The Delta Flyers - The Assignment

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

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, The Assignment, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Armin Shimerman, and special guest Rosalind Chao.The Assignment: A strange entity takes over Keiko's body and orders O'Brien to complete a secret assignment--or his wife will be killed.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, Andrew Duncan, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Interstellar Tess, & Tamara Evans. Our 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, 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, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Jeff Allen, & Linda Paiges. And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, 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, Sarah Thompson, 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, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, 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, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Durrell Bishop, Andrew Golden, & Ryan Tomei.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.comSupport 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 host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armin Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and our very special guest, Asian American acting royalty. Rosalind Chow and myself, Garrett Wong. Rosalind.

Roz, your royalty. I didn't know. Where's my crown? And also a very old friend of mine before any Star Trek, we knew each other. Before when you were doing, like into the woods or six degrees or something. Oh, yeah.

You're a major theater heart. Sarag. Aw. You guys have known each other for a very, very long time. Yeah. Let's talk about some birthdays. We've got Mickey T.

Mickey T. On January 5th, we want to say Happy birthday, Mickey. Happy birthday, Mickey. Happy birthday, Mickey. Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, Mickey. Next up, we have Sarah Dunnevent,

January the 8th. Happy birthday, Sarah. Happy birthday, Sarah. Sarah, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Sarah. Here's my limerick for the episode, The Assignment. When Keiko returns from her trip, possessed by an evil entity's grip, a paraths in her skin, forcing Miles to give in, her life depends on his clever gamesmanship.

Yes. Wow, that's impressive. Thank you. Here we go. My haiku for the assignment. Keiko is possessed. Chief gets Rom to help his cause. Roz Chow, impressive.

Very impressive. That is a very impressive haiku. Thank you. That's great. You're welcome. The title is called The Assignment. It was an interesting exploration into the word assignment. Assignment is, of course, from the word assign.

which is in Middle English, and in Middle English, it had three syllables. I can't even begin to pronounce that, but a sign had three syllables. I guess it was because of the French background, which I'm about to mention in a second, I guess it was Asinier, so maybe it was three syllables. In the 15th century, the Aassigneur became mute. The word assignment comes from the late or middle Latin, and I don't speak Latin. momentum. That's probably wrong. Forgive me for saying it wrong to all of the dead latins. I have five different, to me, interesting definitions of this word assignment. The first is,

and unlike what I usually do, I'm going to give you an example of each of the definitions. Oh, thank you. Okay. So, number one, assignment. The action of appointing as a share or allotment. The example of that in the OED is an assignment of lands to the veterans. Two, the legal transference of a right or a property. Example, to avoid the four set grants and assignments. That's two. Three, this is interesting. The allotting of convicts as unpaid servants to colonists.

Whoa. Indentured servitude. Yes, indentured servitude. The condition of such service. The years of assignment are passed away with discontent and unhappiness. That's the example that the OED gives us. The fourth one, an appointment to office or nomination or designation, setting apart for a purpose. An example, I am the angel which at the assignment of God and commanded thy keeper to be.

And number five, an appointment, a command, or a bidding. And then there's an example for that, but we all, I think, understand that definition. So that's my in-depth sort of look at the word assignment, which comes from the French. Assignet. Wow. Thank you, sir. I learned a lot. I am surprised about assignment is that sort of indentured servitude side of it.

Right. Like that you're sort of, it's prison work or, you know, it's not. It's indentured servitude. That is a perfect definition for what I think the OED says assignment means in my, what, third definition? I mean, I couldn't stop thinking about what would that be like having a con. be your servant? That's what they did in early America. Yeah, a lot of...

They sent convicts, as they did in Australia as well. They sent convicts to Australia and to America. And oftentimes, the people that collected them at the ports were the people that they were going to work for. And of course, they didn't get paid that they were just indentured servants. And that's what Miles does in this episode. He's got an assignment. Yes. And he doesn't have a choice.

And he doesn't have a choice. Yes. Let's talk a little bit about the story. The story was by Robert Letterman and David R. Long, and the end is the ampersand and. Teleplay by Bradley Thompson and Ampercent and David Weddle. So Bradley Thompson and David Weddle did the teleplay, directed by Alan Craker. It was this very, very first episode of Star Trek. He went on to direct almost 40 other episodes of Star Trek, numerous Voyager episodes, numerous enterprise as well as numerous DS9 episodes. And they pretty much said, you're the guy that's going to do, you're going to direct every season finale of

every season of DS9 Voyager Enterprise. So they loved Alan. They really did. And we did too. And I loved him that I brought him on to Chuck when I produced that show a few years later. And he directed a lot of Chuck episodes. Our cast loved

him on Chuck. And Warner Brothers had never worked with him before. When I brought his name up there like the studio said oh we don't know this guy he said trust me you're going to love alan craker and he he was a big hit he rocked it yeah he rocked it he's very sweet i remember he's canadian always like to say tell jokes on the set and be funny he was just really refreshing individual to be around my favorite thing about alan craker i don't know if you remember this is he would often talk about a scene and he would reference like a checkoff play or some great literature he would he would pull these inspirations and references he was very thoughtful and

and very deep and i really love that about him you know he didn't he didn't just come in and say we got to do this fast and quick singles and kids we did have those too we did have those too he was he was at the fresh air i remember yeah he really was okay so uh alan craker of course the guest Stars, Rosalind Chow as Kako O'Brien, Max Gredenchik as Rom, Hanahette as Molly O'Brien, co-stars, Patrick B. Egan as Jiyar, Rosie Malik Yonan as Takoa, Judy Durand as Cardassian Computer Voice. Let's jump right into this episode. So we start off in Quarks, and Quark comes in, he walks by Mourne, it's breakfast time in

the bar, Quark thinks breakfast is invigorating in a bar, loves breakfast in a bar. Rom arrives from his night shift Cork puts his regular breakfast out the puree of beetle But Rom wants eggs, bacon, and hash Cork thinks he must be miserable I really liked what Alan did The camera followed me

Up until the door And then it picks up Rom coming in the door Follows him back to the bar Lovely, I thought lovely camera work Yes he does this throughout the episode Yes he does He blocks actors in beautiful ways that feel natural and filled with life and keeps the scenes moving.

He's a genius at blocking, honestly. He's really good. I do remember sometimes feeling early on like there were, you know, we were postcards, but not in this episode. No. Definitely moved us, let us move like actors. Yeah. His blocking was always so natural.

That was what it was so amazing. You felt safe whenever he was directing. And just in passing, in that. shot we go to the door and as I said and come back the the anti-ferengi working uh edict is still on the wall oh it is okay oh yeah okay yeah the proclamation that brunt put out there just something that i was keeping my eye and i still don't see any farangy bartenders so that's right obviously it's still it's still i did find that scene had a lot of parallels to our current day situation i didn't realize how ahead of their time they really were.

I'm finding out as I'm rewatched, because I haven't seen the show in decades, really, and I'm finding out just what you just said. There are so many echoes, resonances that I didn't know were there, and perhaps they didn't know either, but it just turns out that they're very meaningful nowadays. Yeah. Well, great blocking.

Rom comes in. He wants his eggs and hash like humans. Quark is very upset about this. Not humans, like the night shift. The night shift. Yes. Each shift has a different breakfast. That's true.

