Comfort Viewing: “Take Me Out To The Holosuite” (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
The November 2023 writing prompt for the Make It So publication asked for a discussion on our favorite “comfort episodes”. When thinking of a Star Trek episode that works as good comfort viewing, my mind went to the one episode that was also comfort living for the characters themselves.
“Take Me Out To The Holosuite” is the fourth episode of the seventh and final season of Deep Space Nine. We are well into the series’ long war arc and all the heartbreak and uncertainty that comes from conflict. Jadzia Dax had been shockingly killed at the end of the previous season. In an episode shortly before this, Ben Sisko had briefly seen another vision of himself as Benny Russell — the 1950s Black science fiction writer — but now trapped and locked in an insane asylum.
As the season unfolds after this episode, the crew will be dealing with the heavy consequences of war in episodes like “The Siege of AR-558” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon”.
But here, in a quiet pause in the middle of constant chaos, the only thing the crew has on their minds is a simple game of baseball.
And while the stakes are surely an order of magnitude lower than the galactic war raging outside the station, it isn’t true to say there are no stakes at all. The game matters a lot to Sisko. Indeed, Avery Brooks plays Sisko as more over the top here than in any of the more tragic or demanding episodes. The story takes a while to get there, but eventually we learn of Sisko’s decades long rivalry with Vulcan Captain Solok dating back to their academy days where Sisko was subjected to Solok’s constant dismissal of “emotional” races (Vulcans are seemingly the most openly xenophobic members of the Federation).
The game matters to Rom (despite knowing little of the sport), wanting to spend time with his son (something the war has intruded upon) and to earn Nog’s respect. It also matters to Odo. Indeed, Odo isn’t merely invested in having a letter-perfect memorization of the Major League Baseball rules circa 1999, he’s also practicing to master the correct cadence of “SAAAAFE!” and “YEEEEEEEEEER OOOOOOOUT!”
Take Me Out To The Holosuite is a holodeck episode that thankfully isn’t about the holodeck. It’s fun and more importantly it’s funny. Genuinely funny. It’s funny if you know baseball; it’s funny if you’ve never seen the game. There’s great physical comedy; there’s wonderful verbal comedy.
There are also some amusing moments that will be entertaining to the baseball fans of the 21st century watching. Sisko insists that Odo and not a computer hologram be the contest’s (only) umpire, placing the Deep Space Nine captain firmly against the idea of robot umps calling balls and strikes. He also openly boasts of his team possessing a “genetically enhanced doctor” suggesting that juicing perhaps remains an overlooked issue in 23rd century sports.
The episode’s theme is of friendship and putting positive relationships ahead of negative ones. By the game’s ninth inning, Sisko has realized that repairing his relationship with Rom and allowing Rom to bat in place of a superior hitter is more important than showing up his Vulcan adversary. Of course, it turns out that he can do both as Rom gets the only RBI for the Niners.
That’s perhaps a little too pat, but this is a comfort episode, a silly and fun episode. Not every episode need end with an emotionally-drained Sisko wrestling with his conscience. It works in the context of the story and when you’re looking for something light and enjoyable to watch, you sometimes want a moral that isn’t too demanding.
(I do have one complaint however. While having most of the crew being athletically inept pays off comedically, Colonel Kira should have been written as being somewhat competent at baseball. You’re telling me in all her time as a freedom fighter she never practiced throwing grenades through a small window?)
