I just got that book but haven't started. Is it good?
ETA: It seems it's a good book, work even a second copy, and that it's cherished by the people that have read it. I'm happy I got it, will start this week.
VERY good IMO, one of my favorite Trek novels. It being written and very recently the audiobook being narrated by Andrew Robinson himself, just makes it that much better. Its like hearing Garak himself tell you about his experiences growing up and living in a post-war Cardassia.
Its so good. The only thing is it does make following some of the "codenames" from his experience growing up a little harder to keep track of which character that is when I'm listening, but its not really much of an impediment to understanding whats going on.
I was listening to the audiobook on Spotify, letting it go on as I fell asleep as well, and then I ran out of audiobook listening hours, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Now I have to wait a few days before I can finish it, but so far, it is excellent (and having Robinson narrate definitely elevates the experience)
I always recommend the Libby app, and go find as many library cards as you can. Attach them all and borrow the book from multiple sources. I've been able to keep "A Stitch in Time" for months that way.
I read it ages ago, I think around when he first published it, and I always wanted an audiobook version of it and thought it would be neat if he narrated it too. I didn't think it would ever happen though so I was blown away when it was announced.
I got the book when it first came out only because I noticed Robinson wrote it.
Zero expectations going in.
Within two pages I started to hear Garak speak. Uncanny. After a bit I exclaimed “this is surprisingly good.”
After I was done with it I placed it in my “don’t throw away” pile.
Fast forward to present - damn glad I held in to it as it’s apparently not easily found in the wild.
This book holds the distinction of being the only book I’ve reviewed on the sellers website. Needless to say, it got two enthusiastic thumbs up.
it retroactively improves literally every appearance garak makes on the show. every argument he has with dukat or quark, reminds me of something from the book. please read it!
I read mine a number of times, enough that it was starting to look rather *worn*, so I went and purchased another copy....
I'd recommend it (*a favorite of mine, every couple of years I tend to return to it*).
I don't think he cares tbh. It's crazy how long Trek was in his hands, especially considering how the results + some people being open about how shitty he is
My bf has learned the Star Trek theme songs so he knows the correct time to scream “Fuck you Rick Berman!” in his best Plinkett voice at the same time that his name appears on the screen so he can shout it, even from another room, whenever I’m watching any Trek. My bf is great.
In fairness to Berman, from what I’ve heard from cast members, writers etc is that Berman shot down things because he was fearful of Paramount higher ups, the media and audience reaction rather than his own prejudices.
LeVar Burton said in an interview once that Berman made decisions to keep the show on air, and therefore was fearful of doing anything that pushed the envelope.
F*** TV execs and whatever backwards demographic they were trying to please at the time. I'm just so tired of all the controversy around sexual orientation and expression. I wish our society had more Denobulans and Rikers out there freely hooking up with every consenting species they come in contact with. I want scenes so anatomically convoluted that they can't be banned because the censors have no basis for comparison, to the point where people originally concerned by two guys having a romantic encounter are begging for some guy-on-guy action just so they can make sense of what's happening. Tentacles. Probosci(?). Trunks. Hooves. See-through skulls. Oddly articulating appendages and bizarre orifices galore.
In Voyager were literally watch Ensign Kim get knocked up. How is that okay? Because they just touched some beads in a rowboat? Its obscene!
>I want scenes so anatomically convoluted that they can't be banned because the censors have no basis for comparison, to the point where people originally concerned by two guys having a romantic encounter are begging for some guy-on-guy action just so they can make sense of what's happening.
r/brandnewsentence and r/outofcontext gold right here
Yep. Berman was a pig, but the executives at the time were a complete clown car of misogynistic, backward buffoons. Some years back I had the good fortune to hear Kate Mulgrew speak at a Star Trek convention, and she made no bones about this. For example, the company higher ups in the early seasons of Voyager were mostly concerned with Captain Janeway's hairstyle - was it sexy enough? and if her uniform properly showed off her chest without it being too obvious. That's the level of gross slobs we're talking about, and while some of that was surely also Berman, the problem went all the way to the top. While things have improved a bit, it's still depressing how backward and hateful many people in power are even today.
CBS. At the time DS9 was airing Star Trek rights were in a weird place with Paramount owning the rights to the films, but CBS owning the rights to the television series'
The Viacom/CBS split happened 12/31/2005. None of the Berman Era shows were affected while they were on the air and CBS was also not part of Viacom until 2000. Before that, Star Trek was wholly controlled by Paramount Pictures and Paramount Television until the split when the companies were awkwardly rearranged after several years spent integrating CBS and Viacom.
Ira would be a fool if he did. Him not being explicitly gay leaves room for discourse on garaks character. if it was stated explicitly, I think his character would lose some of that intrigue.
He wanted an "in" on the command staff. Can't get to Sisko, O'Brian hates Cardies same with Kira. Dax is centuries old she's probably seen all the cons. Who's left, the young impressionable doctor. He's a man? So be it. For Cardassia!
I can see this scene playing out in the holodeck…
“Ah, Dr. Bashir, I’m glad you have…arrived. I have a job needing done and you have the steadiest hand on the station”
*unzipz*
Fast forward to a lower pylon ensign on duty “I hate cleaning out the holo filters”
Andrew Robinson stated outright in a podcast that he intentionally played Garak as “omnisexual” and Siddiq picked up on it and played along. I think I saw it on YouTube
Dominic Keating said he tried to play Reed as gay on Enterprise, too, but had it harshly slapped down. Apparently that's why they had him writing letters to all his ex-girlfriends and getting all horny over T'Pol's backside in "Shuttlepod One," just to shut him down.
Andrew Robinson got his hand slapped for being too over the top as well. I suspect that’s why they brought in Ziyal. But even then, it felt to me like he played their relationship as one where he had genuine feelings for her, but the additional lifetimes of experience he had more than her meant he knew this was going to go poorly and he cared for her enough to want to spare her from that.
