10 TV Episodes Where People Didn’t Get What They Wished For
6. Star Trek Deep Space Nine – ‘If Wishes Were Horses’ (S1 E15)
The crew of Deep Space Nine are secretly experimented on by a race of aliens who want to observe and learn more about humanoid imagination, with the aliens taking on the persona of the crew’s wishes.
Initially the aliens pose as innocuous characters, such as young Jake Sisko’s favourite baseball player following him out of the holosuite and the character Rumplestiltskin appearing in Molly O’Brien’s bedroom after she is read the story before bed. Dr Bashir is visited by another version of Lieutenant Dax, who is suddenly very interested in him after the real Dax rejected his romantic advances the previous day.
The aliens start to get confused as to why the crew are not happy with their manifestations, as Molly is frightened of Rumplestiltskin and Bashir rejects Dax. Other strange occurrences start to escalate, and it appears that the crew’s imagination is leading to a catastrophic space anomaly that threatens to destroy the space station.
The crew are saved once they realise that they are controlling the rift with their imagination. The episode summarises that it’s not always in our best interests to get what we wish for and if something looks too good to be true then it usually is!