They all remember that. And we'll see in a different scene that not all the engineers are human. So just that. Right. But he wants a different breakfast. Quark doesn't like this. I have to say, Armin, as I watch this scene, the work that you and Max do rehearsing at your house pays off. Because you come in to do these scenes.

And there is a effortlessness and a connection and a naturalism that often isn't in Star Trek or this era of Star Trek because people were not as familiar with the material. And so they were sort of performing. I didn't feel you guys performing. I thought the same thing between the two of you had a connection and an ease that I thought, oh, you must have gone back to your dressing room and worked stuff out. I went further back than my dressing room. They've rehearsed at his house. A weekend, before filming. Wow.

It's because of the prosthetics. We had to stay ahead of the curve. We knew that. And in order to stay ahead of the curve, we had to be rehearsed like a theater actor. Yeah. Can I ask a quick technical question? Yeah. So how long?

What time was your call time? Two hours before the camera was ready. Two hours. That's it. it. Wow. I thought it was longer because it really does look. The Kardashians were longer. Not all the Ferengi makeup took the same amount of time. Max's makeup took less time than I did. But that's because not all of his was glued down. Mine had to be all glued down. And Karen was much more of a perfectionist than let's say some of the others were.

And I have to point out here while we're talking about makeup that, Roz, you probably didn't do a lot of prosthetics in your career until three-body problem. Right, right. Yeah, that was a lot. You had probably as much as a Ferengi on in that. Yeah, there's a lot. It was, I think we got it down to an hour and a half, but the removing it was. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

That's for your face. I didn't realize. And that's for your, it's bad for everything. It's absolutely right. People always ask how long did it put on, but the real question is how long did it take it to take it off? That was gruel. I was surprised. Grueling process.

Yeah, because when they first hired me, they said, now, are you sure? Because it was all in a meeting. And are you sure you're okay with aging? And I kept saying, yeah, I've been dying to do more character work and all that. But you understand. Yes, sure. But I didn't understand. But can I tell you, I remember this is the first time I was actually in the makeup room

when you guys were removing, seeing you guys peeling it off. It was just, oh, it was fascinating. It sounds terrifying, actually. It sounds like Renee. Well, Renee would put his fingers. I'd try it. Just to make me laugh. I was in there a couple of times at the,

he would put his fingers in his nose and had this grape it around his face and then pull it up. I just wish we all have. I'm glad we didn't, but part of me wishes, you know, we had videos of that because that was... Oh, yeah. Priceless. Love it. Well, to finish out this wonderful scene between Armin and Max, Romm wants eggs and hash and bacon. Bacon is very important.

It's going to come back later. And Cork thinks that waste extraction on the night crew must be miserable. And Rom's like, no. You know, I get respect there and I'm rewarded for my hard work. And I like quarks line at the end where he goes, I wish I hadn't brought this up. It's very funny. Well, actually, he says he will be rewarded. He feels that he will be rewarded for his good work.

So that's the setup for later. The setup for later, exactly. We go to the O'Brien's quarters next. The bonsai trees are dead. Bashir and Miles are freaking out. They're looking at this dead Idrin hybrid. bonzai. Miles is freaking out. Keiko's going to be so mad. Molly comes in. She's even terrified. Mommy's going to be mad. Miles tries to convince Molly to be the one to deliver the news.

She's like, nope, I'm not saying it word. It was very funny, classic comedy bit with the dad trying to get the kid to deliver the news. And Bashir says, it's your birthday. She's not going to be mad at you on your birthday. Just bring her some truffles. And Miles says, why don't you come with me? we can tell her together, Bashir goes, no, I've got surgery. Miles asks who. He says, I don't know, but I'll find someone, which I thought was very funny. There's a line that Sid Bashir just throws away. We'll get her, you know, get her some chocolates.

And I don't know whether Rosalind was your choice, certainly if some of it was your choice, but whether it was Allen's choice. But in the next scene, the eating of the chocolates is quite brilliant. the way you use the chocolate to just indicate immediately that you didn't have time for all of this nonsense and you were just, it's the wrong way to put it, but divorcing yourself from him, that there was a gap that we never seen before. And it's just a throw away line and get her some chocolates. But they use those chocolates, you use those chocolates in the next scene to, you use those chocolates.

to really exemplify that you weren't the caco that we knew oh that makes me feel better I saw it I thought I've learned how to eat on camera much better I look at you getting technical and critical I love it well if you're even better now bravo to you because that's why I'm laughing I get it it is it is it is incredibly a great great choice though and the way you ate them that's you That's not Alan. I don't know who decided that you should eat them. And maybe the script said you ate them. The way you ate them.

Oh, that's nice. Was quite brilliant. But honestly, I did walk away thinking, ooh, yeah, I've learned a lot since then. Because what kind of eating was that? But maybe you're right. Maybe I should be kinder to myself. That was probably a choice. It was probably written in.

It probably was, yes. But again, it's the way you took what was written in and did it. Yeah, I see. Thank you. Can I ask you, little Molly, when did she first work with you on TNG, not TNG, DS9, right? No, TNG we had a baby. You had a baby, okay. And I just remember on DS9, it may have been this episode where she was over it. And I think it was this episode where Alan, like,

like kept trying to give her toys on his day. And the toys had to get better and better. Oh, how funny. It's funny. I picked up a little of that in her performance, little Molly. Like she was a little bit over, but it worked with the story. Like, I'm not telling mom. But she had a little attitude about it, which was funny.

Yeah. Because she wants a bigger, even bigger toy. I mean, the stuff like, oh, here, take a little ball. grant something and then they something and then the toys got bigger and bigger until like somebody was like got her store and get a big I don't care of beer okay get her a bicycle get her anything funny all right we go to the next scene in the upper pylon Kiko's eating these chocolates that we were just talking about beautifully kind of letting the subtext play through the action was great um Miles is blaming it all on Bashir but

But he says, of course, you know, he didn't mean to do it. So he's blaming it on him, but he's also covering. He's still blaming him. Yes, but blaming him. He's still blaming him. Yeah. Keiko is acting a little odd, I noticed. Yeah, I thought it was my acting.

You're acting in this episode, always, but in this episode is superb. There isn't a flaw in it anywhere. You have a, I'll talk about it later. You have one brief moment that I went, that, that is an Oscar-winning performance. That one little moment. Oh, I couldn't flaw you for anything. As we continue, and I'll say what I'm about to say, but later, later. Okay.

All right. Well, she's eating the chocolates. He's blaming Bashir, and she immediately, she's acting odd. She just dives right in. She tells Miles that whoever this alien being is is taking control of Keiko's body, and he's going to have to do exactly as she says or Keiko's dead. Even as she nibbles at the chocolate. Yes.

But before the dead part, it, It honestly, Miles thinks this is role play time. He gets into, oh, that's what's next, you know? I saw that in his own. It's brilliant. Yeah, it was so good. So good. I often pick apart things that I go,

oh, that doesn't follow. That's not good. That doesn't work. But the writing, every time I thought, well, and then all of a sudden, they addressed it and moved on and went, every, they really worked out every little nuance for me. that every time I thought I could carp, I went, no, I can't. They've already addressed it.