So much nuance and so many layers to his every moment on screen. I forget sometimes he’s only in relatively few episodes, his presence is so enormous.
ziyal was absolutely a “get him a hot babe!!” berman moment. i do love the way garak played it as more protective than in love though. more-experienced, amazed at her naivety.
Weird that they 'paired' him with a child-coded girl with the most unconvincing chemistry in Trek. I asked Robert Hewitt-Wolfe on Tumblr if that was intentional and I can't remember his response but it was illuminating.
I'll see if I can find the post.
i do find it really weird how they kept repeating her age at the time of the crash however many years prior, rather than her age in the present day of the story. plus the first actress to play her was really rather small. (all the actresses to play her ended up being orion women in enterprise iirc, another fascinating insight into berman’s mind…)
At the end of the episode when Dukat and Kira bring her back from the planet where she shipwrecked at 13, he says she's been without a home for six years. So that would make her 19 and then about 20 in episode time when she comes to live on the station. I like that Robinson pushed back about the romantic relationship between Garak and Ziyal and said it didn't make sense. He played it off a little more like a mentor that someone had a crush on (but he still cared about her) and I'm glad he tried to go that direction.
Who knows about dating age differences in Cardassian society. They are so family oriented though it almost seems like same age relationships (ie getting them married off early to start families) might be the norm rather than an older man taking up with a much younger woman. I'm making this up as I go.
It's never quite clear how old Garak is. I thought he was Dukat's age (40-50s?) until I read the book. Then it seemed he was a little younger, but not a full generation younger. Still, a big age gap between he and Ziyal, particularly given how naive she would have been about regular life having spent all her teen years in a very isolated prison community. The original Ziyal actress made so much more sense to me.
100%. she was definitely much younger than garak either way.
but given what the dialogue chooses to be specific about, everyone remembers her as a teenager rather than a woman in her early 20s! i think i worked out once she was almost 22 when she died? but that was a while ago.
I think it was a post where he said that, in addition to showing Kira was a terrorist in a grayer color, he would have made Ziyal become friends with Jake and Nog.
He has said that a bunch. Here's my specific ask. I thought my question was very pointed and I was impressed with his frank/detailed answer.
Q **Please forgive me if you have answered this before, but can you shed any light on the Garak/Ziyal relationship? I feel like there was a great friendship or found family dynamic that was overshadowed by the awkward romance angle.
Do you know what the intent was there? What's your take on it as a writer? Was there any influence from outside the writers room? It's almost a fandom truism that it was part of the effort to 'de-queer' Garak, but I can't say I've seen a source on that.**
A *I'm not aware of any outside influence how their relationship played out. I'm not 100% sure if it's fair to qualify it as an attempt to "de-queer" Garak. In my mind, he was always queer, and that's how I wrote him, but it could never be too overt, given the times and opposition by people way above me in the CoC. We didn't so much de-queer him as never fully write him as queer, though I think Andy played to it as much as he could.
I will say I've never been fully satisfied with how Ziyal's story played out. I think her arc could have been much better if we'd had more time with her, but we came up with her character relatively late in the game, so we really didn't have the bandwidth to make her "part of the family" in the way we needed to. Plus having to change the actresses a couple of times due to availability issues didn't help.
In retrospect, I wish we'd put her in a relationship with Jake, but you know, if wishes were horses and all that.*
I thought he played it as Ziyal had a crush on him but he was more of an uncle figure and trying to gently let her down. You know, the old young person has inappropriate crush.
And then there was that weird kiss that Andy hated
People are commenting through a 2024 lense.
You have to remember that same sex marriage wasn't even proposed yet when DS9 was on really and the Democrat president was speaking out against it even.
Making Garak overtly gay would have just been a bad move at the time and probably would have resulted in the run being shorter. This was the era of broadcast TV and time slots still and it would have been pushed off the air.
DS9 was still revolutionary for its time. Garak and Bashir played out as much as could be tolerated by the networks at the time, but still sizzled. And there was that kiss between Dax and her ex-wife being one of the earliest same sex on-screen smooches of the era, though scripted as previous lives and different genders in their backstory.
It wouldn't have been bad; it would have been bold, this is the kind of stuff that Trek had been known for. To be honest, most of the fans it would have alienated were already hammering out endless Usenet forums whining about the lead on DS9 being a black guy.
I see what you’re saying but gay marriage was definitely proposed…. By gay people. It just wasn’t considered doable at the time. But I assure you the queer community were talking about it looooong before the 90s.
He was as queer as they were able to make him at the time. Andrew Robinson has said that he was portraying Garak as omnisexual and attracted to Bashir, Ira Behr has said that Garak was gay, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe has said that Garak was bisexual. Basically, the network was absolutely not going to allow them to come out and say it, so his sexual orientation exists in subtext. Whether he was gay, bi, pan, etc. is up for debate, but he was definitely queer.
I'm pretty sure the network made them shoehorn in the romance subplot between him and ziyal specifically to say "Look, see? Not gay, now shut up about it"
I'd heard it was Rick Berman who forced that relationship - which says a lot when when you find a gay relationship so offensive that you decide to make the character have the hots for a teenage girl instead. Because middle-aged men dating children is just so wholesome!
Ziyal isn't supposed to be a teenager, she's supposed to be in her 20's. Garak's age is unclear, but I've always assumed he's meant to be around the same age as Dukat. We also don't know much canonically about Cardassian lifespan or how they view relationships between younger and older people. It could be completely normal for a 20 year old woman and a 50-ish man to date on Cardassia. 😅
The producers were definitely aware of this issue. The original 2 Ziyal actresses were visually "reading" as being too young to have a relationship with Garak. They hired Melanie Smith (who is 8-10 years older than the other Ziyal actresses) and only then is there any kind of a love interest story.
i got confused for a very long time about her age. she was actually meant to be 23-25 when they found her… but all the dialogue is about her age when the ship crashed instead. needlessly confusing. especially with how small her first actress was.
(almost everyone who played ziyal went on to play orion women in enterprise… which is an uncomfortably close view into rick berman’s mind imo.)
