Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast. Hey, hey, apes, Hey, you see that snickers over there?
No one's looking.
You should just take it.
No, don't listen to him, my son, that would be stealing. And stealing is.
A sin, Sinchman, it's a freaking snick as may you deserve to have it?
Sinning really satisfies you.
Repent my child.
Virtue is the only real snack with saving for that candy body is merely a gateway to Nukeet dumas.
Has this ever happened to you?
Listening to the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and you're not sure what to think?
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I'm Pete Wright and.
I'm Tommy Mess and this season on all the Feelings, we're examining the seven deadly sins.
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Game over.
Horror movies get a bad rap. They're cheap thrills, mindless scre not cinema blah blah blah.
But we here it sitting in the dark no better. We know that horror is more than just jump scares and chainsaws. It's a reflection of our deepest fears. Our anxieties are okay, and there's a lot of jump scares and chade sauce.
Join us, Pete right, Tommy Met's the third, Kyle Wilson and Kenan ds as we cut into the dark heart of horror cinema.
Every episode we explore a different facet of the genre, from survival horror to home invasions, from zombies to birds. We tickle the tropes, analyze the angles, and sharpen our own access.
Along the way, we'll introduce you to the classics that shaped the genre than the modern masterpieces that are pushing the boundaries of terror Sitting in the.
Dark is your guide to navigating the terrifying.
Thrilling, and sometimes hilariously bad world of horror movies.
We'll help you understand why we love to be scared and maybe even convert you into a horror fan yourself. So turn off the lights, close the basement door, enjoina.
In, Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. One thing we like to talk about is the idea of consequences that you know, it's great to see the fight scenes, but sometimes when we see people get wounded, we see people go through really traumatic stuff and they're sad for an episode, but then everything goes back to normal. It doesn't actually feel that realistic. Well Star Trek DS nine in one of the best episodes, well regarded within DS nine and by many people thought of in the
top ten of all Star Trek episodes. In the episode Only a Paper Moon Season seven, episode ten, they actually really explore in some beautiful ways the effects of trauma, the effects of amputation, the effects of coming to terms with life after war and after a catastrophic injury. And we're talking about that here with my co host Riky Hayashi, and for folks, who aren't DS nine fans or just
saw this episode many years ago. Don't worry, we'll be giving you a quick summary, but just jumping right in, Wreaky, this was an episode you had originally suggested. Tell us a little bit about why you want to talk about this episode.
Any chance to.
Talk about Star Trek.
Yeah, is excellent for me if you listen to our episode on section thirty one the movie. Even though I hadn't personally watched the movie, I had just like the background information Star Trek, Like I just I know it all and so like I sometimes come off that way, I know as a know it all, like when I recite like episode.
Titles and stuff.
That's just like it is my most nerdy passion. Like I think I like Star Wars the franchise better, but Star Trek is where I love to get into, just like the fandom of it.
Yeah, I can see that.
No, that totally makes sense, And yeah, I love Star Trek. I think I've said before. I know I've said before many times that my mother showing me Star Trek and asking me ethical questions about it as a kid was really the birthplace of this podcast, as well as so many of my sort of issues in interests and love when it comes to how all this plays out. And so let me give kind of a brief summary of this episode. So this is set in the last season of d S nine. Forgive spoilers for a twenty year
old show at thirty year or show. At this point, we are deep into the Dominion War and one of the characters who has gone off to war is Nog. Nog is a Ferengi. He is the son of Ram, who is the brother of Cork, the person who runs the casino and restaurant and all that and bar at
d S nine. Now, Who's a character was originally introduced to us as a haha, look at how sexist and terrible and awful Farrangie men are, and has gone through an incredible evolution to the point where he became a member of starfleet and a member of the military and went off to war and has now come back to war,
come back from the war badly injured. He had lost a leg and has now a prosthetic leg, a bioprosthetic leg, but still a story that I is a person who lost my leg amputated very much relate to and I'll get to that, and everyone around him is ready to just sort of like celebrate the hero and move on,
and he's not. He is still in a place of deep trauma about all of this, and he winds up finding that the only place he feels safe and comfortable is the Holideck, and specifically a Holidec program that's been running called where it's basically about the golden age of Vegas, the kind of days of like Frankie Sinatra and all the crooners, the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and they've invented a character who's very much part of that brat pack
era called Vic Fontaine, and Nog basically spends a lot of his time with Vic, working with him, like helping him to rebuild his casino, and there's a lot of debate about like is this good for him or bad for him? And you know, eventually it shows that like, yes, actually this is very healing for him and helped with his trauma until it gets to a point where he's kind of stuck there and it's gone from being helping to enabling, and.
Vic vad and himself is the one.
Who kind of helps to push Nog back out into the world and goes out into the world. And while the idea that PTSD is all solved in one episode is kind of ridiculous, it is still one of the only real treatments of this that I've seen, especially in a show that isn't thought of as like super dark and gritty, but you know, more like a Star Trek show. And so, yeah, there's just a lot to talk about. But is that Riki? Did I cover a motion of
the major plot points. We'll get into more of the details as we go on, for sure.
