Badda-Bing Badda-Bang (DS9 episode)

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Badda-Bing Badda-Bang is an episode from the seventh season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The production code of the episode is 566. First aired February 24, 1999. It was written by Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler. Directed by Mike Vejar.

1 Plot summary
2 Impact on the History of Star Trek
3 Guest stars
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Julian Bashir and Miles O'Brien enjoy an evening at Vic's in the holodeck until the program suddenly changes into a noisy cabaret and Frankie Eyes shows up to throw Vic out.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After Frankie fires Vic, the crew learns that Frankie was written into the holosuite program by Vic's designer, Felix. Upset by Frankie's treatment of Vic, and by the knowledge that the lounge's atmosphere will now change, the crew decides it must rid the program of Frankie. But to accomplish this task, they realize, he must be eliminated in a way that is period-specific to Fontaine's era: circa 1962 (They can't just rewrite the program because that would result in Vic forgetting all the experiences that he has shared with the crew up to this point). The task takes on greater urgency when Vic is beaten up.

Vic reveals that he was assaulted by Frankie's bodyguard Cicci. Eager to discover Frankie's weak spot, Odo and Kira go undercover in the casino to do some research. Frankie takes a liking to Kira, and while the two flirt, Odo learns that Frankie works for crime boss Carl Zeemo, who expects to receive from Frankie a large skim of the hotel's huge daily profits. The crew hatches a plan to rob the casino, hoping it will cause Zeemo to "bump off" Frankie in retaliation.

The plot is set in motion when the crew infiltrates the casino staff, and Vic convinces Frankie to let him bring his high rolling contacts into the casino — who, unbeknownst to Frankie, are Starfleet officers! Meanwhile, Benjamin Sisko resents Kasidy's participation in the plan, admitting he hasn't visited Vic's because of how blacks were treated in Las Vegas in the 1960s. She urges him to reconsider, citing as reason the comfort she and Jake have both felt in the lounge, and soon Sisko agrees to play a pivotal role as a big-money gambler.

Vic walks the crew through their complex plan, to be executed the following night while Zeemo is in town, and which allows them only eight minutes to pull off the heist. Though all crew members are well-prepared for their roles, the actual evening presents several glitches to the plan — most notably when Nog discovers that the lock on the safe is of a different make than expected. While he struggles to crack the lock, Zeemo arrives early to pick up his cash.

Noticing Zeemo's premature entrance, Vic does his best to stall him, while the other crew members fabricate enough stories and distractions to allow a successful Nog and Odo to slip away with the cash. After Zeemo discovers an empty safe, his thugs lead Frankie and Cicci out of the casino — leaving Vic to his cherished role as lounge owner and the crew to theirs as satisfied patrons.

[edit] Impact on the History of Star Trek

Interestingly, the notion of "race" has never been explicitly mentioned in the physical world of Star Trek. (Although Sisko's alternate character "Benny" does encounter race issues, that was probably a fantasy sequence, see "Shadows and Symbols"). Captain Sisko, when debating the holosuite program, refers to "black people" and "our people" when speaking about the racial injustices of 1960s United States. Race (earth races, that is) is always a neutral state in the Star Trek universe, a future in which Earth is a utopia and no one refers to themselves as "black," "white," or "Asian," or "rich," or "poor," the point being that human society has become so equitable that man has no use for categorical reductions of people (or even race identity, for that matter). Sisko's remarks are an oddity for a 24th century man.

Further, this episode presents a watermark in how far Star Trek writers are willing to involve a holosuite program as the centerpiece of the plot. Star Trek: the Next Generation had many episodes featuring the holodeck. Perhaps because of this, Deep Space Nine tends to avoid holosuite plots. But here the story is especially noteworthy because the holodeck presents no physical danger to the crew. The story is uneventful. The only thing that is at stake is the deletion of the computer program that represents Vic. While there are many episodes of "low-drama" in various Star Trek franchises, this episode, in effect, means nothing from the scientific point of view that that lounge singer does not exist and therefore his deletion has no effect ethically or dramatically. The crew essentially play a video game for the length of the episode. The viewer, however, can invest emotionally in the story because the other characters are concerned about Vic out of the attachment they've developed with him.

[edit] Trivia

This episode was inspired by Ocean's Eleven, a 1960 film that also depicted a stylish casino heist.
The music used in Vic's club after it's transformed by the Jack-in the-box was also used in the dance scenes for Back to the Future Part II