“His Way”
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 6, Episode 20
Production episode 40510-544
Original air date: April 22, 1998
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Bashir’s latest holosuite program from Felix—the guy who put together his secret agent program—is Las Vegas, 1962, and he invites Kira, Odo, Worf, Dax, and O’Brien to join him in watching Vic Fontaine perform. Fontaine is a self-aware hologram; he knows full well that he’s a “light bulb.” (“If you’re gonna work Vegas in the 60s, you’re gonna have to know the score. Otherwise you’re gonna look like a Clyde.”) He also immediately picks up on the fact that Worf and Dax are married, can tell that O’Brien is also married and misses his wife, and cops to the romantic tension between Kira and Odo, but decides to remain discreet in terms of mentioning it.
Apparently, Fontaine is good at giving advice to the lovelorn, as Bashir credits him with helping the doctor get a date with Ensign Walker. Odo overhears this, and is intrigued, especially since Kira is going to Bajor to see Shakaar. Quark, of all people, points out that Odo’s had over a year since Shakaar and Kira broke up to make a move, and he hasn’t done a thing about it. Odo then asks to use Bashir’s Fontaine program to ask why he refrained from saying anything about Kira and Odo. Fontaine saw immediately that he’s crazy about Kira but that she only thinks of him as a friend. Fontaine believes that Odo needs to loosen up. He has the constable “change” into a tuxedo and “play” the piano for Fontaine during his set (the crowd just appears, and the piano truly plays itself, but Fontaine wants Odo to sell the act of performing). By the end of “Come Fly with Me,” Odo is one cool cucumber….
But afterward, once the set’s over, Odo’s back to being like a statue. Two women show up, and they go out on a double date, a trial run for going out with Kira, as Fontaine tries to get him to relax.
The next day, Odo brings a report to Sisko. While the captain reads it, Odo starts singing under his breath. Sisko starts snapping his fingers in time, which is when Odo even realizes he is singing. The pair of them continue the song together.
Odo continues to go to the holosuite every night for a week, and Fontaine introduces a new guest singer: Lola Chrystal, who looks exactly like Kira, and slinks all around the piano. Later, in Fontaine’s suite, Chrystal lights up a cigarette and Fontaine leaves them alone together. But Odo can’t actually be with an image of Kira—it needs to be the real thing. He leaves the holosuite in frustration.
Kira returns from Bajor, and when she goes onto the holosuite to meditate, she’s interrupted by Fontaine. He’s between sets while performing for Worf and Dax, so he transferred his matrix to her holosuite to talk to her about Odo. Kira is stunned that Odo has been spending time on the holosuite, more stunned that he’s enjoying it. Fontaine convinces her to have dinner with Odo on the holosuite that night. He then convinces Odo to come back to the holosuite because of the “overhaul” he did on the Chrystal hologram.
Fontaine plays waiter for the pair of them, having a candlelight dinner of champagne and yummy food. Odo admits that he feels a little silly doing this in a holosuite, but he also is far looser and more relaxed. Kira is the one who’s tense, as this isn’t a side to Odo she ever expected to see. For Odo’s part, he’s very impressed with how well done the “hologram” is.
Fontaine’s band starts playing, and Odo actually asks her to dance. Kira doesn’t know how to dance to this kind of music, but Fontaine’s been teaching Odo, and the constable leads. Kira finally stops being nervous and enjoys herself, seeing Odo in a new light.
However, eventually, Odo realizes that Kira isn’t a hologram and Kira realizes that Odo has thought her to be a hologram the whole time. Fontaine is unapologetic, but he shuts down the program as soon as Odo storms out angrily. Kira isn’t thrilled either.
Fontaine tries to apologize to Odo, but Odo’s pissed at being lied to. For her part, Kira talks to Dax about what she calls a moment of clarity. Dax encourages her to act on it, and so she confronts Odo on the Promenade in front of the entire station, saying they need to talk about their date. Odo doesn’t want to talk about it, but Kira thinks they should—maybe over dinner, and then maybe dancing, and then maybe kissing, and why bother with the date, why not just kiss now, and then all of a sudden they’re smooching on the Promenade, to the approval of everyone.
Later, Odo goes into the holosuite to thank Fontaine.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Fontaine not only is aware of his status as a hologram, he has a certain amount of control over himself and his environment. He’s able to shut the holosuite down himself, he can transfer his matrix to another holosuite, he can construct a hologram of Kira using her image from the secret agent program (though it took him an hour to get rid of the Russian accent), and he can use the comm system.
The Sisko is of Bajor: For the second time this season, we get to hear Avery Brooks’s singing voice, after Benny Russell sang to Cassie in “Far Beyond the Stars”—this time Sisko sorta-kinda duets with Odo on “They Can’t Take that Away from Me.”
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira goes to Bajor to brief Shakaar on the war effort. Dax, Bashir, Quark, and Odo all think that she’s there to rekindle her romance with the first minister, but they’re just friends, which opens the door to Odo, though he doesn’t realize it until the end of the episode when she actually says that’s why she was there. (Honestly, a lot of mishegoss could’ve been avoided if she’d said that in the beginning.)
Kira also sees Odo in a new light on the holosuite, for the first time seeing him loose and happy and a possible romantic partner.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: After learning that Fontaine gave Bashir advice on how to win Ensign Walker, Odo decides to go to him for advice on winning Kira—which actually works. We also get to see an Odo who bops along to music (which we’ve actually seen him do before), uses cheesy 1960s slang poorly, and looks awesome in a tux.
The slug in your belly: Dax lets slip that Kira is visiting Shakaar, which Kira told her in confidence, reveals to a surprised Bashir that Odo is interested in Kira (which speaks more poorly of Bashir’s powers of observation than anything), and convinces Kira to act on her moment of clarity.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf’s sole response to Fontaine’s lounge act is to say that he prefers Klingon opera. He feels sufficiently strongly about it that he says it twice. But Dax drags his ass back to the holosuite for another set anyhow.
Rules of Acquisition: When they’re alone in Odo’s office, Quark reminds Odo that he’s had a year to make a move on Kira and has failed to do so. Mostly, as he puts it, because Odo’s not the most lovable person in the galaxy—or the sector—or the station—or that room.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: After the notion that Odo secretly loved Kira was seeded in “The Collaborator,” stated by Lwaxana in “Fascination,” stated by Odo to the female changeling in “Heart of Stone,” to Quark in “Crossfire,” and finally to Kira (albeit by a centuries-older iteration of Odo) in “Children of Time,” and after dancing around it in “Call to Arms” and “You Are Cordially Invited,” the two of them finally actually become a couple in this episode.
Also, for the record, Nana Visitor singing “Fever” is sex on a goddamn stick.
What happens on the holosuite, stays on the holosuite: Apparently Felix can create self-aware holograms. The Emergency Medical Hologram (seen on Voyager and in “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?”) is also self-aware on purpose (as opposed to Moriarty in TNG’s “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship in a Bottle,” who was made such accidentally), so the capability has been already established, although the ethical considerations are completely ignored.
Keep your ears open: “By the way, this is a high-class joint. That means coats and ties for the gents, dresses for the ladies. You guys look like a trapeze act.”
Fontaine’s response to the crew showing up in uniform to the lounge. (Sadly, we didn’t get to see how Worf and Dax dressed when they went back later—we already know Worf looks good in a tie and tails…)
Welcome aboard: Hey, look, it’s yet another recurring character! Actor/singer James Darren takes on the role of Fontaine, which will recur for the rest of the series; he’ll next appear in “Tears of the Prophets,” and show up in half a dozen seventh-season episodes. Plus Debi A. Monahan and Cynthia Pass appear as the female half of Odo and Fontaine’s double date. Monahan will return in a different role on Voyager’s “Critical Care,” while Pass will reprise the role of Ginger in the series finale “What You Leave Behind.”
Trivial matters: The notion of a Rat Pack-style character had been bopping around the writers room since the fourth season, when they tried to convince Frank Sinatra Jr. to take on the role. However, Sinatra was only interested in playing an alien—he had no interest in a role that evoked his father. In the fifth season, they worked Fontaine into the script for “A Simple Investigation,” hoping to cast Steve Lawrence. But the episode ran long and Lawrence wasn’t available, so they cut it. When they were putting this episode together, they initially offered the role to Robert Goulet, Tom Jones, and Jerry Vale, who all turned it down.
