Episode Behind the Scenes

TREKCORE > DS9 > EPISODES > THE DIE IS CAST > Behind the Scenes
 
The working title of this episode was "Improbable Cause, Part II". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library)
   
As with Garak's quick, almost reflexive killing of Entek and Tekeny Ghemor's warning to Kira not to trust him in "Second Skin", the writers saw this episode as another chance to remind viewers that Garak wasn't a typical good-guy, that he was in fact capable of committing knowingly nefarious actions. According to Ira Steven Behr, "We wanted to show what he's capable of, even if he doesn't want to do it. Could you torture someone, if you had to? Garak can do it." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
   
In an unfilmed or deleted part of the scene where Admiral Toddman is speaking to the Deep Space 9 crew, Toddman mentions that he had bet two cases of Saurian brandy on Bashir winning the Carrington Award ("Prophet Motive") earlier in the year and that, since Bashir lost, he also lost, commenting that "I don't like to lose". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library)
   
This episode was the first with Ira Steven Behr as Executive Producer. One of the major changes he made to the series was that action sequences, specifically space battles, had to be shown on-screen more often and not just referred to, as TNG had repeatedly done. As the episode budget of DS9 shows could now accommodate more extensive battle sequences than TNG could do during its series run, starship fights became more commonplace in later seasons – especially during major Dominion War episodes. This particular episode marks the first signs of this change, as it features the biggest on-screen battle in Star Trek history up to that point (the Battle of the Omarion Nebula). (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
   
Visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel commented on the special effects filming that "We started shooting motion-control on February 21, and we delivered on April 21. We had twenty days motion-control shooting - a record for a one-hour show". ("Believe What You See - Visual FX: Creating the Star Trek Universe", Star Trek Communicator issue 105 p. 19)
   
Hutzel was instructed to come up with a way to do the battle scene without going over-budget. His solution was to create transparencies of the models of the Romulan warbirds and the Cardassian ships, and to use those transparencies in the background. Coupled with the fact that they were in the background, Hutzel ensured that the camera never lingered on one of them too long, so as to ensure viewers didn't spot the effect. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
   
The shot where the USS Defiant destroys a Jem'Hadar fighter and then flies through the debris took 4 days to film. (Deep Space Nine Chronicles)
   
Writer Ronald D. Moore, director David Livingston, composer Dennis McCarthy and actor Rene Auberjonois were all extremely proud of the scene where Garak tortures Odo. Livingston says, "I think the scene is the best in the episode. It's very intense, very dramatic, very powerful;" McCarthy explains, "I had to express the horror of what Garak was doing to Odo and yet still put some shred of humanity into the music to show that Garak was suffering too, because Garak was having a hard time doing this. It was an opportunity to get very atonal musically. I don't believe that we ever heard a major chord on that show;" and Auberjonois notes, "I felt like some character from King Lear. The acting method I used was very Shakespearian." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)