What pure, joyous fun this is. A pitch perfect spoof of James Bond and spy shows which has its tongue firmly in its cheek. The details are all just so correct, from the bad guy leaving the heroes to die in a convoluted manner instead of just shooting them, to the full on sexist treatment of all females, to Dr. Bashir's initials just happening to be J.B. We also get the extra fun of having Garak, a "real" spy along for the ride to point out how ridiculous it all is. His line about working for the wrong intelligence agency is gold.
While this is a Bashir episode, the real stars of the show turns out to be Sisko and Kira in their alter egos. Avery Brooks absolutely nails it with a maniacal performance that is spot on for what was needed (I can never get tired of his, "HA!"). Meanwhile, Nana Visitor puts on the worst Russian accent in history and commits to it fully, making everything she says (intentionally) hilarious. The way she pulls the file dossiers out from the bed is fantastic.
Worf as a baccarat playing henchman is great, so I think that leaves O'Brien as the only character who's left underused (and, ironically, gets Colm Meaney to play the kind of role he's done in a lot of action movies).
The episode just sends up every trope of the genre expertly, and then completely turns things around for the finale in which the hero switches sides to join the bad guys.
Finding ways to make the holodeck malfunction at this point must have been a difficult task, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was sick of it, but this worked in every way. The writers were clearly having a ball with this one, and the names used are fantastic, 'Mona Luvsitt' being my favourite.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2017-10-20T20:25:12Z
What pure, joyous fun this is. A pitch perfect spoof of James Bond and spy shows which has its tongue firmly in its cheek. The details are all just so correct, from the bad guy leaving the heroes to die in a convoluted manner instead of just shooting them, to the full on sexist treatment of all females, to Dr. Bashir's initials just happening to be J.B. We also get the extra fun of having Garak, a "real" spy along for the ride to point out how ridiculous it all is. His line about working for the wrong intelligence agency is gold.
While this is a Bashir episode, the real stars of the show turns out to be Sisko and Kira in their alter egos. Avery Brooks absolutely nails it with a maniacal performance that is spot on for what was needed (I can never get tired of his, "HA!"). Meanwhile, Nana Visitor puts on the worst Russian accent in history and commits to it fully, making everything she says (intentionally) hilarious. The way she pulls the file dossiers out from the bed is fantastic.
Worf as a baccarat playing henchman is great, so I think that leaves O'Brien as the only character who's left underused (and, ironically, gets Colm Meaney to play the kind of role he's done in a lot of action movies).
The episode just sends up every trope of the genre expertly, and then completely turns things around for the finale in which the hero switches sides to join the bad guys.
Finding ways to make the holodeck malfunction at this point must have been a difficult task, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was sick of it, but this worked in every way. The writers were clearly having a ball with this one, and the names used are fantastic, 'Mona Luvsitt' being my favourite.