Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 7x04 — Take Me Out to the Holosuite

Aired 1998-10-21

SpaceOpera.com rating:10

Average reader rating:3.95

Synopsis

A group of Deep Space Nine rookies answer Sisko's challenge to try and beat a Vulcan baseball team.

Filler rating: good filler

Strictly speaking this episode is not relevant to the overarching plot of DS9, but it's highly entertaining and among the finest episode fo the entire series nevertheless.

Remarkable scenes

The opening scene introducing Captain Solok of the T'Kumbra. Vulcan arrogance at its best! If I didn't know better, I'd swear the guy was Romulan.
The particularly pathetic performance of the team during the initial tryouts.
Sisko asking Odo to be the umpire.
I love the scene when Kira walks by the security office as Odo is practicing his umpire moves.
Sisko telling the Solok story.
Solok eliminating the spectators.
Worf and Sisko arguing with Odo the umpire.
Sisko restoring Rom's status in the team and restoring the crowd.
Rom's accidental bunt and the subsequent run scored because of it.
Odo throwing out the Solok.
Sisko and crew's victory celebration.
Morn Appearances; 1. Is seen in the bar after Sisko kicks Rom of the team. 2. In the bar after Sisko declares "manufactured triumph."

Review

Hilarious. The "Logicians" vs. the "Niners". This episode is both a spectacle of marvelous humor and a fantastic display of camaraderie. The episode is also highly controversial. Let's have a look why. Here we are, in the middle of the Dominion war, and this ship the T'Kumbra, a ship of all Vulcans, docks on DS9 for repairs. Captain Solok, however, has an ulterior motive for coming to Deep Space Nine. He has had a long time rivalry with Sisko for many years and wished to challenge Sisko in his favorite game. Many say that this episode which deals with a Baseball game has nothing whatsoever to do with the Dominion war and that it merely serves to waste time; that it's nothing but filler. While in some ways I agree, the episode couldn't have been better filler. The conflict between Sisko and Solok mirrors that of the Dominion war. The Federation faces an enemy many times more powerful than itself, yet they continue to fight and continue to take pleasure in whatever small victories they can achieve. The "small victory" in this episode, or rather the "manufactured triumph" parallels wonderfully the rivalry Solok seems to have manufactured over the years. Sisko wanted to let it go, but Solok didn't. Also, this episode parallels TOS in many ways. The rivalry between Solok and Sisko reminded me a lot of the (admittedly less intense) rivalry between Spock and McCoy. Finally, I think it's remarkable to point out that this episode made extensive use of the holosuites without featuring a malfunction. Overall, this is one of the most successful and intelligently written humor episodes ever written.

10 reader comments

This episode is definitely exciting and entertaining. It's great because it gives a bit of a break from the intensity of the Dominion war, and also because it develops an "out of uniform" look into the characters. However I hate to nitpick, but there are a few elements to this episode I found annoying. Firstly, why is Bashir so bad? He should be better than any of the Vulcans, as he is genetically engineered for coordination etc. Second, why is Worf so terrible? Worf presumably spends all of his downtime in the holosuite improving his prowess as a warrior. Surely a lifetime of physical training should produce someone who can hit a ball with a bat, he should be able to knock it out of the park every time!
by Azduel | 03/31/2010 at 1:45 am

I'm not a big fan of baseball - it's just rounders played while wearing pyjamas - but this was pretty fun to watch even so, and it's good to see the writers not falling into the trap of having the Niners win.
One lovely touch was Quarks signature on the ball at the end, with a little pair of ears on the Q.
by Rob Herbert | 08/04/2010 at 3:28 pm

Overall, a great episode. Parts of it were painfully embarrassing to watch, but most of it was hilarious. I think I cracked up after every single one of Odo’s calls (Ball Three! Steeeerrrrrike Two! Yooouuu’re outta here!) Auberjonois did a great job putting so much gusto into it…Odo approaches every task wanting to get all the little details right, and this time it made for some nice comic relief to see him imitate an Earth umpire. And Worf’s “death to the opposition” and “find him and kill him” were classic. Somehow I think rugby would be more to a Klingon’s liking than baseball.
This episode also showed the Federation isn’t really a big happy family. Even species within the Federation sometimes look down on each other, which I think is more realistic than pretending they all get along just fine and dandy. They may share a desire for peace and exploration, but think about it: no matter what country you go to in the world today, people in different regions of that country tend to look down on other regions. Star Trek is just carrying this to the galactic level, and it makes perfect sense.
by MJ | 01/29/2011 at 12:39 pm