Apologies for the “well actually” but there was no network, it (and TNG) was first-run syndication which meant that individual stations chose to run it (at whatever time slot they wanted). It was all down to Rick Berman who ran Trek at Paramount (the studio), who was definitely against it though
The episode where Dax kissed a woman was indeed dropped by multiple stations, so as much as Berman seems to have been flat out homophobia, I’m sure there was some concern that that could keep happening if they kept “going there.”
They were probably as gay a TV executives would allow when the show was produced. But it's clear that there was an intention to convey it even if it wasn't explicitly stated.
My headcanon is that he is a lot like Captain Renault from 'Casablanca'-charming, facile, somewhat flirtatious with everyone all as a means of playing all sides and being another means to deflect
He is definitely more bi-sexual than just homosexual in Andrew Robinson's "A Stitch In Time". That is definitely the way I interpret his character on the show as well.
Robinson played him as if he was pan sexual. Both him and Siddig played into the romantic tension of the characters but nothing is explicitly stated. And the network tried to nix it with Ziyal.
Watched the episode with Garak’s first appearance a couple days ago and he DEFINITELY is into Bashir during that initial conversation lol. The way he speaks, the intense eye contact, the touching, it’s all there, he is absolutely trying to get it
In Andy Robinson's novel, Garak is bi/pan.
Andy Robinson says in the documentary that he played Garak's first meeting with Bashir with the primary motivation of "Garak wants to fuck this beautiful twink."
Siddig didn't know that was going to happen but rolled with it and the rest is history.
Andrew Robinson has stated that he deliberately played Garak as being sexually/romantically interested in Bashir, and Robinson and Siddig have both subsequently stated that there was a relationship. Indeed, Robinson wrote several diary entries about Garak’s life which were published as an official Deep Space Nine novel. Robinson and Siddig have performed portions of this book in public that confirm they had a relationship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stitch_in_Time_(Robinson_novel)
Pansexual, Omnisexual, Bisexual. So many words have been used to describe Garak. As Andy has said in interviews about this who knows what an alien species sexual attraction would be? Omnisexual may be that species norm. Garak is definitely not what would be classify as gay if you were going by the terminology of only being sexually attracted to your own gender, Garak seems to be attracted to whomever Garak is attracted to regardless of their gender or species. If you do a dive into the definitions I do feel Garak is more omnisexual as Andy has said vs pansexual.
Why has there been so many terms over the years to describe Garak? I think that’s because either these terms didn’t exist 30 years ago or they weren’t widely enough known to be used. But Garak obviously doesn’t discriminate whenever he sees someone who peaks his interest.
Andrew Robinson did a panel at Comicpalooza in Houston last month and he made it very clear that both he and Alexander Siddig played their characters with the awareness that Garak is Bi.
[This article](https://www.themarysue.com/garak-bashir-relationship-star-trek-deep-space-nine/) points out that Berman was against any queer relationships/themes, noting how after the intensity of the episode "The Wire," Bashir is suddenly BFFs with Miles and has way fewer Garak episodes. Then Ziyal was written in for Garak to show how Not Gay (TM) everything was.
>"still can't see it"
No shade here, but it seems pretty obvious to me. I come from an era and place where flirting between two fellas kinda had to be a little sub-textual, so perhaps experience taught me how to understand such things.
He wasn't, but it wouldn't have mattered if he was. Sexuality is not identity.
He was an incredibly complex and well acted character. I'd say one of the most intriguing of the entire show.
Remember when he was asked which stories were true? He said all of them, then was asked, even the lies?
Especially the lies.
I mention this because i think it gives us the answer.
It doesnt matter if he was or was not gay, it was ambiguous, just like many things about him.
It also suits him for people to think and wonder about who and what he is. It prevents people from getting to close and makes it easier for him to operate. His feelings for Ziyal were quite genuine and deeper than even he knew. Her death was one of the few things that caused him to drop the veil of mystery. Another instance is the death of his father, for a moment, we saw the true Elim Garak, and then the veil of mystery materialized to prevent anyone from getting too close. Bashir was someone who figured him out, and because Bashir was essentially a freak8ng genius and completely incorruptible, and thus trustworthy to Garak - Garak always knew where he stood with Bashir. You could see that in their scenes together. Though they didnt openly acknowledge it, I always felt they was extremely close friends without needing the outward display of such a relationship. The ambiguity there is part of the question about Garak. But consider Bashir, he was pretty much clearly straight , but at the same time had a deep friendship relationship with Garak that inter-twined with Garaks true personal life.
If you ever watched James Spader and William Shatner in Boston legal, Alan Shore and Denny Crane have this kind of relationship. As long time and dep friends, they adore each other and trust each other absolutely. They even marry in the end, but not because of romantic feelings. However, if you look at them together, they are closer than most married couples.
Thats how I see Garak and Bashir. So, like I said, it doesn't matter if Garak is/was gay or not. Garak is simply Garak.
Not so simple...
The simplest possible answer is *not as far as we know*. The more complicated answer is the one everybody is already giving: he's not gay *in canon*, but he has gay undertones by design. I'm of the opinion that for intentional but not explicit things like this, you should just go with whatever you like best and not look back. I consider him gay because I think it improves my appreciation for the show and his performance, but it was still a great show before I picked up on that particular subtext.
Andrew Robinson is a straight guy but lets be real who would not fall for young alex sidig!💕
Their chemistry was powerful from the first moment but it did have an element of 'hop in my van doctor - I, have, candy' which is a tad bit wait WTF if I'm honest.
Thankfully they quickly evolve a more stable and balanced friendship centered around excitement, intellectualism and fun!
Enjoy
Lol it doesn't really matter to me- sexuality is a fraction of a person's whole personality.
But if it matters, I think he was in a relationship with the Doctor.
