“Defiant”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 3, Episode 9
Production episode 40512-454
Original air date: November 21, 1994
Stardate: 48467.3
Station log: Kira is having a really crappy day filled with report requests, schedule changes, cargo requirements, and other nonsense, culminating in her blowing up at Bashir, who diagnoses her with stress, borderline exhaustion, and in need of a day off. He marches her over to Quark’s and gives her gambling tokens, a holosuite program, a jumja stick, and a drink. Bashir’s prescription is that at least two of those must be enjoyed before she leaves the bar.
After Bashir goes off (and Quark promises to give the doctor a full report), Kira is joined by a familiar face: William T. Riker. They sit and talk for several hours. The next day, Riker reports to Sisko: he’s just passing through on his way to a vacation on Risa, but he thought he’d spend some time at Quark’s. Sisko invites him to dinner with him and Jake, while Kira insists to Dax that they just talked and they’re just friends, and besides, she’s seeing someone.
Later, when Kira’s off duty, she offers Riker a tour of the station, which eventually includes the Defiant. O’Brien surprises Kira by being on board doing some extra work, and Riker surprises everyone by saying he has nothing to say to O’Brien. The temperature in the room goes down a million degrees or so. Kira then shows Riker around the ship, and he gets her to take off the bridge lockout.
As soon as she does, Riker shoots her. Then he beams two Maquis members on board. They fake a warp-core breach to get Sisko to release the docking clamps and then go to warp. Kalita, one of the Maquis, says, “You did it, Tom,” as he removes the sides of his beard, revealing a simple Vandyke. (Some things never change…)
Sisko summons Dukat to the station. After Odo reads the Wikipedia entry for “Second Chances,” he says that Thomas Riker showed Maquis leanings while serving on the Gandhi. Dukat is understandably appalled at the notion of the Defiant being in the hands of Maquis terrorists. Sisko insists that any search operation be jointly done by Starfleet and Central Command, and to sweeten the deal, Sisko offers to go to Cardassia with Dukat. He helped design the Defiant, he can help find the ship, and he knows her weaknesses. Dukat brings him to a mission control center on Cardassia Prime, where an observer from the Obsidian Order named Korinas is also present. Sisko tells the Cardassians about the cloaking device, at which point Korinas says that the Order already knew about it. Central Command, however, did not, and Dukat’s more than a little pissed that the Order kept that intel from them. Sisko also tells them about the antiproton beam the Jem’Hadar used to penetrate the cloak back in “The Search, Part I.”
Thomas, meanwhile, is keeping Kira prisoner in one of the crew cabins while they rendezvous with more Maquis vessels to get a full crew on board, and then head for the Cardassian border under cloak. They send a decoy ship to mimic the warp signature of the Defiant to draw their patrols off. Sisko sees through the deception—the power output’s not right—but it’s too late. The Defiant destroys a Cardassian outpost. Korinas thanks Sisko for his tactical acumen, also making a snide remark at Dukat in the process.
Kira manages to sabotage the plasma conduits, burning herself in the process, which keeps the Defiant uncloaked for a half an hour while they effect repairs. She also questions Thomas’s commitment to the Maquis, since he doesn’t live in the DMZ. Thomas brings her to the bridge to keep an eye on her.
Sisko and Dukat bond over fatherhood—Dukat had to not take his son to an amusement center on his eleventh birthday to fulfill this mission—while repairs are completed on the Defiant. Thomas reveals to Kira what their actual mission is: they intercepted an intelligence report that there’s a secret buildup of Cardassian ships that even Central Command doesn’t know about in the Orias system. The Maquis believes that it’s a fleet being constructed to invade the Federation and destroy the Maquis. Kira then takes Thomas to task for his actions. He’s not acting like a terrorist, he’s acting like a Starfleet officer—like a hero. “Terrorists don’t get to be heroes.”
Sisko figures out that the Defiant’s attacks are designed to shift Cardassian patrols away from the Orias system. Dukat doesn’t see why that’s a big deal—there’s nothing there and only one M-class planet that’s uninhabited—but he orders a ship there. Korinas then informs him that the Orias system is under the Order’s purview, and no ships will be sent there, and any vessel that enters the system will be fired upon.
