The Delta Flyers - Dr Bashir, I Presume?

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Doctor Bashir, I Presume?, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.Doctor Bashir, I Presume?: Dr Zimmerman chooses Bashir as the model for the holographic doctor programme, unaware that it will cause Bashir anguish and his father’s sacrifice. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, & Shawn RobbinsOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Jeff Allen, & Londyn HenningAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jason Eberl, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Cade Solsbery, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Andrew Golden, Daniel Friend, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, & Luke PachaThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everyone and welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark Dax and their good friends Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armin Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. For the complete and wonderful version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. Hello, Hello, hello, hello. Hello, well, well done, both of you. Well, thank you. I like your background. You and I both have the station in our background. Yes, which seems appropriate for this episode. It does. It does. A lot happens, a lot of,

I guess, news and new angles, ways of thinking of people happen on this. Yes, I remember when I read this script, I was shocked by the ending. But, you know, You know, they keep you guessing. That's good. They do. They do. Yes, they do. They really do. Let's talk about some birthdays. Let's talk about some birthdays, yes, this month. We've got Tara Poland on March 30th. Happy birthday, Tara. Happy birthday, Tara. And we also have on April 3rd, big happy birthday to Carrie Roberts. Happy birthday, Carrie. Carrie, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Carrie.

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It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, Iexel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get Iexel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off Iexel membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Iexel.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Let's get some poetry going there, Robbie. Let's do some poetry, some etymologies, some deep thoughts about episodes and titles and language and communicating. This is one of my favorite parts of our podcasts. All right.

Here's my poem. I actually made another poem and I totally scrapped it. This one. Seriously. Yes. But it was worth it. It was worth it. Wait, wait.

Before you continue, is the other poem completely different from this one? completely completely different because i went down the plot path and you can't go down the plot path that's my new well for me it's got to come from a feeling and a character and then i'd love to see work in progress so so you wouldn't recite the first one just to show i deleted it off the dot completely gone i was like okay forget it working and darn it okay here we go here's the one that i am proud of the one that works yes bashear feared he'd be seen as a fraud as a child he felt nothing but flawed But what he concealed was never revealed. Now was the time to let down the facade.

Wow. Flood and fraud. I love that. Yes. Thank you rhyming dictionary. Thank you. Yeah, I was just thinking, that's hard to have something that rhymes with odd. It's a very, you know what I'm saying?

The ending is a little more odd. It's odd to have something rhyme with flawed. Flawed, fraud, facade. Odd. Yeah. I'm odd by that, actually. Are you odd by that? Marquis de Saud?

Marquis de Saud. You could have that in there. All right. Here's my haiku for this episode. Dr. Bashir, I presume. Rom can't voice his heart. Bashir's parents surprise him. Rom bests Zimmerman.

Nice haiku. Thank you. I love the spare nature of a haiku. Yeah. It gets right to the heart of that. Yeah. And I like my first stanza the most, my first verse, which Rom can't voice his heart. I felt that was more poetic than my normal.

Very nice. Yeah, it's very nice. Etymology. Etymology time. I presume it's etymology time. It is. You presume that. And let me tell you what you mean by presume.

Please. So presume is from the Latin, forgive me you Latin scholars, presumer, or perhaps from the French, presume, and it means to take upon oneself, undertake without adequate authority or permission, that's sort of telling, to venture upon or to take liberty. So that is the etymology for presume.

However, there is more to the title than just presume. I presume Dr. Bashir. Okay. So I'm going to just take a side road from what I normally do, and we'll talk about the word Bashir. Oh. Oh, interesting. So this may be common knowledge to many of the people out there. It may not.

Siddhi al-Fadil, or as he's come down, to be known Alexander Siddig, is from the Sudan. And so Bashir happens to be a Sudanese name. And coincidentally, the country was under the thumb of Omar al-Bashir, from 1989 to 2019, who overthrew Sid's uncle, Sadig al-Madi, in 1989. So it is interesting that when we were doing the show, the man running the country of Sudan was also Bashir. That is incredible. And did they really select that name because they knew that he was Sudanese?

That, again, I don't know. Originally, this character was meant to be older. and as I understand it, and forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, Rick Berman so loved what he saw of Siddig's performance in a film, he wanted him for the captain. And when they brought him in or when he's sending a tape, they found that, oh, he's much younger than we thought he was. But so they decided they wanted him for the doctor instead of the captain.

Wait, so Berman wanted him, he saw a Siddig. Originally he saw Siddig in a film. Yes. And he thought, oh, that would be a good person for our captain. Oh, wow. And that was in his mind until Sid either showed up and auditioned or sent a tape or they sent a photo. I don't know what the situation was. But when they realized, oh, he's much younger than we thought he was, because obviously he was in a lot of makeup when Rick saw him on the film.

Right. They nixed him for the captain, but they still wanted him in the project. So basically they, he, Berben still wanted him. So he said, we'll make him the doctor who was originally written to be older. So they scrapped that idea. And there was another name to the doctor is to, that's where I should have started. Yeah. The doctor had another name.

I see. Not Bashir. Right. It wasn't Bashir. So whether they chose Bashir because it matched Siddig, I don't know. Yes. But I know they did change the name of the doctor, the character. name. Right. It's interesting because, you know, his uncle, as you described there, what I just

was reading about that case, his uncle did overthrow another family member. That's right. I think it was Sid's dad, wasn't it? Or was it? No, I thought that for years. And because I was doing exploration on what I'm about to, what I just said, I found out much to my dismay that I've been lying to people for years. It wasn't his dad. But it was a member of the family. Of the family. I once had the great privilege to have dinner at Sid and Inou's house. And Sid's mom was visiting.

She had gone to the mall and there were some Sudanese people who had recognized her as the member of a once royal family. And she invited them back to the house for dinner. The same night that Kitty and I were having dinner with Sid and Anah. Oh, wow. And these people from the Sudan could not look at Sid. They thought that he should be the rightful king. Wow. What?

And what I've just read in the last couple of days is probably more to the point, which is it's not just a royal family. It's a religious family in the sense that he's the descendant of a prophet. And so there's a religious overtone. And as Kitty said to me, well, that's maybe why they couldn't look at him because he represented some sort of religious figure. Wow. Like a pejoran prophet. Wait, wait a minute.

A Sudanese prophet. Yes, a Sudanese prophet. So what you're telling, so what you're saying is that Sid is the crown prince of Saddam. I don't know. I used to say that with full confidence. I don't anymore because I don't know what the lineage or the lineage is. Yeah. I used to think it was Sid's dad that was overthrown.

Doing a little research this past weekend, I realized, oh, no, that's not true. It wasn't his dad. His dad was high up and is related, was related, because it's all the same family. I used to say that Sid was Hamlet, that his uncle overhares father. Yeah, I've heard you say that, yes. And I realized, no, I've been wrong about that. So for all the people that believe me, I lied. Innocently lied.

But you were close. I mean, the spirit of your story is true, that he was connected to a very prestigious political and royal family. And he was somewhere in the line of that royalty enough that he commanded a lot of respect. But what I find most interesting is if they change the name of the doctor to Bashir, then that was the authoritarian in power at the time. Who has turned out, in my quick research, as we've been talking, that person was the very first head of state to be issued a criminal arrest warrant by the international criminal court. He is a international fugitive now. So maybe they didn't know it when

they changed it. And they were like, oh, the head of Sudan, we'll just give him that name. They didn't really look into it. But he turned out to be a really bad guy. Yeah, he turned out to be a really bad guy. And I, you know, someday I'll corner Rick and find out why they chose the name Bashir. But all of those scenarios that you just described are very possible. Yeah. Fascinating etymology and history lesson. And one little footnote, Sid was not the only royal in our cast. Renee.

Yes, Renee, right? He was the son of a princess. Wow. We had no royalty. And you could see that in him occasionally. We had zero royalty in our set. But we did have royalty walk on as background. had the crown prince of Jordan.

Jordan. Yeah. Yes. And didn't you guys get flown to Jordan? I didn't. Some people did. Yeah. It was Ethan and Bob who went.

