Mini Review #101: Star Trek DS9 3X17/3X18 "Visionary" and "Distant Voices" (Patreon)

Two more amazing episodes of DS9 focusing on two characters that haven't really had their own episodes this season! Visionary was a really creative O'Brien episode involving him and the ability to go about 5 hours into the future. Such a cool concept that left me head scratching for most of the episode but was very satisfying once I understood what was going on. O'Briens little trips into the future were always so much fun and I was hoping for something massive to happen during one of them as most of the trips were just brawl fights or conversations in the future. Luckily, not only did one predict that O'Brien was going to die, but that DS9 was going to BLOW UP and the wormhole would be destroyed!!! Watching a model of the station be blown up on camera was honestly something I never thought I would see in the show and it was both terrifying and so cool!! I tried not to think too much about how the time travel stuff worked in the episode and I loved the little joke between the two O'Briens about it. Also, I really enjoyed the ending. How our timeline O'Brien had to die in order for DS9 to survive, which in turn sent a very near future O'Brien back in time to become our new O'Brien. While the length of time between those two different O'Briens was only about 3 hours, it was still interesting to see him talk about how things just don't feel exactly right as if he is living in someone else's shoes. Also, we got some sick Romulan action and sneaky betrayal as usual and so I am wondering how this may effect the cloaking device treaty moving forward.

Distant Voices was such a creative episode and one that leaned into the spooky side of DS9 much more than any episode so far. I loved the horror vibe of it so much! Especially those first 15-20 min where you have no idea what's going on. From the cold empty hallways of DS9 to the flickering lights and screens, I was actually a little scared of the dark here. I loved the concept that we were in Bashir's mind and that everyone we saw were just figments of his personality. I actually didn't really suspect we were in his mind for some reason (even if I made a guess I wasn't sure about it) and so it surprised me when it was revealed. The villain was really cool as well and made me think that the writers watched A Nightmare on Elm Street before writing this episode. I loved how he had infiltrated Bashir's mind and would just pop in and out of nowhere in order to kill of some people or taunt Bashir. The old man makeup in this episode especially needs a round of applause because what a stunning job they did! Bashir looked so old and it was made extra believable due to the fact that the actor who plays Bashir very convincingly acted like an old man. The ending of this episode was also so satisfying as the villain had been taunting Bashir about how he always gives up citing tennis and Dax as examples. While on the surface it does seem like he gave up on those things, hearing Bashirs little monologue about why he never gave up on those was really rewarding to here.