Profit and Loss

Though Garak is his usual beguiling self, the words he and his equally adorable cohort Quark are forced to utter are high schoolish at best. All other actors are just phoning this in, as though everyone knows the script is toxic. DS9 didn't profit from this episode. What a loss.

Casablanca, of course.

I had not read any of these other comments but as I was just watching this episode now I noticed the final scene with Quark and Garak (Andrew Robinson)... A very Humphrey Bogart/Claude Rains moment. The discussion they are having is very similar.

Of course what makes the episode is the involvement of Mary Crosby... they did quite a remarkable job with her Cardassian makeup.

And the other guest stars Michael Reilly Burke, Heidi Swedberg, and (RIP) Edward Wiley (Who was also Klingon Governor Vagh in the TNG episode The Minds Eye).

If only we had somebody to represent the Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre characters...

But there is of course a "big silver airplane" waiting on the runway for Hogue, Rokellen and Natima.

I'm surprised I have never noticed this all these years until just now.

I appreciate that somebody else did notice it, the homage is strong and appropriate. And it reminds us that Star Trek has its ties to classic Hollywood going all the way back to the original series being filmed in Desi and Lucy's lot...

A cynical bar owner struggles to decide whether or not to help a former lover escape an oppressive regime searching for her.

This is an enjoyable episode for the moments of Cardassian politics and Andrew Robinson's entertaining guest performance.

As far a classic movie tributes go, there is no subtlety about this one, but for Casablanca fans I think it does a good job. There are lots of equivalent plot points and characters that work well with the Cardassian political situation.

Armin Shimerman is a very good actor but he is no Bogart when it comes to anti-heroic leading men. He does his best with the material, but Mary Crosby does not quite convince me as his leading lady. For me the chemistry between the two is patchy at best and feels very one sided.

Robinson, as always, is on great form as Garak and he has the strongest scenes for me. One scene in his shop where he banters with Quark about "fashion" is superbly written and performed by both actors.

This episode is extra juicy.

For one thing, there is substantial character development of Garak. Quark's background, too, is expanded upon.

It has a "Casablanca" feel that impresses.

And here's some more; The guest star and Quark's cardassian love interest is who of "Who shot J.R. Ewing". Her character did it, and everyone realized it in the most watched TV episode ever, or close to it. She is also the tom-boy daughter of legendary crooner and screen actor Bing Crosby.

This particular episode has some real "umph!"

Special mention of the scene in the cold open where Sisko and O'brien greet the Cardassian arrivals. One of the worst directed scenes of the show ever. Awful staging, embarrassing blocking, static camera, no coverage, eye-lines all wrong, occasional glances off-stage (cue cards?). This must have been either a tagged on reshoot or was simply done in 20 minutes at the end of a day. It's like it's part of a completely separate show. Seriously, go back and just watch that scene in isolation - it's staggering.

This was an enjoyable episode. Solid writing and a cohesive, complete story made a welcome return after the recent quality drought. Also some great performances from our regular cast and garak, although they're occasionally hampered by some not-so-great guest stars who vary in quality scene to scene.

I really like Garak. His showdown in sisko's office is brilliant. I also really like his extremely dry line delivery throughout the episode - "you've never been right about anything" was especially good in the finale.

I do find that his shop is very distracting as a location, though. It, and other station shops, are always so barren. It'd be a lot of costume design required to fill it, but then maybe don't make him a tailor if you don't have the resource to fill a tailor's shop.

Armin's ability to play scenes so sincerely through the makeup is amazing. He carries the absolute crap out of a lot of this episode. Many highlights, but in particular his impassioned plea to odo to help him save Natima. Just a top actor doing great work through a rubber mask. The fact the romance scenes work at all is a miracle, but they do. You buy it completely.

Cardassian necks and Ferengi ears get some serious rubbing which did distract a bit from the emotional core.

I mentioned it was nice to see a complete story again, but I do have to question what happened after the showdown. There's a heavily armed warship expecting 3 prisoners that somehow disappear. Surely Sisko and odo will face some serious diplomatic heat over this - shouldn't we see that?

Nonetheless, it's a really good episode overall. Probably a 7.5, but not an 8.