Yeah…Star Trek has never been particularly good at one-off romance episodes, and this is certainly one of those.
For me, Gideon Seyetik is by far the most memorable part of the episode - Richard Kiley nails his particular brand of annoying charisma.
The episode also has Dax asking O’Brien to boost the top speed of Seyetik’s ship to warp 9.5 to avoid a potential supernova, a prominent example of Star Trek supernovae being apparently able to travel faster than light. So there’s that.