The Delta Flyers - Body Parts

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Body Parts, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill,and Armin Shimerman.Body Parts: When Quark is diagnosed with a fatal disease, he auctions off his remains to pay his debts, only to find out the doctor is wrong. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Garis, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Jeff Allen, Tamara Evans, & Linda Paige. And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Sarah, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Brian Heckathorne, Kilian Trapp, Katherine M. Prioli, Nelson Silveira, Ming Xie, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Durrell Bishop, & Andrew Golden.Thank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/tdfSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your hosts for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete, exciting, seductive, and stupendous version of this podcast, please check out Patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. I don't know if this episode is seductive. Yeah, but in my delivery, I kind of went towards ASMR-ish, so I was doing that.

I see. I see. Okay. Okay. This is an amazing episode today. I do want to say to everybody, though, that it does deal with death and dying. So if those topics make anyone uncomfortable, maybe you want to skip this one and join us next time. But it's a very good episode.

It really is, Harmon, thanks to you. Well, yes, thank you. Seriously, I can't wait to talk about it. When Garrett called this episode, the Patreon version seductive, have you played like romantic? You're a character actor, let's be honest. Yes, that's right. But have you, when have you played, I'm sure you played romantic leads in your career. like i did on broadway uh when i was much younger and that was a comic romantic lead i don't think

after that of course there was the bromance between quark and odors yes of course of course we can't forget that arman outside of star trek in your other acting jobs have you had have you filmed any scenes or done any scenes love scenes have you done seductive love scenes no any intimate scenes on stage or in front of the camera no and and I've never had to kiss any other actor ever. Never had to do that. Now I want to write a sexual encounters. Now I want to write something.

I know. I want to see you do a romantic lead. Romantic lead scene. Yeah. I have a romantic lead every day of my life with my wife. I know, but that's the thing. That's the thing. You've always been such a proponent for a cheerleader for romance.

For being a romantic. And I've always known that about you and your relationship with Kitty. So I feel like it would be wonderful to see that on screen or in a play, in a play even. Well, even in the play that we just closed, we had several scenes together, but none of them were romantic. Oh. Oh, I want to see you do that. I think he would knock it out of the park, right? I agree.

Thank you. Thank you for your support. I would be terrified. Oh. Terrified. Because I've never done it. It's the stuff that we've never done before that we're terrified. find of you know what i'd love to see you and kitty do on golden pond oh how nice yeah that would be

great i would love to see you guys do that i'm going to produce it just so i can see okay armin and kitty do romantic a romantic play together you know the state that you live in is a huge proponent of the arts there are lots of theaters all over and um uh uh you just have to talk to one of those producers all right i'm going to get it done i want to see you and kitty play romance on stage. Like that was a go-to thing for me in a lot of roles was like the romantic. Do you think that we as humans, because we're actors, we sort of develop personalities around where we get cast or is it the other way around? No, I do think that. I do think we develop personalities around where we get cast. I mean, look at me. I just said I would be terrified

of doing a romantic scene that that's simply because I know I've never been cast that way. So where do that comment come from? but from that. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Interesting. All right, we've got some birthdays to talk about this week. We do. Roxanne Ray has a birthday on November 17th.

Happy birthday, Roxanne. Happy birthday, Roxanne. Happy birthday, Roxanne. I did play a romantic. It was just the type of romantic scene in Sernaud de Bergerac because you mentioned Roxanne. Oh, boy. Roxanne, Roxanne, her name, along my veins, thrills or something like that.

And that was very romantic. It just wasn't responded to that song. Yes, he was excluded from the romance. All right. Next up, we have on November 18th, Mark Hamilton, it's his birthday. Mark, it's your birthday. Happy birthday, Mark. Mark, on the 18th, is your birthday?

Congratulations. Mark, happy birthday, buddy. We've also got Sarah on November 18th. Happy birthday, Sarah. Happy birthday, Sarah. Happy birthday, Sarah. November 20th is a wonderful, wonderful day because it is the day that Normandy came to us. So, happy birthday, Normandy. Happy birthday, Normandy.

Happy birthday, Normandy. Have a great day. All right, we've got another birthday on November 22nd. It is Andrew Cano's birthday. Happy birthday, Andrew. Happy birthday, Andrew. Happy birthday, Andrew. And last but not least, on November 23rd, it is Chris Garris' birthday.

Happy birthday, my friend, Chris. Chris, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Chris. Have a great, great day. Let's do a little bit of poetry, starting off with the limerick. All right, here we go. When the heart and profit have to spar, Quark will learn what his true assets are. He learns what he's worth.

A baby finds a new birth. And love certainly is the best profit by far. Oh, excellent, excellent. Oh, thank you. Did you get my play on worth? Worth and birth,

very nice. Yes. Well, at first I was thinking, birth, I was trying to find the rhymes. I was like, oh, birth, like B-I-R-T-H.

And then. Then I thought, oh, no, it's a new place to be. So it's a double. B-E-R-T-H. You see, you've taken over my place as the etymologist. Oh, my goodness. That was a fun one.

I'm proud of this one. Here we go. My haiku for body parts. Cork has six days left. Kira to birth Kekko's boy. Brunt confiscates all. Not only was that a haiku, it was a sung hykoo. It was a very lyrical.

It was a sung coup, not a hykoo. It was a sun coo. Thank you. Etymology time. Okay, everybody, go to sleep. So I have actually three words I want to do a background on. All right. The first one is body, of course.

That's from the old English bodig, B-O-D-I-G. Or from the other possible background for body in old English is B-O-T-A-H. and Bautau originally comes from high old German and is first found in the English language in 890 not 1890 but 890 So the definition is The physical or material frame of a man or an animal The whole material organism

viewed as an organic entity So that's the definition for body The next word of course is part Part is in old English was part pars p a r s or partum uh the plural i uh strangely enough in middle english wasn't parts but still pars p a r s uh and that word was first found in the english language in 1050 uh and the definition is that which together with another makes up a whole now the third word which isn't in the title yes is assets yeah that's great that is

that Robbie used in his poetry. Now, the origin of the English use is to be found in the Anglo-French law phrase Ave Assetz, and that's spelled A-S-S-E-T-Z. And it means in the law, to have sufficient, i.e., to meet certain claims. The French words, Asset, was originally singular. So both in the English and in the French,

these words, assets and parts, the singular form of the word was also the plural form of the word. Interesting. That is your lesson for today. I'm glad you did assets. That's a good word for this episode. Yeah, Assets is I think the theme of this episode,

the assets in many different ways. Well, we really dive into Ferengi kind of philosophy in one of the the best episodes I think I've seen about it in a way that's so meaningful. It's not just philosophy. We are dealing with religion as well. And although it's a comic, it can be called a comic episode, although I don't think it is, it touches on a lot of deep themes here, not just in the A story, but in the B story as well. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So during the development of this episode, the writers spent a lot of effort exploring the character of Cork, according to Renee Ashavaria,

we really dug down to find what this episode was about, and in the process, we managed to find out who quark is and how ferengi he is. Similarly, Hans Bimler said, the substance is that quark has a line that he will not cross. He has a very clear ethical code and lives by it. This is comedy, but it deals with some very serious business. Quark is a very complicated guy with a lot of complicated issues.

