Day 80: DS9, Our Man Bashir

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S4EP9, “Our Man Bashir”

 Summary: Garak, curious about the new holosuite program Bashir’s been obsessed with, breaks into the holosuite and discovers that Bashir has been playacting at being a spy in the swinging 60’s. Bashir is less than thrilled at this intrusion into his privacy, but he soon finds himself with a bigger problem. The rest of DS9’s officers had to be beamed off a damaged runabout, and in order to save their transporter patterns, Eddington had to store them in DS9’s computer. While their brains are scattered throughout the station, their physical bodies are now in Bashir’s program, playing the various roles. If there’s any hope of saving them, the program has to keep running, and none of the characters are allowed to die. Given that the safeties are now off in order to accommodate the patterns, that’s a harder prospect than it looks.

Standalone Thoughts: This episode is silly, over-the-top, and an obvious parody of James Bond movies. Which is precisely why it’s so much fun. It’s obvious that everyone involved has a lot of affection for the source material, so while they repeatedly acknowledge that it’s ridiculous (wisely using Garak, an outsider to the genre, as the mouthpiece for that notion), they also treat it seriously. They really capture the Bond atmosphere, from the situations to the set dressing to the music, which goes for a more jazzy tone. Plus, the actors seem to be having fun playing something a little different; Avery Brooks in particular goes full-on scenery-chewing. And I will never say no to the sight of Alexander Siddig in a tux…

The episode is also noteworthy for being the only holodeck malfunction episode of DS9, and for once, it’s not because the holodeck short-circuited. They tried to come up with a creative way of doing a holodeck malfunction episode, and they succeeded. They justify all the usual tropes—safeties off, unable to leave, etc.—but don’t dwell too much on the danger aspect, so we can just sit back and have fun with the story. And why not? Everyone else involved did.

How it Relates to the Whole: As this episode was clearly meant to be an affectionate spoof of James Bond movies, it’s not surprising that it doesn’t really connect to the rest of the show. That being said, there is a brief return to this program in a later episode, and they introduce the idea of a Cardassian terrorist group that might come into play later. So while I don’t think this episode leads to anything, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Other: *I don’t have much to discuss today that wasn’t covered in the Standalone section. About the only thing of note is that Garak states that the 60’s were lacking in taste. As my fashion posts at the end of each season prove, he doesn’t have a lot of ground to stand on in that department.

Best Line/Exchange: Garak’s snarky commentary is pretty much the best part of the episode dialogue-wise, so it’s obvious that my choice would come from him;

Garak: Hmm. Kiss the girl, get the key. They never taught me that in the Obsidian Order.

Not only is that the line I quote most often from this episode, but it really does sum up the mindset of the James Bond style spy stories. All it needs is a reference to alcohol and guns and you’ve pretty much summed the whole thing up. Having an actual spy commenting on it just makes it even better.

After the Fact Update: A mystery has been solved; the DS9 Companion reveals that this was the first episode shot after Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor started dating. It also hints that Siddig had been having feelings for her long before this point, which might explain his enthusiasm for the makeout scene in “Fascination”. Now that I’ve gotten an answer to this, I won’t keep bringing it up, except for the one time that it’s going to be relevant later on…