TREKCORE > DS9 > EPISODES > SHADOWPLAY > Behind the Scenes
 

	The day and night matte paintings of the Ronara Maquis colony in the Next Generation episode "Preemptive Strike" are re-used here for Yadera II.
	Noley Thornton (Taya) previously played Clara Sutter in the Next Generation episode "Imaginary Friend".
	This episode was originally to be titled "Persistence of Vision", a title later used in Season 2 of Star Trek: Voyager.
	This episode is somewhat similar to the Enterprise episode "Oasis", in which René Auberjonois guest-starred, with his character - Ezral - taking on a role similar to that of Rurigan. Auberjonois saw the similarities.
	O'Brien says his father introduces him as "Senior Chief Specialist Miles Edward O'Brien." In the U.S. Navy, senior chief petty officer is an enlisted rank. In Star Trek, it is the first reference to O'Brien's full rank. This will change, however, in "Hippocratic Oath," when the Jem'Hadar leader Goran'agar identifies O'Brien as a chief petty officer, which is one step down from a senior chief.
	Ira Steven Behr on guest star Ken Tobey (Rurigan): "I love Ken. He's a sweet, sweet, sweet man. I've always liked his work and I've always wanted to use him. It was great to have him in a Star Trek, in a science-fiction thing."
	Robert Hewitt Wolfe's original plot involved O'Brien and Dax being stuck in a virtual-reality prison. He quotes his inspiration for Ira Steven Behr: "Ira said, 'How scary is it going to be in the future when you won't be able to tell what's real and what isn't?' [O'Brien and Dax escape and they realize they're still stuck inside] Then they escape again, and I wanted the tag to be where Keiko was telling O'Brien know good it was for him to be back, and O'Brien saying, 'I don't know whether I'm back or not. I'm never gonna know.' Fade out."
	Ira Steven Behr describes the finished episode: "When we saw it, we said, 'You know what? You put Odo together with a kid and you've got a winner.' It worked. The whole idea of this man creating this world for himself was actually quite sweet. Every now and then, you have to do a nice, sweet episode, which DS9 isn't known for, but now we've done it, and we'd do it again."
	Robert Hewitt Wolfe describes O'Brien's rank of "Senior Chief Specialist" in this episode: "We were attempting to come up with a rank equivalent to Chief Petty Officer, since no one liked that term. I actually called the Navy Information Office, and the problem is that he's been in Starfleet for a long time and probably is the second-highest ranking you can be and still be an enlisted guy. So we were trying to come up with a rank that sounds like that, and I don't think we were successful, so we just ignored it."
	René Auberjonois describes the motivation behind the line "I don't do faces very well": "If there's something for Odo to replicate that has a prototype, like a rat or a knapsack or a chair, he can replicate it exactly. But because he is searching for his identity, even beyond the fact that by third season he knows where he comes from, he cannot create a face for himself. It's an identity problem for Odo, because he is a character who believes, in the strictest sense of the word, in telling the truth. And I believe he could make a face like Paul Newman or Quark, but he can't create something that he doesn't understand, and he doesn't understand himself yet."