He's not just a silly ferengi. The more you explore the character, the more you see, that he's very sophisticated and complex. Agreed. Thank you, Hans. My whole purpose during his seven years was to do just what he just explained. Well, you accomplished it in this episode.

Story by Lewis P. DeSantis and Robert J. Bolivar, teleplayed by Hans Bimler, directed by Avery Brooks. I think this is one of his best. I agree. It's consistent. It's smooth. It's not overdirected or underdirected. It's a very light touch in an elegant way, and I think Avery did a great job.

I'm so excited to hear you say that. And he was on the moon when he was directing. In the sense that he was ecstatic, he was joyful. It was a toy to play with. I love it. He was having a wonderful time, and he'd come bubbling up out away from Video Village and give us some remarks half the time. I didn't understand them.

But the eight days that he shot that episode, he was having a wonderful time. I'll also comment in the last episode we did with Terry, we reviewed with Terry. He was only in one scene at the very, very end. And I thought, what a strange, like, Cisco's only in this one, two lines at the end of the episode and one scene. But it makes sense because he was prepping this episode. So he was very busy. And just for background, Avery Brooks prior to the show, and perhaps after, but I know prior to the show, taught directing at Rutgers University. Oh.

Directing for film and TV or directing for over the stage? I think so. Oh, wow. That's great. Guest stars Rosalind Chow as Keiko O'Brien, Max Kredenchik as Rom, and Gint, Hanate as Molly O'Brien, Jeffrey Combs as Brunt, and of course our special guest star is Andrew J. Robinson as Garrick. There we go.

Let's go to a little bit of trivia. From this episode forward, Andrew Robinson is credited as Andrew J. Robinson. From this episode forward, yes. According to Andrew, the J. stands for jort j-o-r-r-d-t-j-t-jort i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly or maybe it's yort with a y-s sound i could be wrong but i think you're right about yort yeah okay that's his grandfather's first name so saraqlofton does not appear in this episode which is a shame i actually want to see him in the last scene oh yeah for sure um another bit of trivia this episode introduces a new runabout

the USS Volga. We don't see that until this episode. The USS Volga. So we have a new shuttle. Or it's not a shuttle, is it? It's a runabout. It's a runabout. Yeah, as the name of the craft.

I always say shuttle because that's what we used on Voyager. And I always say sickbay. And we always say. And we say holodeck program as opposed to Hollisweet is what they say here. Yeah, we don't say that. And we didn't have Jim Justics on Voyager. So, all right. You didn't have me either.

well we did the very first episode we had you actually we had you you didn't have yes that's true oh my god and I got to say thank you again for being there for that very well it was it the very first it was the very first scene I think it was the very first scene we shot up the whole pilot I was with but I wasn't nervous because Armand helped me through that so I know I know Armin was awesome thank you yeah you're the best I have a question I don't know we've talked about this before, Armin. So when we shot that scene, I'm sure Marvin Rush was there to light it. He'd been on your show for the first two years.

That's right. So was that, do you remember that being, I guess it was close to when he had just worked with you? Yeah, I don't remember there being any change. I know Jonathan took over for Marvin, but I don't remember, you know, major change because of that. Interesting. Yeah. I imagine it's like, it's like a director of the first.

first episode of any show of the pilot usually that whoever however the director establishes the look of the show that has to be followed through so marvin established the look of the lighting and i'm sure jonathan picked up from there made his improvements and enhancements and contributions but but had to keep within somewhat of a limit that that marvin had said yeah yeah uh another bit of trivia the O'Brien baby transplant storyline was created as a solution to the production problem of actress Nana Visitor becoming pregnant in real life. The producers decided they did not wish to go down

either of the two other solutions open to them, either having the character of Cura become pregnant by Shakar or hiding the pregnancy by shooting visitor in such a way as to never reveal her midsection as had been done during the fourth season of Star Trek Next Generation, with the character of Beverly Crusher, and would be done again in most of the fourth season

of Star Trek Voyager with Bologna Torres. As such, producers, thanks to the suggestion of Ira Stephen Bear's wife, Laura Bear, who came up with the idea to tie in visitors' real pregnancy with the character Keiko O'Brien's fictional pregnancy. Pretty cool, though, right? That's very cool. Very cool. And Laura's a very smart woman.

She should be credited with more than just being Oh, I'm sure she had lots of, you know, unofficial opinions, yes, that got into the show. She's a physicist. Really? As well as a dancer. I mean, it's an incredible woman. Wow. This whole decision to do this transplant storyline just was, you know, for a not visitor of a huge relief because she thought she was going to be written off the show.

Really? Yeah, she had those initial fears that they were going to kill off her character some way. just recaster or whatever it may be. Not Kira. No, no, not Kira. Yeah, Kira is the heart and soul. I also find it very interesting that now we've talked about DS9, Voyager, and TNG, the pregnancies, the real-life pregnancies all happened in season four for all three shows,

which is another weird coincidence. Interesting. On the topic, though, of the pregnancy in season four and having to deal with her real-life, pregnancy that was nanah and sid's baby how was that for the cast just knowing sit and then now we're having a baby was that exciting yeah we were very happy for both of them you know and we were all very careful about making sure that nah was always sitting down and taking care of herself but uh yeah we were ecstatic she was still an actress on a show we she was still have responsibilities to perform but we made it a little bit easier for her and not just the actors but everybody on the set yeah it's so great

that they figured out a story long where they didn't have to hide the pregnancy. Laura's a brilliant woman. On, on Voyager, we did spend one season, I don't think it was season four, I think it was season five actually. We spent one season,

maybe it was season four. We hid Roxanne's real life pregnancy. For a whole season, we hit it. They did not write it in. All they did was put a lab coat on her. And shoot her up high. And shoot her up high and put her behind consoles and then the next season she got pregnant on the show as the character and so they had a fake belly so it was like wait like what are you doing guys yeah seasons of hiding a real pregnancy

and then playing a fake pregnancy yeah i think of the three shows i think ds9 did the right way i'm going to stand up for laura's choice which is i think quite brilliant it is there's a scene where i'm getting a little ahead of ourselves but where she's talking to caco and it's really obvious in her face. Forget the belly, in her face that she's pregnant. I don't know how you hide that. Let's jump right in. We start off in ops. Miles O'Brien is very nervous about Keiko. She's off to Torad 5, which is in the gamma quadrant. She's going to be there for three days and getting pedantical samples and Miles is just really nervous. And Kieran Bashir are with her and, you know, Wharf and Dax are trying to calm him down and say, look,

Kiran Bashir there. She's going to be fine. And he says, you know, she just doesn't act like a pregnant woman. She forget she's pregnant. I have to remind her. And I love Dax at the end. She's like, no, I think the extra weight, the morning sickness, the mood swings, the medical exams, they're going to remind her enough. You don't have to do all the work. I can almost picture Laura reminding Ira before they come up with that idea. Colum's reaction to Dax's comment that you just, that line you just recited was just so awesome it was just so light and subtle and brilliant it's just great yeah yeah very well shot opening scene again avery right out of the gate i didn't know he directed this at this point and i was like oh

that was a simple scene but just perfectly done the way he staged it and i'll say that about avery's direction and actor choices in this whole episode the blocking is really good the movement the actor movement, the way that it lands emotional moments and story beats in a strong way. So good, all the way through. We're going to Quarks next, and Quark is coming through the bar. He is happy as a clam, super happy. You've never seen him this happy. Yeah, I never.