The episode’s title is a play on the famous Frank Sinatra song “My Way.”
Songs used in the episode include “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” “Come Fly with Me,” “They Can’t Take that Away from Me,” “Fever,” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” “Fever” was chosen specifically by Nana Visitor because she had a very strong childhood memory of Doris Duke singing that song and playing it on the piano when she and her mother visited Duke. Visitor emulated Duke’s breathy style of singing it when she performed it here.
Kira’s image being used in Bashir’s secret-agent program in “Our Man Bashir” enables Fontaine to create “Lola Chrystal” in his lounge.
Kira and Shakaar broke up some time prior to “Children of Time,” which is also when Kira learned of Odo’s true feelings.
Among the contemporary performers referenced in the episode are Sinatra—whom Darren knew well via his friendship with Sinatra Jr.—Dean Martin, Liberace, Shecky Greene, and Victor Borge (a childhood favorite of your humble rewatcher).
This episode has yet another Cyrano de Bergerac riff. We got a more overt one in “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places” (not to mention a performance of it in TNG’s “The Nth Degree”). In addition, Chrystal’s choreography while singing “Fever” was likely inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance of “Makin’ Whoopee” in The Fabulous Baker Boys.
Walk with the Prophets: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Intellectually, I hate the idea of the Vic Fontaine program. It’s silly, it’s frivolous, it raises all kinds of ethical conundrums that the show never shows the remotest interest in investigating (of course, given how horrendously Voyager would later tackle the same issues, that may be for the best), it’s not exactly the greatest period in Earth’s musical history—or even the 20th century’s musical history. It’s a little too much glorification of the past in a show that really should focus more on the future.
And yet, I sit, and I watch “His Way,” and I have a big-ass smile on my face every time James Darren opens his mouth.
Intellectually, I hate the idea of a Kira-Odo romance. She’s a Bajoran, he’s an animated pile of goo. Plus they have such an incredibly strong friendship, one that feels cheapened by shoehorning a romance into it. It’s a little too lazy a storytelling technique in a medium that all too often doesn’t know how to write male-female friendships and defaults to the romance when it isn’t the best option.
And yet, I sit, and I watch “His Way,” and I get the same “yay!” look on my face that Quark and Dax do when Kira and Odo kiss on the Promenade.
Credit to Rene Auberjonois and Nana Visitor, who totally sell the relationship between Kira and Odo regardless of the form it takes, and James Darren, for such an incredibly charismatic performance that can cover a multitude of plot sins.
The timing of this episode is particularly fortuitous, as we had a heavy episode followed by a really really heavy episode, so a lightweight fluffy romance was just what the doctor ordered. And it doesn’t get much fluffier than Vegas in 1962.
View this episode as eating a nice meringue after eating a particularly heavy, carb-and-protein-filled meal. This way you get a sweet dessert without worrying about filling up too much more.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido has a bunch of new things out, including Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution (reviewed on this very site!), “Time Keeps on Slippin’” in the Stargate SG-1/Atlantis anthology Far Horizons, “Fish Out of Water” in the Jonathan Maberry-edited anthology Out of Tune, “Stone Cold Whodunit” in the superhero anthology With Great Power, and “Merciless,” one of the adventures in the Firefly: Echoes of War role-playing game supplement Things Don’t Go Smooth.
Keith, I pretty much agree with your evaluation, but I’d bump it up to a seven easily, maybe even an eight because it’s so damn much fun. As a musical theatre historian and a fanatical Gershwinophile, it gives me my personal favorite moment in the series: Odo and Sisko singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Runner-up moments: Vic singing Kern and Fields’ “The Way You Look Tonight” in the series finale, because they made it work perfectly, and from the movies, Data singing “Blue Skies” and Worf moaning, “Irving Berlin!”
Laura
I know it isn’t a popular opinion, but I generally like Vic. For all the problems with the characer, which Keith lists, he has class and cool and gives the crew a regular place to wind down and blow off some steam. Quark’s just can’t quite do that. Voyager tried something similar a couple of times, but never pulled it off.
I do disagree with Keith on the music, though. This was the last heyday of non-rock pop music. Sinatra and his fellow crooners had something. Don’t confuse them with the likes of Perry Como and Andy Williams.
Fontaine is the worst thing to happen to DS9 in the last two seasons. So much screen time devoted to holodeck diversions in the middle of a war. I wish his entire arc had never existed, even if it meant losing It’s Only a Paper Moon.
DemetriosX: Sorry, disagree completely. Performers in Vegas were singing safe versions of songs that were already popular. There was better music being actually created by the blues and jazz players in New Orleans and the folk singers in New York and New England. If we’re going to do a place that plays music in 1962, I’d much rather have seen a holodeck re-creation of a joint on Bourbon Street or a club in Greenwich Village than a high-priced casino in Las Vegas. That is great music. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
For those, ah, wondering – as I was – Nana Visitor’s musical performance can be viewed on YouTube. I’ve always thought that’s one of the sexiest songs to perform (the lyrics being very little of it, and choreography being everything), and she certainly does a bang-up job.
You know, just in case you don’t have time to go put the DVD in the player. Ahem.
That was Nana Visitor’s real voice? I don’t know why, but I just assumed they would have brought in a professional singer, and she was miming. She’s got a pretty good set of pipes on her, hasn’t she?
It’s a bit of a dappy episode, but inoffensive. One wonders just how exciting attending a 1960’s nightclub would be to people in the 24th century. Probably diverting for an hour or two, but surely not something you would want to return to time and again. As a historical entertainment event it would have surely been no more exciting that attending a thrash metal concert or a vaudeville. And for a Klingon, a Trill and a Bajoran (and an Odo), for whom it isn’t even a historical part of their culture, it would seem pretty dull.
@6 – I think she is lip syncing, but to her own recording. If you watch the song, her breathing doesn’t line up with her physical movements, which is the usual cue that something is being mimed. This is a common approach for musicals on television; “Once More With Feeling” (from Buffy) and all of Glee are done this way.
She has starred in a number of musicals, including Gypsy on Broadway opposite Angela Lansbury, so she certainly does have a professional singing voice of her own.
This is among the DS9 episodes I dislike most. Some people can’t stand the Pah-Wraiths. Others don’t like the Ferengi episodes, the mirror universe episodes, or the fact they brought in Ezri to replace Jadzia.
For me, it’s anything with Vic Fontaine (though I am OK with the episode Badda Bing, Badda Bang). I just don’t like the character. I don’t like the music. I don’t like how, in a series with such otherwise strong writing, the writers start setting aside 5 minutes or so to plop Sinatra-era music videos in the middle of episodes. I fast forward through Fontaine scenes because I just can’t stand them.
If there’s one thing I really wish DS9 hadn’t done it’s Vic Fontaine, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone thought it was a good idea.
Well, I’m an unabashed Rat Pack fan, and I love Vic Fontaine, and I don’t care what anybody else thinks. So there. :p
In seriousness, I love the scene where Odo and Kira kiss. In particular, I love the reactions of everybody around. Quark’s in particular is perfect: for all the badgering and taunting, Odo really is his friend, and he’s genuinely happy for him. Just a nice, sweet little touch.
An aside: I remember reading an account where Rene Auberjonois and Nana Visitor decided this as the least romantic kiss they’d ever had. See, Auberjonois’ facial makeup feels very rubbery to the touch, and he has pretty much no feeling in his face, making the whole thing very awkward for both parties. Also, Visitor pulled away with the coloring from his makeup on her face. So, yeah, not exactly a fairy tale in real life.
“She’s a Bajoran, he’s an animated pile of goo.”
Since when have these sort of differences mattered in Star Trek?
And bite your typing hand. That Vegas Rat Pack tip-yer-waitresses stuff is one of the better styles of music to come out of the 20th century. At least it wasn’t polka or rap.
Not to mention the technical ones: why does Starfleet even bother with living crews? They could clearly have AI’s do everything.
Redlander: If I was asked to rank Vegas lounge music, polka, and rap in order of how much I want to listen to it, Vegas lounge music would come in a distant third. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I love Vic Fontaine. LOVE. (Personal note: There is some family connection to Mr. Sinatra here, so I am biased when it comes to his music and the music of the Rat Pack.) Plus seeing James Darren twice at STLV now has made me an even bigger fan of not only Vic, but Darren.
