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Emissary: Directed by David Carson. With Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Terry Farrell. When the troubled Commander Sisko takes command of a surrendered space station, he learns that it borders a unique stable wormhole.
- (4.6K)
- Action, Adventure, Drama
- David Carson
- 1993-01-03
- Overview
- Summary
- Memorable quotes
- Background information
- Links and references
Three years after his wife died at the hands of the Borg and following the Cardassian withdrawal from the planet Bajor, Commander Benjamin Sisko and a new crew of Starfleet and Bajoran officers take command of an abandoned Cardassian space station and make an incredible discovery that will change the galaxy and Sisko's future. (Series premiere)
Teaser
Enterprise In 2366 (around Stardate 44002.3) Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Sisko is the executive officer of the USS Saratoga as it battles the Borg, led by Locutus (the former Captain Jean-Luc Picard), at Wolf 359. Its shields drained by the Borg cube, the ship sustains a direct hit, which kills most of the bridge crew save Sisko and the Bolian tactical officer and causes the beginnings of a warp core breach: they have five minutes to evacuate the crippled vessel. Sisko orders the lieutenant to help the surviving civilians to the escape pods and goes in search of his own family; he asks one woman if she's seen his wife Jennifer, but she is too traumatized to respond. In his quarters, he finds his young son Jake and Jennifer buried under a pile of rubble. Although he is able to rescue Jake, Jennifer remains trapped. As Sisko digs through the rubble, the Bolian lieutenant arrives and scans Jennifer with a tricorder: she is already dead. While Sisko continues trying to rescue his wife, the lieutenant hands over Jake to a passing ensign and then pleas to Sisko to escape; with no other choice, he drags the distraught commander away screaming from the room, but Sisko does pull himself together enough to help with the evacuation. Together with Jake and the other survivors, he watches from one of the last escape pods to leave as the Saratoga is destroyed. Sisko, now a commander, approaches Jake, now a teenager, who is fishing from a lake in an Earth-like setting. Jake seems dismayed they will be soon living on a space station rather than Bajor, the planet the station orbits. Sisko assures Jake that he will have fun and meet lots of new friends, but they are interrupted by a voice from the bridge, informing Sisko that they are approaching Deep Space 9 and will be docking in seven minutes. Sisko ends the program, and they leave the holodeck. Walking past a window, Sisko and Jake get their first look at Deep Space 9, the former Cardassian mining station which will now be their new home.
Act One
"Commence Station Log, Deep Space 9. Commander Benjamin Sisko, Stardate 46388.2. At the request of the Bajoran Provisional Government, Starfleet has agreed to establish a Federation presence in this system following the withdrawal of the Cardassian occupational forces. The first contingent of officers, including my Chief of Operations, Miles O'Brien, arrived two days ago on the Enterprise." Sisko and Jake arrive at Deep Space 9 and are dismayed to find the station in a state of disarray, ransacked by the Cardassians following the Occupation of Bajor; the planet itself is in a similar state. Neither Benjamin nor his son find the place, or their quarters, accommodating but they decide to "rough it" for the time being. Chief O'Brien reports that most systems are offline, and a lot of vital equipment is missing or severely damaged. O'Brien also notes that Captain Picard wishes to meet with Sisko, a prospect the latter does not seem to relish Ascending to Ops, Sisko enters the prefect's office and finds his Bajoran liaison officer, Major Kira Nerys, in heated argument with one of the Provisional Government's ministers, whom she hangs up on. Kira, a former member of the Bajoran Resistance, is openly hostile to the idea of another foreign power occupying Bajor. When Sisko says the Federation is only there to assist the Bajorans, she retorts that the Cardassians said the same thing when they arrived sixty years earlier. Their conversation is interrupted by an alarm from the Promenade, where Kira and Sisko capture a Markalian looter and his accomplice, a young Ferengi named Nog. Here, Sisko also meets a shapeshifter named Odo, the station's security chief, who aids in the apprehension of the two criminals. Quark, Nog's uncle and the proprietor of the local bar, urges Sisko to release Nog into his custody so the Ferengi may evacuate, but Sisko refuses, appearing to have something else in mind, and has Nog spend the night in Odo's brig. Before he can elaborate to Kira, he is reminded that Captain Picard is waiting to meet with him. As he cannot put it off any longer, he heads for the Enterprise. Sisko assures Kira that the meeting will not take long.
Act Two
Sisko meets with Picard in the observation lounge, brusquely mentioning that he has already "met" Picard (or rather Locutus) at the Battle of Wolf 359. The conversation is dominated by thinly-veiled hostility on Sisko's part, as he faces the man that he holds responsible for the death of his wife. Picard, obviously troubled by his own memories, discusses the havoc wreaked upon Bajor by the Cardassians. Bajor has applied for Federation membership; however, their entrance will not be simple; with the Cardassians gone, several factions are now fighting for control of the planet. He tells Sisko that his mission aboard the station is to do everything short of violating the Prime Directive to secure Bajor's entrance into the Federation. Picard then notes that Sisko had objections to taking the assignment, and Sisko tells Picard that he's raising his son alone and that a damaged space station is not the ideal environment. Sisko also says that he is thinking of resigning his Starfleet commission to return to Earth for civilian service, but until he makes the decision, he coldly says he will do his job to the best of his ability. Picard dismisses Sisko. In Odo's security office, Sisko and Odo interview Quark, encouraging him to stay on the station and reopen his establishment. The Promenade is the vital heart of life on the station, and someone has to step forward and lead the other vendors in rebuilding. As Quark is less than eager to stay – citing that "when governments fall, people like me are lined up and shot" – Sisko uses the incarcerated Nog as a bargaining chip, offering to free Nog if Quark agrees to his terms. Odo starts to warm up to the new Starfleet commander. While discussing Bajoran politics, Kira expresses her belief that Kai Opaka, the spiritual leader of Bajor, is their only hope to unite the people and keep the Provisional Government intact. When Sisko meets the kai on Bajor, she urges him to explore his pagh, or life-force, and declares Sisko to be the Emissary of the Prophets, though she doesn't tell him everything at first. She leads Sisko to the Orb of Prophecy and Change, which grants him his first orb experience: he is mentally transported to Gilgo Beach, years earlier (circa 2354), at the time and place he met Jennifer, his wife. He re-lives the moment of their first encounter in vivid detail, promising to prepare his father's famous Aubergine stew for dinner, and is distraught when the vision ends. As Kai Opaka shuts away the Orb safely in its container, she explains that this Orb is one of nine known Orbs that have appeared in the skies over Bajor in the last ten thousand years; the Cardassians took the other eight. She also informs Sisko that his destiny, whether he believes it or not, consists entirely of finding the Celestial Temple of the Prophets, from where the Orbs originated. To help him in his task, she gives him the Orb for further study.