I had no idea where you were going with this. I was like, what is about to happen here? And you did ignore Morn, though. I will say you walked right by Morn. You were nice to everybody, but you didn't engage Morn. I felt a little bad for Morn there. I did not notice that. He went right past it.

Yeah. Quirk usually has nice things to say to Morn, but he was distracted because he wanted to hug Rom. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been an interesting take, though, Armand, if you ended up hugging, if you had like kissed the top of Morn's head, you hugged everybody because, yeah, this is it. But gentlemen, if I had hugged him, he would have had to say something.

That's true. Exactly. That's not going to work, is it? Exactly. No. All right. Well, he hugs Rom. offers him a snail juice.

A free snail juice. I do want to comment, I've never seen the snail juice with a slug getting sort of, you know, rubbed around the rim of the glass for a little extra flavoring. That's because Quark was being extra special

to his rub. He doesn't normally get that rub, does he? He doesn't get the snail. I'm so, I didn't even notice that, Robby. Is that what happens? I went back and watched it. I watched it again. You picked up a little rubber slug or whatever it was.

And you went around the rim of the glass like that with that? Yes. Yes. Oh, that's just awesome. It was disgusting. It's great. Quirk fills him in on this trip to Ferengenar. But I could tell he's avoiding something because he's going down this list and finally he spills it.

He says he's dying and he says that very loudly the whole bar stops and stares. And then Quark turns to everyone in the room. turns to everyone in the room. Haven't you ever seen a dying man before? I think it was Avery, who must have had me swivel in the chair to face the crowd. I have a feeling that was his choice, which is very good. Yes, it was very good. It really, again, all the blocking in the cuts emphasized story and emotional moments in a way that didn't feel, you know, I've said in the past,

sometimes I feel like Avery has blocked things in a bit of a heavy-handed way, almost a theater way, that I was very aware of the blocking. This time, it was elegant and subtle, but it emphasized points in a really great way. So yeah, I like turning to the room, but it was great. And I'm just going to brag a little. There's all during this episode, I see myself making really intelligent choices more than I usually do, actually. I'm very proud For instance, I talk about Mugi, I visited her, but with less enthusiasm because of the relationship that is between Quark and Mugi.

Yes. Nice choice, Armin, not to sort of back off the Mugge a little. I think you made some incredible choices in this episode, Armin. We were very impressed. And this disease that Quark thinks he has is Doric's syndrome. Doric's disease.

Doric disease. One out of every five million pharyngey, get this that's pretty rare very rare and he was told by the doctor he only has six or seven days to live that's oh yeah horrible horrible news he's got to clean up his affairs he's got to sell his remains and we we learn that quirk feels like he's a failure in the scene feels like he's a joke and rom tries to buck him up a little and says no you're a pillar of the station and quark kind of comments that you know that behavior is not ferengi that's why why he's a joke because he's acting like a humon you know he's got to be a a pillar of the

community and have friends and all those things is very human it's not forengi and he's a failure i love what the writers did all through this episode one of those things that you just touched upon because um because of my relationship to pan cam which is a charity that that helps with pancreatic cancer and and because of my wife life's history. We deal with this on a regular basis. People have just gotten a horrible diagnosis and suddenly their lives are changed and they have to look at themselves and say, not only what am I going to do, but what have I done? I'm glad that they wrote that scene because that is very typical of people who've gotten a horrible diagnosis. Ram is the one who tries to cheer you up

by suggesting to sell the desiccated remains of your corpse on the Ferengi Futures Exchange. And we've already seen this idea of this of cutting up a Ferengi body in the past we've talked about, or we've seen that scene before, you know. And as ludicrous as that must sound to most people, let us remember that there are saints relics in the Catholic religion where people make pilgrimages to see a fingernail, to see an eyebrow. It's not as ludicrous as you think. Yeah.

And I hope I wasn't bringing that up in that way at all. I don't see it as ludicrous. No, but it's a big part of the tradition of Ferengis. Yeah, again, this episode is great with the Ferengi culture. We learn a lot more in a really meaningful way. It's not only their culture, it is their religion. We are dealing with a religion and it's ethos. and of course by by analogy we're looking at real life religions as well you know what else happens

it's subtle in this scene but quark says tells rom he loves him yeah yeah and that was really because because you can tell rom's trying to make him feel better and say you know you remain people are going to people love you basically and you say now you're a liar but I love you has he ever said that no no this is the first time oh my gosh yeah oh boy and and that's part of the diagnosis and uh being told the horrible diagnosis you you really have the need to tell people that are close to you that you love them you have to you have to do that uh because you don't know how much time you have left to express the appreciation and the love that you have for other people yeah well we go to ops we learn the shuttle is returning

to the station. It's got damage. They bring it up on screen. We see that something has damaged the side of the runabout. And there's actually fire. It's like smoke and fire. I don't understand fire in space. I don't understand fire in space. No, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, you kind of need oxygen, don't you? Kind of need oxygen. Yeah. Yeah, but we do it all the time in Star Trek. There's explosions and things that are just, you know. Maybe the shields around the actual runabout or the shuttle, whatever, are holding a little bit of oxygen, which allows a little bit of the fire to come out. Maybe.

Or the oxygen is escaping from the habitat. Yes, and that's causing, there you go. Okay. Yeah. Let's go with that. Well, there's the damage, and we learn that Bashir has called and said Keiko needs to come to the infirmary very quickly. She's been hurt.

emergency transport. Yeah, two patients, Major Kira and Keko are being transported. Yes, and then we go to the infirmary and Miles walks in. He's very nervous. And did you expect to see Keko or Kira?

I mean, the way they shot the scene is we're not sure who's lying in the infirmary. He's very, you know, tentative, exactly, coming in. We don't know. I like that. Yeah, you expect to see Kako and it's Kira.