Look at that. Yeah. Yeah, smart writers. And now, just to talk about your performance one more time, and I will talk about it a lot. What you did, which is so superb, there's no twisting of mustaches. You simply laid it out as you nibbled on the chocolate with a big smile. you absolutely convinced me that there were two entities in you not science fiction simply that this was a this was a caco that we had never seen before and yet it laid perfectly on top of

the caco because in the moments when you were domestic with miles that's the caco we know and that's that's great but in these moments where it's just the two of you alone and you're having tete-a-tete's it wasn't it wasn't iago it wasn't i'm you know i'm i'm there's the villain here. It was just simply, you're going to do what I want, and smiled at him, which made it even more terrifying. Chilling. Thank you so much. That's really nice of you. I thought it was interesting that when she's the other entity, she doesn't get mad at him for the things that he thinks she's going to... Exactly, right.

The plants mean nothing to the par wraith. So, and they do to Keiko. We've seen enough episodes where, you know, your career is very important to you and the things that you do are very, as they should be, as they should be. But here, that's the surprise, which is what she doesn't care about the plants because we've seen in other episodes where you are very concerned about the plants. At this point, this scene, when you show this other side, honestly, Rosalind, I felt that this could have been, this episode could have been a feature film.

You know, this could have been a science fiction thriller with you as the lead. in it because it was so delicious. Yeah, it was delicious. It was delicious. It was amazing. I just call you guys every morning. Yes. I'll just call you. Just call us.

Call us. We'll just tell you. You're amazing. Listen to this podcast. You just keep this podcast on repeat. Yeah. Whenever you feel a little bit blue, just listen to this podcast.

There's a reason why you're royalty. Yes. Wow. Oh, my God. Keiko decides to demonstrate or this entity decides to demonstrate her power and basically puts Keiko into these convulsions. She collapses. And just as he goes to call for help, she pops up and says, if you tell anybody, I will kill her for real next time. So we know this is, this is serious.

The stakes are high. It's so freaky because she dies. He feels no pulse. And right as he hits the com badge, she comes right back to last. No, Miles. You're not telling anybody. And we're like, I mean,

everyone's like, what the heck? So anyway, great, great job. I give you a little back story. I'm very ticklish. Oh.

Very tick. So when he goes to check, it takes everything to not like break. And to not. So you came close from having dead face to, ha, because of his touching here. That's funny.

We have a little time break for our, opening titles, we come back. Her nose is bleeding now. Miles wants to speak to, uh, Kako. And this entity says, well, Kako can hear everything. She's, you know, she's not dead. She's in there somewhere, but she, but I'm in control. Um, he says, tell me what you want me to do so we can just get this over with. But he does say here, I'm not going to put anyone in jeopardy on the station. And that's important. So he agrees to do it as long as no one's in jeopardy. They had to a lift. She's still eating the chocolates here. She says she wants him to

reconfigure some communication sensors and relays. Not a big deal. But she won't tell them why. And they get in the turbo lift. He says, well, this could take some time. There's a lot of relays. And she says, look, I know you're trying to stall and buy some time that, you know, they can catch

me. But if you try anything, I only need a split second, a fraction of a second. And I can kill Kiko. it doesn't take long he better hurry up and reconfigure these things so that's how we end that scene but i love the chocolates you're right armin the chocolate sort of the the domestic kind of enjoyment of these chocolates against the high stakes and the drama of everything else was great to me that the threat of killing caco is as frightening as any space battle that i see in these

episodes because i mean it's obvious that she can do it and that she can just kill an entity a human being off um and that and that was terrifying and the writers i also love the way the writers said i know what you're thinking that never happens on that yeah yeah when they talked about his eyebrows furrow yeah exactly they were able to um coalesce the two kaka Yeah. The other Takeo knows can read his face and the other one can read it. Yeah. Incredibly good writing.

Good writing. Yeah. I do like how the original, they changed the original story idea. They were going to have Keiko go to this random planet on a botanical mission and a non-corporial being escorts her back to the station and keeps her hostage, basically. Like, he's outside of her body. He's not in her body. And so then they were like, nah, let's. actually tie in Bayjor and the whole caves because they've already established these fire caves having

pares or entities before so they felt let's just make it more ds 90 and pull it away from yeah and you know a disclaimer the par rates uh become not extremely important but become important as the seasons go by no spoilers no spoilers but they do reappear evidently all right so we go to o'brien The O'Brien's quarters, Miles is working on how to buy past the security. While Miles is working, she notices his brow is tightened. And this is where she says, you know, what do you want to ask me? So like you were describing before, it's the real Keiko's knowledge and, you know, intimate knowledge of him mixed with this entities using that knowledge.

So only a wife would notice that kind of detail. You want to ask me a question. Or a Dax, for that matter. yes yes yeah true uh bashir arrives though he brings a replacement plant for uh for caco and then she asks if he's coming to the party tonight and julian says yeah i thought it was a surprise the surprise is out bashear leaves miles says you know we should cancel this party we shouldn't do this and kego or the entity says nope that would be suspicious we have to do the surprise party so it was an interesting scene because you see the entity sort of using Kako's knowledge of the look on his

face to get a leg up. But you also see her using that knowledge about the surprise party incompletely and sort of spoiling a surprise. So it was a little bit of, oh, this could, to me, at least, I saw maybe this could backfire. I didn't think she lost anything. I thought it was manipulative on the Pa-Rath's side that she was going to use the party to her own ends. So I didn't think that she slipped. I think it was just the chess move that was overlooked, perhaps. Oh, interesting. I don't know.

Later we hear that the Pa-Raths are basically disgraced false gods that were tossed out of the wormhole, right? That they're not really profits. But yet, for this entity to be able to overtake Keiko's body and, also know her thoughts and everything, very sophisticated. So to me, I was like, that's the only thing where I nitpicked. Garrett, we have a character that does that already. Who?

Dax. Oh, Dax has access to all the memories of all the bodies that Dax has been part of. Correct. Yes, yes. So we know that that's capable because for five seasons, that's what the Dax character is. Right. I just felt like the way they described the paw race later, it didn't seem like they had that capability to be so daxy, I guess, you know, so. But maybe if they're doing kind of a DAX move, they're taking over a body like they're having the same kind of, you know, skills or

experience, I guess. Possibly. I mean, this is kind of fun acting. Did we know that then? We were so young that we didn't get that this is fun you know I think part of it was fun for me a lot of it was work yes because you were in it of course so much and for such a long time Cullen now has done as you have but Cullum has done five years and he's not to mention how many years of TNG that he did so like like Hanna he must have had some feelings of, you know, it's getting to be a slug. You know, as his, I was his workwife, but I was friend, I could tell I was in the morning a lot.

And then, you know, as the day went on, great. But what was hard about Deep Space 9 is that it was so dark. Everything lighting, everything is dark. And that there's light in the building on the set. That is, you know, I think that also is, and the long hours, that combined is, you know, it's quite a Marathon acting job, you know. It was. Yeah, I think you're right.