And somehow my invitation got lost in the mail. Got lost in the mail. Oh, you would have gone. I was verbally invited by him, Robbie. And then for some reason, Bob went. So I don't know what happened there. But it was weird. But I don't know.

And speaking of your crew, there is a graphic at one point that Sid is looking at or is behind Sid's back. And I could swear it's Jerry Ryan's seventh or nine character behind him. It's a graphic. It's not her. It's just a graphic. And I go, is that seven of nine right behind him? Wow. Really? That's weird.

Huh. In this episode? Is it what you're saying? Yeah. And I can't tell you. Maybe I wrote it in my notes. No, look, I'll rewatch it again because now I want to see this. That'd be funny. Ronald D. Moore, tell a play. Story by a person who we have had as. a guest on the Delta Flyers, Robbie. You remember Jimmy Diggs, writer Jimmy Diggs. Very interesting man and talented writer.

He's the one that pitched this story. But what's funny is that after he pitched it, he did not hear anything for one year, one calendar year. When he received a call from Ronald D. Moore, he originally thought it was a friend playing a prank. So he literally had to make more prove that he was really more on the phone before.

It's just very funny. It's, I don't know why they would take it. that long to get back to him because they were super busy? Let's just look at our own stories. Yeah. It took three months for me between my first audition for Quark and my being told I had the job. Yeah. So that's a quarter of a year.

Yes. I don't know how long yours was, but mine was three months. Mine was long too. Robbie, yours was not long, I don't think. Mine was not long. No. I was doing a play in New York at Second Stage. theater and they called and said, you know, because you had guest starred on the show, they want you to

come out and audition basically go straight to testing. And they wanted me to come like next week. And I, we didn't have understudies at second stage because it was a Lord contract and they weren't required to have understudies. So it would have meant that they would have had to cancel a performance for me to go to the audition. And I, and I call my agent and I needed that Star Trek job badly at that time. It had been a lean year, put it that way. And I needed it, but I called my agent and I said, I'm going to have to tell them I can't come for two weeks until this play closes. And if they can wait, I will come out the day after we close and I'm happy to do it. But we don't have understudies. Or day off, I think I said. Anyway, they waited. They waited for a week or two, whatever, right after

the play closed. Yeah. And I came out and found out, I think that day. Wow. Seriously, you auditioned and found out later that day you booked it. Ladies and gentlemen, that never happens. That doesn't. See, that's why Robbie's the golden child. Okay, he's like, he's like the Midas touch. I mean, that's crazy. Armand waited three months. I waited two and a half months, Robbie. Okay. It was crazy. I agree. You know how, guys, you know how when you walked in the casting director's office, the series regulars that are cast, their head shot is pinned up on the cork board behind the casting director's head. So when I walk, guys, you know how, guys, you know how when you walked in the casting director's office, the series regulars office, the series regulars head. Um, so when I, um, so when I walk, um, um, um, um, so when I was, um, um, um, um, um, walked in, Tim Russ and Roxanne Dawson were already cast. They were the first two cast on that show. And then later Robbie, clearly, in that two and a half month span, Robbie and then everyone else, pretty much, other than Kate, were cast. So, long process. And I was the first person cast for Deep Space and I. Really? Were you really? Even though it was a three-month process. It's still, you were still the first. Yeah, I was the one, I was the first one cast. Yeah. All righty. Anyway, I want to talk about Jimmy. Jimmy Diggs. One more thing about him. He, uh,

As a writer has, I think, only got credits for Star Trek work. He was a big fan and a very, you know, we talked to Jimmy. He started as a parking lot security guy down in San Diego at a low-budget TV studio. What was his name? Stu Siegel Productions. Yeah. He was the parking lot security. Yeah.

Security for Stu Siegel. And I think Stu Siegel would come out and he'd ask Stu questions about how do I be a writer and how does showbiz work? and that's how it happened. He took. I think I worked there. Really? I did the Invisible Man there.

Yes, you did then. Oh, my gosh. I had friends on that. You drove onto the lot when Jimmy Diggs was being security guard. Yes, you probably did. That is unbelievable. This writer or this story by was security in the parking lot. But he's done seven episodes of tracks, six on Voyager and won this one with Deep Space 9.

So he's pitched stories or sold scripts to... Repeat again, how many did he do for Voyager? Six. Six. So is that maybe the reason why he wrote a story for Bob Carter's character? That's right. Yeah. That's correct.

Yeah, that's a good connection. We'll talk more about that in trivia, but yes. Oh, good. Correct. Yeah. For sure. Directed by our friend David Livingston and, of course, guest stars, Brian George as Richard Bashir.

A very close, dear friend of mine. and I was very, very happy to see Brian there. Yet we met doing a movie and, oh, my God, I've forgotten the name of the movie. But we became close, close friends after that. Well, I'm so happy for you to tell us that because my first question that I want to ask you right now is, is that his normal accent or did he put that accent? No, it's not his normal accent. It is not, okay. No, he has, he's from Canada.

Oh, so he's not UK. He's not UK. It's wonderfully sort of muted. Cockney accent that he uses in this. And I'm sure they said to him, well, you know, Sid has got a British accent, a very highfalutin British accent. Yeah. And Brian probably said, well, I can do a cockney accent.

And he showed it to him. And he never came out of it. It was spot on, I thought, for the whole episode. I agree. I'm even more impressed, Norman, because he chose the cockney accent, or maybe that's just by default that that's the one he can go to. Maybe. But it works for the show because usually the, the,

The working class parents, you know, work their fingers to the bone to provide for the son who then becomes the doctor, you know, and has more of a posh accent, which made sense. But I was very, I listened and I went that, no, that's not Brian's, it's close. But because Brian has a slightly, maybe it's from living in Canada, but he has a slightly Anglo accent, but it's not anywhere near that. Got it. Okay. Wonderful. Max Gredenchik is wrong Chase Masterson as Lita

Fadwa And that's also using an accent by the way Max Gredenchik Oh Yes He is not the way He talks

I get Bye I just love the bye Later he does Fadwa El Gindi as Amshah Bashir J. Patrick

McCormick as Bennett And Robert Picardo as Louis Zimmerman I had no idea that he had even filmed this, probably.

I vaguely remember. No, dude, I don't at all. I'm glad you did, but I had no clue. When he came on screen, my jaw dropped. I go, Bob, what? I thought I was hallucinating. I was like, what is happening? But you do recall him saying, hey, guys,

I'm going to go guest star in DS9. You've heard you remember that. Okay. Yeah, Bob did DS9. Ethan did it and Tim did it. Yeah, from our cast. From our group. Tim did it before there was a Voyager.

Is that right? Was he? Oh. Oh. Yeah, Tim did it before there was a Voyager. So season two for you then, probably. I'm pretty sure of that. Yeah, that makes sense.

But Robbie, I thought it was later. I thought he was. There's an episode early on where a whole bunch of clangons in, no, no, invade the station. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Because they're trying to. It's a clangon. But he works for the trill.

Remember, that's trying to steal the sentence. That's right. A little bit trivia here. The original phrase, Dr. Livingston, I presume, was said by Henry Morton Stanley, a reporter from the New York Herald, sent to find Dr. David Livingstone. I guess he spells it with an E, but it was still a Livingston, right? Or is a Livingstone, I don't know.

It's Livingston. Livingston, it's very famous. It's very famous, Dr. Livingston, I presume. Which is Stanley to Livingston. Right. So he was sent to find Dr. Livingston in Africa. When Stanley found Livingston, he greeted him with the now famous words. coincidentally, David Livingston directs this episode.

Which is kind of amusing. Yeah. I like it. Dr. Zimmerman, obviously, named after Herman Zimmerman, a production designer for TNG G DS9 and the four-te-D-S-9. The production designer for TNG DS9 and the four TNGG movies. And yes, exactly. Yeah, the esteemed Monsieur Zimement.