And she's recovering, says Kako's still in his surgery, but she does reveal in the scene that baby has had a change of a dress, she says, that she is carrying the baby now. So, again, we're using a pastiche to talk about more serious things. So now we're talking about a surrogate mom, which happens all the time in real life. And yes, this is science fiction, and yes, it doesn't happen this way. But we're talking about a surrogate mom. And that's part of what the B-Story is all about here

is about being a surrogate mom and how the baby's parents have to deal with a surrogate mom. In my research of this episode, they were talking about how medical science is getting very close to being able to transplant one baby from one, you know, one womb to another right now. Really? Yeah.

So, but I have a question for you, Robbie. When you were watching this scene, And did you immediately think, oh, this is because of her pregnancy off camera. Did you think that immediately? Did you? I didn't. Because I didn't. About halfway through the episode, I was like, wait a minute.

This was season four. That's about when she had the baby. So yeah. Okay. And I like you, I did not. And even at the end of the episode, I still did not. Not until I started doing the research of looking into the background of this episode, did I realize, oh my gosh.

And you had the genuine response, Garrett. And this is a very sci-fi concept, you know. So it fits into the show, into Star Trek. So to me, it was just an episode and a plot line. That's it. I didn't really think it was real life until after I did the research. So, uh, but anyway, we go in the ward room next. And Bashir explains all of this, why they had to do it.

The Keiko was severely injured in this asteroid field that they were flying through. Um, and the baby's life signs were. failing so he had to find another womb for the baby and he says it was either me or kira which i thought was that was funny kind of clever yeah and abry and cisco says i think you made the right yes exactly very very clever miles is very grateful in this scene ask when the baby can go back over to kako and bishir explains well she's pejoran kira's bajoran and they kind of you know form this dependency this on each other and Kira's going to have to bring the baby to the term herself.

They can't put it back, or it's fatal for both of them. And wasn't that, I think, very clever to remind people that these are different species. But Jorans are not humans. They may look the same, except for the nose, but they are different species. And I love the fact that the pregnancies are different, the time is different. And again, I thought they've really been, they've thought this through. There's sometimes in this episode where I think, no, they didn't think it through. But here I think they did.

Yeah. Just a quick little passage from Andre Bormonis, the science consultant. He commented, sometimes we stretch the boundaries a little beyond my personal comfort level. In an episode of DS9, the writers wanted to transport a baby growing in the womb of one character, Keiko O'Brien, into another, Kira Norese. The actress who played Kira was pregnant, and this was a clever. way of working her real-life pregnancy into the show. I didn't think such a thing was scientifically credible, and a pathologist I consulted with agreed. He thought it would be

incredibly unlikely to work, even with transporter technology. The whole fetal, placental complex would have to be transported, and the new host's immune system and blood would have to be modified to accommodate the fetus or vice versa. We worked that information into the episode as best we could and hoped we wouldn't get too much grief. from obstetricians. But today, a mere 15 years later, the idea of a fetal transplant is under serious study. It could become a reality in just a few years.

My bigger concern when I was the TREC science consultant was making sure the show kept ahead of where real science is taking us. So actually, that date is probably wrong. If you're talking about 15 years later, it's probably even longer than that now. It's been, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a question. Well, a little quiz for.

for you guys and for everybody listening as well, what do you think is the longest gestation period on earth right now for mammals? I believe it's elephants. You are correct, sir. Whoa! It is the African elephant, 22 months, almost two years of gestation.

And whales, sperm whales are about 14 months, I think. Something like that. That's a long time. But Jorans, we learn in the scene. are five months, less than five months. We get an etymology lesson from Armin, and we get a gestation period lesson from you. Thank you so much.

Well, I was a nurse on our ship. You. I forget that. Every time. I forget that every time. Oh, my goodness. All right. All right.

Back to our, back to our show, though, this episode. Quark is in his quarters. He's checking on his listing on basically Ferengi eBay. He's checking his, the bidding. on the exchange, the Ferengi exchange, doorbell chimes, and Cork has requested that Rom come to his quarters. He asks, so Rom asked about the bids on Cork's remains, and Cork says, well, there's one.

Cork doesn't seem happy about this, though. No. And he says, yeah, it's 17 bars, three strips, and five slips of latinum for the entire collection. Cork says it's a very low bid. and coincidentally, exactly what you have ROM and your savings. So he knows ROM is the one bidding, is the only one. And one of the major themes of this episode is family in all its ramifications.

And what we see throughout this episode, no matter which character Max is playing, is about one family member trying to buck up the other. And even in the first scene with Rahm and I, I'm bucking up my brother. This is really an episode about family in many different ways. Well, while you're arguing, as family will argue about what Rahm tried to do, suddenly a real bid comes in. And they go and look at it. It is 500 bars of Latin. It's a lot of latinum.

It's huge. That is a lot. That's not strips or slips or any 500 bars. Just for context, how many strips are in a bar and how, and I'm, you know what I'm saying? Quark actually tells you that it's a million, a million slips are in a bar. Oh, there it is. It's right there. Sorry, 10,000 strips and one million slips.

Slips, yeah. That's a lot. 500 bars of latinum. Quark thinks, who is this? And he's like, it's got to be the Grand Nagas. I love at the end of the scene how he feels like finally he's going to be a winner. Yeah. It's a huge bid.

I also like how Rahm thought it might have been Mugi, which shows how wealthy Mugi truly is. Mugie's just, you know, rocking it. My goodness. Well, Quark thinks he's going to die a winner. Like you say, it's the Ferengi religion. That's right. So it's huge. He's going to die a winner.

He's going to go to heaven. He's going to, it has ramifications not just for his ego, but for his. his religion. Right. The analogy and the bad one, and it doesn't have to be the only analogy, is that all of us want to die a good person. We don't want to die a good person.

Why do we have to die a good person? Why? And even asking that question, I'm sure people are going, what do you mean? Why? But it's just the choice. It's a choice.

And for the Ferengi religion to die a wealthy person and having all your debts paid, it is an honorable and ethical thing to do. Yeah. As a friend of mine once said to me, one of my favorite quotes of all time in my lifetime, Armand, you want to die with all your dad's paid? Because he couldn't believe that.

And in Ferengi religion, yes, you have to die with all of your dad's paid. Well, you talk a lot in this episode about cleaning up your affairs. I mean, it's a big part of what Ferengis have to do. All right, we go to the O'Brien's bedroom, Kako's in bed. Kira comes in. Kier's checking on Kiko. It's a bit awkward. and this is the first time that they've spoken

since the baby was transferred and all that. Keiko thanks her for what she's doing. Kira says, it's still your baby. And that must have been a very strange line for Nana. Yes, I thought the same thing. Because it's really Nana's baby. She's playing this story, this flipped around. They must have had a little tiny, tiny conversation before shooting that.

I do like this scene a lot because of the way Rosalind plays it. because I feel like she definitely gave off this feeling of loss of her child, even though this child is still alive, there's still this loss from her body, right? So I think she played that perfectly, actually. It was a movie scene. Rosalind is to be congratulated and complimented. And again, she's dealing with a surrogate mother.