The Cardassians pick up a neutrino leak—courtesy Kira’s sabotage—heading for the Orias system. Despite Korinas’s apprehension, Dukat sends ten ships after the Defiant, which leads them right to Orias. Then three Keldon-class ships come from Orias, which Dukat doesn’t recognize—which means they belong to the Order, who aren’t supposed to have military equipment of any kind. Korinas just smiles and walks away.
Sisko makes Dukat an offer. The Defiant had to have scanned Orias, and Dukat obviously wants to know what’s going on there. He offers the sensor logs in exchange for getting the Maquis, the Defiant, and Kira back. Dukat insists that they bring at least Thomas into custody, as there must be a scapegoat brought to Cardassian justice, and he led the mission.
Thomas manages to disable two of the Cardassian ships pursuing them, but three more come out of the Orias system. Dukat and Sisko then call with the deal offer. Kira convinces him to be a Starfleet officer one last time and think of his crew. There’s no way the Defiant can defeat more than a dozen ships. Sisko tells him to surrender to one of the ships behind him, as the ones in front aren’t under Dukat’s command. Thomas beams to a Cardassian ship—after getting a quick smooch with Kira—and Kira then takes the Defiant home, after promising to get Tom out of there.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently you can use the wiring under the replicator panel to set off an explosion that will damage your ship. Some of this is Kira’s general awesomeness and using her mad terrorist skillz to commit acts of sabotage but it’s also appalling how easy it is to bring a warship to a dead stop from the crew cabin.
The Sisko is of Bajor: “Emissary” established that Sisko’s previous post was the Utopia Planitia shipyards, so the revelation that Sisko helped design the Defiant isn’t much of a surprise. He also shows impressive tactical acumen, anticipating Thomas’s moves, and remaining a step ahead of Dukat and the other Cardassians.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Thomas uses Kira to get on board the Defiant, but then is stuck with her, so she gets to be his conscience. Her speeches to him on the subject of terrorism are magnificent, and she sees through his desire to help the Maquis for what it really is: being something other than William Riker.
The slug in your belly: When Will Riker visited the station and cleaned up at Quark’s, Dax lent him a couple of strips of latinum during a losing streak.
For Cardassia! The civilian government of Cardassia, first mentioned in “Cardassians,” is given a name: the Detapa Council. “The Wire” and “Second Skin” established that the Central Command and the Obsidian Order share power, and Dukat states outright that the Detapa Council’s functions are mostly ceremonial.
Tough little ship: Hilariously, I had chosen this header for the section on the Defiant based on Will Riker’s line in First Contact, having completely forgotten that Tom Riker said the exact same thing about the ship in this episode. Ronald D. Moore scripted both movie and episode, so the movie line was probably a deliberate callback. Either way, it fits, as the Defiant destroys an outpost and two ships with only minimal damage to itself. (Kira does more damage with her sabotage, truly.)
Also we get our first mention of quantum torpedoes, which are apparently bigger and badder than photon torpedoes….
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Kira and Thomas spend three hours talking in Quark’s, which Kira insists isn’t romantic, despite Dax’s egging on the next morning. She also volunteers a tour of the station on her off-duty time—which leads directly to Thomas stealing the ship, though one suspects he would’ve gotten on the Defiant one way or another. At the end, Thomas is rewarded for his selflessly letting himself be imprisoned in exchange for his crew being tried by the Federation rather than Cardassia by getting to smooch Kira.
Keep your ears open: “The last time I was here, I was only able to spend a couple of hours in Quark’s. But by the time I left, I had all of his latinum and a date with one of his dabo girls, so I thought I might try my luck again.”
“You be careful. Quark’s dabo wheel has been a little stingy lately, and one of his dabo girls is dating my son.”
Thomas pretending to be Will, and Sisko making it clear that dating the dabo girls may not be such a hot idea this time.