I know some hate Vic, others love him, but in a show that can get as heavy as DS9 (such as the episode prior to theis one) Vic is a brilliant way to have some fun. As for those who complain about that much time on a holodeck in a war, with eight combat tours under my belt I can say, there is free time and I wish I had this program to retreat/relax with. Plus, an upcoming episode that deals with Vic and PTSD did more for me on a personal level than what any person could say (more on that when we get to the episode) so yeah, Vic is special to me.
As a side note: attending conventions I have seen that the character of Vic Fontaine has opened up that music to a much younger generation, and I think that’s pretty cool daddy.
@6: I never doubted it was Visitor’s real voice, since the only reason they’d do something as incongruous as having a hologram of Kira Nerys singing a ’50s R&B song was to indulge the actress’s desire to show off her talents. At least, that’s generally why shows do episodes that let their characters show off hitherto-unsuspected talents for singing or dancing or quick-drawing or tightrope-walking or whatever.
But that underlines my issues with this episode — the whole thing is just so self-indulgent. I’m actually with Keith here; I quite like Vic Fontaine, because James Darren is so charismatic in the role, but he’s an idea that really shouldn’t work and doesn’t fit too well into the universe. If they were going to do a story about a Bajoran woman and a Changeling raised on Bajor discovering their feelings for each other, then wouldn’t a program based on Bajoran history or culture have been more meaningful to them? Why would a tuxedo carry any significance for a Bajoran, when it’s just a weirdly uncomfortable, boringly colored garment from some antiquated culture on an alien world? This episode was written as an indulgence for the producers, the actors, and at least some of the viewers, and thus it doesn’t serve the universe or the characters all that well.
Of course, you could say the same thing about “Our Man Bashir” and probably others. That’s one more thing that bugs me. We see so many Trek characters who are obsessed with Earth culture from before the late 20th century — Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, the Old West, Gothic novels, ’60s spy fiction and Vegas singers, the Alamo, Beowulf, Captain Proton serials, etc. So how come nobody’s ever a fan of late 21st-century Martian colonial literature or of some classic holodrama from the 2320s? Why has Earth completely ceased creating any original fiction, literature, drama, or music after the start of the 21st century? Why do we never see any contemporary 23rd- or 24th-century popular culture except for alien things like Klingon opera or Marauder Mo?
Takes all kinds…
#14
I’m guessing DS9’s Earthican audience would respond better to Earth culture than an episode centered around… fizzbin…? Familiarity has its points. Well, ratings points.
@14: “Why has Earth completely ceased creating any original fiction, literature, drama, or music after the start of the 21st century?”
This is sort of addressed by Bashir at the beginning of The Die is Cast when he says, “Modern playwrights have become obsessed with writing human interpretations of alien theatrical works while ignoring completely our own unique cultural heritage.” It’s not a complete answer, but it’s something.
As much as I like Worf and Jadzia together, I did not like Odo and Kira. It just felt lazy, like the only other place the writers could take their friendship was the have them end up in bed together. I felt very much that Odo’s feeling for Kira should have remained unrequited, as a way to mirror the fact that he could never really be a solid. Especially given how the series ends up for him, I think that had he finally revealed to her in that last moment how he felt, it would have had a bigger impact.
And Kira having feelings for Odo kind of came out of left field. He’s loved her forever, but we have never gotten even the slightest clue that she was into him even a little bit and then BAM she’s in love with him. At least with Worf and Jadzia we got a season of flirting before they pulled the trigger.
Also, there’s a problem with the universal translator. Presumably it turns off when we are listening to music. Otherwise when we heard Klingon opera or fighting songs they would be translated into English which they are not. Also, it logistically wouldn’t work, because a literal translation of the lyrics would not be likely to scan with the music, which would mean it would have to be making artistic decisions as well as just translating.
Therefore, Odo and Kira are listening to the lyrics in English. Having been working on a station with Starfleet personnel, there’s a good chance they can speak some English (although with the UT ever present, there’s no reason they have to be able to), but still it would be like when I listen to a song in French. I can understand the words, but I don’t get the nuance behind them. So, essentially, other than Bashir and O’Brien, they are being entranced by something totally alien to their culture that they don’t even properly understand.
(Obviously Worf was brought up on Earth so would understand it, but he makes it clear he isn’t being entranced by it!)
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think this is the 2nd most boring episode of Star Trek ever made (although its an average episode of some show set in 50s-70s Vegas), and the most boring one which isn’t a clip show. As for Vic, well, it is a symptom of how played out the holodeck was in Trek that from here on in DS9 had to resort to Holodeck-gone right episodes to get even a semblance of plot movement.
What Christopher @14 said. I’m partial to a bit of this music, and Fontaine is personable enough, but the concept and this episode leave me cold. The sudden craving for 1960’s lounge acts, intelligent holograms sprouting up everywhere after Data’s positronic sentience was supposed to be so remarkable and irreproducible, a (probably) asexual intelligent amoeba and a hairless monkey getting all smootchy for no good or compelling reason, which we’re all supposed to applaud… Bleh. Next, please. After this, ‘A Paper Moon’ was interesting as an exploration of Nog’s escapism during PTSD, but hardly dependent on Vic IMO, and no other notable appearance by him or his club comes to my mind. And this is after rewatching the entire series on Syfy UK over the last year.
@13 I am glad for you that Vic Fontaine etc have been helpful in dealing with something difficult. I have a similar experience with some other episodes – sometimes good TV can be pretty therapeutic.
Meanwhile, while I understand the objections of those who don’t like this episode, I love it. It is so much fun. James Darren has a lovely voice. It was great to see Captain Sisko sing along with Odo – it makes me smile every time. After such heavy episodes in front of it, it’s a great diversion that makes me smile every time I watch it.
I am quite willing to leave aside all the various criticisms of self-aware holograms, the love of Vegas shows, being culturally stuck in the 20th century. I can quite forget about all that and get lost in one hour of unlikely romantic comedy and enjoy it end to end.
Besides, Nana Visitor singing Fever is so very hot! Wow. Just wow. She is so very thin in Season 6, but that song is carried off with just the right amount of heat and sexual tension.
@14 If you look atr all the reboots happening in the 21st century, I think they pretty much hit the nail on the head where the lack of post-21st century creative endeavours is concerned.
Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced that Vic is sentient in the same way Voyager‘s EMH is. I mean, sure, he knows he’s a hologram, but so do all EMHs, even the ones that haven’t “awakened” to sentience. So did the Leah Brahms hologram in TNG’s “Booby Trap.” Even today you could program a video game character to act as though it’s aware of being a video game character, in the same way that the writers of She-Hulk or Deadpool can write comic book characters who “know” that they’re comic book characters. Just because Vic is designed to break the fourth wall, that doesn’t prove he actually possesses consciousness and qualia. And sure, he seems quite smart and canny, but maybe he’s just programmed to be good at offering relationship advice in the same way that an EMH is programmed to be good at dispensing medical diagnoses. When it comes right down to it, the Turing Test is a lousy way of proving machine consciousness.
Which is not to say that I’m convinced Vic isn’t sentient. He does seem to be a borderline case, smarter than the average hologram. But it’s ambiguous whether he actually crosses the Rubicon to consciousness.
@22: If anything, you have it backward. For most of human history, “reboots” of pre-existing myths and stories were the norm. All the great Greek plays were based on existing myths and legends. Virtually all of Shakespeare’s plays were adaptations of previous works. It’s only in the past few centuries that creating original stories has become fashionable, although remaking old stories has continued to be a standard practice all along. People often complain about how “Hollywood today” is obsessed with remakes, but remakes were far more common in the early days of silent and sound cinema. The Judy Garland Wizard of Oz was something like the seventh adaptation in three decades.
FYI, Vic isn’t singing lounge songs of the Sixties, but what’s now called standards, or pop standards, by some of the greatest songwriters of all time including Gershwin, Berlin, Cole Porter.
At the time these episodes were shown, almost no one sang these songs commercially on radio or TV, and several generations had never even heard them. So, yeah for the DS9 people for introducing them to a new audience.