Yeah, I'll just go over you mentioned it was season seven h SO ten. The story is by David Mack and John Jay Ordover. The teleplay I meaning kind of like the final script was by Ronald D. Moore, who is like the architect of Deep Space nine in a lot of ways, and as directed by Anson Williams. The previous episode right where you mentioned Nog was injured, is also one of the best in Deep Space nine, dealing with like the realities of war, the siege of Ar
five five eight. We see Nog go from kind of wide eyed and excited to then like being scared, and then finally like in the end, just injured and broken and in that moment, I believe when he's like waiting for surgery or something like that, like he's on a surgical bed or something, he's listening to Vic Fontaine's music.
I think is the.
Connection to why he ends up retreating into the hollow suite world of the Las Vegas Casino.
Yeah, very much so.
And let me just talk about the character of Nog himself for a minute, because I think the fact that it is Nog who goes through all this is very important because, as I said, Nag was a really presented as comic relief and as a reminder that the Ferengi are different and weird and bad and frankly, it's not my or I think a lot of people's favorite part of episode of the early parts of d S nine because you know, in a TV tactic that star Trek was by no means unique in that was done all
the time. There's a lot of like, we're going to have a character be super sexist and super awful, but don't worry about it because we're doing it to mock him. And and but yeah, he is the Fngi traditional Ferengi male. If you don't know, there are species that believes that like men are the only ones out in socith they're very much kind of like supposed to be like nineteenth century robber barons of American capitalism, but taken to an
anthic stream. So women are supposed to stay home and never go out in public and never talk to anyone.
Uh, they're you.
Know, aren't allowed to wear clothes clothes exactly.
And and he's just really part of the show is but the Frangie having to live in community with everyone else. It's about everyone living in community with everyone else. And he responds really badly to it. And over the years they've given him more and more to do and allowed him to become part of Starfleet and that he kind of wanted to go into Starfleet Command. He's the first Fengi.
To do so.
I would say Star Trek loves the first. So we've had so many characters who were the first of their race to do warfing, which is definitely pretty good. Yeah, Wharf, I think the Trill was like one of the first Trills to go into Star Trek, you know, I think Balana from Beijor.
We had a lot of these kind of things, and he gets that kind of arc.
But he's always still It's always still a little o haha this, you know, among other things. Nog is a very short character. He's played by Aaron Eisenberg, who has sadly passed away. But it was a very good actor, especially in this issue in this episode, and he was someone who had kidney problems as a teenager and that stopped his growth at five foot so.
But he really makes that an important part of the character. And in this.
I think the fact that it was Nag means so much because part of the issue I think that happens is that by joining Starfleet, remember everyone around him had said, don't do this, this is a wrong idea, this is terrible, And I think that definitely adds to the feelings he's going through, because you know, when you're the person who says I can do something that everyone else says you shouldn't do, and you can't do, and then you wind up doing it and something terrible happens, that only adds,
I think, in a lot of ways to the trauma of it and the feeling of like, did I make a terrible mistake?
And why you know the world wasn't as safe for me as I thought it was.
Because I think, as you kind of mentioned, he's kind of wide eyed and innocent, and he says that he definitely has a sense of like, I'm watching this trauma happening to other people, but I had that kind of like young person invincibility feeling like that it could never
happen to me. And I think the fact that it's him and that he's a Ferengi and they's so out of his element means a lot in terms of why he then after this accident, after this war wound, needs to kind of go back and do kind of the cocoon of his own making of like this is my safe place.
Yeah, nog to me like this whole show. You know. I could go on and on about why I love Deep Space nine. One of the reasons is the redemption of the Faringi race. They are introduced in Star Trek the Next Generation, and like a lot of alien races in Star Trek, they quickly became a mono culture caricature.
Right.
Klingons are all about honor, Romulans are all about treachery. The Faringi are all about profit right, and like they have a society, societal religion almost I guess where they base everything around the rules of acquisition. You may have heard, you know, there's a numbered like two hundred or something, two hundred and fifty rules of Acquisition that they all adhere to, and they're like little little Quippi sayings about how to make money.
Yeah, it's basically their bible.
If you think about how someone will be like well, Luke sixteen forty two says, you know, they do that with the rules of acquisition.
And Nog and his father Ram both break away from this profit based mentality. Ram joins the engineering staff. I mean it becomes an engineer on the station.
He said.
You know, Nog joins Starfleet and ultimately becomes a soldier in this case because they're at war with the Dominion. And that's very important because again, like the not every Feringhi should just be about profit, right, Not every Klingon should be a warrior in a real, more realistic setting. And these are shorthands that the show develops so that we, you know, we have something to lean on. But when you have the time to develop a character like this, it's it's really so.
So much better.
