I agree. Even with the mask on I could see every ounce of emotion on his face

He was always a fantastic actor. My best friend and I got to meet him several years ago and he was happy that both of us geeked out over his film career and I, of course asked if he missed DS9 and he said he didn't miss the makeup, but he still lived everyone from the show. He told us about the great makeup and costumes people that "made Odo possible". Very cool guy. Wish I'd asked more questions!

It would seem the women of the show don't particularly care for Mark...

@@poolhall9632 That is mostly Ira spreading rumors, because they did not like each other. Nana Visitor said she hated to work beside him on set, because she was in character and he was in character. She tried to change that and invited him to dinner once and it turned out he was a sweet nice man and she had lots of fun. Next time she saw him in makeup, she went back to being intimidated by "that Cardassian". Melanie Smith, Cyia Batten and Bertilla Damas are all on record that he was intense when in character, but a lovely guy to talk to. They were all laughs and giggles at all times and he was a classical thespian always in character. The reason why people bad mouth him is this slip of the tongue, which Ira exploited: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q7OhqciImryYpoU.html Ira seems to be a petty man. Why he is not seen around anymore? Because he stopped acting a good while ago. He is on the older side.

I met him at the same convention, and well, my story is weird. So at the after party that year, Avery Brooks was due to play some live "Jazz", now the ExCeL center isn't the best live venue ever, and with how this con was run, the party was very much an afterthought, so it was an empty unadorned convention hall with a tiny floor level "stage" setup along one side. We'd had Gowron and Martok play a bunch of rock songs with Bat'Leth guitars, some really off colour "comedy" from a drunk Dominic Keating, and as the energy in the room was about to completely disappear, Avery walked up to the Piano and started playing. A crowd formed around the stage. A bunch of people sat on the hard cement floor in a circle in front of the stage, with a semicircle of people standing around that. I was at the front of that Semicircle, basically dead center, great view of this weird ass thing I'm watching. As I take a swig of the beer I had, I get a tap on the shoulder. I turn around, and there right in my face is Marc Alaimo, and boy does he look like Gul Dukat when he's half lit in shadow and inches from your face. "Can I get past?" he says and I move 90 degrees to open up a space for him to get through. He fucking glides past. He tip toes with an unearthly grace through the sitting crowd, finds a spot straight in the middle of this circle and drops straight down and sits with his legs tucked up against his chest. He then spends the entire loooong show watching Avery play very sparse Jazz. And It felt like I was the only person to realise all this had happened. Dukat was stuck in the crowd watching the Sisko perform on stage. It all felt very allegorical to the show.

@@AdamMPick I've watched multiple interviews with Nana Visitor and it is clear she had a good working relationship with the man and it's on those terms they worked well but she gives the consisted impression that on a personal level they did not click (why specifically i couldn't say). I read your comment and it really comes across as you projecting your own pettiness onto Ira (for whatever reasons you may have). I don't know the man at all so i have no understanding of the kind of man he is or isn't but i do know that your comment is coming off as disingenuous as you clearly liked Alamo from your limited meeting with him. I'd never seen that clip you've linked to before and it only again confirms that Nana does have some level of negativity in her opinion of him (the actor) beyond the work, she just choses to focus only on their working relationship.

I met Coombs once, he didn’t have much of a line of people wanting to see him compared to other people there, so I got to have a lovely chat with him. Just two people, having a a chat about his work. He thanked me for the chat and insisted on offering me a picture for free - got one of his later appearance characters with a quote signed - it’s in a frame on my wall

You nailed it.

Dukat and Garak are the best actors IN THE SERIES! Only ACTORS on their level would be Seven Of Nine and Picard and I'm talking STRICTLY ACTING performance. I don't remember all the actors real names so I'm only using their character names and not the actors that portray them. And I mean the ENTIRE TREK FRANCHISE not just DS9 by itself.

Honorable Mention to Leonard Nimoy STRICTLY on acting ability and performance skills.

Dukat is a genuinely complex character. But that's what makes him an ideal DS9 villain. Hardly a good person, but not a 2D stereotype. Although Star Trek has many foes, such as the Borg or Khan, I'd always vote for Dukat as one of the best. (although the character of Lex Luthor in Smallville might be good competition)

Sociopath yes, but evil I don't think so, at least not at this point in the story. He has his demons, but his base motivations are not evil, and we see at times that the stories told about him are not so black and white. Dukat is motivated by 2 things: power and justification. Not exactly noble, but can lead him to be a force for good or evil.

Which actress is the wonderful actress? (Okay, they're all good, just teasing :P) I do love the character, though my favorite actress is the last. I named a major RPG character after her, nobody can deny my affection haha. There is one scene with Quark later that is super minor but I just feel like lights up the whole station with her vibe - shining indeed!

Crossfire is great because we've all be Odo, sitting on the floor, heartbroken.

Honestly it's not my favorite. The only reason it's "fine" is I like these characters for their much more compelling traits and storylines. First of all many complain of more Boring Kira Boyfriend Syndrome, and while I don't hate Bareil or Shakaar, I can't say they're totally off base. But mainly I just don't think genre shows with genre production styles tend to do very good "typical" storylines without the genre elements. Romance episode with an interstellar culture clash or taboos about past lives? Good stuff. Totally standard love triangle storyline? Just not that interesting / it's been done 100 times before and usually more compellingly in shows or movies that were actually build around the romance.

Comparing to another example, _Smallville,_ a guilty pleasure that like Star Trek is a genre show with a large production order per season. _Smallville_ is much less thoughtful and often less polished than Star Trek, but they arguably have a similar episodic/semi-serialized pattern. And occasionally they try to do a not-really-genre episode. One I saw recently was trying to be a mid-90s sexy thriller (with young Lex Luthor). And like....it was fine. It was probably better than a lot of the dumber "freak of the week" episodes, technically. But most of those mid-90s sexy thrillers did it better, and THAT'S NOT REALLY WHY PEOPLE WATCH SMALLVILLE haha.

And, hm, also maybe I just don't think Crossfire is that good. His Lwaxana episode was much better or even profound because it was more character driven. It didn't REALLY have to do with his shapeshifter powers, that was just the reason he felt alone that could've been swapped with any other reason, but their romance got to the core of both characters most beautifully. This episode, I dunno, you could drop almost any three characters into this story and it would be the same story. It makes SENSE for these characters but it doesn't feature their unique qualities.

@@jerodast Well, yeah, but on a show like that, it's too easy to be stuck in a rut of the same stuff happening over and over- the extreme cases are like "all musical" episodes- something Trek has not escaped in recent years. Or Captain Proton.😜

I understand the importance of pointing that out, but some things are still better left unsaid.

Sausage and Pineapple mmmm

Canadian Bacon and Pineapple if you're doing it at all. It's a Canadian invention, after all.

I will! Excited to see him return

Yeah Invisalign! I have had them on for a few months now :)

Haha, honestly I'm guessing they made that episode without expecting any of it to be a secret due to marketing, but that's a cool idea to see it blind. SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE SERIES Also I did not know that episode by number so I thought you were talking about the NEXT episode 6, but I figured the thumb and title wouldn't spoil TOO much...

😂

😂😅 Patience my friend. Patience. JK But yeah I get it.

only one of 3 reactions a week are Star Trek so not really a rabbit hole :)