I re-watched this yesterday. Sorry to say, but I was very disappointed.
Here's why: I've mentioned many times before that I have a problem with time-travel episodes, because they are cheap plot devices to concoct whatever story you like without any regard to what has already been established. They never make any sense and work differently in every episode.
So, they all become convinced that if the stranded crew doesn't re-do the accident, the colony will cease to exist; why? They did exist simultaneously for 200 years without any problem, why can't they continue to do so? And with the same logic, if they didn't manage to escape wouldn't they just reboot the whole time sequence, still causing everybody to disappear, effectively creating a time loop? Or are they supposed to build a parallel, duplicate colony to the one that already exists?
The story is extremely poorly thought out if you scrutinize it even the slightest. Which is almost always the case with these type of scenarios. Of course there is something called suspend of disbelief, but that only works if the rest of the picture contains elements of very high quality. In Star Trek IV they get a free pass, in Voyagers finale as well, in DS9's „The Visitor“ etc,. But here ... The characters you love and respect only come off as stupid.
The main thing they manage to do is to deepen the relationship between Odo and Kira; however I fail to see how they couldn't have done it any other way. The only thing this episode really has going for it is Bashirs banter with O'Brien, which is stellar enough to put it in the 'maybe'-bin for a potential re-watch.
Here's why: I've mentioned many times before that I have a problem with time-travel episodes, because they are cheap plot devices to concoct whatever story you like without any regard to what has already been established. They never make any sense and work differently in every episode.
So, they all become convinced that if the stranded crew doesn't re-do the accident, the colony will cease to exist; why? They did exist simultaneously for 200 years without any problem, why can't they continue to do so? And with the same logic, if they didn't manage to escape wouldn't they just reboot the whole time sequence, still causing everybody to disappear, effectively creating a time loop? Or are they supposed to build a parallel, duplicate colony to the one that already exists?
The story is extremely poorly thought out if you scrutinize it even the slightest. Which is almost always the case with these type of scenarios. Of course there is something called suspend of disbelief, but that only works if the rest of the picture contains elements of very high quality. In Star Trek IV they get a free pass, in Voyagers finale as well, in DS9's „The Visitor“ etc,. But here ... The characters you love and respect only come off as stupid.
The main thing they manage to do is to deepen the relationship between Odo and Kira; however I fail to see how they couldn't have done it any other way. The only thing this episode really has going for it is Bashirs banter with O'Brien, which is stellar enough to put it in the 'maybe'-bin for a potential re-watch.