Well, and that's why, And it's funny. I remember watching this episode mostly being stuck, struck by the trauma and the amputation aspects of it all also, and we're gonna get to that. We have a lot to say about that, but just going a little deeper on this because I really noticed it on this watch through that I did last night. I think, given everything we've just said, it is so interesting that what Noog does. You know, again, it's all this fictional world where it doesn't actually matter.
But in the fictional world, they've created the idea that Vic Fontein is struggling with his finances yea, and Nog winds up helping him with that and coming up with actually all of these profit laiden plans, and Spacilli says at one point when Vic says like, are you you know, are you sure you're gonna be good enough to take over the books? And he says, I'm a frangie, It's
in my blood. And that line hit me so hard because I do think that is off and a strong trauma response, especially after you know, trying to leave, like you know, what your your your family taught you, or what your culture taught you, and you've gone out into the world and something bad has happened. Often part of the first response can be Okay, let me let me go back, let me let me go back to where everything was safe.
And you know, it's just they don't.
Lampshade that that I'm taking a small little tidbit and reading a lot into it, But it felt like it was very intentional to have that little moment of part of his response to all this is going back to being a frangie in that kind of a way. And to be clear, he doesn't go back to any of the sexism or any of awful stuff, but just that idea of like I'm a frangie, im good at profit becomes a big part of his his like comfort zone.
Yeah, and I found it a good way to utilize that monoculture trait, right. It It is still when you think about it, kind of ridiculous, right, But if you have that upbringing, he at least was like exposed to enough things. And I think that's what they're saying, is like it's not racially in their blood, Yeah, but that he grew up in this culture that magnified profit.
To this degree.
So being put in this situation, even though it's nineteen fifties Las Vegas Earth simulation, he understands, you know, the basics.
Of what to do right.
And I think it's also a nice statement again on this, because I think you're right the monoculture ideas are not very realistic. But also then the idea of I will reject my monoculture and so my whole culture will be about the rejection of that.
That does happen in the real world.
But it's not often the healthiest perspective, and that I mean it can be in some ways, to be sure, but sometimes people find the best sort of path when they're able to say I'm rejecting all of the repression and rejecting all of the things that taught me to not like mysel or whatever. But I'm also accepting that there were things about how I grew up or my culture or my connections that I do love or that I do relate to outside of everything else that was on top of it.
And I think that that's a part of where he goes.
Yeah, I agree, And now that we're talking about it, I feel like this is actually maybe a representation of diaspora in the real world where you see, like for me, as an Asian American, like you see how the generation born or that came, you know, after immigration to America from Asia. A lot of these people who grew up in the US and that's kind of all they know, had this moment of like, but I do kind of
want to go back and reconnect with my roots. And that's what he's doing because he's been he grew up on Deep Space nine among Bajorans and humans and not among f Ringi, right, so since maybe like early teens, and so he's having this moment of reconnecting with this culture in a healthy, positive way, as you said, and not the misogynistic aspects of the culture.
Right.
So let's talk actually then about the what happens to him and the trauma, the PTSD and the losing of his leg. And I will name from the beginning that I have a very biased perspective obviously on this, because I can relate to what he's going through about halfway in that I did have and that I did lose my leg to amputation and a lot of the things, and it was very traumatic, and a lot of the things that he goes through are similar to what I've gone through, But of course I've never been to war.
There's very different circumstances to which how I lost my leg And I would not claim to have like war caused PTSD in any of the same way as but it's certainly something I know quite a lot about and a lot of counseling the folks in that world, and
my own mental stuff is very similar to PTSD. So just some of the things that I noticed early on one was just this whole idea of how everyone was unsure of what to say to him, and that there were things that people were saying, Well, let me ask you, like what was your response to people like his family and Jake and Jake's girlfriend Kiara trying to sort of offer him words of help and him rejecting them.
It was painful to watch, and obviously like that's the point in this episode, But what I really felt was so many of those characters were civilians, right yeah, and I don't I don't recall like if they gave him if there was like a starfleet like soldier character who tried to reach out to him, like, did did Chief O'Brien talk to him? Because that's that's who I would think of as like a veteran who has seen war and like.
Has had some trauma over it.
We saw it, and I think Next Generation where he has like a very racist response to Cardassians because he fought against them.
Yeah, and he does talk to Obrian briefly, but it's about vic Fontaine and we'll get to.
That of oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm really glad you picked up on that, because I do think a lot of the times this is portrayed as everyone around the person is doing their absolute best and is saying really helpful good things, but the person with PTSD is being a jerk and rejecting them all. And I do think everyone is tronging their best. I think,
do you think everyone is trying to help? But I think what this show portrayed and what I really related to because how I experience is that people are actually really bad at knowing what's a good way to speak to someone after something like this, and although they should because it's probably takes a lot of training to have a good idea. But like there's one scene where Jake
and the girl he's dating at that moment. I think her name was Kiata something like that, and I can't get it wrong, but Jacob's fortunately.
Like Jake has a lot of girlfriends of the work.
Yes, of psycho through.