Welcome aboard: Past TNG guest star Tricia O’Neil (Captain Garrett in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and Kurak in “Suspicions”) plays Korinas, while Shannon Cochran reprises the role of Kalita, the Maquis member she played on TNG’s “Preemptive Strike”; she’ll be back in “You Are Cordially Invited…” to play Sirella and the movie Nemesis to play Senator Tal’Aura. And Marc Alaimo returns as Dukat.
But the big guest is, of course, Jonathan Frakes, appearing to reprise his TNG starring role as William Riker, but truly reprising the role of Riker’s “transporter twin” Thomas Riker from TNG’s “Second Chances.”
Trivial matters: This episode serves as a sequel to TNG’s “Second Chances,” with Thomas mentioned as serving on the Gandhi, the ship he transferred to at the end of that episode. It also takes place shortly prior to Star Trek Generations, and in fact aired the same week that movie was released (timing that likely was not coincidental).
Riker was established as having cleaned up at Quark’s Bar in TNG’s “Firstborn.” It’s unknown when he did so, though it could have been when the Enterprise visited the station in “Birthright I.”
The Double Helix novel Quarantine by John Vornholt serves as the bridge between “Second Chances” and “Defiant,” showing how Thomas came to join the Maquis, and also featuring Voyager’s Chakotay, Torres, Seska, and Tuvok. The novel ends with Chakotay suggesting the mission to steal the Defiant to Thomas.
While the show never picked up on Kira’s promise to get Thomas home (though it was discussed in later seasons), several novels and comics told varying (and contradictory) stories about Thomas’s fate, among them Triangle: Imzadi II by Peter David (which takes place very shortly after this episode), the 29th and 30th issues of Malibu’s DS9 comic written by Mark Paniccia, the Millennium trilogy by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the Titan novel Fallen Gods by Michael A. Martin, and The Poisoned Chalice, James Swallow’s entry in The Fall miniseries. Thomas’s fate is also part of both the Dominion Wars and Star Trek Online videogames.
Though Thomas doesn’t appear in the eBook A Weary Life by Robert Greenberger (part of the Slings and Arrows miniseries), Kalita does, and Thomas’s actions kind of hang over the events of the storyline.
Jonathan Frakes will go on to play a person who was born with the name William Riker in all four Star Trek spinoffs as he’ll play William Riker in Voyager’s “Death Wish” and Enterprise’s “These are the Voayges…,” making him the only opening-credits Trek regular to appear on three of the remaining four shows (Ethan Phillips, Tim Russ, Armin Shimerman, and Marina Sirtis appeared on two other shows; all the others only appeared on one other, if any—Rene Auberjonois, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Siddig el-Fadil, DeForest Kelley, Robert Duncan McNeill, Colm Meaney, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Picardo, Brent Spiner, and Sir Patrick Stewart).
The truth behind the fleet the Obsidian Order is constructing in the Orias system will be revealed in “Improbable Cause” and “The Die is Cast.”
Walk with the Prophets: “Maybe that’s what Will Riker would do.” A tense, exciting little thriller with echoes of Fail-Safe and The Hunt for Red October, a nice use of a familiar actor playing a slightly less familiar character, a nice sequel to a stronger-than-expected TNG episode, a good insight into the characters of Sisko and Dukat, lotsa Cardassian political thingie stuff, and some great insights into the differences between terrorists and heroes from Kira. Plus we make it clear that, even though the work has been done to set up Voyager with the Maquis, just because Chakotay’s gang is trapped in the Delta Quadrant doesn’t mean the organization isn’t still a thorn in everyone’s side.
This story continues the work done in “The Maquis” two-parter and “Civil Defense” in making Dukat a more rounded character. He’s actually completely sympathetic here, and if you watch “Defiant” without ever having seen another episode of the show, you’d think he was one of the good guys. Marc Alaimo and Avery Brooks continue to sparkle in their scenes together, and their bonding over fatherhood is one of the best scenes in the series history.
