DS9 Stories/News: Some ‘Deep’ Talk with Alexander Siddig (1)

Source: http://www.ugo.com/movies/alexander-siddig-interview

We chat with one of Sci-Fi’s greatest doctors about DS9 and his new indie hit Cairo Time.

By Jordan Hoffman May 6, 2010

On Being Bashir:

Jordan Hoffman: Before we talk about your new indie Cairo Time, let’s talk about the greatest television series in the history of time, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It’ll always be the greatest and, for better or worse, no matter where you go we will always love Dr. Bashir and his adventures. The show has been off the air for -

Alexander Siddig: A decade.

Jordan Hoffman: Over a decade.

Alexander Siddig: Yeah, a decade and then some.

Jordan Hoffman: I’m just curious to know, now that you’ve got a lot of time behind it, what it’s like if you’re flipping channels or somebody calls you Dr. Bashir on the street?

Alexander Siddig: You know, I got over the whole cool stage of trying to pretend I hadn’t anything to do with it and acting like ‘sci-fi sucks,’ which I immediately went to when I finished the show. Because I was blasé, I needed to distance myself from it to get a career going. But I grew up there; literally from my mid-twenties to my early thirties and it’s home. And I still do, anytime there’s a show that reminds me of it, in structure – I’m doing a fantasy show right now with dinosaurs only because it’s a similar kind of thing, because it’s relaxed so I’m doing two seasons worth of being sort of one of their guys on one of their shows.

Jordan Hoffman: This is Primeval, yes?

Alexander Siddig: Yes, and kids – my son who’s thirteen; everybody actually loves it – it’s a family show but my son who’s thirteen just made a ton of friends at school because I’m doing that show. And I will always have a soft spot, as long as I live, for doing crazy, geeky sci-fi shows. And I hope to goodness that people keep offering me them because I love them.

Changing the DNA:

Jordan Hoffman:  I’m curious, was there ever one episode where you got the script and were just like, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Alexander Siddig: Yeah, there was an episode where they gave me a genetic modification. (Dr. Bashir, I Presume Season 5, Episode 16)

Jordan Hoffman: Oh, well that wasn’t an episode that was a major change in your character!

Alexander Siddig: But it arrived, I didn’t know about it on Tuesday, and on Thursday the script arrived – we started shooting on Friday. I was so shocked. You know you get the impression that maybe the producers sit down and talk about strategies and character arcs with actors but this thing came out of the blue and pissed me off so royally. It was a reaction to the fact that the character was genuinely unpopular in the early days. Because he was not fancy; I mean this is a time where 90210 was at the top of the charts in American TV and this guy was so not the hunk, he was the anti-hunk. He was the -

Jordan Hoffman: He was a man of science! That’s what he was!

Alexander Siddig: He was a man of science; he was like half good looking, rubbish at pulling girls. I mean it was all the wrong kind of archetypes. And so they kept trying to do things to make it happen. Eventually they did the Bond thing (reference to Our Man Bashir) – they did the Bond thing before that actually. And that kicked it off. I have to say that I’m still pretty angry. Well, not angry . . .

Jordan Hoffman: You have a craft, and you fill out a back-story of the character and you work at it for three years, four years and one day they walk in and say “guess what, you have this secret you’ve been keeping from everybody”.

Alexander Siddig: Exactly. And everything you’ve done could have been completely different had I known.

Jordan Hoffman: So did you go to the producers and voice your displeasure or just roll with it?

Alexander Siddig: I did it the only way that an actor can.  I completely destroyed the lines that they gave me regarding the situation. Every time something came up that was to do with being kind of Data-esque – I mean, I couldn’t get away from the fact – I thought I was being a Data, which is what they wanted to do, they wanted to switch the characters from all the shows, which they ended up doing with Voyager -

Jordan Hoffman: Which may have been a problem for that show. . .

Alexander Siddig: Well, it was a bit cynical at the end of the day. But I just fluffed the lines; well I didn’t fluff them completely I literally pinned the lines on the back of someone’s shoulder once, reading them. I wasn’t bothered even to learn them. I just pinned them around the office as if they were lines needed for daily modification. And they got the message and dropped it kind of.

Jordan Hoffman: Okay, so maybe they scaled that story arc back a little bit?