And Jake goes off to use the refresher, which is their sort of very polite way of saying, goes to the bathroom, and he's left there with Kiara, and Kira is clearly trying to be curious but trying to be helpful, but also she's clearly very curious, and she's kind of like dancing around what she's trying to say, and he catches her like staring at his legs, trying to figure out which is the real one and which is the
myoprosthetic one. And that moment hit me like a ton of bricks, because I have had I mean, I think it's pretty clear with me that I have a prosthetic leg.
That is pretty obvious, but just this idea of people like wanting to ask questions that I think might be rude, but kind of dancing around it and wanting me to be the one to jump in, and just you know, maybe that I'm like not being a little unfair to folks because I don't expect people to know how to do it, But I just I could tell that those scenes were written by someone who at least knew someone who had been through moments like this, of like the
soldier coming home and no one knowing how to talk to them, of the person has gone through a major injury and no one knows how to relate to them. Because I felt like, did this really good job of showing that Noog needs help and he's not really being very pleasant to people around him, but also that there's some justification and that the people around him are trying but are kind of just making things worse.
Yeah, you really feel that in this episode. And there's kind of like a jokey thing, right, like where when someone is depressed, Yep, there's like a oh, have you tried not being depressed?
Right?
Like that's obviously not the solution, but often people say things very similar to that in a way that is just like condescending and not understanding of the situation.
So yeah, it definitely felt.
That this episode of people being uncomfortable and not really knowing what to do.
Yeah, and that's what that's what made.
Like the Vic Fonteine thing work, right, Like, he goes into the Hollow suite and Vic the character treats him completely differently or maybe not differently as the point.
Right, normally, Yeah, he treats them the way he would have beforehand, and is kind of aware of the leg but doesn't uh. And there's an interesting back and forth there because so this is after the Trill has.
Switched to a new person. It's no longer jed.
Zia Dax, it's Ezridas.
Ezri Dakx, thank you, and her role is to be the ship's counselor the station's counselor kind of like what Blana Troy was on the Next Generation. And she at
first is like, no, this is fundamentally unhealthy. This is bad, and Vic has to kind of convince her that no, actually, what they're doing for Nog is helping, because among other things, he's trying to help him kind of like not just sit around in mope, try to get make him more active, feel more confident about himself, and was presented as kind of a guffin of the episode is this idea that his prosthetic leg, it's a bioprosthetic legs, which should be
completely fine, but that Knog has a lot of pain about it and walks with a cane and one of my favorite lines in the show, he at one point says that he knows that everyone else feels like The quote is the problem's all in my head, that I'm crazy, and it's never quite returned to you. But I feel like part of what the episode gets at is that, yes, it is all in his head, but he's not crazy. And for me, as someone you know, a little bit of a tangent here, but I think it's relevant. I've
often talked about that. I don't like science fiction that says that we have a disabled character, but because of technology or magic or science or whatever, that disability basically goes away. And here they have a level of scientific possibility of a prosthetic wildly.
Beyond what we have in our own world.
I can't relate to that, but the idea of a prosthetic feeling like it doesn't fit even if it technically does, because it's just.
Not a it's not your body.
You are still getting used to it in ways that are difficult, and that there are phantom pains and that there are feelings and people telling you it's all in your head. Ask any amputee and they probably can watch that scene and be like, Yep, that's that's my experience right there on screen.
And good well, I was gonna say, like that that phrase phantom pain, right is like if you've lost a limb, you still think that you feel things there, like pain, right, even though there's physically nothing, no nerves there.
Well, in technical like there is an agree to which, yeah, it can be entirely psychological, but also sometimes it's that there are nerves there, but they're just dead end into like dead skin or whatever.
And so there are random firings of people. Yeah, yeah, exactly so.
And yeah, obviously we don't know the science and the biology of his leg, but I thought that was just a really effective way of making his experience one that a lot of other people can relate to. And and so anyways, so back to the main topic, Vic kind of gives him this newer cane that's like cool and awesome. It has a lighter so you can light women's cigarettes.
It's the nineteen fifties, it's a very different times, and but it's it's but the idea being that doesn't actually support his weight, and he's going to start and also as he gets more excited about things, kind of forgetting that he needs the cane, which is.
A time honored, very good, good psychological tool.
And you know, for a long time, Vic Fontaines actually does heal Nog in a lot of important ways.
Yeah, and there's a beautiful shot of like panning back to the cane, just like sitting sitting there, like leaning against something, right, like to end a scene to remind us or show us like, oh hey, yeah, he doesn't need that anymore.
Yeah, yeah, Okay, So maybe.
This is the right spot to say because you mentioned Ezri Dax who comes board as the ship the station's counselor and continues this time honor tradition in Star Trek of mental health professionals being kind of bad at their jobs unfortunately, like counselor Troy in Next Generation was so badly used as a character.
She had no boundaries, She had no professional boundaries. It was awful, and there.
