PATRON TAKES - DS9 S1E9

Best thing about S1 ? Siddig working out Julian. Gotta love it.

Ray... Oh... VANTIKA!! Man this was hammier than a pigs ass cheek, but its so cheesy its a guilty pleasure. And feels like Shakespeare compared to some TNG S1 episodes...

Was thinking everyone was being awfully generous with this episode, until I realized they counted the pilot as episodes 1&2. 🤦‍♂️ Aside from the cringe possession performance, this one isn’t nearly as bad. Almost said we’re just a few weeks away from finishing the weakest stretch in the series, but I forgot to include TNG episodes.

Do you want to see more mysteries and whodunits done in Trek?

I just don’t have any feelings about this episode at all, and can rarely remember details even when I’ve watched it recently. Which is unfortunate, because for all I know the general apathy has helped bury some fun nugget of an individual scene or character detail…

First time "Take" but surely not the last! This episode is okay for the most part I just really don't like the voice Julian put on for the "I'm possessed" voice, otherwise it's a fun episode with an interesting misdirect IMO.

To this point in Star Trek I thought DS nine‘s opening episode was the best crafted opening episode, To this point in the series I feel like the pacing is slow, but it is putting together building blocks and I like building blocks cause you know, you never know how tall the tower will get

Not the worst episode, but some strange choices. Kajada was a good guest character.

Despite the love shown by many patrons for this series, this is one of many episodes that almost made me disembark from DS9 for good. The reason? I just couldn’t get into the main cast. The only compelling characters that kept me tuning in were Odo, Dax and O’Brien. Looking back, there’s actually a great number of episodes I never bothered to watch or don’t remember. I’m looking forward to experiencing those episodes with the guys.

I'm probably one of the few people who defend this episode. The first third of the episode reminds me of good old mysterious X-Files episodes from the 90s. The villain's resolution wasn't entirely successful, but I still have to chuckle every time Quark, expecting someone else in the airlock, starts talking his way out of it before Bashir reveals himself.

My mom checked out on Deep Space Nine with this one but came back a few years later!

This is one of the performances of all time.

I often defend DS9 s1 but really can’t with this one. Is a sci-fi staple with one of the worst performances of a Star Trek lead. A shame as Siddig El Fadil is much better than this.

I like Primmin. He came in with a shitty attitude, but he adjusted it quickly and collaborated well. They created him because Meaney was busy filming for a movie, and while I do miss the chief, I'm glad we had Primmin's side-plot in what is otherwise an underwhelming episode. 4/10 (Low C). Besides Primmin and another good Odo/Quark scene, it's just an average episode brought down by a truly strange performance.

Siddig El Fadil here with one of the strangest acting performances by any of the main Star Trek actors. Dear god, what was the accent like before they ADRd it?

Sid is a great actor, but more than anyone else on DS9 really seemed to need some time to develop. This episode kinda emphasizes that. His first big opportunity and he kinda biffs it. I can’t help but wonder how he would have done given this role in later seasons, but then again the story is kind of a dud, too. You can see the “twist” coming a mile away and then there’s no reason not to check out about a quarter of the way through.

The term "growing pains" comes to mind when I think of this episode

So what does everyone think about the end, where three Starfleet officers stand around with smiles on their faces after witnessing the extrajudicial execution of a captured criminal?

Meh. I agree, it’s an episode. The dialogue dubbing can be especially jarring in the corridors; sometimes it’s like they forgot to mix in background sound and you’re in the recording booth suddenly. Not as noticeable without headphones.

Wonderful acting by Alexander Sidig, don’t ya think??? 😂😂😂😂

6.7/10, Good, C Tier. There's a cool mystery in here but it's not the best. Good doesn't mean it's a good DS9 episode, compared to the rest of the series it sin't, but I'd say it's a good episode of TV. Bashir's villain performance was pretty corny. Below Reqiuem for Methuselah and above The Last Outpost.

Siddig must have decided he had to talk weird so no one would recognize his voice in the first half of the episode, and then was just stuck talking that way when they finally showed his face. You can almost sense him thinking "I've made a huge mistake."

I’m iffy on this one. It’s fun in places and dull in others. Bashir’s weird accent when he’s possessed makes it hard to enjoy.

Alexander Siddig is actually a decent enough actor. I'm not sure why he face plants so hard early on in DS9.

Yeah sorry about some of these early episodes….

This was a favorite of mine as a kid, but on recent rewatches, it's really dragged down by Siddig's acting as Vantica. Curious to see whether you clock that it was Bashir though.

I haven't had a chance to put this up, but watch out for the number 47. It's been used a lot, but it really comes to its head in DS9 (and early Voyager) before they kinda stop doing it. It's something of an in-joke or a game the writers and producers played, slipping it onto PADDs, into logs or maps or dialogue. Just watch for it. Play the game. See how many you can spot.

🥱

There’s a good idea behind Lt Primmin but the actor plays him a little too broad to make him work.

