More DS9 companion stuff, and the passage is long, so I’m going to summarize.
The conversation between Quark and Garak about root beer in the Season 4 opener was padded on because they ran a few minutes short for the episode. when Armin Shimmerman and Andy Robinson got it they were perplexed about this whole conversation revolving around ROOT BEER, so they rehearsed it together and decided to go with a lot of subtext.
The director HATED the way they performed it, believing it should have been a comedic scene. They discussed it for 45 minutes, before they brought the producers down, and they finally decided to do it the actors way.
Behr does add “The scene was never meant to be a joke. It was about two aliens giving their viewpoints about what it was like to live under the Federation.”
I dunno the whole thing is fascinating to me because I consider it to be one of the more iconic scenes in DS9 and it was just kinda….slapped on last minute, and was nearly played for laughs. I’m glad it wasn’t
bee-squared-official
