Always loved this episode not only because it was a well written story that addressed serious issues in an intelligent way, but also because all the actors I was accustomed to seeing were given the chance to display their talents as different characters without all the makeup to identify them. Quark without lobes? Odo with emotions? Sisko unsure of himself? Dax kind of dingy? They were all magnificent in their portrayals and I would bet they all had a ball stepping out of character. One of the best episodes because of the actors!
It took 6 seasons for this show to reach it's best episode. A pure case where good writing and acting will blow away the best sci fi special effects every day. Star Treks best often comes out when characters are caught in other timelines and stripped of their ship bound characters. This episode explores that to the max.
Am excellent point. I wasn't interesting in DS9 for while, then after adapting to it's style over a season or two, it became my favorite. It's funny watching people now go through similar "concerns" or "simple criticisms" with this latest generation of Trek shows that prime had with TNG (boring!) or DS9 (also boring and stationary!). Just give Trek shows time to breathe, people.
This episode has to be one of the most powerful episodes of DS9. I remember watching this episode as a kid back in the late nineties when it originally aired and just happened to catch it again recently on Netflix. When I first watched it I thought it was cool to see the cast without makeup but now watching it I realized how powerful the message was. Very well written and great acting by the cast especially Avery Brooks. To me, this is Star Trek at its best. DS9 and TNG, in my opinion, had some of the best episodes that touched on humanity and real-world situations that were told in its Sci-Fi based format. I miss this type of storytelling and wish that it was brought back
@@shaharthealchemist4628 Too bad the upcoming Picard series (which I don't believe has been officially named yet), is gonna be on that stupid streaming platform and not on regular, network, antenna TV, like a proper Star Trek SHOULD be.
@@rkmugen the problem is, network TV is quickly becoming less relevant. Fewer and fewer people even have a cable connection and are instead relying on Smart TV's or Chromecast with CZcams, Netflix and other subscription services. Hell, even with five separate pay-subscription streaming services, you are still paying less monthly than you would for cable.
I love how Nana plays a character named "K.C. Hunter" and she makes the comment about the public learning that "K.C." is a woman. I wonder if that's an homage to D.C. Fontana?
Composite character -- she represents decades of women in SF whose identities were buried by a deeply sexist industry and audience... and those problems still haven't gone away, though things have improved a lot.
Personally, what I LOVE about "Star Trek" is about dealing with major social issues that have been relevant for all time. An episode from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" called "Far Beyond the Stars" has been a great example of it. I definitely LOVE the use of such issues in a science-fiction setting.
@@k1productions87 Feh... plenty of great Voyager episodes. Dark Frontier As the name suggests, one of Star Trek's darkest episodes, showing us how truly horrifying the Borg Collective is. All those screams, the bone saw and drilling noices, all while the rest is just standing there awaiting their turn in the assimilation chamber. An entire civilization wiped out in a matter of hours. Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy The holographic doctor implements daydreaming subroutine into his programming, resulting in hilarious Star Trek comedy at it's best. Future's End A money hungry fake inventor in the 21st century gets hold of future tech, threatening the future timeline. Drone Another Borg episode: The doctor's mobile emitter from the future gets infected with Borg nano probes, and grows a future super borg, with a kind heart. The Borg Collective then tries to assimilate him to gain his future tech and becoming unstoppable.
Avery Brooks seems perfectly normal here, which is why I'm convinced he was totally messing around during The Captains, where William Shatner interviewed him.
@@KayEl58 He was having fun, but also by that point he was done talking about DS9. We've learned recently through Cirroc Lofton that Brooks no longer has an agent and can't get work, so I can see some resentment in the role essentially "ending" his acting career.
@@ffnbbq That's sad but it seems odd that he'd become type cast, he has so many strings to his bow, while Shatner (who I love) went on to do plenty of things after Kirk.
@@KayEl58 I believe Lofton alleged that Brooks was blacklisted. I've learned that Brooks could be intense and difficult to work with, and while the DS9 cast respected him, only Lofton was his friend. Of course, then you have Shatner, who alienated the rest of the TOS cast. Even Nimoy in his final years was not speaking to Shatner. I hope the wonder that captured him during his recent space flight changes him for the better.
@@ffnbbq Shatner is a king of shameless self-promotion. I can't think of him without thinking of Wil Wheaton (who has his own problems) imitating Gene Roddenberry saying, "Wil, Jim Shatner is an ass."
