Star Trek: Celebrating Aron Eisenberg with a look at his time as Nog

Nog’s best scene

Nog had a great arc on Deep Space Nine. He started off as an illiterate bully, who hated pretty much anything that wasn’t profit. Then enter Jake Sisko. Through the friendship, he grew. He learned to read, went to school, started to reject his uncle’s obsession with earning wealth, and started to see that he didn’t need to share the same future as his father.

So the young Ferengi decided to enroll in Starfleet. The only problem, non-Federation species could only apply if they were sponsored by an active officer. So Nog went to Commander Benjamin Sisko for the recommendation. A request that would initially fall on deaf ears.

Whether because of prejudice, special bias, or simply wanting to see if Nog would fight for it, Commander Sisko denies Nog’s request. This prompted Nog to defend his desire in a performance that Aron Eisenberg nails. Nog goes full-on here, claiming that Starfleet was a way for him to avoid ending up like his father, a mechanical genius but someone who went into business just as good-Ferengi are supposed to.

Sisko baits Nog, and the young Ferengi bites, eventually getting Sisko to change his mind on the recommendation. It was a scene that made people fall in love with the character, especially so early in the series. In a show that had so many stellar monologues, the way Eisenberg made Nog’s pain real, through fake teeth and heavy prosthetics, was a true master class in acting.