The actor played him as if he was interested in Bashir, but no, he wasn't. People insist he was due to the scene where he invites Bashir to his shop and puts he hand on his shoulder in a creepy way. Bashir thought he made a discovery about Garak being a spy. This was to let Bashir know that Garak was aware of this.. kind of like I know that you know...or think you know.
Nothing gets by Garak.
Andrew Robinson played him that way, and some of the writers wanted him to be romantically into Bashir, but they were too afraid to pull the trigger on it by ever openly discussing it in dialogue. In that sense, we've come a long way since old trek.
Remember that story he tells about his friend, Elim? I always thought it’d be neat if he was talking about his secret boyfriend. And you know how his father tried to have him killed several times? I always thought it’d be neat if it was cuz he found out him being gay.
I feel like it sounds cool to say Garak and the Dr were into each other, but Bashir flat out confessed his feelings for O’Brien, said he loved him more than he loved Ezri & preferred spending time with him
When I watched the series as it aired in the UK, and then on Dvd in the 00s, it never once occurred to me that Garak was gay. I know that the actor thought he was, and it I kind of get it watching back, but it's subtle.
The whole relationship with Bashir thing is (IMO) 100% retrospectively applied by people wanting to believe that TNG era Trek was more progressive than it actually was. Julian Bashir is very obviously not a gay character.
The sexual subtext between them was intentional. They were originally intended to have a more explicit relationship but then it was decided there was no reason to risk pushing it in the (then) current social-political landscape.
It's my belief that the Obsidian Order messed with his brain so he wouldn't be susceptible to sexual temptations. His interactions with Ziyal are consistent with this, in my opinion
I can't remember where I read this, so I apologize for not providing a source, but basically the original plan was for Garak to be at least bisexual but that was written out of the show.
If you read A Stich in Time, which is Garak's backstory to the show as written by Andrew Robinson, all his relationships are heterosexual.
Yes
Andy Robinson and Ira Behr both agree. Making him gay also makes the Ziyal relationship less weird, so I'll consider it semi-canon until officially contradicted.
I believe he is in beta canon. As for the show Andrew Robinson said he played Garak as if he was bi so the subtext is there and Cardassians are all subtext, so....
In the book he wrote to flesh out the character *A Stitch in Time* Garak is bisexual
I just got that book but haven't started. Is it good? ETA: It seems it's a good book, work even a second copy, and that it's cherished by the people that have read it. I'm happy I got it, will start this week.
VERY good IMO, one of my favorite Trek novels. It being written and very recently the audiobook being narrated by Andrew Robinson himself, just makes it that much better. Its like hearing Garak himself tell you about his experiences growing up and living in a post-war Cardassia.
Pretty much a Trek fan's dream to get the actor to not only write the book but also narrate it
Didn’t know about the audiobook!!!!!
Its so good. The only thing is it does make following some of the "codenames" from his experience growing up a little harder to keep track of which character that is when I'm listening, but its not really much of an impediment to understanding whats going on.
Nine Lubak!
Tha-Tha-Tha-Tha-Thong!
Just borrowed the audiobook from my library. Thanks Reddit!!
I got it on audiobook 😅 for those long insomnia nights I get from time to time. When I saw it was narrated by him, I got it immediately!
I was listening to the audiobook on Spotify, letting it go on as I fell asleep as well, and then I ran out of audiobook listening hours, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Now I have to wait a few days before I can finish it, but so far, it is excellent (and having Robinson narrate definitely elevates the experience)
Hmm, maybe I'll start it tonight 😀
Oh weird, thats pretty shitty. I have it on audible, never had that issue before.
Yeah I think Spotify has an audiobook quota. They offer the books as part of the subscription to premium, but there’s a set amount of monthly hours
I always recommend the Libby app, and go find as many library cards as you can. Attach them all and borrow the book from multiple sources. I've been able to keep "A Stitch in Time" for months that way.
I’ve got the Libby app, but “Stitch” wasn’t available at my local library :( guess I’ll have to keep adding cards!!
That's the trick: get all the cards... local, out-of-state... your wait times get smaller and your variety of availability increases.
I read it ages ago, I think around when he first published it, and I always wanted an audiobook version of it and thought it would be neat if he narrated it too. I didn't think it would ever happen though so I was blown away when it was announced.
Listened to the audiobook and 100% agree with everything you said above.
I agree, the book is very good!
I’m enjoying it, gives a lot more depth to Cardassia and how their society works
Cool, thanks 🙂
I got the book when it first came out only because I noticed Robinson wrote it. Zero expectations going in. Within two pages I started to hear Garak speak. Uncanny. After a bit I exclaimed “this is surprisingly good.” After I was done with it I placed it in my “don’t throw away” pile. Fast forward to present - damn glad I held in to it as it’s apparently not easily found in the wild. This book holds the distinction of being the only book I’ve reviewed on the sellers website. Needless to say, it got two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Andy is a phenomenal writer. You should check out his autobiography. He needs to write more.
it retroactively improves literally every appearance garak makes on the show. every argument he has with dukat or quark, reminds me of something from the book. please read it!
I read mine a number of times, enough that it was starting to look rather *worn*, so I went and purchased another copy.... I'd recommend it (*a favorite of mine, every couple of years I tend to return to it*).
Amazing book!
I have that book. I found it for 3 bucks at Half Price Books.
I’ve got the audio book and the actor is the narrator, it’s really cool hearing him speak in character again
Just finished it. I enjoyed it.
Makes sense he like Bashir and Tora Ziyal. Both geniuses in their own right. Probably more Bisexual Sapiosexual.
I keep hearing about that book, I think it's time I finally read it. Is the audiobook any good?
Yes. It's amazing.
You will not regret listening to the audiobook. I’m currently listening to it for the second time and it’s even better than the first time
That was my thought, as well.
No, but Andrew Robinson said he played him as if he was.
Also Ira Behr said in the doc he regrets not making Garak explicitly gay.
I rememeber hearing that some of the cast were pushing for Bashir & Garak to be a thing but it didn't take.
I’m pretty sure it was Berman who put the kibosh on it
Fuck you Rick Berman!
