Bashir

Just wanted to share something that has been bothering me.

So Bashir starts the series off being pretty zesty and full of life, even annoyingly so. He's talkative and really pushy with the ladies (namely Dax). He was FUNNY too. He had an actual personality. Sure he thought more of himself than was necessary, but at least there was something to him.

After it's revealed that he was genetically altered as a child, they changed his character entirely. He becomes dull, boring, and not wanting to talk at all...

Who cares if he was genetically altered? It was his parents fault. Bashir didn't give consent, he didn't ask for it...it wasn't his fault.

Soooo he's smarter than other people. Big deal. Who cares?
I sure didn't. He doesn't really seem like any sort of superhuman...that certainly is an exaggeration of genetic engineering. Bashir a superhuman? Nah. And I don't see that as a reason to alter his PERSONALITY. Wasn't he genetically altered at the start of the series too? And he seemed perfectly zesty then...

They didn't need to rework his entire character and zap all of the life out of him to prove he's "different". -_- After it's revealed, he walks around like a lifeless drone most of the time.

It's cool he created the Vic Fontaine holosuite program. But, other than that, he is extemely dulled down in Season 6.

I hope the start of Season 7 proves to have a more lifelike Bashir again... I miss my Season 1 Bashir.

 

I never really noticed a change in Bashir's personality after the revelation that he was genetically enhanced. Maybe he grew up a little, and became more serious, but I'd say all the characters were more serious by the end of the series. They were in the middle of a war, and it's only natural that they'd all seem a little more grim. Besides, he still played darts and messed around in the holosuites with O'Brien.

One thing I never really understood was why Garak gave Bashir such a hard time about being genetically enhanced. It's not like it was Bashir's idea.

 

It was a shock to Siddig when he read the genetic alteration script, and he resented it. He said if he'd known this, it would have changed his original concept of how to play the character.

 

Yeah I figured they made it up as a surprise.
I doubt they knew that in the beginning of the series...it was probably an idea they had later on. So of course they couldn't give Siddig anything to go by early on.

Also, yes I understand that in seasons 5-7 they were in the middle of a war and that everyone was more serious in season 6 especially. But I just felt a shift in Bashir's personality. Keep in mind I watched and am watching ALL of the episodes in a very short time span (a little over 1 month) so Season 1 for me was only about 4-5 weeks ago. I do feel a change in Bashir's personality. I feel like his genetic restructuring should not have been made out to be that much of a deal... I really didn't care in the slightest and I don't think it should have affected his personality. Maybe that was just Siddig's interpretation of the character during wartime...and possibly had nothing to do with the genetic restructuring revelation. But, either way, I prefer early Bashir.

 

Well I always thought of it as Bashir was putting on an act his whole life, to be slightly less capable than he really was, never living up to his true potential. His bumbling nature and "zest" and his periodic womanizing all seemed distraction mechanisms so people wouldn't be focusing on how smart he was. Once the secret was out... he just stopped caring about maintaining appearances, couple that with the war and we get the grim Bashir of later DS9.

 

That's what I don't get... okay, first of all we KNOW Siddig wasn't aware of the genetic restructuring of his character in the beginning of the series. So, the way in which he played the character could not have been some kind of cover up, at least not in terms of acting. If the writer's knew and just didn't tell anyone, well that was messed up.

However, about his personality shift...I thought of it that way though as well, that he just let his facade down since the secret was out. But could he really have been THAT much more intelligent that he would have had to pretend to be completely something that he's not to that great of a degree just so people wouldn't "suspect something"? I know the genetic restructuring made him extremely intelligent, but he didn't need to show it off constantly and could have still maintained his normal personality. Showing extreme intelligence and showing your personality are two different things.

That's also what I didn't like about later Bashir. The not caring. He seemed to lose some kind of spark or something once the secret was out. I don't think the secret mattered THAT MUCH that he needed to just stop caring altogether what people thought of him. I understand the revelation embarrassed him, caused him much pain and humiliation, and also caused him to feel "different" from the others like a mutation or an outsider. I get that. And couple that with the war going on...of course he's not going to be as jovial and youthful acting as he was in Season 1. Still I felt like a part of him...died or something.

Am I overreacting?

 

Of course Siddig didn't know and neither did we. Just like the Bashir changeling, this one was just thrown at us as "having happened" even if things don't quite pan out or make sense. So anything presented is basically an apologist explanation to justify and explain things after they happen.

Why shouldn't he be down? From his point of view he's been a freak his whole life, and he's been desperately keeping this secret. Now it's out, and the whole world knows what a freak of nature he is. On top of that he probably does feel guilty that his father went to prison because of him. Not rational of course, but I'm sure it's there(and I also find it funny that he got more time than Garak or Kassidy did... all his dad did was an illegal medical procedures... Garak tried to genocide the Founders and Kassidy was only part of a terrorist group yet both were out in a matter of months).

So there it is.

Spoiler: Very Minor Season 7 spoiler

If anything Season 7's gonna get darker than season 6 as the tide of the war starts going back and forth and both sides start getting more and more desperate. And Bashir's indirectly involved in some of those desperate measures that can be morally questionable so... he's not gonna be a chipper fellow for the most part. Though at the very end of the season, Bashir has a reason to cheer up a bit.

