This week, Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek: TNG guest stars in
one of the most Deep-Space-Nine Deep Space Nine episodes ever produced.
This is a review of the classic Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine episode “Defiant.” If you have not seen this episode,
and you don’t want to know what happens in it, be warned: spoilers beyond this point!
I’ll explain what I mean by “most Deep-Space-Nine
Deep Space Nine episode” in a minute, but first — a brief recap of “Defiant”:
Major Kira’s overworked and stressed out, so Dr. Bashir orders her to take the night off,
go to Quark’s and have a good time. She does, thanks to the unexpected appearance of Will Riker,
the embodiment of strong, charming, flirtatious, sexually available,
but somehow mostly non-toxic masculinity. Kira and Riker hang out,
they get to know each other — no hanky panky, they just talk — and the next day,
Kira gives Riker a tour of the station, including their fancy new starship, the Defiant!
They have a strangely uncomfortable encounter with Chief O’Brien,
where O’Brien is super happy to see Riker, and Riker’s like “How dare you speak to me,
you scum!” O’Brien doesn’t have any idea what that’s about, and neither do we, and neither
does Kira, so after O’Brien’s gone she’s like “Hey, dig this, before you can do anything on the
ship you have to release the security lock-out, so let me go ahead and do that.” And she does that,
and Riker’s like “Hey, thanks!” and pulls a phaser and shoots her!
Riker contacts ops and gives them a fake story about how the Defiant’s warp core is about to
overload or something to convince them to release the ship from its docking port,
and then once it’s free Riker just turns it around and flies away at
warp speed. Sisko’s like “. . . Did he . . . just steal my ship?”
He did! And not only that — he’s not Will Riker at all! He’s Thomas Riker, the transporter duplicate
introduced in the TNG episode “Second Chances” — I should have known something was up when he
didn’t sleep with Kira — Will would have closed that deal. And! In yet another shocking twist,
Thomas Riker is now a member of the Maquis, the band of rebels fighting against Cardassian
occupation of former Federation colonies along the Federation/Cardassian border. He beams some
more Maquis members aboard the Defiant to act as his crew, and peels off his fake beard to reveal
a more appropriately villainous goatee, and the Defiant sets off for Cardassian territory.
Well, this isn’t good! This is, in fact, quite bad — bad enough that Sisko goes to Cardassia Prime
with Gul Dukat to help the Cardassian military locate and stop the Defiant. A Starfleet ship,
even one that’s been hijacked by terrorists, attacking Cardassian outposts might be considered,
ya know, an act of war and all. While Sisko and Dukat are trying to stop the Defiant,
and also dealing with the unwanted presence of an Obsidian Order agent in the control room,
Kira has come to aboard the Defiant and is trying her best to convince Tom Riker that
what he’s doing is only going to make things worse for everyone. By stealing the Defiant and
using it to invade Cardassian territory, Tom has given the Cardassians the perfect excuse
for responding with overwhelming force and eliminating the Maquis by any means necessary.
But Tom isn’t convinced, because his mission is more important than a few
acts of petty terrorism — he’s heard rumors of a secret Cardassian fleet
being constructed in a remote star system, and he’s determined to use the Defiant to
destroy that fleet before it can be used to invade the Federation. Kira calls Tom
out for wanting to be a hero instead of a terrorist, and Tom’s just like “Whatever.”
Meanwhile, back on Cardassia Prime, Dukat detects some mysterious Cardassian ships
that have appeared in that remote star system the Defiant is headed toward,
ships that aren’t supposed to be there. He concludes they must be Obsidian Order ships,
but the thing is, the Obsidian Order isn’t supposed to have ships.
Korinas, the Obsidian Order agent, gives him a smile like “ain’t I a stinker?”