Were so many episodes where characters end up going to
Guidnan the bartender of Ted Forward, for guidance. So this is like, to me, feels like a similar situation where the mental health professional, the person trained in this field, is just kind of fumbling the situation and a non professional like casual like bartender, your casino owner character just happens to like know the right things to say and the right things to do for this person, right, and I just that is my least favorite part of this episode.
Ezri DAC's like at the very end, I think like, oh yeah, like talks to Biggs like you were right, like you had the right track. But in the beginning she just seems so again like bad at her job.
Yeah, I definitely hear where you're coming from, and I want to get to that. Let me just make one or two things about the trauma as well, that I just again thought were perfect. There's a moment where he's watching Shane the old John Wayne movie, which the idea that people have you know, twenty twenties or the twenty
two whatever, twenty three whatever of this show. Fans are yelling at me that I don't know the exact dates right now, but that they would still remember this John Wayne movie seems pretty weird, but the idea that people in the nineteen fifties would be watching it on television
makes total sense. But in that movie, like a lot of cowboy movies, like a lot of action movies both then and today, the character gets injured and then five minutes later is having his big goodbye with a pretty girl, and there's just no mention of his injury and and Nog says, quote, wasn't he shot just a few minutes ago?
He's not even bleeding. And this is something that I'm not sure.
Again, having not been in warm myself, I don't relate to quite as much, although I do feel it like when you know, Misty Knight puts on a new prosthetic
arm and everything is perfect. But I've definitely heard from a lot of others just that when you've seen actual war, when you've seen actual violence of whatever kind, seeing the way it's presented on TV and in movies where there's so little consequence, like yeah, you're shot and then you just tie up your arm and everything's fine, really drives people crazy.
Yeah, drives me crazy.
Yeah, I can get that.
And here's one other things that they mentioned that I thought was really powerful because again showing this, I think there's a while of like every villain on TV or in movies had PTSD and it was kind of presented as kind of like this terrible thing. And I think now there's more sympathy of like PTSD can lead to bad outcomes if people aren't treated, but we're not demonizing
people with it anymore. But I like that again, he has shown being a jerk to a lot of folks, and one of the primary ways it happens is he becomes very self focused, like he assumes that he can stay with Vic forever because doesn't think for a minute.
About what Vic might want in a situation.
He kind of assumes that, like everyone else like that, their needs are going to become sublimated to what he needs, mostly in terms of his family, in terms of his friends and stuff like that.
And I think that's a very real thing that happened.
It's certainly happened to me, and so I just it's subtle, it's it's never lamp shaded, but it was just one more way I was like, Okay, someone really understands trauma.
Who made this episode?
Yeah, I don't know specifically, like who involved created like those aspects of it, but I'm glad you're saying that because to me, as an outsider to these types of situations, it felt realistic, right, And that's I think that's part of what makes this episode so effective, is that, Yeah, I think like the nog being a jerk aspect, or.
At least, you know, not to be judgmental, but like rejecting his friend's help Yeah, is a very powerful setup to this whole situation.
Very much so.
And I will say I don't know anything about his specifics, but Ronald D. Moore, who, as you said, was very involved in this episode in Star Trek, but it also went on to be the I think either the showrunner or the head writer or someone very involved with the
making of Battle Star Galactica. And that is one about a military and I've heard him talk at times that one of his frustrations with Star Trek is that he couldn't really just flat out call Starfleet a military and and that he wanted to deal with like the mental side of military trauma. So clearly it's something he's had a large interest in, and so I imagine he's had some background or some experience, or at least some some research he's done into that.
Yeah, And that's the thing like even if you don't have firsthand experience, necessarily, like if you do the research, like we talked about this with Full Metal Alchemists, where the author Arakawa did a lot of research into talked to war veterans and especially those with injuries to get their perspective on all of that, and that that's like the all we ask, is like, even if we talk about media and how like representation is important and how
having people who have the lived experiences can can deliver better, more authentic stories, that doesn't mean that people outside of those experiences can't write about these subjects.
Yeah, but it means you have to.
Have an extra level of responsibility to do the research, talk to people who have experienced it, and to try to understand and not just like project your own Like, Oh, I think this is what it would be like.
Yeah, I've hinted about this before, but I don't think I've been able to go into detail before because the book hadn't come out yet. But the new Brandon Sanderson novel in the Stormlight Archives Win in Truth. If you go through the acknowledgment page, and most people don't, I never would either, so don't blame if you didn't. But if you do go through it, you'll see prosthetics and
disability expert Matthew Fox. Oh wow, And it was exactly what you're talking about, because I know someone who's a beta reader for him, and he apparently is very good about this, and he had a character who lost a leg and used a prosthetic during the course of the book, and he sent me those chapters and had me kind of make comments on them, and I'm very proud that, like the they changed a lot of the way the story was structured for him based on the comments I
made where I was like, this is realistic, this isn't and stuff like that, and again fitting into his magical world. But you know, and I think it's really cool, and I think that more and more authors doing that is so needed.
