Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang

DVD, DS9 S7 (Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang)

My issue with this episode has nothing to do with the story, the characters, the setting, or anything else like that. What I get confused about is where it should come in the season: the production order meant that it was filmed after 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges,' but shown on original air date in reverse order. Yet the original VHS video release presented it in production order, but the DVD puts it before 'Inter Arma' and I, stupidly, forgot to resolve what order it was supposed to be watched in and just went for the next episode on the disc. But that doesn't make sense because it's one last lighthearted runaround for the 'DS9' cast before the seriousness demanded by the ten episode arc to a finale where seven years of increasingly detailed, rich and complex plotting was going to be wrapped up, and the final scene, with Captain Sisko and Vic Fontaine singing out the episode with 'The Best Is Yet To Come,' makes so much more sense as a herald to the serialised final third of the season with them, the writers and everyone there giving the audience the heads-up that this is the transition point between the stories that they'd been playing around with for a last few shots at singular character focus in the traditional Trek and 'DS9' manner, and the great wrap-up where it was no longer going to be about trying out ideas and exploring individuals - there would be that, too, but there would be no more standalones, it would all link together, so I was slightly annoyed that I'd watched it out of order, although 'Inter Arma' probably does fit in with the ongoing story, so it's no great problem.

Forgetting the episode's placement, it's noteworthy as that last chance for the crew to let their hair down (or bob it up, fancy like, in the case of the female characters), something that, unlike the close-knit crews of 'TNG' and 'Voyager,' they rarely did. There had already been an episode of getting together to combat a challenge in an aspect of leisure, with 'Take Me Out To The Holosuite,' a superior story, but any chance to bring as many of the cast together in one room was one worth taking. Vic's was a place I had mixed feelings about: it was a cosy, pleasant place and fitted the mood and structure of the series very well, maybe even better than Quark's. But Quark's was the place to go right from the beginning and when Odo says Quark wouldn't be likely to join them in their plan to save Vic from the mob because he thinks of him as his competition I had to concur. He really was Quark's competition and took a lot of the Ferengi barkeep's limelight away. It's sad, because for me, Quark is the best character in Trek, Armin Shimerman certainly one of the best actors that delved deeply into this obstructive, obnoxious, sometimes obsequious little troll, and the truth was that his character got lost in Season 7, so much that he barely features in the starring role of episodes, and those he doesn't, he's barely in at all, as was the case with this episode where all he does is clean glasses while eyeing up the crew all heading to Vic's and musing to Morn that something's going on up there.

What was Quark's loss, was Vic's profit, and it can easily be argued that some of the main cast suffered while the recurring cast took more and more of the limelight, depending on who they were and where they fit into stories. So Nog was certainly a more developed character than his pal Jake, while Bashir, Worf even, maybe Odo, and sometimes O'Brien went through large patches of making only minor contribution to the season, happening more than an average season where inevitably certain characters are going to get more to do than others. For Worf it makes sense, as Michael Dorn was off taking the Klingon on a film ride, 'Star Trek: Insurrection,' and I suspect Colm Meaney's film career was also continuing, something he had done throughout the series. It doesn't make it an easier pill to swallow, but you can't have a multitude of fascinating recurring characters and complain the main cast didn't have enough to do, there has to be a price for everything, and Vic's rise came at the cost of Quark. It helps that he's such a great guy so I never felt bad about Vic being in it, it's only in later years I realised it was a trade-off. And this episode, where Worf or Quark wouldn't really fit, not being able to invest in a fictional crisis, with the majority of the cast working together in a fun way, was almost a consolation prize, especially as the coming story-lines would be splitting people off for periods.

And why wouldn't they all want to help out Vic? One thought about this story is how much it depends on the reality of fiction, and whenever they do that it's hard to divorce it from the parallel reality of us as an audience watching these fictional characters - in this case I'm sure most viewers have wished, maybe only subconsciously, that they could visit DS9 and spend time with the characters. There's never been a perfectly designed 'DS9' computer game, but imagine if there were. Then imagine if it were lifelike, photorealistic. Then make it a virtual reality experience. Then add three dimensions, haptic feedback and boom, you have the Holosuite, from these characters' perspective and you understand the appeal. Because unlike the majority of holo-programs, Vic is someone they've grown to like, just as we have the 'DS9' cast. They don't want to have to shut down the program or reboot (just as most people that really care about the characters of Trek don't want to see them rebooted to suit a new generation, because they're real people to us), causing Vic to lose all the memories he's developed, because he's changed their lives: he brought Odo and Kira together, he got Nog together when he was falling apart from the of incident losing his leg in battle, and he's become a person that anyone can go to for advice or a chat outside the reality of their situation. They can go there and lose themselves and loose themselves from the reality of their present, and after Vic was allowed to stay on permanently he's developed a life of his own.

