Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"Distant Voices"
Air date: 4/10/1995
Teleplay by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Story by Joe Menosky
Directed by Alexander Singer
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
"I've had enough of this. I am not some figment of your imagination!" — Kira to Bashir
"Distant Voices" is strange, atypical, offbeat and often quite interesting. What more could you expect from a Joe Menosky concept? He's the guy who brought us TNG's "Darmok," "Masks" and "Emergence," as well as DS9's "Dramatis Personae" and "Rivals." Sometimes Menosky concepts can be terrific stories, like the dramatic "Darmok." Sometimes they can be bizarre works which seem to beam in from other galaxies, like the laughably horrendous "Masks."
"Distant Voices" is a mixed bag. It has some good moments, and it keeps one intrigued. But there just isn't enough substance from scripters Behr and Wolfe to keep Menosky's concept moving along. Perhaps the concept alone can't sustain an entire hour.
The concept: A telepathic attack by a Lethean criminal (Victor Rivers) leaves Dr. Bashir dying in a coma. The story is told from inside Bashir's mind. Each facet of his personality is represented by one of his DS9 comrades. In order to survive, he must use the different parts of his personality to repair a dead Deep Space Nine. (The station, of course, represents Bashir's own mind.)
The episode begins in a cloud of mystery as Bashir apparently wakes up from the Lethean's attack to find the station dark and empty. As Bashir roams the station, he finds his fellow DS9 officers, though the crew and civilians are all missing. Quark sits cowering behind his bar while the Lethean tears up his establishment. Bashir runs into Garak while looking for Odo. Bashir finds Dax, Kira, Odo and O'Brien arguing in the wardroom on how to stop the Lethean. Through all this, Bashir goes through an accelerating aging process.
In this opening act, the cloud of mystery successfully begs attention. Aside from the senior officers, why is there no one on the station? What is the Lethean up to? Why are all the station's systems down? Why does Bashir suddenly have grey hair? But when Menosky's concept is revealed—that this is all a very wild hallucination Bashir is having—the episode begins looking for what next to do with the concept, with only limited success.
Like "Emergence," TNG's inept attempt at highbrow symbolism (also written by Menosky), "Distant Voices" begins throwing a number of symbols at us, hoping that we genuinely care. The Lethean represents Bashir's inner struggle with elements of his past. If he loses this struggle, he will die in the coma. So the plot takes Bashir on a mission to get to Ops and repair the station. Symbolically, if he can repair the station and destroy the Lethean, he will survive the coma.
The story's apparent intention is to combine all these symbols in order to (1) show each DS9 character turned into a single personality trait, (2) set each scene with a creative, surreal visual and (3) milk Bashir's inner struggle for character development.
This all works to a point. The cast's personality manipulations are interesting, but hardly astonishing given the premise. The fresh visuals grab attention, even if they are a bit gimmicky. And this is really the only episode so far this season that spotlights Bashir.
Unfortunately, this episode takes too long to get where it ends up, and where it ends up is relatively underwhelming. One problem is that the climax hangs on Bashir confronting himself (represented by the Lethean), which reveals character backstory we've already heard before. (That old pre-ganglionic fiber thing again, eh?)
Another, perhaps bigger problem with this story is that it presses the symbolism factor on us by trying to explain every symbol in some concrete manner. Explaining every piece of what the station stands for in Bashir's mind is an excessive step the writers take that doesn't give the audience enough credit. It's almost like they're condescending. Symbolism is a device that requires subtlety—and subtlety is definitely not present here. Consequently, the episode's symbol angle falls apart, just as it did in "Emergence." Maybe the problem is that Joe Menosky is so far out there on some of these ideas that no one is really ready for it, including the writing staff.
Hey, I like original ideas. And "Distant Voices" has an original concept with sporadically interesting moments. But there's just not enough meat here.
Previous episode: Visionary
Next episode: Through the Looking Glass
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67 comments on this post
Sun, May 11, 2008, 11:57pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Jun 15, 2008, 7:20am (UTC -5)
Thu, Mar 19, 2009, 3:08am (UTC -5)
Sun, Sep 13, 2009, 3:06am (UTC -5)
Thu, Feb 11, 2010, 6:22pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 8:58am (UTC -5)
Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 8:57am (UTC -5)
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 2:14pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 4:23am (UTC -5)
Incredibly boring and ruitine. DS9 does bad TNG/Voyager.
I always hated big patches of Season 3.
Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 5:33pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 8:55am (UTC -5)
5/10
Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 12:46pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 2:03pm (UTC -5)
BWHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
At least the writers were honest enough in their choice for agression (Kira).
Joe Menosky. Let's look at the good, the bad, the middling :
Bad :
Interface
Masks
Emergence
Dramatis Personæ
Time's Orphan
Cathexis
False Profits
Darkling
The Fight
The Middling :
Legacy
In Theory
Hero Worship
Conundrum
TIme's Arrow
Suspicions
Rivals
Distant Voices
The Gift
Concerning Flight
The Voyager Consipracy
Unimatrix Zero
The Good:
Clues
The Nth Degree
The Chase
Future's End
Alter Ego
The Killing Game
Hope & Fear
Night
11:59
Equinox
Blink of an Eye
Dragon's Teeth
Good Shepherd
The Great :
First Contact
Darmok
The Thaw
Scorpion
Year of Hell
Living Witness
Drone
Timeless
Latent Image
Dark Frontier
Tinker Tenor
Muse
The only character-oriented episodes he wrote that were either good or great dealt with the VOY cast, with the exception of the Nth degree, and Barclay was a guest character. Most of the time, his successful stories deal with larger archetype themes and mythology. This episode kind of makes use of that, but the archetypes suffer that pervasive DS9 syndrome which turns the intimate into the mundane. None of Menosky's DS9 eps were particularly good and most were just bad. This episode was doomed.