Yeah. All right, we go to Quarks next. Quark is dictating to Rom how to handle his affairs, how to clean things up. By the way, I liked your coat in this episode, in the scene. I'd never seen that color on Quark before. I like that coat. Which one is it?

It was the blue one, the brightness of it, because the end of the last scene, he said, I'm finally going to die a winner. And he looks like a winner. He looks like in this scene. I like the way you dressed. It was good. Thank you, Bob. Yes.

Is it the kind of different color ones? Yeah, it kind of has a different, brighter. And it has a strange little insignia. or brooch here that looks like a four-leaf clover or something. Yes. Yeah, he was celebrating. It was party wear. It was flashy.

He was feeling good. Hey, Garrett, Warp Speed has officially turned into Transwarpspe Speed. Holiday shopping season is officially here. Uh-oh. Look out for mutant salamanders. You're very funny. But it's true. That's why I'm going to be sticking to online shopping at Uncommon Goods.

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Uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Bashir arrives, says that he got a message from Dr. Orpax on Ferengenar. And Bashir seems a little confused, but he's just going to deliver the message. He says, Quirk, the doctor says you don't have Doric syndrome. You guys are shocked. Quark and Rom are both frozen for a minute. And then Rom's thrilled.

And cork is too. Cork is even more thrilled. Are you kidding me? Rom is thrilled because he goes, you're going to live. And then Quark is thrilled. He says, yes, I'm thrilled because I can sue Dr. Arpax for malpractice. And he goes, oh, yeah, and I'm going to live too. Right.

And earlier in another scene, Rom says to Quark, maybe you should check with Bashir. And Quark says, Bashir, you know, he doesn't charge anything. Yes, yes. Which actually, again, an analogy to our medical practice, we tend to want, a doctor who's an expert in his field, and ergo is charging a lot for his expertise. Correct, correct. That's so funny. Yes.

We have a little ferengi in our medical system, don't we? Yeah. Our for-profit medical system in America. But again, here, you know, it's a wonderful ferengi perception as opposed to a human perception. Yeah. Which is that not so much that I'm going to live, but that I'm going to make a lot of money suing the doctor. Yeah. Did you talk about, you know, Ferenginar and Ferengi culture and religion

is basically like pure capitalism in a sense. I mean, it kind of is, right? Right, it is. And it was never originally, on TNG, it was never meant to be comic. Yeah. The original idea was that the Ferengi were like the American Clipper Captains in the 1800s who were constantly going into different places. and ripping off natives and making profit and bringing back lots of stuff from around the world.

It was meant to be a mercantile culture. It just turned into comic. But it is all about capitalism, and it is, of course, a comment upon our present-day system. It's interesting because, you know, pure capitalism, and I don't mean to go down this road of economic theory. philosophies but pure capitalism in a sense always talks about free markets open market no regulation just pure you know unimpeded trade but yet the pharynge culture has a lot of rules as well so it's not free market in a sense it's an interesting right they didn't have rules this is one of the things i liked about this episode i don't think it's in this scene i think it's a scene coming up

but but they do obey rules even as they're forgive me ripping people off they have certain guidelines or guardrails let's call them that about what they can and cannot do and of course as they as this one of the rules of acquisition that has quoted several times in this episode is a contract is a contract is a contract but only among ferengi in other words you can rip anybody off but but you can't rip off another Ferengi. So there are rules. There are eth ethics. Well, you've got a book of rules of acquisition. There's a lot of rules. But they're often contradictory roles in a way. That's because the writers were writing different episodes. Yeah. I do like your use of guide rails as opposed to guidelines. That was very clever. Thank you for that. Guard rails. Yeah,

guardrails. I use that word for a purpose. I'm actually quite, I'm referring to something else as well. Yes, guardrails are important. We're in cork's bedroom. Cork is sleeping and the doorbell is a ringing and it's not stopping. He gets up, he puts on some slippers, which kind of almost looks like Dutch clogs to me or something. I know why you put the slippers on. Why? Because they would have to make up your feet.

Oh, you're absolutely right. This is on purpose. Yes. And they had me in pajamas, which, again, are very long. cover up a lot of the other. Yeah, they cover up a lot of stuff. If you see my legs, and there are episodes where you do see my legs and my ankles on my knees, I had to be shaved. Oh, the body hair has to come up. Oh, yeah. That's true. So not to do that, we have to cover up as much of quark as we can. Yeah. I'm going to tangent on your, piggyback on your thing. So when I was

on late in Star Trek, I was cycling a lot. I was obsessed with the Tour de France. I was road biking with a couple of different groups multiple days a week and I was really into cycling and all the cyclists would shave their legs not because it's people think it's to go faster that's not it has nothing to do with that it's about when you fall and you will fall if you cycle enough um and you scrape up a road rash on your legs it's a way to help it heal faster because you can put medicine and bandages and things over over the scrapes and things so you don't want to have hair all over your legs that's why you shave and i had fallen and had problems with hairy legs healing so i decided to shave my legs because i was so into this i'm going to be like the

bikers remember i came out i've been in the shower i shaved my legs for cycling and it came out and taylor my daughter was probably like i don't know nine or 10 or something and i was like look i shaved my legs for cycling and she looks at it and she freaked out she's like started crying she's like, what are you doing? You can't shave your legs. It was very upsetting to her. So I never shaved him again. You're a good dad. Yes. Okay. So guess who it is? It's Brunt. It's Jeffrey Combs. Brunt from the FCA is there. Quark thinks this might be a surprise audit. More than ever, I realized how specific Jeff always is when he says FCA. He doesn't ever repeat it in the same way. He says it's Brunt and then it's FCA.

And if you go back and watch this episode, all the episodes, that Jeff says, Brunt, FCA. It's a trademark for Jeff to say FCA in a slightly different way. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. I didn't know. I didn't notice that, but now I'm going to pay attention. I love it. Oh, my gosh.

He's so good. The two of you together are you're both so good. Yeah. And we have just seen Jeff in the other role as a... Wayoon. Yeah, as Wayune. And he was brilliant in that. And now we get to see him again as Brunt.

So, yes, Cork thinks this is possibly a surprise. Audit. Brunt says, no, not really. I'm only here to check on my merchandise. Cork doesn't understand. Turns out Brunt is the bidder of the 500 bars of Latinum. And, you know, Cork says, look, there's some news and

Brunt's already heard it. He knows that Quark doesn't have Doric syndrome. He doesn't care. He still wants the 52, is it 52 or 50? 52. 52 discs. 52 discs of desiccated quark is what he wants.

Like cards in a playing deck. Yeah, exactly. He doesn't want to renege on that offer. He says the contract remains within six days. I want those remains. Yeah. Uh-oh.

Yeah, not good. Commercial break. We come back. Cork tries to buy Brunt out of this contract. Brib him. I wouldn't say buy. I would say bribe him. Brib him out of it, yes. Brunt is not budging on this. He will not sell. Cork asked, what, you know, what did I ever do to you? Which I thought was a nice, like, he won't be bought out.

