There was a real jerk on the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, if you can believe it. Because Star Trek: Deep Space Nine took place on a Cardassian-built space station, DS9‘s sets needed to be demonstrably different from the locations that Star Trek audiences expected to find on Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s USS Enterprise. The sprawling Promenade set was unique to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with three levels and stairs providing access to upper balconies, where Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) and Nog (Aron Eisenberg) frequently sat to watch passersby. And although Jake and Nog might think so, Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) wasn’t the jerk in question.

Like the Promenade, Deep Space Nine’s operations office, or Ops, also existed on multiple levels, creating visual interest as the cast of Deep Space Nine and background actors moved through the buzzy central hub of the Deep Space Nine station. Ops’ architecture reflected the social hierarchy of the Cardassians who built it, with a sunken pit for engineers like Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney), tactical and science stations situated on the main level, and Captain Benjamin Sisko’s (Avery Brooks) office at the apex of a flight of stairs. It is also in Ops where we find the home Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s on-set jerk.

Star Trek: DS9’s Working Turbolift Was A Real Jerk

Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Duncan McNeill Says It’s “Not Very Star Trek-y”

Fortunately, the jerk on the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wasn’t a person at all, but a weird quirk of the Ops set. On The Delta Flyers podcast, Quark actor Armin Shimerman joins the original co-hosts, Star Trek: Voyager actors Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill, to share behind-the-scenes memories from making DS9. While discussing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 2, “The Circle”, Shimerman tells Wang and McNeill that the turbolift’s moving parts in Ops weren’t always so kind to actors. Read their quotes below and listen to The Delta Flyers, starting at the 32:40 time stamp.

Armin Shimerman: “What’s interesting for me is that turbolift — which did work, it certainly did take you to a different floor — it always jerked, at least in my experience with it. So the fact they got it not to jerk in this take –”

Garrett Wang: “You mean, it continuously jerked as it moved, or just jerked in the beginning?”

Armin Shimerman: “It was always [jerking] as you were standing in it.”

Garrett: “Oh, you’re kidding me.”

Robert Duncan McNeill: “That’s not very Star Trek-y.”

How Did Star Trek: DS9’s Turbolift in Ops Actually Work?

DS9’s Ops Turbolift Worked On Manual Labor (Just As the Cardassians Intended)

The lack of doors on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Ops turbolift meant that it actually had to function like a real elevator, and it had to do so on cue, so the turbolift in Ops on DS9 was operated manually, just like Star Trek‘s not-so-automatic doors. Star Trek production designer Herman Zimmerman intentionally designed the Ops set on a raised platform to account for incorporating the working turbolift. The open-door design worked to set the Cardassian-built station apart from the Federation designs, and had the added bonus of resembling a mine-shaft elevator, which evoked Deep Space Nine’s original function as the Cardassian mining station and refinery Terok Nor.

Between the constant jerking motion, open doors, and slow speed relative to other turbolifts on Star Trek, the Ops elevator in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, seemed to pose a safety hazard, especially with the gaping hole in the Ops floor that was left behind when the turbolift departed for the lower level. All of these bugs aren’t all that surprising; after all, Chief Miles O’Brien believed it would take years to bring DS9 up to Federation standards. Maybe, with all their substandard safety precautions, the real jerks on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are actually the Cardassians who made the Ops turbolift so jerky in the first place.

Source: The Delta Flyers season 10, episode 2 “The Circle”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is streaming on Paramount+.