Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series) Statistical Probabilities (1997) User Reviews

Can the genetically modified people help the Federation?

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 5 August 2010]

Not all genetically enhanced people are as well adjusted as Dr. Bashir and four of these are sent to DS9 so that Bashir can see what he can do for them. Their arrival leads to the Doctor and the other members of the senior crew discussing the morality of limiting what genetically modified people can do; although given how these four act it is hard to see what they could do. Jack is hyperactive, Lauren is flirtatious, Patrick is overly nervous and Sarina won't say a word. When they see Damar's latest speech they make many perceptive observations so when he comes to DS9 to broker a peace treaty the four are invited to analyse what he is offering and what he is asking for in order to find the thing he wants most. This terns out to be an apparently worthless planet that could be use as a source of Ketracel White which they are running low on and have no other obvious source. At first there work seems useful but when they say that the Federation should surrender to the Dominion as they would lose any war that suggestion is certainly not welcome. With their suggestion ignored they decide to approach the Dominion themselves with information that should minimise casualties at the cost of a certain defeat for the Federation.

While there was nothing wrong with Tim Ransom's acting the character of Jack was rather annoying initially, as he just wouldn't stop talking, I suspect this was by design however. The way Lauren constantly flirted with any man was quite amusing though. Once they had started analysing the Cardassian plans they got more interesting and less annoying and it was interesting which one of them helped Dr Bashir when the others contacted the Dominion.

Enjoyable quirky episode

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 10 April 2023]

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.

Calculations versus wisdom.

[thevacinstaller · 7/10 · 18 August 2021]

This episode provides a window into the potential catastrophic consequences on intelligence becoming unrestrained by experience and wisdom. In a parallel universe it would have been interesting to see actual consequences of the genetically enhanced scooby gang meddling into intergalactic politics successfully.

I have not known too many geniuses in my time but there seems to be a correlation between immense intelligence and what society would refer to as being eccentric (or crazy for those lacking intellectual attributes). I can buy into the enhanced humans being eccentric and I enjoyed the performances overall.

Overall --- pretty good.

Back to moralising

[albert-bentall · 10/10 · 6 June 2021]

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.

An Interesting Science Plot

[frankelee · 7/10 · 18 May 2022]

After all the meat of the Dominion War at the end of season 5 and start of season 6 was chewed through, the show did a series of low stakes, "guilty pleasure" episodes, and this is one of them. Accepting that, I enjoyed the premise behind this episode and a lot of the execution.

Dr. Julian Bashir is asked to meet with a group of genetically enhanced adults, whose gene therapy treatments led to poor outcomes. This is a very fascinating idea, and really could have been used more to enhance why the Star Trek universe has such a poor attitude toward gene enhancement. Trying to modify the brain and body of a child would in real life have a great chance of causing misconnections and stunting natural developmental milestones, leaving the person incredibly smart, but otherwise mentally impaired and in need of an institution to care for them.

Dr. Bashir sums this up as being the result of going to cut-rate geneticists, but I would have preferred a line about how all gene therapy on humans is risky and has a high failure rate, to make it more about gene therapy, and less about getting what you pay for.

The oddball group of genetically enhanced people soon display real talent for political and military analysis, and you just have to hand wave away the idea that no one would have noticed this before they appeared on the TV show as a normal convention. Unfortunately Dr. Bashir gets them a little too enthusiastic about their work, and they in turn get Dr. Bashir to start think rather irrationally despite his intelligence (the dangers of groupthink even for the impossibly smart?).

The ending is a bit silly. I would have liked it if Sisko, who I hope himself is pretty smart to be in his position, had a more robust defense against the group's projections that the Federation was doomed. He just made a rather unintellectual, totally emotional argument that he'd rather go down fighting. But the idea that this group can so accurately predict the future is... pretty suspect. It's their show, so they can do what they want, but it sounds ridiculous, and it's ridiculous that Dr. Bashir would believe they could, so why not hang a lantern on that by having Captain Sisko question how they could really believe their own projections without any track record or empirical evidence? Then you'd confirm to the audience where you were going with this, and excuse Dr. Bashir a little for being ridiculous because his own feelings are getting in the way of his reasoning (show don't tell).

Also it was far too easy for the patients to get ahold of an iPad with all of the Federation's top secret documents on it. I don't think any nation currently puts all of their secrets on a single tablet computer, and if they do I'm certain they don't let a ship's doctor just carry it around. The writers do a good job of jumping past this part, drawing as little attention as possible to it, but like I said, this is a guilty pleasure episode.

The patients themselves, or should I say the actors playing the patients, did a good job drawing an emotional reaction from the viewer, as one can see in some of the reviews here. Real psychiatric patients can be a bit much, and I think they enhanced the episode with this: Jack's mania does feel genuinely menacing. The others are a bit more fun and silly in their odd behavior to balance it out.