And this is where Brunt lets it all out. It's because he's gone soft. He lists all the ways that he shames the Ferengi culture. He says it's not what you've done. It's who you are. You disgust me. And Brunt ultimately the end of the scene thinks he's going to break the contract. You're going to break it anyway.

And once you break it, then you'll get your punishment by the Fringy counsel and all your stuff will be confiscated. You'll be cut off. I just love how Brunt basically the main accusation and what he's so disgusted about is that quark is a philanthropist, which in, you know, in human culture, it's awesome if you're a philanthropist. But in Ferengi culture, that's the worst thing you could possibly be. I just love that. So what do you think Brunt is doing? Take him out of the Ferengi culture.

Take him out of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. What is he suggesting, which is, I'm not going to ask you guys and put you on the spot, but he's excommunicating it. Yeah. It is religion. He's excommunicating him. Everything that he says that he's going to do to Quark, is what the church has done to people

that they have excommunicated. It's for rangi culture, but really it's an analogy for other religions as well. You feel at the end of this scene when Quark, he says he loves being a Ferengi. It's all the things you just described you lose when you're excommunicated.

He loves being a frangy. And it's not just Quark who's going to be affected. This is what Brunt says. Your whole family. Your family is going to be affected. Moogie, Rom, everybody. Yeah.

Nog. everybody. He also suggests that Cork finds someone to kill him instead of him doing the actual killing of himself. He says, so you expect me to kill myself? He said, no, no, no, no, no. Somebody can do that for you. We go to O'Brien's quarters next. Keiko's out of bed. Miles is helping her sort of walk across the room. She was in bad shape. She had major surgery. And Keiko basically says she wants Kira to join them for dinner. And Miles says, well, she could do that every night. And Keiko is just heartbroken in this scene she talks about even if she came every night it wouldn't be enough she feels selfish and she's grateful that the baby's alive but doesn't know how she's going to deal with

these feelings and what they're going to do and neither does smile so it's a real vulnerable scene for both of them it's a postpartum sort of scene in the baby is gone and and she's dealing with postpartum feelings yeah yeah this next scene uh starts on the promenade with quark and rom coming down these spiral stairs great opening shot again i'm so impressed with avery's direction in this episode it's simple kind of camera movement but very effective and visually interesting and you know the camera's kind of i think it was a steady cam coming around the spiral staircases they come at the lens and it was just really well done rams trying to be a good brother take responsibility for this it's not your fault they shouldn't be mad at

you it's me that did the union thing and trying to convince him to live yes trying to convince him to live they walk into garrick's shop where garrick is uh uh you know making a new outfit for he's added padding a pair of pants for more yes so more i can sit on the stool longer should make your swiveling on your bar stool much more comfortable great blocking in this scene again i just I was like, wow, this is really elegant and well done and well, really what polished. Quark asked Garrick to be an assassin. Garrick plays dumb. He's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm a tailor. And he goes, no, before that. And Garrick says, I was a gardener before that, still playing dumb. Rom is very impressed with you, though, bold move asking Garrick to, you know. Yeah, exactly. He thinks that Quark wants Garrick to kill off Brunt. To kill, yeah, to kill off Brunt. and Quark says no it's not for Brunt

it's for me and Garrick says well that's a big difference if watch Andy it's one of the things they went really Andy he smiles he's gonna enjoy it why did they do this to you

Armin and I and I thought why that choice Andy do you really dislike Quark that that much that as much as you would be averse to killing anybody else off, supposedly, you're going to enjoy killing off Quark. And that's an Andy choice. That's not an Avery choice, and that's not a writer's choice. That's an Andy choice. And I go, why?

Huge scene, nevertheless, for Quark, because it just shows that he's really sticking by his beliefs, his convictions, his code, his religion, however you want to look at it. But he's not going to break that contract. Because even Bruntz, says that well you could break the contract and cork is like no absolutely not i would not do that i wrote down in here just a great performance arm and by you particularly when you say that's who i am that's what i do i'm a businessman you grounded that so beautifully i forgot i was in a sci-fi show it was really nice work thank you everyone has heard my agenda this is where i was really playing my agenda was to make my character as three-dimensional as any of the other characters on the show and granted it's a slightly

Farcical, but as I've been saying, not so farcical situation. And I wanted to be as grounded as possible and dealing with these real world concerns in a plausible way. As much as I'm in awe of the performances that were around me, I wish that they too had been a little bit more grounded. They all probably thought, as I did, this is a Ferengi episode it's a comic episode there's a desire to be a little bit entertain and yes to entertain and i well and i would have liked a little bit more seriousness

but that's just me okay well max in this scene at the end of your kind of describing why you're doing this he's very moved by it and max cries at the end of the scene i don't know if you remember but he's got tears going i thought that was really beautiful yeah yeah yeah i think I think probably the thing I've just mentioned to you is probably something I might have said to Max on the weekend when we were getting together. So he knew where I was coming from and he probably saw that as a good idea as well.

Yeah. It just sometimes the writers put jokes in and you need to have them. You need to have them. I get that. But sometimes I thought, well, that's one joke too many. One joke too many.

Yeah. Well, this is one of my favorite scenes. It's a really great scene. Cork and Garrick. go off to talk about death? I mean, Garrick's past is always meant to be in the gray, for Garrick anyway. We suss it out, but for Garrick, he never admits to anything.

Why suddenly is he going to allow himself to be seen as an assassin? There are a couple of things like this in the episode where I go, didn't they think this through? And this is one of them. Why does he not only allow it for Quark, but certainly, Rom overhears this as well, and Ram can't keep a secret. Even if he had just said, well, you know, in his coy way, if he had said, well, I really don't know what you're talking about, but I'm happy to help you in the way I can, we can talk about it.

Yes, or something like that, just to keep a cover, which he always does. You're right. This is one where he just lets his facade down completely. Right. And who's to say that Warren doesn't have his ear to the curtain listening to this conversation as well? Right, right. That's a good nitpick. Yeah.

Well, we go into the O'Brien. Ryan's quarters now, Kira's visiting them. She's there for dinner. They're waiting on her hand and foot. They're just anything she needs. Molly comes in. She's kind of hungry for dinner. And Kira says, oh, I'll, I'll head off. I'll let you guys have some family time. And this is where Kiko says to Miles, well, do you think we should tell her what our idea was? We don't really know what that is. But they suggest that they have an idea. They don't want to pressure her. And that's where we leave the scene. So we don't really learn what it is, but we know that they've got something up their sleeve. I thought it was just going to have her for dinner for every night

until the baby was born. I didn't think it was going to be as drastic as where it went to. I was like, ooh, that's impressive. We go into Quarks Bar next. Quark is, or we think we're in Quark's bar. Yeah. Turns out it's a hollow suite. And in fact, I wasn't quite sure even after watching the scene, I am now. But at that time, I thought, where are we? It's supposed to, are we in a House? Yeah, supposed to misdirect you, I think. Yeah, yeah. Were you eating mac and cheese?