I almost skipped this episode when it became clear it was going to be a holodeck/holosuite filler episode. But then I came here and skimmed your review, and how could I skip an episode you rated a 10? Anyway, I sure am glad I watched it. It kept me laughing well into the next day. I could almost predict by the time the game was underway that they were going to get creamed, but my hunch was right that somehow Sisko would call it a victory anyway. I love how much Odo got into his role, and you could see he took pride in being impartial, but you could also see the smile on his face when he ejected the Vulcan captain from the game. The exchange in the bar toward the end was priceless.
Worf: "Death to the opposition!"
by Damien Bradley | 03/02/2013 at 6:48 am

Enjoyed this episode but it falls into a trap many series fall into in that the main characters are the only people who exist. Captain Sisko commands a space station and a star ship he has to have more competent crewmen than Nog for instance. And Quark is not a member of his crew. I understand that the series is about the lead actors but if Sisko wanted to win (which he did before he learned the heart warming lesson of camaraderie) he would have put together a much better team.
by Keith | 08/27/2013 at 12:13 am

A baseball episode was inevitable and I'm just glad it was as good as it was. This is the kind of episode that works best late in a series and would not have had the same punch if they had done it in season 2 or 3.
by Mandeponium | 01/02/2014 at 8:01 pm

Why was Solok allowed in the holosuite unannounced?
by Psycroptic | 06/30/2017 at 1:22 am

"This episode is one of many which confirms the idea that Starfleet largely segregates their facilities and starships by race. Evidence: all Vulcan crew starship T'Kumbra."
I always figured that, for the most part, the Federation recruits its armies by having individual members recruit them. In the American Civil War, military units were organized by, and came from, member states -- both for the Union and the Confederacy. Hence, the 3rd New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment, or the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Members of a unit were primarily from the state that organized them. Although there was no rule against joining another state's regiment, it was of course easiest to join one's own. The United States Army also had their own Federal regiments, not organized by a single state.
In StarFleet, then, some ships and wings might be organized by individual members, like the Vulcans. Some might be organized by Humans. And yet another set of the top-line ships might be run by the Federation directly.
Particularly in a giant war like the Dominion War, I could see how individual units from member states would be brought into the main force during the conflict. It is not clear, however, whether, for instance, the USS Enterprise NCC1701 was a Federal ship or an Earth/Hew-mahnn ship, nor with Deep Space Nine.
by Jason Shooter | 11/25/2020 at 6:27 am

It annoyed me that the episode couldn't quite seem to make up its mind on the nature of the baseball game. The episode clearly seemed to be saying that Sisko was being unreasonable and over competitive when he dropped Rom from the team, as if it were a team building exercise or other casual game where everyone regardless of skill level participates. But in every other way the episode shows it is a fully competitive baseball game play strictly according to the rules, which would include definite rules on the size of the team. And he even mentioned having tryouts. Which would mean that if he had allowed Rom to be on the team, then one of the players who actually made it onto the final team would have to be rejected from the team instead. Which means that what all the other players on the team really wanted was for Sisko to play favoriates and unfairly permit an incompetent player onto the team just because they like him, and reject a more competent player who actually qualified for the position.
This problem could easily have been solved by minor story adjustments, such as by establishing that Sisko replaced Rom by strongarming someone onto the team who didn't even want to play.
Aside from this, though, I did actually enjoy the nature of the rivalry between Sisko and Solok, and how Sisko was able to overcome his demons and find victory in defeat at the end.
by Christopher Alexander | 04/23/2021 at 3:25 pm

This to me is the absolute nadir of the show. I still have nightmares about how bad it was, many years after having watched it first. I tried it again once, and didn't get any better; I am skipping it every time since. But again, I am not a baseball fan.
by fL0reign | 09/15/2022 at 7:00 am