Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Visionary

Review by An Honest Fangirl

"Who told you that?"
"You did. In the future."
"Oh. Well, who am I to argue with me?"

That's right, folks. We got a time travel story on our hands.

This episode wasn't really what I expected it to be. From the opening scene, I thought that the driving force behind the story would be the Romulans and their overbearing mandate to learn everything possible about the Dominion. Throw in some general suspicion about Odo, and you're set. And while we did get a little bit of this, the main focus was on O'Brien and his newly gained time travel ability. Anything involving the Romulans or the Klingons was second to that.

Unfortunately, something about this episode just didn't work for me. It was perfectly fine. There wasn't anything wrong with it. But it also never rose above the level of "okay" for me. I kept waiting for the episode to return to the Romulans in some meaningful capacity, since that seemed like it was the more interesting storyline that was just being ignored.

Maybe it was the lack of weight that O'Brien's time travel seemed to have, at least until the last jump. O'Brien would see the future, tell someone what he saw, and the problem would almost immediately be fixed. It felt more like a convenient plot device than an a meaningful story arc.

That is, until O'Brien's final jump, where he succumbs to radiation poisoning and dies, leaving the Future O'Brien to jump back in time and take his place. This was something that was really, really cool, and the episode kind of just skimmed over it. I wanted to delve deeper into O'Brien's feelings that he was in the wrong time and that this wasn't his life, even though the two O'Briens were only a few hours apart. That has some really cool philosophical and psychological ramifications to explore. Instead, all we got was Bashir telling O'Brien that it didn't matter and that he was the same.

Regardless of my dissatisfaction with the direction that the plot went, this was still a well-crafted episode. There were some genuinely humorous moments, mostly involving the dart board or Quark wanting to use O'Brien's new abilities for dabo. I loved that the line about how Odo having romantic feelings for Kira was "ridiculous." It made me smile. There were a lot of nice, little touches throughout the episode. I just wished that I enjoyed the episode as a whole more.

Random Thoughts

I kept thinking of Keiko and was glad when O'Brien mentioned that he had left something for her in case he died.

Those Romulan shoulder pads were a sight to behold.

I know that DS9 has killed off characters before, but seeing O'Brien die, however briefly, struck a cord in me. It's just so different from the original series, which is the one I'm most familiar with, and I'm reminded of this every time it happens.

Quotes:

Sisko: Just be careful.
Odo: Commander, there's no careful way to question a Klingon.

Ruwon: I think you're lying.
Quark: About what part?
Ruwon: All of it.
Quark: Well, at least I'm consistent.

Odo: I plan to investigate the Klingons, the Bajorans, Quark, the visiting Terrellians...
Sisko: You think Quark as something to do with this?
Odo: I always investigate Quark.


A decent episode, but not necessarily a great one.
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An Honest Fangirl loves superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and really bad horror movies.

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