Rewatching early DS9 knowing that Bashir is genetically enhanced

I beg to differ with you, defiantfan. If Bashir being gentically enhanced had been planned from the start of the series, I think the season 3 episode 'Distant Voices' would've been the biggest give away. I don't think a human NOT genetically enhanced could've or would've survived that Lethean's telepathic attack.

 

In "Dax" Bashir actually gets beaten up by one of Dax's kidnappers, a female who appears younger than he.

 

^The dark side of chivalry, perhaps. He subconsciously couldn't bring himself to hold his own against a young woman. She might get injured....

 

Sure, he might have hesitated but the way it was staged, the girl clearly bested him, knocking him into a wall. He is unconscious on the ground at the end of the teaser after fighting with her.

 

I think Bashir could have taken that ***** out if he hadn't hesitated, just because he couldn't bring himself to hit a women right in the face. How stupid was that? He could have been a real hero in front of Jadzia, saving her and all. Hell, according to Ezri, Jadzia slept with many men, so perhaps Bashir would have hit the jackpot (if you know what i mean) if he had knocked out all those (whoever they're called) aliens?

 

^Well, heck...how many times had Worf gotten his lights knocked out in TNG?

 

Being female, I like the fact that Bashir didn't hit that female alien.
We females have to stick together.

Seriously. I don't think it was "The dark side of chivalry" as Supreme Dittodrone (a.k.a. Rush Limborg) called it. I think Bashir was so stunned it was a female that he just froze. If it had been a guy, Bashir would've more than likely got him. In fact, I'd bet on it.

 

^That's...kinda what I said (not quite, but kind of)...but, okay....

 

Not to mention the Lethean discovering his secret.

 

Though I'm a huge fan of Ron Moore's work on DS9, "Dr. Bashir, I presume" was a staggeringly gross miscalculation that almost - but not quite - ruined Bashir.

Unfortunately, the writers ran with some of the more awful implications later, when Bashir was shown to have a Vulcan-like mind, in addition to possessing all kinds of other extraordinary abilities (like being an expert at darts, etc.)

It is amazing, looking at those earlier seasons, how POORLY the concept fits in with Bashir as a character.

So, even though he was "hiding" his genetic enhancements, he became a professional tennis player? Um, not exactly keeping a low profile there, Julian....

And he is downright boastful and arrogant about his abilities, at least during season one. Again, one would think if he was TRULY keeping such a huge secret, he would be quiet and humble and self-effacing. Hell, he would probably FEEL insecure and humble because he knows his abilities were just handed to him and not truly "earned." He probably would have become an introverted loner, spending all hours in a quiet lab somewhere doing research, not a swaggering young hothead looking to show off.

It just doesn't jibe with the five years of personality we had seen up to that point, let alone the other details of his history.

What ARE we to make of episodes like "Armageddon Game" and "Hippocratic Oath" where Julian says he needs O'Brien's technical help. Was he faking that, too?

Ugh. It's a friggin' mess.

Unfortunately, I think Moore was very close to a good idea, but utterly botched in the execution.

What the episode SHOULD have been was this -

Julian DISCOVERS that he was genetically engineered by his parents throughout the course of that episode.

Suddenly, his entire world is shattered. All his accomplishments feel phony and hollow. He's devastated, furious and his parents and suddenly terrified of being found out.

That's REAL drama - more immediate, urgent, plausible and far, FAR more interesting than learning he was "hiding" his secret all these years.

Julian, even before the "reveal" of his enhanced abilities, was already a genius with terrific physical skills, too (remember, tennis professional). So there was no need to say he ALSO had a Vulcan mind and those other amazing abilities.

Even the "normal" Julian could have been the product of (subtler) engineering.

And an episode focusing on that revelation would have been awesome.

You blew it, Ron. You really blew it this time.

 

I felt that Ron Moore did ruin the Bashir character by making him genetically enhanced. Mainly because it turned out to be DS9's biggest continuity error. There were certainly no hints from what we've seen from the previous episodes mentioned let alone anytime in the show's earlier seasons. Julian was so boastful about himself in the first season, which is something he's not supposed to be doing if he were hiding such a secret. And it definitely should have been mentioned in "Distant Voices". If I were a telepathic killer alien, I'd certainly use something like that to my advantage. Another sign of the continuity error would be with Julian's little teddy bear Kukulaka. In "The Quickening", he said he was able to sew and patch him up when he was 5 years old. But if were extremely deficient at that age (saying he was enhanced around his 7th birthday), he definitely would have no such capability.

