Far Beyond The Stars

DVD, DS9 S6 (Far Beyond The Stars)

Although undeniably a top ten-calibre episode of the series (and perhaps even of all Trek), and a memorable one at that, I couldn't quite remember what the point of it all was, as I watched. I got that it was a classic 'issues' story dealing with racism, reminding us how much has changed by the 24th Century, and I got that it was a triumph of both acting and directing from series star Avery Brooks, allowing him his defining moment of acting, just as William Shatner had at the end of 'Star Trek II,' and Patrick Stewart had melding with Sarek in his series (nothing immediately leaps to mind as the defining moment for Captains Janeway and Archer), but I didn't get what the point was in the wider context of the series. If this were a fully anthology-based series it wouldn't need a context, it would just be pure storytelling, which, by the way is very strong - you're interested in what happens in Benny's world as much as if it were a happening that was meaningful to Ben Sisko's life, drawn along by events as much as by the gimmick of seeing the regular cast and many of the supporting players act in the same production without makeup and as different characters that have no, or very little connection to their familiar roles. No, gimmick is the wrong word, as that makes it sound like a contrivance or a stunt, when it is in fact a delightful twist of uniqueness, reality within another reality that works on the level of fascination to see these actors working together in more than the way we'd expect, perhaps breaking the fourth wall, perhaps setting out a theatre production, yet still being in the confines of that four by three TV episode…

It's a difficult one to explain in the way of attraction because these aren't who we think we're watching, a bizarre, but wonderful connection that we have with these new characters all interacting in another world. At the same time it makes sense because, like Odo's multi-mind meld in 'Things Past,' these are all aspects of Sisko's mind, the dreamer and the dream, as the Preacher says to him. The difference is that in that previous example, the closest I could think of, those involved were themselves, and aware of who they were, but also knowing they appeared as other people to anyone but the small group that shared the experience. In this, every character is a new character, and even Sisko believes himself to be this other person, who sees visions of himself, during his life as Benny, looking outside of that life, either in a window's reflection, or in the most effective and bewildering way, when he lurches from dancing calmly with Cassie at his home, to being the Captain dancing with Kasidy in his quarters on the station, acted and directed in a sharp, almost violent way to how you would think a pleasant little dance could be, emphasising Sisko's loss of understanding, his confusion and even some kind of pain, I think.

None of the other characters have that outside perspective, they're all simply players in Benny's world, except from his perspective when there's a weird crossover moment of the vision and reality blurring together, such as Kay speaking about Major Kira, and taking on her image at the same time, or Willie dressed as a full Klingon, or Pabst's ghostly wander past Sisko's office door. The connections in Sisko's brain are beginning to activate, from the same visions he was gifted in last season's 'Rapture,' producing a vivid, but essential tale, but also giving him that lightning bolt of insight as Benny that the future could be, and is, real. When Sisko follows baseball star Willie into someone's quarters on the station I expected some concerned crewman to ask what he was doing, but that's the transition moment into the 1950s - right away there's the tiniest of hints about the source of this strange occurrence, with the view as we look at Sisko from the front, showing the blank whiteness that he's so often experienced before when talking to the Prophets. I don't know whether that was intentional, but usually when a character enters another reality, a Holosuite, for example, you see the environment behind them, not just in their angle of vision.

The strong draw to see the actors play vastly different characters had always been there (though I thought it would have been a better in-joke for artist, Ritterhouse, to have stated interest in Klingons rather than Cardassians!), whether that's because they've been infected with viruses (such as Season 1's 'Babel' and 'Dramatis Personae'), or have been taken over by an outside force, but the method isn't the slightest bit important in this scenario (though it does have a logical, even scientific genesis through Sisko's previous encounter with visions in 'Rapture'), and so far into the production of not only 'DS9,' but Trek in general, spanning over thirty years by this time, and closing on the five hundred episode mark, had done just about every conceivable variety of alternate realities - it gets to the point where the means don't matter, you want to cut to the story and get on with it, and that's exactly what they did here, the advantage of having a continuous production cycle that lasted so long. If a new series came along now they'd be redoing every plot and every invention seen before, but 'as new' because it would likely be aimed at a whole new audience, whereas at the time this episode was made, it had the advantage of its audience being drip-fed the concepts and contexts of everything about the universe for years, giving us a shorthand (like the way things were being ticked off lists by characters experiencing similar things to what we'd seen before). Some may call it baggage, but in fact it's the licence and ability to get down to the storytelling without worrying about explanations too much, but still being satisfying in that world.

