Attention on heck! Don’t try to adjust your viewscreens, person-hell and boo-tenants! What you’re seeing isn’t a creepy clone, a hellish hologram, or a strangely specific alternate universe! For the month of October, we’ll be taking a spine-chilling stroll through Trek’s most horror-iffic outings and spooky adventures! Now why don’t you sit back and try not to let that green blood of yours run cold! If things get a little too intense, don’t hesitate to ask Scotty to SCREAM you up! Hehehehehehehehehe!
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 3, Episode 18
Star Trek likes trapping characters in their own heads, and it can make for a weird, wacky, and even spooky time. “Distant Voices” leans into the “spooky” part of the story type while featuring a villain that’s the most explicitly Freddy Kreuger-esque one ever on Trek. Bashir finds himself in a dark and twisted coma while a red-eyed, pizza-faced goon tries to kill him and all of his friends, and it makes for a decently entertaining spooky story. “Distant Voices” isn’t a stellar episode and can’t quite escape from the inherent clunkiness of a lot of “trapped in their own mind” Trek episodes, but it has some good material and a generally well done atmosphere of terror.
One of my main gripes with these general types of stories is that they feel a bit meandering because they don’t really mean anything. It’s just a bunch of silly stuff that happens as you wait for the protagonist to wake up. “Distant Voices” at least introduces a character conflict for Bashir – his imminent 30th birthday and all the age-related anxieties that involves – and carries that through into the nightmare he is forced to endure. We get to learn a few things about him, and Bashir learns a few things about himself, as well.
During a lunch with Garak, Bashir’s birthday comes up and he seems particularly glum about it. I guess even in the 24th century (where humans can live up to like 130) milestone birthdays are still a big deal for some people. He has to explain to Garak that being 30 is the official end of young adulthood and the beginning of the slow, agonizing march into middle age. I like Garak’s puzzled outlook on this, as he explains that in Cardassian culture, advanced age is a badge of honor. It’s endemic of Deep Space Nine’s emphasis on alien outlooks and how they differ from humanity’s. And those little tidbits of Cardassian culture are always fun to hear. In the same conversation, we get the delightful detail of Cardassian mystery novels – everyone is always guilty, but the “fun” is in determining who is guilty of what. LOL, these authoritarian scamps.
They’re interrupted by Quark and another alien named Altovar, who inquires about obtaining some biomimetic gel, a highly valuable but restricted substance. The makeup design of the Lethean is one of my favorites in Trek; it goes for broke in scary monstrousness. The blood-red eyes are great, and the big scary teeth that are dotted along the front of his face turn his entire head into a big, horrifying maw. The actor’s voice is as deep and craggy as the makeup, and he just looks and sounds like a walking nightmare.
Heading back in the infirmary, Bashir catches Altovar rifling through his medicines, who telepathically attacks him by grabbing his head. I love the lightning bolts that come out from his palms. Why does he need his hands to telepathically assault someone? Cause it looks cool! It gives it a more visceral feel, and we get to see how horrifying this dude’s mitts are. Teeth on your hands? Sure, why not.
Waking up in a dark and nonfunctional station, Bashir immediately notices that he’s graying at the temples. He stumbles into Quark’s, where an inhuman growling emanates from the darkness as chairs are tossed around the room. It’s an effectively creepy scene because we don’t see who or what is crashing around, just the chairs that are flying out of the shadows. Quark cowers behind the bar, absolutely terrified. Bashir can’t get any info out of him, and he scurries away.
Bashir runs into Garak, who doesn’t have a clue what’s happened, either. They split up to search for others (a horror movie must!). Walking down a corridor, Bashir finds the lights of each section behind him failing, filling the hallway with approaching darkness. Scary stuff! I’m gonna go with “nope!” The re-lighting of the station turns it into an effectively scary place, just as it did with the Enterprise in “Genesis.” Bashir dashes into a turbolift, but a pair of monstrous hands tries to hold them open until he kicks them away. It doesn’t stop there, because the ceiling of the car starts getting pounded on, and Bashir runs out as the doors open.
Bashir eventually finds the senior staff (minus Sisko) arguing amongst themselves in the ward room. The involvement of the other characters is the low point of the episode and is more grating than anything. Everyone is acting super not like themselves and bicker about the station’s situation. The episode doesn’t reveal that this is all happening in Bashir’s mind until about the halfway point, which I suppose builds some effective suspense.
