Emanations Behind the Scenes

TREKCORE > VOY > EPISODES > EMANATIONS > Behind the Scenes
 

 Jefrey Alan Chandler (sometimes credited as Jeffrey Alan Chandler), who plays Hatil, also plays Guardian in the DS9 episode "Facets".
   
Jerry Hardin, who plays Doctor Neria, plays Radue in the TNG episode "When the Bough Breaks" and Samuel Clemens in the TNG episode "Time's Arrow."
   
Brannon Braga: "I wrote a first draft that I thought was one of my best scripts, and it is certainly one of my best concepts. Our reality being somebody else's afterlife and one of our people coming back from the dead in return for an alien was a good idea, solid sci-fi, and an issues explored. My shows don't always deal with issues, but this one deals with issues of euthanasia. I got a lot of notes and did rewrites I wasn't happy to do, but in the end they were right and I was wrong."
   
Jeri Taylor: "Ultimately it was an episode about something, and it was thought-provoking. I have some quibbles about some of the production elements of it. I think some of the aliens on the other side were a little hokey."
   
Michael Piller: "I always felt that it was more philosophical than dramatic."
   
David Livingston, director, wanted to present the alien afterlife milieu on a skewed camera angle. "I said to Jeri Taylor that I had to do something different and the only thing I could come up with was to dutch the camera. They all threw up their hands because I did that in the DS9 episode "Crossover", and took a lot of **** for it. I said it was the only thing I could think of to do visually that would make it different. Rick Berman didn't want me to do it, and Jeri finally agreed, and eventually Rick did too, but they didn't want to go too far overboard with it. I didn't do as much as I wanted, but I did it enough so that you have a sense that things look slightly unbalanced and screwed."
   
David Livingston, the episode's director, was suffering from the flu while shooting this episode - "I wanted the mood of the Other Side to be much darker and the sets to be weirder and stuff, but time and everything conspire against you. I initially wanted everything bright in the emanation room where they're waiting to die, and it was a mistake on my part. It should have been much moodier and darker and weirder. If I have any regrets, it's that."
   
Garrett Wang: "'Emanations' was particularly trying on me. The seven or eight days of shooting were tough because, as actors, we play parts where a character is dying but not where a character dies and comes back to life, which is very difficult because there's no precedent to that in one's life experience. When I was pretending to be dead, I concentrated on trying to slow my heart-beat down, and on physical things and manifestations. When I was young and on my martial-arts kick, I would read about ninjas who are going to attack and people won't know it because they've sucked in their aura. That's what I tried to do. It was interesting because David [Livingston] left up to me when I actually came back to life after I was injected with the hypospray. He said, 'Choose when is the time that it will affect you and jump-start you back.' And so when I did come back I took in this big breath and had goose bumps all over me."