Alexander Siddig: They did.

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” Analysis – The First Same-Sex Kiss/Relationship In Trek History (2)

Source: http://www.kissingfingertips.com/ds9.html

To continue, the taboo against reassociation carries with it dire consequences. If two symbionts reassociate, their hosts are exiled from the Trill homeworld. This means that when the current hosts die their symbionts will not be joined to new hosts, the symbionts simply die with them. Since nothing is more important to a joined Trill than protecting the life of the symbiont, this is a life-quaking decision.

After spending time together and trying desperately to ward off feelings they both obviously share, Jadzia and Lenara succumb to their passion and… kiss. Oh boy, do they ever. I don’t actually have a top ten most passionate lesbian kisses list, but I think if I did this one would be on it. Anyway, later on aboard the Defiant, Jadzia saves Lenara’s life in a plasma-fire accident. They vow on the spot never to let anything come between them again, but Lenara’s courage fails her and she eventually decides to go back to Trill, leaving Dax heartbroken.

Part of the debate is, as veiled in metaphor as this story is, does it even count as a lesbian story anymore? Sure, the two women kiss, but it seems the “real” couple involved here are Torias and Nelani. I would say yes, and here’s why. Lenara freely admits that she’s never had so much trouble separating her feelings from those of a past host. The reason for this is obvious; the attraction between Dax and Khan isn’t the only attraction going on here. Jadzia and Lenara are obviously attracted to each other as well, and hit it off on a physical and intellectual level. That’s what makes Dax so unwilling to accept this taboo when she’s been the first to champion all matters of Trill honour and duty in the past. She’s not Torias, she’s Jadzia Dax, and she’s in love with this woman she can’t be with, simply because their symbionts have history. As Dax says, the irony is that she and Lenara have more in common than Nelani and Torias ever did. But the word irony isn’t really appropriate, it’s more of a tragedy.

The point, I’d like to think, is that fear and intolerance should never get in the way of love, regardless of who that love is between. People who try to explain away the storyline in terms of the symbiotic relationships and try to get it to fit into their limited (and often homophobic) mindset are missing the whole point. The episode also tells us a lot about Dax’s strength too, and how far she’s willing to go for love. Dax is a bit of a romantic at heart and awfully stubborn. Actually I think “Rejoined” sets the stage nicely for the interracial Klingon/Trill romance and wedding that happens later on in the series. Dax always likes to do things her own way, and we love her for it.

Susannah Thompson and Terry Farrell both do a pretty good job with this episode, especially with acting romantic tension while speaking line after line of nothing but technobabble. Thompson especially I thought was wonderful, with her luminous eyes and having the unsympathetic role of being the one who folds under social and family pressure. She despises herself for her own weakness, while she’s in absolute awe of Dax’s strength of will and moral certainty. It’s a finely nuanced performance which is so different from the passionate, raw sexuality of the Borg Queen she went on to play successfully in Star Trek: Voyager. (She’s also starred on Once & Again.)

Whether you agree that “Rejoined” was successful or not, it certainly caused a stir, and very few other episodes of DS9 are talked about with the same level of fervour as this one. As a political statement it kind of falls flat, and as a gay episode it has plenty of problems (this was one of the earliest examples of “sweeps lesbianism“), but I’m willing to forgive a lot of that simply for that kiss that I never thought I would see on Star Trek.

If people will insist on comparing Babylon 5 and DS9, with the former always coming out on top, ultimately it comes down to this: regardless of where the idea originated, at least DS9 had the guts to show the lesbian kiss that the B5 producers chickened out of showing between Ivanova and Talia. That earns a lot of lesbian brownie points in my book.

Note: The second ST: DS9 episode to deal with lesbian characters (including another onscreen kiss) was the seventh season episode “The Emperor’s New Cloak”.

Got a comment? Write to me at nancyamazon@gmail.com

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Rinda:

And I just want to add one more thing here in addition to the article,

With regard to good kisses and since I am a Niner & a Gater, this one caught me by surprise and it was funny as hell. Great performance from Rodney, all the way during this episode. Just a Hats off to Stargate Atlantis, a one awesome series and a one awesome franchise.