Now, the way the country and the world are today, with the great problems and issues we face going forward, we need Star Trek again. We need the stories it told, the questions it asks and the hope it provides.
You know, I have always loved this episode. Not because of its racial story, I am an African American, but it encapsulates Gene Rodenberry's original vision. He created Star Trek as a vision of what he thought the future will be where our social problems have disappeared. Hell, Star Trek actually had the first interracial kiss in tv or film history, Kirk and Uhura. But that vision still hasn't been reached, as James Avery points out. But the goal of Star Trek is to keep on pushing the intrinsic social hopes originally envisioned.
I like Star Trek but it's a ridiculous vision, we're not going to magically get rid of all evil in the world, they don't in Starfleet either but usually it's blamed on other aliens. I can only speak about feminism as a white woman, I feel like I have just as many rights is any man, my problem is more with feminists that complain and make women look bad and can't just be happy how far things have gone in 100 years.
I think it might've been the best episode of the intire DS9 series, maybe even of all Star Trek?? I havent watched everything of Star Trek, but this episode was superb. It would be great even for today's tv.
I've watched DS9 and the Patriot, and you're telling me Rene Auberjonois doesn't really sound like those characters. I assumed that was his actual speaking voice.
@caitlyncarvalho7637 I have no idea why you're asking me, but from what I remember, the character is at least implied to be English, as is Julian. He also has an English surname so he may have been adopted, or his mother was Arabic and married an Englishman (Alexander Siddig himself is mixed race-his mother is white British, his father is Sudanese), but I don't think it matters.
I am completely speechless. That episode, which this video is my first glimpse of, is incredibly powerful. I absolutely loved the scene where Combs and Alaimo are beating up Russell, and how they are slipping into Dukat and Weyoun and back. And that Sisko saw Star Trek as it really is, imagination and utopian fantasy. Kind of like Cochrane in FC: "You're astronauts? From...some kind of Star Trek?"
Whoa! Odo with a majestic beard seems somehow perfect. And armin (quark) looks like he would be perfect on mad men in this episode. But is it just me or could anyone else listen to Avery speak about anything? He is so wise and his words are so poignant when talking about this episode.
But DS9 is known for not being purely utopian, like TNG. Each character has his/her own personal story, which gradually unfolds during those 7 years, and I appreciate the writers for tying up all loose ends. I love this show, even if I am only 15 and this show was finished before I could walk and talk. I truly regret not being alive to witness the first airings of these pieces of our culture. (Yes, I really am 15 :D)
I remember when i first viewed this episode , when it started i was like" Were is my hard sci fi, where is the big space battles and the war" but then after the end i was so blown away by the strong acting and the increadable writing, i was mesmerized . a classic for the ages appreciated by the truly free among us.
It's so unnerving how all of this has come full circle. I just watched this episode yesterday, and it's just as relevant now as it was then. We've made so much and so little progress all at once. It's truly sad.
A new trekkie fan here & actually just watched this episode on tv. I think it's the best one so far. It made me sad about the social injustices. I really enjoyed seeing my fav characters out of makeup. I liked these interviews, also.
What confuses me about this episode is why Bashir's character in this episode is not also excluded from the picture. Accent aside, even if you can't tell he is Sudanese, he at least looks like a Hispanic or an Indian to a person in the 50s or 60s. Why does his character act like he has NO idea about prejudice as if he is as white as everyone else in this episode? It makes made me wonder about Siddig in real life at this time in his life and if he, who changed his name mid-season, was not like a real life Odo who did not appreciate the history of his full self until his later years.
I mean...the guy's real name is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi. I think "Alexander Siddig" probably works better from a Hollywood PR standpoint. IIRC everyone on set called him "Sid".
There is also a great nod to a classic sci-fi comic called Judgement Day with a line "he just writes about robots". In the story, it shows robots dealing with bigotry of their own and the final panel shows that the human astronaut is a black man.
Which was also hugely controversial in its time (largely because EC comics already had a ton of heat on them due to the perceived violence in their horror titles.) EC did a lot of innovative and forward thinking work during that period though.
