Deep Space Nine ties up seven seasons of love and war with a Trek-tacular two-hour finale. It seems only fitting that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the edgy, dark and twisted sister of Star Trek: The Next Generation, would end its seven-season run on a note of utter unpredictability. None of the hallmark ingredients of this hit syndicated series—political skulduggery, alien monsters, racial turmoil, vicious intergalactic battles—is to be found in the final scene on the final day of filming. Instead the nine DS9 regulars and many of the show’s most beloved guest stars have been gathered together in Vic’s Lounge, a holographic, early-1960s nightclub where James Darren (yes, the James Darren), as Vic, is serenading them with the lushly romantic Jerome Kern ballad "The Way You Look Tonight." Huh? "I wanted to give our cast and crew what we rarely get in life and almost never get in show business—a nice, warm feeling of closure," says Ira Steven Behr, the executive producer and creative mastermind behind DS9 who, despite his obvious penchant for hard, neurotic drama, is clearly a softie at heart. "I purposely scheduled this scene to be our last so everybody could say good-bye before the official Paramount wrap party, where they’ll be surrounded by seven million people they don’t know." Behr considers DS9 to be the first Star Trek series to come to an end since the original. "Yeah, The Next Generation ended as a series," he says, "but it wasn’t really a good-bye, because the cast immediately went off to make Star Trek movies together. This is a good-bye."
The two-hour finale, airing the week of May 31, is by no means short on suspense and firepower. Says Behr: "The two-year war between the Federation and the Dominion will come to a very startling conclusion, and we’ll find out the price Cardassia must pay for aligning itself with the Dominion. But the episode will also be extremely personal. "We’re going to break up the DS9 company—some will stay on the space station, some will not." It is during the scene in Vic’s Lounge that Capt. Benjamin Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, will raise a glass of bubbly and make a moving farewell toast to the crew with whom he has spent the last seven years. It is art beating life to the punch by a mere matter of hours. Needless to say, the filming of this sequence has emotions running high. Almost every star and crew member—not to mention several female extras in spike heels and Jackie Kennedy bouffants—has brought a camera. Between takes, they shoot one another for posterity. Some exchange addresses; some exchange autographs. Some feverishly press the flesh, aware that the clock is ticking on the end of an era; some just stand off to the side and quietly take it all in. "To think that these actors will be hanging up their space suits for the last time is difficult for everybody," says DS9 cocreator and executive producer Rick Berman. "We’ve made a real effort to tie up all the loose plot ends with our finale—to really do it right for the fans and for us—but that hasn’t made these last days any less melancholy." The final episode, appropriately titled "What You Leave Behind," will include appearances by 20 of the show’s most popular recurring players, including Oscar winner Louise Fletcher (Kai Winn), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Andrew J. Robinson (Garak), Rosalind Chao (Keiko) and Penny Johnson, whose character, Kasidy, ends the series pregnant with Sisko’s child. As a bonus for eagle-eyed Trekkers, the audience at Vic’s Lounge will be peppered with several out-of-makeup actors who star as aliens. Also in the crowd will be Behr, wearing beatnik shades and smoking a stogie, as well as other DS9 producers, writers and office assistants. Even Russ English, the Paramount security guard who for years has stood faithful watch outside the soundstage, gets an on-camera seat. "I figured the last scene would be some mundane pickup shot of one of us just walking down a hallway—which is usually the way shows wrap—but this is unbelievable. This is perfect," says Nicole deBoer, who joined the cast this season as Ezri Dax. "I knew when I started DS9 that it would only run one more season, but I still feel very sad." Her spirits are lifted—literally—by the towering Michael Dorn (Worf), who picks up the actress as if she were a barbell and uses her to do arm curls. DeBoer shrieks with glee. With the conclusion of DS9, Dorn—who spent seven seasons on TNG—has racked up more Trek hours than any other actor in the history of the franchise. "I’ve done 11 seasons and four movies, and that makes for a nice footnote in Trek lore," Dorn says. "But I’m very ready to move on." Dorn joined DS9 in its fourth season—which resulted in a rise in the ratings—but he admits to disappointment: "My character wasn’t as exploited as I’d hoped he’d be. I was given the impression he’d have a lot of episodes, but that’s not the way it turned out. I’m confused but pragmatic." Alexander Siddig, the Sudanese-born heartthrob who plays Doctor Bashir, is also ready to hit the highway. "Of course," he says, "I’m sure that four or five months down the line, I’ll be out of work and the future will look bleak, and I’ll wish I was back in the womb at Paramount, where I was nourished and spoiled."
Armin Shimerman, who plays Quark, the show’s money-grubbing Ferengi, should in theory be mourning the loss of two jobs (Principal Snyder, his character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was eaten by a snake in the May 25 season finale). "But I am enormously grateful," says Shimerman, who serves on the board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild. "I know the statistics of actor unemployment. To do two extremely well-written series at once is more than amazing. It’s almost unheard of." René Auberjonois, who has spent the run of DS9 hidden under heavy latex as the shape-shifting Odo, says: "One thing I won’t miss is the makeup, but I would have agreed to an eighth season if Paramount hadn’t chosen to end the show. I just don’t believe in walking away from jobs. That’s the old character actor in me. I’ll die with my boots on." Ironically, it is Nana Visitor, who plays the fearless, butt-kicking Kira Nerys, who is the most shaken. During Darren’s song, her eyes well with tears. Between takes, she hugs Siddig tightly around his chest—so tightly at one point that he gasps for breath—and she lets the waterworks flow. DS9 has meant much more than a lucrative, high-profile gig for the duo. It has been an overwhelming life changer: In 1995, Visitor became pregnant with Siddig’s child, much to the surprise of many in the DS9 company who didn’t even know they were an item. She gave birth to their son, Jango, in 1996, and they married in 1997. "More has happened to me in these seven years than in all the other years of my life," notes Visitor. But that’s not the only reason she is weepy. The daughter of dancers who were always on the road, Visitor says: "I’ve done soaps, theater and prime-time series, and at the end of the run, I would always walk out without saying good-bye. I was truly a gypsy in that sense." A makeup artist dabs at Visitor’s smeared mascara, and the actress lets out a sad laugh: "I guess this is my clue that I’m not a gypsy anymore. I’ve finally allowed myself to be part of a village. I’ve finally unpacked." Twirling a cocktail umbrella, Colm Meaney (Miles) sits deep in thought at Vic’s bar. Brooks wrestles his TV son, Cirroc Lofton (Jake), into a headlock, a sight that truly symbolizes the passage of time: When DS9 premiered, Lofton was just a little squirt—now he is two inches taller than Brooks and old enough to sip champagne as Darren sings. Siddig smiles serenely as he photographs pals on the lighting crew. "I’m not a sentimental person," he insists, "but we’ve been working together in outer space for a very long time. It’s going to be very hard on everybody when we come back down to Earth." For more on Deep Space Nine's final episode—and interviews with Richard Dean Anderson, the cast of First Wave and other sci-fi stars—check out the TV Guide Channel through May 31.
written by Micheal Logan
published in tv guide magasines