Season 2, Ep. Duet

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” Analysis – The First Same-Sex Kiss/Relationship In Trek History (1)

Source: http://www.kissingfingertips.com/ds9.html

4.06 / Original air date October 30, 1995

Written by: Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria

Directed by: Avery Brooks

I’m well aware that by the end of this review I am going to sound like a total geek, but I feel that it’s important to write to fans as well as to people who are new to any particular program or TV Universe, as the case may be. The fact is, you can’t look at any Star Trek series in isolation from the others, as much as the writers and producers of Trek would like to think. The DS9 continuity people must have had weekly fits as they received scripts for new episodes, and if they didn’t, they should have.

An obsessive fan base has been both the greatest asset and the greatest curse for the writers of all four Star Trek spin-off series. We (yeah, I’m going to include myself as an obsessed fan) demand that the writers pay as much attention to continuity in the Star Trek Universe as we do. After all, they get paid to do just that. I know a lot of fans who happily do it for free.

The race known as the Trill has been one of the screwups of the Trek franchise. The problem is, they’re also one of the most interesting races ever invented on Trek. Initially introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Trill are a race of humanoid-looking creatures that have the ability to join with a long-lived, wormlike symbiotic species to enable their consciousness to continue from host to host over a huge span of time. (Initially they also had lumpy heads, but the spots concept was added for DS9 when producers decided that if you were going to hire gorgeous, ex-model Terry Farrell to play a character, you didn’t then give her a lumpy head.)

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The idea of the symbiotic relationship is that each host contributes to the life and experiences of the symbiont, while the symbiont brings to the host a wealth of experience and knowledge that would otherwise have died with their previous hosts. Once joined, the host and symbiont blend into a single entity. Twenty four hours after joining, if the symbiont is removed for more than a few hours, the host will die. It is normal for a symbiont to live inside both male and female hosts over the course of its lifetime.

In ST:TNG, joined Trill could not use transporters (it caused trauma to the symbiont), the symbiont could be temporarily placed inside a human host (as it was with Riker), and there were no rules mentioned about the romantic life of the symbiont and who it could or couldn’t be with, especially since the original Trill we met, Odan, chased Beverly Crusher through the span of three different hosts. (Interestingly, Dr Crusher finally rejects Odan when he becomes a woman.) As we know, Jadzia Dax had no problems with transporters. Ezri Dax had to receive the Dax symbiont when Jadzia died because she was the only Trill onboard the ship carrying the symbiont to the Trill homeworld when the symbiont went into distress. Finally, with “Rejoined” we are given the concept of reassociation, which forbids joined Trill from resuming romances that their symbionts had in previous hosts.

…

Sound complicated? It is, and overly so, but the Trek writers were most likely looking for a way to spice up Jadzia’s love life and to further explore the Trill, so they came up with the wacky concept for “Rejoined”, and we got an episode that tiptoes Jadzia’s sexuality along the borders between gay and straight. Personally, I think Jadzia counts firmly as bisexual. Maybe even omnisexual, as it was often revealed throughout the series that she wasn’t averse to trying (or sleeping with) anything once.

All this is to say that yes, the episode had holes, big enough to fly the Enterprise through. However, for all the lesbian fans of Jadzia Dax (and I’m sure I’m not the only devotee out there) this episode was also like manna from heaven, because it also contains what I like to refer to as “the kiss”.

The basic plot is this. A Trill science team arrives on DS9 to use the Defiant in their project to attempt to open the first artificially-created wormhole. (Even reviewing Star Trek technobabble is a laborious task.) The team is led by Dr Lenara Khan, a joined Trill. As it happens, when both the Dax and the Khan symbionts were joined to previous hosts (Torias Dax and Nelani Khan) they were husband and wife. Torias died in a shuttle accident leaving Nelani a widow, and this is the first meeting of the two symbionts since the accident. Dax was a man then, but when the two symbionts meet again in the bodies of their new hosts, sparks fly immediately, regardless of what gender the two are now.

Funnily enough, this gender-switch is never really mentioned. It’s like a big, old white elephant sitting in the corner. Instead of dealing with the “gay” issue, the writers turn the whole thing into a social taboo against this concept of reassociation, or getting together with a lover from a past life. The storyline is a metaphor for tolerance and acceptance of alternative sexualities, and not even a subtle one at that. The odd thing is, they could have just played the story straight, I mean gay, and it might have made more sense. Perhaps they thought the concept would play better to conservative Trek audiences wrapped in cotton wool, and considering the backlash that occurred when the episode aired, perhaps they were right.