You're touching a good point, Roz. I think there's so many elements that sort of create that cocktail of culture on a show. Some of it's just the storytelling and the physical world, if it's a dark set, it's a dark place. or the content of the story some of it is the way that the number one behaves and that sets a tone some of it is often and I'm just talking generally so a lot of it is the way the showrunners kind of nurture or lack of nurture the cast and you know what I mean and connect because I've been on some shows where like when we finish everybody's in tears I mean I did resident alien for five years and the last day of that show was

so profound we had two of our indigenous actors doing a ceremony and a traditional you know indigenous ceremony to kind of honor what we had completed and people are crying and moved deeply moved and connected to that show and i've done other shows where it's like see ya thank you you know so yeah i think there's a lot of things that go into it i guess the storylines were a little bit darker except for that's why this was such a pleasure when it starts out with that scene between you and max between armin and max it just it was such a lift and i remember thinking oh i didn't realize that this show was actually quite it was very funny oh yeah yeah did you already talk about bashear coming in and all that stuff or no yes what did he say what did he

mouth to o'brien keko walks crosses past him and he goes he does this Oh, he said she's not mad or something. Oh, okay. Yeah, he goes, is she okay or something? Yeah, that's what it was. All right. I think that's one of the few scenes that I got to be with everyone. I often didn't get to be with everyone.

I remember that that was, you know, lovely. Yeah, definitely. That's so awesome that you finally got to interact with all the characters, right? Yeah. Well, we go to the ward room next. Rom is arriving in the wardroom This is the swing shift crew that we're going to meet There's two humans

There's some kind of alien and a Bajorn woman They're kind of grumpy this swing shift They're not very friendly to him And he's trying so hard to fit in He's really trying everything Oh, I'll have a Racta Gino If that's what you guys drink on this shift Like that's just like, okay

That's very clever And Alan Craker did a beautiful job of sort of opening Max up to see this group with their, you know, their backs to us. And Max being so open, Ron being so open. And, you know, he's the bright light in the room, whereas the rest of the crew is like, and the way he looked down on him, too. Also, he was great. He made me really, I mean, you emphasized with him.

100%. If you cast Max Credencheck, you're going to empathize. with the characters that he's playing. Yeah, he's great. The two of each other, really fun. Rom's line when he says, I'll have a Racta Gino. It's not like this on the night shift.

We don't drink Ractagino. We really don't drink anything. And then Wattley says, fascinating. And I kept thinking, they should have made this guy a Vulcan. He already gave him the Vulcan line, right? So I kept thinking that was like, you're giving Vulcan lines to the human guys. Anyway.

Well, Miles calls in to this swing shift to give them their assignments. He says he's going to work alone today recalibrating the optronic phase shifters on level five. Rom offers to do it, though. He says, I'll do that. I love optronic phase shifters. I love to do that.

Miles says, no, no, no. I'll do it myself. Gives out other assignments and says, don't disturb me. I'm working alone today. Don't disturb. So we know what's going on here. I didn't know what was going on. Here's what I didn't understand.

Not that I have a fault for it, but I went, that's interesting. Because normally, 99% of the time, Miles would have walked into the room and told them this. Why is it on a video? And all I can think of, and God knows, Rosalind, you must have encountered it, that he was in Ireland that day or something. And so he couldn't do it, so they shot it later that way. Because I thought, why is he on a video? Yeah, strange, too. Other jobs that he was doing at the time of Deep Space 9, I think that was part of his contract.

Yes, he was allowed to go out and do the commitments and other films. I'm sure there were times when they called you up and said, we have to move the shoot day because he's not here. He's not in the States. Did that happen a lot? Yes, it did. Oh, wow. Did it not happen for you?

It didn't? I'm surprised. No, it didn't happen for me, but I could see how it would happen a lot. Because I think I can't remember the number, but I do remember his deal was that they really, had to work around him. I think he's the only one that had that deal. Am I right?

Well, I didn't have a deal, but I had the same situation. Okay. Non-verbal. I mean, it wasn't in writing by any means, but they worked around my work schedule. They let you go to Buffy. That's really a great thing. Yeah. It was.

It was indeed. After Miles gives the instruction not to bother him on video, he's up in, I guess that's a Jeffrey's tube. And he asked the computer, where is Kay? Keiko, Keiko is in the quarters, and this is when he starts asking the computer. Okay. Very smart writing, that little question. Yes.

Because then I would have said, I would have quibbled, that's one of the first where I would have quibble and said, he shouldn't ask the computer because he can be overheard. But he checked first to make sure that she wasn't around. Very smart, I thought. Yeah, yeah. You also asked the computer to initiate a full identity scan of Keiko O'Brien just to make sure that it's really her. or maybe it's a clone, who knows. Identity confirmed, everything's good.

So then he starts going through all these different scenarios in his head of how to dupe the entity. How are we going to get this entity out of her body? And the computer's like, okay, if you did this, it'll take this much time. And in his back of his mind, he's hearing that it's going to take a fraction of a second to kill Keiko, to cause a brain aneurysm or whatever.

So every single solution he comes through. Can't do a stasis field. Anestatin gas cannot be used 1.4 seconds. And then phaser, even a phaser, is still 0.9 seconds. So that's almost a full second, and that is not a fraction of a second. So whatever he tries, Keiko would die. Like you said, Armin, smart writing, because they covered this issue. Yeah.

Is their way out? No. Yeah. She can kill Keiko faster than any of the ways he could take care of her. Right. That was AI before AI, right? Yeah, kind of. I mean, it was a computer that could, yeah.

Genius, right? A lot of the stuff that we see, tech stuff in Star Trek, ends up manifesting in real life. But the funny thing is the pads, like we've had those pads now we have iPads everywhere, but back then nobody had a pad like that. The funny thing, Roz, is that there is an episode where you and O'Brien are going on a vacation. You're in the shuttle to go somewhere and he brings work with him. Instead of one pad, he's got 15 of them because they didn't predict data storage very well, right?

So you don't need 15 pads to get 15 manuals of work to look over. Put all of them on one pad. One pad is all you need, yeah. Remind me the technical advisor's name. Andre Bormonis. Who came up with the pad. It's Asian American. Mike Okuda?

Oh. I remember walking with him from the set and saying, it's so weird that you guys have me doing this because I always wanted to push and no pushing and I'd be like what do I do and I remember he came on the set and he's like just move like this and I was like it seems weird to me but he knew he predicted it right he knew it we go to the party next miles arrives late because he was working and trying to figure out how to kill this entity. He arrives a little late. The party's going, Keiko and Molly come out singing, but they don't sing happy birthday. They sing for he's a jolly good fellow because royalties back

then. We could never sing happy birthday. Do you remember that? I do remember them saying, why are we not saying happy birthday? And they said because it cost him much. That trademark or copyright or whatever has expired. So now people can sing happy birthday. But back in the 90s, it costs too much money so nobody saying happy birthday well we're at the party they're singing for his jogger fellow dachs arrives cisco tells miles that he seems a little preoccupied cisco notices this which this starts a problem for this episode for me okay i and i may be jumping to the end but i just want to bring it up now cisco when he said you seem preoccupied this seemed to be the beginning of what I thought was Cisco and Odo and everyone being suspicious but we don't really even at

the very end they seem completely dumb I will disagree with that because there is a scene where they are suspicious it's about two-thirds the way through oh I think Avery knew the ending of the episode and was already playing it in this scene so as I said to you Rosalind I will quibble about certain performances. I think Avery was jumping the gun. As he does, there's a major thing where he does at the end, which I'll talk about. But I think he's read the ending, and

he's playing that. You know, it's what they say to all actors. Don't play the end of the show. Yeah. I'll see. But Miles says he's fine. Nothing to worry about. Jake and Odo are discussing the pa wraiths, the supernatural beings that live in caves.