1:35 Armin Shimerman is spot on with this thought. With what’s happening right now, we need more episodes/shows/movies like this in today’s social climate
My headcanon is that Benny Russel never stopped writing. After finishing Deep Space Nine, he made TNG as a prequel to explain Worf's backstory. After writing First Contact, he wrote Enterprise as a sequel to that story and then Voyager later on. Eventually his ideas were picked up by Paramount which made the Original series and the Animated series. Eventually Benny Russel's daughter found all of his manuscripts and was inspired to write her own stories but since she blamed American society for her father's bad mental health, her view of the future was more cynical than Benny's which is why Discovery and Picard were darker. She also doodled Lower Decks as a comic strip.
The one problem with this episode is that Benny did not have to specify Sisko's race. The thing about writing a story, vs showing it on screen or stage, is that you can leave visual aspects vague. Otherwise this episode was excellent.
That's the thing about Star Trek, even in the original series people were specifically chosen because of their appearance (in this situation their race), race has a meaning within our society and Star Trek presents that in the future it won't have a meaning (which makes it necessary to include race, to show how utterly meaningless it is).
I love this episode, because I KNEW s-f writers and editors who worked for the pulps in the Forties and Fifties. That included women who wrote under male pseudonyms, and people whose politics were considered 'controversial'. So well-written and depicted!
That striving for and imagining of a better tomorrow that the writer did is the exact reason star trek is such a beloved series. The quest for a better tomorrow in our worlds starts with a quest for a better tomorrow in ourselves.
Thanks to Star Trek Strange New Worlds in season 1 we learn Benny Russell was eventually continues his writing for the book The Elysian Kingdom being read to the daughter of Dr MBenga
What's really sad about Benny Russell's story is that it wasn't necessarily the public's racism that held it back but the publisher's reliance on racism. For example, the original Star Trek had a kissing scene with Kirk and Uhura that wouldn't have been out if the actors won't screw up the reshoot on purpose. Then it turned out, the public had no problem with it. It was the assumption of bad reaction and reluctance of taking a risk that hindered it.
The only thing I didn't like about this episode, is that it wasn't really tied into the primary DS9 storyline very well. If they could have tied it in a little tighter somehow, made it "matter" more *in* the 7 year story arc, that would have made it seem more important to fans at the time.
What is so sad about this whole story is that even though today here in NA that we have a system that no longer has any barriers on ethnicity, the whites are hated more now than they were back then.
Job 23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! quoted out of the bible when the old man on the soap box speaks to Avery Brooks character
I really like to do you episode Dr. Bashier, Dax, and a woman who is handicapped, because not only do we deal with racism in this country but also people with disabilities I know because I am permanently disabled from from birth. But I get around OK using a walker.
Just watching the videos it took me awhile to recognize Odo/Rene and Quark/Armin. Obviously we still have racism and sexism in the world, from blacks and whites and men and women, butas a white woman I'm grateful to have just as much rights and opportunity as men, and I think most feminists are never satisfied and don't actually have anything to complain about, the "wage gap" for example is because of the careeers women tend to choose. And a lot of well-adjusted black people feel the same way about racism, they know they can do anything they set their minds to and that things are not like they were in the 40s.
Watching this episode in 2017, this year the trailer for "Star Trek: Discovery" was released. Some people have been complaining and saying "Star Trek: Discovery" has a liberal SJW agenda because there is an Asian female captain, and a Black female first officer.
I think if this show debuted today, there would have been a lot of people complaining about having the black guy as the main lead. I mean when the first Star wars force awakens trailer was released, a whole bunch of people bashed the black character. This was 18 years ago, and we are still dealing with this shit.
What Katy Should Have Done , That's not the problem. I absolutely loved the first captain and wish they would have kept her longer. I thought Michael had great potential going into the first episode. The problem is not the actors or the casting in general. The writing is terrible! This had the potential to be a great Sci-Fi show if they didn't insist on calling it Star Trek. It seems like there's a mutiny every other episode and zero adherence to Gene roddenberry's vision for a better future. Pretty much everyone, with rare exception among classic Trek viewers, absolutely hate Star Trek Disco in some aspect or another. I stopped watching and just started reading the spoilers and episode reviews to keep up with the storylines. The last spoiler I read claimed they were on their third captain-wtf! How many mutinies does a show really need for shock value ratings? (Michelle Yeoh,Lorca, prey animal species guy whose name I can't remember)
I'm still amazed at some of the complaints sci-fi shows get nowadays. Almost every single topic covered in this episode has been referenced in such TV shows for over half a century, yet some still come behind it complaining about SJW virtue signaling. Compared to how things are IRL, you'd think the real upset would be how much things haven't changed since half of those shows aired. Hell, we've had real life occurrences that sound like episodes of "The Twilight Zone".
