“Time’s Orphan” is potentially a triple whammy: it is a bottle show, an O’Brien Must Suffer episode, and it deals with children. Remember our theory that trek never does children well. Even with those three strikes, it is not a bad episode. Forgettable, but not bad.The O’Briens visit a planet for a mini-vacation when Molly gets caught in one of those pesky time portals that always seem to be around at inconvenient times. She is sent far ito the past and quickly rescued but not quickly enough. She is returned as a feral 18 year old with no memory of her past beyond a slight recognition of her parents.
They try to rehabilitate her with little success. Molly is homesick. They decide to indulge her by letting her spend time in a holdout recreation. When she has to leave fr the next group of customers to use the holdout, she goes berserk in quark’s bar attackin customers. She is arrested by Odo. Once caged, she exhibits capture anxiety, a real phenomenon some animals suffer when held captive--they literally die from the shock of losing their freedom.
Starfleet decides it is best to institutionalize Molly. Here is more of that wonderful trek idealism at work. A socialized government intervenes within the family unit in order to take a child away. It is a pattern, too. Starfleet wanted to tae Lal from Data because they determined he could not raise her properly. Do the myriads of progressive trek fans see anything wrong with this or is it generally accepted in the worldview the state has the best of intentions at all times and therefore ought not be questioned?
The O’Briens defy Starfleet and send molly back through the portal so she can live in her ’real’ home. She is conveniently sent back at roughly the same time he was as a toddler. She sends her oneself through the ortal and then disappear, never having existed. All is back to normal.
There is a short B-story involving Worf and Dax babysitting Yoshi. Taking care of him has them thinking about the future. I do not recall how soon it was popular knowledge Terry Ferrell was leaving the show, so I am not certain how much the writers were trying to tug viewers’ heartstrings. I guess it was already fairly well known, since “Change of Heart” a few episodes back was supposed to be a fake out in which we were to think Dax might actually die. I suppose the tightening of the screws as we know something is going to happen to her soon is an emotional experience forall three Dax fans out there, but I am not among the trio. I will give it an “A” for effort, though.
The same with the episode as a whole. I do not really care about Molly, so I am not emotionally invested in her fate. Dax’s, either. But I cannot complain about the episode as a whole. There is nothing wrong with it other than my disinterest in the main characters. I do note that DS9 relies heavily on variations of time travel whenever it needs to do a science fiction plot, so in that sense, “Time’s orphan” is not very original. Still, it is a bottle show and the powers that be did what they could with it.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