So that's who he was named after. All right. There we go. that's a little bit of our trivia there. All right, let's dive into this. Let's dive into this episode. Well, we start off in Quarks. Rom is telling Quark he's ready to do it.

He's ready to do it. He's going to ask Lita on a date. And then she comes over. He stumbles, fumbles, and then leaves. And Lita thinks it's all her fault. And Quark says, you know, Rom needs a woman with brains and a body. And she says, what are you talking about?

I've got brains. This is one of my favorite part. It's like, take your brains over to that Dabot. table so the customers can get a good look. It's very funny. Very quark. Very quick. Quark's got a few misogynistic lines in this episode. Oh, my God. Oh, he's got quite a few. Quite a few. But after 30 years of not doing the show, that's one of the lines I remember. Oh, that's funny. It's very clever. It's very well written. Even though it's offensive, it's very well written. But it is offensive. And it's meant to be. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And I did want to say,

David Livingston found an opening shot and some angles in quarks that I felt like were, I know they can't be brand new, but he framed them in a way with that glass, the stained glass, just centered up beautifully and symmetrical. I thought he shot quarks beautifully this episode. Yeah. He did a real. He had been there enough times, you know, to explore the place at infinitum. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's, this whole episode, I think he did a, a wonderful job and just beautiful angles and great blocking. Well, we see beautiful quarks. Like I said, I think better than it's ever looked.

It looked beautiful. Fun scene with the establishing that Rom is just nervous around Lita. And then we cut over to Miles and Bashir playing darts. Miles says Bashir should be a father someday. He does mention this. You know, you should. And of course, it's an in-joke because he has just become a father. Yes.

Yes, that's true. I didn't think about that. but that's true. Bashir says he's not the father type in the scene, which is very ironic. Right, exactly. Because he just became a father. Then Bob shows up, Zimmerman shows up. Oh, my gosh.

He arrives and says he's here to make Bashir immortal. And I did like what David did, which was made it a surprise. You hear Bob's voice before you actually see him. Yes. And so that was clever. Yeah. Yeah. The minute he spoke, I was watching it with Megan.

Megan was like, that's a familiar voice. already knew it was Bob immediately. I didn't pick it up on it, but Wow. Can I just quickly read this to both of you? Sure. Very quickly. In Jimmy Diggs' original version of this story, the Bashir Zimmerman plot was the B story. The producers were uninterested in the A story, but they loved the idea of Zimmerman using Bashir as the model for the LMH and decided that it was worthy of being an A story in and of itself. However, they were aware that a comedy show dealing with holographic doctors would not be enough to sustain an entire episode.

And they decided that to make things more interesting, Zimmerman would have to discover some dark secret from Bashir's past. As René, Aschevaria says of Ronald D. Moore, his instinct was that there needed to be some big secrets that Zimmerman uncovers, but we couldn't. For the life of us, think what it would be? According to Moore, I kept saying, what's the secret of Bashir's past? What's the thing that this guy Zimmerman is going to find? that's so interesting. I remember that Renee and I started talking about genetics, and Renee pointed out

that genetic engineering is one of the things that is oddly missing in the Star Trek universe. It's a concept that's very much out there in science fiction and even in the real world of science, but in Star Trek, it's virtually never discussed. Aside from the fact that there was this thing called the Eugenics War at some point, and Khan came out of it, that conversation ultimately led more to come up with the idea that Bashir was genetically altered. That's amazing. He and Renee had that combo, and it led to this story point, the plot point. I think it's awesome. I do. I love this story. And it sounds like it was a real, Jimmy Diggs gets credit for the story by, but it sounds like a real collaboration of ideas. You know what I mean? I like the idea of the story. I don't think they accomplished it as well as they

could have, because genetic engineering is an interesting topic, but it's not discussed. No. It's there. But it isn't discussed. And it's incumbent upon Star Trek episodes, not all of them, of course, but for me, a great many of them, to talk about social issues. Yeah. And to talk about scientific issues as well. This is a scientific issue.

I would have liked to, we'll get into it later, but I would have liked more discussion about genetic engineering. Well, no, that makes sense. And it does make sense. And I don't disagree with you, Armin, but I will say, for me, this story was delivered in a relatable kind of family relationship way and I love that I love when they can tell a story that's universal not everybody's gonna get into you know eugenics or genetic engineering but they introduced that and use that to tell a human story that's why I liked this episode is because the sci-fi or the science kind of took was the was the

vehicle to deliver a human story, which is my favorite kind of personally, favorite kind of Star Trek. Well, I understand you're being interested in the family side of it, and we all are, of course, but this is Deep Space Nine. We talk about family a lot. Right. Yeah, that's true. So it's not that we're rehashing the issue.

It's just, it's an issue that's easy to go to. We can always talk about family on Deep Space Nine because everybody lives together. Yeah, correct. It really bothered me that he didn't defend. his his being genetically engineered. He just reluctantly said, I'm, you know, it's a lovely scene where he says, I'm a fraud, but I would have loved for him to have defended, well, it's not that terrible. Right.

This is, this is, why are you taking it out not only me, but other people who've been engineered this way? That's not anywhere in the episode. He doesn't ever defend his origins. Yeah. We also don't know why it's a, legal. They don't really go in depth into what, you know, what happened in the past to make this such a travesty to, you know, you cannot do this. I mean, it's a lovely Eastery that they pull out of

past shows and movies and then they leave it a lot. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. It would have been nice to have argued the ethics a little deeper and the specifics of genetic engineering a little more detailed. I don't, I don't disagree. But I still really enjoyed this episode. Yeah, in the way they They, they formatted it. And what they did. Yeah. They gave you this whole story from the family perspective, which you love, the inclusion of everyone.

I love that. I love Bob's performance. I loved Rob and Lida. You know, I thought David Livingston did some very brave and unusual things. We'll get to it later, you know. But me, this one was imperfect, but one of my more favorite episodes, honestly. It was really great. We go to the captain's office next, and before that we see the station in space, and did you see Voyager flying away?

What? No. Are you being serious? It did. I saw that, too. Guys, is that? No, but we wouldn't be there. No, it wouldn't be there.

We left two years ago. But it was a similar ship. It was. Oh, it looks like Voyager. It looks just like. I thought you really said that they actually put that in. has a funny Easter egg like, ha ha, Voyager's leaving. But they did put in seven of nine, but, uh, I want to see that.

We're in, we're in the captain's office. Uh, we saw a ship that looks a lot like Voyager outside. I got to go watch it again. Zimmerman's filling in Cisco on his request. Uh, Starfleet medical is chosen, Bashir to be the template for the LMH, the long-term medical hologram. This is where he lays it all out. And I just think Bob is great in this scene.

The thing I love about what Bob did. here is because Zimmerman based the EMH doctor on his own Zimmerman personality. But yet, this is a very human version of the doctor, you know, that we're accustomed to on Voyager. It's, it doesn't have that kind of precision and robotic sort of coldness. It's got this a little messier. Yeah, I just thought Bob, in his nuanced way, in the Bob nuanced way, Bob's not the most nuanced actor that I know, but, But in the Bob nuanced way, he found some great, you know, similarities and details I thought was great. I also like the fact that Bob actually took the time to kind of tease out the hair to make a differentiation between the- Yeah, messier.

Yeah. Yeah. Between the doctor, we know, R-E-M-H and Zimmerman, Bob does. And I think it's great because sometimes you need that visual cue to remind you that, oh, yeah. Okay. It's Zimmerman that you're dealing with. So good job to Bob Picardo. Yeah.

Well, he lays it out. Zimmerman lays it all out saying that the original EMH was, uh, will probably be used for decades, but it's going to, it's going to become obsolete, this new LMA. Obviously he lies. Yes. I'm not, I'm not, because obviously he's on, he's on the academy. He hasn't died on. No.

Um, but he says this LMH, yeah, the LMH should be the thing on on Starfleet Academy. Yeah, it should be a long-term medical hologram. It should be sick. And you know what? We never see that ever again. Usually our writers are really good about reminding people of things they've done in the past. But we'll never see a holographic doctor that looks like Sadiq al-Fadil. Right. Oh, that's too bad.

