Reviews

As a whole, the half-century long Cardassian occupation and colonialistic exploitation of Bajor was well explored in Star Trek, beginning with Ro Laren's appearance in TNG, stretching throughout DS9 and extending -to some degree- to Voyager. This episode is, in principal, no exception.

However, various apparently careless bits of writing, causing not only scenes that don't quite make sense but result in discontinuities in major characters overshadow the otherwise well made episode.

When the boy was temporarily given to the custody of Keiko, it is reasonable to assume that she would be informed about the teenager's disposition as a Cardassian born, yet Bajoran raised person. Therefore, to help him feel at home, she would rather prepare Bajoran cuisine (which the boy would be accustomed to all his waking life) than Cardassian.

Assuming she wasn't informed of the situation would be illogical; assuming she did it on purpose leads to further problems: Was she trying to indoctrinate the kid into accepting his Cardassian identity? If so, she was not only overstepping her duty as a temporary custodian, but also is the character continuity and integrity of a distinguished scientist and Starfleet personnel is severely jeopardized.

Or was she assuming him to be Cardassian anyway just by the look? That would be an essentialist attitude bordering racism, which would create a discontinuity-within-discontinuity inside the very scene, contrasting with her chastising Miles for his bigotry, more of which below.

Portraying Miles O'Brien as a bigot (when he was alarmed at the news of his daughter and the boy having played together) is also a major discontinuity of his character. It was established back on TNG that he couldn't quite overcome his war experiences, particularly the Setlik 3 massacre. However, showing a racist attitude towards a mere child (who wasn't even raised a Cardassian in spite of his birth) betrays his previous efforts in coming to terms with his war trauma.

I interrupted the episode at the dinner scene in this most recent rewatch and don't remember the details although I haven't forgotten the overall story. Overall, minus the dinner scene, it's still one of the good episodes.