It's Only a Paper Moon (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

"It's Only a Paper Moon" is the 160th episode of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the tenth episode of the seventh season. Directed by Anson Williams, the episode was written by Ronald D. Moore and based on a pitch by David Mack and John J. Ordover, who had previously written "Starship Down".

The episode serves as a sequel to "The Siege of AR-558", with Nog suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and phantom pain following the loss of his leg.

Plot

After his leg was critically hit and amputated, Nog returns to Deep Space 9 with a biosynthetic replacement after months of therapy at Starbase 235. Nog suffers flashbacks to the loss of his leg and feels pain in his new leg even though the doctors cannot detect any stimuli in the pain receptors of the leg. He has difficulty readjusting to everyone and secludes himself in his quarters, sleeping 18 hours each day and listening to a recording of "I'll Be Seeing You" (sung by Vic Fontaine) on repeat. Following an argument with Jake, Nog goes to the holosuites at Quark's, where he has Vic sing the song in over a dozen different arrangements. Nog convinces Vic to allow him to stay at the latter's hotel suite for the night. With reservations, counselor Ezri Dax agrees to the idea of Nog staying there for his rehabilitation.

Vic and Nog bond quickly, but at the expense of Nog's relations with his friends and family; he gets in a fight with Jake and a meeting with his father Rom and stepmother Leeta is short and awkward. Vic and Nog continue to grow closer, and as a Ferengi, Nog is happy to help Vic with his finances. Finding that Vic is in better shape financially than first thought, the two plan to build a new casino, and Nog relies less and less on his cane. Ezri talks with Vic about Nog's recovery and reminds him that Nog needs to leave soon; Vic had been enjoying himself so much that he had forgot that Nog was in "rehab". Later, following a heated argument over what's best for Nog, Vic self-terminates the program, forcing Nog back into the real world.

Nog attempts to restart the holosuite, and Miles O'Brien arrives after detecting Nog's efforts in Ops. He explains to Nog that Vic has a unique matrix when compared with other holograms that allows him to start-up and end whenever he wants. O'Brien tells Nog that everyone misses him in Ops before leaving him alone. Vic shows up without the holographic environment and has a heart-to-heart talk with Nog; Nog admits he is scared and feels safe in the holosuite, at least knowing there what the future will bring, but Vic explains that if he stays in the holosuite, he'll die: "Not all at once, but little by little". Nog returns to limited duty but convinces Quark to leave the program running all the time to return the favor to Vic and to give him a chance at a "real" life.

Production

The episode derives its name from the 1933 song of the same name.

The episode was initially written by David Mack and John J. Ordover; they initially pitched the episode as "Everybody Comes to Quark's" and sold it alongside what would later become the season 4 episode "Starship Down". The original episode was set entirely in Quark's bar, following three separate storylines. The plot "sort of bounced around the writers room for a couple of years", before it was set to following Nog's loss of his leg and relocated to Quark's Vic Fontaine holosuite program. Mack and Ordover were hired to rewrite the story to account for these changes, and Ronald D. Moore further rewrote. Moore removed the second and third storylines as he felt they interfered with the dramatic impact of Nog's PTSD.^[1] Keith DeCandido, a close friend of both Mack and Ordover, noted in his rewatch of this episode in 2016 that he was slightly disappointed that so little remained of the original pitch, writing that "there are some gems in the original that the world has seriously missed out on" (although he still rated the episode a 9/10).^[1]

Aron Eisenberg, who plays Nog, has stated that this episode is his personal favorite. He mentioned in several interviews that after the episode aired, wounded combat veterans and VSOs (Veteran Service Organizations) contacted and praised him for his realistic portrayal of the psychological trauma of being severely wounded in battle and the resulting loss of a limb, a trauma which often lasts far longer than the physical injury itself.

Vic and Nog preferring The Searchers over Shane is a minor in-joke, since the lead actor in The Searchers is Jeffrey Hunter, who played Captain Christopher Pike in the Star Trek: The Original Series first pilot episode, "The Cage".^[1]

As Worf only briefly appears in this episode's teaser and is absent in the following two episodes, "Prodigal Daughter" and "The Emperor's New Cloak",^{[note 1]} it is assumed that the events of Star Trek: Insurrection run parallel to these episodes.^[1]

Cultural references

Vic gives Nog a fictional cane similar to one Errol Flynn once used, to replace Nog's Starfleet-issued cane. Vic also refers to being "bigger than Elvis" had Julian Bashir become his publicist. Vic and Nog watch two 1950s films, The Searchers and Shane, and prefer the former.^[1]

Vic Fontaine sings "I'll Be Seeing You" (which also appeared in "The Siege of AR-558"), "Just in Time", "I've Got the World on a String", and "It's Only a Paper Moon".^[1]

Reception

Keith DeCandido, writing for Tor.com, believed it to be a superb episode, writing that it's "a testament to the strength of DS9's ensemble that it can give over an entire story to two characters who aren't even opening-credits regulars and make it one of the show's most compelling hours". He gave the episode a "warp factor rating" of 9/10, removing a point due to Ezri Dax's incompetence as a counselor, and because of how much of the original "Everybody Comes to Quark's" pitch was removed (see the Production section above).^[1]

Jamahl Epsicokhan of Jammer's Reviews gave the episode 3.5/4 stars. He praised Nog's "vivid, believable character evolution" which complimented his growth throughout the series and summarized it as "one of the most effective "small" DS9 stories in quite some time." In addition, Epsicokhan enjoyed the mystery behind Vic Fontaine in regards to his sentience and own growing character development, pointing out the scene in which Nog asks Vic, "When you sleep, do you dream?" and Vic avoiding the question.^[2]

The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen conversely disliked the unexplored implications of Vic's consciousness, especially as the episode featured him significantly more than previous episodes. He also somewhat disliked Nog's posttraumatic stress disorder being solved in the space of one episode. However, Handlen noted how Nog's PTSD "has some real edges to it, and [how] some aspects of it should be familiar to anyone who's suffered a period of severe depression". He lauded Aron Eisenberg's acting and, in contrast to DeCandido's review, referred to Ezri's counseling as "not terrible". While he wished that the writers hadn't "taken the easy way out in the end with the magical all-knowing computer program", he found the ending (in which Nog arranges to keep Vic's program running all day) "sweet".^[3]

Based on user ratings, "It's Only a Paper Moon" holds an 8.3/10 on TV.com^[4] and an 8.0/10 on IMDb.^[5]

Notes

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: It's Only a Paper Moon

• "It's Only a Paper Moon" at the Internet Movie Database
• "It's Only a Paper Moon" at TV.com

• "It's Only a Paper Moon" at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• "It's Only a Paper Moon" at StarTrek.com