TREKCORE > DS9 > EPISODES > CROSSOVER > Behind the Scenes
 

	Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) does not appear in this episode.
	John Cothran Jr. (Telok) also appeared on The Next Generation as Captain Nu'Daq in "The Chase" and on Enterprise as Gralik in "The Shipment."
	Worf was to appear in this episode, but Michael Dorn was unavailable as he was filming the final episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. His lines were given to Andrew Robinson and the lines intended for Elim Garak were used to create the character Telok. The mirror Worf would later be seen in "Shattered Mirror" and "The Emperor's New Cloak" (with a much higher status).
	This episode was originally to be titled "Detour."
	Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote the fall of the Terran Empire into the script as an analogy to the fall of the Roman Empire to barbarians or the Chinese Dynasty to the Mongols. His intention was to convey the message that one cannot change things over night, and even the actions of Captain Kirk can have severe consequences.
	The teaser scene in which the two Klingon soldiers board the runabout is intentionally shot from extreme angles, which director David Livingston compared to essentially shooting up the actors' noses. He did this intentionally to emphasize how different things were in the mirror universe, although he has admitted that he may have gone too far in using radically different angles.
	This episode was nominated for an ASC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Regular Series (Marvin V. Rush).
	The mining sequences were shot in the cargo bay set on Stage 4, with the addition of some atmospheric smoke and unusual lighting.
	Robert Hewitt Wolfe provided the historical context for this episode: "I came up with some of the backstory, the idea that the mirror Spock took over after our Kirk left, and how that turned out to be a mistake. Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way. So I just thought that if the parallel [mirror] Earth was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians [the Klingons and Cardassians] were at the gate."
	Director David Livingston discusses some of the artistic choices he took in this episode: "I talked to [the producers] about the look of the movie The Third Man and got them to approve canted angles. I started off in the runabout and went as far as possible, putting the camera on the floor and using incredible angles. It looked unusual and immediately told the views he was in another world."
	Robert Blackman describes the Intendent's uniform, claiming it's not all that different from the standard Major Kira military uniform: "If you were to put the two uniforms together, you'd say, 'Well, it's kind of a shiny gray version of the rust.' It's not that I've exposed more of her body - it's exposed pretty much the same way it always is. What's the difference? She's the difference. It's how Nana wears it. It's what she does. She walks like a provocative woman, with her legs crossing in front. She uses her hips, and a whole other kind of body language than she normally uses. She's a trained dancer, so it's partially due to that, but frankly, when you go from a flat shoe to a three-and-one-half-inch heeled shoe, a woman walks differently - period."
	Nana Visitor describes her relation to the Intendent: "It's very much me. I mean, I hope I don't send people to their  deaths or anything like that, but, yeah, that is more of who I am. [I take Kira's core personality and then] mess with her ego a bit, and mess with a few key elements in her life that would have hanged its direction. She's a spoiled brat with an ego gone awry."
	David Livingston on shooting two Kiras: "[We] decided which side we wanted to shoot first, and then Nana would act it out facing her stand-in, so that the eyeline was right. Then we'd decide which take was best and while the camera was still locked off, have Nana change her makeup, hair, and costume, and get into the other position, moving her stand-in to the position Nana had been in before. Then we'd play the tape back so that she could talk to herself, so the timing would be correct."
	Nana Visitor on the Intendent's milk-bath scene: "I'm very shy and I was not about to do a real nude scene. So I asked for these cone things they have. They were horrible, made like the ones they put in the street. And my makeup artist, Camille Calvet, gives me this bottle of glue to put them on, and when I come back she says, 'Where's the bottle?' I tell her I used it all. And she says, 'You're only supposed to use a few drops! We're never gonna get that stuff off!' In the meantime, our crew is great, they make the bath nice and hot for m e and tell me they put orange oil into the water so it will smell nice and soften my skin. So I get in and we start rehearsing, and all of a sudden I feel the cones starting to pop off. And Camille's nearby, so I whisper, 'Camille, what takes the glue off?' And she says, 'Orange oil.'"