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Slash Couples (9) – Dax & Kira

Jadzia Dax/Kira Nerys

Jadzia Dax is a major character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by Terry Farrell. A joined Trill, she is simultaneously a beautiful young humanoid woman “Jadzia”, with a strange leopard-effect spot pattern, and a 300-hundred-and-change-year-old slug “Dax”, with the memories of seven dead people. The Science Officer on Deep Space Nine, she’s qualifed in astrophysics, exoarchaeology, exobiology & zoology, is a mean tongo player and has wicked fighting skills with a batleth. Shades of canonical Mary-Sue, methinks.

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Jadzia_Dax

Her closest friend in canon is station commander Benjamin Sisko, who calls her “old man”, a reference to his friendship with the slug’s previous host, a lecherous heavy drinking old man by the name of Curzon Dax — the source of Jadzia’s love for all things Ferengi & Klingon. She is also particularly close to Kira Nerys, Quark and Julian Bashir. Both the two men harbour an unrequited pash for her, which she tramples on when she falls for and marries the Klingon security officer, Worf, much to the dismay of the many fans of Julian/Jadzia. Oh, and she also has a brief fling with another joined Trill woman, leading to the first f/f kiss in Trek history. Aside from technobabble, her interests include sex, gossip, rowdy parties and tongo.

Just as she starts getting broody, she is murdered by Gul Dukat, saving fans from the horror of a Klingon with Trill spots. Dax returns to the series as Ezri Dax, who later hooks up with Julian, which a lot of fans thought was just plain icky.

Fan Perspectives

Wendy A.F.G. Stengel writes: Jadzia is an intensely sexual character, and we learn from her recollections that in many, if not all, of Dax’s past lives, Dax has been just as sexually charged.

Stengel again: gender becomes a very murky subject when discussing Trills.

Fanfiction

Jadzia is a fairly popular character with fanwriters. Many fans felt her death was untimely and objected to her replacement with Ezri. Not surprisingly, resurrecting the character is a trope in some fanfiction, particularly in het stories. She’s most commonly paired with Bashir, known as Julian/Jadzia. This used to be amongst the most common het pairings in the DS9 fandom, though its popularity seems to be on the wane. The canonical Jadzia/Worf – one of the most interesting, complex relationships in Star Trek history, according to Wendy Stengel — is also very common. Jadzia also features prominently in Julian/Ezri stories, even though she’s dead. Often Julian hooks up with Ezri only because of his love for Jadzia, causing the relationship to fail, or he at least has to work through his feelings for Jadzia for the relationship with Ezri to succeed.

Her canonical flirt with bisexuality & general air of being up for anything means that Jadzia also turns up a fair amount in femslash. This often riffs on the idea that her gender identity is fluid because of all those memories of being a man in previous lives. The predominant pairing is probably Jadzia/Kira, though she’s also paired with Lenara Kahn (the other half of that same-sex kiss), as well as pretty much anyone with girl parts. Gen fanfiction frequently explores the otherness of the joined Trill experience.

Jadzia Dax & Lenara Khan by Spockish

We’re Focusing on Jadzia/Kira Slash in This Post

Jadzia (with Kira) on the Haven 3 cover by Christine Myers

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Kira/Dax Slash and DS9 Gab

Title: So It Is

Genres/Plot summary: Femmeslash/Fluff/PWP. A series of loosely connected drabbles detailing Jadzia’s pursuit of Nerys.

http://bt.submystic.com/daxkira/

Off Duty: The Humorous Adventures of Kira and Dax

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2401969/1/Off_Duty_The_Humorous_Adventures_of_Kira_and_Dax

“Choices”

“Minister of Lies”

[DS9] Rebuilding (Kira/Dax | G)

Summary: Jadzia has a new holosuite program. Kira is out of excuses.

List of media portrayals of bisexuality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_media_portrayals_of_bisexuality

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Jadzia Dax, Kira Nerys in alternate universe, Ezri Dax and Elim Garak.

