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 EPISODE REVIEWS | ||
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A Gamble that Pays Off Badda-bing, Badda-bang Review by Steve Perry Airdate: Week of February 29, 1999 Written by:Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler Directed by:Mike Vejar File Photo || Mission Log || Opinion Poll Short Take: An edgy enough plot to make you forget how silly it all is to begin with Brief Summary: Thanks to a trick in his programming, Vic gets in trouble with holo-gangsters, and must get help from the gang to survive Review:I'm going to surprise a lot of people with this review. "Badda-bing, Badda-bang," henceforth called BB since it's such a clumsy title to type, with those dashes and all (and it's definitely not called BB after Brannon Braga), is a joke of a premise. Once again, the crew runs off to the holodeck in the middle of the war. The episode even recognizes this with Sisko lecturing the staff to stop talking about Vic during work; I'm not sure if I am to take that as humor at the expense of the writers and accept it, or take it as a finger from the writers to us for getting in the way of their fun. I suppose I'll take it as humor. The episode also recognizes that caring about a hologram is ridiculous, but then gives some semi-plausible reasons for why some of the crew would care about Vic. So at least they're trying. Compared to "Take Me Out," which devoted two whole WEEKS to playing baseball, BB isn't half bad. By recognizing that it is silly and pointless, the episode actually helps itself. Unlike tripe like "Field of Fire," BB fills a role in the larger scheme of the series. Huh?, you say. DS9 needs a couple of comedy episodes each year. I'm glad the writers feel this way, and can usually accept this, except when the comedy is a particularly atrocious bit of Ferengi cross-dressing. BB's not just one of those episodes that fills one of these preselected comedy slots - it's also the last of these episodes we're going to see. As a result, I have an actual reason to care about BB, whereas the string of pointless murder mysteries we were getting were nothing more than wastes of time. The writers seem to have recognized this too. "The Best Is Yet to Come" as the song at the end said, showing that the writers know that fun and games are over and a lot of bodies have got to be stacked up in these last eleven episodes. After the despair I felt after abysmal episodes like "The Emperor's New Cloak," this makes me feel much, much better. What makes me feel even better is that BB wasn't half-bad, especially for a holodrek show. I don't have any problem with holodeck episodes per se. Typically what most angers me about them is when they go bad... why would such safety hazards be allowed to exist? Here, at least. it wasn't a holodeck gone "bad." It was an easter egg in the program, a little trick to make it more interesting, sort of like playing the second quest in The Legend of Zelda by typing in Zelda as your character's name. It was great fun having to find out where Death Mountain was all over again, as well as getting that heart container in the desert by blowing the whistle. I can see a programming nut like Felix doing something just like that with ol' Vic, though it did seem like O'Brien blitzed through the explanation of what would happen to Vic because it may not have made a whole lot of sense. Surely you can copy Vic... okay, okay, willing suspension of disbelief. As I was saying before I started talking about Zelda, what we got was pretty cool. I like a good caper with a lot of twists, and this had it. Each person played their part. I don't know why I find such a thing so sly, but I do. It also had a good sense of humor. I loved Chief's "I don't want to talk about it," as well as his statement during the overview of the plan, where he goes, "But I really don't know the woman!" to the officer after Kasidy accused him of theft. That overview was another nice touch, too. Vejar gave it a nice slickness, one of the many directorial touches during the show that demonstrate why he's so good, the panning in at the craps table with Sisko being another one. What can I say? The episode is a winner practically because of its subject matter, just as Casino was good even though it felt like Goodfellas set in Vegas. This is not to say it came off flawlessly. I hate the whole woman cries to big tough man to distract him from the caper bit. Been there, done that. But what pleases me about the plan is that it tried to take care of nits. For example, the whole purpose of Sisko being there was to clear Vic, to give him something to do while all of this happened. That's good thinking. I'm not sure what to make of the computer throwing so many variables into the program, like Mr. Zeemo arriving only. I suppose such a move makes sense. After all, if the computer can create a near sentient Vic, it can certainly recognize what the solution to the problem is and do its darnedest to make that solution hard to achieve. All I know is that things were going mighty tense for a while there, certainly more tense than any time during the Ezri Murder Mysteries (No doubt that will be a Trek spinoff on A&E). My only other complaint was the dialogue outside of the holodeck. It was too often mired in exposition and clumsily done at that. "Vic is in trouble." "I don't know why, but I care about the guy." "We've got to recruit someone else to do blah blah blah." Then again, they've never been good at exposition. Fortunately, the rest of the episode was interesting enough to make it one of DS9's better comedies, perhaps their best one in the last two years. Yep, judging by its grade, it is. Good work - now let's roll to the finish. Some short takes: - Yes, the countman who took who didn't want te drink from Ezri was Chancellor Gowron. - Speaking of Ezri, ouch she looked hot with that Gidgety haircut going. Appropriately enough the episode had Moondoggie or Moondaddy or whatever he was called. - Sisko's speech? I didn't mind it. I was dreading it coming in, but it made sense given Sisko's Benny experience. I suspect Avery wanted it in, probably because Paul Robeson wasn't given a Vegas gig or something. Robeson was a communist, so who cares. Anyway, Kasidy also gave good answers to why he shouldn't mind, so I'm glad it was there. It gave the light far social relevance and pointed out that Vegas was indeed not the most enlightened of places. - Sisko's singing? Over-the-top Broadway booming that matches his over-the-top Broadway booming style of acting. A good idea to show how the captain had warmed up, but geez, Avery, pull your cajones up a notch while singing lounge music, okay? - Nog, in case you didn't catch it, changed outfits in the background as Odo packed the money. Rating: B+ Next week: An episode I'm actually anticipating | |
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