The social issues were handled with grace, style, and good story telling in this episode. In a large amount of more modern sci-fi it's handled as a lecture. People generally do not like being lectured.
Always loved this episode not only because it was a well written story that addressed serious issues in an intelligent way, but also because all the actors I was accustomed to seeing were given the chance to display their talents as different characters without all the makeup to identify them. Quark without lobes? Odo with emotions? Sisko unsure of himself? Dax kind of dingy? They were all magnificent in their portrayals and I would bet they all had a ball stepping out of character. One of the best episodes because of the actors!
Dax was great in this. "Ooh she's got a worm in her belly! That's disgustin'."
It took 6 seasons for this show to reach it's best episode. A pure case where good writing and acting will blow away the best sci fi special effects every day. Star Treks best often comes out when characters are caught in other timelines and stripped of their ship bound characters. This episode explores that to the max.
I don't think it's the single best episode but by god is it close between this, in the pale Moonlight and my personal favorite, Duel
A trick : you can watch series on Kaldrostream. Been using them for watching a lot of movies these days.
@Jericho Carl Yup, been watching on KaldroStream for years myself :)
Am excellent point. I wasn't interesting in DS9 for while, then after adapting to it's style over a season or two, it became my favorite.
It's funny watching people now go through similar "concerns" or "simple criticisms" with this latest generation of Trek shows that prime had with TNG (boring!) or DS9 (also boring and stationary!). Just give Trek shows time to breathe, people.
worst episode, liberal cry baby
This episode has to be one of the most powerful episodes of DS9. I remember watching this episode as a kid back in the late nineties when it originally aired and just happened to catch it again recently on Netflix. When I first watched it I thought it was cool to see the cast without makeup but now watching it I realized how powerful the message was. Very well written and great acting by the cast especially Avery Brooks. To me, this is Star Trek at its best. DS9 and TNG, in my opinion, had some of the best episodes that touched on humanity and real-world situations that were told in its Sci-Fi based format. I miss this type of storytelling and wish that it was brought back
I hope some day...Star Trek will shine like this again
Well, we got The Orville now...
Fortunately, it's coming close with Discovery! Some similarly beautiful moments there, too. Nothing in the Orville even comes close.
@@shaharthealchemist4628 Too bad the upcoming Picard series (which I don't believe has been officially named yet), is gonna be on that stupid streaming platform and not on regular, network, antenna TV, like a proper Star Trek SHOULD be.
@@rkmugen the problem is, network TV is quickly becoming less relevant. Fewer and fewer people even have a cable connection and are instead relying on Smart TV's or Chromecast with CZcams, Netflix and other subscription services. Hell, even with five separate pay-subscription streaming services, you are still paying less monthly than you would for cable.
thcollegestudent it’s about to
I love how Nana plays a character named "K.C. Hunter" and she makes the comment about the public learning that "K.C." is a woman. I wonder if that's an homage to D.C. Fontana?
You're absolutely right.
That's quite clever! I think you're dead right.
I know this reply is years late, but I'm pretty sure that it's primarily an homage to C. L. Moore.
She's a direct analog of Alice Sheldon who wrote Science Fiction for years under the pseudonym of James Tiptree
Composite character -- she represents decades of women in SF whose identities were buried by a deeply sexist industry and audience... and those problems still haven't gone away, though things have improved a lot.
Personally, what I LOVE about "Star Trek" is about dealing with major social issues that have been relevant for all time. An episode from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" called "Far Beyond the Stars" has been a great example of it. I definitely LOVE the use of such issues in a science-fiction setting.
I always thought this episode and The Visitor were the most emotional episodes I've ever seen.
DefLeppardVanHalen They're my favorite two as well.
Both of those are in my top 5 Trek episodes of all time.
Such a powerful episode. Easily one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, and its story is still relevant today.
My favorite DS9 episode!
"far beyond the stars"ds9 and "all good things"tng are MASTERPIECES of star trek .......
and dont forget Voyager
Don't forget In The Pale Moonlight.
