Our Man Bashir | the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The Pensky File – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 4, Episode 10 (“Our Man Bashir”)

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Darren

The Pensky File will return…

Thrilled to join Wes and Clay over at The Pensky Podcast for another episode of their look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The dynamic duo are fast approaching the midpoint of the fourth season, one of the greatest seasons of television in the Star Trek canon and probably one of the greatest twenty-odd episode seasons of television ever produced.

I was particularly excited to join the pair for a discussion of Our Man Bashir, an episode in which Bashir and Garak become embroiled in a life and death struggle while playing out one of Bashir’s spy fantasies. My position on Our Man Bashir is pretty out there, but I genuinely believe that it’s one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever produced. Do I manage to convince Wes and Clay? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Along the way, we discuss everything from the popularity of James Bond in America, to the evolution of Julian Bashir as a character, to the economics of the holosuite to Avery Brooks’ distinctive performance style. It was, as ever, a huge pleasure and privilege to join the two for the discussion.

You can find more from The Pensky Podcast here, and listen to the podcast by clicking the link or just listening below.

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine, Podcasts! | Tagged: Avery Brooks, deep space nine, james bond, Our Man Bashir, podcast, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the pensky file | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Our Man Bashir (Review)

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

Our Man Bashir is an underrated masterpiece.

It is possibly the best holodeck (or holosuite) episode in the history of the franchise; only Ship in a Bottle can really compete. A lot of this is down to the production value of the episode; Our Man Bashir looks and sounds beautiful, a delightfully detailed throwback to its source material. The production team on the Star Trek franchise seldom get enough credit for their skill at realising alien worlds and cultures from scratch, but their beautiful evocation of sixties design is breathtaking. Our Man Bashir is a clear forerunner to Trials and Tribble-ations, less than a year away.

“The name’s Bashir, Julian Bashir…”

However, there is more to it than that. Like Little Green Men, Our Man Bashir succeeds as a (relatively) light-hearted run-around that never loses track of its characters. The first three seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine struggled with the character of Julian Bashir; audience members could wait entire seasons for a good Bashir episode. With the fourth season, three come along at once. Our Man Bashir might look light and fluffy – and it largely is – but it never loses sight of its core character dynamics in the midst of all the fun unfolding around them.

More than that, Our Man Bashir plays into the broader themes and strengths of the fourth season. The climax of the episode feels like Deep Space Nine is ruminating on its new-found place dictating the direction of the Star Trek canon. Bashir’s decision to “save the day by destroying the world” feels oddly prophetic. The fifth season of the show would find the writers destroying some of the most fundamental rules of the franchise in an effort to keep things vital.

Got some bottle…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Bashir, deep space nine, ds9, fantasy, GoldenEye, Jame Bond, james bond, Julian Bashir, Our Man Bashir, star trek, star trek: deep space nine | 11 Comments »

Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars – The Rise & Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II, by Greg Cox (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

In 1967, the 1990s must have seemed so very far away. At the height of the Cold War, the prospect that mankind would have made it into twenty-first century without one catastrophic global conflict must have seemed improbable at best. Indeed, the odds that anybody would still be talking about (let alone watching) a kitsch piece of sixties television science-fiction would have appeared remote. So Star Trek seemed perfectly justified sticking a reference to a major war towards the end of the twentieth century into an episode towards the end of the first season.

However, if there’s one thing that Star Trek fans cannot abide, it’s a possible continuity problem. So, when genetically engineered supermen didn’t almost conquer the world during the last decade of the twentieth century, it was only a matter of time before we got a two-volume set dedicated to resolving this particular problem.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Bhopal, Eugenics Wars, Final Reflection, Gary Seven, Greg Cox, khan, Khan Noonien Singh, Klingon, Neutral Zone, Our Man Bashir, spock, star trek, Star Trek Original Series, star trek: enterprise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture | 4 Comments »

Star Trek 103: The Best of Deep Space Nine

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, we’re holding a month full of Star Trek related fun. We’re reviewing every episode of the show’s first season, from The Cage through to Operation — Annihilate!, one-per-day for all of May. We’re also looking at some of the various spin-offs, tie-ins and pop culture intersections, so there’s always something going on to do with Star Trek. Anyway, with the release of the new film, we thought it might be interesting to make some recommendations for fans of the new films who wanted to “dip their toes in the water” so to speak. Today, we’re making recommendations from the second of the 24th century spin-offs, and the first to broadcast concurrently with another Star Trek project, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: 24th century, Bajoran, Benjamin Sisko, Cage, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, Jake Sisko, Man Trap, Nana Visitor, Next Generation, Our Man Bashir, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, StarTrek | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Big Goodbye (Review)

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

I actually enjoyed The Big Goodbye on a lot of levels. It’s not a great Star Trek episode, but I don’t think that the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation produced a great episode. Even those episodes I do not actively hate are still significantly flawed. The Big Goodbye has more than its fair share of problems, but it does several things right. It never pretends to be more than it is, and it allows Patrick Stewart to do a lot of the heavy-lifting. Stewart is effectively charged with selling the episode to the audience, and he does a tremendous job. The result is something quite similar to the eponymous holonovel – something diverting and entertaining, but hardly profound or essential. Given the quality of the surrounding episodes, “diverting and entertaining” seems like just what the doctor ordered.