Sun, Apr 6, 2014, 5:30pm (UTC -5)
What I do not agree with is how the episode uses the other characters as virtues of Dr. Bashir. For example, Kira representing anger or O'Brian representing cowardice or something like that (sorry that it's been a while since I've seen this episode). There is nothing wrong with that idea by itself. However, it is how they did it that made it seems totally ridiculous. I also did like the 1st and especially the 2nd act where Bashir found himself in a run down DS9 space station (which actually represents his mind being destroyed by the attack from the real Lethean at the end of the first act). After the 3rd act where Bashir and gang discovered they all exists in his mind, it went downhill from there). I agree with the 2 1/2 stars rating. I only recommend this episode if you are fans of Siddig El Faddil's character "Dr. Julian Bashir" and/or if you like to see one of my favorite characters "Garak" in action.
Wed, May 7, 2014, 8:49am (UTC -5)
"ALTOVAR: Why not? Isn't that what you've always done? Remember, Doctor, I'm inside your head. I know all about you. When you were younger, you wanted to be a tennis player, didn't you.
BASHIR: I wasn't good enough to play professionally.
ALTOVAR: Don't lie to me. Not in here. You were good enough. But you knew your parents wouldn't approve of it. So you gave up and you became a doctor instead. "
With future information you "realize" that his parents wouldn't approve because being a god-like tennis player would give him away.
"ALTOVAR: But pre-ganglionic fibres and post-ganglionic nerves aren't anything alike. Any first year medical student could tell them apart. You purposely answered the question wrong.
BASHIR: That's ridiculous.
ALTOVAR: You didn't want to be first in your class. You couldn't take the pressure. "
This exchange falls apart a drop, because it clearly wasn't the pressure he couldn't take, but that he wanted to seem less perfect. Although perhaps the whole point is that it's less pressure/easier to hide when you're snuck away on some backwater space station as the salutatorian.
It's interesting anyway, and whoever wrote "Dr. Bashir I Presume" clearly intended to retroactively explain this conversation as a product of the genetic engineering.
Wed, Jul 9, 2014, 10:02pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Aug 1, 2014, 12:37pm (UTC -5)
Interesting concept that most likely would have been pulled off by someone like Garak.
Always a skipper for me.
1.0 stars.
Sat, Aug 23, 2014, 8:16pm (UTC -5)
Seriously, I think that those ten seconds -- prying open a random panel only to have Alexander Siddig topple over under a small rain of neon green fuzz exclaiming weakly "My tennis balls..." -- have to be the lowest point in all of Trek, for me.
Which is made all the more interesting by the fact that Zombie-Keevan's shamble into the pylon in "The Magnificent Ferengi" is one of my favorites, as an example of absurdism done absolutely right. (And Quark's "Can't you please shut him off," delivered through barely contained laughter, cracks me up every time.)
Sat, Feb 28, 2015, 7:55pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Mar 2, 2015, 12:25pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Aug 13, 2015, 9:45pm (UTC -5)
I have to say, though, I enjoy "Masks"!
Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 4:22pm (UTC -5)
Notably, it's only in the final act that the Lethian starts confronting Bashir with his failures, and so almost no time is spent on that, the rest spent in the slow, never-ending crawl from one dark room to another where Bashir meets crew members and then identifies which parts of his psyche they represent. This is the Joe Menosky archetype concept. The idea of Bashir subconsciously casting people in his life to take on different elements of himself is fine. Still, nothing really happens with it. His archetypes argue with each other annoyingly, then someone wanders away for a while, and Bashir goes through hallways; people point out how he looks older now, imagine that, and so on. In order to have meaning, these "parts of Bashir" have to have some impact on Bashir, which largely does not happen; I *think* that after Dax and Sisko disappear, Bashir is supposed to be less confident and less professional, hence why he stumbles around a lot at that stage in the episode. Maybe Bashir's aging is supposed to be connected to the way parts of him are captured by the Lethian -- aging as the process by which parts of oneself die? But I dunno. Bashir does not seem all that aggressive either when Kira is there or not, and if anything he gets much more suspicious after Odo leaves. Or maybe he is supposed to discover that he had it all within him all along. Or, uh....
One line I actually remember from the Tim Lynch review of this episode (!!!) which I have not seen in years and years, is regarding the Lethian's final assault on Bashir: there is nothing dramatically effective about a villain saying "YOU FEEL SAD ABOUT X, Y AND Z" and the hero responding "NO, I DO NOT FEEL THAT BAD ABOUT X, Y AND Z," which I think more or less sums up the problem of the big confrontation; we only really have the Lethian's word that Bashir is inclined to give up because of these "failures," and so it is hardly any kind of triumph for Bashir to get past the crushing despair that the Lethian claims he has. Anyway, while being just friends with the hot friend is something many can relate to, I do think it is wryly funny that Bashir is supposed to be crushed by the realization that he "settled" for being a doctor instead of being a tennis star, and that he only came in second in his class at Starfleet medical school. I do appreciate it, because it is basically true that no matter how high one achieves, the recognition that one could have achieved more (or has failed) can eat away, and indeed it is often the highest achievers who find themselves plagued by insecurity or sadness and inferiority all their lives. Still...the Lethian sure buries the lede (or the lead, depending); what about patients Bashir was unable to save, or that other "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" skeleton in his closet? And given that it does not even get *Bashir* down, it is hard to feel the impact of the Lethian taunting Bashir about becoming a doctor.
One of my pet peeves in bad episodes is for characters to comment constantly on how interesting their surroundings are, no matter how boring they are. This is an offender. At several points, characters indicate what an interesting situation is going on in Bashir's mind, etc., which just calls attention to how interesting it is not. I suppose it is also annoying for characters to comment constantly on how boring and trite their current situation is, ala "The Royale."
Garak is in this episode, but sadly most of the time it is Bashir's mind's version of Garak, who is not as fun. The opening and closing scenes of the episode were fine though.
I wonder how much they paid for the "Happy Birthday" rights (which they did not spring for for "Parallels"), particularly topical given the recent court ruling that "Happy birthday" is now officially public domain.
The episode's climax is emotionally limp, which is a positive relief after four and a half acts of nothing interesting happening at all. There are some good ideas in this episode but they are not developed satisfactorily. 1 star; I could maybe go up to 1.5.
Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 12:59pm (UTC -5)
One minute into the mystery most people probably figure it out: Bashir's grey hair, the whispering, the lighting. Too much.
The episode could have been MUCH better if DS9 was normal, at least initially. Bashir wakes up, calls Odo, they start hunting the alien. Bashir's condition is getting worse, he doesn't know why, suspects the alien. Stakes raised. The alien starts sabotaging the station. Odo is less capable then usual in apprehending him, Dax and O'Brien can't keep up technically, etc...
Make it an actual mystery.
Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 5:51am (UTC -5)
Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 6:51am (UTC -5)
Excellent make up and a decent performance though. 1.5 stars.
Mon, Feb 15, 2016, 7:04pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 12:25am (UTC -5)
I've got to agree with JC on this one - how in the hell do we spend an entire episode inside a character's mind and yet learn almost nothing about him? Seriously, aside from learning that Bashir purposefully ruined his own chances of being valedictorian, what do we learn about him? Not much. Is that intentional screw-up supposed to show that he doesn't want to shine as brightly as he can? Because that sure doesn't seem to fit with the Bashir we've spent almost three seasons with by this point. He's a hot-headed, ambitious guy, not someone who deliberately cripples himself. I suppose that might work with Bashir's BIG SECRET that's revealed later in the series, but that's retroactive continuity - it's got nothing to do with this episode. Up until now we've been given absolutely no hint that Bashir is anything like he is in the episode. In fact, until the BIG SECRET is revealed, we're not even given any kind of justification for how he acts here. I suppose you could say we learn how Bashir views his crew-mates. Well, okay, how does he see them? He thinks Quark is a coward, Garak is a villain, Odo is a paranoid, Dax is a hot-headed lunatic, O'Brien is also a coward, Kira is a control freak and Sisko is boring. This doesn't really speak well for Bashir, does it?
But that doesn't even seem to the be the point of "Distant Voices". It seems like the episode is going for style over substance, with the visuals being the most important thing. Bashir's aging make-up, tennis on the Promenade, balls hitting Bashir in the face when Garak helps him open a door in Ops - the homo-eroticism is off the charts! :-P - Ops decorated for a birthday party, etc. If we're going to compare this episode to "Masks", which Jammer does, then I have to say it - "Masks" does a much better job. Yes, I'm going back to my defense of "Masks" again. :-D. There the visuals were at least interesting and unique. Here they all seem pedestrian and boring. Given that this is what the episode seems to be focusing on, it all just falls flat.
Even an appearance by Garak can't elevate this dull, boring, plodding snooze-fest of an episode. And to quote Dukat from "Defiant" - "and that's sad."
WTF HAIR - 23 (+1)
4/10
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 3:52pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 6:26pm (UTC -5)
As for Garak, I think that might be why I decided to go with a 4. Usually Garak doesn't just hold an episode's score steady, he adds to it simply by his presence (since he's so awesome a character). But here not even he helps. Maybe that's because Andrew Robinson plays "fake" Garak differently from "real" Garak (who we only see at the beginning and end of the episode), but I don't know. He just feels off somehow.
I think 4 is a fair score. You said you might be willing to give it 1.5 stars which on my scale would be equivalent to 3.75 out of 10. Even if you stuck with only 1 star that's still 2.5 out 10. So we're not really that far from each other in how we view the episode.
