Season 7
Episode 15
Plot Summary: Well, it looks like the guy who programed Vic's Lounge was sadistic. He set the program to eventually spring a trap on the participants: Mobsters take over Vic's, and you can't enjoy the lounge until you get rid of their leader. So the crew valiantly sets out to save the lounge, because if they don't Vic might get erased from the program. (oh-no.) Sisko originally finds their antics childish, but thanks to Kassidy, eventually joins them. Ia series of nice scenes, the crew members stake out the lounge turned casino, and make up a all-too-complicated plan to get the gangsters money. If the leader of the gang make's no money, his boss will kick him out. Our protagonists plan is laid out for us through visuals of them doing what their talking about. This method worked well with me. Of course, when they start to go through the plan for real, you just know something has got to go wrong, and here lies the subtle suspense I so enjoyed. You just know something has to go wrong. "Ezri drops drinks! Oh-no! It's over! Phew, Bashir saved the plan, everything's copasetic again! Oh! There's a different guy in the accounting room! Oh, she saved that too." That's the kind of feeling you experience during the scenes. But then everything that could possibly go wrong does, and this get's a little nuts. When the gang-leader's boss shows up and the gang-leader wants to go into accounting while Nog's trying to open the safe, mayhem breaks lose. And Sisko and company solve their problem by... going wild and throwing money everywhere! This is done a tad to over-dramatically, but I liked the initial idea. Well, they get the money, the gang-leader is fired, and Vic's is back to normal. Then Sisko sings.
Sub-Plot: Nope
My Opinion: Well, although there were a few sticky spots, I enjoyed this episode a lot. It didn't really break new ground or anything, it just had some nice stuff, a good feeling of suspense, and a weird atmosphere for our characters to be in. Of course a new atmosphere is something they commonly throw at us. First we'll start off with some good points. I liked seeing the all the crew in a holodeck program. I'm not sure if we've ever seen this. In "Our Man Bashir" the crew wasn't there because the characters who looked like them acted completely different. In "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" they weren't really involved in a typical "story" holodeck program. And in "Far Beyond the Stars", although it wasn't a holodeck, our characters in a different environment were NOT really our characters. If you get my meaning, you'll see I'm not trying to make up a reason for liking this episode, I'm just pointing out that it's interesting we've never seen all our cast, as themselves in one big holodeck story. That aspect made the episode very fun. I also liked the scenes with the crew chatting about their holodeck dilemma, and Sisko showing disdain for such childish conversations. It was pretty funny, but his quick change of attitude when talking with Kassidy was a stretch, much less him joining them, and later singing. The episode really started getting exciting, to me, when they outlined their plan for us. I did seem a bit to elaborate when Odo could have done the whole thing himself, but hey, it's entertainment, and I liked the whole "were all secret undercover agents" thing. Of course everything that can go wrong does, and when this happens what does the crew do? Do they come up with a brilliant plan? No! They act nuts providing all the distraction they can! Although it might have been done with a bit too much silliness, I liked the concept of them desperately doing whatever they can think of, rather than typically think up some new strategy. And then Sisko sang. Well, first off, I'll say he sang good. That's a compliment. Now why he sang, as in Sisko' s motivations in the episode, is beyond me. It seems to be shouting "Look at Avery! He can sing! Whoopee!!!" This scene would have been fine if it had actually fit into anything. But it didn't and it stuck out like a sore thumb.
Wrap-Up: Despite a few "tad too silly" items, "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" pleased me a lot. It presented a few new ideas, without being overall original. I give it three stars.
Review by review by -William Phillips
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