Far Beyond the Stars

"Far Beyond the Stars"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no. Season 6
Episode 13
Directed by Avery Brooks
Teleplay by
Story by Marc Scott Zicree
Featured music Dennis McCarthy
Cinematography by Jonathan West
Production code 538
Original air date February 11, 1998 (1998-02-11)
Guest actors
Episode chronology
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List of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes

"Far Beyond the Stars" is the 137th episode of the syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the 13th episode of season six. The teleplay was written by Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler, based on a story by Marc Scott Zicree. Castmember Avery Brooks directed. It is unique in that almost the full cast of DS9 portrays human characters, without their alien costumes, as a rare example of metafiction in the fictional Star Trek universe.

Plot

Captain Benjamin Sisko is talking to his father about leaving Starfleet, but before he makes a decision, he is distracted by a vision of a man who is dressed in 20th Century clothes. The visions rapidly increase in number. Dr. Bashir's tests of Sisko show the same synaptic potentials as he had when he had visions a year ago (in the episode "Rapture").

The visions show him as Benny Russell, an African-American science fiction writer on Earth in 1950s New York City. Benny Russell writes for the science fiction magazine Incredible Tales, in a New York City populated by human versions of different characters from DS9: Herbert Rossoff (Quark) as a left-wing short-tempered Jewish writer; Julius Eaton (Dr. Bashir), a British writer; K.C. Hunter (Kira Nerys), Eaton's wife and a tough woman writer who has to adopt a nom de plume to disguise the fact that she's a woman from her readers; Albert Macklin (Miles O'Brien), a socially awkward stutterer who prefers to write stories about robots; Darlene Kursky (Jadzia Dax), a secretary whose ditsy, giggly personality belies her intelligence; Douglas Pabst (Odo), the editor of Incredible Tales, who feigns sympathy for the discriminatory treatment experienced by Benny (and K.C.), but refuses to help them or take responsibility for his own role in their treatment; Roy Rittenhouse, an artist (Martok); an unnamed newsboy (Nog); two bigoted policemen, Officer Burt Ryan (Gul Dukat) and Officer Kevin Mulkahey (Weyoun); Benny's girlfriend Cassie (Kassidy Yates); Willie Hawkins, a baseball player (Worf); Jimmy, a local hustler (Jake Sisko); and a fiery preacher who preaches about the will of the Prophets (Joseph Sisko).

Pabst announces photo day and Hunter takes the hint that she should not show up that day so that the readers don't learn she's a woman. Benny Russell realizes he's not expected to show up for photos either because he is black. Though frustrated, he volunteers to write a story based on a stylized drawing of a space station. His story, "Deep Space Nine", is about the station's commanding officer, Benjamin Sisko, a human of African descent (or Negro, the term used in the show). The other writers consider it an important work, but Pabst refuses to publish it due to its racial content. Instead of writing something else, Benny writes six new stories about Sisko. This causes a passionate argument in the office among the various employees with some suggesting that Benny should self-publish. Albert suggests that Benny make the ending of his first Sisko story a dream, a compromise that both Benny and Pabst accept after it is clarified that the dreaming is being done by a Negro person.

While out with his girlfriend to celebrate his story being published, Benny overhears gunshots. He rushes to the scene to find that a hustler (Jake Sisko) friend of Benny's has been killed by the police (Gul Dukat and Weyoun), ostensibly because he was trying to break into a car. When Benny protests this injustice, the police beat him savagely.

On his first day back at the office, excited to see his story in print, he learns that the whole month's run of the magazine has been “pulped,” as the owner preferred to take a loss rather than sell a magazine featuring a Negro hero and that Benny is being fired for writing the story. Benny breaks down; he screams that although the world can deny him, they cannot destroy his ideas and the future he envisions is real. He collapses to the floor sobbing and is taken away by an ambulance. As he falls unconscious, he looks through the window and sees not a cityscape, but stars streaking by as if traveling at warp speed. The preacher sits by him and tells him that he is both the dreamer and the dream. Sisko wakes up back on the station, to the relief of his father and his son. He is deeply moved by his vision, and wonders if somewhere Benny Russell is dreaming of them.

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Arc significance

  • This is the first appearance of Benny Russell, in a vision sent to Sisko by the Prophets.
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Conception

Zicree's original pitch for the episode featured Jake Sisko as the main character, and did not deal directly with racial issues. Zicree originally patterned the Bashir/Kira characters on Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, and the O'Brien character on Isaac Asimov.[1]

Zicree's story was combined with ideas that story editor Robert Hewitt Wolfe had written for a script called 'Cold and Distant Stars', a very early draft for the Season Three two-part episode Past Tense, in which Wolfe suggested a story about Sisko as a contemporary homeless man who believes he is a star base captain, but who is diagnosed as schizophrenic and drugged to suppress his visions. At that time, producer Ira Behr had rejected the hallucinatory element in favour of a time-travel story.[2]

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Notes

  • The hustler Jimmy (Cirroc Lofton) expresses the opinion that "niggers" will never get into space except to shine white people's shoes. This is the only use of the word in the Star Trek universe.
  • Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor, who portray Julian Bashir and Kira Nerys, respectively, portray married couple Julius and Kay Eaton in this episode; the pair were married in real life at the time.
  • During an argument, Julius Eaton (Bashir) says "We're writers, not Vikings" in the style of the typical Star Trek doctor's line, "I'm a doctor, not a ...".
  • Many of the covers for the science fiction magazines list titles of original Star Trek episodes, including some by D. C. Fontana (analogous to Kay Hunter in this episode, who, like Fontana, publishes using her initials to prevent her gender being discovered, although the relationship between Hunter and Eaton might also reflect C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner).
  • Incredible Stories' offices are in the "Arthur Trill building", a reference to both the Trill species and the real-life Brill Building.
  • Pabst remarks that Herbert has "been angry ever since Joseph Stalin died." This statement, in addition to being an accusation of Communist sympathies on Herbert's part, would place the 20th century events of the episode sometime after March 5, 1953. The cover of the Galaxy Science Fiction which Russell buys says it is the September 1953 edition. A newspaper shown at the beginning of the episode has the headline "REDS TEST H-BOMB", which would suggest a date just after August 12, 1953 (project RDS-6).
  • Willie Hawkins remarks to Benny that he'd hit a home run the night before, but Benny responds that the Giants are in fifth place. This is consistent with a 1953 date, as the New York Giants finished fifth in the National League that season.
  • Although dressed as a Catholic priest, Brock Peters' street preacher refers to the "Prophets" and at one point touches Benny's ear as a Bajoran cleric would to sense one's pagh.
  • At one point, Benjamin's dream slightly derails and he sees himself reflected in a window as Sisko in his Starfleet uniform. Later when the writing staff are discussing his new Deep Space 9 book, he sees Kira Nerys instead of K.C. Hunter. At another point, while dancing with his bride to be in his apartment, Benjamin sees himself dancing with Kasidy on DS9. He also sees Worf in a Klingon uniform instead of Willie the baseball player, and Dukat and Weyoun as the detectives while they are beating him.
  • The crew of "What You Leave Behind" toyed with the idea of having the final scene feature Benny Russell outside a television sound stage with a script titled "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", suggesting that Deep Space Nine (and possibly all of Star Trek) was a dream. Ultimately, it was decided that such an ending would betray the theme of the franchise.[citation needed]
  • Benny Russel reappears in the Deep Space Nine continuation novel 'The Fall of Terok Nor', where quotes from his Deep Space Nine stories open each book.
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Alternate roles in 1950s

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See also

  • "Normal Again" - a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode that takes a similar approach of an entire series being a mentally constructed fiction of the main character
  • Tommy Westphall Universe - another approach that the entire series (and linked ones) are imagined by an autistic boy
  • Far Beyond the Stars - a novelization of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
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References

  1. ^ Joe Nazzaro (June 1998). "Going Far Beyond the Stars". Star Trek Monthly (Titan Magazines). pp. 42–46. 
  2. ^ Erdmann, Terry; Block, Paula (2000). The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. New York City: Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster Inc. p. 196. ISBN 0-671-50106-2. 
  • Terry J. Erdmann & Paula M. Block, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. New York: Pocket Books (2000): 532 - 537
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External links

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Last modified on 15 May 2013, at 09:03