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 6:34pm (UTC -5)
One thing to note is that your scale is I think calibrated a bit differently than mine -- an "average" episode gets a 5, whereas on the Jammer scale (which I'm using here) an average episode tends to be around a 2.5. I think probably I scale "average" as 2.5, maybe a high 2. So I tend to think of a 4/10 from you (or SFDebris or another "5 is average" scorer) like a Jammer-scale 2* or so. But it's an imperfect mapping, no matter what.
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 6:35pm (UTC -5)
Tue, May 24, 2016, 12:13pm (UTC -5)
"I suppose you could say we learn how Bashir views his crew-mates. Well, okay, how does he see them? He thinks Quark is a coward, Garak is a villain, Odo is a paranoid, Dax is a hot-headed lunatic, O'Brien is also a coward, Kira is a control freak and Sisko is boring. This doesn't really speak well for Bashir, does it?"
I wouldn't say that at all. It's just a dream! I think that's where a lot of people commenting here take this all a bit too seriously. Everything about this episode is dream-like. Who among us hasn't had a dream in which there were people from our lives acting strangely, for no apparent reason? This premise in the episode is perfectly acceptable to me.
As are all the other weird things that appear in "Distant Voices." The aging is especially interesting. I think Siddig does a great job of playing the part to the point of comedy, except that we know it's actually quite sad and horrifying given the context. And that's the thing about this episode: pretty much everything about what we see is laughable, especially the doddering old Bashir, except that we realize that these events are representing Julian's dying before our eyes. Can you remember having a dream in whose story and outcome you were seriously invested, only to wake up and realize the whole premise with its imagery was ridiculous? So what seems to put off everyone else about "Distant Voices" is exactly what I find so interesting: from the tennis balls, to the happy birthday Ops, to Sisko representing Bashir's professionalism, every bit of the symbolism is intentionally ludicrous, just like a real dream, and we *would* laugh, except that we know that our hero is close to death. I think it's a brilliant dichotomy of emotions.
...I'm also a fan of "Masks." :-D
@William B,
"In order to have meaning, these "parts of Bashir" have to have some impact on Bashir, which largely does not happen; I *think* that after Dax and Sisko disappear, Bashir is supposed to be less confident and less professional, hence why he stumbles around a lot at that stage in the episode. Maybe Bashir's aging is supposed to be connected to the way parts of him are captured by the Lethian -- aging as the process by which parts of oneself die? But I dunno. Bashir does not seem all that aggressive either when Kira is there or not, and if anything he gets much more suspicious after Odo leaves. Or maybe he is supposed to discover that he had it all within him all along. Or, uh...."
That's reading way too much into this. Dreams are seldom so logical.
I liked the episode. I'd put my score at Jammer's or slightly higher.
Sat, Jul 9, 2016, 10:25pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 6:03am (UTC -5)
Upon re-watching, I just realized there was no B-story, because there couldn't be one without giving away the premise. Hmmm... the premise...
I thought it was really creepy back in 95, but when you have an idea of what's going on, it's a bit hard to keep an interest. One small thing I did like was they kept making Bashir's uniform bigger and bigger, to show him wasting away.
As far as the other characters representing his different facets, I couldn't grasp O'Brien being sort of a coward in his mind. Nah... The angry hot-head maybe, but not someone worried about saving his own skin. Now if they had him as the hen-pecked one that gives in to avoid confrontation, that might've worked (yes dear, no dear, my fault dear).
*insert snappy finish here*... RT
Sat, Oct 29, 2016, 8:37am (UTC -5)
Bashir is growing as a character though and in a positive way. He was almost unbearable in Season 1.
Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:15pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:13pm (UTC -5)
Not a very good standalone. I've never been a fan of "it all happens in their head" episodes and this was no different
Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 12:17pm (UTC -5)
1 star, purely for Garak.
Fri, Sep 21, 2018, 11:59am (UTC -5)
That horrible alien is just so ugly I have hard time looking at him. And to mention that the mold makers can really numbers around the mouths, esp. the one where there is VERTICAL STRIP OVER THE MOUTH!!!!!.......how do these guys eat? Probably don't.
Everyone makes comments and I agree with Jammer's so I don't see a reason for me to say all the same things over and over. I watch any program for entertainment value and to learn. There are so many things in the Star Trek universe to learn from and then go get a book and study them.
Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 4:32pm (UTC -5)
Well look at that--what a surprise! They did address it at the end! The beginning of the show and the ending were very nice--I enjoyed G & J's banter.
As for the rest, blech. I don't know why, but I despise episodes like this where a character "comes to know themselves" by traveling through a hallucination. I had the same problem with "Barge of the Dead." I guess I just don't enjoy self-exploration unless it takes place in the real world.
Mon, Oct 15, 2018, 2:43pm (UTC -5)
As in “Past Tense,” I should confess that this episode has personal significance for me—I turned 30 this past January, and many of the themes ahead hit uncomfortably close to home.
Anyway, Bashir and Garak are having another one of their little dates when Garak offers his paramour an early birthday present, a Cardassian Enigma Tale. Like the Repetitive Epic, from “The Wire,” Bashir expresses a certain...lack of interest in the genre. Garak just sighs at Bashir's alleged anthropocentrism—Enigma Tales are equally predictable in terms of motive (everyone who goes against the state is guilty). He asks about the surprise party Dax is certain to be throwing for him. This is unfortunate as Dax has been pretty poorly handled most of this season and reminding us of her party-girl persona isn't exactly helpful. Bashir comments that he's not looking forward to his upcoming 30th birthday, a customary reminder (for humans) of one's inevitable march to middle age. Yeah...I have to admit, I've spent many a morning this past year counting the new grey hairs appearing on my head. As in “Prophet Motive,” Bashir self-consciously chooses to be grumpy about the whole affair, when Quark arrives at their table with a Lethian in tow.