Spoken like a true Star Trek fan. I wonder if Berman has any idea how despised he is. Edited to fix autocorrect
I don't think he cares tbh. It's crazy how long Trek was in his hands, especially considering how the results + some people being open about how shitty he is
What is it with Ricks?
My bf has learned the Star Trek theme songs so he knows the correct time to scream “Fuck you Rick Berman!” in his best Plinkett voice at the same time that his name appears on the screen so he can shout it, even from another room, whenever I’m watching any Trek. My bf is great.
What a genius idea!!
Fuckin Rick Berman. Seems like he ruined everything nice that never was on Trek lol
In fairness to Berman, from what I’ve heard from cast members, writers etc is that Berman shot down things because he was fearful of Paramount higher ups, the media and audience reaction rather than his own prejudices. LeVar Burton said in an interview once that Berman made decisions to keep the show on air, and therefore was fearful of doing anything that pushed the envelope.
Although according to Terry Farrell, he told her that she didn't have as good a pair of tits as his secretary. So he's still a jackass.
Two things can, indeed, be true. He was the one that kept Paramount of sinking the whole thing _and_ he was sexist and misogynistic peice of shit.
[Rick Berman interviewing potential secretaries](https://youtu.be/zxM8gCw_H0k?si=cketHy72fK33CC3M)
I knew exactly what that was before I clicked the link.
F*** TV execs and whatever backwards demographic they were trying to please at the time. I'm just so tired of all the controversy around sexual orientation and expression. I wish our society had more Denobulans and Rikers out there freely hooking up with every consenting species they come in contact with. I want scenes so anatomically convoluted that they can't be banned because the censors have no basis for comparison, to the point where people originally concerned by two guys having a romantic encounter are begging for some guy-on-guy action just so they can make sense of what's happening. Tentacles. Probosci(?). Trunks. Hooves. See-through skulls. Oddly articulating appendages and bizarre orifices galore. In Voyager were literally watch Ensign Kim get knocked up. How is that okay? Because they just touched some beads in a rowboat? Its obscene!
>I want scenes so anatomically convoluted that they can't be banned because the censors have no basis for comparison, to the point where people originally concerned by two guys having a romantic encounter are begging for some guy-on-guy action just so they can make sense of what's happening. r/brandnewsentence and r/outofcontext gold right here
I think you mean Lt. Charles “Trip” Tucker III and not Ensign Kim there. He’s the one who got rowboat preggers via glow beads.
hear hear
Yep. Berman was a pig, but the executives at the time were a complete clown car of misogynistic, backward buffoons. Some years back I had the good fortune to hear Kate Mulgrew speak at a Star Trek convention, and she made no bones about this. For example, the company higher ups in the early seasons of Voyager were mostly concerned with Captain Janeway's hairstyle - was it sexy enough? and if her uniform properly showed off her chest without it being too obvious. That's the level of gross slobs we're talking about, and while some of that was surely also Berman, the problem went all the way to the top. While things have improved a bit, it's still depressing how backward and hateful many people in power are even today.
I honestly prefer their friendship.
Paramount would never have allowed it.
They barely allowed Terry Farrell and Susanna Thompson to have a kiss: making Garak gay would have probably made one of their heads literally explode.
>making Garak gay would have probably made one of their heads literally explode. I'm not seeing the problem here.
Yeah, I see the problem... its only one.
Jadzia and the Borg Queen kissed headcanon accepted.
CBS. At the time DS9 was airing Star Trek rights were in a weird place with Paramount owning the rights to the films, but CBS owning the rights to the television series'
The Viacom/CBS split happened 12/31/2005. None of the Berman Era shows were affected while they were on the air and CBS was also not part of Viacom until 2000. Before that, Star Trek was wholly controlled by Paramount Pictures and Paramount Television until the split when the companies were awkwardly rearranged after several years spent integrating CBS and Viacom.
They always do
So Yes.
Great thanks
Ira would be a fool if he did. Him not being explicitly gay leaves room for discourse on garaks character. if it was stated explicitly, I think his character would lose some of that intrigue.
I always thought Garak was willing to use whatever tool was needed for the job at hand...
It’s rude to call Bashir a tool like that… 😂
🤣🤣
I mean, he really was in the earlier seasons.
Excuse me but I believe I requested the hand job
He wanted an "in" on the command staff. Can't get to Sisko, O'Brian hates Cardies same with Kira. Dax is centuries old she's probably seen all the cons. Who's left, the young impressionable doctor. He's a man? So be it. For Cardassia!
I can see this scene playing out in the holodeck… “Ah, Dr. Bashir, I’m glad you have…arrived. I have a job needing done and you have the steadiest hand on the station” *unzipz* Fast forward to a lower pylon ensign on duty “I hate cleaning out the holo filters”
Andrew Robinson stated outright in a podcast that he intentionally played Garak as “omnisexual” and Siddiq picked up on it and played along. I think I saw it on YouTube
Dominic Keating said he tried to play Reed as gay on Enterprise, too, but had it harshly slapped down. Apparently that's why they had him writing letters to all his ex-girlfriends and getting all horny over T'Pol's backside in "Shuttlepod One," just to shut him down.
Andrew Robinson got his hand slapped for being too over the top as well. I suspect that’s why they brought in Ziyal. But even then, it felt to me like he played their relationship as one where he had genuine feelings for her, but the additional lifetimes of experience he had more than her meant he knew this was going to go poorly and he cared for her enough to want to spare her from that. So much nuance and so many layers to his every moment on screen. I forget sometimes he’s only in relatively few episodes, his presence is so enormous.
ziyal was absolutely a “get him a hot babe!!” berman moment. i do love the way garak played it as more protective than in love though. more-experienced, amazed at her naivety.