Approaching the secret Cardassian installation, the Defiant is surrounded,
with pursuing Cardassian ships chasing it, and mysterious not-supposed-to-be-there Obsidian
Order ships rushing to intercept it. Gul Dukat contacts Riker and offers him a deal, which he and
Sisko have agreed upon: turn around and surrender the Defiant to one of the legit Cardassian ships,
and the ship and the other members of the Maquis will be returned to the Federation;
in exchange for that, Tom must turn over the Defiant’s sensor logs of the secret
Obsidian Order base they were approaching, and surrender himself to the Cardassians so he can
be tried and convicted in Cardassian court and sentenced to life in a Cardassian prison camp.
Since his only options are to take that deal or start a fight he can’t possibly
win that will get himself and his entire crew killed, Tom takes the deal. He turns around,
surrenders the Defiant to one of the ships under Gul Dukat’s authority, gives Kira a
farewell smooch, and is beamed away never to be seen again. The Obsidian Order ships reverse
course and leave the area, and the Defiant heads back for Federation space with Kira in command.
So, here’s why I say this is one of the most Deep-Space-Nine Deep Space Nine episodes. It
sounds kinda dry and straightforward when I just summarize what happens like that,
but when you watch the episode, you see that it is densely packed with interpersonal conflict.
It starts with that uncomfortable encounter between Riker and O’Brien — which I take as
a ploy on Riker’s part to get O’Brien off the Defiant as quickly as possible — he
needs Kira there to release the security lockout, he doesn’t want to deal with any
extra Starfleet people aboard while he’s trying to do his Maquis shit. From there,
we get conflict between Dukat and Sisko when Sisko has to tell Dukat
about the stolen Defiant heading into Cardassian territory; conflict between Dukat and Korinas,
the Obsidian Order agent, who exists outside the command structure in which Dukat operates,
and who doesn’t seem to think too much of Dukat in general; and conflict between Kira and Riker,
as Kira attempts to convince Tom that what he’s doing is reckless, foolhardy, and doomed to fail.
Interpersonal conflict is one element of Deep Space Nine that sets it apart from Star Trek:
The Next Generation, where everybody aboard the Enterprise almost always got along.
Another hallmark of DS9 is forcing characters to confront complicated situations and make difficult
choices. Nothing on Deep Space Nine is as easy as our heroes, or our villains, would like it to
be. There’s complexity, there are unpleasant but necessary compromises. In “Defiant,” Tom
Riker is trying to do what he thinks is right. He’s joined the Maquis because he sympathizes
with their cause, and his crew has stolen the Defiant to destroy a Cardassian fleet that he
believes to be a threat not only to the Maquis but to the Federation. But, as Kira points out,
his attempted act of heroism could have devastating consequences — it could lead to
Cardassia deciding to wipe out the Maquis, or even all-out war between Cardassia and the Federation.
As a result of Riker’s theft of the Defiant, Sisko — wanting to prevent such a war — is compelled to
join forces with Dukat to help the Cardassians find and potentially destroy Sisko’s own ship.
Certainly not a position Sisko would have chosen for himself. And Dukat — not only is he forced
to work with Sisko, he also has to deal with the Obsidian Order looking over his shoulder,
and the revelation that the Obsidian Order’s activities have obviously gone far beyond
what they are allowed to do by law. In the end, in order to end the conflict,
everyone is forced to accept a compromise they don’t really want: Riker has to turn himself
in to the Cardassians, Dukat has to agree to make sure Riker doesn’t get a death sentence,
the Obsidian Order’s secret fleet has been discovered — nobody’s happy!
That could be the series tagline — Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Nobody’s Happy!
Having a guest star from another series can be tricky to pull off. It can descend into crude,
pandering fan service so easily. Ronald D. Moore, who wrote this episode — and lots of other great
Star Trek episodes, including “Relics,” which I reviewed last week — avoids the fan service trap
in a couple of ways. First and most obviously, he fakes us out about who the guest character
actually is. We all assume it’s Will Riker going in, but it turns out to be Tom. Then, he throws in
another twist by making Tom a criminal. Then, he places Tom in a situation that prevents him from
doing any typical crossover stuff — other than very brief interactions with Sisko,
Dax and O’Brien, the only established DS9 character he shares the screen with is Kira,
and they’re almost always arguing. The closest thing to a TNG reunion possible,
Riker and O’Brien meeting again (before we know this is actually Tom Riker), is not a warm scene
with handshakes or hugs or how-have-you-beens — it’s a short, tense, confusing exchange.