The Lethian wants to purchase biomemetic gel (that nasty stuff from “Pre-emptive Strike” which is both highly dangerous and perfectly legal). Apparently, the Federation has since updated its hazard restrictions and Bashir disappoints the Lethian when he refuses to help him. The Lethian (who speaks as though he's extremely constipated) is quite insistent, telling the doctor to name his price. Quark apologises to Garak, which is...erm...
Later, Bashir catches the Lethian weeding through his stores in the infirmary and the Lethian attacks the doctor with some sort of electrical attack on his brain.
Act 1 : ***, 17%
Bashir awakens to find the station lights flickering, his laboratory a mess, the computer terminals inoperable and the communication system non-responsive. Adding to this weirdness are some distant voices...ahem...incoherently mumbling. Bashir notes his own temples starting to grey in a mirror when he hears noises coming from Quark's dishevelled bar. Quark himself is terrified, cowering in a corner and quite uncharacteristically panicked, unable to move for fear of being killed by the Lethian, we assume. Quark makes a run for it and Bashir finds himself alone again. But just for a moment, a noise brings him into Odo's office where he's confronted by Garak. Garak...is full of speculations about what may have happened to the rest of the people on DS9—viruses, Dominion nonsense, etc. More distant voices—which only Bashir can discern. Garak also notes that Bashir is greying rather quickly. They agree to split up in search for clues, after arming themselves. As Bashir searches corridors, he finds himself suddenly trapped by a forcefield and approaching darkness. Although there's very little going on, what helps tremendously here is the musical score which is unusually expressive and interesting for its era.
Act 2 : **.5, 17%
Finally, Bashir is able to board a turbolift, nearly being mauled by the Lethian in the process. He slumps, exhausted, while the Lethian tries to invade the lift from the ceiling. Hmm. Bashir ends up in the wardroom whence the distant voices of much of the senior staff are echoing. Bashir finds Kira, Odo, Dax and O'Brien within arguing incessantly over how to deal with the crisis. Like Quark and Garak, none of these people are acting normally, either. Dax is (unconvincingly) hostile, O'Brien is pessimistic and defeated, Kira is a ball of rage, and Odo is highly suspicious of everyone else...okay, so maybe those two are acting normally. Bashir is savvy to the odd behaviour and tries to get the computer to scan them all, but of course, it isn't working. Dax notes Bashir's appearance, but there are those voices again. Amusingly, he name-drops some possible Trek-explanations for his condition: a virus (“The Naked Now”), a subspace anomaly (“Night Terrors”), a neural inversion field (“Man of the People”), and an anaphasic parasite (“Phantasms”).
The crew continue to bicker with their odd behaviours intersecting uncomfortably. Bashir is able to get the squabbling quartet to attempt to repair a power junction nearby. O'Brien believes all he can manage is to repair the communications system, which would at least allow them to call for help. He's able to receive an audio signal, Dax', Sisko's and a medic's voices which inform them that Julian is actually in an induced coma. Okay...so this seems like a huge dramatic misstep, and overall, the drama is slipping further and further from intrigue to tedium, but I have this nagging little (distant) voice reminding me about the Enigma Tale, where you know everyone is guilty before you read it. As in “Masks,” perhaps Menosky's most infamous script, there is the suggestion that something more is going on which justifies the weirdness. I'm still open-minded.
Act 3 : *.5, 17%
So...Bashir decides to explain to these figments of his imagination...that they are indeed figments of his imagination, presumably because Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe lacked the imagination necessary to fill the script with genuine symbolism instead of having the characters prattle on like this. So, the DS9 characters represent different facets of Bashir's personality. And we know this because we have to endure minute after minute of these people explaining in excruciating detail what each and every representation in this mindscape represents. Well, good, I guess that means I can put my feet up and relax; absolutely no interpretation of effort required!
Sigh...so finally, the Lethian re-appears and captures Jadzia (adventure) only for Bashir to find his aged self playing tennis with Garak. Thank god for small miracles, he doesn't have to re-explain the plot to mind-Garak. Bashir decides to head to Ops to “repair himself,” but finds himself amid a crowd of sick people whom Sisko and Bashir's Bajoran nurse are treating. Sisko represents Bashir's professionalism, which is about the stupidest character to assign such an attribute to—I would think Miles would occupy that space in Bashir's head. Whatever. Sisko is likewise murdered by the Lethian, who issues a warning: “you can't outrun death!” Um, thank you.
Act 4 : * stars, 17%
Bashir finds Kira and Odo likewise murdered in the halls of DS9, looking older and older. Again, because the script-writers have no confidence in their audience, it is spelled out to us how the murder of these different personality facets robs Bashir himself of those qualities, erm, somehow. O'Brien is still alive—being the pessimist, this isn't exactly cause for celebration. Miles shadows Julian to remain the voice of discouragement (Julian is now so decrepit, he can barely walk). The pair end up back in Quark's where Quark is placing bets on Bashir's medical prognosis, until he finds himself murdered by the Lethian, who has more words of wisdom, “Everyone loses!” Sigh...thanks for that.
