Synopsis: After receiving a minor dose of radiation poisoning, O’Brien inexplicably begins experiencing a series of jumps into the near future. Meanwhile, a Romulan delegation arrives on the station, expecting an intelligence report on the Dominion.
Review: I love most episodes that involve time travel, and this one has a unique twist I’ve never seen before (jumping into the future a short time, interacting with that environment, then jumping back with new info). It requires a ton of technobabble to make it work, and it barely squeaks by. Colm Meaney helps a great deal as it’s easy to connect with his struggle. There’s one joke “I hate temporal mechanics,” that is used to explain away the obvious paradoxes. It’s lame, but at least it acknowledges how confusing things get. The ride is really fun so I forgave it pretty easily.
Review: With DS9 I tend to prefer the episodes that are part of larger story arcs, but this is a one-off that I’m particularly fond of. The main crux of the story, that Federation peeps find an epidemic on a new planet, has been done many times before in one way or the other. However, this might be the first time I haven’t been annoyed by trumped up moralism or deus ex machina cures.
Publisher: Raw Fury Developer: Clifftop Games Year: 2016 Platform: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
Rating: 8
If you loved adventure games in the early 90s, it would be next to impossible not to like Kathy Rain. It takes everything that was great about those old games and in some respects makes them better.
Synopsis: Convicted of espionage, Miles O’Brien is given the memories of twenty years in prison in a matter of hours. Returning to Deep Space 9, O’Brien finds he cannot shrug the memory of his awful experience or rid himself of the guilt he feels over the death of his cellmate.
Review: Pretty much any episode that features Colm Meaney is off to a strong start and this is no exception, especially because he suffers more than usual, up to contemplating suicide. There are so many things they did right with this story.
Synopsis: In the “mirror universe,” Sisko must persuade the alternate version of his dead wife to join the Terran Rebels, or he will watch her die a second time.
Review: If you can’t tell by now, it’s hard for me not to watch any episode of Star Trek and not compare it to something done on TNG. For the first half here, I kept thinking this was just a poor man’s version of Drumhead what with the abusive investigator with no evidence. But when it became clear that things weren’t what they seemed, I started to think it was derivative of Frame of Mind, but less suspenseful. And then in one fell swoop it became better than either episode.
Synopsis: Trapped three hundred years in the past, Sisko, Bashir, and Dax find themselves confronting one of the darkest hours in Earth’s history. With history itself at stake, Sisko must risk all to see that the Bell Riots reach their inevitable conclusion, even if it means sacrificing his life
Review: A very polarizing episode, as it gets political and preachy about the homelessness and mental illness in the early 21st century. As a social worker, I appreciate that they were willing to take this on directly. Treatment of those who are homeless is still very poor in this country. What bothered me about the episode is that Bashir makes it sound like fixing the problem is as easy as snapping your fingers. He whines about how there are medications that can fix mental illnesses in our time period. It also would have been nice for them to mention the real reason that the homeless don’t get much help: there’s no immediate profit in it.
Review: A really important episode in the Star Trek canon as it completely solidifies the shift from the Roddenberry idealist Federation to something more familiar to the humans we know and love today. Eddington’s speech about how the Federation’s assimilation of cultures is worse than the Borg’s runs the risk of being bombastic but connects enough to be effective. A little less effective is Sisko’s speech about duty and betrayal, especially since he has a history of sympathizing with the Maquis when he’s not personally affected.
Synopsis: In this last adventure, the Federation Alliance prepares a final invasion of Cardassia. Meanwhile on Bajor, Kai Winn releases the Pah-wraiths from the Fire Caves which threatens the safety of not only Bajor, but the entire Alpha Quadrant.
Review: The finale suffers a bit from everything that came before it, in that the war has just dragged on too long and space battles lack the intrigue they would have if there hadn’t been so many of them. That said, this episode wraps up everything pretty much as perfect as one could have.
Death By Troggles 
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