The message to any sentimental TNG fans tuning in to DS9 to see Riker is clear: if you’ve come
looking for something comforting and familiar, look elsewhere. But, at the same time, the
message is also this: if you like what you see, stick around. It’s not TNG, it’s its own thing,
but that thing is pretty good, and if you haven’t been watching, you should give it a chance.
For regular DS9 viewers, “Defiant” is a strong episode that shows off most of
the show’s strengths. It’s well plotted with some nice tension and a few twists
and turns at the right times. It sets up some things, namely that secret Cardassian fleet,
that turn out to be very important when they pay off in future episodes. It’s got plenty of the
emotional fireworks between characters we’ve come to expect from the show by this point. There’s a
great scene between Dukat and Sisko, where Dukat reveals that before this crisis he had been
planning to take his son to an amusement park, because today is his son’s eleventh birthday.
Sisko tries to comfort Dukat by telling him his son will understand, but Dukat is less optimistic.
“All he’ll understand is that a Federation ship invaded his home and kept his father away from
him on his eleventh birthday,” Dukat says. “And he won’t look back on it with understanding.
He’ll look back on it with hatred. And that’s sad.” I love that scene for the way it deepens
and humanizes Dukat without deviating from who we know him to be. Yes, Dukat is thoughtful and
melancholy in that scene, yes he seems to be a genuinely caring and concerned parent, but it’s
also still all about him, isn’t it? That’s the key to understanding Dukat, whether he’s acting like a
hero or behaving like the villain he’s always been underneath: it’s always all about him.
One more thing, because I know this comes up a lot in discussion about this episode: no,
it doesn’t bother me that there was never a follow-up where they rescued Tom Riker
from the Cardassian prison camp like Kira promises she will before he beams away. A)
Just because a character says they’re going to do something, at some point in the future,
that doesn’t mean the writers have to have them do it; and B) “We’ll get you out of there, Tom,
I promise” sounds like the sort of thing you’d say to someone in that situation. It’s an attempt to
reassure him that he’s doing the right thing and it’ll all be okay eventually. It’s not a
psychic prediction, or a promise being made to the audience. Dramatically speaking, I’m completely
fine with this being the last time we ever see or hear about Tom Riker. I don’t consider it a loose
plot thread. The dude is in a Cardassian prison. His story is over. If some writer someday comes
up with an absolutely fantastic idea for a story that involves Tom, and the producers of Star Trek
decide to make it, great. But is it a cliffhanger? Is it something begging to be revisited? No.
Just because a character is still alive and in a tense situation the last time
we see them doesn’t mean there’s anything left unresolved. It’s resolved. So there.
Is “Defiant” an example of Deep Space Nine at its absolute best? Not really. There are
many other far superior episodes. But, it is a very strong outing, and a showcase of many of
the qualities that set Deep Space Nine apart from Next Gen. And what better time to put
those qualities on display than when you’ve got a beloved alumni of TNG stopping by for a visit?
Those are my thoughts on “Defiant.” What do you think of this episode? Please share it with me
in the comments. If you’d like to support this channel — and I sure wish you would,
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Don’t forget to watch for my review of the ninth and penultimate episode
of season three of Star Trek: Picard. I’m teaming up with my best friend and podcast
co-host Jason Harding to review this final season of Picard, and our next review should
be up sometime this weekend, probably Saturday. And please join me again at this time next week
for another retro review. The next episode in this batch dedicated to guest stars from
previous series will be another episode of Deep Space Nine, and a favorite of many:
“Trials and Tribble-ations”! I’ll see you then. Thanks for watching and take care, everybody!