I don't know if "overrated" is the word I would use to describe it.
I want to say I first discovered this episode around 2015 or 2016-ish when I found out Star Trek was airing on the Heroes and Icons network (I didn't see it first run) and back then I was really fascinated by the concept of there being some sort of alternate reality of Sisko finding himself in 1950's New York City and the cast were taking on different characters with similar names as their Trek universe counterparts but in no way resembled them.
Coming from a Black Star Trek fan, I can appreciate this episode tackling a tough social issue like racism, especially now knowing Star Trek covering social issues is nothing new. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not AS FASCINATED by this episode as I once was but I can understand WHY it's so popular.
According to the script for this episode, Jimmy (Jake's 1950's NYC counterpart) says the N word in the diner scene after scoffing at Benny, rejecting his idea of getting a job. When this episode airs on H&I it's muted out. I would think the word was also censored back when it was airing on UPN/FOX or whatever channel DS9 was airing in syndication in the 90's. To anyone with a vivid enough memory of watching this back then, was this the case? Not that I would've been offended by it but I'm sure some would've been so why include it to begin with if it's going to be censored... unless that word is otherwise uncensored on VHS or DVD releases for this episode. Odo's counterpart also said, "for Christ's sake" which was also censored on H&I, which i don't think is AS offensive but better safe than sorry, I guess.
On a lighter note, I remember reading somewhere that J.G. Hertzler said he felt weird going on set in regular street clothes without putting on his Klingon prothetics for his Martok character, while Michael Dorn enjoyed not having to be Worf for once... although Worf did have a couple of scenes in this episode.
If I had to make a Top 10 list of my favourite Deep Space Nine episodes however, "Far Beyond the Stars" would still definitely make the cut. It wouldn't be at the very top but it's definitely getting a spot.
Edited to add:
OP, I agree with you. Benny's "It is real!" monologue towards the end was a little too dramatic for me as well. On one hand, I get that he was fed up at that point being treated less than, his story not being published, and then losing his job was the final straw that broke the camel's back, so his freaking out was understandable but it was a little over the top.
I want to say I first discovered this episode around 2015 or 2016-ish when I found out Star Trek was airing on the Heroes and Icons network (I didn't see it first run) and back then I was really fascinated by the concept of there being some sort of alternate reality of Sisko finding himself in 1950's New York City and the cast were taking on different characters with similar names as their Trek universe counterparts but in no way resembled them.
Coming from a Black Star Trek fan, I can appreciate this episode tackling a tough social issue like racism, especially now knowing Star Trek covering social issues is nothing new. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not AS FASCINATED by this episode as I once was but I can understand WHY it's so popular.
According to the script for this episode, Jimmy (Jake's 1950's NYC counterpart) says the N word in the diner scene after scoffing at Benny, rejecting his idea of getting a job. When this episode airs on H&I it's muted out. I would think the word was also censored back when it was airing on UPN/FOX or whatever channel DS9 was airing in syndication in the 90's. To anyone with a vivid enough memory of watching this back then, was this the case? Not that I would've been offended by it but I'm sure some would've been so why include it to begin with if it's going to be censored... unless that word is otherwise uncensored on VHS or DVD releases for this episode. Odo's counterpart also said, "for Christ's sake" which was also censored on H&I, which i don't think is AS offensive but better safe than sorry, I guess.
On a lighter note, I remember reading somewhere that J.G. Hertzler said he felt weird going on set in regular street clothes without putting on his Klingon prothetics for his Martok character, while Michael Dorn enjoyed not having to be Worf for once... although Worf did have a couple of scenes in this episode.
If I had to make a Top 10 list of my favourite Deep Space Nine episodes however, "Far Beyond the Stars" would still definitely make the cut. It wouldn't be at the very top but it's definitely getting a spot.
Edited to add:
OP, I agree with you. Benny's "It is real!" monologue towards the end was a little too dramatic for me as well. On one hand, I get that he was fed up at that point being treated less than, his story not being published, and then losing his job was the final straw that broke the camel's back, so his freaking out was understandable but it was a little over the top.
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That's a Starfleet leader's job
Funny thing: going over the top meant to come out of the trenches to advance through no-man's land. We see it as being unreal, but there is nothing more real ... and arguably, Benny is confronting painful realities.
Of course, many actors have said that Star Trek requires some stagey-ness, some camp, some overacting because of the nature of the material. It fits in with the meta commentary in TNG's Devil's Due: method acting doesn't cut it.
I do wish "FBtS" had gone for a final, TZ/phildickian twist with Sisko asking the computer at the end for any records of Benny Russell, American science fiction author of the 1950s... and then discovering there are a hundred stories on file.
Dean Wesley Smith (in the Captain Proton book) and David R. George III (in McCoy: Provenance of Shadows) both treat Benny Russell as a real person in the Star Trek universe.
LOL, that is freaking GREAT.
How many lives would that use up?
SNW screen solidified that there is at least AN author named Benny Russell. How much of his life coincides with what we saw...who knows?
I don't think it's overrated but I'm not really a fan of it. I like the effort they went to. I don't buy the framing tale of the prophets sending Sisko a dream about being some rando in the 1950s, which doesn't really matter if you connect with it or appreciate it, but I guess I don't. I like seeing them playing different roles though.
^Come to think of that, the Prophets presumably send that dream to remind Sisko that the struggle is worth it, even when it seems like an endlessly exhausting battle uphill. And while it taking this manifestation is logical to us, you can wonder whether it is to Sisko. I don't think it was shown he had any particular affinity with 20th century history (of racism) otherwise, except for baseball, but I may be mistaken in that. So, why wouldn't the Prophets have chosen something 'closer to home' from his view?
Does it matter much whether the Benny Russel character was fiction-within-fiction or not?SNW screen solidified that there is at least AN author named Benny Russell. How much of his life coincides with what we saw...who knows?
Something about the phildickianness of the idea that Benny Russell was an active writer in the 1950s who wrote pulpish sci-fi stories of events in the 24th-century just appeals to me. Is Sisko real, or is he just part of Benny Russell's imagination? And if he is real, then what does it mean that his whole life was predestined four centuries before he was born?
It opens up questions that I'm not sure Star Trek would ever be prepared to deal with, which only makes it more appealing.
I don't like the prospect that none of what we see in DS9 is real. I don't appreciate being emotionally involved in a show and then being told "oh, buy the way, none of this is real." So much for my emotional investment.
I feel the same way about Buffy Summers being in a mental institution potentially imagining it all. Do not tell me my investment in the show was for naught because none of it is real anyway.
I feel the same way about Buffy Summers being in a mental institution potentially imagining it all. Do not tell me my investment in the show was for naught because none of it is real anyway.
Indeed. It reminds me of the rather appalling fan theory that Harry Potter imagined the whole wizarding world from his prison under the Dursley's stairs. Not nice.
Interesting how people appreciate and weight these things so differently.
I don't mind fiction telling me it is fiction because I already know it is, and in a sense, I'm conscious of 'wasting' my time on it every instant I'm doing it, so within me there's no 'I don't want to hear this!' reaction when it tells me so.
I can understand that, but I tend to use fourth-wall violations for that sort of thing.
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