10 Amazing Behind The Scenes Secrets Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

5. John Wayne

Deep Space Nine
Paramount

Star Trek's love affair with Westerns has been documented countless times in the past. From Gene Roddenberry envisaging the Orignal Series as "Wagon Train to the Stars", to the casting choices for James Kirk initially just being a shortlist of actors from that genre, the Final Frontier has borrowed extensively from the tropes of the American Frontier.

Deep Space Nine was no exception to this, and its initial pitch to Paramount extended the Wagon Train comparison by saying this would be the franchise's equivalent of The Rifleman. If you're not up on your TV from the 50s and 60s, the former deals with the exploration of the frontier West, while the latter concerns the adventures of a town built right on the fringes of it. You're right, it is a good analogy.

One of the main ways this manifested during production was that the initial writing for Constable Odo was, less-subtly, Sheriff Odo. A gunslinging, wise-cracking law enforcer who phasered-first-asked-questions-later and was to take his queues from several different John Wayne performances. René Auberjonois allegedly landing the part after he took the brief to mean "grumpy", and stood out against all the other actors who'd played it more menacingly.

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