Many of the holodeck adventures as well as Sisko’s adventures in the past involved various reintroductions to a new audience who didn’t know about noir, the Black influence on science fiction, etc., so good for them, again.
The Odo/Kira relationship bothers me for a number of reasons. Not least of which is, like Keith already said, they have a very strong friendship. It seems lazy and cheap to turn that into a romance. And it bears repeating that Odo isn’t a man – sure the actor is a man, but the character is a sentient puddle of goo. Humanoid concepts of gender are purely cosmetic as far as the changelings are concerned.
But it also bothers me because it falls back on the old cliche that a man can get a woman who doesn’t have feelings for him to change her mind by making a grand gesture. That’s just not how love works. I could see it working as a catalyst if she did have feelings for him as well but didn’t act on them for whatever reason, but there’s just no hint of that with Kira. Even if she didn’t know how he felt about her, why would that change the way she felt about him?
That being said, I still like the episode. Somehow despite my complaints about the relationship, it’s still a fun way to spend an hour.
#22 #23
I don’t know the percentage of remakes from 100 years ago, but there has definitely been an uptick in the number of remakes, prequels and sequels in the past 30 years.
http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/simple-infographic-shows-hollywood-is-giving-up-on-original-ideas/
So… yeah, when you see a simple boardgame like Battleship adapted for the big screen, hear James Cameron and George Lucas complain about unoriginality (said pot to kettle!), or hear mention of a Drop Dead Fred remake, you know there’s something rotten in the state of California.
But thankfully, Hollywood is just a portion of the culture. The publishing and music industries are still cranking out original material (snicker).
I love Vic Fontaine. And I love every episode with Vic Fontaine.
Working with veterans’ history on a historic ship and chronicling oral histories has made me realize that he NEEDS to be there and that he wouldn’t make any sense without the war. He’s shore leave. He’s every gin joint and casino in the Far East that the crew of American warships visited during restocking and never told their wives about after the war(s).
DS9’s war arc had so many elements that rang incredibly true to the experience of historic warfare in ways that had to have been researched, this among them. It’s been sad throughout the rewatch to see how many commenters — including those responsible for writing tie-in fiction — don’t realize that and only follow the material within the canon. It’s a disease of modern nerd-dom. And it’s why I stopped reading tie-ins or going to conventions. I’d rather go to history conferences and have late-night joking conversations about Star Trek and D&D with the folks there…
Ashcom: I don’t think that issue is as big a one as you think, and I present as evidence the millions of people who attend operas in languages they do not speak every year. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I love this episode for one simple reason. The acknowledgement that something other than classical music survived into the 24th century.
seriously, how often do you hear anyone in Starfleet listening to Elvis? Much less AC/DC? It’s like anything that wasn’t classical was forgotten completely.
Get a haircut, you goddamn hippie.
Now I know why Vic Fontaine was invented: to polarize the audience.
Cain: To be fair, the reason why folks like classical and jazz and such is that such music is in the public domain, and therefore you don’t have to deal with rights issues and clearances in order to use the music. If someone on the Enterprise listens to AC/DC, it means they have to get their hands on the rights to that AC/DC song. If they listen to Mozart, they just have to play it. :)
(They had to do it for this episode, but it was important enough to the show-runner to get the permissions.)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@28 krad: But those people grew up in a culture where they know and understand opera. They’ve been hearing it and seeing it their whole lives, it’s part of their culture. My point wasn’t just about not understanding the words, it was about not understanding the musical form first, and then not understanding the words.
As such the analogy is much closer to Chinese opera. How many of those same millions of people attend that regularly? Very few, and many of those out of curiousity more than anything else. To a westerner who didn’t grow up in that culture, it’s a spectacle and the costumes and make-up are fantastic to see. But the storyline often seems bizarre because the action often hinges on cultural mores that we’ve not grown up with, and the music to our ears sounds discordant and bizarre. You’d go once to enjoy that spectacle, but you’d be unlikely to go back night after night.
@27: I don’t really see your point here. How do people in the 24th century NEED to wind down from a theatre of war with a cultural phonenomenon from 350 years earlier. The equivalent would be your sailors in the far east winding down by going to a 17th century coffee shop and playing nine-mens-morris. In the 24th century, surely they would have their own ways of winding down. In fact, I’m pretty sure many of them would find what they need in Quark’s holosuites, but it wouldn’t be a sixties lounge singer doing “Fly Me To The Moon.”
Oh krad….”sex on a goddamn stick”…. a well turned phrase, sir. As much as I enjoy your well written rewatches they don’t make me laugh out loud that often but you tickled me good with that one.
Yeeesh, some people are trying to take this episode WAY too seriously.
I LOVE this episode. And unlike most of the other lovers here, it’s not based on a love of the Rat Pack or crooner music or Vegas flavor. Meh. Give me a good Duke Ellington instrumental piece over Sinatra. I live in California and I’ve never been to Vegas except when it happened to be on the way to someplace else.
But I love Vic, and I love this episode, just because they’re FUN.
I find hilarious the premise that a self-aware hologram has this near-miraculous power to observe real people and fix their problems. And I rationalize to myself that it’s because of Vic’s miraculous magnetic charisma that aliens (with no cultural background of 1962 Vegas) end up liking the holoprogram anyway.
(To be fair, Jadzia would probably go for any sort of party atmosphere with music from any culture, and might have even studied this era a little bit due to Dax’s longevity and her anthropological interests in general. So really, only Kira and Odo, and later Nog, are aliens drawn in by this program to a strange degree.)
And if the premise of the hologram that solves people’s problems was hilarious, the kiss scene was even funnier. I literally FELL OFF MY CHAIR LAUGHING when I saw this episode the first time. “Then why don’t I just kiss you now?!” “Well, why don’t you?!” *insert incredibly awkward yet liberating kiss full of passion but void of finesse*
So yeah … I understand KRAD’s intellectual problems with this episode, but in spite of all of them I’d personally have to rate the episode at least a 9. :)
Vic is a character that was fun when the episode centered on the holodeck and was a time sink when he only had one scene. A money sink too when you take into account the cost of music rights and redressing the casino set.
This is a fun episode and I think most of the problems with it come down to DS9 being a television show. There is a decent sized subset of viewers who favor romantic subplots and the easiest way to provide those is by using two of the your title actors. Terry was leaving which ended Jadzia/Worf so they added a second romance to keep those viewers interested. I don’t know that Kira/Odo was the best choice, but it provided enough in the way of A and B plots that I have a hard time calling it a bad one. In the same way calling out culture that the viewer knows makes the future a little bland, but saved time. If you have 43 minutes of film and need to illustrate Bashir’s interest in intelligence work growing darker by having someone ask what he’s reading you can a) spend a minute and half or more explaining that it is a novel by a Vulcan you used to work in Starfleet Intelligence but left after his cover was blown or b) “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” Unless the episode is running short or the Vulcan is going to appear later option b is probably your best way to go being both fast and easy for your twentieth century human audience to understand.
Not by favorite episode, but a good palate cleanser.
@24
Exactly, this isn’t Vegas lounge singing (which actually came a long a little later than 1962). I always associate lounge singing with a recurring Bill Murray bit on SNL and it is terrible, worse even than polka and rap. But Vic Fontaine ain’t that. And how can you say in the same article that the genre sucks and at the same time that Nana Visitor’s performance of “Fever” is sex on a stick?
As far as his sentience goes, I don’t think he is. At this point. The EMH on Voyager eventually gained sentience because he was on all the time and his stored experiences eventually pushed him over some threshold. Later on, the crew arranges for Vic to be always on and he may gain enough experience to become truly sentient, but I don’t recall his story arc well enough to remember. We’ll see.
The first time I saw this episode, I loved it. Like many of the others, I found it fun and friendly and engaging. It was everything that the previous episode was, but still enjoyable. Vic even got me to pull out my old Dean, Frank, and Tony and give new vocalists a shot.
During the rewatch, I fell asleep. It just wasn’t as much fun. I don’t know if it was the painful romance, the by the numbers plot, Vic just not sounding as good, or some combination, but I just didn’t enjoy it this time. I really wanted to, but don’t know what happened.
