Synopsis: Investigating a planet surrounded by a powerful energy field, the crew of the Defiant discovers their own descendants, and learns that in two days they will crash two hundred years in the past.

Memory Alpha Summary: Great Scott!

Review: I’m a sucker for just about any time travel story and this one is no different; being confronted by one’s descendants and being told you can’t leave or they won’t be born is a pretty great story conflict. It allows for a lot of natural conflict (e.g. O’Brien debating about leaving his wife and child), Worf abandoning his descendants who honor him (being about the only Klingons who do so), and some fun jokes at Sisko’s expense. 

Unfortunately, they screw the pooch with this ending. While I agree that having Yedrin be the one who sabotages his own society would not have been satisfying from a storytelling sense, having the real reason the society was wiped away being Odo’s love for Kira is way fucking worse. Odo is a man of code and honor, and this extrapolation of his character is disgusting. If O’Brien had been the saboteur, it would have created the necessary storytelling conflict and also made a lot of sense; I might also sacrifice a colony of 8,000 people I don’t know in an alternate timeline in order to be with my wife and daughter. But sacrificing 8,000 people to save one person you’re in love with who doesn’t reciprocate those feelings is incredibly selfish. One could sympathize if Odo had just kept that to himself, but then telling Kira what he did ratchets up that selfishness and transfers a lot of that guilt over to her. Fuck you, Odo. 

For what it’s worth, it appears Visitor and Auberjonois agreed with my take.