I adore adore adore "Our Man Bashir". The writers of DS9 so got the nature of the Star Trek phenomenon, and pop culture, and how their characters would define themselves in terms of 20th C ideas and so on. And then they had all these excellent actors to act their hearts out with those ideas. t sigh

Wrod. DS9 is my favouritest Trek ever.

And hey-- new thread! Hi, I was in Smallville because the fic and eight episodes has turned me into a Rosenbaum junkie; I know not of these Souths and Farspaces of which you speak. And yet I suspect that soon I shall know more.

The writers of DS9 so got the nature of the Star Trek phenomenon, and pop culture, and how their characters would define themselves in terms of 20th C ideas and so on. And then they had all these excellent actors to act their hearts out with those ideas.

Yes, and then came Voyager. shudder

Good lord, I'm away from the computer one day and I wander back and there's a new thread and 134 posts and people discussing all kinds of cool stuff.

Just seconding what was said a dozen or two messages back, the "Militant Separatists" part of MRKS was at least partly tongue in cheek (I speak here as someone hosted on mrks.org). And I see a new Era of Good Feeling in dS fandom going on, certainly amongst a lot of the RayK-oriented writers and fans; in fact, I find most of the fandom an exceptionally pleasant place to be nowadays. (Although I will say that I wandered briefly onto Two Axes, the old hard-core Vecchio/Fraser site, and found the Kowalski-hatred still burning hot in some breasts, alas. Reminded of why the "MS" was partly not tongue in cheek.)

Um--so, clearly, dS is my main squeeze these days, but Highlander is my old flame whom I'm still happy to get frisky with at times, and it's been a huge pleasure watching others discovering it and getting initiated into the Methos-love. Farscape I've never watched, though a lot of my friends keep telling me I'd love it, and I'll have to catch up with it someday.

Smallville ... well, I watched the whole first season, largely so that I could make sense of what my buddies were writing about, but I just couldn't stay the course. I'd actually be very happy to watch The Lex and Lionel Show, but there's all those damn teenagers who unfairly get most of the screen time.

And (topic swerve) having never watched DS9, Saddig was totally unknown to me, but I thought he was amazing on MI-5. Bucketfuls o' charisma.

Yes, and then came Voyager. shudder

Wrod, expect that (having seen Enterprise) I can see Voyager's one redeeming feature: characters with more than one brain cell. V isn't good, but it's not as bad as E.

Wrod, expect that (having seen Enterprise) I can see Voyager's one redeeming feature: characters with more than one brain cell. V isn't good, but it's not as bad as E.

Oh be fair - the beagle has more than one brain cell. Granted, probably the smartest character on the show, but...

Well I loved Due South and loved Farscape, Smallville's okay, so I think I'll feel at home here.

Dead Like Me might well be shouldering a few other shows out the way if it continues to be this good though.

Oh be fair - the beagle has more than one brain cell. Granted, probably the smartest character on the show, but...

Okay. The beagle is okay. The rest, though? Dead loss. Or, at the least, isn't-it-amazing-they're-still-alive loss.

(Suddenly realised that we're back at the game I used to play with my brother: rank your Trek series. My order's always going to be: DS9, TOS, Voy, TNG, Ent.)

What I loved about "Our Man Bashir" was that it built on characterization that had been developing for years. In the first seasons he was all into the idea of spies, and had a bit of a crush on Garak, the possible Cardassian spy. To add to the fix, over the years he'd begun to run James Bond style programs in the Holosuite and look for other spies on the station. And even during the ep, it was Bashir's knowledge of the stereoptypes that got him out, like knowing that he could just charm the key out of the woman scientist, but also realizing the downside that only the woman who ended up with him could survive till the end.

Sort of sad he can't use his own real name, though. Got to be irritating.

Um. why can't he? I always wondered why he changed it.

I read that he found his real name, Siddiq El Fadil, was too hard to pronounce. And his uncle is Malcolm McDowell.