My poor Worf.
Gotta be the GOAT character in all of Trek. The roar pierced my soul.
DS9 has now passed TNG in my heart.
Is this the community for this post?
EDIT: wow guys. I meant E26. 24 episode format got my head mashed. Times Orphan is awful. I meant the finale! (No spoilers!)
Original post title for reference was “ First time DS9… just finished S6E24” — when I meant to reference Tears of the Prophets.
I’d say it’s an appropriate community, yes! always love to see someone enjoying the series.
Times Orphan was so bad that I’ve been collecting and Photoshoping frames from scenes to make it a meme.
It shows O’Brien and Kieko are selfish monsters who deserve being tortured throughout the series.
Through incredible luck Molly somehow managed to survive. She slept in trees to be safe from predators. She knew how to instantly fashion a weapon and attack when a predator approached.
Sisko: “Molly needs to go to a special institute for therapy.”
O’Brien: “Well I’m obviously not going to give up my date nights with Bashir to stay with my daughter during therapy.”
O’Brien: “Let’s send Molly back to die alone.”
Kieko: “Great idea. Taking care of a special needs child was annoying me.”
That’s a cartoonishly uncharitable reading what the heck?? Sending her back prob wasn’t the best choice but they sure as fuck didn’t do it for reasons half that selfish. Is this just a joke I’m missing or am I forgetting some context? Saying they deserve to be tortured bc they thought it’d be right to return their feral daughter to the wild where she was begging to be is way over the top, she prob could’ve been resocialized with enough time but they’re not evil for making that choice
It’s only partially a joke. Sisko said she needed to go to therapy at a special institute and O’Brien acted like that was impossible for him. His own lifestyle (career/friends) was more important than taking a year off for his child. Molly was shown to be progressing tremendously in just the few days back with her family.
feral daughter to the wild
The daughter was already talking a little, drawing pictures, and wanted her mom to brush her hair.
Molly at some point was going to have an accident and die painfully of starvation or worse. Watch the movie Cast Away. After a few years, Tom Hanks built a noose to kill himself because he knew he’d eventually get old and couldn’t keep himself alive.
It’s like having a child that throws a fit because they don’t want to leave a campground so the parents abandon their child in the wilderness.
It was a truly evil choice.
I still have no idea how you’re reading so much evil intent into their actions. They clearly did what they thought was best because they didn’t think they could rehabilitate her, which is short sighted, but nothing in the episode suggests that they just did it bc they didn’t wanna take time off to help Molly. They’d been taking a ton of time off for her, why would they suddenly stop when she’s gone be sent to an institute who will do more of that work for them? You also completely glossed over the fact that Molly was freaking the fuck out by the end that she wasn’t allowed to go home. Something she maybe could’ve worked through, but at the time she was absolutely miserable and get parents did what they thought would remedy that
Real shit it’s kinda wild seeing this level of hate over something that is so obviously not evil. It was a stupid choice, but there’s no reason to believe they did it for selfish reasons. If I’m wrong please point out the post of the episode where O’Brien says he’s tired of taking care of her or anything remotely close to that. Idk it seems like weird doomer shit having that wilfully uncharitable of an opinion, I genuinely don’t understand at all how you could get that takeaway from the episode
I’m replying back in public because long private message chains make Lemmy seem more dead than it is.
I 100% believe that the same federation that nearly let Data get disassembled
That was an issue of whether he was a Federation citizen or property. There is no question for Molly. Starfleet correctly ruled he was a citizen because of their principles.
She’s a perfect example of the forbidden experiment, that’s not an opportunity they’ll let go to waste.
There are time travel shenanigans and found orphan children every few weeks in TNG and DS9. The Enterprise was one of a thousand ships. Molly wasn’t unique.
Besides, we are shown no evidence in any episode of TNG or DS9 that the Federation would experiment on children. You can’t tell me I need therapy for having a negative interpretation of O’brien’s character in this episode and then turn around and claim the Federation is into child experimentation and she would be placed in a mental institution equivalent to the worst of what exists today.
They have prisons
This is a Federation prison:
Molly would love a Federation prison. Grass, trees, no starvation, shelter, medical care.
they abandoned their colonies in the DMZ
The planets were under Cardasian control by treaty. The colonists who stayed wanted to be independent of Cardasia despite it being a Cardasian planet. If you bought a house and found squatters living in it, would you be angry at the police for removing the squatters? Especially after the squatters were shooting at you for going in your own house?
