The Visitor (DS9 episode)

All you want to know about The Visitor (DS9 episode)

For other uses of "Visitor", see Visitor (disambiguation).
Star Trek: DS9 episode
"The Visitor"

An aged Jake Sisko, as played by guest star Tony Todd
Episode no. 74
Prod. code 476
Airdate October 9, 1995
Writer(s) Michael Taylor
Director David Livingston
Guest star(s) Tony Todd as Adult Jake
Aron Eisenberg as Nog
Galyn Görg as Korena
Rachel Robinson as Melanie
Year 2372 - 2410s
Episode chronology
Previous "The Way of the Warrior"
Next "Hippocratic Oath"

"The Visitor" is the title of an episode from the fourth season of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Contents

Plot

The episode begins on a rainy night. An old man, sitting at a desk in his house, injects himself with a hypospray. A moment later, the doorbell rings and a young woman comes in from the rain. She identifies herself as Melanie, an aspiring novelist, and is flustered to finally be meeting Jake Sisko, her favorite author, in the flesh. However, he's only ever written two books (Anslem and Collected Stories), and she wants to know why he gave it up. After a moment, Jake says he'll tell her: he stopped because, when he was eighteen, his father died.

The action now flashes back over some 80 years, with Old Jake (Tony Todd) narrating to Melanie (Rachel Robinson). The day of his death, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) took his son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) out on the USS Defiant to see the Bajoran Wormhole undergo a "subspace inversion" ("a natural wonder which only happens every 50 years"). Unfortunately, the inversion causes problems with the Defiant's warp engine, and Sisko goes below deck to keep the ship from exploding. With Jake's help, he succeeds... But an energy discharge slants out of the warp core and vaporizes him right before his son's eyes.

Several months later, the farewells have been said and the furor has died down, but Jake is still despondent. One night he awakens to a flash of light in his room: Sisko is sprawled on the floor, but washes out in a flare of light seconds later. Jake figures it was a dream, but when it happens again, nearly a year later, he's able to call for help before his father phases out again. Dax, O'Brien and Bashir discover that the energy blast has "knocked the captain's temporal signature out of phase". Unfortunately, his officers are unable to fix him in time, but he asks Jake not to mourn for him, to instead live his life out as anyone would. Around this time, Old Jake begins having trouble breathing, and he reveals to Melanie that he is dying.

Young Jake decides to honor his father's request. He leaves the station, settles on Earth, gets married to Bajoran painter Korena, and becomes a published and prize-winning author. But then Sisko reappears in Jake's home—the very place he and Melanie are sitting in now—and Jake decides he's going to do anything necessary to get his father back. The quest loses him his wife and his career, but culminates in Jake taking the Defiant to the wormhole to see if the next subspace inversion (it has already been 50 years) can help. He, Bashir, Dax and Nog have designed a device that will hopefully bring back the captain, but instead it sucks Jake into subspace. There Benjamin Sisko confronts his son, who is now older than he is. Sisko begs Jake to give up: to live a normal life, to get (re-)married, to have grandchildren... To be happy. Jake is returned to normal space, without his father, before he can answer.

The narrative now returns to Old Jake and Melanie for the final time, and Jake explains what his research has taught him: the energy discharge pushed Sisko out of time, the equivalent of a man stepping off a moving walkway. But Jake was touching his father at the time of the accident, and a "subspace link" was created between them. This link functioned like an elastic cord: every now and then, as Jake continued down the moving walkway, the cord would become taut enough to yank Sisko forward. Jake has discovered that if his motion through time ceases right when he and his father are together, Sisko will return to the moment of the accident and, possibly, be able to avert it. He is dying because Sisko is coming... Soon. Melanie, having received the last story of this celebrated storyteller, wishes him good-bye and departs.

All plays out as expected. Old Jake, courtesy of the hypospray, passes away in his father's arms, and Sisko finds himself in "the present," standing before the warp core. This time he knows to jump out of the way, and he shields his son with his body as the energy passes harmlessly above them. The future timeline has been erased, and the characters (and the television series) returned to its status quo, and Sisko continues his daily life... But with a greater appreciation for his son, who gave up his entire life to save them both.

“ "Don't you see? We're going to get a second chance."
    —Jake Sisko, last words		 ”

Production

Melanie, the aspiring reporter who listens to Jake's story, is played by Rachel Robinson, daughter of actor Andrew Robinson (who himself had a recurring role on the show, that of Garak). Rachel Robinson also auditioned for the role of Ezri Dax.

"The Visitor" was written by Michael Taylor who has gained a reputation for writing darker episodes that challenged Star Trek's utopian ethos.[citation needed]

Reception

"The Visitor" is frequently cited by the show's cast, crew and fans as their favorite episode, was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1996, and, according to a reader poll in the September 21, 1996, issue of TV Guide, was voted the best Star Trek episode of all time (although a similar poll in the April 20, 2004, issue saw it slip to fourth place). The episode has an average rating of 4.7/5 on the official Star Trek website (as of September 15, 2007), placing it as the 6th highest rated episode.[1]

v • d • e
Star Trek time travel stories
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
"Time and Again" • "Eye of the Needle" • "Future's End" • "Before and After" • "Year of Hell" • "Timeless" • "Relativity" • "Fury" • "Shattered" • "Endgame"
Star Trek: Enterprise
"Cold Front" • "Shockwave" • "Future Tense" • "Twilight" • "Carpenter Street" • "Azati Prime" • "E²" • "Zero Hour" • "Storm Front"

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine)"

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