DS9 Flashback: Little Green Men

By the fourth season of Deep Space Nine, Michael Piller had left the series, handing over show runner duties to Ira Steven Behr. Voyager was on the air, getting more of the attention from on high. A few years had gone by since Gene Roddenberry had passed away, and the impulse to abide strictly by "what he would have wanted" had relaxed. All this made for an environment where Deep Space Nine was willing to take more risks, like the outright farce that was "Little Green Men."

Quark is given a ship by his cousin, and he wants to use it to fly Nog to his first day at Starfleet Academy... and to smuggle some contraband along the way. When the ship malfunctions, Rom saves their lives with a risky procedure that transports them back in time to 1947 Earth. Captured by the U.S. military, the three Ferengi become the infamous Roswell aliens. Realizing how primitive the humans are, Quark begins hatching a scheme to take over and profit.

The Ferengi had long been a vehicle for comedy on Deep Space Nine (though often with interwoven commentary on the excesses of capitalism). But this episode dialed it up to max with an overt homage to 1950s alien invasion movies. The performances are deliberately broad. The characters are all archetypes of the genre -- the caring nurse, the cigar-chomping general, the noble scientist, and more. Even the names are references to 50s actors: General Denning (Richard Denning from Creature from the Black Lagoon), Nurse Garland (Beverly Garland from It Conquered the World), and Professor Carlson (Richard Carlson from It Came from Outer Space).

The idea for the episode had been pitched in the first season by Toni Marberry and Jack Treviño, but was rejected by show runner Michael Piller. When it was mentioned again for this season (ostensibly because the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident was coming up... in two years), Piller wasn't around to object, and the rest of the staff loved the idea.

The script by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe piles on the jokes: parents of young Ferengi "yard sale" their kid's childhood possessions when they move out; Rom's fluent technobabble leaves Quark and Nog in a daze; smacking your head might just reset your universal translator; a frightened Rom cries for his "Moogie" while a cornered Nog comes on with bluster; and countless more sight gags and one-liners.

Even though it's a comedic episode, it does have some more serious moments. Jake and Nog say a heartfelt goodbye to one another in their trademark spot on the promenade. (Nog really does leave for the Academy, though thankfully he's not off the show.) There's aggressive commentary on the folly of nuclear weapons, which Behr was keen to include after seeing the movie True Lies and being appalled at the way it used a bomb as a backdrop for a romantic kiss. Smoking is held up as equally foolish -- though reportedly the production had to fight the studio to show this much smoking in the episode, insisting that to do otherwise would be failing to be true to the 1950s films they were sending up.

The guest cast definitely leans into the heightened acting style of those classic films, not taking the situation as seriously as their characters realistically would. Particularly fun are Megan Gallagher (in her second Deep Space Nine appearance) and major "that guy" Charles Napier (who guest starred on the original Star Trek in the not intentionally cheesy "The Way to Eden"). With most of the regular cast barely in this episode, these guests step up to fill in and bring the funny.

Other observations:

• Worf is only in the opening moments of the episode, but is featured in one of the funnier jokes (enjoying a "Ferengi tooth sharpener") and one of the more incisive bits of social commentary (when he opines that Ferengi maybe shouldn't be in Starfleet, O'Brien points out that not long ago, some would have said the same of him).

• Nog noticing that historical figure Gabriel Bell looks like Captain Sisko is not only a fun callback to an earlier episode, it's a discreet nod to the fact that time travel will soon figure in this one.

• We hear a snippet of Ferengi language in this episode, written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. He says he meant it to sound deliberately goofy. "I tried to use a lot of silly sounds, like p's. P's are funny, so there's a lot of them."

• Oo-mox. Always a cheap, gross joke. (But especially here, when the woman performing it doesn't know what she's doing.)

• Quark tosses away a line about when humans, Vulcans, Klingons, and Ferengi all developed warp drive -- and nitpicking fans have seized upon the many inconsistencies with his claims that were created in subsequent Star Trek. I think when you consider how much Earth history the Ferengi don't get quite right in this episode, you could easily dismiss any inconsistencies here as Quark simply not knowing the past of alien races particularly well.

• The writers wanted real bomb footage for the climax of the episode. The clip from the Nevada Test Range used here had to be cleaned up a great deal to remove its many scratches and tears.

• Ira Steven Behr later said that he wished Quark had returned to the 24th century with a massive smoking habit. Interestingly, The Orville would craft an entire subplot about nicotine addiction for one of their episodes.

"Little Green Men" is a lot of fun, though I think I don't love it quite as much as most Deep Space Nine fans. I'm bothered a bit by the unrealistic behavior of the humans (even as I understand it's a deliberate part of the homage). Then again, I'm entertained by the silliness overall. I give the episode a B.