 

Sid had to face several surprises in that season. Only two episodes earlier than the genetic fiddling episode, he discovered he'd been a Changeling for the past few weeks. So it was sort of like a double whammy on him, and possibly did affect his later performances.

Edit: R. Star beat me. Owwwww.

 

Bashir has every right to feel down.

My real issue is that I personally don't think he was or is a "freak of nature" and I don't think he had anything to be ashamed about. I don't like the emphasis they put on it. Is it just me or did it not matter that much? I am more upset that it was turned into such a big deal. I suppose I don't like the 1) importance they place on genetically modified DNA and 2) the fact that Bashir is somehow a different man because of it. I don't like the stigma attached to it.

So a GMO strawberry is bigger and juicier than a non-GMO one. One might be more natural, but they are still both strawberries. They are WAY more alike than different.

And yeah I know Season 7 gets much darker (I am on the third episode now). And I snuck a peek at Bashir's future while looking up Jadzia's death a while back... I know that he gets a happy ending.

 

Ehhh...I didn't mind the changeling thing. I expected something like that to happen. After all, why wouldn't the Dominion use their shapeshifting powers to infiltrate DS9? I was anticipating something of that effect to happen while watching.

But yeah not telling Siddig... haha. I guess they wanted him to act natural?

 

I think it's safe to say that most of us feel this way. It was a lame move on the part of the writers to make Bashir turn out to be genetically enhanced in the first place. He shouldn't have needed a reason to be a genius. It's almost like the writers thought, "You know, Bashir's too smart. He's alienating a lot of our dumber viewers. We should do something to make him less intimidating."

Ironically, I don't know any DS9 fans who didn't hate the whole idea.

 

I wasn't saying -I- thought Bashir was a freak of nature, I was just trying to describe how I felt his viewpoint may be. Really the only person who ribbed him about the thing was Garak. Well I guess Sloan gives him a hard time about it too, at least at first. Everyone else really was behind him, and Sisko seemed to go out of his way to nip the issue in the bud before Zimmerman's report finally circulated back to Earth. (Well... O'brien too, but he had every right to be upset about the darts... )

To season 7... well... just wait until the ten part episode at the end. That's how you end a series.

 

Oh I wasn't implying YOU thought it. I didn't like that Bashir was forced to feel that way by society and by Starfleet. I don't like that he had to hide it to begin with. It's kind of like the concept of racism. I don't like that it exists. Period. So when I watched that episode... I was angry that Starfleet sent his dad to prison for it even though it was CLEAR that Bashir was a good doctor and officer and that no harm was done...I was mad that they even CONSIDERED revoking his Starfleet commission. I was angry that Dr. Zimmerman (although I adore that character and Robert Picardo ) didn't try ASKING Bashir about it or hearing him out about it first...instead he just decided to write his report without a second thought. And I'm sure that after he found out Bashir's secret, he was no longer deemed "fit" for being the template for the LMH, I assume? I just don't like the way it was handled.

And yeah I am excited for Season 7. Seems like it's gonna be intense and awesome!

 

Well you've watched all of Voyager, right?

Message in a Bottle(with the Mark 2 EMH) came out not long after Doctor Bashir, I presume... so looks like that twerp got it.

How cool would it have been if it was Picardo and Siddig in that episode though?

 

Yes I watched all of Voyager. That would have been cool if it was Bashir as the Mark 2.

 

One problem with the genetically enhanced (I almost typed genitally enhanced) Bashir story is it makes Starfleet/the Federation look like a bunch of bigots for excluding such individuals in the first place due to something that happened three or four hundred years ago (Eugenics Wars).

 

Speaking of the EMH... they made Picardo look the same age as the EMH as Dr. Zimmerman in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" on DS9... but then in the Voyager episode "Life Line", Zimmerman is completely gray haired, haggard looking, and appears to be much older. I think they were only a year or two apart, no? Seems weird.

 

Omg... SO MANY DS9 episodes make Starfleet look that way! And I just picture that at the same time (in the ST universe), Janeway is floating around the Delta Quadrant preaching Starfleet principals. Effffff Starfleet....they acted like complete jerks on DS9 on more than one occasion.

 

Considering the Prime Directive declares it moral to watch an entire race die in a natural disaster because you don't know the consequences of getting involved... I'd say a bit of overeaction against something like that is small change.

And of course DS9 turned a blind eye to Starfleet regs a lot of the time. That was the whole premise of the show. It's a Bajoran space station on the frontier where the Federation's presence isn't as big. One of the active elements is a renegade group of Federation citizens(always found it funny DS9 made far better use of the Maquis than Voyager where they were around every day), and once the war started, it progressively became a "win at any cost" struggle.

Frankly I wish we saw more of that attitude on Voyager, it made for some good drama. The conflict between Janeway and Chakotay in Scorpion for example was just bittersweet in so many ways as it gave a glimmer of what the show could've been.

 

Consider it the Star Trek version of the Butlerian Jihad from Frank Herbert's Dune trilogy, but also considering that it was hard to stop Augments like Khan and the Augments in the three-part episode of Enterprise, maybe the Federation had the right idea.