#34 “How do people in the 24th century NEED to wind down from a theatre of war with a cultural phonenomenon from 350 years earlier. The equivalentwould be your sailors in the far east winding down by going to a 17thcentury coffee shop and playing nine-mens-morris. In the 24th century,surely they would have their own ways of winding down. In fact, I’mpretty sure many of them would find what they need in Quark’s holosuites, but it wouldn’t be a sixties lounge singer doing ‘Fly Me ToThe Moon.'”
So when I was in in Iraq or Bosnia or other far flung places was playing
Assassin’s Creed or role playing games during the USCW or the American Revolution o in the Middle Ages not just our current way of doing the same thing? Hell, If I had a holodeck I would be doing it. I think you are letting your personal biases judge what others would be doing.
One of the best things about DS9 was that they put an end to the whole ‘holodeck malfunction’ storyline that Futurama parodied so well (Evil Abe Lincoln!). That said, I hate Holodeck episodes on principal. I think they’re largely an indulgence for the writers and actors, and this was no exception.
@40: I think the problem isn’t so much that the 24th-century characters are interested in historical roleplaying, it’s that they’re never interested in anything more recent. Yes, we play video games set in the Middle Ages or the Old West, we watch movies about Robin Hood and Dracula, but we also have games and shows set in the present day or just a few decades in the past. Things like Vic Fontaine and the Battle of Britain may be the DS9 characters’ equivalent of Renaissance fairs or watching Reign, but where are their equivalents of Mad Men or Star Lord’s Awesome Mix? Aside from Flotter and Treevis, did we ever see any human Trek character enjoying something from their own childhood rather than their great-great-grandparents’ childhood?
@23 Reboots themselves are fine and dandy. But the fact remains that the quality of today’s films (and tv) is far lower than what we had (say) 20 years ago. The creativity in Hollywood had striken an all-time low, and the current “Reboot Fever” is simply another symptom of this problem.
So Lerris (#22) does have a point.
@43: Every generation insists it’s a “fact” that the quality of today’s stuff is lower than the stuff from 20 years before. You can find quotes to that effect going back centuries, and if they were all true, then we’d all have degenerated to meaningless grunts by now. It’s a psychological illusion that’s well-understood. We remember the good stuff from 20 years ago better than we remember all the bad, disposable stuff that was right alongside it, whereas the bad, disposable stuff from 20 minutes ago is fresher in our minds. So that creates the false impression that there’s more bad stuff today than there was in the past. In reality, there’s the same mix of good and bad that there always was, but it’ll take a couple of decades to see what parts of today’s movie landscape are enduring and what parts fade into obscurity.
Omicron: Nonsense. Twenty years ago, people were saying the exact same thing about how crappy current films and TV were and how it was so much better 20 years ago. People have always said that things such now and they were better in a mythical “good old days” that never actually existed.
The problem is, we only remember the good stuff from 20 years ago because the awful stuff has been (with reason) totally forgotten because it was, well, forgettable. So we remember through rose-colored memories the fantastic stuff and assume that’s all there was.
And, as Christopher pointed out upthread, reboots and remakes are nothing new. Not even a little bit.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Christopher and I both posted the same thing at the same time. *laughs*
—KRAD
@44, 45 There’s also ‘the golden age of science fiction is 12’.
It’s a 24th century SCA event. “What happens at the Pennsic War … “
I think krad’s assesment is generally right. It’s a fun episode if you’re willing to overlook a few problems with the idea of a sentient holodeck AI. (And there are LOTS of problems there. Not least being the question of why, if true AI is so hard to create that we’ve only seen a few instances in all of ST, would it show up in a holodeck entertainment program?) But really, we have to do this suspension of disbelief all the time with ST. So that in itself isn’t a reason to dislike the episode. Even though the questions about ST and AI bug me, I think Vic is a fun character and I’ve give this one a 7 at least. The performance of Fever (wowza) bumps it up to an 8. ;)
Can we put aside the ethics of a sentient hologram for a moment and talk about the *other* severe moral issue that gets completely overlooked?
Odo goes on a date with a hologram version of Kira. Full stop. That is super creepy, and it never even gets a mention. When Barclay did this to Troi on TNG, it was a much bigger deal, and I don’t understand why this episode just hand-waves away that problem.
When Kira figured out that Odo thought she was a hologram, I really expected her to feel betrayed, creeped out, used, violated… any number of very reasonable reactions. Instead she just has a moment of clarity? And then kisses Odo? WTF?
@43-45 – I’d also add that most people are of the general opinion that TV in particular is far superior today than it was 20 years ago – and I agree wholeheartedly.
I do think movies are actually worse, as the international market pushes films towards bigger explosions, and the domestic market pushes them towards a PG-13 rating. But I also don’t go to the movies nearly as often as I used to, so I’m in a much worse position to judge. Television is definitely better across the board, though.
I’m reminded of an old Scott Adams joke – what’s the worst job in the Star Trek Universe? Being the guy who has to squeegee the holodeck.
There’s a lot of slashfic devoted to Bashir & O’Brien using the Alamo program as a cover for their secret affair. Or so I’ve heard.
@50 If I were to speculate, I would say that the difference is all about intention. Barclay (and Geordie) was acting out a fantasy using a puppet that looked like someone real. Odo was not acting out a fantasy, he was practicing for the real thing. His concern was his own behavior, not using a puppet to change the behavior of the other party (or otherwise remove their agency).
It might still be reasonable for Kira to be offended or creeped out, but it would depend on her interpretation of events. As it played out, she treated it as a peep behind the mask and she was intrigued and perhaps a little flattered by what she found there.
There is also the fact that both Odo and Kira were manipulated into that position by Vic, and they are both probably bright enough to realize that. In either event, we as outside observes are certainly able to see that, and that knowlege will certainly color our perception of how ‘icky’ we find the situation.
Movies today are awful, not like the quality movies of my youth. “Ice Pirates”, for example. That was a classic! Nothing like that being made today!
@42: Well the Voyager episode “Author, Author” had the Doctor’s holonovel (which was set in the 24th century) being widely disseminated in the Federation. And likewise on Voyager the Mutiny Scenario holoprogram was apparently quite popular with the crew, so we do see examples of 24th century Federation citizens enjoying role playing in their own time period. And if you want to limit it just to DS9, Jake wrote a fictional story about smuggling for the Maquis and was researching contemporary criminal practices for another story. That suggests there was a demand for stories set in the present day (meaning the 24th century), since Jake probably wouldn’t be writing about those subjects if no one was interested in reading about them.
@55: True — but I still wonder about all the stuff between our present day and Trek’s present day. That’s a pretty huge gap without any noteworthy popular culture or music or literature.
@56 Well Riker and Deanna once played a holodeck episode based incredibly loosely on humanity’s first deep space warp mission. So there is some fiction set in that time period.
I apologise for reminding anyone of “These Are The Voyages”.
@56 – That’s actually a huge pet peeve of mine for all of SF. It’s so rare to find SF set in the far future that references popular culture other than what we already know in the present. I know this is necessary to provide a frame of reference for the audience — if someone refers to a Beatles track, most of us will recognize the name ; a comparable reference to a fictional 29th century band will not have the same effect.
@40: But what you are describing is 21st century culture. They didn’t have games boxes and online role playing games in the 17th century. And that’s my point. The OP I was responding to suggested that people in the 24th century would NEED (his capitals not mine) to wind down in the same way people in the 20th century did. I quite clearly stated that, yes, they would almost certainly be doing that in the holosuites, but in a way that reflected their own interests.
So, for instance, if one of your buddies in Iraq had said “hey, instead of playing Assassins Creed, I’ve got this great game where you watch Dean Martin singing in a bar.” “Right, and then there’s an invasion and we have to defend the bar against ancient evildoers?” “No, you just watch him. Then maybe he’ll wander over and give you some relationship advice later.” Even now, after fifty years, I’m guessing your response to that is going to be “no, you’re fine, I think I’ll just go back to assassinating important people in a fictional medieval world now thanks all the same.”
I liked this episode when I first saw it, but when I watch it today I can’t help but feel like this episode treats Kira as a prize to be won by Odo, not someone who really has any intrinsic desires of her own. As others have already pointed out, there’d really been no indication that Kira had any feelings for Odo, so for those feelings to appear suddenly just makes me wonder, “So what, specifically, is Kira attracted to about Odo? Or is it just that a boy[ish] that we like wants a girl, so we’re supposed to root for him to get her without thinking about it?”
