Star Trek: Deep Space Nine-"The Visitor"

As this month is Father's Day, I decided to take a look at one of DS9's most moving episodes.

This episode, the 2nd of DS9's 4th season, begins at a house on a rainy night. The owner of this house turns out to be an older Jake Sisko (Tony Todd). He answers a knock on the door, which is a young woman named Melanie (Rachel Robinson, daughter of Garak himself, Andrew Robinson). She soon informs Jake that she's a fan of his writing and hopes to become an author himself. She also asks why Jake stopped his writing career when he did. After a moment, he tells her that it is because he lost his father Ben when he was 18. After the title sequence, Jake informs us that it all began when he and his old man took the Defiant to the wormhole to witness its once-every-half-century subspace inversion (amazing that they know it does it at that rate, as Sisko and company only discovered the wormhole 3 years earlier). En route, Jake was writing another story when Sisko informs him it's time to see the spectacle. That's when something malfunctions in Engineering, prompting Sisko to check it out, with Jake in tow. They arrive to see the crewmen in Engineering unconscious and the warp core going critical. Father and son stop the core from going boom. However, the core emits an energy discharge which hits Sisko, causing him to vanish.

Now presumed dead, Jake becomes uncertain of his future, despite comfort from his friends on the station. But, one night, Jake sees his dad on a chair in their quarters but only briefly as Sisko vanishes again. Dax investigates but finds nothing, leading Jake to think it was just a dream. As time goes on, the Klingon Empire becomes more agressive, prompting Bajor to enter a pact with Cardassia. This leads to DS9's civilian population leaving to prevent being caught up in impending war. Jake refuses to do so, however, despite Kira and Worf informing him that he would be safe if he did so. Later, in private, Jake tells Kira that, as Sisko had accomplished so much on the station, he feels he would leave him behind if he left. Kira understands but gets Jake to promise that he'll leave if she insists he do so.

Months later, Jake sees his dad again and, this time, takes him to Bashir. The doctor discovers that Sisko was caught in a temporal inversion when the discharge hit him, causing him to go out of sync with time. But Sisko disappears again after a few moments, leaving Jake heartbroken again. Melanie then interrupts the story, telling Jake she can leave if it's too hard for him to continue. Jake says it isn't because he is dying, although his mood quickly lightens as they discuss her writing ambitions before he continues with his story. Dax and O'Brien spent the next few months trying to get their captain back, although this was tough since the wormhole wouldn't repeat its inversion for another 50 years. Later on, DS9 itself is forced to surrender to the Klingons, forcing Jake to leave. He returns to Earth and eventually marries a woman named Korena (Gaylin Gorg). She ends up meeting her father-in-law when he appears again one evening. He disappears again later, but this prompts Jake to begin studying subspace mechanics to try to get his old man back. This eventually turns into an obsession which prompts Korena to eventually leave him. Realizing that recreating the accident is the way to get Sisko back, Jake, 50 years later, gets Nog, now a Starfleet Capain, to take him to the wormhole. With Dax and Bashir's assistance, they begin work, but, this time, Jake gets pulled into subspace, meeting up with his dad.

Sisko is shocked at how much time has passed and how Jake has basically tossed everything away to bring him back. However, Jake is eventually pulled from subspace. Jake then tells Melanie that the one way that he can bring Sisko back is by killing himself once Sisko appears again and this will lead to the captain returning to the point in time when the whole saga began. Melanie is moved by this and bids Jake farewell. The next day, Sisko appears and he and his son chat before Jake informs him about what he plans to do. Sisko is moved by this and embraces him That's when Sisko sees himself in the Defiant's engine room again and quickly pushes himself and Jake away from the discharge. Jake is amazed that his dad knew the discharge was coming but all Sisko can do is tearfully embrace his son and the future they now have together.

Of all the Star Trek characters that have children, I've always found Sisko's relationship with Jake to be the most appealing. Brooks and Lofton always had wonderful scenes on the series. That chemistry is a big reason this episode works so well and, as I previously noted, one reason DS9's finale proved disappointing was that the final moments weren't centered on the two of them.