For me, this is tied with Q-Less as the nadir of DS9 thus far. Siddig's ADR rush job is awful yet it's weird enough that it's the only really distinctive, memorable detail in the episode. Otherwise, it just feels like an old TNG script they had lying around from the first couple of seasons that they awkwardly adapted for DS9.

This is my second favorite or maybe the best for me so far. The mystery wasn't that difficult to figure out since there weren't that many possibilities, but the doctor actor did a great job hamming it up for the villain dialogue. I wish more episodes had outright villains.

It's amazing how they can shrink technology in such a short period. In TNG S2E6 Graves needs an entire Data to store himself. And here we are, just 4 more years, and the tiniest chip is enough for a perfect copy of a being incl. memories. #STcontinuity

A great episode with a fascinating premise. I appreciate the performance of Julie Caitlin Brown (from Babylon 5 fame). Sadly Siddig’s performance is overshadowed by the subpar ADR. The producers felt his original performance was “too dark” and they required him to redub it. B for “Bashir the bad lip dubber”

I love this idea of a spooky entity taking over bodies and continuing to conduct their business as usual. Unlike Star Trek 6, it’s a perfect whodunnit where any character could be “guilty”, and no one can truly rule out themselves.

This should have been an episode for season 2+ or for the TNG cast...no one is developed enough for this to feel fun, we don't get interesting reactions from anyone, and Bashir/Vantica doesn't carry the episode. If someone pitched "Dr. Crusher gets mind controlled by a murderer" you'd immediately think of the rest of the cast reacting to that and how different Gates McFadden would be...this was too soon.

Just because the show is a banger, does not mean all episodes will be bangers.

Terrible.

Fell asleep during this episode on my first watch of the series. Never happened again before or after, so I'm gonna confidently say this is the worst DS9 has to offer.

This is a perfectly cromulent episode ruined by the worst ADR in television history... Though without awful ADR it would be too TNG like to be memorable. Fun(?) fact. The actor playing for the starfleet security officer appeared in Brothers as an officer who also wore a gold suit.

alexander siddig is... not great in this episode. i wont speak for the rest of the series, but its funny how bad he is here when he is, imo, one of the most underrated actors outside of star trek from the whole trek pantheon

This episode feels out of place to me, like it belongs more in early Babylon 5. Especially the Kajada character and the ending. However, it's also an episode where my husband wasn't able to figure out the plot ahead of time which is rare with him. I don't hate it, but Bashir's performance pretty much ruins the Vantika character, and ultimately, this episode is forgettable. One of the weakest of the season/series.

Cheesy as feck. Hammed up the wazoo. Kind of a guilty pleasure for me i guess. Pretty bad, but in a kinda fun way.

Ethical question: Do you think everyone was too accepting when they watched Kajada just fry the bad guy at the end when he's just inside the little device? Does this go against due process?

Again, it was an episode. it happened. anyway, moving on...

Perhaps one of Siddig's worst performances on the show, as well as being one of the least memorable "possessed crewmember" type episodes in Trek. Very skippable in my book.

I'm not saying this is a bad episode. I'm not saying it was good either.

Let us never forget Vantika, the most menacing villain so far in Star Trek, right up with Khan! 😛

"This is MY ship! Allow me to intrrrroduce myself. I am Rao Vantika, of ancient Kobliad origins". "Am I mistaken or is there something wrong with my performance?"

Siddig's still a pretty young guy here. So I'm chalking his terrible, TERRIBLE acting choice up to inexperience. He's a good actor, just not when he has to go bombastic/over-the-top.

Even though I saw DS9 first, I can't look at young green Bashir without seeing and hearing Gaius Baltar from BSG.

I just had to read the summary on wikipedia because this episode is so subpar that I forgot it existed

I never get tired of saying that the first seasons of DS9 are extremely underrated. That being said... this was not a good episode. The general idea was fine. But it is mostly hard to watch. The only good thing was the Odo/Primmin-Plot.

This has to be THE worst DS9 episode, right? It literally have nothing of substance. Maybe dubbed Bashir might be funny to u guys?

I really, truly, unironically love Dr. Bashir. This episode doesn't do a good sell on him, unfortunately. As a matter of fact, S1 doesn't do good by him in general. It doesn't help that the writers more or less gave Siddig a character that was all: "Here's a man who's brilliant but also a total loser." I'm sure it's charming at first, but that charm runs out quick. Thankfully, there's plenty to love about Bashir in the future. In fact, everyone gets better... and my opinion the characters almost simultaneously find their place in Season Two.

Ehh, nope. Tough to do body possession when the actors are still trying to figure out the characters

All of Bashir's dialogue as Vantika was ADR because Berman didn't like the original voice he used for it. Siddig got the script just one day before shooting and called this performance his greatest failure on DS9. Who am I to disagree?

Odo and Quark are great in this, but doctor Bashir is really a bit of a mess as a character, and the acting isn’t exactly great from him as a bad guy.