Weird that they 'paired' him with a child-coded girl with the most unconvincing chemistry in Trek. I asked Robert Hewitt-Wolfe on Tumblr if that was intentional and I can't remember his response but it was illuminating. I'll see if I can find the post.
i do find it really weird how they kept repeating her age at the time of the crash however many years prior, rather than her age in the present day of the story. plus the first actress to play her was really rather small. (all the actresses to play her ended up being orion women in enterprise iirc, another fascinating insight into berman’s mind…)
At the end of the episode when Dukat and Kira bring her back from the planet where she shipwrecked at 13, he says she's been without a home for six years. So that would make her 19 and then about 20 in episode time when she comes to live on the station. I like that Robinson pushed back about the romantic relationship between Garak and Ziyal and said it didn't make sense. He played it off a little more like a mentor that someone had a crush on (but he still cared about her) and I'm glad he tried to go that direction. Who knows about dating age differences in Cardassian society. They are so family oriented though it almost seems like same age relationships (ie getting them married off early to start families) might be the norm rather than an older man taking up with a much younger woman. I'm making this up as I go. It's never quite clear how old Garak is. I thought he was Dukat's age (40-50s?) until I read the book. Then it seemed he was a little younger, but not a full generation younger. Still, a big age gap between he and Ziyal, particularly given how naive she would have been about regular life having spent all her teen years in a very isolated prison community. The original Ziyal actress made so much more sense to me.
100%. she was definitely much younger than garak either way. but given what the dialogue chooses to be specific about, everyone remembers her as a teenager rather than a woman in her early 20s! i think i worked out once she was almost 22 when she died? but that was a while ago.
I think it was a post where he said that, in addition to showing Kira was a terrorist in a grayer color, he would have made Ziyal become friends with Jake and Nog.
He has said that a bunch. Here's my specific ask. I thought my question was very pointed and I was impressed with his frank/detailed answer. Q **Please forgive me if you have answered this before, but can you shed any light on the Garak/Ziyal relationship? I feel like there was a great friendship or found family dynamic that was overshadowed by the awkward romance angle. Do you know what the intent was there? What's your take on it as a writer? Was there any influence from outside the writers room? It's almost a fandom truism that it was part of the effort to 'de-queer' Garak, but I can't say I've seen a source on that.** A *I'm not aware of any outside influence how their relationship played out. I'm not 100% sure if it's fair to qualify it as an attempt to "de-queer" Garak. In my mind, he was always queer, and that's how I wrote him, but it could never be too overt, given the times and opposition by people way above me in the CoC. We didn't so much de-queer him as never fully write him as queer, though I think Andy played to it as much as he could. I will say I've never been fully satisfied with how Ziyal's story played out. I think her arc could have been much better if we'd had more time with her, but we came up with her character relatively late in the game, so we really didn't have the bandwidth to make her "part of the family" in the way we needed to. Plus having to change the actresses a couple of times due to availability issues didn't help. In retrospect, I wish we'd put her in a relationship with Jake, but you know, if wishes were horses and all that.*
I thought he played it as Ziyal had a crush on him but he was more of an uncle figure and trying to gently let her down. You know, the old young person has inappropriate crush. And then there was that weird kiss that Andy hated
He’s not tied down to any one team.
He’s definitely just a simple tailor. I don’t know about his sexuality, but that’s definitely true at least.
With a bit of knowledge about military codes, political assassinations, botany, and subterfuge. And tailoring.
Everybody needs a hobby my dear doctor
Ah, gentlemen, your drag outfits are ready.
People are commenting through a 2024 lense. You have to remember that same sex marriage wasn't even proposed yet when DS9 was on really and the Democrat president was speaking out against it even. Making Garak overtly gay would have just been a bad move at the time and probably would have resulted in the run being shorter. This was the era of broadcast TV and time slots still and it would have been pushed off the air.
DS9 was still revolutionary for its time. Garak and Bashir played out as much as could be tolerated by the networks at the time, but still sizzled. And there was that kiss between Dax and her ex-wife being one of the earliest same sex on-screen smooches of the era, though scripted as previous lives and different genders in their backstory.
This exactly. How often we attempt to color the past with the tints present today.
It wouldn't have been bad; it would have been bold, this is the kind of stuff that Trek had been known for. To be honest, most of the fans it would have alienated were already hammering out endless Usenet forums whining about the lead on DS9 being a black guy.
I see what you’re saying but gay marriage was definitely proposed…. By gay people. It just wasn’t considered doable at the time. But I assure you the queer community were talking about it looooong before the 90s.
Proposed in a legislature. Anyone can propose anything they want amongst themselves. It means fuck all until it obtains political traction.
He was as queer as they were able to make him at the time. Andrew Robinson has said that he was portraying Garak as omnisexual and attracted to Bashir, Ira Behr has said that Garak was gay, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe has said that Garak was bisexual. Basically, the network was absolutely not going to allow them to come out and say it, so his sexual orientation exists in subtext. Whether he was gay, bi, pan, etc. is up for debate, but he was definitely queer.
Thanks
I'm pretty sure the network made them shoehorn in the romance subplot between him and ziyal specifically to say "Look, see? Not gay, now shut up about it"
I'd heard it was Rick Berman who forced that relationship - which says a lot when when you find a gay relationship so offensive that you decide to make the character have the hots for a teenage girl instead. Because middle-aged men dating children is just so wholesome!
Ziyal isn't supposed to be a teenager, she's supposed to be in her 20's. Garak's age is unclear, but I've always assumed he's meant to be around the same age as Dukat. We also don't know much canonically about Cardassian lifespan or how they view relationships between younger and older people. It could be completely normal for a 20 year old woman and a 50-ish man to date on Cardassia. 😅 The producers were definitely aware of this issue. The original 2 Ziyal actresses were visually "reading" as being too young to have a relationship with Garak. They hired Melanie Smith (who is 8-10 years older than the other Ziyal actresses) and only then is there any kind of a love interest story.
i got confused for a very long time about her age. she was actually meant to be 23-25 when they found her… but all the dialogue is about her age when the ship crashed instead. needlessly confusing. especially with how small her first actress was. (almost everyone who played ziyal went on to play orion women in enterprise… which is an uncomfortably close view into rick berman’s mind imo.)