Not that the episode appeared to have much explanation to begin with, as I noted earlier I couldn't see what the purpose of the episode was, beyond telling an interesting, and affecting, story, but one that could be seen as 'old hat': racism is bad. Yes, we know that, thank you. It wasn't until the end that, like Sisko, my eyes were opened and I saw how cleverly it slotted together as a piece both wildly separate from the series, but also neatly connecting and making it worthwhile for the characters. Because if they don't learn or discover anything, it could be seen as a waste of their air time, which could have been better used to showcase what the series is about. But the series is about one man's journey from redemption through to understanding, and this was just a way point along that path. I should have got it from the opening scenes in which Sisko's upset on learning another good friend of his has been lost, along with his ship and crew, the losses of war beginning to be more than oppressive, and make him wonder if he should pack it in, not to keep fighting in his place, but leave the hard decisions to someone else. But that's not how the Captain's of Starfleet behave, is it? They don't have doubts and question their place, wonder if they're up to it, do they? Well, even stretching back to the very first episode, 'The Cage,' one of the signature characteristics of Jeffrey Hunter's Captain Christopher Pike is that he doubts himself and is tired of losing people. It's a practically identical situation, and it's somehow reassuring to know that even the greatest heroes have moments of uncertainty and confusion.

'DS9' was actually closest to the original vision of Gene Roddenberry if you look at it carefully. It may be couched in a darkly lit station that doesn't travel, and it may have a huge variety of nonhuman beings, but its true to the spirit of 'TOS,' but in a post-'TNG' world. It reacts and reflects both of its forebears, and this dichotomy is one of the things that made it the best series of all - while 'Voyager' was either a weaker version of 'TNG,' or a stronger one depending on which you saw first (I'm marginally in the latter camp), and 'Enterprise' was most definitely a weaker 'TOS,' 'DS9' had all the best qualities within it, ably demonstrated in an episode such as this one. But it wasn't perfect, and despite my assertion that this is one of the best of the series (and one of personal favourites), I can see where it could have been improved. Not least by having Andrew Robinson in it, but more seriously it would have been so much more meaningful if the friend of Sisko, Captain Swofford, had actually been someone we'd known, perhaps introduced as a maverick in the six episode War-arc (if it had been possible to squeeze any more characters in!). I was actually wondering if the USS Cortez was the ship which had been mentioned a few times in that arc, but that was actually the USS Centaur under Captain Charlie Reynolds. If it had been he who died, and we'd met him, even once, as a good buddy of Sisko's, the feeling of depression that washes over the Captain would have more basis in our minds. The series was usually so much better at planting seeds for later use, but this is one case where they didn't.

This adds up to slight confusion that Sisko, who's so battle-toughened, would start to question his role, and only when the story is completed at the end, with Sisko realising the whole vision was an encouragement from the Prophets in his dark time (they may claim not to interfere, but they do!), to keep him from abandoning the path laid out for him, do we see the significance. But greater clarification at the start was needed - we don't really see Sisko suffer, just a general impression of despondency. The other crime, if you could call it that, is taking away a once in a lifetime event: Joseph Sisko visiting DS9! This would have been a glorious episode in its own right, with the cranky old man having run-ins with each of the crew, surprising and delighting us in equal measure - any time they could get Brock Peters was licence to cash the cheque of greatness, so to miss out on such potential as Joseph simply being on the station was a big hole to fill. Fortunately the episode lives up to the challenge, and I would never give this story up in exchange for the nonexistent 'Joseph on DS9' storyline, however much I imagine it would have been a great one. But it's typical of Sisko's wilful and recalcitrant Father that he would pick wartime for the moment to make the visit he always claimed he never would! Or you can look at it another way, seeing it as self-sacrificial for the gourmet maestro to leave his customers and restaurant for so long just to come and see that his son and grandson were okay. It's the greatest show of support he can give, and doing it at such a time displays the love he has for his family.

