7x15 Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang

Okay, it's another silly holodeck episode quite soon after 'Take Me Out To The Holosuite' (and aired fairly close to Voyager's 'Bride of Chaotica'), but DS9 somehow made these work. There's a sense of full commitment from all involved and the way they come together is quite creative, and now far removed from the typical "holodeck gone wrong" scenario. In this case the stakes are very low - the holodeck safeties are even working! - but it's a nice testament to the crew's friendship with Vic.

I also just enjoy heist stories, and even though this is as formulaic as they come it's clearly doing it on purpose. All of the cast just fit into their assigned roles (and how good does everybody look?). Sisko makes a welcome argument about the race issues of the time which is similarly countered well by Kassidy.

The episode also managed to get a great bunch of supporting actors to play the gangsters, and they are absolutely perfect. Trek often falters when filling these kinds of roles and we end up with watered down cartoon character bad guys, but everyone here just adds some sparkle to their roles as well as coming across as natural.

It's a dumb episode too. The fact that the holodeck program can't just be fixed isn't really given any proper due and the whole thing could be seen as a waste of time given the whole war thing that's going on. But it can equally be viewed as a breather before the storm. Despite my dislike for the swing music that keeps featuring in these Vic episodes, we do find out that DAYYMN Avery Brooks can sing, and "the best is yet to come" can certainly be seen as a message for what we're about to get into with the remaining episodes.

I want to like this episode. I like Vic. I like the era. I like the era. I like the music. I like the Ocean's 11 vibe. Copying another franchise isn't blasphemy. Our man Bashir worked just fine. Despite much more silly, I always liked TNG's Hotel Royale. And I just like the occasional fun holo episode. Like always, actors can have some fun. And like in other holo-episodes and in parallel universe episodes, Kira is great in such episodes. This episode is also one last fun episode before the show's finale enters much more serious territory. I don't even mind that the premise doesn't make much sense: that's not how you fix computer glitches.

This episode could have been much better though. The overall entertaining story isn't exactly innovative. It also reminds me that writing unique stories for seven season is hard: In its first seasons, DS9 didn't feel the need to rely on such fun innocuous holo-episodes. They had more interesting stories to tell IRL. But this is already the third Holo episode in this season and it's the second of those typical fun diversion holo-stories. That's a bit unfortunate. It also would be a perfect "break episode" in between more tense and dark episodes. Usually that's where DS9 programmed such fun episodes. However, the episodes before were not really hard to stomach at all. We didn't need a break at this point. That's just odd programming. The whole mid-season order is totally off. Plus, unlike It's only a Paper Moon this episode doesn't even try to discuss a philosophical question. That's also stopping this episode from anything more than a solid 6/10.

Still an entertaining episode. Best scene: Benjamin sings for us:

"The best is yet to come"

True. And if you think that this last scene would have been a beautiful farewell scene from DS9, then you're quite clever...