The Inner Light, Duet and The Visitor.....
@@dogal3x Eh... what exactly about Voyager was a Trek masterpiece?
@@k1productions87
Feh... plenty of great Voyager episodes.
Dark Frontier
As the name suggests, one of Star Trek's darkest episodes, showing us how truly horrifying the Borg Collective is.
All those screams, the bone saw and drilling noices, all while the rest is just standing there awaiting their turn in the assimilation chamber. An entire civilization wiped out in a matter of hours.
Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy
The holographic doctor implements daydreaming subroutine into his programming, resulting in hilarious Star Trek comedy at it's best.
Future's End
A money hungry fake inventor in the 21st century gets hold of future tech, threatening the future timeline.
Drone
Another Borg episode: The doctor's mobile emitter from the future gets infected with Borg nano probes, and grows a future super borg, with a kind heart. The Borg Collective then tries to assimilate him to gain his future tech and becoming unstoppable.
Avery Brooks seems perfectly normal here, which is why I'm convinced he was totally messing around during The Captains, where William Shatner interviewed him.
I remember that. I thought he was insane.
@@KayEl58 He was having fun, but also by that point he was done talking about DS9. We've learned recently through Cirroc Lofton that Brooks no longer has an agent and can't get work, so I can see some resentment in the role essentially "ending" his acting career.
@@ffnbbq That's sad but it seems odd that he'd become type cast, he has so many strings to his bow, while Shatner (who I love) went on to do plenty of things after Kirk.
@@KayEl58 I believe Lofton alleged that Brooks was blacklisted. I've learned that Brooks could be intense and difficult to work with, and while the DS9 cast respected him, only Lofton was his friend.
Of course, then you have Shatner, who alienated the rest of the TOS cast. Even Nimoy in his final years was not speaking to Shatner. I hope the wonder that captured him during his recent space flight changes him for the better.
@@ffnbbq Shatner is a king of shameless self-promotion. I can't think of him without thinking of Wil Wheaton (who has his own problems) imitating Gene Roddenberry saying, "Wil, Jim Shatner is an ass."
Now, the way the country and the world are today, with the great problems and issues we face going forward, we need Star Trek again. We need the stories it told, the questions it asks and the hope it provides.
Evidently, Star Trek's utopian ideas utterly failed.
Even Jeri Ryan goes on USO tours.
The whole thing was a PC con, with a Ferrari-driving cast.
We needed Trek during the Obama years more.
You know, I have always loved this episode. Not because of its racial story, I am an African American, but it encapsulates Gene Rodenberry's original vision. He created Star Trek as a vision of what he thought the future will be where our social problems have disappeared. Hell, Star Trek actually had the first interracial kiss in tv or film history, Kirk and Uhura. But that vision still hasn't been reached, as James Avery points out. But the goal of Star Trek is to keep on pushing the intrinsic social hopes originally envisioned.
This episode moves me unlike anything I have seen on tv before or since. Hard to believe where we haven't gone since then...
I like Star Trek but it's a ridiculous vision, we're not going to magically get rid of all evil in the world, they don't in Starfleet either but usually it's blamed on other aliens.
I can only speak about feminism as a white woman, I feel like I have just as many rights is any man, my problem is more with feminists that complain and make women look bad and can't just be happy how far things have gone in 100 years.
in tears wonderful episode. and wow this interview with avery was filmed on April 20 1999
What a truly amazing episode and cast of actors.
Re watching the entire series again after 20 years and just when you think it can't get any better
I think it might've been the best episode of the intire DS9 series, maybe even of all Star Trek?? I havent watched everything of Star Trek, but this episode was superb. It would be great even for today's tv.
It's up there, but I think the Inner light from TNG is probably the strongest hour of television ever.
I agree, far beyond the stars really should’ve been a two-parter
I've watched DS9 and the Patriot, and you're telling me Rene Auberjonois doesn't really sound like those characters. I assumed that was his actual speaking voice.
Same! That was a shock and a half hearing what he really sounds like.
@caitlyncarvalho7637 I have no idea why you're asking me, but from what I remember, the character is at least implied to be English, as is Julian. He also has an English surname so he may have been adopted, or his mother was Arabic and married an Englishman (Alexander Siddig himself is mixed race-his mother is white British, his father is Sudanese), but I don't think it matters.