And Jake wants to see them someday, we learn. So Miles comes over. He overhears this. He's very anxious because they're talking to Keiko or the entity. He keeps trying to talk to Keiko, but she says, not now, Miles, not now. He ends up breaking the glass in his hand, silences the whole room. And he yells to the room, I'm fine.

There's nothing to worry about. I'm fine. He kind of loses his temper and Keiko says, come with me and takes him out of the room. Seems to me like they should all be suspicious of Miles in this scene. He's acting so out of character. That was a flaw for this episode for me is everyone seems to not really be reacting to the way that Miles is behaving in this episode.

Well, I jumped to the thought that maybe they saw, I don't know where I got this, but maybe they thought that they were having marital problems so we're trying to back off. Oh, yeah, I'd buy that. That makes sense. Yeah. I wish there had been a scene about that,

like more explicit. yeah to let everybody off the hook because otherwise he's just acting really out of character to me and no one seems to take it very seriously like they do often in other episodes they pick up on the tiniest clue and well well after he breaks the glass everybody reacts accordingly yeah everyone says there's something wrong here um so maybe alan held it off until that moment yeah well we go inside the bedroom, Kako's treating his cut. She says, get a hold of yourself, gives him, she's getting tough with him, tough cop time. He says, look, I did what you asked and they'll just give me back my wife. She says, oh, that, that was just a test. Tomorrow's the real work.

You pass. But tomorrow's the real work. And let's go back to the party. We don't want to be suspicious. All with a smile. All with domestic tranquility. It's brilliantly performed. Their reaction, I read it that, oh, look, they're so brilliant at, like, kind of, you know, that shut down. Maybe it's because, well, Armand, you probably feel this like if you've just been to England, I'm married to an Englishman. You know, they just shut down if something's awkward. There's like a kind of as if nothing happened here. Yeah. Stiff upper lip.

Very much. Yes. Well, we have a little time. Cut after that scene, the party's over. They're cleaning up, and this is my biggest nitpick, Armin, of this episode is they're cleaning up, she's putting the salad bowl in, and the salad is completely empty, but the cake was only half eaten. I think they would eat the whole cake.

What is wrong with these people? They ate salad and not cake? Okay. I know you're nitpicking right there, Robbie, but they would. We're talking about this dish, this caparal that, you know, Kako has made. Everyone was dying to come eat this dish. So maybe they stuffed their belly so full. They didn't have enough room for cake.

That's a possibility. Why waste all that cake? I just want to, I know, but what the heck is Kaparal? I don't even know what it is. Does anyone know what, Armand? Does it sound like a familiar? They all talk about it like it's turkey and stuffing like it's a normal dish. I've never heard it until this episode.

Yeah. So that's my name. I've heard of cake, though. I know what cake is. I don't know what was in that cake. You don't know what was in that cake. Okay. All right.

Well, the salad was very popular. Cake was clearly not. I just want to remind her. Say that one more time. Miles demands to know what she wants, and she yells that she makes the rules. This was a great moment, Ron, when you were like, I make the rules here.

Now, relax. Oh, it was great. Took charge. He says, he wants to sleep on the couch. He says, no you have to do things like you always do it sleep in bed which made it incredibly icky it was wonderfully wonderfully icky before he goes to bed he tries to find out he's just he's thinking about this pa ray thing so they ask he asked the computer uh how many records for about pa wraiths and there's

over 6,000 entries so he can't read this right now before bed uh and kako calls him or the entity calls from the other room get in here so we know that this pari thing is in his mind but he's not sure what how it can help right and now we're in bed out of all the scenes that we shot i remember this one the most clearly because i had a cold and it reminds me of how well column and i get along i mean she was laughing at me so hard because i put clean you know those little triangles that were the pillows, I had a bunch of Kleenexes stuffed under the pillow. Oh, my gosh. Every time between shots, I would, you know, have to blow my nose.

And he was just like, oh, God, how does Simon? How does he tolerate this? I really do love calling me. We had so much fun working the other. And it's this shot, or I think it's the shot, where he wakes up. Are we there where he wakes up? Yeah, yeah. They go to sleep, and the camera kind of.

it goes over their bodies and dissolves. And he reaches for Rosalind. He reaches for Keiko. And she knows what he's thinking. And you give this enigmatic smile. That is what I mentioned earlier. That for me, that smile, that moment was breathtaking. That's the one I think you should win the Academy Award for.

That smile said everything. it included the line that comes next it included the past what had happened in the episode already it included your domestic the very thing you're talking about your relationship between the two characters and the two actors

that smile I would give anything to have that on my resume that was brilliant that's nice well you know honestly don't you feel this you guys must all feel this that when you're open

and you're working with people that you can be open with your best stuff comes through it's not even planned you know everything subconscious comes out everything

it's just everything's so easy you know and that was a perfect storm in a positive way that you know you're working with lovely people the director was lovely the writing was good

so yeah it was that made everything easier and it gave you an opportunity to stretch your stuff yeah it was blue Thank you. Well, Miles says that Molly's going to stay with the Davises until this is all over.

And she says, you know, I would never hurt Molly unless you force me to. This is a moment, Armin, where there could have been mustache twirling, and there wasn't. There was not. This is a great example of that. It was just the facts. And that's what made it more terrifying. Thank you. Really good.

That's good directing, too. Well, she hands him a pad with instructions of what to do. She doesn't hand him 15 pads. She's just one. And we cut out to the corridor. Miles asked the computer to locate Cisco. A computer says Cisco's insecurity. And we go to the promenade.

Miles steps out of the turbo lift. He sees Cisco and Otto coming out of security. He starts to approach. Looks like he's going to tell them when Keiko calls Miles. We see Keiko up above. on the balcony, and she collapses, falls over the rail, and hits the floor down below. Knocked out. You damn entity.

You paw rave. Evil pawraith. Do you remember that stunt? I remember standing up on the sink, but I don't remember them filming the stunt or anything. Because you weren't there. Your double was there. Yeah. But the double looked good is what I'm saying.

I thought it was. I went back and froze it trying to see, like, how close was the double. It was a good double. Yeah. It was a very good match. It was a very good match. It happened so fast, yeah. But this is a scene where

seeing Odo and Cisco coming out of security in the way they sort of looked, again, I thought, are they clocking miles and being secretive? Like, how much do they suspect him of something? And it just is not clear in the whole episode. To me, it's not clear.

Okay. Maybe it's not to be like that, you know, almost like layers upon like we don't know if they've been discussing it play it either way yeah i really thought of this episode like a ludlam novel that was layers upon layers and that going in one direction is where you think the the reader thinks it's going and then all of a sudden that door is closed and they has to figure out what to do next i really did think of this as a ludlam episode yeah and it also is is i guess a bit of whose point of view are we in if we're in Miles' point of view, then he may be interpreting them stepping out as, oh, they know there's

something wrong, you know, if we're in his point of view. Whereas I felt like we were never in Cisco or Odo's point of view. But usually when Odo approaches Cisco, usually in most episodes, there is something wrong. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, that's his job. Odo's job is to tell Cisco about dangers to security. Go to commercial back in the old days. We come back. Odo and Cisco are in the infirmary. They're asking Miles what he saw. Now, this is the scene where I thought they might be a little suspicious. This is right. This is the one where I thought they were suspicious, yes. Right. But it didn't pay, yeah, anyway, I don't know why it bugged me. I was like, I want more clarity on where Cisco and Odo, what they know. And we never quite got it. But they seem suspicious. They ask him what he saw.