Act 5 : **, 17%
Bashir has now broken his hip, and insists that mind-Garak help him to Ops. So, for some reason, now Bashir is able to get into Ops with Garak's help. He finds a Starfleet counselor, I mean space-prostitute or whatever and she and Garak sing “Happy Birthday” in its entirety because...this episode has no plot and we need to kill time. I'll say this for “Distant Voices,” they have effectively showcased the impatience one feels with the elderly much of the time as we endure minute after minute of the aged doctor slowly climbing stairs and rambling on about the technobabble solution to his problem—notable because this is *symbolic* technobabble. At one point, a panel is opened a Bashir is assaulted by tennis balls...yeah. Oh, and then it happens again. Drama.
So, Garak finally reveals that he's actually the Lethian. All of this build-up leads to some semi-interesting backstory—Bashir was good enough to play professional tennis, choosing instead to “give up” and settle for being a doctor. We revisit that tidbit from “Q-less” (dear god) about Bashir botching his final medical exam and taking second place in his class. The Lethian claims Bashir didn't *want* to be first in his class. Hmm.
Finally, Bashir hits on the idea of repairing the Infirmary, rather than Ops (the “centre” of his world). In the end, Bashir accepts those things he cannot change, and makes peace with his life-choices. Real Julian awakens in the infirmary.
In the epilogue, we bookend with a meal between Bashir and Garak. Garak is mock-hurt that he was cast as the villain in Bashir's mind, but, if you think about it, Garak as the Lethian really means that Bashir believes if anyone truly knows Bashir's most intimate thoughts, it's Garak. It's like the writers *wanted* slash fiction written about these two.
Episode as Functionary : **, 10%
While it's no “Darmok,” this story had the potential to be pretty interesting. The general conceit of using the medical drama to create a symbolic mindscape has a lot of potential, and Bashir is a character worth exploring in this way, with lots of unanswered questions and unique relationships amongst the cast. But, as in “Masks,” the script-rewrite absolutely kills this story. Instead of taking the time to explore the symbolism provided by the various characters and sets, the idea of who's who is just spelled out for us in tedious, mundane dialogue. Bashir should have had a short scene with each of his facets as they're slowly killed off by the Lethian. A piece of his backstory should have been discussed pertaining to each idea—courage, adventure, hostility, fear, etc, while he slowly aged. The voices coming through the comm system should not have been remarked on, just present.
In “The Wire,” the writers took the idea of the Repetitive Epic and made it a part of Garak's characterisation. They did NOT make the actual script to the episode follow the prescriptions of the Cardassain literary form. Something similar should have happened here; Bashir should have known from the beginning that he was guilty of concealing something from himself, of being in denial about something (perhaps some dark genetic secret?), and forced, like a character in an Enigma Tale, to finally face up to his guilt in order to make it out of his space coma. A sadly wasted opportunity. I'll say this though, Siddig does a decent job of portraying an increasingly older version of himself, something not always convincingly conveyed on TV, and the musical score is well above average for this era.
Final Score : **
Mon, Oct 15, 2018, 3:22pm (UTC -5)
Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 2:10pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:18pm (UTC -5)
--Ok. Bashir has been zapped by an alien, Altovar, who was attempting to steal "bio-mimetic gel" from his lab. Red Alert!! Red Alert!! Consequences ahead.
--Julian is aging . . . and . . . there's a monster . . . on the station??
--Seems like he's hallucinating or some such thing. We get the unsurprising reveal that Julian's in a coma.
--The writers are having Julian spoon feed us the connections. "Kira is my aggression." "Sisko represents my professionalism and skill." Lots and lots and lots of anvil dropping.
--I hope I am never in a coma.
--Letheans almost always lethal. Subtly thy name is not "Distant Voices."
Garak was fun, as always. Otherwise unremarkable.
Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:44pm (UTC -5)
--Surprised to read comments about this being an original idea. Person in a coma hallucinating? Characters representing parts of the main character? Nothing new there at all.
--I thought "Julian's" (I'm confused about this actor's name) performance was very uneven, some winceworthy parts and some good parts.
--I wondered about Garak's holobook gift, too: The Cardassian mystery where everyone's guilty, you just have to figure out how each one is guilty. But Julian is human and he gives himself more of a human mystery story, the kind where the suspects drop off to one. At least, that's what I think is going on there. The writers surprisingly forgot to have Julian say, "Ah-hah, so you're the guilty one, Garak! You're actually the Lethean! I've figured it out just like in a the human mystery novel, just as we talked about in Scene One!" So I can't be sure. :)
--I wouldn't put this ep in the same room with the true stinkers, but it's right outside the stinker-room door.
Tue, Dec 18, 2018, 6:48am (UTC -5)
"--I thought "Julian's" (I'm confused about this actor's name) performance was very uneven, some winceworthy parts and some good parts."
He went by Siddig El Fadil in s1-3, then changed his name to Alexander Siddig for s4-7. I think he was called Sid by cast members. So...Siddig is probably the simplest way to refer to him, for all seasons :)
"--Letheans almost always lethal. Subtly thy name is not "Distant Voices.""
