Customer Reviews

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 120: Children of Time [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A very powerful and intriguing episode, definitely the best show of season 5, IMO. It is a reset-button episode in many ways, but that's largely unavoidable. This episode does a lot to advance the Odo/Kira story thread and it does a great service to most of the main characters in how they might react to meeting their descendants. Leave it to staff writer Rene Echevarria to pen another compelling character piece using a novel sci-fi premise.

Given that we know the Defiant and her crew will return to the station, the inevitable reset-ending comes with a twist that is appropriate and very fitting though a bit unsettling. Not only does it prevent the show from closing arbitrarily, but it provides us with a bit of shocking insight into Odo and what he might be capable of.

Great script, good setup for future episodes dealing with Odo <-> Kira, and sharp acting from the entire ensemble. This one's definitely a keeper.

BTW, it's amazing how much future-Molly looks like Chief O'Brien who's supposed to be her great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Nice casting job :)

I'll spare you another synopsis (you can just read the ones below). But it's a wonderful episode...to me, it is on my list of the Top 5. For those of you who love Odo & Kira the way I do, this episode is a biggie--it directs their "close" friendship to a certain path. The ending is shocking...but it leaves a huge mark. If you loved watching them in "Crossfire," then you want to see this one!

Deep Space Nine will largely be remembered, at least by me, for the grand and sweeping epic that comprised its entire last season, and with good reason. However, one sometimes had to do some digging around in there for the character stuff (not to say it wasn't there-- it was-- but it was often secondary in importance). In this episode, however, there's no connection to the over-arching plot and no giant space battles, and so we get to see the characters in a very unique situation (well, not entirely unique on Star Trek, but still unusal). They get to meet their descendants. Furthermore, they are forced to choose between erasing those people from the timeline and getting home themselves. They know that some of them, including Kira, will die in the crash, and the rest will never see their families again. But they don't have the right to deny their descendants existence. The "version" of Odo who has lived on the planet for 200 years is a very compelling character, especially as a tragic lover. Overall, this is one of my favorite single DS9 episodes, and it can be watched on its own-- whereas the last 7 or 10 episodes, while forming an extremely exciting plot, really do all have to be watched in order to see that plot. So unless you're up to the daunting task of collecting the entire Dominion War, this episode (along with the comic classics "Little Green Men" and "Trials and Tribble-ations") should be at the top of your list.

After another lengthy mission in the Gamma Quadrant, the Defiant and her crew head home to DS9, all looking forward to seeing their families and sleeping in their own beds. En route home, Dax identifies an intriguing energy barrier around the 4th planet of a nearby solar system. Despite the fact that everyone is exhausted, it is their mission after all... to seek life and civilizations, yada yada, so they get closer to investigate. The energy barrier is trickier than Dax expects and damage to the ship means that they will be stranded for about 2 days while they make repairs.

They are shocked to be hailed by residents of the planet, most of the 8,000 of whom are human. One of their greeters, Yedrin Dax, claims to hold the same symbiont Dax that is inside Jadzia, albeit a tad bit older. The residents explain that they are the descendants of the Defiant crew that crash landed 200 years earlier - a head-on collision with an energy anomaly sends them 200 years in the past. With no one in the quadrant to send a message of help to, they decide to make the best of things and make the planet their new home. They are expecting the Defiant and her crew when they arrive. Despite their doubts, their tricorders confirm the identities of the people via DNA.

Now that they know about the accident, they can avoid it - but will avoiding the accident obliterate their descendants? Will they have ever really existed? A revelation that Kira will die in only weeks due to an energy discharge during their crash landing prompts the captain to take the crew home where Kira can receive treatment - but is this what Kira wants? Does she want the lives of 8,000 people on her conscience?

Due to the energy barrier issues, Odo is confined to a container in sick bay, unable to cope with the environment. The older version of Odo on the planet, however, has learned to adjust to the energy issues and has become far more adept at shape-shifting. He has longed to see Kira for 200 years and to tell her how he feels about her. René Auberjonois should have been nominated for an Emmy for his performance in this episode - he is always superb as Odo, but this performance outshines the rest.

This is truly one of the better episodes of DS9, as the characters show their full development and the actors are able to really stretch out with their abilities. There are many intertwining plots - Kira's death, Odo's love declaration, Dax's 200-year-old guilt for stranding the crew and keeping the captain from seeing his son again, O'Brien's disgust at himself for learning that he has descendants on the planet, even though he has a wife and children at home in the Alpha Quadrant, the "current" Odo having to cope with the divulging of inner-most thoughts of the "older" Odo - and it's amazing how much they were able to cram into this one episode and still keep the viewer engaged.

The Defiant crash lands Sisko, Dax, Worf, Kira, O'Brien, Odo and its crew on a planet inhabited by their descendants. If the DS9 crew leaves the planet and returns to their own time/space continuum, the planet's hundreds of inhabitants, their descendants will have never existed - in other words, they will die. If the crew does not return, they will be forced to live their lives on this planet and Kira will die. I do the plot no justice by over-simplifying it, thusly. This has to be the finest episode of Deep Space Nine ever made and ranks up there with City on the Edge of Forever as a classic. I do not want to give anything away, but the decision the crew finally agree upon is agonizingly dramatic. The ending, however, is quite the twisted surprise. This episode provides great acting by the ensemble cast (even Avery Brooks!) and one killer of a script by Gary Holland and Ethan H. Calk. Enjoy! Buy two copies and give the second as a gift. Seriously...

This is definitely one of the finest DS-9 episodes - and there are a LOT of DS-9 episodes to choose from that were wonderful. This episode was beautifully written, poignantly directed, and features superb performances by Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois. The ending is surprising, effective, and heart-breaking, all at the same time. If you are a DS-9 fan, this episode belongs in your collection.

In a strange temporal anomaly the Defiant lands on a planet that is populated with their descendents, Sisko realises that this planet is somehow out of loop with the rest of time and that they are in the future and that the reason these descendents are alive is that the Defiant was trapped on the planet decades earlier and never escaped, with all the original crew dead, except for Odo, the crew face a difficult situation: if they leave the planet then the crew will not pro-create with each other and create the descendents they see before them. In effect they will be killing their descendents, even though they haven't been born in their time. Confusing - well not when it is explained to you with the magic of TV, but slow, YES. Not much happens except a lot of bonding with the crews relatives-to-be. A bit boring especially as we all know the ending, the Defiant IS going to leave and thus ensuring that the descendents never exist. Well we never liked them anyway...