Once I saw Shimmerman in here I suddenly realized the irony of Shimmerman's character being accused of being a Communist when Quark is a Ferengi.
Among the best 46 minutes of television ever.
worst, pandering, stupid. This never happened.
I am completely speechless. That episode, which this video is my first glimpse of, is incredibly powerful. I absolutely loved the scene where Combs and Alaimo are beating up Russell, and how they are slipping into Dukat and Weyoun and back. And that Sisko saw Star Trek as it really is, imagination and utopian fantasy. Kind of like Cochrane in FC: "You're astronauts? From...some kind of Star Trek?"
Armin Shimerman nailed it.
Nice artwork Roy/Martok handed out.
What makes it even more impressive is that he (the actor) actually drew it.
***** Indeed.
Alex Severinski Seriously?! I didn’t even realize! He made it look so much like 1950s sci-fi!
Amongst so many other issues, this also captured police brutality and bias so well! Kneel, players! Kneel!
This aired almost 20 years ago...can you believe that our society has not improved?...
I'm deeply saddened that we've made such little progress...
Always liked the 1950s era Blues note played at the end. The pah is strong with this emissary.
I always thought the cops should have been named Duke and Wayne.
there no police brutality
Whoa! Odo with a majestic beard seems somehow perfect. And armin (quark) looks like he would be perfect on mad men in this episode. But is it just me or could anyone else listen to Avery speak about anything? He is so wise and his words are so poignant when talking about this episode.
But DS9 is known for not being purely utopian, like TNG. Each character has his/her own personal story, which gradually unfolds during those 7 years, and I appreciate the writers for tying up all loose ends. I love this show, even if I am only 15 and this show was finished before I could walk and talk. I truly regret not being alive to witness the first airings of these pieces of our culture. (Yes, I really am 15 :D)
I always hated the alternative universe episodes of Star Trek, but Far Beyond The Stars to me was everything good about the series.
I broke into tears when he looked through the window of the emergency car and saw stars at warpspeed. Fuck my life, we need to get out there.
I remember when i first viewed this episode , when it started i was like" Were is my hard sci fi, where is the big space battles and the war" but then after the end i was so blown away by the strong acting and the increadable writing, i was mesmerized . a classic for the ages appreciated by the truly free among us.
The head of NASA is a retired USMC general who is black.
No
My oh my....good thing he's not white that would be racist.
wow, guess he gets a cookie
Rene looks good in that beard!
"To see everyone without a costume.."
And they show Jake Sisko in a costume lol.
It's so unnerving how all of this has come full circle. I just watched this episode yesterday, and it's just as relevant now as it was then. We've made so much and so little progress all at once. It's truly sad.
A new trekkie fan here & actually just watched this episode on tv. I think it's the best one so far. It made me sad about the social injustices. I really enjoyed seeing my fav characters out of makeup. I liked these interviews, also.
Thanks for posting this, its very interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff. Also what a great episode on so many levels.
DS9 the star trek series that gets more relevant with each passing year.
THIS is the way Star Trek should deal with racism: as a relic of a bygone age that we (should) have grown beyond.
Except we haven't.
My favorite 1 hour of television ever.
worst
What a great episode. I wish Star Trek still had these same stories in them. Show how crazy our current world is
Maybe the Best Star Trek episode ever. And I mean all Star Trek shows.
THIS EPISODE MADE ME EMOTIONAL
Their is a Star Trek TNG episode were at the end of the episode were.Prcad said who knows we may be playing on someone box on a table. .
What confuses me about this episode is why Bashir's character in this episode is not also excluded from the picture. Accent aside, even if you can't tell he is Sudanese, he at least looks like a Hispanic or an Indian to a person in the 50s or 60s. Why does his character act like he has NO idea about prejudice as if he is as white as everyone else in this episode? It makes made me wonder about Siddig in real life at this time in his life and if he, who changed his name mid-season, was not like a real life Odo who did not appreciate the history of his full self until his later years.
Alexander Siddig himself is Half White- Half Sudanese.
His mother is white his Uncle is Malcolm McDowell, it is his father that is Sudanese.