And other than “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” I don’t care for Vic for the most part. Again, echoing other sentiments, it just feels like the creators were scratching an itch of their own over serving the needs of the story.
-Andy
That’s why, in my novel Only Superhuman (from Tor), I made a point to invent a number of works of late 21st/early 22nd-century pop culture for the characters to reference along with the more classic pop culture familiar to the readers. Stuff like Bollywood-produced “curry Westerns,” a kids’ adventure show called Annie Minute and the Time Trippers (about time-traveling musicians with names like Millie Second and Ringo Planett), and some sort of anime/noir hybrid called Sam Murai, Private Eye. Also, the book’s protagonist, something of a celebrity herself, had to contend with the annoyance of a really bad biographical movie about her that had recently been released (whatever the future equivalent would be of a made-for-TV or direct-to-video cheapie).
I literally just watched this episode before sitting down to comment. And I have to say I’m among the “would rate it higher” crowd. But I think I have kind of an unfair advantage in watching this show; despite being only 30, I have a strong appreciation for Vic’s style of music. My dad was a huge fan of the rat pack, so Sinatra in particular was one of the singers I grew up on. Vic’s personal style isn’t absolutely amazing, but he’s definitely on the high side of ‘listenable’, so I was able to sit and enjoy the episode quite a bit.
As for the rest of the episode, it somehow feels a little more tolerable than most ‘holodeck episodes’, if only because no one is trapped and the primary holographic character is well aware of himself, making it a non-issue – and thereby a more relaxed setting. And that final bickering “WELL MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST JUMP STRAIGHT TO KISSING” “MAYBE WE SHOULD” kiss on the Promenade is just so perfectly Odo-and-Kira.
Plus, the look on Jadzia’s face is pure gold.
I’d much rather have seen a holodeck re-creation of a joint on Bourbon Street or a club in Greenwich Village than a high-priced casino in Las Vegas. That is great music. :)
@Keith
Does 11001001 ring a bell? Happens to be the very episode that got me hooked on Star Trek, over 20 years ago.
You make a good point, though. There are excellent options from that era that could have been used on this episode.
Still, it’s hard to have a real consensus when it comes to musical taste.
As for the episode, I’ll admit I have a certain fondness for Sinatra and Vegas (as did Ira Behr obviously).
I think it works beautifully as a fluff piece, especially after a heavy dose of Inquisition/Moonlight drama. And it works for Odo, most of all. Even if the romance might feel contrived, I can certainly feel for Odo in his journey towards happiness. Given their eventual parting in the finale, it only makes sense to have a brief moment for this happiness to thrive before it’s ripped from their hands.
And to think it all began thanks to a single spontaneous reaction from René Auberjonois playing Odo, four years prior, on season 2’s The Collaborator. When Kira declared her love for Bareil, I don’t think anyone thought about pairing her up with Odo. Thanks to that moment, this episode happened after four years of growth and development.
About the guy who has to clean out the holodeck, I always just assumed that transporters, replicators, and holodecks all come from the same technological family (the manipulation and transference of matter and energy), and that any… ahem… mess that happened on the holodeck was simply dematerialized when the program closed.
But maybe that’s just a killjoy assumption.
Even more troubling than the lack of cultural references from the “near” past (21st-23rd centuries), where the heck is the *science fiction*?? Does no one in the 24th century dream of the adventures to come in the 28th century?
@65 just what I was thinking.
I remember an episode of Space: Above and Beyond where one of the young recruits talks about discovering the music of some guy with sideburns and a curled upper lip. His comrades don’t know what he’s talking about and laugh at the impression. It was weird and kind of refreshing seeing a future world where Elvis is buried in obscurity.
@65: Eugene, that’s…
That’s…
…I have no words. That’s so meta-, I honestly have no words.
@64 – unless the failsafes are keyed in on the users, uhhh, genetic code, thereby requiring manual cleanup.
@65 – That is a fantastic question.
Living in Canada, it’s been of a bit of a crappy couple of days. THIS is what “His Way” is good for – it’s a go to when the day has been grey and grave, the world is out of kilter, and we all need a good laugh before we go and carry on in our lives without our lost neighbour.
On those days, who cares about logic, who cares about all of the minutae we are in love with as we adore our Trek. We need comfort TV, and this is it.
@65: I’ve wondered that myself. I figure that stories about space travel aren’t seen as SF anymore because real space travel is so common. In a couple of my Trek books, I’ve suggested that the main speculative fiction genre in the Federation is time-travel fiction, since that’s still exotic to most people.
@65: Well Garak did once make mention of a Cardassian novel about a war between the Cardassians and the Klingons that was set in the future.
@67: If I remember correctly, in one of the first episodes of Space: Above and Beyond they’re on a training mission on Mars, where they find a lander or a rover with a laserdisk which, when turned on, starts playing The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and one of the characters says: “I think my father knew this music… by Pink Floyd”.
Being a big Pink Floyd fan, my eye twitched for a full minute…
“Twenty years ago, people were saying the exact same thing about how crappy current films and TV were and how it was so much better 20 years ago. People have always said that things such now and they were better in a mythical ‘good old days’ that never actually existed”
True. But just because people always tend to say it, doesn’t mean this claim is always false.
Besides, I’m not claiming that everything was better in ‘the good old days’. Humanity is certainly making incredible progress in many areas, but we are regressing in others. And I think that movies and tv are one of these areas.
For example, can you compare NuTrek 2009 to Classic Trek (and I include everything up to and including ‘Enterprise’ as Classic Trek)? When the very soul of our favorite franchise is being sacrificed for money, it’s a sure sign that something is very wrong.
As for remakes and reboots: I have nothing against them. Frankly, I’d love to see good quality remakes of classic films, updated with modern special effects. But this isn’t what we are getting these days. Add to that the immense amount of “Reality TV” garbage we have today, and the fact that modern children-shows treat their audience as if they are stupid, and it paints a very bleak picture indeed.
BTW, I find it interesting, that we are having this thoughtful discussion on a rewatch of a 20-year-old show, by an author whose creative work is far superior to anything on the tubes right now. Thank God to the internet, which gives us a quality alternative to mainstream showbusiness.
@74: Sure, I can compare NuTrek to classic Trek: it looks better than the Original Series.
That’s about it. JJ Abrams’ personal style of storytelling doesn’t lend itself to proper medium-density science fiction. His “Trek” films are less Star Trek and a LOT more Star Wars, which is why I have a lot more hope for Star Wars: Episode VII. I also have more hope for the next Star Trek film, now that JJ Abrams isn’t touching it with a thirtynine-and-a-half-foot pole.
Hell, Abrams openly admittied that he wasn’t even a Trek fan, hadn’t watched any Trek before or during production to make sure he got the feel of the universe before committing his works to celluloid. He based his films on the pop culture caricatures of the characters, rather than the characters themselves…but I’m not sure how much vitriol I can safely give him, given Roddenberry’s own desire for Star Trek to be “Wagon Train to the Stars”.
I do agree, however, that there is PLENTY of absolute trash on the airwaves these days, but I still say the NCIS shows are some of the best character dramas around, as well as The Good Wife (what I saw of it before it got moved to Mondays, at any rate). I’ve heard good things about Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and The Flash, and I’ll bet you never thought you’d go to a comic book movie that didn’t suck…or even go see a comic book movie AT ALL.
And YES, the Internet has given us Netflix, and The Pirate Bay (shhhhh), and Youtube, and given superfans of various IPs the chance to make their own mark on their favorite franchises, for good or ill. It’s a great age to be entertained…as long as you can actually be arsed into LOOKING. There IS so much trash to sort theough, after all…
@74: You’re cherrypicking. First off, I don’t agree with you about the updated Star Trek; yes, the new movies aren’t as substantial as the shows, but neither were the old Trek movies, because blockbuster action movies as a genre are intrinsically shallower than series television. And the vast majority of the movie audience does not agree that the Abrams movies are bad; they are, in fact, just about the most financially successful and critically well-rated movies in the entire Trek franchise.
