Writer:	Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Director:	Robert Scheerer
Star:	Armin Shimerman (Quark),  Colm Meaney (Chief Miles O'Brien),  Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko),  Alexander Siddig (Dr. Julian Bashir),  Avery Brooks (Commander/Captain Benjamin Sisko),  Nana Visitor (Major/Colonel/Commander Kira Nerys),  Rene Auberjonois (Constable Odo),  Michael Dorn (Lt. Commander Worf (Season 4-7)),  Terry Farrell (Lt./Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax (Season 1-6))
Recurring Role:	Philip Anglim (Vedek Bareil)
Guest Star:	Noley Thornton (Taya),  Kenneth Tobey (Rurigan),  Kenneth Mars (Colyus),  Trula M. Marcus (Female Villager),  Martin Cassidy (Male Villager)

Kira and Bareil's romantic relationship begins in this episode. (edit) Dax changes course to "130 mark 47"

Writer Joe Menosky began including references to the number 47 in almost every episode of Star Trek since season four of The Next Generation. It is an in-joke, referring to The 47 Society at Pomona College in California, a college which Menosky attended. (edit) The day and night matte paintings of the Ronara Maquis colony in the Next Generation episode Pre-emptive Strike are re-used here for Yadera II. (edit) O'Brien tells Jake about his youth as a budding musician. He continued playing cello into his adulthood; we see him with it at times on the Enterprise-D, as a member of a string quartet. (edit) Noley Thornton previously played Clara Sutter in the Next Generation episode Imaginary Friend. (edit)

Odo: I saw the way you held her hand when she was sad... how you comforted her when she was frightened.
Rurigan: I didn't want to see her get hurt.
Odo: If she's not real, what does it matter?
Rurigan: It matters to me.
Odo: Why should it matter to you if a hologram cries?
Rurigan: Because... I love her. (edit) (talking about relationships)
Odo: That's a very personal question.
Jadzia: I'm sorry, but after seven lifetimes the impersonal questions aren't much fun anymore. (edit) Odo: Frankly, Lieutenant, I fail to see any point in your story at all, except perhaps to illustrate the foolish humanoid preoccupation with romantic coupling.
Jadzia: The point of the story is that sometimes we don't recognize true love even when it's staring us right in the face.
Odo: How fascinating... (edit) Kira: Quark, get this into that twisted little brain of yours: if you thought you were going to get away with anything while Odo's gone, think again. I'm watching you.
Quark: Major, you make it sound like you don't like me.
Kira: Don't like you?! You collaborated with the Cardassians, you cheat your customers and you're a danger to the station. I don't just not like you. I despise you!
Quark: I'm sorry I mentioned it... (edit) Bareil: You disagree with my interpretation of the Eight Prophecy.
Kira: Disagree might be a bit of an understatement. Passionately disagree is more like it. That way you have of taking a prophecy and showing how it can mean exactly the opposite of the accepted interpretation is...
Bareil: Brilliant? Insightful?
Kira: Infuriating! (edit)

During a conversation with Bareil, Major Kira states that she had Quark make her a springball holosuite program, yet in later episodes she frequently states how she dislikes holosuites. (edit) Colyus is surprised when Odo demonstrates the ship's transporter, as though he'd never seen the technology before. A minute later, Odo asks Colyus if he has scanned for transporter activity, and Colyus responds that it was "the first thing I tried". (edit)

The Village

Odo and Dax's adventure is oddly similar to M. Night Shyamalan's movie The Village, in which the inhabitants of the village never leave. When the little girl reaches the boundary of the holo-emitter, she reaches for some red berries. In The Village, red berries marked the outer boundaries of the villagers' territory. Maybe the writer got his inspiration here? (edit) Puss In Boots

The story that Taya tells Odo is similiar to the classic fable Puss In Boots, where the title character tricks a shapeshifting wizard into changing into a mouse, then "gobbles him up". (edit)