He kind of avoids answering directly. Bashir arrives says she's going to be okay. She has a broken femur, that's a big deal, and a hairline fracture of something, but she was lucky, and Miles says he wants to see her, and Bashir says, not now. And then Cisco, off camera, says, Doctor? Sort of telling Bashir, it's okay. So he allows Miles to go. This was that scene where I was like, are they trying to kind of bait Miles? I don't know. Something about everyone's behavior seemed off to me in this scene. Well, because I know of the friendship between Cullum and Avery, and because I know of the friendship that I've seen for five seasons between O'Brien, and I just thought, it's

his wife. He wants to talk to his wife. I lost a wife. Let him speak to his wife. That's all I thought when I was watching it. Well, Miles goes into the infirmary, goes to her. She says she knew all along that he was going to. tell Cisco and Odo, and she knows everything that a wife would know. So again, she's got

Keiko's radar with this entity's evil plans. And she says, how much more do you think that Keiko's body can take? So a threat here. No more tricks. No more secrets. He agrees. He says he needs 36 hours to do all this stuff on the pad. She says, you've got 13 hours, not a minute more. And I did like Miles's when he goes, you bloody. felt very authentic there's 5.30 in the morning I call him. Bashir arrives in the background.

She pulls him in tight for a kiss. And we end the scene with she kind of references Molly tell her mommy's fine. Don't scare her miles. It's really good writing. We don't need any of that really for the plot.

We don't really. But between the good writing and the wonderful performance, it's just icky. She's not only playing for Miles, Keiko's not only playing for Miles, but playing for everybody in the room and indeed playing for everybody who's watching it as well. Next scene, we go back out to the promenade, Miles asked the computer as he's exiting the sick bay or infirmary there. He asked the computer for a 13-hour countdown.

So now we've put a clock on it, which I love in this story. that now there's a taking clock. Worf stops him, offers anything he can do to help. Miles says, I wish there was something you could do, but no. And he heads off to stay on schedule. My one nitpick with that scene is he's just set the clock, 13 hours. Worf gets his residual scene. And I wanted Alan to have O'Brien moving.

I didn't want him to just take a moment to stay and talk to, to wharf when he's just realized I only have 13 hours left. He heads off to stay on schedule. We cut inside this conduit. It's a very tight conduit. Rom pops in in the background. I love pop-ins.

He said, I finished my work, super fast. I had a schedule. And he does mention here. Nobody ever talks to me. So that's why I can work so fast because they kind of ignore me and I work a lot faster than they do. And this gives Miles an idea.

He's like, you know what? We're going to make some modifications. but you can't say a word to anybody it's super secret and rom is a pro he says his lips are sealed he mentions uh he won't even he says nobody will get anything out of me not even my name brian says rom everybody knows your name and he goes right but i won't confirm it when do we start very funny yeah i mean callback was made it even better you know later on yes Max is so good. He's so good.

He's so good. I feel like you, he and Armand should do a play together. Have you ever done a play together? Did you ever do? On cruises, we've done scenes together, but no. And we used to, no, the answer is no. We've never done a play together. Never done a full-on play.

Waiting for Godot. Well, that would be a great play for you guys. I'm glad that we have these scenes. of your work. Really good stuff. We go to Cargo Bay next. It's a working montage, Miles and Rom, working, cutting around the ship and hallways and places when... Excellent cutting. Yeah. And beautifully built montage. Again, Alan Craker is just showing what a great directory is. Yeah. We go to O'Brien's working down in the pit. Dax interrupts him. She says, you know, I couldn't sleep and I decided to scan the wormhole for anomalies because that's what you do at 3 a.m.

um and she says i found something basically she sees some of this these changes and realizes she thinks there might be a saboteur and i love this scene the way it moved around she gets the chiefs she gets miles brings him up they move from one place to another they didn't have to do that like this is a perfect example of alan alan's direction style because she could have just popped over in a single, hey, I think there's a saboteur. He could have stayed down in the pit, but instead they move all around. It's beautifully, beautifully done. And like the Ludlam reference that I made before, I would have started to ask myself, really, that doing all these modifications and nobody's noticing it, somebody notices it, and has to deal with it. And that's good. Okay, great.

That takes the quibble away. Yeah. I love that she said that it was calming for her to do the work, too. That didn't make it fishy because we all do things, weird things that are calming. Yes, I scroll Zillow. That's very calming for me. I love Zillow. It's very calming. It does. I like Zillow too, but not a evening morning, but that's okay.

We go to the wardroom, Cisco, Odo, Dax are there. They've got Miles. They're all looking at these alterations, these tiny fluctuations. Miles says the changes don't seem to pose any harm to the station. Like he said, like he promised, I'm not going to pose any risk. But Cisco doesn't let it go. He goes, yeah, maybe not yet, but they start to brainstorm about who might be doing this. And I love, again, a shout out to Alan Craker, Miles walks over to the window.

He's the odd man out here looking at the window while they brainstorm. Notice that, yes. So good. And he has a lovely shot, which I had a problem with in another episode, but this didn't bother me of the four people in the shot together. not shoulder to shoulder it was different and yet it was the four people and I thought oh the last time I saw this I didn't like it this one I like yeah it felt organic to the story it didn't feel forced in terms of the physicality of the actors they think it might be someone who's been here a while so they're kind of getting on his trail a little like you know someone like him they mentioned

the maintenance crew and then Cisco calls for miles what does he think and uh miles is not even paying attention. He's staring out the window. That's when Miles gets a call from Molly. So he goes over to have this private call. It's not just Molly. It's Molly and Keiko. Keiko says Molly asked for her. And so she came to see her. She says, Miles has work to do exactly two hours, 22 minutes, and 13 seconds, to be precise. That's the writers twisting their mustache. Yes. It is. Miles returns over to Cisco. and says, I think I know who the saboteur may be. And that's how we end the scene.

I have an idea. Now, what did you think of that? You know who he's going to nominate as the saboteur. I thought, what a horrible man you are, Mons-Oviore. That's a good thing. What a horrible man you are. You've set this poor, innocent person up. He did it so well that I assumed that he was going to step in and save him at the last minute.

He doesn't really. He doesn't really know. He doesn't really. Rom saves him, by the way. Rom is loyal, and this is what I think is good writing. Everybody on our show was, no one was completely heroic. No one was completely bad. There were shades of gray.

And this is showing O'Brien, the much put upon, Miles O'Brien, when his family's at risk, he is capable of, doing outrageously bad things. It's only human. But they didn't protect him. He had the opportunity to tell them while they're all standing in the room. He could have said, it's me, I'm doing it. He didn't do that. He didn't do the heroic thing, or what we think of is heroic. He did the human thing, which was blame it on somebody else, which he's already done with Bashir, by the way. Yes, exactly. He's throwing everybody out of the bus. He's not the perfect Starfleet. TNG, Starfleet.

He's only human. I like that a great deal. Although I felt really not angry, but bitter towards the character that is pushing my brother under the bus. Exactly. Exactly.

