Star Trek DS9 just had an episode that I disliked enough it made me want to blog about it, which is rare.
That episode was "Far Beyond the Stars" an episode in which Sisko has a dream, apparently induced by the "Prophets", where he is a small time sci-fi writer working for a pulp rag where Odo without makeup is racist to him, and won't publish his magnum opus sci-fi story because it has a black lead. And that magnum opus is, wait for it: Deep Space Nine. The very show you are watching-- isn't that fucking crazy? What if the show was all the creation of one Black man dreaming of a future where there is equality? Except that it fucking isn't.
A wise man once said-- sometimes, when you are not just something's hater, but it's biggest hater, you have to express yourself. You have to get your evil opinions out there.
On the whole I don't think it's like the worst episode of Star Trek or anything, I think the worst one is like, the one about the shocking ableist stereotypes all getting together to do divination with Bashir about whether the Federation will win the Dominion war. That one was like shockingly bad. "Far Beyond the Stars" offends me in an interesting way though. It's a pretty well received episode apparently so I think it will make people mad that I dislike it. But I don't care because I'm not posting anywhere. None of you can talk to me. None of you are even reading this. I can hate all I want and I will face no consequences for it. So I will do that. I will write down my evil opinions about your precious show, that I also really like, and you can sit with that.
Firstly, I do just kinda get annoyed with Star Trek whenever they do a holodeck episode or a time travel episode. This is the smallest and pettiest critique possible and its why I'm getting it out of the way first but I watch Star Trek to see space adventures and I hate when the writers get bored of writing a space story and decide to write a western or god forbid a period piece about the early 1900s. The studio had sets from another movie they could use so they decide to make a funny little time travel episode, whatever, I don't have to like it. And I don't.
Secondly it's so fucking weird seeing the actors without makeup, and the worst part was seeing the actors for Ferengi characters without makeup, because you realize they have SO MUCH BROWNFACE MAKEUP to put on for this show. This show is CRAZY blackface bois territory and I didn't want to think about that ever and don't now. It's crazier with Martok too because Klingons have been so racialized throughout TNG and DS9, they are written from such an othered lens, particularly because most of the Klingon episodes are also about Worf, who is portrayed by a black actor-- this made me think like, oh, probably all Klingons are black actors right? But they aren't! And thinking about this is a dimension of the show's racial politics I just don't even wanna crack open.
Thirdly, the stringing of the running plot of the Prophets talking to Sisko, into this episode, feels incredibly out of place and just makes everything look silly. Whenever Sisko's dad appears as a preacher reminding him that this episode is part of the myth arc of the Prophets and their "path" for Sisko, it makes it even more difficult to enter into the narrative that this episode is about Benny, a pulp writer who is trying to write diverse stories in a hostile environment (i know this language has been made to sound farcical by the culture wars of today, but this is what he's up to!). It makes the period piece part just, really jarring. Even worse is the final monologue Benny delivers to racist Odo without makeup, slightly supportive slightly feminist Kira, deracialized Bashir (as the mixed race person in the room I really gotta ask: what are we doing here guys), and ultimate black ally and fervent anticommunist Quark without makeup-- which starts off with an incredibly emotional delivery by Avery Brooks that palpably goes to shit when you realize he's supposed to sound crazy so he can be dragged off to a mad house at the end, tying the injustices he suffers and the fact that he's Sisko's dream self in a bizarre knot that ends with Sisko, on Deep Space Nine, wondering if his reality is actually a fictional production someone is putting on. It's a jaw-droppingly ridiculous series of things to weave into your episode about how racism is bad, and how you, Star Trek, are actually so good about race, and so much better than racist 50s science fiction magazines. I guess.
So yeah, finally: what really bothers me about this episode is the fact that this is an American studio production. I looked up the writers for this episode with my wife and the writers I found credited are like, three white guys. One of which is Jewish. Rick Berman is Jewish too, which really made me wonder about the writing of Quark without makeup who is clearly a jewish progressive guy and stands up for Benny the most aggressively in every confrontation with Odo about the racial content of Benny's stories. The whole thing just made me think-- do you guys think you're this guy? You're like on the right side of history? It's like, congratulations, you did get a bunch of black actors on this show, that is cool. Star Trek has always been kinda cool about this.
Sisko's actor Avery Brooks directed the episode!
