page_title: Blood Oath (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Blood Oath (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) / Production
caption_attribution_description: Millard House, aka La Miniatura, Pasadena, California
context_page_description: "Blood Oath" is the 19th episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and originally aired on March 27, 1994 in broadcast syndication. The story was created by Peter Allan Fields and the episode was directed by Winrich Kolbe. The choreography of the ending fight scene was created by Dan Curry and Dennis Madalone, while the score was created by Dennis McCarthy.
  Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy, in orbit of the planet Bajor. In this episode, three legendary Klingon warriors come to the station to meet with Jadzia Dax before embarking on a crusade of vengeance.
  The episode featured the return of John Colicos, William Campbell and Michael Ansara to the Klingon roles of Kor, Koloth and Kang, respectively. Each of those actors had previously portrayed the roles in episodes of the original Star Trek series.
context_section_description: "Blood Oath" featured the return of Colicos, Campbell and Ansara in the Klingon roles that they had previously portrayed in Star Trek: The Original Series. The story by Peter Allan Fields originally featured new Klingon characters, but Robert Hewitt Wolfe suggested the use of the characters from The Original Series. There were concerns that the three actors were no longer working, but the casting team on Deep Space Nine at first located John Colicos and Michael Ansara but not William Campbell. They subsequently discovered he was doing Star Trek conventions on cruise ships and signed up to appear once he was approached. Each of the previous appearances of those Klingon characters had been before the Klingon forehead ridge make-up was in use, and so "Blood Oath" was the first time that each of these characters had been seen with the ridges applied. There was a consideration by the producers about whether or not to use the make-up style as seen in The Original Series, but ultimately decided not to mention the change on screen.
  The story was originally entitled "The Beast" and was intended to be a play on both the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai and the 1960 remake, The Magnificent Seven. Fields had concerns that this didn't come across in the final script, but intended for Koloth to represent Britt from The Magnificent Seven, whilst Kang was intended to be Yul Brynner's character, Chris. Kor instead was based on John Falstaff, who appeared in three plays by William Shakespeare. Colicos appeared as Kor, who had previously appeared as the first Klingon in the Star Trek franchise in The Original Series first-season episode "Errand of Mercy". Jordan Hoffman at the official Star Trek website described Kor as a "bumbling old uncle" and Koloth simply as a "grump". He said that only Kang seemed similar to his original persona. Colicos would return a further two times as Kor on Deep Space Nine, in the episodes "The Sword of Kahless" and "Once More unto the Breach". The episode is one of several which follows up on the actions of Curzon Dax, the previous host of the Dax symbiont.  A member of the Trill species is typically composed of a host and symbiont, with the symbiont passing to a new host upon the death of the previous one. Curzon was the host immediately prior to Jadzia.
  Campbell had appeared as Koloth in "The Trouble with Tribbles", although he had also portrayed Trelane in "The Squire of Gothos". It had been an intention to feature Koloth as a recurring character within The Original Series but he was unavailable for the following appearance and so it was rewritten to feature another character. The character of Koloth returned in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles" but was voiced by another actor, James Doohan. Ansara returned as Kang, who had previously appeared in The Original Series third-season episode "Day of the Dove". Ansara returned as Kang once more in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback" which also guest starred George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney from The Original Series as well as several actors from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He also returned to Deep Space Nine in the episode "The Muse", to play Jeyal, the husband of Lwaxana Troi, who in turn was played by Majel Barrett who not only did the voice for the computer in The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and was married to Gene Roddenberry, but had also played Number One and Christine Chapel in The Original Series. Terry Farrell was interviewed during the third season of the show and described "Blood Oath" as one of the best episodes so far.
  The Millard House in Pasadena, California was used to represent the outside of the fortress of the Albino, while the interior was filmed on Stage 18 in the Paramount lot. The fight scenes were jointly choreographed by Dan Curry and Dennis Madalone, with the scenes filmed over the course of two days. Director Winrich Kolbe left the choreography completely in Curry and Madalone's hands, but gave them instructions not to go overboard. Whilst filming the sc
caption: The Millard House was used as the exterior of the Albino's fortress
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