When Bashir suggests Vic's got to leave Vegas sometime, I was thinking back to 'It's Only A Paper Moon,' where we heard that he and Nog did leave, popping out of town, so he even has that level of life. The idea that programs designed for recreational use could visit another program was priceless, and I can imagine if the series, or any series with a Holodeck, had continued for many more years we'd have eventually come to mashups. It had already been done to some extent with 'Voyager' in the 'The Killing Game' where multiple settings and periods were used by the Hirogen, and again in 'Flesh and Blood,' a sequel to the earlier story which featured holograms from the various programs banding together to form a resistance. But here we're talking about a hologram being invited to join another program, one that would be an historical setting even for him, when Bashir and O'Brien finally break their rule and offer someone the chance to come and play at the Alamo! It's a great honour and shows how deeply they feel about Vic as a person, but apart from the fact that that had more meaning and was part of a running gag it would have been just as fun if they'd asked him to take part in 'The Guns of Navarone,' a World War II mission based on the film which co-starred… James Darren, who played Vic! But Vic's happy with his lot, he likes living the way he does, so it's a bit of a chimera for him to join in all those reindeer games in another program, and when his club suddenly changes in the blink of an eye, becoming a sleazy mob hangout he was offered the greatest temptation to back down and let his technical friends work out the kinks.

Except, to Vic, he's living a real life, even though he knows it's not real, so he doesn't want to back down in the face of adversity - it's the biggest challenge of his existence to deal with an old nemesis and I loved that he reminded his flesh and blood friends when they suggest he go off somewhere and take a vacation, that they didn't go off on holiday when the Dominion took over the station, and he's not going to either. It shows his fighting spirit. I'm sure O'Brien, with the help of the technical skills of the crew, could have come up with a solution, fiddling about in the code and sorting it out in that dry, impersonal way, but they seized on it as a chance to do something for Vic and have fun at the same time: a challenge that brought them all together. What works about it is the way many of them use their innate skills, but in a different context, one they aren't used to, and it's to Vic's credit that he trusts everything to them, because you can see they're fish out of water in this environment, and if there's anything I wish the episode had done better it was in this aspect, and maybe making Vic their coach, just like Worf was when he was training Sisko, Odo and O'Brien on how to pass off as Klingons in 'Apocalypse Rising.' Vic should have been the instigator, but I can see why they had the crew come up with the solution because it shows what they of Starfleet (and other organisations!), are made of. Puzzle-solving, daring, thought, these are all the hallmarks of the heroes in Trek, so to have them be guided by a hologram rather than come up with it themselves might be seen to take away from them.

Still, I do feel there was a lot more room for comedy and it could have been a caper for the ages rather than a mildly satisfying little adventure. It's good to see Nog's Ferengi hearing turn into an essential part of the plan as he has to open a safe to steal the money Frankie Eyes must give to his boss, Mr. Zeemo (though why he had to replicate a full-size replica for practice outside the Holosuite when he could have simply gone into another one and done it in the virtual world, even recreating that room for maximum authenticity, I don't know). Then Odo's shapeshifting ability is used to good effect as it used to be in older seasons, but which they've not exploited much more recently, as a tray that Ezri carries in. She even uses her psychology on the count man who's counting the money in the office, or reverse psychology, I should say - when he doesn't want the drink she's brought she asks to drink it herself as she's so tired from waitressing, so the man drinks it to spite her! I'm not sure what skills Sisko was using to draw a crowd, but he does have presence so even holograms were drawn to the gambling table, and Kira has certainly come a long way from the younger, more angry woman she used to be, into someone who can be a bit more subtle and manipulative in a feminine way which you couldn't really imagine from the early portrayal of a more butch, feisty personality as she was. And Kasidy gets to act like a crybaby…

At least Captain Yates is back, as she doesn't show up much this season, and I'd have liked to know what she was doing during the Dominion War, whether she was fulfilling quotas for Starfleet as a merchant vessel, or still doing business for other organisations, or maybe just staying on DS9, grounded with all the uncertainty in the space lanes. She does have one important function, helping Sisko to see that they can celebrate how far they've come that the only person holding them back is themselves when he shows anger at a period in time when racism was rife, but being portrayed as if there was no such issue. I can see the point, and Kasidy's, too, so it was a useful little addition of depth to a light story. I feel it was something that could have been a story on its own, but they'd already achieved the ultimate racism story with 'Far Beyond The Stars,' the previous season and they were never going to top that. It was touched on, but his lady put him straight on it and that was that, and it is good to see him in that world, though as I said, his role wasn't that integral. It's all worth it for the sight and sound of Sisko singing, Avery Brooks so good, complementing James Darren perfectly. It caps the episode very well as a demarcation point for the rest of the series, because otherwise it would have seemed too light, no more than an excuse to get the characters in the Holosuite, and again, 'Bride of Chaotica!' had already been done on 'Voyager' the same year, so they weren't going to top that with a heist.