More to the point, even stipulating that there are some remakes that are inferior to their originals, there are also ones that are superior, like the updated Battlestar Galactica (which had problems of its own but was certainly a more sophisticated and high-quality production). It’s Sturgeon’s Law. Ninety percent of everything is garbage, but that means the other ten percent is good. That’s as true of remakes as it is of any other storytelling category. So it’s complete rubbish to claim that it proves some kind of degeneration over time. Yes, there are things that have gotten worse over time, but there are other things that have gotten better. It has always been thus.
Argh, I hate when people say tha the reason the Trek movies were so bad is because Abrams has more of a Star Wars style. Frankly, I don’t want him near Star Wars, either. Star Wars isn’t JUST big movie spectacle.
Anyway. This episode. I wanted to like it because I actually love the music of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett (in fact, ‘Come Fly With Me’ was one of the songs we danced to at our wedding reception).
But…ugh. First off, I’ve never bought the Odo/Kira romance. And I say this as somebody who was in a similar circumstance. My now husband (our 6 year wedding anniversary was yesterday :) ) started out as a friend. He developed feelings for me before I did for him, and I told him I just wanted to be friends. A little while later, I did end up developing feelings for him (partially due to some internal issues on my own end I had to work out before I could be in ANY relationship in a healthy way) and we dated, got engaged and married in short order.
But let me tell you what would have doomed us from the start – him trying to manipulate me into some big romantic gesture (and I know part of this is on Vic, not Odo) and trying to win me/change my mind. I think in some ways this episode disregarded Kira’s agency as a person. We’ve never seen any indication that she had feelings for him, or even a kernel of something. And yes, those feelings can come out of nowhere sometimes (as they did in my case, although people actually assumed we had been daing for nearly a year longer than we were)…in fact, I had a very similar moment of clarity I still remember quite vividly – two actualy, one involving a silly fortune in a fortune cookie, and then a few days later looking at him and realizing I was going to marry him and that was that. But they all came of us living our lives together normally as friends, not out of these kinds of theatrics. Maybe I’m being a little inconsistent since in some ways my own relationship was very sudden, and there definitely were some siuations where, like Kira, I was able to see a side of my husband I hadn’t seen, or see him from a new perspective. But they seemed to come much more naturally than this.
Plus, there is kind of a disturbing trend where people seem to view people with unrequited love as entitled to that love, and if the person spurns them, they are being bitchy, stuck up, etc. Some women actually get killed over this. I know that’s not what they are trying to go for here, but I do get the general impression that we’re supposed to feel Odo ‘deserves’ Kira because he’s been pining and is sucha good friend and Nice Guy.
I also fround the hologram thing a bit creepy. Actually, not so much the practice date. That’s one thing, and kind of clever and maybe a high tech version of practicing a date in front of a mirror or with a friend. But what I found creepy was the hijacking of Kira’s image into the lounge singer and basically making her act in a way that she might not normally (especially when it involves making her more sexy and throwing herself all over Odo) – I know this is on Vic, not Odo, and Odo was definitely uncomfortable with it. But…ew. I would feel incredibly violated if somebody did that with my image. (Although, in and of itself, I agree that it was a pretty awesome performance).
Also – taken on its own, I think Odo and Kira’s kiss scene is probably one of the best first kiss scenes ever – unfortunately I didn’t feel like there was actually enough unresolved sexual tension on both sides to really sell it overall.
@77: I’ll never understand the complaint that the Abrams Trek movies are “just” empty spectacle. Yes, they have a lot of spectacle, because that’s what the movie studios demand of their tentpole action blockbusters these days; but they also have a solid emotional core underneath the spectacle. In the key scenes of the 2009 movie, especially the opening sequence and the final destruction of the Narada, the focus of the direction, composition, music, etc. is very much on the intimate, personal side of things even in the midst of all the stuff blowing up. There are a ton of action directors out there, Michael Bay being the epitome, who would have the opposite priorities. I don’t understand the hostility toward Abrams, given that he always, always keeps the focus emphatically on character and emotion no matter how crazy the action and plotting get. I just finished an Alias rewatch — literally, less than half an hour ago — and it got ridiculous how totally every bit of international intrigue and ancient prophecy in the series revolved around the heroine’s family and friends, but as contrived as that was, at least it kept the focus on character and emotion. That’s always been Abrams’s MO — to pile on the crazy plots and action but keep the stories totally grounded in the personal. The Mission: Impossible film he directed is by far the most emotionally rich and character-driven film in the franchise; he took the character of Ethan Hunt, who had been a totally generic, superficial, one-dimensional action hero in the previous two films, and made him an actual person. It was only under Abrams, whether as director or producer, that Hunt became a character it was possible to identify with and give a damn about. M:I:III had just as much wild action and spectacle as its John Woo-directed predecessor, but it also had a thousand times more emotional depth and character substance.
When it comes to Star Trek, I think Abrams does a good job with the characters and emotions, within the limitations of a modern action movie, but takes things in too crazy, big, and fanciful a direction with the action and spectacle. But Star Wars has always been a bigger-than-life, spectacle-driven fantasy that, at its best, is rooted in relatable characters, and that balance of crazy spectacle and relatable emotion is something Abrams is perfectly suited for.
As for Odo and Kira, I think it’s a good point that Kira was somewhat deprived of agency here, treated as a prize to be won. It sometimes bothered me that DS9 had no female staffers, and I think this is definitely a case where that lack of a female perspective had a negative impact.
I’ve only seen each of the Abrams Star Trek movies once so I am hardly an expert – I admit I have not given them a lot of thought and analysis. Also, I’m not really a Star Trek expert in general; my husband is way more knowledgeble about it and has spent a lot more time with the original serieses (he doens’t really enjoy them either). But, they didn’t really ‘do it’ for me or even feel like they really fit in with what I think of as Star Trek (although I think part of that may be the fact that many of Star Trek’s themes and MO work better as a TV show, not a movie). I enjoyed them as I was watching them but have not felt any pull to really watch them again, and kind of like them better as generic sci fi films instead of Star Trek. But, others have enjoyed them and have gotten something more out of them – I don’t dispute that.
What my comment was more trying to say, as opposed to being a statement on the Star Trek films, was being opposed to the idea that BECAUSE the Star Trek films are just empty spectacle (which is debatable although I can see where my comment endorses that view), that’s why he’s more suited for Star Wars (implying that Star Wars is also just empty spectacle) – which I totally disagree with.
But, I do hope you’re right and that, given the medium Star Wars is ultimately designed for, that type of storytelling will work better and feel more like it fits. My fear for the movies wasn’t so much that he would make a bad/empty movie, but just that it wouldn’t feel like it meshed well with the existing Star Wars universe/themes. I know on one hand there is going to have to be some ‘modernization’ given the fact that these are going to be movies from 2015 and not the seventies/nineties, but I think it’s going to be a tricky balancing act to give it the same general feel. I don’t want them to feel like total reboots. But I’m one of those crazy people that likes the prequels despite their flaws (yes, they have flaws) and would prefer Lucas stay involved in some capacity (even if it’s just storytelling, I admit that he should probably back off the directing/screenwriting). If anything, it would be interesting to see where he thinks it should go now or what he nature of the Force is, etc, since he’s definitely changed his mind on various things as time has gone on.
@79: Everybody focuses on the Lucas vs. Abrams question, but the fact is that on SW, Abrams is basically just hired talent working under the auspices of Kathleen Kennedy, the new SW trilogy’s producer and the new head of Lucasfilm. And Kennedy is an accomplished veteran who was associate producer on the Indiana Jones films (producer on the fourth one) and the producer of most of Steven Spielberg’s films. Not to mention that Episode VII is co-written by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, the co-writer of Empire, Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. So it’s not like the Trek situation where Abrams and his team are running the whole show, writing, directing, and producing included. Since Abrams is just doing the one movie and Kennedy is producing the whole franchise from here on out, I expect the final product will reflect Kennedy’s vision more strongly than Abrams’s.
not the best period in music? This was the era where Miles Davis recorded “Kind of Blue” and John Coltrane’s awsome “Impressions” was recorded.
Another recomendation is a 50’s album by Dizzy Gillespie, Sunny Rollins, and Sunny Stitt, “Sunny Side Up”
Ornette Coleman Quartet “This is Our Music” – Awsome
And I think of Frank Sinatra’s the “Capital Years”
Listen to those albums and tell me if this was a weak period in music.