That is awesome to hear for you, but also just like for the industry and for Brandon Sanderson, that that fits with my understanding of him. Yeah, is that I believe he's Mormon, right, Yeah, but he has written LGBTQ characters and has talked to people in the community I believe about that issue and it's kind of a conflicting situation because of his faith, but he still tries to like listen to communities and to try to depict accurate representations, is my understanding.
Yeah, I think that's I think that's true.
I think there's obviously a lot of complications there in controversy and stuff like that, but I think in terms of how he deals with this issue, it's really kind of like setting a standard. Sorry, let me get back to the Ezri part of it, because part of what I noticed when I rewatched it just last night is I think you are right that for most of the episode, Ezri is portrayed as kind of she's the buy the
book person. She's doing what she's been totally supposed to be helpful, but clearly she doesn't have this experience herself. And for most of the episode the story is about how Vic Fontaine.
Is helping him.
But we get to a point where that shifts, and I want to actually read a quote from a friend of ours who commented on when I when I put this question out, Patrick Coole wrote, the way the episode addresses the transition from giving Nog the space to grieve to acknowledging that Nogg is no longer grieving and as
instead wallowing his own self pity is incredible. The fine line between holding space and enabling is one that is too often ignored, and I want to talk about that in general, but just that one.
Uh.
It is Ezri who points out to Fontaine, hey, you've kind of crossed this line. You're now into enabling territory, and and Fontaine listens to her and that's what able to help him given the final push. So I agree it's still not a great representation on meltal health professionals, but I do think it's significantly better than we often would get.
No, you're right, that's a very that's an excellent point.
Yeah, it's just I think like in the context of a therapist, right, Like I what I'm disappointed by in the depictions and Star Trek is like there's there are very few like good therapy sessions, and it's usually just like the therapist like not getting through or the person not sharing and then like storming off and talking to the bartender or the hollow character. So that that yeah, okay, I can see where where Patrick is coming from. Yeah, it is a very good turn.
Yeah, I think part of it's a TV problem because somewhat by definition, like a therapist shouldn't have that a therapist circle of friends shouldn't.
Be their patience. Like that's just a boundaries issue.
But on a show where it's like this, you want the Baalana Troy character, you want the ez A character to be part of the circle of friends of the ensemble, and so it's just fundamentally mix. But but yeah, like, what do you think of this idea of like that shift from he's there and it's helping him, but then like it gets to a point where he needs he needs to go on from that and he has trouble seeing that.
Yeah, it I think it is accurate to real life situations. But obviously, like given the circumstances of this fictional world, you can't stay in the Hollow Suite forever because it's not real. And that's often you know, that's often a phrasing that gets used about any situation like this, Like if you get super involved in an M M O RPG, right, and it's like you're spending too much time, Like that's
not real. That's not real life, right, Right In this case, like the Hollow Suite feels real because you're interacting with it, and it visually and tech tact tactfully feels like the real world, but it's not. And I think that's like the distinction that ultimately has to be drawn for the sake of the character and for the TV show. You can't just have the rest of the season play out with Noggs sitting in the Hall suite forever. But the the way they do it is excellent and somewhat heartbreaking
to me. Yeah, like when when when Big just shuts himself off, I think we're going to transition into this discussion of what the heck is Big Fontaine. But yeah, like obviously no can't stay there.
Right, Yeah.
And it's interesting because I do think like this topic of like internet addiction and like losing yourself in games and stuff is such a difficult one because and I feel like this sometimes, like I feel like there are things.
In the world where.
I recognize that they can be dangerous, but I also recognize that the people yelling loudest about them are often pretty terrible and don't get it, you know. And so when it comes to things like, you know, I do think people can smoke too much pot, or that people can like get too into porn, and it really kind of like start to, you know, change how they're interacting with people or stuff like that, or think of other
things like that. But the fact is that like the people who are attacking those things just think that they're fundamentally evil instead of recognizing no, like pot can be really good for you for in a lot of ways, or like porn can be a completely healthy way that people enjoy sexuality, you know, as look at it because it comes something you're like losing yourself in. And where is that line of losing yourself? That's really hard to find?
And I feel very similar about this and that I do think there are people who really suffer because they kind of focus all of their social energy and attention and focus into online worlds with people they know online. But I also know that like people have gotten married, people have built families and communities, and I know, especially during COVID, a lot of those like MMOs or you know, other things like that really saved people's lives. And and yeah, and so like, I think you're right, it is a
good translation of that issue. And I appreciate that they by allowing there to be some real value and healthiness that comes from Nog being at vic Fontaine's but then eventually realizing that this is a crutch that can't be his forever and he has to move on. I just thought that was a brilliant way of like not falling to either side, not falling into like, oh, it's all bad kind of thing that often happens.
Yeah, because Star Trek has already dealt with that in Next generation with the character of Lieutenant Barkley, right, who had like I think they call it like hollow addiction, yeah, where he was using the Holow Deck in an unhealthy way to play out various fantasies and like revenge fantasies against his coworkers, crewmates and stuff.
