Day 131: DS9, Statistical Probabilities

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S6EP9, “Statistical Probabilities”

 Summary: Four improperly genetically engineered people are brought to DS9 in the hopes that interacting with Doctor Bashir will help them out in some way. They include fast-talking Jack (Tim Ransom), overly emotional Patrick (Michael Keenan), femme fatale Lauren (Hilary Shepard Turner), and nonverbal Sarina (Faith C. Salie). Initially, Bashir makes no headway with them, but when they correctly figure out the entire backstory of Damar from one speech he makes, he sees an opportunity. The five of them start analyzing Dominion plans, which everyone is happy about…until they come to the inescapable conclusion that the Dominion is going to win, and that the best way to prevent bloodshed is to surrender immediately. Naturally, no one’s on board with that, but it’s not going to be easy to convince a bunch of geniuses that they’re wrong.

Standalone Thoughts: My feelings and bias about Bashir should be very well known to you at this point. So when I say that this is the episode that’s made me the most embarrassed to be a Bashir fan since “The Passenger”, you can tell that’s a big deal. I’m objective enough to know that my dislike of Bashir’s character this episode is at least intentional instead of the writers (completely) flailing around with his character, but that doesn’t make the episode any easier to watch.

To be fair, it starts out on completely the wrong foot before Bashir even shows up. We get a good two minutes of the genetically engineered characters displaying their tics, and my immediate thought was “Oh, God, modern fandom would have a field day with this.” Pretty much all the characters seem to be displaying different types of mental illness, and you’re bracing yourself for a preachy episode before the opening credits have even started. Watching Bashir try to deal with them is as frustrating for us as it must be for him, though the conversation he has about genetic engineering with the rest of the crew just exacerbates matters on our end. About the only good thing I can say about this section is that the entire episode doesn’t turn out to be like that.

In fact, the episode actually gets interesting when the group starts analyzing all the subtle little details and figuring out what the Dominion really wants. A whole episode about that, where there’s a tense situation and the group is in a hidden room, having to quickly make snap decisions to solve the problem, would have been awesome. But then they conclude that the war is unwinnable, and that’s when it all falls apart again. I know what the episode was trying to go for—the group is so focused on the numbers that they forget to take the human element into account—but it just doesn’t work, for two reasons. First, the pacing; up till now, the story moved fairly quickly, perhaps to represent how fast Bashir and the others were thinking. The third act, however, screeches to a halt to symbolize Bashir’s sense of doom, and I think that shift is jarring and makes it harder to accept. Secondly, the writers fell back into the hole that was Bashir’s character in the first season, which is that they took his social awkwardness too far. At least then, they were still figuring him out. The Bashir of Season Six not taking human emotion into account is very unlikely. I might accept it initially, because he’s caught up in all the calculations, but it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did for him to put the pieces together.

I think that’s the big problem I have, really; focusing on Bashir’s intelligence makes him way more unlikeable. Just like the ego he sprouted in “The Passenger” made the opening scene unbearable, his hanging around with people as smart as him kind of turns him into a jerk. What really got me was a conversation between him and O’Brien that I really wanted to read as teasing banter but mostly had this edge of Bashir inadvertently saying “I’m better than you” and O’Brien sarcastically responding in kind. Again, that was probably the intent, but it doesn’t necessarily fit with the Bashir we’ve seen, and the argument that it’s only just come out because now he’s interacting with people at his level of intelligence can only go so far. Mercifully, this is a trend that I don’t think is going to continue.

While this is one of the rare episodes that explores Bashir’s genetic engineering, it doesn’t exactly do the concept any favors. It’s not all that necessary to the show, and all it does is make you annoyed. I probably can’t call this the worst episode of the show, but so far, it’s the worst of the season. And I’m pretty sure a lot of people who don’t have my bias would agree with me.

How it Relates to the Whole: We’ll be seeing this group of genetically engineered people again in one more episode later down the line, which is probably for the best given the way they were handled this time around. Long term, this episode starts to lay some groundwork for Damar’s character, but it can be hard to see as it’s cloaked in fast-paced babbling and fairy tale metaphors. Fortunately, it’ll be given more attention in later episodes when we can properly focus on it.

Other: *Bashir is asked how he managed to hide his genetic engineering status for so long. My response? “Because the writers just crammed it into my backstory last season.” No, I’m not going to let this go, especially since snarky commentary was necessary to get me through this episode.

*I did like the little gag where Bashir kept piling padds on Sisko in an attempt to explain how his group got from Point A to Point B. That bit was well done, and I will take the good bits of this episode where I can get them.

*I couldn’t resist the joke at the time, and I can’t resist the joke now;

“Oh, look, it’s a waltz with Bashir!”

(Look, if I see a pun opportunity, I am going to take it. Plus, I’m not the only person who made that joke.)

Best Line/Exchange: There was so very little that appealed to me today. About the only thing that I could fully get behind was this;

(Sisko is refusing to accept the calculations Bashir and the others have come up with.)

Sisko: Even if I knew with a hundred percent certainty what was going to happen, I wouldn’t ask an entire generation of people to voluntarily give up their freedom!

Bashir: Not even to save over nine hundred billion lives?

Sisko: Surrender is not an option. Now I’m happy to hear your group’s advice on how to win this war, but I don’t need your advice on how to lose it.

Bashir: We can’t win this war.

Sisko: I don’t care if the odds are against us! If we’re going to lose, then we’re going to go down fighting, so that when our descendants someday rise up against the Dominion, they’ll know what they’re made of.

Bashir: With all due respect, sir, aren’t you letting your pride get in your way?

Sisko (curtly): All right, Doctor, you’ve made your recommendation. I’ll pass it on to Starfleet Command.

Bashir: Without adding your voice to it, they’ll dismiss it out of hand!
Sisko: I’m counting on it!

Thank you, Sisko, for cutting through the nonsense of this episode and discussing the idea of free will and internal strength without shoving it in our faces. It’s moments like these that make it clear why you’re such a good captain.