#book liveblogging | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chacusha · 2 years

Text

DS9 Companion liveblogging (6/14?)

Middle/end of season 3 (3x11-3x26):

On "Past Tense" (3x11/3x12): "Wolfe's first crack at the subject was a script called 'Cold and Distant Stars.' Behr says, 'It just didn't work for me.' The title had to do with the plight of Sisko as a homeless man, looking up at the sky and knowing that was where he belonged. 'I wanted Sisko to be saying, "I'm the captain of a starbase in the year twenty-three-whatever, and I don't belong here,"' says Wolfe." -- Interesting, I always did put "Past Tense" and "Far Beyond the Stars" in a similar category. Looks like the idea was recycled later.

Interesting note that at the time they were writing this episode, the city of L.A. announced a plan to move homeless people to a fenced area, essentially creating an open-air prison -- the episode was more prescient than they expected. Also, some interesting notes on how this pair of episodes marks a maturation point in Bashir's character and that the episodes were criticized by some at the time for being too "liberal" and "soapboxy."

3x13 "Life Support" originally featured a Federation ambassador negotiating a peace treaty with the Romulans and was meant to focus on Bashir as a Frankenstein-like doctor who has the chops to extend life indefinitely but has to realize when to call it quits (an element still present in the final version). It ran into an issue where the ambassador was drawing most of the focus in the plot but he was a rando who the audience wasn't really invested in, so they retooled it to use a pre-existing character (Bareil negotiating with the Cardassians):

The writers when they realized how jarring in tone the A and B plots of this ep are: "The appalling problem was in how the A (Bareil) and B (Jake and Nog double-date) story lines played off each other -- or rather, how they didn't play off each other. 'I'll take the blame for it,' Moore volunteers. 'I said to everyone, "This is such a grim episode, we should have a light B-story, maybe let Jake and Nog do some fun stuff." It sounded great in concept, and I enjoyed writing the scenes, but, man, such a mistake!'" Lol.

Some notes here on 3x14 "Heart of Stone" about the way Auberjonois played Odo's love confession as being so anguished/unpleasant for Odo + the way Odo realizes something is off only when Kira says she loves him too -- those both really indicate how much Odo REALLY doesn't expect his feelings to be reciprocated and how much of an unpleasant burden he views them to be because he just expects them to only cause him pain.

(I only just now realized this episode comes immediately after the one where they kill off Bareil. Huh. Maybe just coincidental.)

Also, this note on how disappointing the rock effect ended up being is interesting: "'It didn't look like I'd imagined when I read the script,' says Visitor. 'I thought it was going to look like my body turning to stone. Instead I looked like a big old hot fudge sundae, and my head was the cherry on top.'" First, lol. But second, oh snap, was that meant to be part of what the episode title is referencing? (I mean, obviously the main "heart of stone" in this episode is Odo's, but was Kira being encased in crystal meant to add to that imagery?) The prop is so bad I never got that.

There's an interesting note about how the Kira/Odo plot is the A plot (as indicated by the title), but it was the B plot that audiences reacted to. Because it's so emotional! Aron Eisenberg on Nog's character development: "'[Up to this point] I always had respected Quark more than my father,' he says. 'I was a true Ferengi and my father was a failure at that.' But the strength of Behr and Wolfe's writing helped to bring him around to the correct mind-set. 'The part where I talk to Sisko about my father is my favorite scene ever, in all the acting I've done -- telling Sisko my father could have been an engineer, given the opportunity. I realized just how proud I really was of him, and how I wished that he'd gotten his chance. And now I was going to have my chance, knowing he fully supported me.' At that point, Eisenberg, along with Nog, switched his loyalties from Quark to Rom. 'Now I'm more irritated than impressed by Quark, because I feel he could be a better... well, not a hew-mon being, but a humanitarian,' he laughs." Interesting interpretation of Nog's character! And it talks about how Eisenberg also took a big risk in following his acting dreams after a kidney transplant and that's kind of the emotions he was tapping into. Even though this isn't one of the best DS9 episodes, I think it's one of the most consequential ones. It's just such a game-changer for the characters.

One final note that Ensign Vilix'pran is mentioned in dialogue (but never seen) in three episodes: 3x14 "Heart of Stone," 5x01 "Apocalypse Rising," and 5x18 "Business as Usual."

^ On this shot from 3x16 "Prophet Motive": "'I began to envision the scene as a Maxfield Parrish illustration,' says Auberjonois. 'I've always found the Ferengi, although they can be quite grotesque, to be like fairy-tale characters.' And indeed, placing the two gremlinlike brothers in front of the window with the large book made it look, as Shimerman comments, 'like a picture from some children's book, with two trolls sitting on a moon somewhere, because of all the stars behind us. A beautiful shot.'" Apparently, a moving starfield had to be installed on the window for the shot since it looks weird to have a stationary shot of a window looking out on space without any motion. This is the first time someone did a shot like that involving this window so they had to build the moving starfield.

Interesting how the B-plot of this episode (Bashir and the Carrington Award) is inspired by the experience of Star Trek: TNG getting nominated for a best dramatic series Emmy and everyone on its staff knowing that it wouldn't get it because that award doesn't go to shows like Star Trek but at some point, people started to wonder if TNG might actually get it (it didn't).

On Bashir and O'Brien's dart games: "'We couldn't go back there [to the holosuite handball court] because it was too expensive,' explains Behr. 'And we'd heard that a pool table was going to be used on Voyager, which was our first choice. And they'd already done cards [on TNG]. So what was something that two guys could do and talk while they're doing it?'"

On 3x17 "Visionary": Apparently the plot element where O'Brien's place is permanently taken by a time-shifted version of himself (because the original version died) was considered for Riker in TNG 6x24 "Second Chances"!

