Little Green Men (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

"Little Green Men" is the 80th episode of the American syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the eighth episode of the fourth season.

"Little Green Men"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no.Season 4
Episode 8
Directed byJames L. Conway
Story by
  • Toni Marberry
  • Jack Trevino
Teleplay by
Featured musicPaul Baillargeon
Cinematography byJonathan West
Production code480
Original air dateNovember 13, 1995 (1995-11-13)
Guest appearance(s)

In this episode, Quark and Rom ferry Nog to Starfleet Academy in Quark's new personal shuttle. During the trip, a temporal anomaly sends them to 1947 Earth where they are held prisoner in Roswell, New Mexico.

"Little Green Men" achieved a Nielsen rating of 7.7, ranking 5th when it was first televised.[1]

Plot

Quark receives a shuttle that his cousin Gaila has been promising him for years. For its maiden voyage he takes his brother Rom and nephew Nog to Earth, where Nog has been accepted to Starfleet Academy. After they leave Deep Space Nine, Rom discovers that Quark intends to make the trip financially profitable by smuggling an illicit load of volatile kemocite.

As the ship nears Earth, Rom finds that they are unable to drop out of warp, possibly due to sabotage by Gaila. However, venting the warp exhaust through the kemocite cargo enables the ship to drop out of warp. Unfortunately, in doing so the ship and crew are thrown back in time to July 1947 and crash land near Roswell, New Mexico. The Ferengi awake on a U.S. military base, where the Americans believe them to be Martians. After Rom repairs their malfunctioning universal translators, Quark begins negotiations with the humans, whom he considers backward and gullible, to sell advanced technology from the future. He brags to Rom and Nog in private that "within a year we'll be running this planet," and dreams of cultivating a vast Ferengi economic empire.

Unknown to the Ferengi, however, Constable Odo stowed away aboard the shuttle with them to investigate the kemocite smuggling and thus was also thrown back in time. Using his shapeshifting abilities, Odo is able to move about the base locating and repairing their spacecraft. Having disguised himself as a guard dog to gain entry to the room where the Ferengi are being held, he tells Quark that they must try to preserve the timeline and not alter Earth's history. Quark, Rom, and Nog are interrogated by an army officer convinced that they have hostile intentions, but escape from custody with the help of a nurse and her fiancé, a professor who was brought to the base to try to establish dialogue with the aliens.

By harnessing the energy of an atomic bomb test scheduled for that morning in Nevada, Rom is able to use the remaining kemocite to return them to their proper time. After dropping off Nog at Starfleet Academy, Quark has to sell the damaged spacecraft for salvage and he, Odo, and Rom return to Deep Space Nine. As the episode ends, Odo arrests Quark for smuggling contraband.

Production

The producers requested a "Megan Gallagher type" for one of the roles in the episode. Upon hearing about this, Gallagher's agent contacted them and said that Gallagher might be able to do it herself. Following this she was offered the part in the episode. She had previously appeared in the second season episode "Invasive Procedures" and would later appear in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Body and Soul".[2]

Quark's spacecraft (named in this episode as Quark's Treasure) looks like the Ferengi pod, which was introduced in "The Price" on Star Trek: The Next Generation broadcast on November 13, 1989.[3] The interior set was seen previously in "Prophet Motive" (S3E16), also a Ferengi-centric episode. Ferengi pod shuttlecraft designs appears in a number of customized versions throughout the rest of the series and it makes an appearance on Star Trek: Voyager also.[4]

Charles Napier, who portrayed General Denning, previously appeared in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Way to Eden". He had requested to play a military character after having portrayed a "space hippie" in his last appearance.[5]

Reception

"Little Green Men" was rated as having the 2nd top moment of all Star Trek by Geek.com in 2015.[6] In particular they noted it was a time-travel plot into Earth's history past, but unique in that it did not feature a Starfleet character.[7] "Little Green Men" was rated as one of the top seven instances of time travelers in the whole Star Trek franchise by Nerdist in 2019.[8]

In 2014, io9 ranked "Little Green Men" as the 85th best episode of Star Trek in their list of the top 100 Star Trek episodes.[9]

SyFy ranked "Little Green Men" as the 10th best time travel plot in Star Trek, in 2016.[10]

In 2016, Empire ranked this the 35th best out of the top 50 episodes of the 700 plus Star Trek television episodes.[11]

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked this episode the 18th best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[12] They note that this episode ties the famous sightings of a UFO at Roswell to a visit from the 24th century by characters from the show.[12]

In 2019, CBR rated "Little Green Men" the 11th funniest Star Trek episode.[13]

In 2019, Nerdist ranked this episode the seventh best time-travel episode of the live-action and animated television series.[14]

In 2019, Higgy Pop noted this episode as one of the time travel stories of the Star Trek franchise.[15]

References
  1. "WebTrek - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine * SEASON 4 NIELSEN RATINGS". users.telenet.be.
  2. "Exclusive Interwiew: DS9 & Voyager Guest Star Megan Gallagher". StarTrek.com. September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 28, 2013.
  3. "Ferengi shuttle". StarTrek.com.
  4. Schneider, Bernd. "Ex Astris Scientia - Variations of the Ferengi Shuttle". www.ex-astris-scientia.org.
  5. Rabin, Nathan (May 18, 2009). "Charles Napier". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
  6. The top 35 moments in Star Trek history, Geek.com (2015)
  7. The top 35 moments in Star Trek history, Geek.com (2015)
  8. "The 7 Best Time Travelers In STAR TREK". Nerdist. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  9. Anders, Charlie Jane (October 2, 2014). "The Top 100 Star Trek Episodes Of All Time!". io9. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
  10. Granshaw, Lisa (November 15, 2016). "Ranking the 15 best Star Trek time travel episodes". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
  11. "The 50 best Star Trek episodes ever". Empire. July 27, 2016. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  12. ""Little Green Men" - 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' — The 20 Greatest Episodes". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
  13. "The 20 Funniest Star Trek Episodes". CBR. January 18, 2019. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  14. "The 10 Best STAR TREK Time Travel Episodes, Ranked". Nerdist. Retrieved July 27, 2019.
  15. Higgypop. "Complete List Of Time Travel Storylines In Star Trek". Higgypop. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
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