Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series) Visionary (1995) User Reviews

Solid Chief O'Brien episode

[snoozejonc · 8/10 · 4 June 2022]

When the Romulans come to DS9, Chief O'Brien starts experience shifts in time.

This is an enjoyable episode with a fun sci-fi concept.

The plot involves a decent mystery regarding Romulans and Klingons. I like the politics, particularly the Romulans trading the cloaking device for Dominion information.

I think the time travel aspect is fun if you do not take it too seriously. It has a certain level of ridiculousness, but with the right suspension of disbelief it works. There is one twist involving the two Chief O'Briens that is excellent.

What makes it above average for me is O'Brien being the main protagonist. Colm Meaney always does a great job in this role. He is supported well by the rest of the cast.

It's a 7.5/10 for me but I round upwards.

Time jumping O'Brien

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 28 April 2010]

After exposure to radiation chief O'Brien finds himself jumping five hours in to the future before returning to the present; at first these jumps don't seem to serious, he just sees Quark complaining about Klingons damaging the holosuites then a bar fight. The third jump is far more worrying though as he witnesses himself being killed by a booby trapped control panel. Using the knowledge he has gained in the future he manages to avert that fate but it seems he may just be destined to die as the next jump shows that he has died because the doctor missed something in his scans and the jump after that shows the destruction of the station. While the chief is having his time jumps a group of Romulans are on the station to discover what the Federation had learnt about the Dominion so they could find a way to prevent them attacking the Alpha Quadrant and a group of Klingons turn up claiming their ship needs repairs.

This was a good story with a nice mystery at its centre and plenty of excitement before that mystery is solved. Until the final reveal I was unsure whether the causes of the problems were the Klingons, the Romulans or just natural disaster. There were also a few laughs such as Quark's less than successful attempt to play darts.

Many implications for future episodes.

[thevacinstaller · 7/10 · 31 March 2020]

Where the Romulans ultimately making the correct decision with the plan to destroy the wormhole. They seemed to have a greater understanding of the actual threat the Dominion represents to the Alpha Quadrant. It is delightfully treacherous to betray Starfleet despite the fact you are working together with them.

This is a clever time travel episode and it's like a man laying down railway tracks as the train is coming behind him. I enjoy when the writers give the actors a throwaway line like, "Temporal mechanics ---- doesn't make sense --- it's crazy, right?" and that's good enough for me to shut off the logic zone of my brain and strap myself in for the ride.

If there was time I would imagine they have tossed in the Obsidian Order into this episode. Get all the intelligence agencies involved in this plot arc.

Forced Quantum Singularity

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 23 July 2012]

This episode was written by Ethan Calk, writer of the 2007 Trek Fan-Flick "Of Gods and Men." Ethan also wrote the DS9 episode "Children of Time," and so it looks as if this writer has a good handle on writing stories where there are little "Time-Hiccups"— His other DS9 episode has similar conundrums: And what makes these stories interesting, is that they "Make it never happen" when it comes to future events witnessed by our principle cast, in this case, Miles Edward O'Brien.

In this episode, our writer uses the gimmick of the Forced Quantum Singularity: Which was introduced in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and according to that episode is the power source for a Romulan Warbird (TNG Ep "Timescape" s6e25).

This episode begins and ends with O'Brien's Dartboard: O'Brien had been shocked by some Ionic radiation while working in Ops. After Bashir fixes him up, O'Brien sets up his Dartboard in Quark's. As O'Brien tosses a dart, he is brought five hours into the future, where he witnesses Quark complaining to a future O'Brien that Klingons are destroying his Holosuites again. The original O'Brien is brought back to the past, right at the moment his Dart hits the "20" mark (The "20" mark is an actual target in a typical Dart game).

At first these little time jumps are just an interesting irritation for O'Brien, until he starts seeing himself killed in various ways. Each time he is able to "Change the Future" and prevent himself from being killed, only to have something worse happen the next time he has a jump.

