Symptom 181: The Visitor
Deep Space Nine at it’s very best? At least in my opinion (Scott) just about. This story shows an alternate future where Sisko doesn’t survive, the Klingons hold the station and drive off the Dominion, and Jake Sisko, spends his entire life trying to rescue his dad from a subspace bubble. Ok, so maybe that doesn’t sound great, but the actual episode is. It examines fatherhood and how the job doesn’t end just because the child turn 18 and goes off to college. It demonstrates dramatically that the role of father is a lifetime job that never ends. It also explores how we deal with loss, or as Jake does, refuse to move with loss and become trapped trying to find a way to undo a tragedy. Jake wastes his entire life by emotionally and mentally trapped in a moment in time and refusing to move forward, never realizing that while he was fixed on the tragedy of his father’s death the moments of only life were passing into oblivion and he was in danger of having lived yet not lived.
The Visitor is a timeless story that will be relevant as long as men and women deal with mortality, so always. It is bold in choice, in that it has a guest star carry the script and it would sink or swim on his talents. Finally it is emotional and engaging and explores questions absolutely central to the human condition. What more can you ask for in science fiction…unless you are Michael Bay, then you want explosions, or if JJ, a mystery box. Thank God they didn’t direct this.
So Avery, what if this sub space real you are in was really a box, with voices in the background belonging to shadowy creatures, maybe its Jake, maybe it’s Dukat, and maybe it a box, and you don’t know how you got in it….
Yes yes JJ, but your literally mystery box should have to be blown up to get Sisko
(Avery) I am not doing this nonsense. Get me a real director and … get…me….one….NOW. Slams table.