Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Season 5, Episode 18
Original Air Date: April 5, 1997
 |
| via Memory Alpha |
The eternally enterprising Quark is buried in debt. A cousin offers to bring him into the lucrative arms trade, a big no-no on the station. Quark and his new associates devise an angle to make it work - with Bajoran blessings, even. But when talk turns to weapons of mass destruction, our greedy friend discovers his own limits.
The most interesting Quark episodes are the ones where we see his capitalistic bounds tested. It's part of why I think the much-maligned "Move Along Home" isn't really so terrible and why I appreciate Mirror Quark more than most of the other characters in that story line. Like all of the other principals, Quark is on a journey through the course of the series. Over the long run, his is not even the most remarkable growth within his own family. He may not even rank second. But his development is absolutely essential to the whole.
"Business As Usual" includes homages to several classic films: The Third Man, Scarface and Dr. Strangelove.
Acting Notes
 |
| via Beverly Hills Cop Wiki |
Steven Berkoff played the role of Hagath, king pin of Quark's new trade syndicate. Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks in London, August 3, 1937.
I've featured many stage greats in this space. Berkoff plays in a different league from all of them. He has written at least 33 plays and his directorial style is widely known as "Berkovian Theatre." I found this description by critic Aleks Sierz:
The language is usually filthy, characters talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes off, have sex, humiliate each other, experience unpleasant emotions, become suddenly violent. At its best, this kind of theatre is so powerful, so visceral, that it forces audiences to react: either they feel like fleeing the building or they are suddenly convinced that it is the best thing they have ever seen and want all their friends to see it too. It is the kind of theatre that inspires us to use superlatives, whether in praise or condemnation.
On screen, he has built his reputation in villain roles: General Orlov in Octopussy, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop and Lt. Col. Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II. Television appearances include BBC classics such as The Avengers, The Saint and Doctor Who.
I don’t think anyone (including Shimerman himself, famously disappointed with where Quark lands, or doesn’t, in the final episode) truly appreciates how much Quark’s actions guided Rom and Nog’s fortunes, developed the idea of the station as a viable concept of home and community, gave most of the characters a literal place to gather and find out what they meant to each other (Bashir and O’Brien most obviously), and basically embodied the real idea that this wasn’t just a Starfleet or military instillation, not to mention the only real continuity, once Odo left, between the eras of station life. Any real analysis of the character, and the series as a whole, must ultimately pivot on how he managed all that.
ReplyDeleteEvery part is integral to the whole. That, in a nutshell, is why DS9 works so darn well.
Delete