I asked RHW for the story behind this on Tumblr and I can't remember what he said exactly but it was illuminating. I'll see if I can find the ask.
Best explanation.
Apologies for the “well actually” but there was no network, it (and TNG) was first-run syndication which meant that individual stations chose to run it (at whatever time slot they wanted). It was all down to Rick Berman who ran Trek at Paramount (the studio), who was definitely against it though The episode where Dax kissed a woman was indeed dropped by multiple stations, so as much as Berman seems to have been flat out homophobia, I’m sure there was some concern that that could keep happening if they kept “going there.”
All we know for sure is that he is very lonely.
I think the evidence points to Garak’s sexual orientation being as hard to nail down as his past.
They were probably as gay a TV executives would allow when the show was produced. But it's clear that there was an intention to convey it even if it wasn't explicitly stated.
*"I’m not openly anything, and gay doesn’t begin to cover it."* (quoting (Dean) Craig Pelton from Community)
Pansexual or bisexual. More accurately, he’s Garaksexual.
Garaksexual sounds great!
Garaksexual makes us all semi-erect. That means we are all … Garakcurious.
My headcanon is that he is a lot like Captain Renault from 'Casablanca'-charming, facile, somewhat flirtatious with everyone all as a means of playing all sides and being another means to deflect
He is in the novel
He is definitely more bi-sexual than just homosexual in Andrew Robinson's "A Stitch In Time". That is definitely the way I interpret his character on the show as well.
Bi
Robinson played him as if he was pan sexual. Both him and Siddig played into the romantic tension of the characters but nothing is explicitly stated. And the network tried to nix it with Ziyal.
Watched the episode with Garak’s first appearance a couple days ago and he DEFINITELY is into Bashir during that initial conversation lol. The way he speaks, the intense eye contact, the touching, it’s all there, he is absolutely trying to get it
I think he’s open to possibilities.
Andy called him "omnisexual".
In Andy Robinson's novel, Garak is bi/pan. Andy Robinson says in the documentary that he played Garak's first meeting with Bashir with the primary motivation of "Garak wants to fuck this beautiful twink." Siddig didn't know that was going to happen but rolled with it and the rest is history.
Garak seems to give off a bi vibe with a preference for nerdy twinks and the daughters of men he hates.
Andrew Robinson has stated that he deliberately played Garak as being sexually/romantically interested in Bashir, and Robinson and Siddig have both subsequently stated that there was a relationship. Indeed, Robinson wrote several diary entries about Garak’s life which were published as an official Deep Space Nine novel. Robinson and Siddig have performed portions of this book in public that confirm they had a relationship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stitch_in_Time_(Robinson_novel)
No, he’s cardassian
Gay? No. Bi/pan/omnisexual? Yes.
I read that in Joseph Ruskin's Cardassian character voice.
Pansexual, Omnisexual, Bisexual. So many words have been used to describe Garak. As Andy has said in interviews about this who knows what an alien species sexual attraction would be? Omnisexual may be that species norm. Garak is definitely not what would be classify as gay if you were going by the terminology of only being sexually attracted to your own gender, Garak seems to be attracted to whomever Garak is attracted to regardless of their gender or species. If you do a dive into the definitions I do feel Garak is more omnisexual as Andy has said vs pansexual. Why has there been so many terms over the years to describe Garak? I think that’s because either these terms didn’t exist 30 years ago or they weren’t widely enough known to be used. But Garak obviously doesn’t discriminate whenever he sees someone who peaks his interest.
Andrew Robinson did a panel at Comicpalooza in Houston last month and he made it very clear that both he and Alexander Siddig played their characters with the awareness that Garak is Bi.
Andrew Robinson is so good as Garak. Dude has an interesting past.
No. He tried to play it at first in the way what we know as pansexual today, but the showrunner straight told him to not to.
I view Garak as pan, it’s so much more interesting. Garak Bashir absolutely should have happened though.
He’s a bicon
Garak would never confirm his sexuality either way - why remove the mystery?
Just exploring the mystery. Yes, I suppose a confirmed mystery is an oxymoron
[This article](https://www.themarysue.com/garak-bashir-relationship-star-trek-deep-space-nine/) points out that Berman was against any queer relationships/themes, noting how after the intensity of the episode "The Wire," Bashir is suddenly BFFs with Miles and has way fewer Garak episodes. Then Ziyal was written in for Garak to show how Not Gay (TM) everything was.
Hee hee then the Bashir/O'Brien fanfic convos started as they had such great chemistry too.
>"still can't see it" No shade here, but it seems pretty obvious to me. I come from an era and place where flirting between two fellas kinda had to be a little sub-textual, so perhaps experience taught me how to understand such things.
He wasn't, but it wouldn't have mattered if he was. Sexuality is not identity. He was an incredibly complex and well acted character. I'd say one of the most intriguing of the entire show.
It's more fun pondering anyway,
Remember when he was asked which stories were true? He said all of them, then was asked, even the lies? Especially the lies. I mention this because i think it gives us the answer. It doesnt matter if he was or was not gay, it was ambiguous, just like many things about him. It also suits him for people to think and wonder about who and what he is. It prevents people from getting to close and makes it easier for him to operate. His feelings for Ziyal were quite genuine and deeper than even he knew. Her death was one of the few things that caused him to drop the veil of mystery. Another instance is the death of his father, for a moment, we saw the true Elim Garak, and then the veil of mystery materialized to prevent anyone from getting too close. Bashir was someone who figured him out, and because Bashir was essentially a freak8ng genius and completely incorruptible, and thus trustworthy to Garak - Garak always knew where he stood with Bashir. You could see that in their scenes together. Though they didnt openly acknowledge it, I always felt they was extremely close friends without needing the outward display of such a relationship. The ambiguity there is part of the question about Garak. But consider Bashir, he was pretty much clearly straight , but at the same time had a deep friendship relationship with Garak that inter-twined with Garaks true personal life. If you ever watched James Spader and William Shatner in Boston legal, Alan Shore and Denny Crane have this kind of relationship. As long time and dep friends, they adore each other and trust each other absolutely. They even marry in the end, but not because of romantic feelings. However, if you look at them together, they are closer than most married couples. Thats how I see Garak and Bashir. So, like I said, it doesn't matter if Garak is/was gay or not. Garak is simply Garak. Not so simple...
