Best of Star Trek DS9---Our Man Bashir

"Our Man Bashir" is the tenth episode of the 4th season and was written by Ronald D. Moore.

The episode begins with Dr. Bashir indulging his fantasies on the holosuit. His fun is interrupted by a pesty Garak, who wants to see how his friend spends his free time. Reluctantly, Julian invites him along and the two play spies.

In the meantime, the rest of the senior crew is on a runabout that's been sabotaged by a faction who are angry about the Federation's involvement with the Cardassian/Bajoran peace agreement. As Eddington beams them aboard the station at the moment of the warp core breach, the crew's patterns are lost somewhere in the computer. To locate them, the Eddington orders the stations computers shut down except for the patterns of the missing crew. The are located---on the holosuite!

Now, Bashir must remain on the holosuite and play out his program in order to keep the crew isolated while the remaining senior crew work to retrieve their neuro patterns. Because their bodies only were energized in the holosuit, they take on the personas of Bashir's characters in his program.

A mad scientist, in the body of Sisko, is about to destroy the world using electric underground lasers to simulate earthquakes. Sisko, AKA Dr. Noah, is about to kill Bashir (the safety protocols aren't working) when the missing crew's neuro patters are found and beamed aboard the Defiant, to which they are merged with their physical patterns and beamed aboard the station.

This episode was fun and offered the actors a chance to expand their talents playing different characters in a cheesy spy escapade.

What makes it even more interesting is the interaction between Bashir and Garak. When there were times when Garak believed they were going to die, at one time being tied in a pit awaiting hot molten lava, he kept insisting on contacting Eddington to open the doors to allow them to escape. This would have been risky if one of the embodied crew members decided to exit.

Bashir even warned Garak that if he attemtped to exit the doors, he would shoot him---and he did! Garak headed for the exit and blam! Bashir grazed him on the neck as a warning and Garak was impressed.

Avery Brooks was especially amusing as the mad scientist. It was a performance likened to a cheap B-Sci-Fi movie worthy of a mocking on "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Worst of Star Trek: Deep Space 9---The Passenger

"The Passenger" is the 9th episode of the first season.

I've been watching the series on Netflix and it's like seeing it again for the first time. There isn't much to dislike thus far in the first season, contrast that to TNG, which had a vast array of stinkers.

This episode falls into that category.

SUMMATION

While in a shuttlecraft, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir respond to a distress call from a freighter transporting a prisoner. Despite the police officer's warning, a Kobliad named Kajada, Dr. Bashir goes to assist the prisoner in the burning wreckage and is nearly strangled by him. The four go back to the shuttlecraft en route to DS9 where the prisoner named Vantika is pronounced dead and laying on a slab in Bashir's OR.

Kajada is not convinced that Vantika is dead and tells the crew that he has developed a technology to keep himself alive. He was en route to DS9 to obtain a compound called deuridium which his species uses to maintain life and longevity.

When Kajada is pushed from a balcony in the promenade and almost killed, Quark is a witness and insists no one else was with Kajada at that moment. Now the crew must investigate whether or not Kajada is telling the truth about the so-called faked death of Vantika.

Vantika had tech manuals on the human brain and was able to transport a genetic code in a cell that allows consciousness to be transplanted. But who is the new host?

The new host, in the body of Dr. Bashir, meets the mercenaries hired to take him back with the deuridium in an escape route. The plan is thwarted when Dax bombards the cargo ship, manned by Vantika in Bashir's body, with a magnetic pulse through its shield, rendering Vantika helpless.

With Bashir returned to normal, the essence of Vantika, in a containment holder, is destroyed by Kajada.

Even this episode wasnt as bad as some of the first season episodes of TNG, but this one is ridiculous for a few reasons---when it's revealed that Vantika must have come in contact with a humanoid long enough to transport his consciousness through a small chip embedded in a fingernail, I was taken back in my memory of when he grabbed Bashir by the throat on the freighter. Oh, so he's now in the body of Bashir. Mystery solved.

Also, how was Bashir, while under the influence of Vantika, able to go undetected on the promenade and the other stations, such as the cargo hold? Don't they have 24th century cameras on the station?

And last, although I love El Fadill's portrayal of Dr. Bashir, as Vantika his performance is dreadful, with stiff head and neck movements and spoken words over enunciated.