I think it’s safe to say that “Our Man Bashir” is a thorough and deliberate indulgence in cliché. I suppose one can accept the premise enough to be entertained by the episode — which does actually manage a bit of character exploration almost in spite of itself. And there is something to be said for creating a comedic episode to give the series a healthy balance. But the tonic of humor should not be this bitter to swallow.

We open with Bashir indulging in a holosuite fantasy which features him as little more than a James Bond clone. It’s a setup which trots out every Bond/spy movie cliché from gadgets to scantily clad women. As such, it doesn’t do a whole lot to generate any real interest in the episode. There is a slight change of pace when Bashir gets annoyed when Garak invites himself into Bashir’s fantasy. But even this proves so awkward that there’s very little humor to be had from their interactions.

But that’s not all.

The up the ante, we get a parade of now-typical Trek cliché: We have our heroes (Sisko, Dax, Worf, O’Brien, Kira) traveling on a runabout running into trouble; the Warp core is failing; the Warp core ejection systems do not work; there is a transporter accident; our heroes are transported to a strange place (Bashir’s holosuite program); the holosuite uses our heroes to replace holosuite characters; our heroes get to portray different personalities; the holosuite safety is gone; Bashir must solve the story to save his friends (and himself).

Got all that?

Of course, this is the kind of episode lets the actors stretch their legs a bit with unusual performances. Unfortunately, the cliché means the performances themselves are thoroughly nonsensical. I get the notion that everyone is hamming it up and indulging in the silliness, but the results just don’t work especially well. The worst example is Sisko, whose turn as the Evil Mastermind was just downright awful. Even if he was going for a bad performance, the result is still exceptionally cringe worthy.

About the only real value to the episode comes from the juxtaposition of Bashir’s fantasy as a spy and Garak’s very real experiences as a member of the Obsidian Order. Garak tries to get Bashir to understand that “spy-business” is hardly heroic and is, often, messy and even cowardly. The conflict comes to a head when Bashir goes out of his way to save everyone, while Garak pushes Bashir to cut his losses. The scene has a payoff a few moments later when, to buy some time, Bashir repeats Garak’s words to EvilSisko and even activates the system to destroy the world.

Aside from that, though, there’s little else to really enjoy.

“Our Man Bashir” is, almost entirely, fluff. Bad fluff. The installment gets credit for the Bashir-Garak scenes toward the end of the episode, along with the effort to “cleanse the palate” a bit with a story that isn’t purely serious or profound. But still, there’s nothing exceptional here and it is hardly a classic.

Filed under: Deep Space Nine