It is too bad. Because I was excited about the whole idea of LMH being Siddick. Oh, this is great. I love this whole idea. And Sid's great. And I said it wrong. I said long range. It's long-term, yeah, long-term medical.

Long-term medical. So he lays it all out and Cisco says, we'll get you what you need. But Cisco's very proud of Bashir, which I thought that was sincere and warm, that moment at the end of the scene. I thought it was really nice. We go in the infirmary. O'Brien's working up on a ladder. Bashir is answering a questionnaire that Zimmerman gave him, his likes, his dislikes, personality tests, basically. Miles thinks this is hilarious.

He says Julian will irritate hundreds of people that he's never even met. Nice banter. Zimmerman scans him. I did want to make a note that Bob took the scanner up above. And I don't know if you remember, but Sid looked up at it and then the doctor pushed his head down. Yes. I feel like having worked with Bob for many years, Bob is a master of bits and props and physical comedy stuff. He is meticulous about business.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that was Bob's pitch. There's quite a few moments like that in this episode where I'm like, oh, I bet Bob pitched that. I bet that was his pitch. And that moment where Sid looks up, I think, I bet Bob pitched it. And I hate to carp, but obviously I like to do it. He looks up, Bob pulls his chin down so that he's not moving. And then Brian says something.

And Sid looks over there. And I thought, well, if he can't look up, he shouldn't be able to do that. either. Oh true. The very next thing he does. And he doesn't correct him for that. Well, um, we go to Quarks Cafe. That's your cafe, Armin, next. Sometimes. Um, and we're, we're up on the upper level. Again, David Livingston, this beautiful, you know, shot from up above. Uh, and, and then he zooms out. David uses the zoom on a telephoto lens quite a lot in this episode. which I thought was very interesting. It's not typical for that time period to use a Zoom.

It's a very 70s film kind of technique, the long Zoom. But David uses it a lot in this episode. So very bold. But we see Zimmerman and Bashir are looking down from up above, and Zimmerman is very taken with Lita's brains, it appears. He wants to interview her. And he says he's going to have to interview everybody that knows Bashir, his parents. When he mentions his parents, we see Bashir get a bit uncomfortable.

Odo arrives, asked Bashir to get a health certificate for a cargo ship. So just before Bashir leaves, he says to Zimmerman, please don't contact my parents. We haven't been close for years. I did note the doctor's response. He goes, I understand. He didn't say, yes, I won't contact them. He didn't. He said, he equivocates. Yes, he equivocates there, which I knew, of course, he was going to do that. As soon as Julian leaves, he makes a note to himself, contact parents immediately. So cut to the infirmary next. Bashir's looking at his hollow doctor. He's looking at himself.

He does mention the eyes look a little dead, which I thought was interesting. Which shit did perfectly. Yes. Yes. That's performance. That's hard to do as well. Yeah. It looks dead eyes and have dead eyes.

That reminds me of my favorite podcast, by the way. I'm going to go on a tangent. Listen to the podcast, Dead Eyes. It's amazing. That's the name of podcast? Dead eyes. Yes. It's about an actor who was in theater school in England, auditioned for band of brothers, got cast, and then was fired before he ever shot a day.

And it's because he heard the story. Why was I fired? Well, Tom Hanks looked at your audition tape and said, you had dead eyes. And so he's like, Tom Hanks thinks I have. have dead eyes. I can't be an actor. Listen to this podcast. It's incredible about an actor's neuroses and about how little things can define your life for decades. And he's very funny. It's a wonderful podcast. Cool. That's cool. Good idea. Dead eyes. Excuse me. Yes. Write that down. Okay. So we go to the infirmary. We're in the infirmary. Zimmerman activates the EMH. He's going to transfer the program over.

It's an LMH actually. The LMH, right. Yes. He's going to transfer the... Yes, you're right. It's the LMH. No, no. Zimmerman activates...

He activates the... Bashir is the long term. Yeah, but he activates the doctor, EMH, for a moment, to transfer... He's going to transfer the program over to Bashir, the LMH, and the EMH gets jealous. That's the note I made. Thank you. There's a moment where... where the EMH doctor's like,

what do you mean? You can't do that. So how did they do that? How did they put both the same actor as two characters in one scene, in one frame? How did they do that? He did it a couple of ways in this episode, quite a few ways, actually.

Usually I lock off in a split screen, but not always. There was one moment where Bashir is looking at himself close. That is a split screen with a green screen. And then the hand came up to adjust something. Do you remember that? He took his finger, Robbie,

and he pushed the other Bashir's forehead up like that. And so how did he do that? How did they film that? Yeah, exactly. Sid's in the... Okay, go ahead. So what they did, I think, is they first shot Sid as the hologram

with someone coming up and maybe someone else coming up and doing this. They shot that. Yeah. And then they lock the camera off. Then they put a green screen in. And they had Sid. walk up and just pretend with his shoulder. Yes.

To reach over. To reach over. The hand was from another shot. Okay. Because you don't see below the frame. Yes. So the hand coming up was in one shot. Then a green screen with Sid pretending.

But not putting his hand. Right. And they just show the suggestion of the move of the shoulder to make it more fluid. Right. Very clever. Great job, David. It looked great. Interact to those two pieces of film that are,

have to be done separately. Yeah. It was great. It was impressive. It was very impressive. Very impressive. I did like that our EMH gets jealous when his program's being transferred over. And he starts to protest when Zimmerman just turns the EMH off, which we did a lot on our show.

We turned off the EMH. We did. Bashir is worried in the scene, though, that his holographic self is not zesty enough, I think he says. And Zimmerman says, well, I have to find out your personality from your friend. friends and your friends he says he doesn't say family yet but I have to find out your personality and then it it'll be zesty so yeah Bashir says I hate it I'd hate it to be boring and Zimmerman says there there may be no preventing that but we'll see what your friends have to say so clever dialogue is yeah we go to the ward room next and another creative moment David Livingston is just

banging him out this is the interview is right into camera so it's just jump-cutting all these interviews Zimmerman's off-camera asking questions we see Cisco saying positive things we see Jake saying sometimes he gives too much information Kira's got an opinion doesn't know when to shut up Dax says he was very persistent in his advances we even see Morn get asked a question yeah what did you think of that Armin I think it was a betrayal to Mark Shepard who should have again principal pay yes we agree I think I'm going to disagree with you guys. At this point, this is a runner, a comedy runner that Moore never speaks, that I kind of, if you don't use it too much.

That's not what I'm saying, Robbie. That's not what I'm saying. He should have gotten credit. He didn't get any film credit. There's no co-star of Mark Shepard. There's no guest star. It's he didn't get, they just used him in a pejority. That is not right because he is portraying.

a running joke now at this point. I don't think he should have any lines. Have you ever heard of a background person who had a character name? No. No. So the fact that he has a character named that and he is focused on multiple times. Yeah. What?

He's actually an action figure doll. Oh, yeah. There's an action figure doll. I bet there is. Yeah. There is. And it's not a bet. It's,

yeah. That's sad. Yeah. They screwed Mark. Right. And Mark and I had many conversations about it. I told him how to fix it, but for whatever reason, he didn't follow my advice. Yeah.

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that's right for you. Go to Rosettastone.com slash today now and begin your language learning journey. What I do like about this interchange, Robbie, is that everything flows. Every person that's being interviewed flows into the next person's answered, into the next person's answer. So it was written quite well, I felt. Yeah. And it's not until Lita pops up for her question. that we ever see the doctor or ever see Zimmerman sorry right well we see o'brien we see miles saying you sure he's not going to read this Zimmerman says positive off camera then lita says so is that all and then we cut to bomb at the very end one other thing will you have dinner with me tonight so great great writing yeah and i and i and i love the executed by by david it was great yeah and i love

the interchange. I mean, the fact that they paired up, you know, having Zimmerman, having Bob Picardo's character have this crush on this DS9 character, Lita, was really kind of out of left field. I did not expect that, but it worked well for me. It was quite apropos because he had two Italian American actors in the same scene. So Jason, Bob, yeah. But it is a credit to our supporting cast that, you know, Lita occupies a great deal of this show. She's come a long way from being a Gabble girl. And it's a credit to Chase Masterson that she gives such a good performance. And the writers felt that she could handle being in the spotlight for as long as she was. Yeah.