I mean...the guy's real name is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi. I think "Alexander Siddig" probably works better from a Hollywood PR standpoint. IIRC everyone on set called him "Sid".
one of the best, this and the visitor have to be my all time favorites
Far beyond the stars and in the pale moonlight (both season six of ds9) are absolutely the best episodes of star trek. All of star trek
There is also a great nod to a classic sci-fi comic called Judgement Day with a line "he just writes about robots". In the story, it shows robots dealing with bigotry of their own and the final panel shows that the human astronaut is a black man.
Which was also hugely controversial in its time (largely because EC comics already had a ton of heat on them due to the perceived violence in their horror titles.) EC did a lot of innovative and forward thinking work during that period though.
This episode was brilliant and ignored. I watched it as a child and cried.
Broadcast 15 years ago this week. What an amazing episode!
1:35 Armin Shimerman is spot on with this thought. With what’s happening right now, we need more episodes/shows/movies like this in today’s social climate
Love the character of Benny and how the world he created is the one thing they can never take from him.
I always thought General Mortok was a black guy until seeing this.
He was so menacing looking but in real life he is so plain
My headcanon is that Benny Russel never stopped writing. After finishing Deep Space Nine, he made TNG as a prequel to explain Worf's backstory. After writing First Contact, he wrote Enterprise as a sequel to that story and then Voyager later on. Eventually his ideas were picked up by Paramount which made the Original series and the Animated series. Eventually Benny Russel's daughter found all of his manuscripts and was inspired to write her own stories but since she blamed American society for her father's bad mental health, her view of the future was more cynical than Benny's which is why Discovery and Picard were darker. She also doodled Lower Decks as a comic strip.
This could be a very interesting television show in its own right, set during the pulp era and with a John W. Campbell figure
The best bit of sci-fi TV I've ever seen.
This, and The Visitor should've won Hugo Awards. Thr very best of Star Trek. 🖖🏼
Best television episode! Period!
worst
The one problem with this episode is that Benny did not have to specify Sisko's race. The thing about writing a story, vs showing it on screen or stage, is that you can leave visual aspects vague. Otherwise this episode was excellent.
That's the thing about Star Trek, even in the original series people were specifically chosen because of their appearance (in this situation their race), race has a meaning within our society and Star Trek presents that in the future it won't have a meaning (which makes it necessary to include race, to show how utterly meaningless it is).
You can thank sci fi writer Marc Zicree who wrote the story... about a struggling sci fi writer.
And the prophets blew the fourth wall into small pieces.
I get the strongest impression that Armin Shimermin and and Colm Meaney in this episode were basically H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth.
I think you may be on to something there
I thought Colm Meaney may have been a nod to Asimov. They mention his robot stories at some point if I recall correctly.
@@Johnny-rx4hs true! the pipe and the mention of writing about robots all the time.
Lovecraft was a lot more misanthropic though, wasn't he?
I love this episode, because I KNEW s-f writers and editors who worked for the pulps in the Forties and Fifties. That included women who wrote under male pseudonyms, and people whose politics were considered 'controversial'. So well-written and depicted!
That striving for and imagining of a better tomorrow that the writer did is the exact reason star trek is such a beloved series. The quest for a better tomorrow in our worlds starts with a quest for a better tomorrow in ourselves.
Favorite episode!!! Teaching tool too....
right up there with ITPML
Best of Best...
Thanks to Star Trek Strange New Worlds in season 1 we learn Benny Russell was eventually continues his writing for the book The Elysian Kingdom being read to the daughter of Dr MBenga
This is what Star Wars will never have. Substance!
Hats off to Marc Zicree for giving us this gem as well as the Sulu pilot.
Loved the ending soliloquies.
It’s perfectly apropos. 🙂🖖🏻
Um episódio digno do espírito do universo Star Trek!
One of the best episodes of any science fiction series. I’m surprised it wasn’t nominated for at least a Hugo Award.
3:52 so true! Everyone obsesses over how awesome actors are, but they are only a small piece of a bigger pie.
Utter brilliance. Trek at its best.
This. This and Past Tense...
What's really sad about Benny Russell's story is that it wasn't necessarily the public's racism that held it back but the publisher's reliance on racism. For example, the original Star Trek had a kissing scene with Kirk and Uhura that wouldn't have been out if the actors won't screw up the reshoot on purpose.
Then it turned out, the public had no problem with it. It was the assumption of bad reaction and reluctance of taking a risk that hindered it.
