"The Visitor" is the 75th episode of the American syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the second episode of the fourth season. The episode was written by Michael Taylor and directed by David Livingston. It originally aired on October 9, 1995. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. In this episode, an accident leaves Captain Benjamin Sisko frozen in time, leaving his son Jake with a lifelong obsession with rescuing his father, having his resolve tested when they briefly reunite every few decades. The episode was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1996, but lost to Babylon 5s "The Coming of Shadows". It consistently ranks in polls as one of the most popular episodes of the entire series, often vying for first place with "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Trials and Tribble-ations", with one critic writing that the episode "sums up everything that made DS9 so unforgettable." Plot The elderly Jake Sisko (Tony Todd) is visited by Melanie (Rachel Robinson), an aspiring writer, who is curious to learn why Jake gave up writing. Jake tells her his story, revealed as flashbacks in the episode. When Jake was eighteen, his father Captain Benjamin Sisko took him on the USS Defiant to observe an inversion of the Bajoran Wormhole. The inversion causes a malfunction in the Defiants warp drive; a bolt of energy strikes Benjamin, causing him to vanish into subspace. Believing him dead, Jake and the crew of Deep Space Nine mourn him; but a few months later, Jake catches sight of his father for a brief moment. A year after the incident, Benjamin appears again, but the crew is unable to return him to the normal flow of time. When the Klingon Empire assumes control of Deep Space Nine, Jake returns to Earth. He eventually achieves success as an author, marries and settles down. When his father appears again, Jake introduces him to his wife and shows him the books he's published. He apologizes for moving on with his life instead of attempting to save his father, but Benjamin is proud of his son's accomplishments. When Benjamin disappears again, Jake decides to help him; he returns to school to study subspace mechanics, abandoning his writing