What are you eating there? It looks very non-ferengi, to be honest. I don't know. Eating is always problematic for Quark. I'll tell you why. It's to get past the teeth. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure.

But you did put the food in there, and you made it look like you were chewing it. Of course, you know. I'm an actor. Yes. That spit bucket wasn't far away, I'm sure. That was right. Yeah, that my side. I knew it.

He's eating his mac and cheese. Garrick sneaks up behind him, wraps his hands around his head, and snaps his neck with a big snap. It falls face first into his food. Garrick said, how's that? And quark appears. The real quark, we realize it is a hollow program. Quark appears and says he hates it. He hates that.

The snapping. He doesn't want that to be the last thing he hears. They talk about all these other versions they've done. They've tried different ways. Quirk hates all these options. Garrett goes through the list. You don't want to be vaporized. You know, the disruptor's going to ruin your clothes.

The knife was too savage. The nerve gas smelled bad. Hanging took too long. He's like, what's wrong with the poison? He's tried a lot of ways. He doesn't want to see it, smell it, or feel it. He just wants it to come without having any, you know, experience of it, which is very funny, if you think of it.

It's very funny. I'm very proud of my work in this episode. Like this scene, if I had the chance and could go back 30 years and do it again, I would do it again. Really? Yeah. Because I think watching this, I think, oh, you've missed the point, Armin. And that is he doesn't really want to die. Yeah.

I think that's what this scene is saying is it's not that he dislikes them. It's just he really doesn't want to die. And that's the, I would go back and play it that way. I sort of got it from the words. The words are right. It's Armand not doing what he should have been doing, which is that playing that, you know, it's comic, yes, and it works that way. But again, in my effort to be more grounded, I watched that scene and think,

oh, you really should have played the fact that you're terrified of death. I guess I would say I got that from the scene. I don't know that Quark was aware that he. didn't want to die. It was almost like he was protesting too much. No, it's the gas. It's just too smelly. It's not that I don't want to die. Of course I want to die. So it's the way.

Should have played it. More of that. More of that. I thought it worked, though. I don't have a nitpick with this scene. I don't have a nitpick either. I will say, though, it's interesting that this snapping, next snapping scene didn't receive a 15 rating, or at least I didn't find anything. about a 15 rating in the U.K.

Remember the other episodes? Oh, the other two times we've heard neck snapping, they've taken the snapping sound out and put a 15 rating on it. So maybe they just missed this, or maybe they thought, oh, this is in a holosuite, so it doesn't count, but I think maybe they missed it. Or maybe, forgive me from my prejudice,

and this is what this is my prejudice. It's a Ferengi dying. It doesn't matter. Oh, maybe. Possibly. I must say the neck snapping reminded me of one thing

and it is this oh, peranghi do have a spine. Well said. I love it. That's funny. I love this next sequence out in the corridor and into Quark's corridors

where he's terrified because we've left Garrick saying oh, you have my word, you'll never know what hit you. So there's a big threat there. Yeah. And now we answered that threat with Quark sneaking

through the dark funny sequence i love when you drop out of frame very classic that's gotta be avery it was funny you did it in a recent episode did i yeah when you went to work on kira threatens you about taking your commercial off of the replicators and you're like oh myles let me help you get rid of that

you drop down out of frame i was like he did it again it's a great comic sharp comic moment but you drop out of frame and then when you come in your room you're waving your arms around to try to fight something off you're just you've got so much anxiety finally you lay down you fall asleep but before i fall asleep i check to make sure i have a bar of latinum why so that i can pay the exchequer oh at the divine treasury oh yeah okay again religion it's like last rights yeah i make sure i've got the money so that should i die Should this be it, I can bribe the exchequer.

I love that because that's their religion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he does lay down to go to sleep. Suddenly there's a transition. He's waking up in the divine treasury, this beautiful gold room. Not so beautiful. Yeah, not so beautiful. It wakes up in heaven, basically.

He reads above the door, please have your profit and loss statement ready for inspection before entering the divine treasury. He's thrilled. I'm dead. and you didn't even notice it. You didn't see this worked out great. Good job, Garrick, yeah. Yes.

I love, forgive me, I love my reading. As much as I didn't like the other reading, I love my reading. Oh, you're a good, Garrick. Yes, Garrick, you're good. Yeah, that was a good one. I do like when the door opens, he's looking around the room, the door opens, if Ferengi enters, it's Gint, which is Max playing. Which is Max, yes.

It's Gint, and you kneel down in your prayer hands. another yeah i love that i don't know if that was you or had to be me i don't think avery would have suggested that i think i would think so i just like the cork line you you you look like my brother rom kids like that's because this is a dream they had any in case you had any idea that it wasn't max i'm telling you it is max exactly and max god bless him max is a good actor yeah max does a different character he's close he does and a different voice too not Yeah, the voice, it's not wrong. No.

Well, in this dream, Dream Gint, which is Max, tells Cork, he should break the contract, says, and then Cork's like, what do you mean? It's the rules. You wrote them. Yeah. And Dream Gind goes, the rules are just a suggestion. They reveal that it's just a marketing ploy to get people to buy the book of rules of acquisition. And they couldn't call it the suggestion of acquisitions.

Is that right? Isn't that a line? I thought that was a line in there. Yeah, yeah. But Dream Gun basically says this is the only way out. You just got to break the contract. Yeah. And going back to suggestion in Rules of Acquisition,

what the writers are doing here are just saying, don't accept the written word as something, as Gint says. They're not written in stone. There's a deeper underlying story being told by the writers in this. and I hope people don't miss it for the fact that it's a Ferengi episode. No, it's a great script and a great story and great performances.

This is one of my favorite episodes. So Dream Gint is telling him to break the contract. Then Brunt shows up. Wonderful whip pan that Avery did. It was fabulous. It really was. Yeah. Brunt says this is just a dream.

Gint is a fraud. this Gint, dream Gant is a fraud. Brunt says that you can't kill me, that this is just a dream. But then Brunt realizes, but people die in their dream sometimes. And so it goes over, starts strangling him in the dream, and starts choking him. And then we transition to Cork in real life, in bed with his hands over his throat, gasping breath. And he wakes himself up and realizes he's alive. He's very happy about that.

And this was all a dream. But then we go into Quark's bar. Brunt is there chatting up a Dobbo girl. And Brunt offers to show the dole girl a little bit of UMox when Quark arrives. And Quark says, he's breaking the contract and says, do what you must. But just leave. And if I ever see you here again, I'll kill you. I love that strength.

Like, you'll take your punishment for breaking for Enpy rules. But this is personal. And then Brunt makes a big speech to the room. Wonderfully done by Jeff. Incredibly well done. He walked the line between comic and serious. I was in awe of that speech when I watched it. He talks about gets everyone's attention, Brant FCA, he says again, as of this moment,

no further Ferengi commerce can be conducted in the bar. No Ferengi can be employed in the bar. No Ferengi can eat or drink. And no Ferengi, no Ferengi may do business with that man. He puts a notice of it. Excommunicated. Excommunicated. He's excommunicated.

