Past Tense

This Story: Season 3 Episodes 11 & 12 (production codes 457 & 458)
DS9 Overall: Episodes 57 & 58
Trek Overall: Story 321, Episodes 337 & 338
Airdate: 2 – 9 Jan 1995
Story: Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Teleplay: Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Part I), Ira Steven Behr & René Echevarria (Part II)
Directed by Reza Badiyi (Part I) & Jonathan Frakes (Part II)

Notes (Part I)

• John Lendale Bennett is the stunt double and stand in for Avery Brooks through the series.  In this episode he was shown to be the original Gabriel Bell before Benjamin Sisko got involved.
• The first episode of Deep Space Nine on Earth.
• The first episode of Deep Space Nine to include no scenes at all on the station (excluding the opening titles).
• This episode uses the Paramount studios back lot – not used in Trek since TNG’s “The Big Goodbye“.
• Starfleet’s “Temporal Displacement Policy” is mentioned here for the first time – it was next seen in “Trials and Tribble-ations”.
• The apartment set used in this episode was used as Harry Kim’s apartment in the Voyager episode “Non Sequitur“.
• Benjamin Sisko is said to have an unnamed sister who lives Portland.
• Two rules of acquisition are mentioned (both said by Sisko):
  111: “Treat people in your debt like family.. exploit them.”
  217: “You can’t free a fish from water.”

Notes (Part II)

• The last episode of Deep Space Nine to air before Star Trek Voyager’s pilot premiered.  There were only 12 episodes of DS9 that aired as the only Star Trek incarnation at the time.
• Clint Howard plays Grady in this episode.  He last appeared in Star Trek in the original series episode “The Corbomite Maneuver” (as Balok).  He was 7 years old when he portrayed Balok.  He later went on to do characters in Star Trek Enterprise, Discovery, & Strange New Worlds.
• Vin is played by veteran actor Richard Miller.  He also appeared in the TNG episode “The Big Goodbye” as a newspaper vendor.
• The character of Preston was played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh.  I knew her well from the TV series “Too Close For Comfort” (as Ted Knight’s character’s daughter Jackie).
• There is an ad for a boxing match shown in the background in this ep.  It uses the same two boxers as a similar poster from the TOS episode “City on the Edge of Forever“.  It is not the same poster, but the boxers being the same was an intentional nod to the old episode.  You can see both the DS9 and TOS versions in these screenshots.
• The music played when Kira & O’Brien end up in the 1960’s is “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix.  That has been replaced with other music for streaming services due to rights issues.
• This episode was the last episode of Deep Space Nine directed by Jonathan Frakes.  Apparently his work here got him the gig directing “Star Trek: First Contact“.
• A now outlawed play in Major League Baseball is brought up here.  In 1995 you could still crash into the catcher in a baseball game, you can’t do that anymore.

Links

[ Wikipedia | Memory Alpha (Part I / Part II) | IMDB (Part I / Part II) | Amazon US DVD ]