As it stands, it was serviceable, and seeing them all together is a joy, especially with certain shots such as Frankie being marched out by Zeemo, walking past them all sat at the bar, or the slow-motion walk down the Promenade in costume. But I still think they should have gone even more daring, bigger, had more of a dramatic comedic take, Sisko acting up, all kinds of things going wrong and having to be fixed on the fly. Which does happen to a small degree, and one thing I like about it is that it's very reminiscent of another series that is at the heart of Trek history: 'Mission: Impossible.' It was the other big Desilu series being made in the 1960s (weird to think, not that long after this episode is set!), when James Bond films were just starting up as the big thing and TV was all about teams of people solving crime and taking on the criminals or tyrants, like 'The Champions' or 'The Avengers' or 'Department S.' I'm just watching the first season of 'Mission: Impossible' now, so it was fresh in my mind, especially as I'd seen a very similar story about the IMF stealing the money of a no-good high-up to knock him out of contention, all in a casino heist ('Odds On Evil'), so it was more pertinent. This wasn't designed to be a homage to Trek's genetic sister series, but it might as well have been, though spies and heists were very of the moment in the Sixties. I wonder if Bashir's request for his drink to be stirred, not shaken was a little in-joke in itself - obviously it's a Bond reference, but the fact that's it's the opposite of his famous preference could be seen as a thumbing of the nose to the Bond people since the series had got into trouble for hewing too close to that franchise in Season 4's 'Our Man Bashir.'

The series didn't tend to go small, and although this isn't as big as I'd have liked, it provides some nice continuity that pointed towards the finale, 'What You Leave Behind,' as everyone would meet at Vic's in the end. I wish the cheesy, but witty dialogue, as best shown by Kira and Frankie's conversations, could have swept through the whole episode, I wish the fish out of water thing could have been carried much further - don't forget that there were real stakes: if Vic went down he could be brought back, but he was effectively not going to be the Vic they'd known. It may be an enjoyable challenge for the crew, but it's life or death for him. There's not much he could have done to be more involved in the action because Frankie and his boys knew him, so any hint of suspicion and it would be game over for him, but he was very brave to be trusting his very existence to these people that weren't going to be that well versed in the period as he was. They've learnt a lot, and like those that enjoy any genre I'm sure they got down into it ready for the part, but they fit in too well, perhaps. Then again, Felix wrote it to be a fun diversion, a jack-in-the-box they call it, it wasn't meant to be a chore or a burden, so treating it like it was of great importance would have been a disservice to the nature of holographic entertainment. Every time they mention this Felix I wish we'd met him because he's clearly so clever and resourceful to write such programs. They should have brought in Ira Steven Behr as a joke, the man that made 'DS9' as the man that wrote the best programs.

As an aside, I liked the fact that we see Sisko reading a real paper book. It's not something we see often, outside of Captain Picard, and I'd never really thought of Sisko as the kind of man that likes books, but it once again shows that even in a future of so much technology the simple pleasures are still important, whether that be reading real pages, talking with friends, or enjoying an experience together. The guest cast as the dodgy mob people were very good, Mr. Zeemo especially casting an air of danger over proceedings, which makes Vic's burbling at his girl all the more tense. Marc Lawrence had been in the 'TNG' episode 'The Vengeance Factor,' an episode I've seen few times as it's not a very good one, so I didn't remember him, but he was good as Zeemo. One unsung contributor was a certain Bobby Reilly as the second count man - I thought he looked a bit like Robert O'Reilly, the face behind Gowron, but he wasn't bulging his eyes as he does so well in that role, so I thought it just looked a bit like him until I read that old trusty, 'The DS9 Companion,' which revealed it was him! It was a full circle back to his first ever Trek role in 'Manhunt' of 'TNG' where he played a human character in another holoprogram, so it was very fitting to have him here. I didn't think I'd have much to write about this episode as it was a basic heist story, so it's pleasant to find there was enough going on to think about after all. Even if I did watch it in the wrong order, gnghnrgh!

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