TREKCORE > DEEP SPACE NINE > EPISODES > IMAGE IN THE SAND > Behind the Scenes
 

	In relation to this episode, Ira Steven Behr comments that he and Hans Beimler were trying to achieve something very specific with it; "As we started the final season, we made a very bold and perhaps stupid choice, although I'd do it again. We wrote the quietest opening episode we've ever done on the show. If you look back at the first episode of every season, after the pilot, you'll see "The Homecoming", which was the first hour of a three-parter, then "The Search, Part I", "The Way of the Warrior", "Apocalypse Rising" and "A Time to Stand". All big shows with a lot of stuff going on. But this time, we decided we were going to play with the audience's expectations and give them something smaller, more intimate, quieter. A reflective breath, so to speak." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	This is the first appearance of Nicole de Boer as Ezri Dax, the ninth host of the Dax symbiont. The process of creating and casting this new character was not an easy one. According to René Echevarria, "Terry Farrell's exit was a big low for us. Once we knew for certain that she wasn't going to return, we decided to take the opportunity to create a new Dax." Ira Behr continues, "We knew we needed a female. We couldn't have Kira Nerys be the only female regular character. So we started the casting process, and all I saw was a lot of people who couldn't play the part. There was absolutely no one in the running." Echevarria picks up the story, "Initially, Ira was looking for someone who had a kind of spooky quality. We talked about it several times as a group, and I wasn't quite getting what he was going for. Finally, one day at lunch, I said, 'What if we make the character a little more complicated? What if she wasn't an initiate? What if she wasn't planning to be joined, but she was the only one available because of some circumstance? And she was completely unprepared for it." (That this was even a possibility had been catered for in the third season episode "Equilibrium", where it was revealed that being joined wasn't as difficult as previously thought). After hearing this idea, Behr redefined the character; "She's neurotic! She hears voices! She doesn't know which way is up!" This made the casting process much more focused; "We wanted someone vulnerable, because Jadzia, as the show went on, became a stronger and stronger character. And someone young." Of the eventual casting of de Boer, Hans Beimler had worked with her on Beyond Reality and TekWar, and he called and asked her to send an audition tape into the Deep Space Nine producers. She did so, and they invited her to Los Angeles to audition in person. Of her audition, Behr comments, "We got a good vibe off her. She knew the part. She got it. And that was it." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	Deborah Lacey makes her first appearance as Sarah Sisko, Benjamin Sisko's mother.
	This is the first episode to establish that Admiral Ross' first name is Bill. This somewhat confused actor Barry Jenner however because for the scenes set in his office on Starbase 375 during the six-episode arc which opened the sixth season, realistic diplomas and awards had been made as props, and although they were not legible on screen, Jenner had read them, and had seen that Ross' first name was listed as Cliff, not Bill. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	By the time of the episode, Kira has received a promotion to Colonel, which took place in the interim between the end of the sixth season and the start of the seventh. Promoting Kira was Nana Visitor's idea; "I asked for it to happen. I thought it was high time for it after six years of good service. Everyone around her had been promoted – Sisko, Bashir, Jadzia, and even Nog – so why not?" (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	This episode is the first to mention the Cult of the Pah-wraiths. The idea behind this cult, which would be revisited in the episode "Covenant", was to show that not every Bajoran was a disciple of the Prophets; as Ira Behr explains, "We wanted to show that, like war, religion can be a dangerous thing. We'd spent six years portraying the Bajoran religion, celebrating it, in a way, and establishing that there is something greater than technology. And that's good. But faith can be subverted very easily. It's what you put your faith in that ultimately matters. A lack of faith, I think, is bad. But unthinking religion is also bad." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	According to René Echevarria, the idea to reveal Sisko as part-Prophet came from a desire to foreground his status as Emissary of the Prophets; "As the show began winding down, we realized that we wanted to be a bit more specific about the whole Emissary thing, which as an arc had been so interesting to us. We settled on this idea that Sisko was, in some way, half man, half god." Not unsurprisingly, in a franchise which rarely engages with religion, having the lead character revealed as part-god was an extremely controversial notion, but Ira Behr claims that it was actually something of a commentary on the Star Trek mystique itself; "I just felt that all the Starfleet captains are treated like gods by viewers. Clearly, the next step was to actually make one of those captains a god, or godlike." Indeed, the idea that he was only half-Prophet was the very key to the idea. As Behr explains, "If both parents were gods, then you couldn't relate to him. You can't relate to someone who is a god. He's got to be partly human." Similarly, Echevarria points out, "We originally thought that Sarah was a Prophet – there was no human woman involved. But we ultimately nudged the idea into something a bit more oblique, saying the Prophets could take over another person's form. That still had all the right mythic overtones, and it certainly answered the question of why Sisko was the Emissary. We were all very excited by the whole notion." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) Sisko's status as part-Prophet would go on to have great significance for the rest of the season, especially in the finale, "What You Leave Behind".
	Tyree was named after the Richard Harris character, Benjamin Tyreen, in the 1965 Sam Peckinpah film Major Dundee. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
	The Monac shipyards are named after special effects supervisor Gary Monak. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion
	Kira sports a considerably different hairstyle from the previous season.
	The show's opening credits are once more changed to include "Nicole de Boer as Ensign Ezri Dax", placing her alphabetically right after "René Auberjonois as Odo". Ezri Dax's rank is changed later to Lieutenant in the opening credits of the episode "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", after her promotion at the end of the episode "Afterimage". Nana Visitor's character now appears as "Colonel Kira". The typeface on the credits has also been modified slightly.