But here's the thing for me-- this was an episode about the production of commercial fiction. The production of Star Trek is not the freewheeling dream of one black writer defying a white system. It is itself the output of a system of fictional story production that priviliges certain narratives, certain creators, and certain beliefs. This episode had a fascist Odo without makeup-- a producer, an executive, a part of the production staff at Paramount Pictures who have been, throughout the run of this show, making decisions just like the racist Odo without makeup does. There was an episode that briefly flirted with the idea of Dax being a lesbian, but ultimately she becomes a Klingon tradwife-- there have not been, as far as I've seen in the episodes of TNG and DS9 that I've watched, which is basically all of them, any depictions of gay men. The one episode that flirted with gender as a transitive state, where the Trill are first introduced, has Beverly ultimately expressing (perhaps mild, but visible) disgust that the man she fell in love with was now a woman. (While this is mildly improved in DS9 with Dax having several acquaintances accept her as Jadzia, it is not explored in the context of romantic relationships). Whenever Sisko has a love interest in an episode, you know it because there is a black guest actress in the episode. Depictions of black men in interracial relationships with women perceived as white are very fraught-- Sisko and Dax have a fling in the "mirror universe" episodes, but this is depicted as a brief lurid action that is transpiring out of necessity in what is essentially "evilworld", not something which is afforded the value and peaceful normativity of other relationships on the show. You can say that this is all "good enough for 1994" but the thing is, this episode is not jerking itself off about being "good enough for 1994"-- in this episode, Deep Space Nine is a vision of a future that could only have been dreamed of by a black man trying to believe in a better future for the black american specifically, and this vision is so dangerous to the status quo that the magazines must be destroyed, and Benny not just fired from his job but institutionalized. In this episode, Deep Space Nine is speaking a hard truth to power from a black context-- and Deep Space Nine the show we are watching in reality just doesn't really do that. It's such a self-aggrandizing way to frame itself that it drives *me* crazy.
I think about the episode that Jem'hadar "childhood" was introduced, "The Abandoned." That episode starts with the cast discovering an abandoned baby in some crap Quark bought. That baby is unbeknownst to the cast, one of the powerful Jem'hadar, warriors of the Dominion, an enemy polity. Jem'hadar were heavily genetically engineered to near single-mindedly value combat prowess and loyalty to their masters. But in that moment, at the start of the episode, Sisko is holding in his hands a little black baby. He talks about how much it reminds him of holding his own son, Jake, in his hands. That little black baby soon grows into an adolescent Jem'hadar, beginning to possess the somewhat reptilian traits characteristic of them-- as well as an unrelenting aggression, a genetic predisposition to seeing others as inferior and wanting to physically dominate them in violent combat. Even if we could see this as some kind of allegory for the way society might view black boys, ultimately the characters come to realize they can't deprogram this child's predisposition to violence, nor his physical need for a drug that only the Dominion can manufacture. He must be sent to his people, to the Jem'hadar, where he will quickly grow into one of a legion of soldiers who the show will flipflop constantly on whether they can be allies to some degree, or whether it is just impossible for them to resist their "programming." I think overall the Jem'hadar are really compelling-- but they also *say something* about the politics of the people writing them. They do believe that it is possible to have genetic destinies whether of an inborn or an engineered nature-- a not uncommon liberal belief that is racist and fascist.
Throughout my time watching the show, I have seen the show do better and do worse-- but the one thing it never escapes is being produced and put on largely by white people and straight people (and liberal ones at that, but hey, what do we expect, it's American TV!) I've enjoyed my time with DS9 and after this episode I will likely watch many more episodes that I enjoy and many more episodes that I don't enjoy. Overall I think DS9 is a good show, I think Avery Brooks is a great actor and Sisko is a great character to have on the screen. But simply, the show jerking itself off this hard for its inclusion of black actors is kinda crazy to me and makes for a drecky episode. I'm watching this in 2024 so I know in a lot of ways we haven't even gotten past where DS9 was and in some ways we've even backslid from it. I'm steeped in culture war bullshit and it's not like I don't appreciate the things Star Trek did for American TV but let's not get too crazy-- when like any of the writing staff I can find on imdb are black, you can toss this episode out again and have it feel a bit less ridiculous even to the bitch writing this.
Anyway Star Trek is a funny show and I have fun watching it with my wife every day.