And then we get the politics, as the contempt that Central Command and the Obsidian Order have for each other is seen again, as it was in “Second Skin,” only with Dukat and Korinas in the Ghemor and Entek roles this time. Tricia O’Neil is magnificent as Korinas, her smile just radiating sleazy evil. She’s a good foot shorter than Alaimo, yet when Dukat confronts Korinas, there’s no doubt who has the power in the room, and it ain’t the gul.
Brooks also lets Sisko shine here, showing us what a talented tactician Sisko is, and also how you really shouldn’t mess with his stuff. He doesn’t hesitate to go deep into enemy territory to help track down the Defiant, because he knows the stakes. He also doesn’t hesitate to do everything he can to save lives, including a very clever use of Dukat’s desire to know what the hell’s going on in Orias to broker a peaceful solution. Though it’s never mentioned, you get the feeling that Sisko’s still feeling the sting of Cal Hudson’s betrayal in “The Maquis” two-parter and won’t let someone else in that uniform betray him. (Not to mention kidnapping his first officer…)
Speaking of Kira, Nana Visitor comes very close to owning this episode—no mean feat in a story that has so much Dukat-and-Sisko goodness. In her speeches to Thomas, we see the real sting of the betrayal of Starfleet’s values that the Maquis represents. Hudson never gave a good goddamn about being a hero, and was more than happy to blow up ships and kill people just to prove a point. He stopped being a Starfleet officer as soon as he joined the Maquis and phasered his uniform to prove it. Tom Riker, though, never takes his uniform off. In fact, it’s not even his uniform, it’s Will’s he’s wearing, as if trying desperately to prove that he should’ve been the one to wear it, and if not, he’s going to seriously disgrace it.
But Kira’s right in that he’s not acting like terrorist. He’s not trying to help the colonists in the DMZ, he’s going on a covert ops mission to save the Federation. That’s what heroes do, but it’s not what terrorists would do. Kira details in great depth what she’d do if she had the Defiant when she was in the resistance, and it boils down to “not what you’re doing.”
To make matters worse, it’s a plan that fails, because the intelligence report he’s basing the mission on sold the Orias system short: they’ve got at least part of a working fleet, and even the Defiant can’t handle that many ships.
If anything, the episode could’ve afforded more of a look into Thomas’s psyche—did he really have a death wish? And the other Maquis seem to just go along with things, giving us only Shannon Cochran looking constipated every time Thomas gives an order she doesn’t like. But still, it’s a nicely constructed episode about some hard choices with some lovely moving forward of various bits of galactic politics.
I do recall several fans complaining at the time the episode aired about the way O’Brien was treated. People kept thinking they missed something or the script left something out, because O’Brien went along with Thomas dissing him like that, so it must have been something that really happened. But it really wasn’t. O’Brien is the one person on the station who knows Will Riker well, and so was the most likely to see through the deception. Thomas had to get rid of him as fast as possible, and he knew that O’Brien, as an enlisted man, would never question a high-ranking officer who told him to screw off.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido in retrospect wishes he had worked Korinas into his novel The Art of the Impossible, especially since Rachel Garrett, another Tricia O’Neil part, was in the book. He’s also extensively written O’Neil’s third Trek role, Kurak, in his various pieces of Klingon fiction.
Huh. Didn’t recognize Captain Garrett at all. Nice work there from Ms. O’Neil and the makeup crew. She was great in the part.
I did always wish they would really come back to this in the show proper. I don’t think that DS9 needed it, but it would have been nice to have a canon resolution to Thomas’ story. The STO storyline is very unsatisfying.
This really was a great episode for Kira, Sisko and Dukat.
On the whole a really solid episode that gives us a lot of depth to what will come. And until Krad mentioned it, I never connected Cal Hudson with Sisko’s reaction to later events.
They also went a long way here to continue making us rather like Dukat. Culturally, we’re more inclined to distrust spies and seret police than we are the military. And the underhanded maneuvering by the Obsidian Order here really makes Dukat look like a good guy. It’s rather impressive given where the whole series eventually goes with all of these characters.