Is O'Brien fated to die? Is he being prevented from preventing his own death? That's part of this puzzle: While this time-jumping thing is happening to O'Brien, there is a contingent of Romulans on the Station who are trying to dredge information about The Dominion from the crew of The Defiant who had been captured by The Founders. At the same time, there are three apparently drunk Klingons who are not what they appear to be, they are actually spies for Gowron: They plant a snooping device into the wall of the habitat ring, which O'Brien sees killing his future self when he tries to futz with it.

In the background of all these disparate events, there is always an invisible something, orbiting the station: It has qualities of a Black Hole, but it is orbiting the Station in an elliptical Orbit: Each time it passes O'Brien at a certain place in its orbit, it triggers his Time Jump—Every Five Hours like Clockwork. Now as I had seen every Next Generation episode, I knew what this was, but I had to see how it played out in the story at hand.

What makes this an outstanding Trek Time-Episode was that "The Future" that O'Brien was seeing, kept changing according to how O'Brien dealt with it, eventually he has dialog with his Future Self and Future Bashir which offers solutions for his present self and Station.

Using the solutions offered by those future versions of himself and Bashir, he prevents something insidious from happening to the whole station: But at the cost of his past self. And so, the O'Brien that is left at the end of this episode, is not the same O'Brien that began this episode. Or is it? So O'Brien gains about 3 extra hours of Memories, things that never happened: Until he gets back to The Bar with Bashir, and it happens again, this time without being shoved five hours into the future.

This episode is also similar to the Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect" (s5e18).

One of my favourite DS9 episodes, except...

[awakeningcry · 8/10 · 22 May 2021]

I really like the idea and conclusion of this episode. I especially like how it avoids the "Only Sane Man" trope, in which the focal character is the only one to see things (for example, Quark also sees another O'Brien across the Promenade).

The biggest plot hole here though, is the issue of the "quantum singularity". It had already been established in-universe that Romulans used artificial singularities to power their warp engines, PLUS there was a Romulan delegation on the station, so it is difficult to see how no one was able to piece the clues together.

Sloppy writing aside, highly enjoyable.

Just Too Far Fetched

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 16 October 2018]

Two things are going on. When Miles is injured in a plasma blast, he begins to see the future. As a matter of fact, he encounters himself. It appears that there is abut a five hour movement into the future. He sees significant events. At the same time, a group of Romulans with their weird haircuts and big quilted suits come to the station to begin to dig up information. O'Brien makes a major discovery which leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Didn't really work for me.

[MovieKen · 6/10 · 16 August 2018]

This review contains spoilers, so don't read it if you haven't seen the episode.

While this is a very well acted and scripted episode, it really didn't work for me. Near the beginning of the episode, Dax mentions a quantum singularity floating around outside the station. It takes almost the entire episode for the crew to figure out where this thing comes from.

Starfleet discovered 18 months before this episode that the Romulan ships use quantum singularities as their power source. Certainly this information would have become common knowledge among Starfleet by this time. And yet it takes the entire episode before O'Brien mentions it in passing.

Hmm. We have crazy things happening, we have Romulans on the station, and we have a quantum singularity orbiting DS9. And yet it takes the whole episode to figure this out? Sorry, that's just lazy writing.

Very good episode otherwise, but really, this could have been over in 10 minutes if the crew used their heads.

I hate time-shifting episodes.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 24 December 2014]

Any time the Star Trek shows used words and phrases like 'singularities' and 'quantum displacements' I usually hated the show--and "Visionary" is no exception. These sort of shows make for very slow programs--and ones that usually are stuck aboard the station or a ship.

When the episode begins, Chief O'Brien sees something weird...himself! Yes, he's standing on one side of the station and sees himself talking to Quark on the other. And, what follows is one instance after another where O'Brien is briefly transported five hours into the future. While it's never even considered that some intelligence might just be causing this, it sure seems reasonable. Instead, they all come up with some Trek-o-babble that explains everything and it all ends happily ever after.

As I said already, I don't like shows like this. I'd much rather have the crew DOING things and this one felt a bit boring.

Oh, and by the way, early in the show the Commander says that he wasn't aware that there were any Klingons on the station. Yet he doesn't seem to remember that there IS a Klingon restaurant there with a Klingon chef.