Brooks in "Far Beyond The Stars"

[Anwar]

You want real Brooks ham there are two prime examples:

1) Doctor Noah, nuff said.

2) Final battle with Dukat, Tvtropes said it best:

Sisko: The Pah-Wraiths will never conquer anything! Not Bajor, not the Celestial Temple, and certainly not the Alpha Quadrant!
Dukat: And who's going to stop us?
Sisko: I HAM! YAM!!!!!

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, but Dr. Noah is a ham by definition. I would be criticizing him or any actor in that role if he hadn't hammed it up, so I can't see his performance as Dr. Noah as anything but a triumph.

 

[Navaros]

I don't agree that the Brooks' role in Our Man Bashir was ham by definition. Seems to me he was supposed to be imitating Goldfinger, and Goldfinger was a serious villain, not a ham.

 

[SharkD]

The episode jumps the shark when they make the "concession" that the person was really just dreaming. The beginning was great and makes up for most of it.

[edit]
Wrong episode, oops!

 

[Anwar]

I don't agree that the Brooks' role in Our Man Bashir was ham by definition. Seems to me he was supposed to be imitating Goldfinger, and Goldfinger was a serious villain, not a ham.

Are you kidding? Goldfinger was one of the hammiest hams who ever hammed.

 

[Destructor]

The episode jumps the shark when they make the "concession" that the person was really just dreaming. The beginning was great and makes up for most of it.

I don't believe that concession was made- as far as I was concerned, both realities were euqally valid- indeed, the creators of the show wanted to end the series finale with Benny Russell putting down his pen and finishing the story.

 

[SharkD]

I was thinking of the episode where Sisko has the "vision" where he's a 1950's-era science fiction writer.

 

[DevilEyes]

Wow, that post sure didn't go where I thought it was going. On the contrary, I thought this episode was the best example of Brooks channeling Shatner's worst acting tendencies. His final lines 'out-Shatner' Shatner in how fake, overdone, and irritating they sound with the inappropriate pausing and stressing certain words too much.

I liked about 85% of this episode, but when he went crazy in the office and then made his 'wistful' reflection back on the station at the end, I thought he mucked the episode up so badly that I can't ever watch it again because of how much those scenes make me cringe.

If anything, I think this episode exposed his weaknesses as an actor. I liked him in a lot of others, but I thought he gave his worst performance ever in those last two scenes (he did fine until them, though). I was so appalled by the climax and end that I wrote a scathing review of it on IMDB.

THANK YOU.

I completely agree.

I also think this episode, while supposedly a "ballsy" move on the part of the writers and producers--tackling The Race Issue--achieved exactly the opposite of what they intended.

The point of Star Trek, and DS9, as I understood it, was to show that our descendants could all just be HUMANS...not just A Black Man / A White Woman / A ______ Person In Space. In other words, a truly post-racial society. The most powerful statement they could possibly have made is the one that they did make up until this point--that frankly, my dear, no one gave a damn about the color of someone's skin. That it wasn't even worthy of mention as far as the other humans...or even the aliens, were concerned.

Throwing all of the crap of the 20th/21st century back in people's faces didn't accomplish any of these goals. Not in the slightest.

I beg to differ.

Star Trek makes a strong point by showing that human ethnicities and the color of human skin mean very little in THE FUTURE, in the world the characters live - 23rd, 24th century, so much that it's not even worth a mention. And DS9 never deviates from that.

But to deny that it meant a lot in THEIR PAST, and in the world that we - the viewers - live, would just be sticking your head in the sand.

DS9 treated the subject in the best possibble way: showing that it means nothing in the future, but dealing with the fact that, yeah, it sure did exist in the 20th century, and we're not going to pretend otherwise to make anyone feel more comfortable.

 

[Destructor]

I was thinking of the episode where Sisko has the "vision" where he's a 1950's-era science fiction writer.

I am referring to the same episode, which goes to great pains to establish that the 'vision' may actually be Deep Space Nine, and that Ben Sisko is just a character in Benny Russell's story. To whit:

"Please... who am I?"

"Don't you know? You are the dreamer. And the dream."

The episode never definitely declares which aspect is 'real' and which is the 'vision'. As said, explicitly by the writers, their original intent was to have the show end with Benny Russell finishing the story.

 

[GotNoRice]

God I hated this episode...

What is the point of having an episode about 20th century African American discrimination in a 24th century sci-fi show? There are other channels and shows for that kind of crap for people who care.

I've always believed, in terms of discrimination, that all we can really do is make the decision on an individual level to not be racist and move forward. No one is ever going to be "equal" when you keep reinforcing the victim mentality on a certain race due to things that happened before many now were even born.

That is one thing I've always liked about Star Trek. No one was racist, everyone was equal, people just worked together and ignored skin color. You never heard about racial quotas or reparations, people didn't immediately point to their race when something didn't go their way, nor did people constantly harp on slavery as if it still had a baring on their everyday life.

 

[flemm]

God I hated this episode...

What is the point of having an episode about 20th century African American discrimination in a 24th century sci-fi show? There are other channels and shows for that kind of crap for people who care.