On the entire DVD set, for deep space nine, does it have special features from all seasons including interviews with the cast, and more?
I wish I could find this entire episode online!
I missed it on TV and I really want to see it! #STDS9
Do you have Netflix? Every episode of Star Trek ever made is there.
@@KayEl58 Thank you! Now I finally have a reason to get Netflix.
best episode of star trek
worst
The only thing I didn't like about this episode, is that it wasn't really tied into the primary DS9 storyline very well. If they could have tied it in a little tighter somehow, made it "matter" more *in* the 7 year story arc, that would have made it seem more important to fans at the time.
Boom. Episode went off like dynamite.
Please release the songs in this episode as an album! I'd buy the shit out of it!
8:08 smoke salvia.. U will get there.. 😞😒😭😢😄😄😳
I bet that the actors were happy to have all that heavy make up off their faces in the episode so they could actually breath.
just seen this on H&I antennae tee vee ,, wow fantastic ,cool ending too..maybe puzzling but hhhm
That. Was good tv. Great. Turning a series on its head, that was fun for all. But they said something.
Very intersting
What is so sad about this whole story is that even though today here in NA that we have a system that no longer has any barriers on ethnicity, the whites are hated more now than they were back then.
Job 23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! quoted out of the bible when the old man on the soap box speaks to Avery Brooks character
i uploaded the full epiode
So Progressive
😭❤😭❤😭🖖❤❤❤❤
Can we please have Star Trek: Sisko..?!
yeah this was good but in star trek picard seven of nine dual wields machine guns sooo
I really like to do you episode Dr. Bashier, Dax, and a woman who is handicapped, because not only do we deal with racism in this country but also people with disabilities I know because I am permanently disabled from from birth. But I get around OK using a walker.
Disney girl 30 Gwilt There was an episode similar to that. It's part of a two episode arc starting with "The Seige of AR558"
Just watching the videos it took me awhile to recognize Odo/Rene and Quark/Armin.
Obviously we still have racism and sexism in the world, from blacks and whites and men and women, butas a white woman I'm grateful to have just as much rights and opportunity as men, and I think most feminists are never satisfied and don't actually have anything to complain about, the "wage gap" for example is because of the careeers women tend to choose. And a lot of well-adjusted black people feel the same way about racism, they know they can do anything they set their minds to and that things are not like they were in the 40s.
Uuuuuuuuuuuu
Watching this episode in 2017, this year the trailer for "Star Trek: Discovery" was released. Some people have been complaining and saying "Star Trek: Discovery" has a liberal SJW agenda because there is an Asian female captain, and a Black female first officer.
I think if this show debuted today, there would have been a lot of people complaining about having the black guy as the main lead. I mean when the first Star wars force awakens trailer was released, a whole bunch of people bashed the black character. This was 18 years ago, and we are still dealing with this shit.
What Katy Should Have Done ,
That's not the problem.
I absolutely loved the first captain and wish they would have kept her longer. I thought Michael had great potential going into the first episode.
The problem is not the actors or the casting in general. The writing is terrible! This had the potential to be a great Sci-Fi show if they didn't insist on calling it Star Trek. It seems like there's a mutiny every other episode and zero adherence to Gene roddenberry's vision for a better future. Pretty much everyone, with rare exception among classic Trek viewers, absolutely hate Star Trek Disco in some aspect or another.
I stopped watching and just started reading the spoilers and episode reviews to keep up with the storylines. The last spoiler I read claimed they were on their third captain-wtf!
How many mutinies does a show really need for shock value ratings?
(Michelle Yeoh,Lorca, prey animal species guy whose name I can't remember)
It's sad that this episode is actually still kinda relevant to reflect upon.
I'm still amazed at some of the complaints sci-fi shows get nowadays. Almost every single topic covered in this episode has been referenced in such TV shows for over half a century, yet some still come behind it complaining about SJW virtue signaling. Compared to how things are IRL, you'd think the real upset would be how much things haven't changed since half of those shows aired. Hell, we've had real life occurrences that sound like episodes of "The Twilight Zone".
The social issues were handled with grace, style, and good story telling in this episode. In a large amount of more modern sci-fi it's handled as a lecture. People generally do not like being lectured.
I feel like the Discovery fans who claim their series was the first to be progressive should be forced to watch this episode.
Or "The Outcast" in TNG