- Locutus of Borg, at the Battle of Wolf 359 (first spoken line of the series) – Listen to this quote file info
"I suppose you want the office."
"I thought I'd say hello first, and then take the office, but we can do this in any order you'd like."
"… Hello."
- Kira and Sisko
"It's been a long time, Captain."
Story and script
•The first discussion about this episode concerned taking inspiration from Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". Michael Piller later remembered, "The first day we sat down to meet about this, Rick [Berman] said that somehow this story must have the philosophical ambition that the 'Encounter at Farpoint' script had and that Star Trek represents." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 19) After viewing "Encounter at Farpoint", Piller set to work on crafting this pilot's story. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 32) •Devising the plot for this episode was a long, intricate process. "When you create a premise pilot, which is what we did with Deep Space Nine," Rick Berman explained, "you create a two-hour show where you have to set up an entire world and an entire group of characters and what brings them together, and at the same time tell an entertaining and meaningful story. You have a big job cut out for you. Michael Piller and I started creating […] what sort of story would unfold, spending months working on it." Piller noted, "We spent a number of months coming up with the premise before the story was written with the earliest bible of the show: what the location would be, what the backstory would be, and so on." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 411 & 416) •Rick Berman and Michael Piller collaborated with each other to write the pilot story. Noted Berman, "I did a tremendous amount of work on the pilot in terms of the bible and the story with Michael." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 18; Trek: Deepspace Nine, pp. 19 & 20) •For Rick Berman, the challenge of writing this episode was made slightly easier by the fact he had spent five years producing Star Trek: The Next Generation. "What that did was allow me to know what was possible and what wasn't," he stated. "What our visual effects guys could give us and what they couldn't. What sets we could expect and how much we could expect to get done and what was pie in the sky." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 32) •After deciding to set the new series on a space station, Rick Berman and Michael Piller used this pilot episode to start accentuating conflict, building upon conflict which had been already set up (in Star Trek: The Next Generation) between the Cardassians and Bajorans as well as between the Bajorans and the Federation. The latter consideration led the writing duo to establish that the Bajorans, rather than sharing the Federation's humanist ideals, had a highly religious belief system that involved Orbs and Prophet worship. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 412, 416-418) •Although Rick Berman and Michael Piller initially considered giving the space station a designation like "Starbase 362", they finally decided to name it "Deep Space 9" instead. (Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 13) •Michael Piller very much wanted this episode to start with a "bang". The episode's teaser, featuring the Battle of Wolf 359, harkens back to the TNG outing "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II". "It was, of course for me, who wrote the original Borg two-parter, a great opportunity," related Piller. "To go back and do some more was just too irresistible." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 431) It also seemed to make sense to tie the incident into Commander Sisko's backstory. "To make that a backdrop to this man's life was not unusual," explained Piller, "because it was a backdrop in my life, and in Rick's life. And we knew it would resonate with the fans. Furthermore, we hoped that Patrick Stewart would agree to do a guest shot. And the thought of putting our new hero in direct conflict with Picard because he blames him for the death of a family member just made us grin!" The reason Piller and Berman were happy to put the two commanding officers into conflict with each other was that they expected it would defy audience expectations that the pair of characters would immediately get along. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 15)) •"Encounter at Farpoint"'s philosophical content ended up inspiring Sisko's storyline with the aliens residing inside the Bajoran wormhole. Michael Piller commented, "Ultimately, what we created was this interaction and confrontation between alien and Human that is not so different from 'Encounter at Farpoint', but, of course, on a weekly basis we are exploring issues and philosophies through encounters with aliens. What we have in the pilot is aliens who have no understanding of a linear existence. What does that mean for Sisko, who is trying to deal with the context of his own personal crisis as it comes out through this philosophical explanation of here's why you don't have to fear me? 'We are not a threat to you, and we're different, and differences can be good,' he says, echoing the same theme – that humanity has overcome and we can coexist in the universe." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, pp. 19-20) •Michael Piller originally suggested that, at the start of the episode, all the main characters were already present and at work. However, he found that a more effective method of introducing the characters was to take inspiration from the pacing of "Encounter at Farpoint". (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 19) For Piller, the task of breaking this episode's story was therefore assisted by that TNG pilot. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 32) He commented, "There's a great deal about the structure [of 'Emissary'] that's similar to 'Encounter at Farpoint'. One of the tricks I learned from watching 'Encounter at Farpoint' again was that they didn't introduce Riker and Geordi and [Beverly] Crusher until two or three acts in. I said to Rick when we were structuring this, 'Let's hold off the arrival of two of our regulars late enough that I can do something with the other characters.'" (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 19) •The episode's script wasn't written yet when Michael Piller decided to bring others into the project, telling Ira Steven Behr about it and giving him a copy of the series bible while they were at a baseball game one night. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 418) •At the end of TNG Season 5, Michael Piller and Rick Berman were away writing this pilot episode. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 422) Piller was continually working on the installment when Peter Allan Fields arrived. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 5)) Berman and Piller were working on it in a building on the Paramount lot while Fields spent a long time sitting alone in another building of the lot, waiting for other writers to join the new DS9 writing staff along with him. "Michael and Rick were somewhere over in the other building writing the pilot," Fields recalled, "and I was sitting there, wondering what I was supposed to do […] The pilot kept changing, which was pleasing because everything was developing." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 422) •An early story treatment of what ultimately became "Emissary" was titled "The Ninth Orb" and was dated 8 April 1992. In it, Ro Laren met Benjamin Sisko for the first time just before his meeting with Captain Picard. Another plotline this treatment featured was a black market on the station, controlled by an individual named "Rulod". Sisko promised Opaka he would stamp out the black market and later confronted Rulod. Said Rulod owned a base in the Denorios Belt and was the person who informed Gul Dukat about the Bajoran wormhole, information which later reached Odo via Quark. This entire plotline was removed in later revisions. •Paramount instantly approved of the pilot story. "The studio loved it," remarked Michael Piller. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 23; Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 20) However, Piller himself modestly remarked, "It would have been fine." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 18) •Michael Piller started developing the story into an initial draft of the script. "The story for the first episode was forty pages long and extremely well-defined when Michael sat down to write the teleplay," remembered Rick Berman. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 423) He and Piller spent many late nights writing the episode's script, during TNG's fifth season. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 19) •Michael Piller and Rick Berman developed this pilot episode's narrative without being entirely sure how the forthcoming series would develop. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 32, No. 4/5, p. 51) "When Michael wrote 'Emissary', he clearly had no idea where the Sisko story would be heading in later years," explained Ronald D. Moore. (AOL chat, 1998) Added René Echevarria, "Michael did not know what it meant that Odo didn't know where he was from. His instincts told him, that can be mined. This whole Emissary thing, I think for Michael, it was just an interesting thing to him. What some people call God in the Star Trek universe, others would just call an alien. That was an interesting theme to him. He just threw all these things into the mix, I don't think with an idea of ultimately where it was going." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 32, No. 4/5, p. 52) •As much as this episode was influenced by "Encounter at Farpoint", it was equally inspired by "The Cage", particularly one specific scene from that episode. "I haven't seen 'The Cage' in years," commented Michael Piller, "but what brings to mind the memory of it is the imagination that takes you out of that locked cage – Gene's imagination. It takes you into green fields and the picnic and Susan Oliver and those wonderful moments. I would be lying if I did not say that image was with me when I wrote ['Emissary']. I don't remember much about it. I don't remember the story, but I remember that friendly green pasture. I think ['Emissary'] is definitely inspired by Roddenberry, and if people who have missed something in the new Star Trek feel that some funny bone or some nerve ending is being addressed, I know Rick and I will be delighted." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 19) This was despite the fact that Rick Berman had never seen all of "The Cage" and had only seen small parts of it. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 22) •This episode had to be changed, so as to omit the character of Ro Laren, when Ro actress Michelle Forbes declined to participate in the forthcoming series. After allowing Forbes one last chance to change her mind, Michael Piller and Rick Berman decided to write Ro out of the episode. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 18) Fortunately, when Forbes opted out of the project, Piller was working on a rewrite of the pilot to strengthen the episode's first act. This made it easier for him to change the role of Ro to a newly created Bajoran character: Kira Nerys. "It was really a matter of rewriting two or three scenes that defined where she was from and a couple of speeches in other scenes, which were mostly action-type scenes," Piller explained. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 448) However, Berman added, "It's not like we took Major Kira and plugged her into a spot that had been held by Ensign Ro. Basically, once we knew that Michelle wasn't going to be joining us, we sat down and developed our story, and one of the characters that was created was Major Kira." (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 160) Piller found that having a Bajoran character who, unlike Ro, wasn't in Starfleet had more opportunities for conflict between her and Sisko – because she did not have to follow his orders – than there would have been between Sisko and Ro. "Immediately you have different priorities and agendas, and the two people immediately have a conflict with each other the moment they step onto the station," he observed. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 337) •There was limited duration to firmly define the regular characters in this installment. "We couldn't do it all in the pilot. We did Sisko in the pilot, we did some Kira in the pilot," pointed out Michael Piller. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 459) •The process of rewriting the episode included Michael Piller increasing Nog's involvement in the plot. "We had always had a shape-shifting gag for Odo in the end of act one and we had always had a Ferengi boy, Nog, that would become a friend of Sisko's son. In the rewrite, using all the elements that we had that were waiting to be thrown in," Piller remembered, "I put Nog at the scene of a crime and put him in trouble. I realized that when Sisko arrives at the scene where Odo is shape-shifting – where they meet at the end of act one – there is a situation where the Ferengi kid is going to jail for being an accomplice to a crime that has been committed." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 20) In his own words, Piller also realized that, when Sisko "sees the Ferengi guys who used to run the bar and the gambling facilities, packing up their gear, ready to leave, he could use this to his advantage." (Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 22) •Michael Piller used the same dramatic situation to his own advantage by establishing the conflictual relationship between Odo and Quark, discovering that he enjoyed writing the dialogue between them. "In that scene where Odo is watching Sisko in action and Sisko is doing this number on Quark, I suddenly found myself writing these asides between Odo and Quark […] I realized there was magic there," Piller reminisced. "There was a relationship there. They get off on this trying to one-up each other, and there's a love that comes from within for one another between the good guy and the bad guy, and we really explored that. That's the discovery of character and interaction Rick and I wanted to have. It was a conflict that was fun and restored to Star Trek something that hadn't really been in evidence since the original show." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 445) Piller also clarified that, rather than the Quark-Odo relationship originating in the DS9 series bible, it was writing the aforementioned scene, with Quark in Odo's office, that provided the foundation for their quarrelsome bond. (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3, p. 8) •On 2 June 1992, Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach sent Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Herman Zimmerman a memo regarding the script. Their suggestions included Bashir (at this point named "Amaros") commenting that he mistook a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve, that Jaros II had been misspelled as "Javos II", and, in response to Kai Opaka's line that the Orbs had first appeared on Bajor over a thousand years ago: "In '"Ensign Ro"', we have established that Bajoran civilzation flourished before humans were walking erect. Since Homo Erectus dates back about 450,000 years, this might mean that the Bajorans go back at least that far. If this is so, then a 1000 year old sphere seems like a rather recent event for such an ancient culture. Suggest the first orb might have been discovered 'Over 100,000 of your years ago.'" (The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, p. 124) •The first draft of the episode's teleplay was written by Michael Piller, who explained, "In the first draft of the script, our guys essentially come to the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles and decide to stay. I thought that was great, and the studio said, 'We want to open with a shot of the Promenade and people gambling.' So I wrote it that way." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 423 & 424) The first draft teleplay was submitted on 12 June 1992. •Rick Berman was quick to embrace the initial draft of the teleplay. "What happened was I had written the first draft of the script," Michael Piller explained, "which we had not sent to the studio yet, and Rick read it, and a lot of people liked it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, pp. 19 & 20) •In the week beginning 15 June 1992, Michael Piller was still working on the writing of this episode when, separately, Ira Steven Behr and Peter Allan Fields began initiating story development for the later first season installments. "Mike was off doing pilot rewrites on DS9," said Behr, "when I was off with Pete Fields trying to get freelance writers to write the first episodes […] To tell you the truth, I think they [Piller and Berman] were trying to get a pilot onto the air and struggled to come up with something different." Behr also reckoned that, during the pilot rewrite process, Berman and Piller were entirely uncertain what was in the Gamma Quadrant nor how the show would be told. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 422 & 423) •Meanwhile, with the first draft of the pilot script having been written, Rick Berman and Michael Piller were working on revising it. Berman recollected, "He and I spent about a month working on it. We discussed it, we made changes, draft after draft, and finally we got it to a point where we were pretty happy with it. But no one had seen it except the two of us." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 423-424) •Michael Piller subsequently became dissatisfied with an aspect of the pilot script. "We had worked on it for a few weeks and Michael then became unhappy," Rick Berman related. "We were looking for a direction and, as is typical of Michael, he was frustrated and felt that something wasn't working." Piller himself stated, "When I looked at the teleplay, I was really troubled […] and I was extremely critical. Rick will tell you that throughout the process he had said to me things like 'It must be terrible waking up every morning and being as negative as you are.'" (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 424) Piller also stated, "Something was really bothering me [about the teleplay], and I couldn't figure out what the devil it was." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 20) Piller's dissatisfaction with the script reminded him of how he had responded to the TNG episode "Unification II" when he had first seen that installment. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 33) •There were actually several concerns with this episode's script that were frustrating Michael Piller. "What it turned out to be was [that] the first hour wasn't good enough," he recalled. "Through the introduction to Sisko we saw things on the station, and it scared the hell out of me […] I was not falling in love with my own dialogue and my own characters […] But I felt very strongly […] that the first hour was flat, that nothing happened and that it was basically dealing out the characters for everyone to see." Piller came to the opinion, too, that the characters existed without purpose in his first draft. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 20) He critiqued, "For me the first hour of the pilot [in the first draft] just lay there. It was flat and talky. It was all about introducing the characters and showing off Engineering and the Promenade, which looked like the Beverly Center [a glitzy Los Angeles mall]. It had no drama at all…" (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., pp. 157-158) Piller felt not only that the depiction of the space station as essentially a comfortable resort "didn't work" but also that Sisko wasn't being portrayed heroically enough. Continued Piller, "I had also started thinking that it was not a dramatic situation for a man to come to the Beverly Center. It's not very dramatic for someone to go to their favorite mall and decide to stay." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 424) •Michael Piller came up with several solutions to these problems. "Finally, I went to Rick and said, 'We've got to throw out the first hour' […] There's no drama in a man coming to the space station and deciding to stay […] You can't show the beauty of the set and have this concept.'" (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 158) Instead, Piller wanted to have Commander Sisko behave more heroically. "I said, 'Sisko's not [yet] a hero. Sisko's got to come in and have something to do and have a problem that he has to deal with as a hero.' While our mystery is unfolding, which would ultimately blossom in the second hour," explained Piller, "Sisko must take this situation by the hand." Piller also opted to increase the dramatism of Sisko's arrival at the space station by having the facility be in ruins when he got there. The executive producer reasoned, "For a man who goes to South Central Los Angeles and finds it in ruins and decides to stay, that's dramatic." While Piller was going through his agonizing period of being frustrated with the script, there were riots in Los Angeles. The episode became an allegory for that disaster, as Piller and Berman wanted to include, as part of the alien interaction in the second half of the installment, something about humanity co-existing and uniting. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 424) Clarified Piller, "Rick was the first to verbalize it. He said, 'There is something our show has to say about humanity co-existing and coming together. We need to build this into the alien interaction that we have in the second hour of the script!'" (Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 21) This approach would facilitate the notion of Sisko rounding up the other characters to help rebuild. Piller continued, "I said, 'That's drama and that will carry the first hour, […] but you have to blow up the set and then rebuild it during the first show in order for this to work.'" (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., pp. 158-159) •There was some initial dispute between Rick Berman and Michael Piller about whether the station was to be in ruins when Benjamin and Jake Sisko arrived there. Piller attested, "Rick will agree that I dragged him into this rewrite kicking and screaming […] I argued with Rick that we should come to a space station that's in ruins and that Sisko must begin the rebuilding process in the first hour in order to be driving the story." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 424) Piller also recounted about this debate with Berman, "He said I was crazy […] That was our one major argument during the script's development." (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., pp. 158 & 159) Piller concluded, "I won that argument because I felt very strongly that this was something that had to be done." (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3, p. 6) •Inspired by the Los Angeles riots having highlighted the issue of divisiveness in contemporary society, Michael Piller accentuated the theme of coexistence in the second draft of the script. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 20) •Ultimately, both of the pilot's two co-writers were pleased with how the teleplay had been revised. "[Michael Piller] did a rewrite that was not a major rewrite at all," Rick Berman stated, "but it was a rewrite that brought into it the ideas that we had discussed all along that had to do with the 1992 Los Angeles riots; the idea of people rebuilding and of people living in an area that had been damaged and had been violated. And the spirit that goes into the rebuilding of it. It was a good change, but not a major change. More important than being a good change, it was a change that made Michael happy." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 424) •The revised final draft script was submitted on 10 August 1992. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library) This was merely weeks prior to the start of production. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 431) •One subsequent alteration which was made was the change of the doctor's surname from "Amoros" to "Bashir". This modification was done in the week between 11 and 18 August 1992. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 16)) Indeed, Michael Piller continued to issue rewrites weeks into production on this episode. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, pp. 25 & 26) •Keiko O'Brien and Molly O'Brien are listed in the cast list but did not appear in the episode. Keiko and Molly appear in the novelization adaptation. •A scene was cut from the teaser that had Sisko notifying the Saratoga's captain that the USS Gage, USS Kyushu, and USS Melbourne were deployed by Admiral J.P. Hanson. The latter two vessels were mentioned in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"; however, the Gage was a new reference (and went on to be included in the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 290)). The script also mentioned that Jake Sisko's birth occurs in 2360. However, this is contradicted in future episodes where his birth is said to have occurred in 2355. (A 2360 birth would make him only about nine years old in the first season.) •In the script, Sisko had some trouble getting onto the station, since the Cardassians had stripped the airlocks of essential parts and stray radiation prevented transporter activity. O'Brien finally managed to open an airlock manually and introduced himself to Sisko. The finished episode has both of them touring the damaged Promenade as the very first scene set aboard the station. The transporter is used later in the episode without problems, though the last scene of the episode still mentions difficulties involving the airlocks. •Another line cut involved Sisko talking to a university official on Earth, who had offered him an assignment, which Sisko seriously considered. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library) Director David Carson noted, "I think it was felt by the studio that we should tilt the balance back to more affability; certain things were taken out of the script, like looking for other jobs." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 40) •The script stated that a "knife-like" weapon was to be thrown at Odo during the looting scene on the Promenade. This was replaced with a weapon similar to a flail, thrown like a bolo. Additionally, Odo was to shift his upper mid-body out of shape. However, this was replaced with him only shifting his head. •During Sisko's first meeting with the Prophets, the script stated that any extras within fifty feet of the camera's position were to stop whatever activity they were doing and pay curious attention to Sisko. Any extras beyond the fifty-foot range were to act like "atmosphere" and continue "human activity". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library) •The script didn't feature any description nor any mention at all of an ATM which was designed as part of the Promenade set. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 429) •Prior to DS9 premiering, documentation which detailed this episode's plot was given to freelance writers who were interested in writing for the series, many of whose story ideas ended up never being produced. "All they had to read was this pilot with all these new characters and a new environment that none of them knew," observed Ira Steven Behr, of the limited research material available to the freelancers. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 29)
Cast and characters
•When Michelle Forbes declined to appear in this pilot (and the subsequent series), she was fully aware of what was written in the episode's script. "We showed it to Michelle," revealed Michael Piller, "and she said, 'It's a great script, but I really just don't want to commit to a long-term deal. I don't want to be in a series.'" (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 18) •Michael Piller noted that this installment represents a pivotal moment for the character of Sisko, about whom Piller explained, "He is sent on a quest and in this whole pilot episode it is a personal quest for a man who has lost his way and must conquer the dragon, but in this case he must conquer his personal dragons in order to move on with his life and to grow as a man and to be a good father and to be a good officer. And so what we will find in this show is a man who is coming to Deep Space Nine, but is coming to find himself." (Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Unauthorized Story, pp. 9-10) •Ronald D. Moore likewise observed that the degree to which this episode concentrates on the characters helped set it apart. "The characters were front and center right from the pilot," he remarked. "'Emissary' was about Benjamin Sisko. You won't find such a deeply personal journey for the lead character in pilots of TOS, TNG, or VOY." (AOL chat, 1998) •When it came time to cast the role of Sisko, Producer David Livingston gave Casting Director Junie Lowry-Johnson the task of sending the script for this episode to Avery Brooks, who was meanwhile on vacation in the Caribbean. "I said, 'Send him the script on his vacation,' which she did and the rest is history," noted Livingston. It was Brooks' agent who actually gave the script to the actor. "He said I have a script you might want to read," Brooks remembered. "I read it and I was thrilled about it. The writing was extraordinary, the story very compelling, and so I pursued it." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 434-435) The actor also stated about this episode, "The pilot was about a man trying to find peace in the face of personal loss. I was moved by the beauty and complexity of the story." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine, issue 0) He also termed it "a very complicated story, as a matter of fact." ("Deep Space Nine Scrapbook Year One", DS9 Season 1 DVD special features) Even from the very start, Brooks was aware the teleplay was following on from a long legacy of storytelling. "Indeed, when I first read the script, it was very clear to me," he acknowledged, "that Rick Berman and Michael Piller were continuing this… vision." ("Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning", DS9 Season 1 DVD special features) According to Rick Berman, Brooks was given sides to audition with. (What We Left Behind) He was cast mere days before the episode entered production. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 330) •Avery Brooks especially approved of how the story features a black man as the series' lead character. "The strength of the pilot 'Emissary', in which a single human being must defend all humankind against some other intelligence in the universe, was especially appealing," he commented. "That the human being selected is a person of color says a lot about the spirit of this entire series, and gives hope to children of all races that they can affect positive change, both in their lives and in the lives of others." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 32, No. 4/5, p. 52) Brooks also appreciated how the episode portrays the interaction between his character of Sisko and that of Kai Opaka. "If you think 400 years hence and then look far back at the history of African people, there has always been a connection to the divine, to the spiritual. So, this Kai Opaka, this exchange Sisko has with her, is fascinating," he remarked. "Sisko's spirit is not quite at peace yet, so the exchanges with her are quite extraordinary." (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 2, p. 15) Brooks additionally liked how the episode's story brought together various cultures. "The kind of message it presents, again, of course, about this intersecting of cultures, the need for us to find a way to live together. In an allegorical way, to, you know, bring positive messages about our contemporary society. I mean, all those things are in the script." ("Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning", DS9 Season 1 DVD special features) •On the other hand, Avery Brooks found it very difficult to perform in this episode, since much of it was shot on Paramount soundstages. "Working inside requires that you not lose your energy or your focus or your concentration," he said. "After 12 or 13 hours, your body wants to go home. The pilot was particularly difficult." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 27; Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 15) •In general, Avery Brooks was pleased to participate in the episode's making. "I must say that although the pilot was very grueling, to be involved in that very compelling story was wonderful," he reflected. "I enjoyed telling that story. It fascinated me." (Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 29) •The episode's script was also sent to Kira actress Nana Visitor. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 17) She found that, when she first read the teleplay, it fully presented Kira as an imperfect character who nonetheless had a powerful presence. "That was one reason I was so excited when I read the script," Visitor said. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 451) She clarified, "I was attracted to the script right away by the strength of my character." (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., p. 176) Visitor also commented, "This script jumped out from among all the other silly sitcoms and weirdo things of the season. All I saw was this incredibly strong woman, great writing and emotionally connected scenes." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 21) •Bashir actor Alexander Siddig first received the script for this episode while the role of DS9's chief medical officer was still to have the surname "Amoros" and was Hispanic. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 439) •The episode's teleplay was also sent to Odo actor Rene Auberjonois. (Section 31 hidden file 04, DS9 Season 1 DVD) He was immediately astonished by the quality of the script. (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, paperback ed., pp. 173-175) "When the pilot script of Deep Space Nine came to me and I read it and I saw this wonderful character, and the script itself, I was very excited," he said. "I see a lot of scripts, and this was something special." (Trek: Deepspace Nine, p. 30) In particular, the way the script portrayed the Odo character appealed to Auberjonois. "When I first read the pilot script, even though Odo's character was quite sketchy, the fact that he didn't know where he was from and didn't know if there were any others like him was what was most fascinating to me," the actor explained. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 476) Auberjonois was cast as Odo very soon before the episode entered production. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, p. 95) •Quark actor Armin Shimerman described the presentment of his character in this episode as "darker" than usual, which he commented was "good," as Shimerman always felt more confident playing drama than comedy. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, p. 90) •After originally being asked to audition for the Jadzia Dax role on a Friday morning, Terry Farrell – time-pressured because she had other auditions scheduled that same day – had to collect and read the sides, rather than the full script, only an hour before she went in for her first audition. At the audition, Rick Berman asked her to read the second scene. "I said, 'I didn't know there was a second scene. I don't have the second scene,'" recalled Farrell. The news that she was unaware of this second scene frustrated Berman, but he requested that she read it after attending her other audition, which she proceeded to do, going on to be cast as Dax. (Section 31 hidden file 06, DS9 Season 1 DVD) •The way that the role of Jadzia Dax was written in this episode put Terry Farrell under pressure when she was trying out for the part. "That was some heavy-duty stuff to throw at someone, that dialogue and everything," she commented. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 453) What particularly flummoxed her was the technobabble in the script. "That's what really upset me during the pilot because I didn't even know where to start. What am I talking about? I'd try to relate it to a car, and it wasn't working," she reflected. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 26) Farrell also stated, "I felt lost with all the technobabble. I was running around the set yelling, 'I… don't… get… it!' I was so miserable I wanted them to fire me." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine, issue 0) Added Rene Auberjonois, "When she came into the show, she did not know what she was doing. She didn't know how to act, she didn't know how anything. This was her graduate school." (What We Left Behind) However, Farrell was pleased with how the episode turned out, being particularly affected emotionally by the relatable storyline involving Sisko's grief. "Every time I see the pilot, I start to cry," she admitted. "I must have watched it at least six times." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 41) •To audition for the role of Kai Opaka, Camille Saviola read the scene in which Opaka reads Sisko's pagh. Casting her mind back to the making of this outing in retrospect, Saviola remarked, "I remember how interesting it was to shoot certain scenes. In one scene I went down these spiral steps, but then, with the green screen and effect, I was descending through water. Or when I opened the housing for the orb, there was nothing there, so I had to fill in the blanks. It was interesting to see the episode and how, in post-production, they transformed those things and made them real." •Max Grodénchik, credited as the Ferengi pit boss, later played the recurring character Rom, Nog's father and Quark's brother. •J.G. Hertzler, credited as "Vulcan Captain" under the name "John Noah Hertzler", is well-known for his later portrayal of Klingon General/Chancellor Martok. He also played Laas in the seventh season episode "Chimera", under the name "Garman Hertzler". Before winning the role of the Saratoga's Vulcan captain in this episode, he had no expectations of even heading to Hollywood, planning instead to do theater in Washington, D.C., one reason he was thrilled to appear in this outing. "It was pretty exciting," he enthused, "because I think I had a little scene with Patrick Stewart […] Doing that first show, it was pretty incredible to me. This was Star Trek. The fact that I'd ever come to work on a Star Trek show and drive through the arches of Paramount Pictures to get there? It hadn't occurred to me that, as an actor, that would ever happen […] That was just a remarkable experience. Being a part of the big dream factory called Hollywood, I never thought I'd go there." •This episode reunited Hertzler with Patrick Stewart. They had spent several summers working together, because Stewart had run a Shakespeare workshop on the lot at Paramount on Saturdays. •Majel Barrett, as the Saratoga and Rio Grande computer voice, was participating in her third (out of three, at the time) live-action Star Trek series, having played Nurse Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series and Lwaxana Troi (and, of course, the Enterprise computer) on The Next Generation. •This was the first of thirty-five appearances of Gul Dukat in DS9. The character was played by Marc Alaimo throughout DS9's seven-year run, although he was not the original choice for the role. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 16)) •This was also the first of forty-five appearances of Nog. The character was eventually transformed from petty thief to Starfleet's first-ever Ferengi officer. •Marc Alaimo, Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodénchik, Hertzler and Mark Allen Shepherd (as Morn) are the only actors, apart from the regulars, to appear in both this series-opening episode and the series finale, "What You Leave Behind". •This is the second of three Star Trek premieres in which Patrick Stewart delivers the first spoken lines. He previously delivered the opening captain's log in TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" as Jean-Luc Picard (as well as the first spoken line on the bridge during that episode), and then spoke the opening lines of this episode as Locutus. 27 years later, he delivered the first line of spoken dialogue in Star Trek: Picard. •"Emissary" was Stewart's only Star Trek appearance without Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) until the premiere of Star Trek: Picard, Remembrance. •Costume Designer Robert Blackman noted, "They cast early." However, there were actually significant delays in the casting of this episode. "Everybody had the necessary patience to not say yes because we had to start shooting," stated David Carson. "In fact, some of the roles weren't cast until we were three weeks into [filming] it." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 431, 432 & 449) Carson himself was deeply involved in the casting process. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 329) Most of the main roles, apart from Sisko and Dax, were cast by the time the production start date was set and began looming over the pre-production efforts. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 23) •During pre-production, the majority of the cast rehearsed this episode, with rehearsals begun in early August 1992. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 14)) However, David Carson felt that the late casting of some actors was a hindrance for filming their performances in this installment. He commented, "One of the great weaknesses we had because our casting was left till so late was we did not have enough time to rehearse. Normally that doesn't matter in television because you're not dealing with things that are rehearsable, but this project was so complicated in some of its philosophical content and so difficult, it would have benefited all of us greatly and helped in the graduation of the characters through the scenes." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 39)
Pre-production
•Pre-production on "Emissary" began the week of 11 August 1992. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 16)) •That this double-length episode would be extremely challenging was evident to David Livingston, who had originally been hired to work on "Encounter at Farpoint". "I had the same anxieties and hesitations about even wanting to do 'Emissary'," Livingston expressed, "because I knew what a struggle it was going to be […] It was a pilot, and we had all forgotten what that was like." Livingston notified the rest of the DS9 production team that, whereas working on TNG had been much easier, things were about to change. "I told everyone it was going to be tough […] I said it's all going to change," he recalled. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 431 & 432) •When pre-production talks that included such topics as the make-up requirements for the then-new show started, no script had yet been submitted. (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 1, p. 27) The teleplay wasn't immediately provided to Herman Zimmerman either; for quite a few weeks while he was designing the DS9 space station, he had no access to the script for this episode, nor for any other DS9 installment. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 427) •An extremely high budget was allocated for the making of this episode. Referring to the set construction budget, Production Designer Herman Zimmerman commented, "We spent more money on Deep Space Nine's pilot than we were allowed to spend on Star Trek VI." Reportedly, the episode had a budget of approximately US$12 million, of which US$2 million were used for the sets. These extraordinarily high costs meant the episode was one of the most expensive TV pilots ever produced. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, pp. 10, 18 & 39) Ronald D. Moore referred to this as one of the most expensive installments of the entire DS9 series. (AOL chat, 1997) The episode's budget of over US$12 million was used for such elements as designing and crafting, from scratch, all the sets for DS9's interior, as well as new designs and sets for the runabout. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine, issue 0, "'Emissary' Datafile") •As it turned out, David Livingston believed that the creation of many new elements – including the sets, the cast, the wardrobe, and the makeup designs – indeed made the episode's creation very challenging. "The pilot was hard," he admitted. "Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with the day-to-day minutiae of a production manager and I could sort of sit back a little bit." This was because Livingston hired Robert della Santina as production manager, and found he "took care of everything" for Livingston, though the making of the episode was still hard to pull off. "It was tough […] It wasn't like just doing another episode or a double episode," Livingston continued. "It's doing a whole new thing again." As such, he felt validated in his earlier claims that everything was about to change. "That was true. It did. It was very difficult," Livingston concluded. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 431-432) In agreement, Santina exclaimed, "It was a huge undertaking!" (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 8)) •The delays in the creation of this episode were not only in the casting but also in the set construction. "There were so many dynamics working: building all these new sets and a whole new cast and new wardrobe," related David Livingston. "Michael Westmore had to create a bunch of new makeups, including Odo's, which was very difficult." Robert Blackman recalled about the problematic unavailability of the cast, "We couldn't get them [for fittings] until one week before the show started shooting. The principals arrived pretty much at the same time, but for an episode where there was a lot for them to do and a lot of multiple costumes, it was difficult. Sisko had six or seven outfits to wear in the pilot." Moreover, a total of twelve Cardassian costumes were created, by Blackman's costume department, for this episode (eleven of which were hereafter used in TNG). (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 430 & 432) •The assortment of props required for this episode included the case for a Bajoran Orb. Knowing Bajoran religion would play a major role in the forthcoming series, a lot of care was taken in creating the prop. (Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts, p. 145) •Three huge soundstages on the Paramount lot were needed for the making of this episode. (Deep Space Nine Chronicles [page number? • edit]) The set of the Saratoga's escape pod was a redress of the front section of the runabout. To film Jake's birth scene, the Enterprise-D sickbay set was selected. (citation needed • edit) •While working on the sets for this episode, Herman Zimmerman had a conversation with Michael Okuda. "He said something very poignant when we were probably halfway through the set construction of the first two-hour [DS9 episode] and very heavily into doing all the details," Zimmerman revealed about Okuda. "He said [the show is] beginning to have a life of its own." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 6) •David Carson was invited to direct this pilot episode and was pleased to be given the opportunity. "I have a feeling that the darker, grittier tone is one of the reasons they wanted me to direct the pilot," he reckoned. "They wanted my experience with grit in Star Trek. This was a much grittier environment than the Enterprise, which was part of the attraction." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 420) Rick Berman countered, though, that noir hadn't entered the equation for selecting the director and that it was more due to the fact that he had worked on TNG beforehand. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 30 & 31) Regarding the invite itself, Carson remembered, "Rick came up to me and said, 'Would you like to do it?'" •For David Carson, the challenge of filming the episode was another part of the appeal. "It was […] wonderfully challenging because you've got a lot of people you mustn't let down," he said. "But it's a good challenge." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 21) •The part David Carson was given in creating this episode was clear to him. "Unlike a lot of shows, where you're sort of stabbing in the dark, here you had a lot of background," he explained. "I think if they had decided to make major departures from the way everything had been, it may have been a different kettle of fish. Because the producers made sure they were sticking very closely to Gene Roddenberry's mapped-down path, we were really continuing the inheritance, as it were. My job as director rather than as writer was to make it look better, be bigger, be more effective and communicate better than it had before." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 21) Clarifying what missions he was given in terms of what the pilot had to accomplish, Carson also stated, "Well, my first mission was to stay within budget. And then we had to make sure that 'Emissary' was really, really good, that it satisfied the fans and, at the same time we had to make a sequel that was going to broaden the Star Trek universe […] So we had to make a production that would allow us to make it as varied as possible in terms of style and atmosphere. All of it was designed to make it clear that we were going to a darker place with the series and that it was therefore going to [be] different from TNG and TOS, yet hopefully adhere to the same principles." •Due to the complexity of this episode's script, David Carson was granted an extensive pre-production period to determine various technical issues. "Some of the things that had to be dealt with were complex optical and special FX sequences," he remembered, during the production phase, "so I had to be well prepared ahead of time with all the departments working together. We had to plan it like you would plan a feature film, holding meetings to develop things, dealing with the complexity of the various sets and the cost of items. As we started realising that many things couldn't be done because of the large, prohibitive cost, we had to find imaginative solutions and clever ways of achieving the same emotional and physical effects from a different way around. It was like approaching an enormous jigsaw puzzle." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine, issue 0, "Directing 'Emissary'") •When he joined the project, David Carson sensed the creative personnel were nervously excited about the episode's creation. "I think everybody knew they were going to do this brand-new series and that it was going to be the first without Gene Roddenberry," Carson observed. "So there was a certain amount [of] anticipation or apprehension about it because it was very much the goal to do something that would not just carry the franchise forward, but would at the same time perhaps move the whole thing into places where none of the series had gone before. That sounds like the slogan for Star Trek, doesn't it? To boldly go." •The arrival of David Carson had an impact on the creation of the sets. He recalled, "The sets were a little way along when I joined the project because they were so enormously complicated and cost so much money. I found I was able to make suggestions Rick and Herman liked, particularly with a view to the ease of shooting the sets." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, pp. 14-15) •David Carson was careful not to get too involved in the responsibilities of the other production personnel, including Rick Berman. "You have to be aware that if you're doing a pilot, as I was with Deep Space Nine, all of these people are planning for seven years of work," Carson reasoned. "You're doing two hours of material, but after those two hours, it's 'Thank you very much. Good-bye.' Therefore, they have to make decisions which affect your two-hour show, because they are making their decisions for the future of the series […] In Rick's and my relationship, we […] worked closely and happily together on […] the pilot of Deep Space Nine, but within the parameters that I described." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 324) •David Carson characterized the making of this episode by comparing it to the illusory alien land Sisko sees while in the wormhole, since that relied on personal interpretation, just as with the elements from the script page. "So all those things, like Sisko's command style, and Kira's temper, and the interaction of Odo and Quark were invented and developed from the germ of the idea that went from the script to the screen," Carson related. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 12)) •Quark's prosthetic nose wasn't ready in time for the filming of this episode, so Armin Shimerman had to wear the nose made for Max Grodénchik. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. ?)) There also wasn't time, due to the late casting of René Auberjonois, to do the kind of extensive makeup tests that the role of Odo ideally called for. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, p. 95) •Nonetheless, a few months after David Carson was invited to direct this episode, the creative staff moved ahead with the installment's creation.
Starring
•Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko
Also starring
•Rene Auberjonois as Odo •Siddig El Fadil as Doctor Bashir •Terry Farrell as Lieutenant Dax •Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko •Colm Meaney as Chief O'Brien •Armin Shimerman as Quark •Nana Visitor as Major Kira
Special Guest Star
•Patrick Stewart as •Captain Jean-Luc Picard / Picard Alien •Locutus of Borg / Locutus Alien
Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near the planet Bajor, as the Bajorans recover from a brutal decades-long occupation by the imperialistic Cardassians.
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Jan 3, 2023 · Tonight, the wait is over. STAR TEK: DEEP SPACE NINE Series Premiere! “Emissary” notched 18.8 percent of the syndicated audience, according to the Deep Space Nine Companion, and ranked #1 in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C., all major markets.
Jan 3, 2023 · “Emissary,” the two-part opening of Deep Space Nine ’s first season, aired on January 3, 1993, and from its very first scene it was a show with so much to prove. That Star Trek could do it...
Published Jan 2, 2015. DS9 Premiere, "Emissary," Aired 22 Years Ago This Week. By StarTrek.com Staff. It was 22 years ago today -- January 3, 1993 -- that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine debuted in first-run syndication with the two-hour premiere, " Emissary ."
Premise. The main setting of Deep Space Nine is a space station near the planet Bajor, built by the imperialistic Cardassians during their long, brutal occupation of Bajor. After liberating themselves through a guerrilla war, the Bajorans invite the United Federation of Planets to jointly administer the station.