If the O’Briens thought a mental institution would be good for Molly they would’ve taken her there,
As I already explained, they had other options. They could have taken her to Earth or any of the thousands of federation planets to stay with her where she would have constant access to the outside.
WoWow you’re actually unironically anti-maquis? You think they should just roll over and let Cardassians murder them? Wow you’re a piece of shit reactionary troll and I’ve been wasting my time arguing here. Fuck off xD those planets being handed to Cardassia doesn’t give them the right to displace and murder the people there, jfc what’s wrong with you? The “squatters” lived there before it was a cardassian planet, and didn’t shoot until they were shot. Either you’ve got shit memory for star trek episodes or you’ve got some seriously fucked up takes on colonialism
They had no options. Molly was gonna get taken away, they couldn’t just take her to earth. I really really don’t understand why you’re so invested in the thought that the O’Briens are evil bc they made a possibly stupid choice.
I take it back, you really should see a therapist. Someone who can deprogram the nihilistic bootlicker out of you. People aren’t evil by default, and driving someone from their home or taking away their rights isn’t OK just bc a treaty says so
You think they should just roll over and let Cardassians murder them?
TNG covered the same situation with the Sheliak in the episode Ensigns of Command. Data convinced the colonists it was just land, which wasn’t worth dying over. They could move.
Molly was gonna get taken away, they couldn’t just take her to earth.
Why not? We are shown people escaping to different planets almost every episode. They didn’t have to send her to her death.
Someone who can deprogram the nihilistic bootlicker out of you.
O’Brien is shown to make selfish decisions in this episode and you claim I need a therapist. Simultaneously you imagine the Federation, despite what is shown in TNG, as an evil child torturing organization and you think yourself normal.
You have no argument so you resort to personal attacks.
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they didn’t think they could rehabilitate her,
The episode showed that Molly, in just a few days was already rehabilitating. I already said, “talking, drawing, wanting her hair brushed”
they didn’t wanna take time off to help Molly
O’Brien took the news of Molly needing to go to a distant rehabilitation center as a non-starter. He could have discussed it with Keiko but he didn’t because to him, leaving ds-9 was not an option.
Molly was freaking the fuck out by the end that she wasn’t allowed to go home.
She freaked out when she had to leave the holodeck just like a child would throw a tantrum leaving a zoo. She wouldn’t have instantly fashioned a weapon and attacked the stranger who approached her unless she had been traumatized by predators in her environment.
I explained the selfish reasons already. Leaving DS9 to take their child to care would be the first priority for normal caring parents. Only narcissists would put their career first. Only someone evil would abandon their child to certain painful death because their child wasn’t happy at the moment.
Go watch Cast Away. Living alone without regular food, water, shelter and basic medical care isn’t the paradise you imagine. O’Brien had been to enough worlds to know what he was sending his daughter into.
“Time’s Orphan” a reminder to anyone named O’Brien that they must suffer. But also, as you mentioned, a solid Worf episode.
Time’s Orphan is probably the worst episode of television I’ve ever seen tbh.
I realize I said the wrong number in my title LOL.
God right? That and profit and lace are absolutely awful
To me, Profit and Lace comes across as misogynistic, misandristic, and transphobic, and I’m kind of impressed they managed all three in one go. That it’s just not funny doesn’t help matters.
Yeah it’s just brutal even for the time and pretty agonising to watch. I don’t know how it even got past the concept stages tbh.
That makes more sense now. Little more impactful to Worf.
And don’t worry, there are worse episodes to be found in the other series.
Is there something I missed about that episode that makes the O’Briens blatantly evil? It was kinda stupid not trying harder to resocialize her, but you and the other guy in the comments seem to have the impression they did it for horrible reasons and they deserve to die because of one decision you disagree on
The other thread seems a bit overblown concerning the decision making of the O’briens, although it is a bit out of character. My comment was simply referring to the ongoing troubles that family seems to run into.
Fair enough 🐕 it’s not an episode I remembered a ton but I was starting to worry I really misremembered the shit out of it lol
Worf is the best. {{:-)
He was always my favorite when I was a kid and I got super excited when I learned that he was joining DS9. (I saw it on a magazine cover at a gas station – that was before internet connections were widespread)
No spoilers intended, but i’ll say there is more Worf story to look forward to.
He’s pretty GOAT in it as well.
See my edit.
By roar I meant the end of the finale episode. Really brought home TNG through DS9 for me.