The continuity issue is debatable, but if you think about it, we should have gotten some hints from the early seasons. This earliest possibility should have been in S1's "Q-Less". A being as omnipotent as Q definitely would have known the secret, since he said he knows everything to Vash's annoyance in that episode.. In the scene he induces Julian to sleep, he says quietly to himself as he leaves the restaurant "Hopefully by yourself for a change". The writers could have added another line afterward like "You're still inferior to the likes of me no matter what they did to you". Something like that would have first-time viewers wondering what the heck he was talking about. An obscure line like that would have a significant role in what we would learn later about Bashir. But the fact is Ron Moore blew it big time by adding something that big about the character so late in the series.

 

I think it works. I liked how Bashir seemed to react coldly when Odo offered to look up anyone for him in Homefront. That played into this story.

The fact is that Bashir became more interesting as a character because of this story, and it allowed Sloan to enter the DS9 tapestry.

 

I completely agree with you. I like Bashir a lot, he's probably one of my favorite characters from the show (I know that's not a popular opinion, but eh, I've just always liked him). I've always been really interested in Khan and the Eugenics Wars, so I loved the idea that Bashir was genetically enhanced. But it would have been far more profound and dramatic if Bashir had never known about it until he finally learns the truth from his parents. Not only would it have fit better with Bashir's character as he had been portrayed thus far, but it would have given Siddig a lot more to work with from an acting perspective, I think.

 

^I guess I'm sorta with you guys on that--more dramatic potential. (Hindsight's 20/20, though...as I often say, I'd have loved for Ezri Tigan to have been a recurring secondary, "Hard Time" on...and develop a relationship with Julian there. When she receives Dax, Julian helps her through it....)

Still...as the POINT of this thread indicates, looking back, his being enhanced kinda gives a new perspective to those early eps--"Distant Voices" notwithstanding.

 

Love this idea! Crewman6 for the win. It makes so much sense that now I'm wondering why the writers didn't think of it.

 

There's some interesting scenes in "Rivals" if you know Bashir's actual racketball skills are much higher than he normally let's on. First, Bashir has to pretend to be "normal" fit young guy, who can easily beat the older O'Brien, and then naturally gloat about it. Then, later in the episode, as the "luck game" starts acting on him, he finds himself loosing the game, even when he tries. How can this be? he may be asking himself; I'm much better than O'Brien, heck, I'm even much better than O'Brien thinks I am. Because I normally have to bring down my game so that no one recognizes my enhanced abilities.

But the scene I find the most interesting and revealing about genetically-enhanced Bashir in "Rivals" is not the beginning, when Bashir is winning, nor the end, when he's loosing because of the "luck game", it's in the middle, when Bashir "throws" the match to O'Brien because he feels bad for him. Remember, genetically enhanced Bashir is always "taking it easy" on those people he plays games with. He has to in order to not let on to people the fact that he has exceptional genetically engineered abilities. And he has also gotten very good at doing so in such a way that it appears natural, not like he's trying to loose. It has to appear as if he's trying to win, even though he's not really doing his genetically-engineered best. In fact, he often chooses to throw in some gloating and pride, maybe because he's just young and feels like gloating, but maybe because he's trying to throw others off the scent of thinking he's actually capable of doing even more than he's showing (and gloating about). But in the match he's trying to "throw" to O'Brien there is another interesting dynamic. He now has to pretend to have even less skill than he normally shows, which is already less than his real skill level. And you know that Bashir could have done so in a convincing way. He's had a lot of practice at throwing games in a convincing way. (Unless he has gotten SO use to his new "normal" level that this further-reduced level feels weird to him.) Yet in the episode, Bashir acts so obvious when he "throws" the game with O'Brien. When he's throwing a game, which he's probably done many times, he does so in a very obvious way. Was this just because he really didn't want to bring his game down so far? Or was he acting so poorly so that others couldn't possibly question that his normal level of play wasn't also faked? I'm not arguing one way or the other. I just think it's an interesting question to think about.

 

In "Armageddon Game" we learn that Bashir actually gave his "medical school diaries" to Jadzia Dax to read. They were supposedly about his "fear of failure" and the like. But I guess they were all just a fabrication that Julian made to keep his secret . . . and possibly to help him try and get Jadzia to date him.

 

I don't really see how this is relevant to Bashir's genetic enhacenments. I remember it being explicitly stated that his hand-eye coordination was enhanced, but nothing that comes to mind ever suggested he was supposed to be any stronger than he would have been without the enhancement. He wasn't designed to be a new Khan, after all. I see no reason why he should be expected to be an extraordinary fighter - or even a particularly good one, if he hasn't bothered much with learning technique.

 

Fighting isn't just about strength, remember.

 

It's about strength and technique. Julian's enhancements could have provided him with a leg up on learning the technique, but he would still have to apply himself to doing so. He went to medical school, not security school...