And we know he's doing it to save Keko, but it seems selfish and it seems cruel. He's not willing to sacrifice his wife, but he's willing to sacrifice Romm. It's just, yeah, I did nothing but been helpful. Yeah.

And has been underappreciated all this time. Yeah. Well, we cut out to the corridor. Rom's working on a panel. Odo grabs him. We see Odo's hand come in. Miles is blaming him. And the looks between them are loaded.

You see the shame and the guilt on Miles. And you see Rom hopeful that he was told the truth. This is the only flaw in Cullum's performance. for me. I did not want to see the shame. If you're shamed about it, say something. Don't give me a look that says, I feel really badly about this, but I'm doing it anyway. I really wanted him to stick by his guns and just be, he did it. I don't want him to be heroic. He's got lots of episodes and lots of other things to do where he can be heroic. This is when he's, I mean, he's, he's just pushed a naive character under the bus he's pushed a child a childlike quality under the bus and now he's

pretending he's giving me i'm really sorry i'm doing this yeah i'm sorry there's other people around that's true that's a good point yeah he would have covered you're right he would have been smarter if he had played it absolutely the way that uh someone who a starfleet person who thinks that's the bad guy wouldn't have shame or cower yeah i wonder if that's the kind of moment where i think alan craker could have gotten some options i don't know if he did they may have chosen this one maybe one never knows but you're right well we cut to a holding cell rams in a cell Odo says he barely even admitted his name, which was the funny. Yeah, so funny.

Right. Oh my God. Yeah. But he has been under interrogation for 40 minutes. I think he says 40 minutes. Yeah. For the first 40 minutes, it was like pulling teeth to even get him to admit his name. Right.

It's funny, of course. But he's been under interrogation. Rom can't really stand up to interrogation. This has got to be very painful for him. for him. Yeah, 100%. We make a joke of it, and it is a joke, and it's very funny, and I'm glad the writers did that. But we have to understand where Rom's coming from, which is that he's been standing up for

what he thinks is right, and he's undergoing pain for O'Brien, and O'Brien is not bailing him out. When Rom and O'Brien both know that he's totally innocent. Yeah, he's the real victim. And forgive me, this is me saying, yeah, throw the Ferengi under the book. forangie under the bus. Oh. We never liked Ferengi anyway. Throw them under the bus. Because if you look at all the episodes, he's not very fond of the Ferengi. Throw them all. It's just a faranky. Throw them under the bus. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like it. I'm with you,

Armin. I did not like it. I wish that there was explicit sort of acknowledgement. And it's sort of implied by the promotions and things. It's implied, but it's not explicit. says he barely admitted his name rom says i'm only going to speak to miles so cisco says well go get him go get miles so they call miles to come down we see miles in the corridor trying to finish up he had 13 hours um he tells oto okay i'm on my way then he tells the computer 36 asked the computer how much time he's only got 36 minutes so he says computer um you know finish the what we were what i was working on he tells the computer scramble security channels and he heads out down at the holding cell he arrives rom says i'll only talk to it if we're alone rom says uh he can stay quiet basically but he's got

one question he says why are they trying to turn the station into a giant chronoton array and destroy the wormhole what that's where we go out to commercial so it's a big aha moment for the audience you know, and Rom says it flippantly like, oh, this was easy. This was an easy puzzle to put together. Why did Miles see this? Miles says, I thought the chronosome beam was harmless. Rom says, well, not to a wormhole alien. It's deadly.

To humans, it's harmless, but to wormhole aliens, it's deadly. And Miles gets it. He explains, Rom explains the Bajoran mythology that Lida has taught him. So a little bit we get here. that he and Lita are getting closer. And what we learn is the Pahreth were cast out by the prophets that they were banished. And Miles realizes they're trying to kill the prophets in the wormhole.

And this is where Rahm also sees Miles was lying to him. He says, it's not a secret Starfleet mission, is it? And Miles says, just please play along a little bit longer. Don't say anything. And Rahm agrees. he says I'm Quark's brother I know the role

I thought that was so good because it also made me realize that everybody discounts him as being the dim bulb but actually he's not obviously in this episode he knows more than

Miles but he also admits that this is what he does to It's a role yeah Quark's been underestimating Rom and

And so has O'Brien. O'Brien's been keeping him in the night shift where he's been fixing the toilets. And he's realizing that, you know, this guy's a real engineer. And how many times does that happen? The outside of someone convinces us of our opinion towards them, only to find out later on, oh, there's much more to them than what I thought at first. So that's a good thing. That's a good thing.

Also, the sibling, the fact that your sibling relationship must have been such that he was used to being the younger brother I mean we see that in other societies where the older brother gets all the property all the rights everything and the younger brother has to fend for himself and has to count out to his older brother

we see that but Quark's no hero either so you know he's been maliciously treating Ron badly for years and we're seeing the emergence of rom as an entity unto himself and i'm a spoiler alert here um we're going to see more of that as the years go by oh oh spoiler alert i like a spoiler alert all right miles is running to finish this up he's asked the computer how much time 12 minutes 22 seconds taking clocks i

love a taking clock we go back to a corridor otto tracks miles to panel otto's on to him basically too many system failures, system overrides. Miles tries some cover stories. Odo says, enough. Tell me the truth. You clearly are lying. Miles knocks him out with a punch to the face, to the jaw. I have to ask Rosalind a question.

What did you think of that, that he could knock Odo out? I did find that surprising, but like you had said earlier, that desperate, you know, situations called for desperate measure. It was bizarre to me. And it would have been bizarre to me, too, if I hadn't been watching on this podcast, if I hadn't been watching all the episodes. Oh, I see. That's why I asked you and not the others.

Oh, so they're, and they have that dynamic? No, they don't. But when he got knocked out, I went, what? And then I went, oh, yeah, he's human. He's a solid. Yeah, so he was made human. He basically inadvertently killed another shape shifter. which has never happened since the dawn of time.

So on trial, in a prior episode, the founders basically made him human. So he's capable to be knocked out. Yeah. That's what the first thing. I went, what? No, he's not a shapeshifter, Armour. Arm and I did the same thing.

I said, you can't hit Odo like, oh, yeah, he's not a shapeshifter. He's a human being now. You have to watch all. This is a good show. I love it, Roz. I'm telling you Well, Miles knocks him out

He calls Keiko He says, meet me at the runabout Tells her he knows her plan Which to me, I'm like, why are you telling her that? Me too. He could kill her in a second Yeah, but he says, I know your plan I don't care about the profits So clearly he does know her plan

And he's telling her I know what you're going to do I just want my wife back And he says, I know you need me to pilot you through the wormhole and she says okay i'll meet you there so it actually is smart of him to say i know your plan it is a good move but at first it sort of surprised otherwise why would you know why why would she agree to go with him in the in the shuttle inside the runabout miles says he wants to test some magnetic constrictors so that's why dax clears him to depart and uh dax asks about his birthday did you have fun he goes yeah it was full of surprises and

Terry's reading of this again I'm going to go back to she says yeah I like that too it's kind of coy and I was like are they on to him like yeah I know what do they know but we don't ever really get an answer I love Terry that really made me miss her yeah he gets in position he activates the station changes we see a great shot of all this electricity it looks like one of those balls used to get at Spencer Gifts where you put your the little static electricity ball it looks like electricity's dancing around the station dax jumps up Cisco runs out of his office dach says what the hell we see at the runabout they're targeting the wormhole keiko says or the entity says I've waited centuries for this fire it hits but it shoots out

of the station but instead of going to the wormhole it hits the the bottom yeah I was like oh no but then I remembered, Ram's smart thing, this doesn't hurt humans. It only hurts these gods. So, Kako inside is spasming. You suffer very good. I wrote down, she suffers good. Ross, good, suffering. That is another giggly moment that in rehearsing it, it's hot.

