Today is Dr. Bashir's birthday. Featuring a "Lethian-Cake with Mint Frosting", a birthday party with pseudo Marilyn Monroe and Garak in ops, and tennis balls, lots and lots of tennis balls.
This is Alex Siddig's breakout episode. He has to solve a conundrum while aging past the point of decrepitude. It gets more difficult as he ages. And funnier... Also, more and more ridiculous. But that does not take away from the episode, it actually adds to it.
This episode introduces "The Lethian", A race of lizard-aliens that can suck memories straight out of your brain.
The problem is, this is usually fatal to the "Memorysuckee".
This episode does not really take place on the station. Everything that happens, is happening within Bashir's point of view. And so every person that he interacts with, Odo, O'Brien, Dax, Kira, and The Sisko, are not acting the way that those people normally act. They are representational caricatures, for the doctors benefit.
But there is also Garak and The Lethian, The Lethian appearing to be much more menacing than he actually was "in reality". And although Garak appears to be "helping" like he normally does, his attitude is a little bit more fatalistic than the way that we know Garak is, and so there is something wrong with that picture as well.
Basically the doctor has to dig himself out of a hole, which can only be done by repairing "the station", but the problem is the station cannot be repaired from the normal places where it is usually repaired from, and every time Julian tries, lots of tennis balls magically appear.
Another reviewer said something like "Bashir in Wonderland", and that is appropriate as well. That is actually pretty good because that is what this is. One pill makes Julian old, another makes him even older.
The doctor is subjected to one ridiculous scenario after another, but in the course of this we learn a lot about the doctor. By this time in the series, we knew a lot, at least regarding some of the watershed events of his life, like mistaking a "post ganglionic fiber for a preganglionic nerve" which he actually mistook on purpose... But we never really knew the doctors motivations and aspirations. Those get looked at, here, with the doctors own medical tricorder.
It's one thing to have to solve a conundrum and you don't have much help, but it is a totally different thing when you keep aging and aging. And Alex Siddig really convinces us that he is aging.
There is one other episode where the Lethian appears. It is too bad that we did not see more of that race in DS9. But this episode is pivotal as an introduction.
And... this is another episode that was declined for no reason. I don't understand this.
