YMMV / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S04E10 "Our Man Bashir"

• Alternate Character Interpretation: With the eventual revelation/retcon that Julian Bashir is actually a genetically-augmented superhuman whose entire life bears the pattern-scars of self-sabotage rooted in a terrified fear of discovery and self-loathing towards talents he does not see as rightly his own, it's easy to read the spy program as representing a very different sort of Wish-Fulfillment for him than was originally conceived: a world where he gets to fully exercise his incredible gifts without restraint or fear of discovery, and be rewarded and celebrated for them rather than risk exposing himself and ruining his life.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Avery Brooks plays a hammy, bald, black supervillain who plans to destroy the world except for a select few who'll survive in a remote mountain location, all in a parody of the James Bond films. Not to mention that Bashir is helped by Garak, a tailor who's really a spy. Sound familiar? This episode came out twenty years before Kingsman: The Secret Service was released.
  • Similarly, the plan of this hammy, bald supervillain is to wipe out the population of Earth by drilling into the planet's crust and unleashing large amounts of molten lava. While the exact method was a little different, the same basic scheme would be deployed by Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (another James Bond parody) the following year.
  • There was a minor internet push for Alexander Siddig to become the next Bond after Daniel Craig seemed about to retire from the role following Spectre, though Craig ended up sticking around for one more film.
• Magnificent Bastard: Dr. Hippocrates Noah is a brilliant Mad Scientist created as the villain in Julian Bashir's Secret Agent Holodeck program. Kidnaping several of the world's most brilliant minds by luring them into a trap, Noah has all of them brought to his base on the slope of Mount Everest. Noah developed a series of powerful lasers and placed them at specific spots all over the Earth. When Bashir is brought to his base, Noah dramatically reveals his Evil Plan, believing that human decadence has ruined the world, Noah plans to use his lasers to raise the sea level and kill everyone on Earth except those in his base, who he will then use to repopulate the world. Noah has Bashir and Garak tied up beneath one of the lasers and when Bashir escapes and pretends to have turned to Noah's side, Noah simply calls his bluff and tries to kill him.
• Spiritual Successor: To the TNG episode "Qpid". Whereas "Qpid" was made to capitalize on the release of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, "Our Man Bashir" was made to capitalize on the release of GoldenEye.

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