's the rare episode that reverses one of the franchise's favorite tropes (characters aging).  On the other, it's akin to episodes like "Genesis" (Next Generation; characters devolving), "Threshold" (characters evolving), and "One Little Ship" (characters shrinking).  On the other hand, it's actually got its own tradition ("Counter-Clock Incident" from The Animated Series, "Before and After" from Voyager, and "Too Short a Season" from Next Generation itself).

But "Rascals" remains pretty unique, in that it literally features young actors taking the place of established ones.  To me, it's as tough a concept as "Threshold" has always been ("Threshold" is routinely listed as one of the worst episodes in the whole franchise).  I can easily stomach "Threshold."  "Threshold" is, ultimately, less of a gimmick episode and more of a concept episode (what happens when you pass Warp 10?).  "Rascals" has to live and die, ultimately, on its own merits.

The young actors as a whole are pretty terrible.  This was the last era in which casting directors could get away with this sort of thing.  By the end of the millennium (Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense), they'd starting looking for real talent.  The actor playing the young Picard is particularly egregious. 

What makes this worse is that it's such a pivotal character episode.  It's the last regular appearances of Ro and both O'Briens in the series, and one of Guinan's last (before two appearances in the movies, Generations and Nemesis).  It's insane that this moment is all but ruined by having child actors perform the roles for the majority of the episode.

And yet, and yet...It's good for Ro's character, and good for Keiko's.  It positions the O'Briens for how they would interact throughout Deep Space Nine, and is the first time we see Ro as meaning anything as an individual since, basically, "Ensign Ro." 

And we get that nice little scene where the young Picard pretends to be Riker's son.

So as you can see, I have a conflicted relationship with "Rascals."  I group it most with "One Little Ship" because it's an absurd gimmick of an episode that really shouldn't work, and yet it kind of does.  The worst, in the end, that can be said about it is that Alexander, in a whole episode filled with other kids, is once again reduced to being relatively pointless in an episode where he should have been one of the most important characters.  Anyway...Let's just move on.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Colm Meaney (O'Brien)
Rosalind Chao (Keiko)
Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan)
Michelle Forbes (Ro)
Brian Bonsall (Alexander)
Hana Hatae (Molly)