Ultimately a fun sci-fi premise, with middling story execution.

Statistics vs human factor

[tomsly-40015 · 7/10 · 18 November 2023]

I like the overall idea of this episode. It is about the question what you would do if you could calculate the outcome of events yet to come, in this case the ongoing war between the Federation and the Dominion. Would it be better to surrender and cut the losses or should you fight anyhow although you will lose eventually - and may it just be as a sign of hope for the generations coming after you?

This episodes presents us genetically improved humans, just like Bashir, that were not so lucky like him and are the subject of medical research. Although their brain powers seem to be off the scale, they all have major social flaws which makes them unfit for normal service in Starfleet. One is hyperactive and quite annoying, another one flirtatious, one is very unsecure and behaves a bit like a child and the last one is autistic and doesn't say a word.

Those brainiacs run calculations how the war between the Federation and Dominion will turn out and it does not look good. Bashir - as always pro humanity and pro saving lives - suggests, that surrendering would be the best choice and he can't believe that no one from the crew follows this logic. He just can't accept that there might be more to it than just pure numbers, math and logic. Eventually he is taught a lesson and realizes, that there are contingencies that no one can predict and can't be crammed into numbers. The fate of civilizations can be nudged into a different direction by the actions of every single person and you will never be able to predict all eventualities.

3th horrible episode in a row...

[vorph · 7/10 · 31 August 2020]

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)

Derivative...

[whatadrag · 3/10 · 28 December 2019]

The most annoying thing about this episode isn't even the annoying characters. It's that we've seen it all before.

In 1990, Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah starred in "Crazy People." Emory Leeson (Moore) is an advertising executive who experiences a nervous breakdown. He designs a series of "truthful" advertisements, blunt and bawdy and of no use to his boss Drucker's firm. The ads were thought up by the honest but bright patients Leeson is now staying with, and when they're accidentally printed, they prove to be a huge hit with the public. (Their best was, Volvo: they're boxy, but they're good." The basic theme of "crazy" people who use their special abilities to see things others can't is identical to the theme of this episode.

Even worse is Tim Ransom's portrayal of Jack, the hyperactive genetically enhanced man whose constant "Hm? Hm?" makes him über-punchable. His mannerisms were lifted directly from Brad Pitt's insane man-child, "Jeffrey Goines," in "12 Monkeys" only a couple of years before this episode aired.

Of course, with Potsy (Anton Williams) directing, we can't expect "Becket."

Oof

[amtiwgvi · 3/10 · 4 April 2021]

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.

Let's Get Back to the Plot

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 3 November 2018]

Once again, we have a filler episode, using Bashir's genetic fine tuning as the basis. A psychologist who works with a group of these people brings them to the station, hoping that exposure to Julian will benefit them. While they are perceptive and bright (and in one case, sexy), they are a mess. It's a quantum leap to figure how they could conceive of a plot to save the Federation. They can throw out statistical information but the big picture is something else. Not a good episode. I don't even know if there is anything serious about this. I doubt their data will move on as the remaining events take place.

Easily one of the worst episodes of the entire series

[LifeonYgam · 1/10 · 2 March 2021]

The episode was truly one of the absolute worst episodes from any Star Trek series. I am shocked and uncomfortable with the fact that it has such a high rating. The genetically engineered humans were preposterous, unbelievable and extremely over the top. It is an unwatchable, forgettable, embarrassing and pointless episode. Not worth rewatching except for a good laugh

Awful.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 18 January 2015]

As this episode progressed, my oldest daughter yelled out "It sure looks like this show jumped the shark!"--and I could understand her thinking this as we watched this pile of crap episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space 9". It is a pretty terrible episode.

This show is about a group of genetically enhanced humans. However, instead of being happy Starfleet members like Dr. Bashir, these folks are all weirdos who live in what looks a bit like an asylum. Regardless, Dr. Bashir agrees to babysit these uber-annoying beings. During this time, he bonds with these folks and together the new 'team' learn to run various statistical formulas--ones that would seem to indicate that the Federation is destined to be destroyed by the Dominion.

The problem with this show are these new characters. They are loud, obnoxious and 100% annoying. You just want them to shut up and die- -they are THAT annoying! Overall, I cannot believe that this could have been a lot better than it was--it couldn't really have been much worse.

What is that noise hmm hmm!?

[beanslegit · 4/10 · 4 May 2022]

So there's apparently lots of genetically altered people around, and even though that's highly illegal there's a well known institute for doing just that. So Dr Bashir is the only one that turned out well it seems, as there's one who's autistic, one who is smart but quiet, and of course the woman got sexy powers of some kind. Basically she's horny for Bashir that's her mutation lol.

It's kinda bizarre, the genetically horny chick is kinda hawt but otherwise this is a pretty banal episode.