Time's Orphan
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 18 May 1998
- ON
- First-run syndication
- STARDATE
- None given
- DIRECTED BY
- Allan Kroeker
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 548
WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle; story by Joe Menosky
A family picnic on a peaceful planet goes terribly wrong for the O'Briens when young Molly falls through an ancient time portal.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
With Keiko back on the station, the O'Briens take their children for a picnic on the planet Golana. While exploring, eight-year-old Molly falls into an ancient, dormant time portal and is thrown 300 years into the past. The crew manages to reactivate the portal and pull her back, but too late: the girl who emerges is 18, having survived alone in the wilderness for a decade. Feral and frightened, Molly struggles to adjust to her family and the station, and her parents try to reach her with a holosuite recreation of Golana. When the programme ends she turns violent, and she now faces being institutionalised. Miles and Keiko make the agonising decision to send her back to the only life she knows, and Odo helps them. At the portal, the adult Molly meets her younger self and guides her back through, and the eight-year-old Molly is reunited with her family.
- 01Joe Menosky first conceived the premise for The Next Generation, as a way to write out Worf's son Alexander. René Echevarria later pitched it several times with Molly instead.
- 02All of the exterior scenes were filmed at Malibu Creek State Park, in California's Santa Monica Mountains.