Cudos to Chase. Cudos to Chase for sure. 100%. We go to Quarks next. We're down at the bottom now. The camera's down at the bottom. Zimmerman and Leader are up on the top level. But this is a slow zoom in from down below. So again, David Livingston using some very different techniques than we've ever seen on DS9. He's zooming in very slowly, which we realize is ROM's point of view, that he's, ROM is looking up there at them on the date. And we just hear voices. We catch parts of this conversation.

And we hear Lita say quarks a lot of things, but he's not fun. I'm fun. Zimmerman says, I bet you are. You're a fascinating woman. charming, intelligent, and Rom can't stand any of this. All these compliments, Rom can't take it anymore. I do like Robbie the fact that Rahm is literally adjusting his ears as if it's an antenna to get a better, you know?

And then it's all of a sudden, and when you do hear the lines from both Lita and from Zimmerman, from Bob and Chase, they've add a little bit of distortion to it. So it's like he's hearing it with his Ferengi ears. And then they do cut to a close-up of the two of them then in conversations. and then their voice returns to normal. So I like the delineation between the superhearing of the frame of Rahm downstairs. I like that too, but it took my, it took me a while to come to that realization. Oh, okay.

Because when he started playing with his ear and he's staring at Lita, I thought something else was going on for a little moment or so. And, and I thought they're in the middle of the rest of it? Yeah, right there. I mean, nobody knows. So you thought he was doing self-U-M-M-M-A. I thought he was U-Moxing himself. Okay. Um-Maxing himself.

And then when I saw, when I heard actually, when I heard the voices get more clear, I went, oh, he said, as you pointed out, he was adjusting his radar. Yes. So that he could hear better, which, by the way, has never happened before in the show and will never happen again. Oh, okay. That somehow Ferengi are capable of focusing their ears in a way to hear better. Right. The general concept is they can hear everything. regarding without having to put their hand up there.

Yeah. Got it. But so that's why you were fooled into thinking he was beginning self-U-Mox because he started kind of touching. Why is he playing with his ear? Because that is what he's doing. He's playing with his ear. Yes.

I thought he's playing with his ear for some other reasons. Exactly. Yes. But in public, that would be very bad, I think so. Yes. Okay. We cut upstairs and Lita and Zimmerman are still talking privately. He's pouring on the.

compliments when we we see rom run in he needs to talk to lita and they step privately aside i like this two shot with bob in the background yes rom's getting very nervous he says it's very important and he wants to ask and he starts stumbling again and he ends up saying would tomorrow be good for for me to fix your replicator and she's very disappointed yes still can't say it can't say it all right we go to the captain's office next Bashir and Cisco are talking about the air quality. Bashir's kind of concerned about it when suddenly Dax enters, says there's visitors for Julian and his parents arrive. Julian is very nervous to see them.

They kind of have an awkward embrace. I will say when Dax entered, David did this big pan in the wide shot. Did you like that? I loved it. Yeah. I loved it. I think that kind of stuff is active filmmaking. It's not just coverage and letting it.

editors decide. It's, you know, he's giving a little emphasis to this interruption that's happening. The camera's saying, whoa, we're in the middle of a conversation, but someone's interrupting. Yeah. And, and it's important news. It's his parents arriving. So yeah, I thought it was great. Awkward hugs, though. Awkward, awkward. Very much so. We cut to a commercial. We come back again, David, this is me just loving David's work in this, starts with a hands shaking in a tight shot. And then tilting up to go into the scene. So planning for these transitions in a nice way, David did a great job. His dad, Richard, is a talker, we realize.

He's got this Cockney accent we talked about. It also sounds like his dad has done a lot of things, a lot of different things. So you start to wonder, hmm, he's a, what's the phrase, something of everything and a master of none? What's that phrase? The Jack of All Tray has been a master of none. Master of None, exactly. He sounds like that's what I got from this very first scene. He's a Jack of All Trades and a Master of Nune.

It says he's a landscape architect now, and he said that Zimmerman called, and they need to come right away for a project that he and Julian are doing. Amshah, his mom, does not want to bother them. You know, the captain and Bashir, so they leave. Yes. Richard Winks at the end of the scene, which I liked. Looks back at Julian.

Wings. Nice energy for mom. mom and dad in here. Yeah, I especially liked Richard. What's the actor's name that plays? Brian George. Yeah. I thought he was, his energy was great. And I, I'd certainly like my friend Brian, but I was really, I really liked the lady playing the mom. I did too. What's Brian's background culturally? Because George is definitely a nondescript English name, but I want to say, I should know and I don't know. Okay. Forgive me, Brian. I believe he's partially, Indian and partially something else. And I don't know what the other. I did a little research since

we've been doing this. I pulled up a couple things. His father's Jewish. His mother is, that's right. I know he's Jewish. East Indian. Okay. They lived in Israel briefly. Got it. Got it. When he was very young, then they moved to London, brief for a while, and then to Toronto. So high school was all in Canada and things like that. But yeah. Okay. I did notice that he trained in Toronto at Second City. We're John Candy trained. Oh. He trained in comedy originally. He was a comic character actor.

Yeah. Where we did, I wish I could remember the movie. It was Bruce Willis' first movie. I was in it and I can't remember the name of it. So it was Brian. And Brian did a lot of improv in the movie. He was very. Oh, really?

Yeah. And we were sort of a tag team. He was the matri-D and I was the French waiter. Yeah, it was a fun time. And because Brian and I did all the restaurant scenes together, we became close friends as we waited for our turn to be in front of the camera. I love it. Does he live in Los Angeles now?

Where's Brian? Okay. He lives in Los Angeles. Great. Well, Richard's great. I love his wink at the end of that scene. We go into the infirmary next and Hollow Bashir keeps walking into walls. That was very funny.

Much to have made Cullum very happy. Oh, my God. He was laughing. You could see it. You could see not only is O'Brien happy, but Cullamini is also happy at the same time. I will say that because you have Bashir walking to walls on one side of the frame and the real human Bashir walking into the room, you had to do a lockoff at the top of the scene to get that split screen. But David did continue that wide shot into the room and stayed wide through the whole scene, which I wish he had held back, let that split screen work, and then covered the scene. This was one where I thought it was a little aggressive in terms of the lensing.

of the scene and missed some of the moments because of the wide angle. But Bashir's mad in this scene. And he asked Miles for privacy. Julian is mad at Zimmerman because he invited his parents. And Zimmerman says, I need their inputs, period. And he leaves. So that's why that wide angle lens to me missed some of the intensity that a tighter lens could have given to this emotion.

It sort of stayed in that wide lens. Now, here's a question. question that I have for the episode that perhaps this scene is indicative of. Bashir is mad at Zimmerman for inviting his parents. No one has ever asked Bashir whether he wants to do this. He agrees to it. He is doing it. But considering what we learn later in the episode, why doesn't he just say, you know what? It's just called us off. You're right. Knowing what he knows, you got my parents here, I'm done. We don't have to do this anymore. I mean, that would have been my natural response

if I had a deep, dark secret, and he was getting too close. I never asked for this. He never asked for this. It isn't that important to him at all. It doesn't have to do with his medicine or his aspirations or his ambitions. Let's just call this off. This is your idea. And actually, it's never explained to us. why Zimmerman picked Bashir?

Yeah. Well, he says Starfleet Medical chose Bashir. Then why did they pick Bashir? He's a young doctor in a far-off station. The only reason I can think is because what we learned later, because of the genetic engineering, on paper, he is an exceptional doctor. So if they're, you know, if Starfleet Medical is looking at...