Like, you guys know this. Anytime, like, you had to sit in a, I don't know, transport or something, you had to go like this. Yeah. I don't know. It just gives me the giggles the first for her is allowed to get. And that was one of them. That was definitely.

Well, you did it well. You did it well. You did it so well. We bought it. She suffers, suffers good, falls down. O'Brien jumps down to her, Kako, Kako. And we see, Roz, your eyes open up. And it's the real Kiko, Miles.

The soft, wonderful, warm, loving Kiko that we know well. We cut to an airlock. A little time cut. Miles and Keiko are coming out. And did you notice Odo in the background rubbing his jaw? Too much, Renee. Too much. It felt a little indicatey to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I caught it. I caught it. Miles and Keiko come out. Sisko says, Chief, you've got some explaining to do. And what does he do after he says that? He walks away, doesn't he? No, he does walk away. But before he walks away, as he's saying, you have some explaining to do there's a smile on his face oh and i thought that's that's avery

reading the script and not playing the moment because if there's explaining to be done and and they've caught him in sabotage yeah i don't care how friendly they are he's been down on everybody else when there's been explaining to do why does o'brien get off the hook yeah um because he knows that it's going to be he knows what's coming and i thought some explaining to do fine just don't smile yeah don't tell me that it's going to be fine yeah yeah yeah that's part of my issue with the rest of the characters the vagueness around the rest of the characters and i i don't recall the smile but i'm sure i noticed it because it was part of my confusion like do they

were they suspicious were they tracking him was there some other secret um investigation that they were a part of i just didn't it was confusing to me but the confusion also works for works for this episode in a way if you don't let it

pull you out so totally maybe in a way I love your concept that it was almost like a Roshaman you know where each each group had a different storyline but we just weren't seeing the other storyline yeah that i mean that sort of works in the miles where his headspace was in terms of his paranoia and things but as an audience member i was very

confused about dax's point of view about cisco's point of view about wharf's point of view when wharf came in and said let me help you it felt like they all knew more than they had all read the script yes they were all playing the same We know this cool story as opposed to just playing simplicity. We go to the O'Brien's Quarters. I love this wraparound shot, Alan Craker. Such good work as Keiko's talking about what she remembers. Raps all the way around, falls into some coverage.

It was very simple but elegant and great. Keiko talks about how she could kind of hear things, but it was like being stuck in sand and squeezed and she had feelings but not details. I wanted to react that scene. I have to be honest. Really? Why? I thought, well, maybe she was, you know, still woozy like on anesthesia or something. But honestly, I thought she would have had a little more like trying to get across how frustrating it was that she couldn't get out and help him.

And like not guilt, but just the frustration of, because Keko, the way they wrote her was quite, you know, strong and forceful. So I think that would have driven her crazy not to be able to help him. And describes it as kind of like, you know, a little fuzzy, I think. So if I had any scene to redo, it would be that one. Okay. Interesting. Very interesting. I mean, honestly, I thought the marriage of the way that Alan shot it, the energy of the shot making, and your performance fit together beautifully. But I totally see what you're saying. All right. Our last scene goes back to Quarks. It's a bookend scene. I have to say I love bookend scenes like this. We start the episode in Quarks. We end at breakfast in Quarks. Quark says, Rom looks horrible. The night shift must be. killing him and rom says no no i wasn't on the night shift i was celebrating all night he got promoted to the day shift says this new crew likes him a lot especially latana which i thought was a

little suspicious having mentioned lita earlier in the episode yeah talking about another woman all the ladies love rom now and it's so close to lita too this is what i don't approve of cork always knows what's happening on the station he doesn't always get it right but he always has his ears open. He always knows what's going on. Usually when one of his family gets in trouble, he's in front of Odo, lickety-split. His brother's been arrested.

He's been interrogated. He's been in prison for a period of time. They've come back from the experience with the wormhole. A lot has happened on the station, and Quark doesn't know anything about it? I went, no, that's not the way my character's been built. Most of my qualities are bad ones, are not necessarily ones to emulate.

But this quality of keeping his ear to the ground, knowing everything that's happening on the station, and not knowing that his brother was arrested, I just couldn't buy that. Yeah, that makes sense. I still like the scene, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You notice that your brother is,

breaking out of his normal role. It's bizarre and strange and off-putting and slightly, I have to congratulate him. Yes. Very grudgingly. Very grudgingly. Here's my quibble, my little nitpick in the scene. In the first scene, he asked for eggs, bacon, and hash,

and he says in this scene, yeah, bacon doesn't agree with me. But instead, he orders a stack of pancakes, sausage. doesn't he know that sausage and bacon are going to be the same thing? Like if bacon doesn't agree with him, he should have realized that when I push the same button for bacon or sausage, that it was the same button and they both came out, you know? Yeah. Yeah, he should have, he should have realized that.

He's not that smart after all. He's going to have the same problem, which I don't want to get into, but whatever that didn't give him. We call it waste extraction. He's also been used to beetle puree, so he doesn't really. no bacon and sausage. That's two different animals in his book, so he doesn't know. But pineapple, that's the funny thing.

The breakfast of choice on the day shift is pineapple added to that breakfast. So funny. I love it. Your reaction to pineapple was brilliant. Oh, corks reaction to pineapple? Yeah. Pineapple. Yeah.

Yeah. Theme slash moral slash lesson of this episode, Robbie McNeil. What do you think it was? I put, don't underestimate people who may offer unexpected wisdom and solutions. I think ROM is the lesson in this episode. Oh, okay. We probably saved ourselves a lot of pain and grief and stress if we had been open, open to the unexpected lesson, you know, or wisdom. All right. Armand. I wrote down, When in an extremity, a man can be pushed to forego his moral code, which is what I think Miles does. I had a second one close.

Extremity is the tester of a man's capacity. Well said. I do agree. Robbie, that was the first thing that came to mind. But also, things are not always what they appear to be. That's true. That's absolutely true. My lesson is don't judge a book by its cover.

Our Patreon poll winner for the theme slash lesson slash moral of the episode is submitted by Scott B. O'Brien will win in the end no matter how much you make him suffer. That is the end of our recap and discussion of the episode The Assignment. We want to thank Armin again for guest hosting with us. And of course, we have to thank Asian American acting royalty. Rod's chow for joining us. Thank you so much. Her Highness, Rosalind Chao. Her Royal Highness, Rosalind Chow.

Patreon, patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. For everyone else, join us next time, and we will be recapping and discussing the episode Trials and Tribulations with Armin and Terry joining, and of course, special guest. The director of that episode himself, Jonathan West, the full-time DP for DS9. A wonderful, wonderful person, and I'm sure he'll provide a lot of insights, so it's going to be a great episode. I look forward to it. Yes.

All right, Patreon, Patience, stay tuned for your bonus material. Everyone else, we'll see you next time. You know what I'm going to do. Thank you.