Some interesting thoughts on 3x18 "Distant Voices":

Fascinating:

3x20 "Improbable Cause": I'm just reminded how convoluted the plot is in this episode. So many fakeouts and schemes??

It's impressive how many previous dangling plot threads they were able to weave together on this two-parter: Garak's relationship to the Obsidian Order and to Tain, and the ominous Obsidian Order buildup in 3x09 "Defiant".

Oh snap, apparently this episode was meant to be a single standalone plot that would end with Tain letting Garak and Odo leave capture alive because Garak left blackmail material with Bashir with instructions to take it to Sisko if Garak never came back. That was meant to be the end of this plot but the writers always felt it was a weak and unsatisfying resolution and not very convincing that Odo would be let off the ship like that. Michael Piller gave a suggestion that saved the episode -- keep Odo on board, have them all proceed to the Dominion, and then tell another story of what happens from there. Thus it became a two-parter.

This caused issues in the filming schedule because the script for the second part wasn't ready, while the plan was to film the next episode, "Through the Looking Glass" next. In the end, they ended up filming part I, "Through the Looking Glass", part II and rearranging the broadcast order to keep the two parts together.

In the rushed rewrite, the scene between Garak and Bashir (where Garak hands over blackmail material to Bashir) is still there but the unsatisfyingly cliche spy trope got new life as a cheeky joke, lol.

New Tal Shiar uniform designs in this episode apparently. Ron Moore hated the boxy quilt ones (aww, I like the original versions).

This is a funny picture and caption:

3x19 "Through the Looking Glass":

Did not realize the implication was that Sisko slept with Mirror Kira too. I feel like this dubcon plotline (plus the way a Ferengi character dies in every goddamn mirror episode) makes the DS9 mirror episodes just kinda depressing...

3x21 "The Die Is Cast": Visual effects artist Josh Rose: "As he [Odo] transformed, we made the color of the goo a little darker than usual so he didn't look as pretty as he normally does, and he kind of crawls into the bucket." -- This amuses me, just the description of Odo's goo form as pretty and of it crawling into a bucket.

"In the episode, the upshot of the torture sequence is that Odo finally does reveal a secret to Garak, admitting that he wants to go home to his people. [...] 'That was an important beat,' says Moore. 'We wanted to reestablish that even though he's discovered that his people are, in a metaphorical sense, Nazis, he really wants to be with them. So that scene set up the internal character conflict that would guide us on Odo and the Founders from then on.'" -- Gosh, I have so many thoughts on this! Like first, the way that emotional repression is such a core part of Odo's characterization and storylines. Like, it didn't really click until reading this but there are so many arenas in Odo's life where he feels things and just hides those feelings like a shameful secret, his urges when it comes to joining his people included. Second, Garak obviously can relate to Odo's confession here -- Garak has enough moral clarity to know the Cardassian empire and the Obsidian Order have done terrible things and yet he has dedicated his whole life for the past few years in trying to return to his place among them, including what he's doing now. The fact that Odo treats this sentiment as a shameful confession that literally has to be tortured out of him therefore not only establishes Odo's emotional repression but also is Odo holding up a mirror so that Garak can see himself reflected in Odo, which has the function of subtly calling out Garak's actions. Finally, I feel like I read a lot of somewhat-jokey takes saying how bizarre it is for Odo to become friends with Garak after being tortured by him but in the context of the episode it actually makes a lot of sense. Garak doesn't want to torture Odo and they both are aware of that fact, and, as discussed before, the forced torture actually narratively functions as a forced intimacy scenario for the two of them who are two particularly guarded people. It doesn't surprise me at all that they emerge from the experience closer to each other.

3x22 "Explorers": Aww this episode! There's a lot in the notes about the inspiration of this story (inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki -- low-tech raft journey across the Pacific) and the attention the episode got for its inspiring vision of space travel. Apparently the original story pitch centered around O'Brien rather than the Siskos. It works much better with the Siskos, though!

Also, lol:

3x23 "Family Business" apparently names "Ferenginar" and adds latinum slips to strips and bars.

"Kasidy's brother lives on Cestus III (last mentioned in the original series' episode 'Arena'), which is evidently no longer claimed by the Gorn, and he plays baseball for the Pike City Pioneers. 'Yeah, it was named after Christopher Pike.' Wolfe smiles. 'We wanted to come up with a cool name for a town and we figured, hey, for all we know, Pike was the one who discovered that world in the first place.'" -- Fascinating, considering how much Gorn stuff is in SNW.

3x24 "Shakaar": Omggg Shakaar's actor also played the ghost in "Sub Rosa" omgggg???? How did I never recognize him? Also, his casting was done with the idea in mind that Shakaar could be a potential love interest for Kira.

3x25 "Facets": Interesting notes here on the fact that Dax had three female hosts prior to Jadzia kind of caused problems because the show didn't have enough female mains to support that! Because Rosalind Chao wasn't available to play one, they had to go with the recently-introduced Leeta, and then Quark of course.

Apparently, minor changes to Nog's prosthetics in this episode to add cheekbones to the face piece (instead of just the nose). But he still has his freckles.

3x26 "The Adversary": Apparently, this episode was originally intended to be a cliffhanger resolved in season 4 (using the Changeling infiltration paranoia plot that would be used for 4x11/4x12), but the studio said they didn't want a cliffhanger so it was retooled into a similar plot also about Changeling infiltration paranoia. The original plot was going to be used as the season 4 opener, but then Worf's entrance pushed it back again.

It's interesting how people on the Internet following this episode were convinced that Eddington was actually a Changeling, even though he is cleared in this episode. I too also came away thinking he might be a Changeling.

#ds9 companion liveblogging #star trek: deep space nine #book liveblogging #star trek ds9 #ds9 odo

1 note · View note