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We'd booked the actor long, long in advance. At the last
minute, he bailed to do a DS9 episode playing, essentially, the same
character, despite our having first dibs.

So I killed off the character. Didn't change the story by the
smallest measure. May actually have helped, since it raised the stakes
in the story right from the start.

Rule #1: Never honk off the writer.

jms