Right, Yeah, And I like, I liked those episodes, but I thought they were very heavy handed, and I think this is just a much more sort of def touch that is aware of sort of both sides.
No, I agree, And I think so much of it is the character of Vic and I don't think we've mentioned it.
He's played by.
James Darren, who was a prominent star like in the fifties and sixties, he was in Gidget and The Time Tunnel or like the other credits that I say that I recognize and remember I remember watching The.
Time Tunnel, so not not like when it was live, but yeah, I think the stream runs.
I don't think he ever actually ran with Frank Sinatra on the Brat Pack, but he's definitely like like he is a legit crooner of that kind of age.
He's like even in this episode in Deep Space nine, he is a good looking man like maybe sixties at this point.
Yeah, you want if a dictionary under silver Fox has a picture of him, that is not a problem. And he's a phenomenal singer, like you realize, like why people like that kind of krooner jazz, you know.
Kind of idea.
And his Wikipedia page, like his profile pick is a picture from the Time Tunnel, which was in the sixties, and like he's just giving this moment, this super intense look and I just can't, I can't look at him anymore.
I love it.
It swoon.
Well, yeah, he's he's great and and his singing is wonderful. But in this episode until now, like a lot of Holidac characters, and I think, like Gynan, he's mostly there to be a plot device for other characters to.
Give them the note of wisdom that they need, or to give them a place to have fun and escape to.
And I really love and I really noticed on this rewatch how much it is about him as well, because one of the things that I think comes up and I as a friend who has been through trauma but often helps people with trauma as well, I think this is very very true. One of the reasons why therapists have strong boundaries is because when you are a friend who's kind of acting like a therapist and you are helping someone and someone is getting better because because of you,
that's incredible for your ego, that feels wonderful. And acknowledging that that is over and they don't need you anymore and that maybe you should stop doing that is not easy. And we have a word for that, codependency. Like that's literally the definition, or it's one part of the definition.
I'm not an expert there, but like, and again it's never stated in anything but the most passing terms, but there there is a moment where Ezery kind of says, like, you're really enjoying this in some way, and he's like, yeah, I guess maybe that's true, and you're right. The way he does it is he kind of has to take this tough love attitude because it seems like nothing else is working. But I just really appreciate that they show that, Yeah, it's not just that Vic missed that this was no
longer good for for Nog. It's that Vic Vick's getting something out of it too, and that's no longer healthy for NOG, and that for Vic to have to do that is hurtful to Vic as well, and because, as he says, like I've been kept on twenty four hours, I'm getting to have a life and interact with people and not just be you know, the giver of nugget wisdom that I sing a song and then I go away and I yeah, both just in terms of acknowledging
that trauma relationship of the helpful friend, but also acknowledging like this is a step forward for photonic life, artificial life, as they did with a doctor India in Voyager and other things like that.
I just I just love it.
I love it too. For the character of Vic, I am, I am mystified by the technology and what he is, maybe because the doctor, the Doctor and Voyager makes a lot more sense, right because from the beginning of the show that Concede is like he was an emergency medical hologram, but they all of their doctors die and they have to keep him online, like so he has to become a member of the crew, and and there are various episodes where they like add subroutines to his personality and
like improve his his holow deck technology. He gets the mobile emitter so that he can leave the hollow deck.
Et cetera.
There's none of that with Vic, and all of a sudden, he's just a very real person. Yeah in the best way, like as a character. But I'm like, where where did all this come from? Like? What is going on here?
Right? Yeah?
It's so it's so interesting and and part of the ideas is said is that Vic not only like is enjoying the feeling of being the friend to Nog, but also that he gets to like play poker with the he gets to do all the things off screen.
You know that that exactly because if you.
Think about like, yeah, a character appears on screen, if they only exist in the in the moments that they're on screen, they're the NPC, you know. Yeah, And like what does the NPC get to do with the rest of his life? Here he gets to have the rest of his life, and Nog, as a way of saying thank you, works out this idea of that the program will keep running all the time, so he gets to
keep living a life and doing all these things. And yeah, I I think the way they use the Holid deck to in individual episodes or individual arcs, answer these interesting questions is really cool. But I think you have to acknowledge that the rhyme that there's actually no scientific rhyme now works.
It does not make any sense.
And the reason the reason I get hung up on it is because Star Trek as a franchise does try to explain itself and the science more, even if it's even if it's technobabble. They add that technobabble to explain like why this thing works this way, and Vic is never really adequately explained to my satisfaction.
But I don't know, like we just we roll with it and we benefit.
Like just think about the two main characters on this episode, Nog and Vic. They're the centerpieces, like all of the emotional beats like are about them. Neither one of these characters is a main character, right, Like neither one of these actors appears in the opening credits of I don't know, like seven.
Or eight people who are like the regulars.
Nog at this point is like kind of a semi regular, and like Vic is probably like a guest star, I would say. But to be able to center an entire episode onto secondary or even tertiary and vixed case characters amazing, Like I this is the kind of like what people derisively call filler. But I think of as character episodes that I miss in television.