Yes, but not the first in his class. We've already knew that. Yeah, that's true. Not the first in his class. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Sid was too happy about how they sprung this on him very much last minute. He learned like two days before filming began that his character was genetically altered.

That's a big deal. It's huge deal. And they had put him through a lot in this season. Yeah. They had put him through a lot in this season. That's right. Not to mention he's just become a father. Right.

Yeah. Well, we go to Lita's Quarters next. and the doorbell rings just as Lita has gotten out of the shower. So she's in a towel and the doctor arrives with flowers. And while she goes in the other room to get dressed, he's looking for a vase while he tells her that there's a cafe on Jupiter Station that needs a manager. And it's all this vase business that I felt like, that's Bob.

He came up with all this, you know, moving around the room and picking up the bowl of balls, whatever that, was like he he has to have padding down his hair in the mirror yes yes it's it's heavy on business and i just as i watched the scene i was like oh yeah that's bob it is but rob in my i and my reaction video talks about this particular scene for this episode but i was laughing because yes when we see bob picardo as the emh on voyager he's in sick bay doing the business that's his home territory he's in lead his quarters. This is someone else's home. He's picking up all of her decorations, moving things around. Exactly. It's just like that is so really, that's a little bit crossing the line there.

Because you don't go into someone's home and start rearranging what they've put up or put down. Yeah. Yeah. I love. Well, he does say that they're looking for a new manager and he says he took the liberty of speaking to the commanding officer there and they're amenable to this idea. The cafe is yours if you want it. And then she comes out, me, my own cafe, and she's naked. This to me, I didn't buy it. Okay. I didn't buy that someone would walk into a room completely naked just because they're

excited about getting a job. It doesn't make any. How would they have filmed that exactly? It was just to her back. Right. It's on her back, but clearly she has no top on and she's, her hands are down. No, they would put some kind of. She has pasties on then, clearly.

Something covering, yes. I'm sure she had for modesty, something tacked on to the front side of her. Okay. That we did not see. Yeah, because I was going to say that's very, that would be asking a lot for her to flash Bob Ricardo. Yes.

You know. Okay. It's still very vulnerable to have an actor, whether you have on, you know, pasties or not. Yes. It's very vulnerable. And it was not necessary for her.

It wasn't at all. Yeah. It felt gratuitous. There's a lot of misogyny in this episode. Yes, there is. Yes, it was awkward. It wasn't funny, in my opinion, and it was not necessary. But anyway, but she realizes she's not dressed, goes back to get dressed, and we hear her.

And gets dressed really quickly. Very fast. Oh, yeah. I don't think you can count two seconds between when she's standing there in the altogether and then when she's got the dress on already. Yes, yes. Wow, that's quick. Well, she says she's not experienced enough to have her own capital.

and and he expresses that he's getting feelings for her. But he asks her, please come. And she says she needs to think about it. So we don't know what she's going to do. What's Leida going to do? We go to the guest quarters. It's a family dinner, very tense. He does mention he was much nicer to people when he ran a shuttle.

And Julian says, you were a third class steward. And you got fired. You didn't run a shuttle. So we're starting to reveal some of this Jack of All Trades, Master of of none. He's a storyteller. He's a storyteller. And this morning when I woke up before doing the episode with you guys, I realized there's a lot of similarity between Brian's character, Richard, and Andy's character, that maybe this is why Bashir is drawn to... Oh, oh.

Interesting. Maybe this is why he's drawn to Garrick, is that there's a lot of his father in Garrick. It's a storyteller. He makes things up to make himself look better. Interesting. I like that a lot. That's great. It makes a lot of sense.

And when he was talking about being a shuttle steward, I kept thinking, well, the energy that Richard Bashir gives off is more of used shuttle salesman as opposed to someone actually working on a shuttle. So that was my two cents worth. Well, they discussed Zimmerman at this tense dinner. Julian says, please be careful with your answers or my career could. be over. Richard even says they could go to prison for this, whatever the secret is. Yeah. And Bashir, you know, it starts getting heated. Bashir storms off. He drops to the floor out in the

hallway. This is very stressful for him. Classic, we've all been at those family dinners. Oh, yeah. But I like the fact that the actors allow themselves to get loud in this episode. Sometimes you watch actors and they just, in scenes where they're supposed to be at a certain level and it's very subdued. That's like, okay. Now, this is a matter of taste. I didn't mind them getting loud. I just thought they were loud for too long. Oh, so you wanted to pull back a little bit earlier.

I want them to get loud. I want them to show their emotion. But just hitting the same note, you know, after a little while, gets repetitive. Yeah. When I direct plays, I go, yes, do that. Absolutely. Now come off of it. Right.

Right. Well, we go to the repliment next. Lita wants Rom to stay. She's basically, or wants Rahm to tell her to stay. Yeah. She's basically begging him, like, ask me to say, stay. Please say something. You know, what we call it teeing it up.

She's literally teeing it up for him. Do I have a reason to stay? I mean, it's very clear, but it's so hard for him. It's just, you feel for him. All he says is I, I, I, and she asks again, I guess I'd better. take the job, I, great. Don't know. Yeah. So, here's my quam about this.

Okay. I'm so sorry. You guys now have watched five seasons of Deep Space Nine. Yes. Ram has been there since the first episode. We have watched Rom matriculate. We have watched Rom learn to be more of himself. Why are we reverting back to the first couple of episodes? where Rom can't speak.

Now, okay, it's about love, okay. But he's beyond that now. Yeah. He's not the sort of self-effacing person he used to be. Man ran a union strike. The man is an engineer. The man quit his job. The man has stood up to his brother on several occasions.

He's not the ROM that was there in season one. why are they reverting back to season one wrong? Yeah. Yeah. But I think that could have been solved in the episode if he had said that to someone. I don't understand. I totally agree, and I will talk about that later. I totally agree.

And he had the opportunity. Yes, he did. There's a scene between the two brothers where he could have said something. Yeah. Yeah. And so how many times does this happen? Is it one, two, and then finally he gets her? How many times does he not be able to say?

Oh, at least three or four. Yeah. I almost feel like one way around it, other than what Robbie said, that's a great example. If he had another scene where he told somebody else, hey, I don't know why I can't even verbalize what I'm trying to say. That would have been great. But the other way to handle this, I feel, is if you kind of went with, Rom can only speak in engineering terms. You know what I'm saying? So he starts sort of trying to talk to Lita, but it comes out just like he's talking about work.

but that's the only way that he can even say anything to her. And she doesn't pick up on what he's trying to say, you know, something like that. I just think he has more gumption than this point shows, yeah. And more confidence.

I gotcha. We go to the infirmary next and parents come in. They want to talk to, they want to talk to Bashir. They don't realize they're talking to Hollow Bashir. I didn't either, though. Did you?

No. Oh, you already clocked it, Robbie. You knew it. I did. did because he had the dead eyes kind of look. Sid was playing the hollow Bashir. Yeah. And I knew in this story at this moment, the real Bashir would not just stand there

quizzically and, you know, he would. Yeah. Well, I validated it in some way in my brain that that was just him. I was fooled. I was fooled. Yeah, I was fooled too. They reassure him that they had their interview with Zimmerman. They didn't mention that he was genetically engineered as a child.

This is where they basically. they basically put it all out on the table. It's all there. And then they leave. And that's when O'Brien and Zimmerman come around the corner. And they turn off the LMH. And Bob Zimmerman kind of walks forward looking very curiously off at the parents that just left. Isn't it O'Brien, Robbie, that says, who were those people?

Doesn't O'Brien say that? No, Sid, the LMH says who were those people? Oh, the LMH says that. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's when you kind of know, oh, yeah. Bashir doesn't know his own parents. Right, right.

Yeah. We go to Bashir's quarters. Bashir is mad. He is really mad. Miles is there. Miles asks if it's true what they said, the parents said in the other room. Bashir says, yes, he admits it all. Some really wonderful performance moments in this scene.

He tells the story. He struggled as a child. When he was around seven years old, he got these genetic treatments. and suddenly excelled. His IQ was shooting up five points every week. Everything about him was altered and improved. Miles wonders, you know, didn't they realize that you were, you know, something had changed? And he says, I thought a very important idea stuck out to me.