I also thought the name was a reference to the river of forgetfulness surrounding Hades from Greek mythology (like Lethe's bramble from OMWF -- from Buffy from those not in the know). Of course lethal has the same root. Parts of Bashir are "forgotten" as they die off and he prematurely ages.
"--I wondered about Garak's holobook gift, too: The Cardassian mystery where everyone's guilty, you just have to figure out how each one is guilty. But Julian is human and he gives himself more of a human mystery story, the kind where the suspects drop off to one. At least, that's what I think is going on there. The writers surprisingly forgot to have Julian say, "Ah-hah, so you're the guilty one, Garak! You're actually the Lethean! I've figured it out just like in a the human mystery novel, just as we talked about in Scene One!" So I can't be sure. :)"
Maybe, it's also a signal that even though the mystery is solved at the end -- the Lethean did it, and it was "Garak" who represented him in story -- there is still a question. If everyone is guilty of something, and the question is to determine who is guilty of what, what is Bashir guilty of? We get some possibilities, but Bashir shoots them down -- he's "guilty" of not acing his medical exam, of not succeeding with Jadzia, of aging at all, etc., but those aren't it. Maybe something to ponder.
Garak is fun but even there, I tend to prefer actual-Garak over dreamscape-fake-alien Garak.
Tue, Dec 18, 2018, 10:37am (UTC -5)
--Thank you, Siddig it is. I didn't want to research my general confusion while I was typing my comment.
--Lethe's bramble? OMWF? Of what do you speak? I kid, I kid. Of course, yes, I'm very familiar, even if never got around to an actual ep analysis on that one (I should finish those). A nice thought; did not occur to me at all. Julian is leaving parts of himself behind, losing himself as he ages and heads toward death.
--I wondered, too, with Garak's description of the Cardassian mystery, if we're meant to think about the ways all parts of Bashir are responsible (get the blame or credit) for who he is as a whole, and that specific parts are responsible for specific actions and decisions.
--Funny you mention Buffy. While I was watching it, this ep actually made me think of . . . the BTVS S5 where they're all in a bus being driven by Giles (ep name escapes me). I really thought that one was all about Buffy and the other characters representing parts of her. Was much more subtle than this, though.
Tue, Dec 18, 2018, 11:00am (UTC -5)
"--Lethe's bramble? OMWF? Of what do you speak? I kid, I kid. Of course, yes, I'm very familiar, even if never got around to an actual ep analysis on that one (I should finish those)."
It'd be great if you did! But it's tough, I know. (My writing team basically burned out in season three, and that was that.)
"A nice thought; did not occur to me at all. Julian is leaving parts of himself behind, losing himself as he ages and heads toward death. "
I dealt with my thirtieth birthday slightly better, I should say, but Bashir is a bit on the insecure side (and is such a high achiever early in life -- widely recognized as a brilliant doctor -- that being worried he's already peaked and it's downhill is not totally unbelievable for him).
"--I wondered, too, with Garak's description of the Cardassian mystery, if we're meant to think about the ways all parts of Bashir are responsible (get the blame or credit) for who he is as a whole, and that specific parts are responsible for specific actions and decisions."
I like that.
"--Funny you mention Buffy. While I was watching it, this ep actually made me think of . . . the BTVS S5 where they're all in a bus being driven by Giles (ep name escapes me). I really thought that one was all about Buffy and the other characters representing parts of her. Was much more subtle than this, though."
Spiral, and I remember reading that description of yours. The next episode (...Buffy spoilers!) takes place in Buffy's comatose brain, so is also sort of similar to DV, and you could read it as her heart and fire (Xander and Spike) keeping her going externally out in the world while her mind (Giles) recuperates and her spirit (Willow) digs down to restore meaning enough to bring Buffy's...whole back, to not give up.
Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 4:19pm (UTC -5)
"It'd be great if you did! But it's tough, I know. (My writing team basically burned out in season three, and that was that.) "
William, if you've been writing about Buffy, I would very much like to read it. I love reading your comments.
Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 8:24pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 9:29pm (UTC -5)
I did like a couple of things: Garak, as Bashir's lunch buddy, representing the Lethean -- so Bashir still doesn't trust him, which Garak appreciates. Also thought Bashir's aging prosthetics were far more credible than Picard's from "The Inner Light" -- Siddig did a good sell job of a rapidly aging man.
So Bashir's in a telepathically induced coma and various distractions try and prevent him from going to his medical area and magically restarting the entire station. Just seemed to drag on too long with the distractions (playing tennis, the birthday party) and an aging Bashir hobbling along.
As for Kira, Odo, O'Brien, Dax -- while it was fun to see all very argumentative, it didn't really work for me that they represented different aspects of Bashir's character since they were all fairly similar.
The first half was a mystery as to what was going on but then it basically all gets spelled out. Would have been better if some doubts were left in the viewer's mind -- maybe like TNG's "Frame of Mind".
As for the Lethean as the bad guy, this was another weakness as he just represented a cardboard villain. He utters the usual threats to make Bashir have his doubts but of course Bashir fights through, as we all expect him to. Perhaps the takeaway is that even if Bashir fell short in a few areas, they did not prevent him from doing what he always wanted to do and that he can do anything he wants. Ho-hum. This isn't sufficient.