It's not like Brock Peters isn't used well, either, since he has the pivotal role of advice-giver both in Benny's world as the voice of the Prophets, and in Sisko's world with the voice of the Bible, he speaks with authority and care for Sisko's future in both cases. I love that they use the quotation from 2 Timothy, not just because it's good to see that people in the 24th Century still know their Scripture, (even if Sisko showed surprise at his Father's quote, he knew where it was from, and you have to wonder if as many people would recognise it now), but also because it brings home the resonance of Sisko's experience and sets him up for the rest of the 'race' that he must run, even when, as the Preacher says, sometimes the path of the Prophets is a painful one, something Sisko would be confronted with in the hardest manner at the end of the season. Joseph's appearances are far from forgettable, but it's easy to lose track of the episodes he's in when he's not in his native environment of the restaurant. He'd only be in two more episodes after this one, out of six appearances, but despite the relatively few times he was in the series he always made an impact, on Sisko as much as the audience. The station-bound part of the story also reintroduces us to Kasidy Yates, which is useful as she hasn't appeared much at this point in the series, only being on one episode ('Rapture'), since her conviction for helping the Maquis in Season 4. So it's good to know she's still out there making her cargo runs even in a time of war. Life on her cargo ship would have been another interesting episode for them to do, say, if 'Profit and Lace' never existed! Perhaps that would have been one of the six stories that Benny wrote about 'DS9' and which we were sadly not privy to…

I loved the design of the 1950s idea of what Deep Space Nine would look like, with jets taking off on runways spiralling away from the station, and a much more curvier style to the architecture (an unconscious influence on the design of the new 'DS9' in the current novel series?). But style and design were at the forefront of this huge production - I can only imagine the gruelling schedule Avery Brooks must have been on to get this all done. Not only does he direct a piece that is ambitious in its scale, feeling more like a film than a weekly TV series (like the 'Incredible Tales' magazine compared with an actual TV episode of Trek), with a huge number of extras milling about, some big camera work, such as crane shots peering in at Benny's window, or the diner being shot on an outside location so the city street was bustling in the background. All this, and Brooks has to act in every scene and give his best performance ever, when Benny collapses in a fit of defiance and despair. I'm always saying he was a great actor, up there with the best of Trek (which is saying a lot with so many classically trained, experienced actors filling the series'), but if there's one scene that proves it beyond question it is that scene, which provides a thrill of awe that even writing about pricks the eyes! Maybe it was easier, in some ways that he was absolutely immersed in all aspects of the episode, because then he would be practically living it, and everything would be built on, the connections in the mind stronger, consistency of time and energy a boon for a cohesive piece of work that is heavily artistic, but still fits solidly within the series it is part of.

Even the choice of shots is impressive, with the exuberance of Benny and Cassie leaving the nightclub expressed by a trumpet player blasting right into the camera, or in my favourite shot, when the Preacher melts into the darkness after warning Benny of pain, disappearing completely into the shadows in a theatrical, but not exaggerated way. Or the camera pulling back from the savage beating meted out by the cops, as if hope is pulling away from the scene; or during the beating when images of Dukat and Weyoun flash into Benny's point of view (Weyoun's never been so active!). It's one of those episodes (becoming almost common by Seasons 5 and 6!), where everything works, with set detail of the period fascinating to behold, music perfectly attuned to the time, and the story throwing us into this other world without bothering about trying to blend in or get out of it - it's a means to tell a story, a good story, one that holds the attention aside from all the other aspects. The cast all get their dues, there are in-jokes aplenty (when they talk about their readers wanting to see what they look like it's as if they're pointing to us watching them outside of makeup, which we all wanted to see - it's all Morn's fault, he started it in the preceding episode!), and the range and ability of the company makes you wish they'd gone on a world tour with theatrical productions outside of 'DS9,' or made a film together, because it would have been amazing! It's no surprise that for the 35th Anniversary celebration night on the BBC, when each of the then four Captains was asked to choose their favourite episode, Brooks chose this. It ends with the most poetic of final thoughts, and so do I - what if this review is all a dream, and somewhere, beyond all those distant stars, Benny Russell is dreaming it…

*****