I really do, and I part of it is I think it's talking called filler. I think another thing that thought of is that. And again I don't know the details. My understanding is that a lot of times, like a TV show would create an episode like this that really only focuses on one or two characters and sometimes their
main cast, and sometimes they're not. But part of it is to be able to like give other people like a week off, you know, like most of the characters probably could come in for one day of work for this season, for this episode because they're not in anywhere
as much of it as they might normally be. And yeah, I just think that they're great and I love that even when other characters do play a role, it's Ezri and Miles O'Brien, you know, Cisco has almost nothing to do in this episode, Odo Quark, like each of them have like five lines maximum, and O'Brien has I think
one of my favorite lines in the show. And this goes back to the stuff about Fontaine, because nag is talking to O'Brien about like Fonteine Fontaine, because at one point Fontaine is so determ armange like send Nog out into the regular world, that Fontaine himself turns off his program.
Yeah again, like completely technologically illogical. Yeah, a computer to turn itself off, because that's what he is, Like, he is the computer.
Well, a great way of acknowledging that. I thought.
Nog asks Miles O'Brien, you mean he has free will, meaning vic and Miles says, I'm an engineer.
Not a philosopher.
Right, that's a good dodge for the writers.
Good dodge.
It's a nice callback to bones, you know, damn it, I'm But it's also just a nice way of being like.
Yeah, these people don't understand. They're just the technicians.
I don't know, and I like, I don't I like the person podcasting right now, I don't know either. That's the thing is, like, what what does this mean for him and for like computers in Star Trek?
Yeah.
Well, and not to get all woke about this, but I think there's actually an powerful lesson in that, because it is I think the storyteller somewhat saying, don't worry how many angels are dancing on the pin. Let's talk about the fact that the angels are dancing salsa, like that's that's the thing I want you to focus on. Yeah, and is the way of saying, don't focus on it.
Yeah.
But I also think there's something important when it comes to the idea of you know, diversity, and of learning about new races and new cultures and new peoples of sometimes saying it's okay if I don't fully understand this, I can respect it. And that goes for everything from
you know, other people don't. Necessarily I will often say, like, hey, please don't push my wheelchair, and I can tell that people don't understand that they don't get why I wouldn't want their help, even like if I'm going up a hill and they can see that I'm struggling. And to me, what I really appreciate is the people who can say I don't understand, but I will respect that, you know.
And in the same way that like, you know, when you tell me about something that's really important to you or someone else many other culture that's not I'll appreciate if someone takes the time to help me understand, but
I don't need that. Also one has to say, is hey, this is important to me, Please respect that and I'm gonna respect that, and I don't get to understand it necessarily, and I just I don't know if that's intended or from just reading reading it in there, but I think it's definitely something that the episode brings up.
Yeah, I've read I interpreted that more. Just like, please don't ask questions about this, but I think it's fine. Like I have questions about it, but it's not in a way that makes me go, ah, like this episode, like they can't even answer this question about hollow sweet characters yeap. Ultimately, yeah, like I don't care because yea, the episode is so good. The character himself is so good.
Like I would love if there were like a few additional vic Fonte episodes, yeah that actually deal with him and like what he is and who he is, But we don't get that. And it's fine because again, he's like the tenth most important character on d Space nine.
Well I think part of it is that. And this just kind of goes to a larger statement I've made before that like I am fine not caring about the science of something if you don't ask me to care about it. This is why Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is one of my favorite time travel movies because the time travel doesn't make any sense, but they never ask you to believe it makes sense, whereas like when other things say, okay, time travel works like this, and here's
the way we're going to logically justify it. Now, I feel like, if you've invited me into a logical conversation about it, I'm gonna point out where your logic breaks down.
Right When when do you establish rules and then immediately break them yourself?
Is the problem?
Like there's a there's a whole set of episodes in Star Trek Next Generation because they love the shock Data loves the Sholock Holmes program. Moriarty becomes self aware, and they keep trying to establish like here are the rules of the Holid Deck and then breaking them and it's just so frustrating. And so I just like this more that it's like, here's mcfontaine, Why did he do this matter? We're not philosophers, We're just telling a story.
Yeah, and it's just Yeah is a fully realized character. That's the amazing thing, because I think it's after this he has another great episode where he plays like a romantic consultant to Odo Yeah and helps him establish a romantic relation with Kira, and I just it amazes me that they were able to do this on this show with this character, Because if you said, like, here's a future sci fi show and they have a nineteen fifties krooner character in a hollow suite and he's going to
have like these very important episodes, like what you talking about, Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but it works.
Yeah, I think it's true. I think it's true.
Well, when we wrap up here, a couple quick things of business I want to say to all of y'all. First of all, I've been putting this out there on social media more, but we are generally gonna be recording every Thursday at twelve noon Central time, and it is on YouTube. You can find the tapes of them on YouTube. But if you sign it at that time, you can be here live, You can make comments, you can join in the conversation. Next week, we're gonna be doing our
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