Count me in the camp as a lover of "Masks". I've defended this episode and "MOVE ALONG HOME" more than any other episode in the franchise. "Masks" deserves a far better rating than people generally seem to give it.
"Move Along Home" seems to be to
DS9/Trek what "The Girl Who was Death" is to
The Prisoner - melding a different genre into an episode for whatever reason(s) to see how it plays out. Some didn't care for the
The Prisoner's 15th outing, but I found it refreshing... And it too had a similar background, due to budget issues - for different reasons, as this Swingin' Sixties show was not intended to having been given more than ten or so episodes in the first place, and this old
Danger Man script was sitting somewhere and was sufficiently suitable to be grafted in. It's pretty much great until the ending, anyhow. But I digress, and
DS9's equivalent is also at the show's start whereas
Prisoner's is nigh on the tail-end...
"Move Along Home" is a great character piece for Quark, which also elevates them above and beyond the 1D stick figures shown incessantly in TNG.
It also intended to have a higher budget, where we would have gotten far more than a bottle show with rewrite and reused alien set.
The story attempts, and succeeds to varying extents, a completely different alien culture.
The hopscotch bit is
meant to make the audience feel weird.
The ending solidifies the story's greatness by slight-of-hand expectation diversion with "it was just a game!" before the Wadi all leave as inconsequentially as they arrive.
One day, I'll actually defend this story. What, I've not already? As the Second Doctor might opine,
Oh dear...
"Masks" has all the hallmarks of a cool
TOS episode, but carried into
TNG quite well. Especially as it wouldn't have worked nearly as well in season 1 of
TNG... but I digress and use italics again...
