It occurs to me, this episode would have had repercussions outside of the episode in general.
In season six, we saw Nerys properly operate the orb of time: and from that, we know that the person in possession of the orb would not have control over whether or not they would be sent back (or forward) in time: that would be the purview of the Prophets.
This episode only tells us that the orb of time was used to send the Defiant back to a classic original series episode.
We now know that this would not have happened if the Prophets had not wanted it to happen... so of course this whole episode must have had The Prophets' "blessing".
It also brings up the concept that since the orb of time had been in the Defiant, even though it had not happened yet in season 3 - that the Prophets may have helped solve the conundrum of when The Sisko, Bashir and Dax were accidentally sent back to the time of the San Francisco sanctuary district.
That is... if we want to consider deep space nine canon that had been established in the series. The shadow of The Prophets had been with The Sisko from even before he ever joined Starfleet, and before that even, from his birth, which was also caused by The Prophets. But this was the first time we ever heard about "the orb of time", and of course it was simply a gadget used by the storytellers to allow for a way for deep space nine to go back and take a look at one of the original series episodes that defined the show and franchise.
As far as the production of this episode, it was magnificently and cleverly accomplished. The production crew actually reconstructed the enterprise, deep space station K7, The bar inside of K7, A Klingon D5 battle cruiser, A bunch of Klingons, several portions of the original series hallways, the turbolift... and also bunches and bunches of tribbles. Also, for them to be able to hire Charlie Brill to reprise his role as Arne Darvin- from the story that I heard, the producers of deep space nine were having lunch and discussing aspects of this upcoming episode. And they were at that moment talking about trying to get original series actors in on the play- and Charlie was at the restaurant getting pizza at that exact moment and heard them discussing this, of course he would have to do it. I would say this is an example of providence in real life, and we all benefited by this accidental meeting.
The other thing that was talked about was getting Mulder and Scully to be the "Temporal agents"- but that could not happen, I forget the reason. Which was too bad because at the time, there was a definite connection between Star Trek and the X-Files, a lot of the people who worked on deep space nine production also worked on the X-Files. The connection was so deep that the X-Files even named many of their characters in various episodes after Star Trek production crew- which was a very common thing to happen with next generation and deep space nine. Also if you look at the crew members walking through the hallways of the enterprise in the newer scenes, you will notice the writer of the tribble episode, David Gerrold. He was a teenager when he wrote "the trouble with tribbles".
The Ships, the K7 station, even a close-up of the external K7 grain storage bins, this was all done using practical effects.
To insert the deep space nine characters into the tribble story was a difficult task. But this was definitely something that they had no problem doing.
Consider: while Kirk is in the hallway and tribble upon tribble are pouring onto his head, Dax tosses a tribble out of the hatch, and on the other side, 30 years previously, it lands on Kirks head. The deep space nine crew was able to use things that existed in the original series episode to create even more humor, when referenced from the deep space nine side of the story.
There is a wonderful fan edit that takes both this episode and the original series episode and merges them together, done by "Pauley79", it was available on a DVD that was being "distributed" around the time the deep space nine episode was shown. It is great to watch the two episodes practically side-by-side like this with more of the original series scenes being shown.
As I was watching this episode just now, it occurred to me that the presence of the orb of time on the Defiant would have worked in favor of the Defiant crew, both before and after the time of this "incident". Because for the Prophets, there is no "linear time", they perceive time differently.
And I think this was an aspect of the Prophets that was not depicted the way that it should have been depicted- because of course, we live in a linear timeline, and so do the characters of the show. So it would have been difficult to depict the timeless aspect.
Nevertheless, an "orb of time" was created, which gave the show even more things to tell future stories with.
In season six, we saw Nerys properly operate the orb of time: and from that, we know that the person in possession of the orb would not have control over whether or not they would be sent back (or forward) in time: that would be the purview of the Prophets.
This episode only tells us that the orb of time was used to send the Defiant back to a classic original series episode.
We now know that this would not have happened if the Prophets had not wanted it to happen... so of course this whole episode must have had The Prophets' "blessing".
It also brings up the concept that since the orb of time had been in the Defiant, even though it had not happened yet in season 3 - that the Prophets may have helped solve the conundrum of when The Sisko, Bashir and Dax were accidentally sent back to the time of the San Francisco sanctuary district.
That is... if we want to consider deep space nine canon that had been established in the series. The shadow of The Prophets had been with The Sisko from even before he ever joined Starfleet, and before that even, from his birth, which was also caused by The Prophets. But this was the first time we ever heard about "the orb of time", and of course it was simply a gadget used by the storytellers to allow for a way for deep space nine to go back and take a look at one of the original series episodes that defined the show and franchise.
As far as the production of this episode, it was magnificently and cleverly accomplished. The production crew actually reconstructed the enterprise, deep space station K7, The bar inside of K7, A Klingon D5 battle cruiser, A bunch of Klingons, several portions of the original series hallways, the turbolift... and also bunches and bunches of tribbles. Also, for them to be able to hire Charlie Brill to reprise his role as Arne Darvin- from the story that I heard, the producers of deep space nine were having lunch and discussing aspects of this upcoming episode. And they were at that moment talking about trying to get original series actors in on the play- and Charlie was at the restaurant getting pizza at that exact moment and heard them discussing this, of course he would have to do it. I would say this is an example of providence in real life, and we all benefited by this accidental meeting.
The other thing that was talked about was getting Mulder and Scully to be the "Temporal agents"- but that could not happen, I forget the reason. Which was too bad because at the time, there was a definite connection between Star Trek and the X-Files, a lot of the people who worked on deep space nine production also worked on the X-Files. The connection was so deep that the X-Files even named many of their characters in various episodes after Star Trek production crew- which was a very common thing to happen with next generation and deep space nine. Also if you look at the crew members walking through the hallways of the enterprise in the newer scenes, you will notice the writer of the tribble episode, David Gerrold. He was a teenager when he wrote "the trouble with tribbles".
The Ships, the K7 station, even a close-up of the external K7 grain storage bins, this was all done using practical effects.
To insert the deep space nine characters into the tribble story was a difficult task. But this was definitely something that they had no problem doing.
Consider: while Kirk is in the hallway and tribble upon tribble are pouring onto his head, Dax tosses a tribble out of the hatch, and on the other side, 30 years previously, it lands on Kirks head. The deep space nine crew was able to use things that existed in the original series episode to create even more humor, when referenced from the deep space nine side of the story.
There is a wonderful fan edit that takes both this episode and the original series episode and merges them together, done by "Pauley79", it was available on a DVD that was being "distributed" around the time the deep space nine episode was shown. It is great to watch the two episodes practically side-by-side like this with more of the original series scenes being shown.
As I was watching this episode just now, it occurred to me that the presence of the orb of time on the Defiant would have worked in favor of the Defiant crew, both before and after the time of this "incident". Because for the Prophets, there is no "linear time", they perceive time differently.
And I think this was an aspect of the Prophets that was not depicted the way that it should have been depicted- because of course, we live in a linear timeline, and so do the characters of the show. So it would have been difficult to depict the timeless aspect.
Nevertheless, an "orb of time" was created, which gave the show even more things to tell future stories with.