No stigma is attached to success, which is a great observation about life. Like when people are successful, we don't question the negative or the, or the possible. reasons that they're successful. We just look, they're successful. I mean, we do it in our real life now. People look at billionaires and go, wow, they're billionaires. They must be doing something right, you know, as opposed to, wait a minute. We should be skeptical about success, whereas Bashir in this scene says there's no stigma attached to success. If you're successful, you get a pass on everything. And we should be skeptical. I've never ever seen that written in anything, have you? Right? Do you agree? I don't know that I've ever heard it put that way,

but it jumped out at me. Well, any filmed entertainment that I've seen in my life, I've never seen any character say something like that. So I like that line. It's a great nugget of wisdom. Sure is. But Bashir at the end of the scene says that he's going to have to resign before Zimmerman files his report and he needs to be alone. Yeah, great scene. I mean, a lot of great lines. We could go through it all, but. See, I agree with you. It's a wonderful performance. And because Garrett has told us that he only had two days prep to think about this and God knows when

they shot this scene. Really good performance by Sid and in this scene I would have liked him to slightly defend the fact, well that's what I am and I'm not that bad after all. Have I ever stepped on anyone's toes?

Has it ever gotten anybody's way? Has it hurt anyone? The fact that I've been enhanced? Yes, and now they're going to kill my career because of something I had nothing to do with that actually made me a better person, a better doctor, a better companion, a better friend, I would have loved to have some of that where he's defending himself,

not just accepting that he's a freak. It's okay to accept that you're a freak. I get that. But I would also like him to defend himself. Yeah, he throws in the towel too quickly. It's just sort of like, okay, I'm done, okay, you win, I lose. It's like, what? Just say something.

I get it. That makes sense. Yeah, this is one of those scenes where the actor was out of focus in the background, and I missed that we didn't have a real tight shot of Bashir alone because he's telling this story that he's had to live with all by himself. And I wish we had had a moment that wasn't just in that kind of profiley two shot or, you know, miles in the background,

but something that was just really in his emotional experience and something really tight on Bashir. because there's a lot of baggage coming out in the scene that's very internal. Also, remember, Robbie, the last episode, they were the most tight, the tightest close-ups that we've ever seen. So it was the, it's like they used up all the EE-E-C-Us that they were like, okay, we won't do it in this episode. Right.

We go to Quarks next. It's after hours. Rom's got a drink. Quark's cleaning up. Rom regrets not telling Lita how he feels that he's in love with her. Quirk reminds him of Prinadora, Nog's mother. This is the first time we've ever heard about Nog's mother in the entirety of the series, by the way.

Yeah, great backstory on Rom here that he first made a contract with Prinidora to be married for a limited amount of time and have a child. When he fell in love with her, he wanted to extend this contract, but he didn't read the fine print, and she ended up leaving him and Nog for a richer Ferengi. He does say, Quark has a line here where he says, in the end, her full. father swindled you out of all your money, and Prinidora left you for a richer man. I wish you had said, I don't know, a man, for some reason, Armin, it jumped out at me, man being a human rather than a Ferengi.

And usually that kind of, those kind of nouns or pronouns are adjusted to fit the alien species. And in that moment, it jumped out at me. I wish they had adjusted it, you know. Well, that makes sense. Good catch, it's good catch. Quirk does suggest try the Vulcan love slave program. It's new. You'll forget all about Lita.

He mentioned this before. The second time he said, this is what you need right here. This is your program. Vulcans. Vulcans are upon far, I guess. Oh, that's right. Hey, if that's the only time it happens once every seven years, you've got to be intense. It's going to be intense.

Yes. And Ron picks it up. He does. He looks at this. We don't know what he's considering. He's considering something at the end of that show. He's got it in his hand in front of him. But, you know, it's once more quark, rightfully so.

I have no problems with this whatsoever, being a sexist and a little bit not squeaky clean. Just icky, icky. But this is the scene where I think Rom could have explained why he has problems speaking to her. I mean, why does he not speak? Is it because they're different species? Is it because she's so much smarter than he is, that she's so much prettier than he is? There could be a myriad of reasons why.

And I would have understood, okay, this is what's keeping him from talking. I don't know about you guys, but for me, I often didn't ask a girl out on a date because I just thought she would never say yes to a character. director like me. Right. You know, and that was what kept me from doing that. I would have loved something like that from him at this moment, which explains why he can't speak. Not that he's incapable of it. Then I would understand why they went back to Rahman season one. Yeah, you're 100% right. That would have been an improvement in this scene. It's a great opportunity. I do like the interchange

between Rahm and Kork where Ram says Lita is not Prindadora. Cork says she's a female, And the one constant in the universe is females are trouble. Oh my gosh. Underwood. Yes. Yes. I did like that. Yes.

But we're all men. Another misogynistic comment. Exactly. Well, we go to Bashir's quarters next. Richard wants to fight this whole thing. His dad is not happy that he's going to lose his doctor ship. And Richard says he wants to come up with a new plan. And this just triggers Bashir, who says that's all this family does.

It's just come up with plans. We never take responsibility for our problems. Julian says, I think his dad calls him jewels at one point. They all call them. They both call them jewels. They call them jewels. And he says, I'm not jewels. I'm Julian.

And basically says, you're not my father. You know, you're an architect of my life. You're not a father to me. Very painful there. Amshah pleads with Julian. and you don't understand what it feels like to be a parent to watch your child's struggle or suffer. And you blame yourself as a parent when this happens when your child is young. And you have to understand we did this because we loved you.

We didn't do this to architect you. We did this because we loved you. And he hugs his mom. That lands for him. And it's a really nice moment. I loved that part of the family story. I think that's the best moment in the episode is her speech. I just thought, yes.

And being a male, I never looked at it that way, but that seemed really from the heart. And I had the supposition, true or not, but I had the supposition that Laura Bear might have had some input into that. Oh, that's such a female point of view. Yeah. Yes, it's a maternal. And to me, it connected as a man. Yes, yes, yes. being a parent, you know, that you make mistakes because you're just trying to help your child.

You're just trying to make life better for them in some way. Easier for them. Easier. And you try the best you can and you fail sometimes. And the kids, you know, they don't see that it came. It started because you just wanted to help. Right. And the fact that perhaps I had done something while I was pregnant that would have caused this to happen

to you. The guilt of that just seemed a very, forgive me being sexist again, a very female point of view that I as a man would never have thought about, but that may just be me. Yeah, I love that it comes from her, that it lands for Bashir here, and they hug. It was a really nice moment. At the very top of this scene, Richard says he's not going to take this lying down, and he talks about legal counsel and fighting this all the way to the Federation Supreme Court. Have either of you even ever heard of that this even exists? I don't know. I've never heard that before.

No. Yeah. There's a Federation Supreme Court. That's news. I do have one little quibble in this scene near the end after the hug in that moment. Bashir goes and sits down in this two shot. It's over mom and dad. Yeah.

He goes and sits down. I loved that moment. And I know why David blocked it that way. But then he immediately stands up and leaves. And I thought, That was literally unmotivated blocking for an image of Bashir sitting between, you know, trying to figure out what to do between his mom and dad. It just felt like it was locking for the tableau of that moment and then he stands right up.

You would have left him sitting down then if you were calling the shots in this scene? Yeah. And end on the scene with him. I would have left him there. He didn't have to leave at the end. I caught that too. Just why is you sitting down only to get up? Although it did turn Brian George, who plays Richard,

it did turn him into watching Bashir leave into a nice moment, a close-up. Yes, he did. Yeah. Pushed on none. So there was a trade-off of unmotivated blocking for a couple of moments that were nice. We go to the captain's office next. Bashir arrives to talk to Cisco. It's the next morning, I guess.

But Cisco already knows everything. And the parents are there. and we see the hollow communicator that we established in an earlier episode, a couple episodes ago, is in the office. And Admiral Bennett is hollow communicated right into his office. I think it's a great technology. They didn't have the film money or budget to do it right in this, at this point in time. I wish they hadn't done it.