Saint2: yeah, but Vic wasn’t singing any of that (except maybe something from Sinatra’s The Capital Years). Anyway, I didn’t say it was a bad period for music, I said Vegas wasn’t the place to find the best music of the time period. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Boy, was I dreading a Vic episode solely due to the comment sections on other posts on this rewatch. I am so happy that it didn’t play out like the horrid trainwreck that I was expecting. I thought this was a wonderful, very Trek-like, fun episode. I have been following this rewatch pretty closely and find it kind of funny that Vic Fontaine is what divides fans more than anything else.
First of all, if you are of the opinion that today’s music or movies are generally worse than twenty years ago, congratulations. You just turned into your parents.
Second, I generally pity those people whose ears atrophy in high school and end up listening to the same thing all their lives. Or those who will dismiss entire genres of music because they find it culturally demographically or artistically inferior or something they simply cannot understand. I’m on the other side of 50, and I would say that about a third of what I listen to was recorded before I was born and another third was recorded less than 2 years ago. There is beauty and joy and aural epiphanies to be found everywhere. When I was in college there was a radio station in Chicago called WXRT and at the time their slogan was ‘everything, in no particular order.” You’d hear Johnny Cash followed by The Sex Pistols followed by Frank Sinatra followed by Patti Smith followed by Miles Davis followed by the cocteau twins…..it was so refreshingly eclectic, and in my opinion made for a great soundtrack to an interesting life
As for The Vegas Lounge era in particular, personally I find a lot to like in the music itself, but I’m guessing that Bashir’s attraction is based more on the atmosphere of Vegas Lounge cool. If you hate it you hate it, but for those of us who enjoy dressing up going downstairs and playing Blackjack and sipping a good martini with friends old and new in a world of lights and escapism, well, we love it and we’re not apologizing for it and I absolutely adore this episode as a result. James Darren is fantastic in the Fontaine role, and I can’t get enough of this stuff.
Leaving aside the questionable ethics of the Hologram used here, I was never a big fan of the thought of an Odo Kira romance, but I’ll tell you …that moment on the Promenade where they kissed, with the cutaways to Dax’s and Quark’s reactions… I admit, I fist pumped watching that, because I thought it was a fantastic moment.
While it is true that most of the “entertainment” enjoyed by our characters seems to be 20th century or earlier, I do remember that Uhura’s songs that she sang on TOS were more SF-like.
@85/CathWren: Well, “Beyond Antares” had “futuristic” lyrics, but its musical style was very mid-20th century. And her song in “Charlie X” was based on a 1794 folk song by Robert Burns, albeit with updated lyrics.
@CLB86: I guess I don’t have much of a musical education. I thought those songs were quite exotic and futuristic.
If you want to see a human getting it on with a blob of goo, watch Cupid’s Dagger, from the first season of The Orville when Dr Finn (DS9’s Kassidy Yates) has some sort of sex with Yaphit, one of the Orville’s engineers who looks to all the world like something that fell out of Worf’s nose.
It is a very interesting character episode at least, even though I wholeheartedly disagree with the hinted notion that Odo as a male has to do the first step of asking Kira out, but it’s a bit beside the point.
The main reason why this episode doesn’t really work is that how it should be possible for a hologram to use the com system, program holograms and even take over control of the programs? Didn’t they learn anything at all from all the holodeck mishaps on TNG?!
Also, about any episode would’ve looked pale in direct comparison to “In the Pale Moonlight”.
Lockdown rewatch.
I think I underrated this episode when first watching as this genre of music is really not my thing, Although James Darren does sing these songs better than Michael Bublé does In my opinion.
It’s a light hearted romance episode and Rene Aubojonois is as always excellent but i never did buy into the Odo / Kira romance.
On fairness to to the Vic role I know there is the really fantastic ‘it’s only a paper moon’ episode to come which validates the character’s creation so it retrospectively raises my appreciation of this episode upon rewatching.
Is there any incontrovertible evidence that Vic is sentient? Simply knowing he’s a hologram doesn’t do it; he could easily have been programmed thusly (wasn’t Minuet?).
I’d think the strongest evidence is his ability to communicate with people outside the holosuite or his ability to transfer his matrix from one holosuite to another (tangent: isn’t there a Bajoran chapel on the station? When before, or since, has Kira ever gone to a holosuite to meditate or participate in her religion in any other way?). But he could have been programmed to do things like that.
We would be living in an entirely different timeline if Tom Jones had accepted the role!
Watching DS9 for the first time, and reading KRAD’s rewatches as I go along. There have been some spoilers, but I’m totally okay with that since, as several have pointed out, the show aired ages ago. I actually helps me enjoy the show more- everyone’s input offers fantastic food for thought and I wouldn’t remember all the continuity details otherwise!
This episode surprised me- for one thing I don’t think I understood any references to Vic in previous comments sections, but it was the first episode that I thought “wow, this looks dated”. And not in a “oh, we’re clearly in 60s Vegas”way, but a “oh, right, this is 90s show” way. Which is actually good, in a sense, since it means that usually DS9 holds up quite well.
Count me as one who doesn’t buy Kira/Odo and finds it an unnecessary and uninteresting plot element. I liked the character of Vic, but overall this episode was painful to watch. I like Odo the statue. He doesn’t need to be soft and cuddly to be likeable.
I appreciate that you shared your moment of clarity, Lisamarie, I had a very similar experience with my (at the time) future husband. It was this bizarre moment of “I’m going to marry that guy” and I pretty much set out from that moment to make it happen. We had only met 2 weeks earlier and I had dated *very* little up to that point. Good to know that someone else has experienced it too, not just a magical TV trope!
I’m doing my own rewatch of DS9, and I thought I had to make a point of how much I loathed this episode.
It’s utterly toxic. I won’t rehash the reasons others didn’t like it. I agree. What surprises me is the lack of commentary on what makes it so bad.
@60 has already made the perfectly reasonable point that Kira is given no real desires of her own.
She has known that Odo has feelings for her, but has she really got over Odo’s despicable actions during the Dominion occupation? I would distrust him for the rest of time.
Fontaine is highly manipulative. Were I Kira I would have taken a hammer to the program crystal. She has every reason to be extremely upset. Also, if you find a person who won’t take no for an answer, you get very far away from them. You don’t just agree to go to dinner.
Similarly, Bashir. He asked his date out four times before she eventually gave in. No means no the first time. Then you drop it. You don’t keep pestering.
Did he have Kira’s permission to include her likeness in one of his holoprograms? From what we know of Kira, it seems unlikely she would have given it.
This was a very bad romcom, crossing several lines of acceptable behaviour without examination.
Warp factor 6? Even the impulse drive is offline.
Quoth fearuaine: “Did he have Kira’s permission to include her likeness in one of his holoprograms?”
Kira’s likeness was inserted into the program in order to save her life (and that of everyone else on the runabout) in “Our Man Bashir.” Permission didn’t really enter into it, the way things played out in that fourth-season episode.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@95/krad: That was an entirely different program, though. That was Bashir’s spy program, this is Felix’s Vic Fontaine program.
And it makes no sense to say that “Because the crew inserted Kira’s likeness in an emergency, that forever entitles everyone else to use her likeness afterward.” That’s like saying that if the fire department breaks into a house to save its owner’s life, it means that everyone else is free to break into that house thereafter.
Christopher: I don’t disagree, but fearuaine’s question was whether or not Bashir had asked Kira’s permission to use her likeness for his secret-agent program, and I was pointing out that that wasn’t really relevant in this case. The fact that Fontaine could access it as a hologram is problematic, but that’s a different point to whether or not Bashir had permission to use Kira’s likeness in “Our Man Bashir.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@97/krad: I thought they were asking whether Vic and Odo had permission to use her likeness here, in “His Way.” It’s true that “Bashir” is the nearest antecedent to “he” in that paragraph, but I don’t see anything specifically about “Our Man Bashir” in the comment.
Doris Duke wasn’t a singer. She was a tobacco heiress. Aren’t you thinking of Peggy Lee? She made “Fever” famous. Your comment was incorporated into the Wikipedia entry for this episode, and only you can fix it. I usually agree with your comments on all the other episodes!
Marian: Duke wasn’t a professional singer, no, but she did sing and play piano as a hobby. The story comes from Nana Visitor’s own words in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion by Terry J. Erdmann & Paula M. Block.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido