Ben doing the DS9 marathon thing on Netflix.
I always enjoy their conversations. Mainly because of Garak. He’s got such a colorful vocabulary. Much like Q does.
Indeed.
One of the best things about DS9 was the mystery of Garak. Who was he? Why was his there? The character was defined (and well performed!) right from the getgo.
It brought a certain ‘cold war’ element to the show that resonated well with the time and, frankly, appears to last. Plus the character of Garak appears to just ENJOY the role he’s assigned enormously.
Offset that with Bashir’s naivete in matters political when he is an absolute genius (certified!) in most other things and you get two characters who have a chance to shine when playing off each other repeatedly. It’s good stuff.
These talks were one of the best things about DS9. At one point, Dr. Bashir does something fairly ruthless (I think the episode’s title was “Our Man Bashir”) and Garak told him, “Doctor, there’s hope for you yet.”
Oh, and Garak had parts in two of the best exchanges ever in a Star Trek vehicle…
and
I think EVERYBODY likes the Bashir/Garak scenes…except for the writers who were a bit annoyed at the ho-yay people were seeing. (Which is why they were replaced with Bashir/O’Brien…and when people took those similarly, the writers just stopped fighting and let us have it…)
[in response to Dendarii] It’s even more funny because that fairly ruthless act was shooting, and wounding Garak.
I can’t believe I didn’t picked up on the homoerotic subtext between Garak and Bashir when those episodes first aired. I guess I was too young and my Gay-dar hadn’t been installed yet.
I was going to mention the “especially the lies” exchange, but Mr. Chance beat me to the punch. So instead, I’ll mention how I always tried to picture “Scorpio” from *Dirty Harry *delivering Garak’s lines. It gives him an added layer of depth.
Love them–especially the “especially the lies” conversation quoted above and the moral Garak takes away from Bashir’s sanctimonious storytelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf: “Never tell the same lie twice.”
That just adds to it. It looks like, when we first see it, that its witty banter between Garak and Bashir. Exposition on Cardassian culture to move the plot forward. Then we find out Garak’s a super-spy. Then we find out Bashir is a super-genius augmented physique – a James Bond himself without the stint in spy school. Then you realize that’s why they sought each other out – Basihir to spy on Cardassia, Garak to deliberately spread disinformation. When at the start, we all thought it was harmless.
I kinda hate how it ends. Garak walking about his ruined homeworld, and everyone trys to cheer him up, Cardassia will endure. And he has to snap back, “I know Cardassia will endure, still sucks 'tho.”
You beat me to it, darn you!
I’ve been beaten to the quotes.
Re Homoeroticism
The actor who played Garak has gone on record saying ‘I wanted there to be an element of sexual interest in their relationship, but the writing wasn’t there to support it.’
Garak was a rare example of the wise, mysterious, deeply layered character done right. Watching him, you actually felt there was far more there than met the eye, and that he was doing the best he could with what he had — his enigmatic manner of speaking wasn’t done just for the sake of being obnoxious (well, not unless he felt like it); the viewer could tell that there was actually a method to his deliberate obtuseness.
Contrast this with a character like Guinan on Next Generation, where she’d go miles out of her way to drop the vaguest of hints that she knew plenty about the latest (generally life-threatening) puzzle the ship had encountered, then follow it up with a refusal to do anything further but put on a large-hatted Dr. Sbaitso impression. I’m not a 24 fan, but I would have had absolutely no objection if Picard had gone all Jack Bauer on Guinan every single time she opened her mouth. “Bitch, if you don’t tell me every last goddamned thing you know about what’s in that bigass cube out there in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to slip Worf some PCP and let him play a game of ‘how many bites does it take to get the to delicious center of a pretentious bartender’. Now start fucking talking.”
Bashir I never found particularly interesting in his own right, but he served as a competent foil for characters with something more compelling to say, and was well-written in that capacity.
You know, I never thought it was a homo-erotic thing - and watching the show again as an adult, I still don’t see it. These are just two men who keenly enjoy playing games with words, and have found kindred spirits in that regard. Not that there’s have been anything wrong with it if they had had that subtext - in fact, it would have been an interesting decision in the early nineties. But I think this is just a very interesting, nuanced, asexual friendship.
YES! YES! Fucking A!
Sorry.
But I digress. Carry on.
[QUOTE=Roland Orzabal]
Garak was a rare example of the wise, mysterious, deeply layered character done right. Watching him, you actually felt there was far more there than met the eye
[/quote]
This is so true. I remember the episode when the Defiant takes Odo home to the founders to cure him an illness, Worf catches Garak trying to access the ship’s weapons to destroy the founders. Garak and Worf have a physical confrontation that gives Worf a good run for his money, not what you would expect from Garak’s mannerisms.