Dax’s relationships with females portrayed as related to previous existence as a male, alternate-universe Kira portrayed as a hedonistic tyrant. Garak was originally intended as omnisexual by the actor, and many fans still consider him as such, although he never engages in an ‘official’ relationship throughout the seasons.

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Kira and Dax Wallpaper by Twisted Illusion

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Celebrity Guest Pictures (11)

   Jessica Hendra played Dejar in the Deep Space Nine Episode “Destiny”

Dejar was a Cardassian and an operative of the Obsidian Order in the 24th century.

In 2371, two Cardassian scientists, Gilora Rejal and Ulani Belor were chosen by the Cardassian Union to assist in an effort to place a wormhole relay station in the Gamma Quadrant to aid communications and to provide an advance warning of a Dominion attack. The Obsidian Order, angry at the recently signed Bajoran-Cardassian Treaty, sent Dejar to Deep Space 9 to sabotage the attempt, posing as a third scientist. She sabotaged the USS Defiant‘s main emitter coupling.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

When the ship fired at a comet that was about to destroy the Bajoran wormhole, it shattered the comet instead of vaporizing it as planned. Gilora did not wish Miles O’Brien to be blamed for incompetence resulting in the malfunction and she revealed Dejar’s status as an Obsidian Order operative. Dejar was taken to quarters and confined. Gilora was not worried over exposing her, telling O’Brien that the Order would not look kindly on her failure. (DS9: “Destiny“)

Dejar was played by Jessica Hendra.

The character appears in Andrew Robinson‘s DS9 novel A Stitch in Time where it was revealed that Dejar was a member of Garak’s last cell in the late 2360s. She also appeared in Robinson’s short story “The Calling” in the Prophecy and Change anthology. Her first name is given as “Nal” in both stories.

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Mary Kay Adams played Grilka in Deep Space Nine Episodes “The House of Quark” & “Looking for par’Mach in All The Wrong Places”  

Grilka was a Klingon woman from the Mekro’vak region and the widow of Kozak. Her most trusted adviser was Tumek.

After Kozak died in Quark’s in early 2371, Quark took credit for killing her husband, even though Kozak actually fell onto his own knife. She forced Quark to marry her so she could retain control of her house. Despite Grilka’s aversion to matters of finance, she allowed Quark to inspect her family ledgers where he discovered that D’Ghor, Kozak’s “brother”, had been systematically attacking the House of Kozak for five years in order to weaken it.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Such an indirect and deceptive attack was highly dishonorable and Grilka demanded Quark confront the High Council with the evidence of D’Ghor’s deceit. Once the accusations were made public Quark was forced to defend himself against D’Ghor and did so successfully by tricking D’Ghor into attempting to strike him down when he refused to fight. In doing so, Gowron was convinced of the accused Klingon’s guilt and had him discommendated on the spot. With D’Ghor out of the way, Grilka was granted control of her house by Gowron and the House of Kozak became the House of Grilka. She divorced Quark (at his request) on the spot. (DS9: “The House of Quark“)

In early 2373, Grilka visited Deep Space 9 again, along with Tumek and Thopok. The recent war with the Federation had been very costly to her house in ships, lands, and warriors. Though she feigned opposition to his request, she allowed Quark another opportunity to help her house by examining their records. This time, however, Quark’s interest was truly stirred by the “glorious” Grilka.

At the same time, Worf, who had been assigned to the station the year before, also took an interest in Grilka. He attempted to pursue her as a mate but Tumek confronted him and advised him it was a waste of time. Worf’s siding against the Empire during the war had stripped his House of its title and Worf of his honor; it would be unthinkable for Grilka to mate with him.

Upset by his failure, and Tumek’s insinuation that he could not know anything about pursuing a Klingon woman because he had been raised among Humans, Worf decided to help Quark win Grilka’s heart. He was successful by tutoring the Ferengi in the traditions of Klingon courtship. Grilka was warmed by Quark’s efforts, even if she considered him a poor fighter. But Thopok was enraged by the prospect of a Ferengi pursuing a great lady and challenged Quark to a duel. With additional help from Worf, Quark defeated Thopok and Grilka welcomed his advances enthusiastically. (DS9: “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places“)

Grilka was played by Mary Kay Adams.

In the back story of the “Path to 2409″ in Star Trek Online Worf and Grilka are married in 2386.