DS9 Flashback: Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places

In television, some shows are known for being loose -- open to improvisation and interpretation by the actors. Others demand the performers are word perfect to the written script. The Star Trek series of the 80s and 90s were in the latter mold, with calls having to go out to the writers and producers if they wanted to change even a single word on the set. Still, this didn't mean the writers didn't take input from the actors. One case where an actor made a notable contribution was in Deep Space Nine's most lengthily-titled episode, "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places."

The Klingon Grilka comes to Deep Space Nine and back into Quark's life. The smitten Quark hopes to stoke the marriage-for-show they once had into a real love. He turns to Worf for advice on romancing a Klingon woman -- though Worf himself is also beguiled by Grilka. Meanwhile, Kira and O'Brien are realizing that their relationship has grown to border on inappropriate... even as Keiko is innocently pushing them closer together.

The genesis of this episode came from actor Michael Dorn, who suggested to the writers that Worf would be fun in the middle of a Cyrano de Bergerac scenario. They in turn picked, I think, the best character to position as the "Christian" opposite him: Quark. It's possible there's more animosity between Quark and Kira, but there really aren't any two characters less alike than Quark and Worf. Forcing them to work together is just plain fun.

Culture clashes abound. Worf cannot fathom what such a "glorious" woman sees in such an odious troll. When he throws Morn off his bar stool, he attracts not her attention, but that of her adviser, Tumek -- who points out Worf's place of dishonor among his own people. Meanwhile, Quark's flattery goes a long way toward winning Grilka... though he's of a mixed mind when it comes to honoring Klingon customs. Sweeping food off a dining table in a grand overture? Sure! Making advances in a bloody battleground littered with corpses? No thanks!

The episode ultimately one-ups Cyrano by not only having Worf feed poetry to Quark, but having Worf actually puppet the Ferengi in a bat'leth battle. Armin Shimerman rises to the occasion for this uncharacteristically physical sequence. He wields the weapon as credibly as Michael Dorn (which we see, side by side, in a cleverly choreographed scene). He also sells some convincing mime work as Quark is jerked around in directions he doesn't expect. There's very little stunt doubling in this rather elaborate fight sequence.

The real strength of this storyline, though, is not so much its interpretation of a classic tale, but in how it's the vehicle for finally taking Worf and Dax's flirtatious relationship of half a season to a new level. Over the course of the episode, Dax spars with Worf over his rigid sense of tradition, pokes at him for not picking up on the vibe she's throwing down, sort of plays her own telling of Cyrano inside the large telling of Cyrano... and ultimately gets what she wants. Dax is a secondary character to the tale, but it's a strong secondary role, and Terry Farrell is quite charming in it.

One character who isn't so great in this plot? Grilka. It's not the fault of guest star Mary Kay Adams, who really can perform through the Klingon makeup better than most. It's that the character is written in the most shallow way here, a mere object to be pursued by Quark, Worf, and Thopok. She's found a way to lead a Klingon house as a woman, against serious cultural headwinds, but that's not something the episode is interested in engaging with at all.

Meanwhile, the O'Brien/Kira storyline is an interesting tangle of originality and cliche. Not many TV shows take on the subject of surrogacy (and fewer still in the 1990s), and this is an engaging tale about how an experience that personal might cause longtime friends to reevaluate the nature of their friendship. Miles and Nerys have really been through a lot together over the years, and it's not crazy to think that they might be a romantic couple if circumstances were different.

On the other hand, this storyline is also steeped in the TV trope that married couples do nothing but snipe at each other all the time. When Miles and Nerys are overhead yelling at each other, it's "the other O'Briens" fighting again. And Keiko sort of subconsciously buys into this too, pushing the two into a romantic getaway to mend their "marriage." I know conflict is the core of drama, but sometimes it feels like there's no television writer anywhere actually in a happy marriage. Don't get me wrong -- there's a lot of realism in this subplot, and the performances are strong. It's just that it's a type of story that's told a lot: people fight because they're in love.

Other observations:

• The episode is directed by Andrew Robinson. Though best known to Deep Space Nine fans as Garak, he also had a long career as a theater director. He won two L.A. Drama Critic Awards for directing in the year before this, and leveraged that for a directing opportunity on the show. Though this was his only DS9 episode, he would go on to direct for Voyager too.

• Shout-out to Edwin Starr when Quark opines: "War. What is it good for? If you ask me, absolutely nothing."

• Morn is quite the drunk, dipping his finger in his glass to get every last bit of liquid out.

• It's fun to watch Quark try to bluff his way through Klingon customs, just as it was in "The House of Quark" (his "throw away his weapon" move from that episode being referenced specifically).

I wish this Cyrano reimagining had made better use of the woman everyone is chasing. I also wish that the "feuding spouses" trope didn't inform so much of the O'Brien/Kira plot. But despite those shortcomings, the episode is still broadly fun to watch. It advances ongoing relationships between the main characters, and is occasionally deep too. I give it a B+.