Synopsis: Molly O’Brien falls into a time vortex when picnicking with her family.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how bits of Eros-driven irrational unconscious material come to the attention of the Logos-driven rational conscious ego through a complex.
In “Time’s Orphan” the O’Brien family goes on a picnic on a nearby planet, Golana. Unexpectedly Molly O’Brien, the eight year-old daughter of Chief Miles O’Brien and Keiko O’Brien, wanders off and falls into a time portal. The crew aboard Defiant believe that Molly has been sent back 300 years to a place in time where this planet had already been deserted for almost 2000 years. The crew rescue Molly O’Brien, but when she returns, she is now eighteen and has been living in the wild for a decade. At first, the O’Brien’s try to integrate her into the society on Deep Space Nine, but after she attacks a visitor to the station, a magistrate calls for her to be taken away. The O’Briens instead take a runabout to return eighteen year-old Molly O’Brien to the past through the time portal, and when they do, their eight year-old daughter is returned to them.
In this episode, eighteen year-old Molly O’Brien can be seen as embodying bits of unconscious material, in that she is purely driven by instincts and emotions, and came through a time portal, which can be analogized to a complex. A complex, being the way that bits of unconscious material come to the awareness of the conscious ego. Deep Space Nine, here representing the conscious ego, is not a good fit for the eighteen year-old Molly O’Brien, so she is sent back. Which is similar to how the conscious ego suppresses bits of unconscious material it cannot deal with. However, at the end of the episode, when eighteen year-old Molly O’Brien sends eight year-old Molly O’Brien through the time portal back to her family, this can be seen as similar to when sometimes unconscious material can be healing to the conscious ego.
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