Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
(1993–1999)
Captain Sisko has a full sensory vision of himself as an under-appreciated science fiction magazine writer in 1950s America.
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Title: Far Beyond The Stars (11 Feb 1998)
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| Episode complete credited cast: | |||
| Avery Brooks | ... | Capt. Benjamin Sisko / Benny Russell | |
| Rene Auberjonois | ... | Odo / Douglas Pabst | |
| Michael Dorn | ... | Lt. Cmdr. Worf / Willie Hawkins | |
| Terry Farrell | ... | Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax / Darlene Kursky | |
| Cirroc Lofton | ... | Jake Sisko / Jimmy | |
| Colm Meaney | ... | Chief Miles O'Brien / Albert Macklin | |
| Armin Shimerman | ... | Quark / Herbert Rossoff | |
| Alexander Siddig | ... | Doctor Bashir / Julius Eaton | |
| Nana Visitor | ... | Major Kira / Kay Eaton | |
| Brock Peters | ... | Joseph Sisko / Preacher | |
| Jeffrey Combs | ... | Weyoun / Officer Mulkahey | |
| Marc Alaimo | ... | Gul Dukat / Officer Ryan | |
| J.G. Hertzler | ... | Martok / Roy Ritterhouse | |
| Aron Eisenberg | ... | Nog / Newspaper Vendor | |
| Penny Johnson Jerald | ... | Kasidy Yates / Cassie (as Penny Johnson) | |
Captain Sisko has a full sensory vision of himself as an under-appreciated science fiction magazine writer in 1950s America.
I'm always a fan of those episodes in a great series, where the writers and producers push the envelop and see what new turf they can stand on in their creative mission. This episode of DS9 delivers with a huge punch.
Sisko's reality shifts, and he's not on a 24th century space station, he's in a mid 50's publishing house in New York City, in the days immediately before affirmative action and the marches of Dr King, trying to break barriers and make his mark creating and selling the story of his other life. The story is an effective visit to that earlier era, and an effective reminder that there are equal amounts of progress and stagnation in race relations in the US today. We should question ourselves and our society, that's the message I took away.
Creatively, it's not far off the path of the series either. In the very first episode, Sisko is set apart from humanity as the Bajoran emissary by Kai Opaca's anointment. And by this time in Season Six, we know that Sisko is subject to random extra-spatial visits by the wormhole entities and the enemy wraiths. In fact, Sisko's own mother is portrayed as a possible wraith. We know he can be submerged in virtual visions outside of his reality.
This is among my very favorite DS9 episodes. In "The Sopranos," Tony is immersed in a very different reality while his body is in a coma due to Uncle Junior's paranoid panic shot with a handgun; the premise of "The Last Temptation Of Christ" depends on Christ having an alternate-reality pause to experience what his life could otherwise have been as he's being crucified; in DS9 we always feel that the Prophets are somehow guiding and molding Sisko in many subtle ways, and here this certainly fits the story.
There's a recurring conversation game of naming your favorite Star Trek Captain, and since I'm an original TOS fan who watched the show on NBC Prime Time i'm always torn. Nobody replaces Shatner for that era, and the whole TOS prime time experience exists in my memory in its own pristine bubble. Of the later captains, I must say Avery Brooks is my favorite.
I'm always a little sad to read screeds from those who don't care for Brooks' acting style, or compare him to Patrick Stewart and find him somehow lacking. I never see that. Stewart has his flaws, truth be told, and in this series, the totality of Brooks' work is a thing of beauty.
But at the end of the day, both of them are NO John De Lancie. Q!!!!