The presence of everyone else pops the horror vibe, and Bashir (who is looking older and older) helpfully points out that each of them represents a facet of his personality. Except every single one of them is an asshole and hates each other? Not sure how that works. Like, I get that sometimes certain aspects of your personality clash with others – for example, if a sense of perfectionism interferes with time management. Or if your drive to deliver snarky, photo-heavy reviews of a TV show that aired 30 years ago gets in the way of maintaining normal relationships with actual human beings in your life. LOL, imagine that! 😭😭😭
But the way it’s all executed here is so broad and irritating, and the normally likeabale cast are such dickheads. It’s actually a relief when they all get killed. And there’s something dopey about the way it’s all explained like we’re in kindergarten. Excuse me, but I’m a big boy. I watch big boy shows and I like big boy ambiguity! The idea of his mind being represented by a collapsing Deep Space Nine and the staff as his personality is cool, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
There are some effectively weird touches, though. With the help of the staff, Bashir temporarily fixes the station’s communication system and is able to hear (the real) Sisko and Dax talking about him while he’s in a telepathic coma. This is what clues him into what’s actually going on. It’s a welcome plot swerve, because from this point on the episode no longer has to keep up the pretense that this is in any way real and starts to get a little weirder.
Just as Bashir realizes all of this, Dax gets carried away kicking and screaming by Altovar. Running after her, Bashir is suddenly on the Promenade playing tennis with Garak. I appreciate the surrealism of it, and wish the episode leaned more into this kind of nuttiness. Bashir is intent on repairing the station/his mind, and Garak encourages him to get to Ops in order to do that.
On his way there, Bashir finds a corridor of injured people with Sisko tending to them. Bashir is like, “Oh hello, manifestation of my professionalism.” Another odd thing is that these aspects of his personality are pretty random and all over the place. Odo represents his suspicion, but is suspicion a big, foundational aspect of Bashir’s character? If anything, it seems like the initially green and inexperienced young doctor has had far less suspicion than his comrades. It doesn’t quite gel. Anyway, Bashir gets Sisko to come and help him, but Altovar just reaches through the wall and yoinks him away. Hey that was my manifestation of professionalism, get your own! I wonder if Avery Brooks was busy the week this was filmed, because he’s in it for like 45 seconds, tops.
Running away, Bashir turns a corner and finally comes face to face with Altovar. Him being the representation of the telepathic virus who is tearing apart the station/Bashir’s mind is the aspect of the concept that works the best. Altovar gloats that he’ll destroy the station piece by piece, and once he does, Bashir will have his permission to die.
Now looking like he’s in his 80’s, Bashir finds the dead body of Kira and a melting/dying Odo. Yay, finally! He also finds the kids’ lingo and popular entertainment to be totally indecipherable rubbish. Hey, you and me both, Gramps Bashir.
He also runs across O’Brien, who decides to take a break from cowarding and tags along. They find themselves on the Promenade and see that Quark’s is open with a bunch of people clamoring around something. It turns out to be Bashir’s withering body on a comfy recliner, and Quark is taking bets as to the particulars of his certain death. Quark of course represents… Bashir’s unfettered capitalistic urges? The episode doesn’t bother to even give Quark a defined role within Bashir’s personality.
Suddenly, Bashir’s body is replaced with O’Brien’s, who is now dead. The deaths of the other characters seem to give some surface-level stakes I suppose, but does it actually mean anything for Bashir’s mind that these aspects of himself are being “killed?” Maybe I’m overthinking it.
Quark confirms O’Brien’s death and happily announces that all bets are off! He suddenly gets strangled up into the air by Altovar, who is now laying in the bed. He drops Quark’s body and smiles, which somehow looks even scarier than his normal face. “Everyone loses!” Altovar says as he gives a pretty good Freddy Krueger laugh (he forgot the B-word, though; Freddy really loves that). The crowd continues to clamor around him as Bashir runs away, and it makes for a very surreal and haunting scene.
Getting more decrepit by the minute, Bashir falls down and breaks his hip. Garak is there to help him up, but isn’t very encouraging. They finally make their way to Ops, which is decked out in birthday decorations. A pretty girl is there to give a Marilyn Monroe-eqsue singing performance of “Happy Birthday” for Bashir. It’s pretty nutty.
Bashir is steadfast in his determination to repair the station, but all the panels he opens just rain down an avalanche of tennis balls. At this point, Garak cheerfully starts going on about the hopelessness of the situation and encourages Bashir to just give up. Bashir wonders aloud what aspect of his personality Garak must represent, but comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t actually belong in his head. Siddig really hams it up as a super old man. Maybe we’ll all be talking like that when we’re in our 80’s and 90’s, but yeesh. Garak smiles and morphs into his true form – Altovar.
Altovar suggests he stop fighting and give up, since that’s what he’s always done. Much like the Clown of “The Thaw,” Altovar the Virus unfortunately has access to Bashir’s deepest insecurities and anxieties. He doesn’t exploit them as horrifically as the Clown did, but his knowledge of Bashir and how he tries to use it against him is the heart of the story and the episode’s most interesting part.
Altovar muses about how Bashir wanted to be a tennis player when he was younger, but gave it up because his parents wouldn’t approve and became a doctor instead. He lambasts Bashir about being second in his class at medical school, and quotes his oft-repeated anecdote about mistaking a pre-ganglionic fiber for a post-ganglionic nerve. But then drops the bombshell that those two things aren’t similar at all – any first year med student would know that, and Bashir answered wrong on purpose because he couldn’t handle the pressure of being first in his class.
It’s an interesting twist and injects some intrigue into Bashir’s personality. It paints a picture of someone who presents a carefully crafted image of themselves for the outside world, and it explains Bashir’s collection of little anecdotes about himself. They’re like red herrings that he intentionally drops in order to make himself seem more relatable and normal to everyone.
Altovar pokes him about his failure to woo Dax, noting that she could have been more than a friend if he tried harder, but chose to give up instead. Which… OK, would it have even been possible for the Bashir of the first couple seasons to try any harder with Dax? Yikes, I don’t want to know what that would have looked like. It’s seriously a good thing that he gave up! She wasn’t into you, bud. It also gives air to the gross “wear her down” strategy trafficked by a lot of pop culture of yesteryear. Let’s not.
Bashir slips out of Ops and shambles his million-year-old ass into the infirmary where Altovar is already waiting. Bashir realizes his mistake was in trying to get to Ops (a suggestion of Garak/Altovar in the first place) – it may be the nerve center of the real DS9, but the infirmary is the center of his world. With the shoe on the other foot now, Bashir is able to restore power to the station and gives the Altovar Virus a little what for. Yes, he could have been a good tennis player but he’s a great doctor. He may not have been first in his class, but even if he had been it wouldn’t have changed anything; he still would have chosen DS9 as his assignment. And even though he likes Dax as more than a friend, he still likes having her as a friend.
It’s decent character work, and it’s satisfying that all the spookiness and nuttiness of the episode leads up to something meaningful for who Bashir is as a person. He places a containment forcefield around Altovar, who bellows that he can’t do this. Bashir triumphantly proclaims that in his mind, he can do whatever the fuck he wants (actual dialogue), and tells the computer to vaporize Altovar’s toothy Krueger ass.
Having conquered both his insecurities and the virus, Bashir wakes up in the infirmary, young and restless once again. The real life Altovar got nabbed by Odo almost immediately after he attacked Bashir, but Julian notes how deadly their telepathic attacks are while eating with Garak. Garak toasts the Doctor’s strength of will and wishes him a happy birthday. He goes on to express dismay that Bashir’s mind automatically assigned him the role of the villain, but ultimately seems very pleased about being so mistrusted. Oh, Garak. Never change! This sentiment will later be echoed with Nog after some unfortunate business between them. I think for a Cardassian, telling them that you don’t quite trust them is like the human equivalent of giving a valentine’s card or a bouquet of flowers. Those lizard necks heart it so much. 🥰
“Distant Voices” isn’t a perfect episode, but it’s ambitious as a horror-themed character study on one of DS9’s most complex characters. Peeling back the onion layers of who Dr. Julian Bashir is was something the series continually did throughout its run. The nightmare he finds himself here has whiffs of the Elm Street variety, but it’s a less gory and more thoughtful ordeal he finds himself in. It makes for a better story that in addition to an actual demon, Bashir also has to fight his own to survive.
Stray Observations:
- So the big thing that kind of retroactively ruins this episode is the eventual reveal of Bashir’s genetically-engineered status. Obviously, that would be a big source of material for Altovar to use against the doctor. On the other hand, that tidbit of info does perfectly align with Bashir’s carefully-curated image he presents.
- The name of Altovar’s species “Lethean” – it’s like they just took the word “lethal” and made it into an alien race. There’s something both clever and dumb about it that I love.
- In this episode Bashir seems to make peace with a lot of his life choices, but in just a few episodes later this season his inferiority complex about being second in his class comes up yet again as a subplot in “Explorers.” It’s repetitive, but despite that it ends up being an entertaining story in spite of itself (and we get a super drunk Bashir and O’Brien, one of my favorite scenes in the show).
- I’m sure as Garak is sitting there listening to Bashir talk about biomimetic gel he’s not totally filing all that info away to be used later…
- They actually sing “Happy Birthday” in this episode. I’m too lazy to look up whether it was actually required to pay royalties to use that song in TV shows, or an urban legend everyone just decided to obey. It’s his mind, he can use whatever intellectual property he wants!
- Not the replicator whizzing out tea!
- Presented without context:
