DS9 takes these themes and puts a darker twist to them.
In "The Visitor," Ben Sisko gets trapped in some type of time vortex caused by an energy discharge during a maintenance repair. He ends up being connected to Jake as he goes through life, transitioning from being a writer to a scientist whose main objective is finding his father again and getting him back in natural, linear time. Trouble is, he throws away his life in this pursuit when in the end the experiment fails, but is successful long enough for him to tell his dad to move out of the way when the energy discharge that caused him to be trapped in the first place.
This reminds me of the episode "Tapestry," where Q gives Picard a second chance at life, after his artificial heart malfunctions, by letting him relive, and undo, things he deemed as mistakes. Picard takes his advice, but to his horror, he's not the same man he was when Q shows him the new Picard aboard the Enterprise. He finds himself a lieutenant junior grade instead of captain. Picard begs Q to let him go back and die the man he was rather than live life as the new Picard without the past mistakes and risks he otherwise would have taken.
In "Hippocratic Oath," Bashir and O'Brien encounter a small band of Jem'Hadar on a remote planet when their shuttle crashes. The Jem'Hadar leader is no longer addicted to "the white," and orders Bashir to help him develop an antidote to the substance so they can be free agents instead of slaves to the Dominion.
Unlike "I, Borg," where a lone Borg is captured and introduced to individuality by Geordi and returned to his ship as an individual, "Hippocratic Oath" takes a darker turn when Julian is not able to break the other Jem'Hadar free from the white and the lone Jem'Hadar, free from addiction, must now face the wrath of his fellow soldiers who view his individual thinking, logic, and even compassion as a disgrace--a weakness.
He decides to stay on the planet after helping Bashir and O'Brien escape the other soldiers.
In "Rejoined," Dax is reunited with a fellow Trill scientist who was once her wife in another life via the
Symbiot. They both still harbor feelings for each other and attempt to kindle their romance despite the
overseeing eye and objections to their fellow scientists, reminding them of rules of behavior regarding
joined Trills.
This reminded me of the TNG episode "Second Chances," when Troi is reunited with William Riker. But he's not William Riker, at least the one she knew aboard the Enterprise. This one is a product of a bizarre transporter accident in which the transporter replicated Riker a second time. The first Riker beamed aboard his ship and left orbit while the second Riker was left behind on the deserted planet and is rescued several years later. Troi and Riker, who changes his first name to Thomas, pick up where they left off at that time, but only briefly. The call to duty on another Starship is too much of a temptation and he leaves, once again putting his relationship with Troi on hold.
"Starship Down" is much like the TNG episode "The Disaster," although I found the latter one much more engaging. In both cases, the ships are nearly torn apart by a turbulent area of space.
"Our Man Bashir" is much like "The Big Good-bye" in which a main character is playing a private detective while the safety protocols in the holodeck are malfunctioning. The former episode puts a creepy spin to it by making senior crew members walk around in it, playing characters without their cognitive, conscious brains.
"Hard Time" is similar to the idea in "The Inner Light," in which a main character is living another life
strictly inside his head and returns to present day with memories of the previous life intact. Picard's
experience was much more pleasant once he gets past the idea of contacting The Enterprise and accepts the notion that the life he's living on the planet is real. He wakes up on the bridge and must readjust to the life he knew long ago. His primary problem is longing and grief for his wife and children he left behind in the simulation.
Miles O'Brien isn't so lucky. He was given a simulation inside his mind that put him in solitary confinement for 20 years for an apparent act of treason. He was merely curious about a species technology and got too close to figuring it out. He is sentenced to 20 years in "prison." In his hunger, he kills a cellmate in a fight over hoarded food. Now out of the cage and back to reality, O'Brien has a hard time readjusting and argues with Keiko and almost hits Molly when she demands attention from him. He attempts suicide at a low point when he faces the knowledge that he killed his best friend (the cellmate) over some scraps that his friend was saving for both of them. He feared for the safety of his family.
In "The Muse," Jake meets a strange woman who entices him with unlocking his creative potential. She encourages Jake to write the novel that is already inside him and demands him to let the word flow. As he does this, they exchange energy. She stimulates an area of his brain that releases neurons in which she feeds from. This almost kills Jake toward the end, weakening him. She tells Captain Sisko that she was merely giving Jake immortality through his work while she gains something she needs.
This reminds me of the TNG episode "Man of the People." A weirdo diplomate does a ritual with Deanna Troi in which they share a stone that transfers righteousness from her to him while the evil dark side from him is transmitted to Troi. She undergoes changes in behavior manifesting in possessiveness, agitation, aggression, and violence as she quickly ages.
In "Broken Link," Odo is losing his ability to maintain solid shape and the only ones who can help him are his people, the Changelings. They are the cause of this shift in his structure in order to force him to return home and face judgement. He agrees and he is made human as his punishment.
Sound familiar? Q is drummed out of the Continuum, stripped of his powers, and is given a short time to decide what permanent solid form he is to take in "Deja Q." However, "Broken Link" takes a much more serious tone, while "Deja Q" plays it mostly for laughs. Both Q and Odo undergo moments of agonizing pain, one from an entity out for vengeance, and the other out of mere changes in bio-chemistry.
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