I wish it had just been on a computer monitor. Admiral Bennett's there says that they've made a deal his dad will go to prison for two years and Julian can continue his service but Julian doesn't think this is fair feels very guilty about it

Richard says no I am the one that shows this I need to take responsibility and that means a lot to Julian I think here and they all agree that's what they're going to do and they leave and Julian's left kind of confused emotional sad at the end of the scene

You see what Richard said where he's going to be serving his time? Did that clock with you, Robbie? Yes, New Zealand. That's where Paris, Tom Paris, started out in the pilot. The penal colony in New Zealand. So look at that. They have a lot of prisons in New Zealand. Clearly.

So we did get some backstory from the Admiral about 200 years ago. We tried to improve the species through DNA re-sequencing. But what do we get? We got the eugenic wars. And for every Julian Bashir, there was a Khan Singh waiting the wings. So we do deal with some of the mythology, Star Trek mythology of eugenics or the genetic sequencing. And we did have a cool shot wrapping around the back of the hologram that was very inventive and cool. It's a very inventive and very cool shot. I agree 100%. But my heart went out

to the actor. Yeah, his face was not on camera. Right. This is his shot. He only has one scene, pretty much one speech in this episode. He's walked onto a set which I know from experience because so many people told me which was so off-putting. Everything looked new to the guest stars. What is all this?

They may have seen the show, but it was the first time they're actually in the space. In this case, thankfully there were no aliens to look at. But there he is with this big speech to make, an emotional speech, and the camera is

moving around him and he has to be aware of that even as perhaps he's fighting to remember his lines. I thought, yes, it's a beautiful speech and David was right to do it but I just felt for the actor

who was put in this position. Right, who's never got his face on camera for this big long speech. I mean, to argue the other side of that, it is a bit of pipe and backstory and information that speech. And so to see the information land on the other people as we also support this idea of a hologram communicator in the foreground.

I thought that was a fair trade-off. And maybe they did cover the actor in a single. I bet they did. I'm sure they just chose not to use it in the edit, probably. Yeah, well, I hope they did. Otherwise, it would have been a really tough day for me if I had been put in that situation. Sure. Right.

Makes sense. So we go to the airlock next. Everyone's leaving. The family's leaving. Julian hugs mom. and then he tells Richard that he's going to visit him in prison, which is a little bit of healing in that relationship. And they hug as well.

So Richard does say he may usher in a new renaissance in landscape architecture. I'll certainly have time to work on my design. So he's a jack of all trades, doesn't give up on his, he's like Don Quixote. He's always my big breaks right around the corner. Even prison is not, he doesn't get him down. No. As the Bashirs are leaving Zimmerman, Lita head off to the airlock. and Lita is leaving with Zimmerman here.

And then we hear some noise. We hear this noise. It gets louder, louder. Gets louder and louder. It's Rom. Wait! And he's out of breath. He's been running.

I liked that intro. It was very fun. Ram's there. He says, wait, he loves her. Don't leave. She says, I love you too. Lita's very sorry to the doctor But Doc's happy for her

He says maybe he's just meant for a solitary life When suddenly a pretty alien woman passes And he chases off after the pretty alien flirting So yeah I don't know if Zimmerman has given up on His romantic distractions Let's say And then let's not forget that Lita and Rom kiss

Yes, they do And what's interesting to me Not that they kiss That's great. It's a nice moment, very nice moment. But kudos again to Chase Masterson. If you really look at Rom's teeth, that's difficult to get another mouth around. They're pointing in all kinds of directions.

They are, and they're pointing out. They're pointing out. According to Chase Masterson, in an outtake of the scene where Zimmerman boards his transport and propositions an alien woman, Robert Picardo changed his lines to, Have you ever heard about my work on Star Trek Voyager? Oh, God. Of course he did. That's so funny.

I'm so sorry. Anyway. The scripted line was, excuse me, are you familiar with the ancient text known as the Kama Sutra? Right. You remind me of an etching.

Yes. He replaced it with his own version, which Bob does every now and then just to get some laughs, and he usually does get some big laughs. I just want to say that this episode originally ended very differently. In the original story, O'Brien finds out that there are problems with the LMH, which have been deliberately caused by Zimmerman because he doesn't want to replace the EMH.

Bashir then informs O'Brien that Zimmerman is planning to reveal his genetic engineering secret. So O'Brien goes to see Zimmerman and tells him that if he exposes Bashir, his deliberate errors with the LMH will also be exposed. There is some back and forth discussion, and in the end, neither secret is revealed. The altered ending was actually because of Sidig, who didn't want to play a character having a secret that only him, O'Brien, and the audience knew about. Oh. Yeah. And it's a good note.

Yeah. Sid. Great note. Well, we've got one last scene in this, in Quarks, where Rahm and Lita are at the Dabo wheel. True love. Crazy zoom out to a dartboard, or zoom in, I guess, to a dartboard. David's finishing with the zoom lens again, transitioning from the Daba wheel to the dartboard off in a corner through a zoom. But Bashir and Miles are playing.

Julian starts to thank him, but Miles says, nope, he's in the middle of a throw. He says, just play. Miles wins that round again. So did Zimmerman reveal what Miles had said about Bashir to Bashir? Is that why he's thanking him? Oh, interesting. Yes, I think so. I think so.

Nice guy, dachshy. Yes, he's telling everybody's secrets. Miles suddenly thinks in the middle of this game, though, that maybe Bashir has been letting him win all along. He says throw for real. Julian throws, three bull's eyes. Miles takes him basically out of the dart area, out into the bars, which it looked like he would have to throw a curve ball to get around the corner.

To get around the pillar. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, he says, you put. play from out there, I'll play up close, and if that doesn't work, we'll try blind. So, very funny. Very funny. End of the episode. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused

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can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Yes. Let's talk about theme lesson moral of this episode, Robbie. What do you have? I have two lessons. One is, just because you meant to be helpful doesn't mean you didn't cause some harm.

That's excellent. Very good. Yeah. My lesson was from the family. there. My other lesson was via Lita, Quark, and Rom, with Quarks, quote, one constant in the universe, but I would change it to females are not trouble. That's my lesson. There you go. Yeah. What do you have for us, Armin? So I'm tangential to what Robbie just said. My theme is that males are chauvinistic, thick-headed cavemen.

Okay. Because it's... Rom. Zimmerman being misogynistic. It's Quark being misogynistic. It's, in the sense, Rom being a little, not thinking that she can handle this information,

that leader can't handle this conversation. I just think... And I'm 100% behind this that men can be just, pigs and just insensitive to what's really going on. And I say that in front of the two of you. Not that you guys are. No, but I don't disagree. I think genetically we are wired to be pig-headed sometimes. And stupid. Just stupid. Yes. I agree. Garrett, lesson time. Yes, yes. Number one, lesson one, the truth will set you free. And number two, you can't always get

what you want. So I have two lessons from there. But Zimmerman will keep trying. But he'll keep trying. Yeah. But good. The truth will set you free. Yes.

Yes. I may be wrong. I may be totally wrong. But I don't think this relief ever shows it on DeShear's part, ever shows itself in any other future episode. I may be wrong. But maybe in the next episode it's there. We'll see.

We'll see. I don't remember it. Okay. All right. Our Patreon poll, winner for the theme slash lesson slash moral this episode, as submitted by Nicole Bertel is never let the past define who you are, but let it be part of who you will become. Great.

Great. All right. Well, that's it. Thank you, everyone, for tuning into our recap and discussion of Dr. Bashir, I presume. Please join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode, A Simple Investigation with Terry. And thank you so much to Armin for obviously co-hosting. with us again in this episode. Thanks. And carping the entire time. Yeah, you were netpicking.

You were. But, you know, you're entitled to do that, though. You have good points. Yeah, you do have valid points. All good points. Thank you. For all of our, our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material for everyone else. We will see you next time. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye.