Statistical Probabilities

My favourite DS9 episode. Of all DS9 episodes. Dr Bashir finds out that he got genetically altered as a baby, and starts bonding with fellow sufferers. Genetic engineering had been there in the original Star Trek show, see Khan Noonien Singh. But DS9's take is even better. The characters we see here are good people. Including a very sexy lady. Another fellow is hyper-intelligent. Apart from the interesting character, I felt the acting was stellar. I felt I had seen none of this before. In fact, I would watch an entire Star Trek spin-off with only that band of inspiring people. I'm not sure if everyone agrees with my favourite-episode-pick, but those 45 minutes are absolutely unique in the entire 1,000-episode Star Trek franchise, and feel fresh forever. --- Search "Trek Greenspace" on Google Play Books and join my Star Trek Fan Project!

Reminded me of the scene in Community where Abed makes fun of shows for using a social disorder as a procedural device - the stereotypes in this episode were painful to watch.

Dr Bashir meets a group of genetically enhanced individuals.

This is a fun episode with good humour and dialogue.

It is well written, making light of the megalomania associated with super-intelligence and putting a Star Trek spin on Asimov's sci-fi concept of psychohistory. It also fits nicely into the Dominion conflict arc from a lighter perspective than usual and uses the character of Bashir very well.

For me though, it is how you react to the guest characters that will likely have the biggest influence on how much you enjoy it. They are all quite eccentric, with one exhibiting some highly annoying personality traits. Taken with the right amount of humour, their scenes are for me mostly good fun and are underlined by serious commentary about how certain individuals are denied basic rights within society. I think Tim Ransom, Faith Salie, Michael Keenan and Hilary Shepard do good work in these roles.

Main cast members Alexander Siddig and Colm Meaney both give strong contributions during their interactions with each other and the guest performers.

After a great start of season 6, with only sons and daughters as a filler episode, it's seriously going down hill now...episode 7,8 and this one as number 9 all rank among the worst Star Trek episodes in my opinion. they left the main plot line to bore us with these uninteresting side steps with horrible new characters. I had to watch this one in 3 steps because I couldn't handle more than 15 minutes at a time without getting too annoyed.

(I only write this review because of the 7,7 rating it has...I was expecting at least a decent episode after the previous 2)

The reality is that if one day we manage to engineer our genetic makeup to improve our cognitive abilities we will look more like bashir and not at all like those mentally ill patients. Simply because we will have removed genetic predisposition for diseases as we manage to actually improve on cognitive abilities.

But that's not acceptable to some people who think man is already perfect as he is. They have to write episodes like this to say Eugenics are bad.

Instead of actually finding arguments that stand the trial of logical eximation, they'd rather create monsters and moralise. As if it was an argument.

I always thought Star Trek writers had a courageous vision of the future, but everything related to eugenics and genetic advancements is plagued with short sighteness and half baked moral arguments.