2 stars for "Distant Voices" -- a familiar Trek staple of self-examination and developing a strong will that's been done better. I think Bashir's the wrong vehicle for this type of story as he's a pretty successful guy but I assume DS9 had to throw him a bone. Not an episode I'd be eager to see again -- it dragged at times and the intrigue was removed half-way through.
Mon, Apr 8, 2019, 4:58am (UTC -5)
Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 8:17am (UTC -5)
I too thought it was Garak's holosuite program. He tells Julian 'Happy Birthday' at the end of the show when Bashir states he's glad he's not 100, which relates to his comment during their parallel discussion at the beginning of the episode about how he feels old he's turning 30, i.e. Garak giving Bashir an appreciation for his youth through the holoprogram is Garak's birthday gift to him.
Furthermore, while Garak played the Lethian and gave Bashir the opportunity to 'accuse' him in the ops centre, Bashir missed this and told him that he's actually the Lethian (when it is in fact vice versa). While both are villains, it is Garak who is the real 'villain', and this ties into Garak's comment about Cardassian detective holosuite programs, whereby everyone's guilty, but the challenge is finding who's the most guilty (or something to that effect). This, plus Garak being Garak with his Garakisms in the closing scene, makes me quite convinced it was all part of Garak's unique birthday gift to Bashir.
Regardless, it's still quite ambiguous, and for this reason I still like it a lot, despite how boring and heavy-handed the metaphors were in the brain-damaged sequences (perhaps purposely put there so we ourselves are tricked and deluded into that thoughtline, as Bashir himself was by Garak's holoprogram).
Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 11:01am (UTC -5)
The episode doesn't hold up quite so well on the second viewing for me, as most of the intrigue was in what exactly was happening and how he'd survive. Once we know that, there wasn't much else in the story to carry it - although the self-sabotage with the pre-/post-ganglionic nerve/fibre was unexpected and hints at undefined character facets we haven't seen yet up to this point. It's a shame they didn't *actually* explore his character in what would have been a perfect setting for it though.
I did enjoy Siddig's performance and the gradual ageing; I noticed his hands were well done at his oldest (ageing make-up for hands is often forgotten or done terribly in TV).
Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 11:12am (UTC -5)
In fairness, if I'd been watching it as broadcast I probably would have been disappointed, and the same goes for other episodes that are widely regarded as clunkers. Having entire series available to watch whenever I like probably helps me enjoy the off-beat episodes, rather than feeling cheated or that my time was wasted.
Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 4:18pm (UTC -5)
Unfortunately, as other people have noted, the storyline isn't really strong enough to carry a full episode. But it's still an interesting experiment!
Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 11:30am (UTC -5)
Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 5:49pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 8:59am (UTC -5)
But it's all rather dull, the episode consisting of countless familiar tropes, blunt symbolism and "dream logic" cliches. An episode like this needs to aspire to something like Hitchcock's "Vertigo", or David Lynch's "Inland Empire", but instead we get a less interesting version of TNG's "Phantasms" and "Masks", two episodes which at least have cool science fictional angles to elevate them above mere psychodrama.
Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 12:52am (UTC -5)
Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 11:17pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 1:39am (UTC -5)
Fri, May 20, 2022, 9:58pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Jun 2, 2022, 3:55am (UTC -5)
Agree Siddig does an amazing job playing an old man, the makeup was very good as well, some of the best old age makeup I've seen on the series. The story however dragged terribly. It think part of the issue was that there wasn't really an B plot... I guess given the nature of the story you couldn't really have one but it was definitely missing something, it just crawled along at times. Not to mention the fact that whoever was left behind in sickbay didn't seem to be doing anything at all to try and save him! I'm glad I've seen it but I think next time I'd just skip over it.
Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 6:46am (UTC -5)
Here's how it sounded at many junctures:
Bashir (as an aged man, getting progressively older or just very latex-covered): "Miles, we have to do something, our very lives are at stake because of the Lethian!"
Part of Bashir's brain (that looks like Miles O'Brien to Bashir while comatose): "I would really like to help you, but I can't do all that much, because I'm not Miles. I'm you. I'm just sayin."
Part of Bashir's brain (that looks like a very scowly Jadzia Dax to Bashir while comatose) : "Will you two weaklings just grow up? You both make me sick."
It sort of resembled that season 7 TNG one where the Enterprise became sentient, and everyone walked around in an Orient Express Pullman car for 42 minutes.
Sun, Jul 10, 2022, 12:52pm (UTC -5)
I will die on my hill defending 90s Trek, it was superior in many ways to the absolute crap being shovelled in our faces today, but really, at least half of 90s Trek seems bland, insipid and predictable, especially today now we've seen these ideas repeated so many times. DS9 is still good today, this episode just isn't the best example of it.
Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 9:09am (UTC -5)
However, this was, astonishingly, a very enjoyable viewing!
Well, up until the final 7-8 minutes, when the ultra-scary and violent alien turned into a little puddy-tat and started teasing Bash about his tennis abdication and his Jax cock-block. That's when it all fell apart and became just silly.
Three stars, more or less.
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