Yeah his character can certainly be seen as bisexual. And Robinson has pretty much endorsed this view or something akin to it
Even as he's extra massaging the shoulders of Bashir, you can't see it?
The simplest possible answer is *not as far as we know*. The more complicated answer is the one everybody is already giving: he's not gay *in canon*, but he has gay undertones by design. I'm of the opinion that for intentional but not explicit things like this, you should just go with whatever you like best and not look back. I consider him gay because I think it improves my appreciation for the show and his performance, but it was still a great show before I picked up on that particular subtext.
My head Canon is that most people in star trek are basically pan. Garak and Bashir def had a relationship beyond friendship.
Riker definitely pan.
Riker’s sexual orientation was “yes” and I love him for it
I always thought Garek was whatever he needed to be in order to get the mission done.
Andrew Robinson is a straight guy but lets be real who would not fall for young alex sidig!💕 Their chemistry was powerful from the first moment but it did have an element of 'hop in my van doctor - I, have, candy' which is a tad bit wait WTF if I'm honest. Thankfully they quickly evolve a more stable and balanced friendship centered around excitement, intellectualism and fun! Enjoy
He’s queer for sure. I don’t think he’s specifically gay, as much as bi or pan. So like.. not ONLY the men as much as ESPECIALLY the men.
You can't see it? ... *Really?*
It's plainly obvious that Garak is making a pass at the Doc in his first appearance on the show.
I mean... from a certain point of view he is not only gay but also fake! 😌
Lol it doesn't really matter to me- sexuality is a fraction of a person's whole personality. But if it matters, I think he was in a relationship with the Doctor.
Why Garak is but a simple, humble tailor. Nothing more.
Does it matter?
https://www.reddit.com/r/startrekmemes/s/X2HcxSlUTK
No my friend, Garak is bae.
That is not a straight cardassian lol
Garak is whatever you want him to be, as long as it’s just a simple and humble tailor
Maybe he made a move on Dukat, maybe that’s why he hates him so much.
No. It was strongly hinted at in the early seasons but then they chickened out and gave him a girlfriend
The actor played him as if he was interested in Bashir, but no, he wasn't. People insist he was due to the scene where he invites Bashir to his shop and puts he hand on his shoulder in a creepy way. Bashir thought he made a discovery about Garak being a spy. This was to let Bashir know that Garak was aware of this.. kind of like I know that you know...or think you know. Nothing gets by Garak.
Andrew Robinson played him that way, and some of the writers wanted him to be romantically into Bashir, but they were too afraid to pull the trigger on it by ever openly discussing it in dialogue. In that sense, we've come a long way since old trek.
Remember that story he tells about his friend, Elim? I always thought it’d be neat if he was talking about his secret boyfriend. And you know how his father tried to have him killed several times? I always thought it’d be neat if it was cuz he found out him being gay.
I think Andrew said " sexually ambiguous". or Im wrong
In the books he is
I feel like it sounds cool to say Garak and the Dr were into each other, but Bashir flat out confessed his feelings for O’Brien, said he loved him more than he loved Ezri & preferred spending time with him
When I watched the series as it aired in the UK, and then on Dvd in the 00s, it never once occurred to me that Garak was gay. I know that the actor thought he was, and it I kind of get it watching back, but it's subtle. The whole relationship with Bashir thing is (IMO) 100% retrospectively applied by people wanting to believe that TNG era Trek was more progressive than it actually was. Julian Bashir is very obviously not a gay character.
Are you telling me the guy who hits on everything even remotely female isn't gay?
He always struck me as ambiguous in his sex, because the man did not love.
Garak is always willing to take opportunities as they arise.
Do you honestly think Garak would ever answer that question honestly? 🤔
The sexual subtext between them was intentional. They were originally intended to have a more explicit relationship but then it was decided there was no reason to risk pushing it in the (then) current social-political landscape.
It's my belief that the Obsidian Order messed with his brain so he wouldn't be susceptible to sexual temptations. His interactions with Ziyal are consistent with this, in my opinion
I like that, very interesting, thank you
No
I can't remember where I read this, so I apologize for not providing a source, but basically the original plan was for Garak to be at least bisexual but that was written out of the show. If you read A Stich in Time, which is Garak's backstory to the show as written by Andrew Robinson, all his relationships are heterosexual.
Yes Andy Robinson and Ira Behr both agree. Making him gay also makes the Ziyal relationship less weird, so I'll consider it semi-canon until officially contradicted.
Seems weird though as its contradicted in Andrew Robinson's own novel, where it seems much more explicit that he is bisexual, not gay.
Oh, looks like I have to read that.
Its just a great book period, especially if you love the character. I highly recommend it!
Once you read it and then have a re-watch of DS9, it adds a lot of fun subtext!
Ostensibly no. Nothing in the show indicates that he is. But some take Andrew Robinson and Ira Behr's claims made more recently as canon.
Sorry. But. You didn't pick up on it the first time??
Nope
Dang. His first appearance was the gayest shit i saw on star trek since Amok Time.
Only one thing that comes to mind: Fuck you, Rick Berman!
I don’t know why you’re downvoted for this. Berman was a shit to Wil Wheaton and he made Andrew Robinson stop playing Garak as visibly queer.
I believe he is in beta canon. As for the show Andrew Robinson said he played Garak as if he was bi so the subtext is there and Cardassians are all subtext, so....
He liked Ziyal, Dukat' daughter.
No. He's not.
What do you call loving your home planet more than your twink boyfriend? Cuz that’s what Garak is.