Odo and Quark are marooned on a barely habitable planet after their runabout is sabotaged by the Orion Syndicate. Fighting with each other and the elements, the two must lug a transmitter to the highest mountain peak in the area in hopes of calling for help. Meanwhile, Nog returns from Starfleet Academy for a field study at Deep Space Nine. He and Jake decide to be roommates... but quickly learn their lifestyles are far from compatible.
Show runner Ira Steven Behr has said that he'd always wanted to use Odo and Quark to do a version of Samuel Beckett's existential play "Waiting for Godot" -- just the two of them stuck somewhere for no articulated reason, waiting for Sisko to come pick them up in a runabout. Behr said he never actually found the courage to do something that devoid of narrative, but the concept dovetailed nicely when the writers decided they wanted to do an episode that involved Odo's new human frailty, a story where his inability to shapeshift imperiled him in a situation that would have been trivial before he became a "solid." They decided to have him and Quark climb a mountain.
The episode really does showcase the complexity of the relationship between Odo and Quark. On the one hand, it seems they truly do hate each other. When Odo thinks Quark is finally going down for a serious crime, he wants to be there personally to see it, volunteering to take his nemesis to a grand jury hearing. Once they're marooned and the going gets tough, they hurl truly biting insults at one another, calling each other a failure. It's hard to know what barb from Quark stings worse: telling Odo that he secretly wanted to become a solid, or that he's wasted his life by focusing so much on Quark himself.
Yet on the other hand, it seems the two truly do care for each other deeply. When Odo breaks his leg, Quark won't leave him behind. (He pretends he'll use Odo for food if he dies, but it's clearly bluster.) Odo knows exactly what sort of last rites Quark wants, and wants him to get them as much as he wants his own observed. The two share a hearty laugh at their ordeal when, in the end, they're finally out of danger.
Making the episode was almost as much an ordeal for actor Armin Shimerman as it was for his alter ego Quark. The production actually filmed for three days near Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental U.S. The altitude created unusual pressures inside the prosthetic Ferengi head piece he wore, and the exertions of this filming nearly made him pass out. Fortunately, the production had anticipated altitude sickness, and had remedies on hand to help him through. ("The medic's the hero of that episode," he declared.)
Looking at the results, the production hardships feel worth it. The real-life wilderness makes the survival tale feel truly dangerous. And even though they had sunny 65 degree days for the shoot, it really feels cold, thanks to the smart choices of camera lenses and film stock by director of photography Kris Krosskove. (Still, they added a line for Odo, complaining how it could be both sunny and freezing, to button up the discrepancy.) Real life shots serve where matte paintings usually fill in during most Star Trek episodes. And Quark's final ascent in wind and darkness makes for a great finale to the story.
As great as this Odo/Quark "A-story" is, though, the "B-story" of Jake and Nog is underwhelming. Certainly, it's good to have Nog and Aron Eisenberg back on the show. The writers loved both character and actor, and contrived a "sophomore field study" (that would go on for three years) as a reason to have him around again. But this story plays out very much like an earlier Jake/Nog plot, when cultural differences on their double date threatened their friendship. The only significant difference is that there, Nog's entrenched "Ferengi-ness" was the source of the conflict. Here, it's his full embrace of Starfleet habits that clashes with Jake's laid back ways.
I feel like both young men are supposed to be partially right here. And when it's Nog pushing Jake to clean the place up so they don't live in filth, it seems like he has a point. But when Nog goes into a writer's story and starts re-writing it without permission? That is way over the line!
But to me, what really doesn't work about this story is that it doesn't have a logical resolution. Their fathers, Sisko and Rom, decide they need each other. Sisko throws his weight around as Jake's Dad and Nog's commanding officer to force them to live together. But nothing has fundamentally changed about the situation that makes it seem like it'll work out if they try living together again. They don't articulate any compromise. They don't apologize to each other. So, how is this an ending?
Other observations:
- At one point, Quark says he's going to teach Odo to play Fizzbin. This is a reference to the classic Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action," in which Kirk invents the game on the fly as a diversion. Episode co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe reasoned that Fizzbin has become a real game a few decades later. "The people on Sigma Iotia II were clearly very smart, so they were able to extrapolate a game from the little bit Kirk told them. Now it's the national game of Iotia and Quark knows how to play it."
- The makeup is great in this episode. Bruises, sunburn, and dehydration are all visible on both Odo and Quark -- and mind you, both of them are already covered in makeup all the time.
- Quark comes through in the end. He truly is a survivor, under pretty much all circumstances. Don't bet against him.
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