What Now, Miles?

Trouble comes to Miles O'Brien again in "The Visionary", a February 1995 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. As usual, Colm Meaney as O'Brien does an excellent job of being human and exasperated in a weird situation though the time travel mechanics in this episode aren't as consistent as they are in some other episodes.

O'Brien's problem this time is that an accident has left him doused with radiation that reacts to a singularity orbiting the station to make him randomly jump forward in time about five hours. It's a lucky thing, too, because he tends to witness disasters he's then able to prevent in this volatile couple of days on DS9.

For most of the episode, he appears to those nearby to faint and awaken with future knowledge. But when Quark sees a duplicate O'Brien appear, everyone realises O'Brien wasn't hallucinating. The trouble is, an uncredited Ron Moore added a plot twist in which past O'Brien stays in the future and future O'Brien comes back in his place, wearing a different outfit. But wasn't past O'Brien's body supposed to be unconscious back in the present, apparently having fainted?

It's still basically an entertaining episode and all the performances are good. I particularly liked Odo in the episode. He spends much of it investigating the Romulans and Klingons and questioning suspects. That's the Odo I like, not the one getting emotional about the Changelings.

Sonnet 2005

Recursive folds defined her paper map
Across her country, lines were making kings
Important trees were thick with golden sap
From pans emerged the cakes of which she sings
At breakfast time, decisions rocked her world
She piled numbers over beds and sheets
At fire's edge, her little dollar curled
A final note when cutting costs and seats
You see, her rusty car was hollowed out
She couldn't find a pipe to warp away
And so she folds her arms and starts to pout
The news was full of tales about delay
At last, contraptions took her heart to Hell
And there she rang the Devil's golden bell