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This Story: Season 3 Episodes 1-2 (production code 447 & 448)
DS9 Overall: Episodes 47 & 48
Trek Overall: Story 312, Episodes 327 & 328
Airdate: 26 Sep – 3 Oct 1994
Story by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Teleplay by Ira Steven Behr (Pt I) & Ronald D. Moore (Part II)
Directed by Kim Friedman (Pt I) & Jonathan Frakes (Part II)

Notes (Part I)

• While this two parter directly continues events of the Season 2 finale, it is not intended to be a three parter spanning two seasons.
• The first episode with the USS Defiant, a ship docked permanently at DS9 for Sisko’s use.  It also has a cloaking device.  The ship was supposed to be called the Valiant, but they decided against that due to preproduction on Star Trek Voyager.  The name Defiant is intended to be an homage to the ship of the same name from the TOS episode “The Tholian Web“.
• Ronald D. Moore’s first contribution to Deep Space Nine.
• T’Rul was played by Martha Hackett, who later went on to a recurring role of Seska on Star Trek: Voyager.  As such it’s the first appearance of the Romulans on DS9.
• T’Rul was supposed to be an ongoing recurring character whose function was to control the cloaking device.  This idea was later dropped.
• The first appearance of Commander Eddington (Kenneth Marshall) who will appear in several other DS9 episodes.
• The first episode with the Female Changeling (Salome Jens).

Notes (Part II)

• The first episode of Deep Space Nine to be directed by Jonathan Frakes.  He would direct 2 more DS9 episodes and appear in one as an actor.
• Jadzia Dax has a hairstyle which only appears in these two episodes.
• One of only two episodes set completely in the Gamma Quadrant (the other being “Children of Time“).
• There are no actual scenes on Deep Space Nine in this episode beyond mental projects, but no actual scenes on the proper station.
• The last time the Vorta appear for another 47 episodes (Season 4’s “To the Death“)
• The character of Borath was supposed to be Eris (from the S2 finale). However, this was changed as Molly Hagan (who played Eris) was unavailable at the time.

Links

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