Yes. And then quark shuts. Before that, if I meant, just to give a shout out, he walks out and a background player walks out with him. And it broke my heart because I realized, I didn't realize until I saw it. But the background player is my old dear, wonderful friend, Michael Patrick Hughes, who was a background player on our show, who I'd done a Broadway show with. And I went, oh, God.

Michael, you walked out on me, too. That's funny. Well, I love this last moment of everyone kind of leaves. We cut outside and we see the doors shutting with quark through the closing doors. It was a great image. Nice shot. Nice shot. Great way to button the scene.

We go to the O'Brien quarters. Again, great blocking in the scene. Kira arrives with the bag. She's moving in. Kika says, would you like to see your room? Kira says, sure, they go into Kira's room and we realize Kira's moving in with them and Molly asks, are you my aunt?

And Kira says, yes, call me Aunt Norese. Molly and Kira are going to play together and it's a nice warm moment with Kira as a character to feel part of a family as well because she's always been this sort of rebel, lone wolf, you know, tough woman, tough female character. And she's making, she's already made a sacrifice. which is to take on the baby.

But now she's making a second sacrifice to live with the parents of the baby and to give up her own comfort. I mean, she's living in a room that belongs to Molly and she will have to, you know, go to the bathroom in those quarters. She will have to get dressed in those quarters. She'll have to deal with Molly in those quarters.

She'll have to tiptoe around when she wakes up so she can do her duties. She's giving up quite a bit to acknowledge the friendship, the love that she has for the Abryans. and again this episode many things but family is essential is a core to this episode yep okay so in the last scene we go into quarks a beautiful shot again you see quark sitting by himself rom comes to join him and half clothes you've never seen shark out of his jacket

just in a shirt by the way which actually is also going we learn in this scene that has to be mailed the next day to brunt the shirt yeah yeah there's one chair left they're coming back for it and they're going to get to take the shirt off quarks back yeah literally like the saying go he's lost it all and and avery shows us the bar nude completely empty there's nothing there including the dabble table nothing the bottles are gone the glasses are gone the chairs are gone the tables are gone everything is gone and even quark's overcoat is gone yeah yeah and that was an effective crane shot because you got to see it all right there very quickly Rom offers him some, some of his old clothes.

I think that's very sweet. And Rom's very proud of him for breaking the contract and doing, you know, doing this. And then Bashir arrives with a box of Albanian brandy. And Quirks like, I don't need charity. And Bashir's like, well, you can dump it out. I don't, it's not charity. I'll just dump this out if you don't want it. But then Dax arrives with some glasses, some ugly glasses they talk about.

I thought they were pretty glasses. Yeah, they weren't that ugly. No, they weren't that ugly. I think they're okay. Um, Cisco arrived, says they've got some furniture they need to store. Can they put it here? People start pouring into the bar with items to bring the bar back to life. And I loved your performance in this, Armin.

I loved the way that the warmth that you could see wash over you. Oh my gosh. He didn't want to admit it. He said, you're going to have to pay rent for storing all that stuff here. And Cisco agrees. And I want to talk about that in a second. Yes, yes. He does.

He agrees. He says, send me the bill. And that's basically it. Everybody starts pouring in, bringing in, bringing. the place back to life. Quark is very moved. And I love this last exchange with Rom, where he says, look at them, brother, you thought you had no assets. And Quark says, Cisco, Dax, Bashir, more, they're my assets. Rom says, yep, to name a few. And then Quark wanders over to the bar. He says, I need a drink. But he doesn't get. What were you about to say there? You went

well, you bet say ladies and gentlemen or something like that? Because you went like that. Like that. I don't know what I was about to say but I hope what I was about to say was thank you. Yeah. Well, you said it without words because you turned around and it was very moving and the push in on you. Again, Avery did a great job

with his choice in moving the camera and where the actors were and we see we see Quark walk towards the bar turn around and we see everybody around him but the camera just pushes in on Quark taking it all in and it was really a moving moment.

I thought it was great. Yes, thank you. And I'm very proud of it. And as I said it all through this, as we've been talking, that there's just a lot of good choices and a lot of good writing to work with. It is part of the story of Deep Space Nine in the sense that, as we have talked about several times, and alluded to once or twice today, that oftentimes people have treated quark less than perfectly. and here's a matriculation not only for quark

who is learning a huge lesson which you've just as you know pointed out but it's also they have learned that despite their problems with quark he deserves their empathy and I've talked about religion all the way through here

that is a very forgive me Christian thing to do to forgive him his faults Because our neighbor is in need, and we need to help our neighbors. And I thought, that's a lovely ending for this show, not only for Quark, but for this idea that when a neighbor needs help, neighbors will come to the rescue and help them out. Because they're all part of a family. This episode, in my mind, finally brings Quark. into the family. Yeah.

It's the big space nine family. It really does. Yeah, he's no longer the outsider. He felt that he was this entire time. He is part of family. And so he learns that lesson. And they, although they don't play it, but that's what I see.

Oh, I do too. It is they learn the lesson that he is important to them as well. Now, I would, I've said this earlier, I would have loved for Jake to have been in this scene. Oh, yes, for sure. Especially in this final scene.

He should have been bringing something into the bar as well to help out. I would even go so far as to say that who arranged all this. Probably, if we look at the scene the way it shot, Cisco did. He was the director after all. But no, but the character,

Cisco would have arranged us, but I would have loved to have seen that it was Jake who arranged it all. And they agreed. And they agreed. Now, it's also, interesting to me. Yes, there was a flood of background people come in with chairs and tables, but you'll notice there wasn't a Ferengi among them. Yeah. Because he's still excommunicated.

That's right. Oh, yeah. Below the layer of comedy and Ferengi shenanigans, I think there's a great deal of wisdom being expounded in this episode. Yeah. The final scene, really, it's so satisfying because for me, it immediately elicited. visited my memories of another iconic feature film scene, which is, I felt like Quark was George Bailey from It's a Wonderful, from It's a Wonderful Life. That's a great reference. I wrote down our relationships with others are our most precious asset. I like that.

Mine is very similar. This is what I wrote. Good friends are more valuable than worldly possessions. Friends are the angels that life gave us to make life better. Strive to amass friendship wealth as opposed to material wealth. Yeah, I think we're all kind of on the same page. Our Patreon poll winner for theme moral lesson of this episode is submitted by Jenny, and that is get a second episode. opinion. Talking about Doric's disease syndrome. Yes. Yeah, don't panic until you get a second opinion. Thank you for tuning in to our recap and discussion.

And thank you to Armin for guest hosting with us, of course. And join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode Broken Link with Armin yet again. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. You know, I'm trying to You know, So,

I'm going to be able to be.