This episode wasn't about 20th century racism, at least I don't think that summarizes what it was mainly about. Trek is an imagined future, this episode combined that with a look at the past. What the episode is mainly about is us: we are somewhere between Bennie's past and Sisko's future. The question the episode asks is: what role does our imagination and the stories we tell play in realizing the dream of equality that Sisko's future represents? As usual with Star Trek, it is the journey to a better world that is the main subject of this episode, not past racism. Anyway that is my view.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I've always believed, in terms of discrimination, that all we can really do is make the decision on an individual level to not be racist and move forward. No one is ever going to be "equal" when you keep reinforcing the victim mentality on a certain race due to things that happened before many now were even born.

That is one thing I've always liked about Star Trek. No one was racist, everyone was equal, people just worked together and ignored skin color. You never heard about racial quotas or reparations, people didn't immediately point to their race when something didn't go their way, nor did people constantly harp on slavery as if it still had a baring on their everyday life.

Exactly. That sort of thing does harm to EVERYONE involved, both black and white.

 

[Praetorian]

Frankly, I've never felt this episode was in anyway making me a slave of my father's sins. And I'm quite sensible to that sort of thing... I really didn't feel the episode was trying to blame white people and paint them as evil...

It was simply a story about someone whose life's adversities were made bareable by imagining a better future...
In essence, what Star Trek is about...
That those adversities happened to be racism against black people in 1940's America was secondary really..
Besides..it was true!

You can't compare that to people who complain today, when there's much less cause for it...and still hold grudges for things they didn't even experience against people who had nothing to do with it...


Now the line in Badda-Bing Badda-Bang? That was really silly, Sisko shouldn't be thinking about that...(unless one uses his experiences in this episode as an excuse but I don't really buy that..)

 

[Destructor]

I always saw this episode operating on multiple levels:

1. As 'an episode of Deep Space Nine', it's about Sisko having a vision from the prophets that shows him another part of reality an encourages him to stay the course. This is the most literal interpretation.
2. A second interpretation is that it's meditation on the nature of fiction vs. reality, how inspirational stories can really seem 'real'.
3. A third interpretation is that it is, after all, just a comment on the racism of the 50s- I find this a pretty hollow reading, frankly.
4. A fourth interpretation is that it is 'pulling away the veil' on DS9, showing it as simply a better future imagined by the actual Benny Russell, and that none of DS9 is real.
5. A fifth, somewhat shallw interpretation, is that it's just a big in-joke, a lark to get all the regular cast to take off their make-up and make jokes about sci-fi in the 50s.
6. It's also a comment about being a Star Trek fan, how we create and maintain a very complex imaginary world in our head, how that worlds can encourage and inspire us, how it seems 'real' to us, the way it felt real to Benny Russell.

This great thing about this episode is that it works on ALL of these levels, they are not mutually exclusive. It's incredibly sophisticated for television. To say: "Oh it's all about racism." is facile. That's one aspect of a far more complicated whole.

 

[Anwar]

Wasn't it stated later on that it may have been a vision from the Pagh Wraiths who were trying to drive Sisko mad?

 

[flemm]

Wasn't it stated later on that it may have been a vision from the Pagh Wraiths who were trying to drive Sisko mad?

At the beginning of season 7, Sisko has a false vision involving Bennie Russell that is inspired by the Pagh Wraiths, designed to prevent Sisko from persevering to open the Orb of the Emissary (thus freeing the prophets and reopening the wormhole).

However, in this false vision, the Pagh Wraith attempts to convince Bennie that he is insane and should stop writing his stories. Bennie refuses, and keeps writing. This allows Sisko to open the orb.

I don't think it's ever stated plainly, but the above would seem to confirm that the original vision was a true vision, inspired by the Prophets themselves.

 

[unimatrix7]

I like Brooks when he's speaking softly and in a normal tone of voice.

Whenever he raises his voice, I just start laughing. He sounds ridiculous.

 

[Anwar]

Uh-huh, I was watching "Emissary" a while back and when he's trying to save Jennifer and suddenly yells "Help MEEEE!!" to the Bolian Officer it almost made me chuckle how silly and high-pitched his voice got.

Those yells of defiance as the Bolian dragged him out of there, however, were perfect and grief-stricken.

 

[Bertie]

I agree. From what I can tell, when Brooks needs to stretch toward extreme emotion of whatever kind, he tends to call upon a more theatrical style, with the big gestures and expressions that are necessary on stage. I guess one could criticize him for not sufficiently adapting his style to the intimacy of the television camera, but it works for me. Television acting is often so inhibited.

I think this is basically right. In fact, I might reach a bit farther and say that DS9 was really a whole lot of stage actors doing a television show. Usually it worked, but every now and then there's a scene that feels a little "off" for the small screen.

(Colm Meaney and Louise Fletcher being the biggest exceptions, as they really were TV/film actors and performed as such, which occasionally caused their performances to be underestimated being in the presence of so many people belting every line to the last row.)

 

[Navaros]

Those yells of defiance as the Bolian dragged him out of there, however, were perfect and grief-stricken.

I disagree. That was some really bad, very hokey & unbelievable acting on Brooks' part. Every bit as bad as his hammy moments in FBTS, Our Man Bashir, and WYLB.