Episode Behind the Scenes

TREKCORE > DS9 > EPISODES > THE JEM'HADAR > Behind the Scenes
 
Alan Oppenheimer (Keogh) appears on The Next Generation as Koroth in "Rightful Heir", and on Voyager as the Nezu Ambassador in "Rise".
   
This is the last episode that Michael Piller oversaw the writing staff.
   
Michael Jace (First Officer) is best known for playing Michael Jordan in The Michael Jordan Story. He also played a minor role in Planet Of The Apes (2001).
   
Quark complains about the humidity on the planet, which is unusual given his home planet Ferenginar has constant rain.
   
The working title of the episode was "The Dominion".
   
The original script for this episode mentions that the Jem'Hadar shroud is similar to that employed by the Tosk (see "Captive Pursuit"). It also notes that the Tosk were engineered as a gift to the Hunters as a reward for their loyalty to the Dominion, thus establishing that the Hunters and Tosk were Dominion members. However, none of this was actually mentioned in the episode itself.
   
In an early version of the script, Quark cited the Hundred Years' War, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Tarsus IV massacre as barbaristic events that nothing in Ferengi history could match.
   
According to writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe, the Dominion knew about the Federation long before the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole and had plans to deal with it when the time came. However, the Dominion did not expect contact with the Alpha Quadrant for another 200 years, which is explained in "The Search, Part I". With the wormhole providing immediate access between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, Wolfe says the Dominion's plans for the Federation were disrupted, which explains why it chose to observe and gather information until the end of the second season.
   
Writer/producer Ira Steven Behr admits that mistakes were made in the process of defining the personality and nature of the Vorta. This is most evident in the lack of telekinetic powers among later Vorta characters, and the fact that Eris did nothing to acknowledge Odo as a Founder.
   
After Quark's speech in which he concludes that the Ferengi are less barbaric than humans and thus better, the stage directions say that, while Sisko is not at all convinced, Quark's words give him food for thought.
   
The Odyssey bridge is of a completely different configuration than the Enterprise-D bridge. It is possible that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was unable to use the bridge set from The Next Generation as Star Trek Generations was being filmed around this time.
   
This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects. The award was won by Star Trek Voyager's "Caretaker".
   
Ira Steven Behr reflects on DS9's second season:
"[It was] a really fun, very creative time. Robert Wolfe, Jim Crocker, Peter Allan Fields, and I would go to lunch together every day. And I remember saying one day, 'Okay guys, we're gonna come up with villains, not one but three sets of villains. And we're gonna make them as scary as any villains you can possibly find.'"
Part of Behr's assignment involved assigning the group the task of reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. He recalls:
"Don't ask me why. I don't know what the hell I thought they'd find. But everybody read it. Expect Pete."
   
Peter Allan Fields on "The Jem'Hadar":
"If I had [anything to do with this episode], frankly, it would have been called something else. "The Dominion" (the original name of the episode) was a pretty good name, but "The Jem'Hadar" sounds like 'mah-jongg,' or some kind of card game!"
   
Ira Steven Behr on the Dominion:
"We wanted warriors, businessmen, and a dark force that was controlling it all. At the beginning, we thought the Vorta were going to be big burly kinds of humanoids that looked like Brian Dennehy or Bob Hoskins. But it didn't work out like that."
   
Michael Westmore, chief makeup man, describes his inspiration:
"I get a lot of inspiration from nature books and magazines. You start with the concept of the rhinoceros hide for the Jem'Hadar, and you give them a nose that's based on a rhinoceros nose, but without a horn. If you'd put a horn on it, viewers would say, 'Oh - rhinoceros.' But what makes Star Trek so interesting is that you give the creature the same feel and meanness by putting little horns all around his face. It makes them dangerous - if you bump into one, you're going to bleed. So you know automatically that you never get close to the Jem'Hadar."
   
Robert Hewitt Wolfe recalls original ideas behind the Dominion:
"Basically, the idea was that the Dominion was the Carrot-and-Stick Empire. The businessmen, the Vorta, were the negotiators, the friendly guys who show up with the carrot. 'Hey, we're your friends. Have some phaser rifles, or space travel, whatever the hell you want. We'll arrange it. All you'll have to do is owe us.' Then, if you don't toe the line, they kick your ass with the JemHadar."
   
Robert Hewitt Wolfe describes a possible link between the Jem'Hadar and Tosk:
"This is the same kind of invisibility effect used by Tosk in 'Captive Pursuit.' The thought behind this is that the same people who breed the Tosks as gifts to the hunters, breed the Jem'Hadar as well..."
   
Robert Hewitt Wolfe on the impact of the Jem'Hadar:
"We wanted to show the long-term fans how dangerous these guys were. And it's my belief that if that had been the Enterprise and not the Odyssey, and Picard rather than Keogh in command, that it still wouldn't have survived. Ron Moore may not agree, Patrick Stewart probably wouldn't, but it's my belief that Keogh had just as good a ship, just as good a crew, and he got smoked."
   
Director Kim Friedman remembers the confrontation scene between Quark and Sisko:
"Armin, Avery, and I talked about it a lot, how far Quark could go here, because this is the commander he's talking to and Quark is in a rather precarious position on Deep Space 9. But we felt that Quark realized there was a chance that he could die, and that would give him the courage to say things he would never say back at the station."
   
Ira Steven Behr on setting the Ferengi image straight:
"We were going into the end of the second season and it was time to lay to rest this long-time feeling that the Ferengi were the 'failed villains' of the Star Trek universe. I wanted people to see them as something else. And if we could show that Sisko, whose character has a lot of weight, would take what Quark says seriously, then the audience would take it seriously."