I always enjoyed this episode it’s fun. I was suprised Dukat is kinda warm and fuzzy in this episode adding a new layer to the character. I like how Kira explains to the nice Starfleet Officer that he is not in fact being a terrorist but a hero. I figured out what Thomas was doing with O’Brien as soon as it’s reveiled he’s not Will Riker but thought I’d missed something important between the two of them until that point. Then I was no longer upset with their meeting of each other.
It should be the Gandhi, not the Ghandi. The name is actually pronounced more or less like “gond-hee” said quickly (technically, the final vowel is aspirated).
One more bit of trivia: The big viewscreen wall in the Cardassian HQ was a miniature incorporated into the set with special effects.
It’s interesting the way this episode showed hints of the series’s growing serialization, in that the business about the Orias system would turn out to be not merely a crisis du jour, but foreshadowing for a major upcoming event. Although I don’t recall whether it was seeded intentionally, or if they just decided “Hey, this is interesting, let’s expand on it.”
You’re right about Dukat and Sisko- it’s a great scene because it really shows the universal bonds between c ultures and does a great job of reminding us how nuanced Dukat is. He’d be a really likeable character, if he also wasn’t a complete meglomaniacal bastard.
Kira also does a great job as Riker’s conscience- she’s the one most capable of doing it, having actually been a guerilla fighter (or terrorist depending on your point of view) and pulling back the veil on what Riker is doing.
I remember watching this episode though and thinking that it would have been a bit better if it wasn’t quite so set-piece. Most of the scenes are either on the Defiant or in the Cardassian control room- there are apparently some impressive space battles (albeit one sided as the Defiant rips through Cardassian space) but we just hear about it through reports. Perhaps though that’s not a bad thing- Red October and Das Boot are powerful movies and we almost never see outside of control rooms.
One thing though- I’d think that a Federation starship would have more internal security than Defiant does- Kira unlocks the ship and that about does it. I get that Riker would be able to fool internal sensors (he’s a perfect copy of Will Riker after all) but how about the random maquis. They appear to be able to just sit down and operate any station- I’d think that there would be some sort of localized system to make sure the person attempting to access the station is Starfleet personnel. If nothing else, the workstation would most likely base system preferences based upon the individual user.
Overall though a good episode though- albeit with the loose thread of Thomas Riker. The writers should have probably have killed him in some sort of heroic rearguard action with Kira or Sisko eulogizing him as the last scene. Instead we get three different possibilities of his future in the novels-the Imzadi 2 storyline where he is “rescued” by Sela, the Titan storyline where he is presumed dead, and the Millenium storyline (which is admittedly an averted alternate timeline) where he is rescued by the Grigari. Just a loose, unnecessary thread that was never really tied up by the expanded universe writers.
No offense to the writers that is…
After Odo reads the Wikipedia entry for “Second Chances,”…
Hm…no, I’m pretty sure he hit the TNG Rewatch first. (wink wink, ndge nudge)
Back on topic, I didn’t realize until now just where events line up among the different series. So, the Enterprise-D is destroyed this week, and sometime towards the end of season 2 is when the Voyager is “lost with all hands”.
@@@@@ Jeremy Marr: I believe Voyager is lost with all hands midway through Season 3, since Voyager started airing in January 1995, halfway through DS9’s third season.
Something I’d meant to mention before, but forgot. There is one plot hole here that really should have blown the whole thing wide open right at the start. It’s already been established that the Bajor system is pretty much at the ass end of nowhere. “On his way to Raisa” sounds like a plausible reason for Will Riker to be there, but it’s really out of the way. Sisko ought to have twigged to that and been just a little suspicious.
I really don’t get why the Obsidian Order isn’t allowed to have military equiptment. They are essentially a spy agency. I mean, that would be like the CIA or NSA not being able to use miltary hardware to carry out their missions. I guess one could argue that they aren’t supposed to have ships, because that, again, would be like the CIA having its own naval carrier. But they said military equipment. It never made much sense to me that the spy agency and militaristic government would share power. But it is an alien world so…But this episode was great. I admit that I was totally lost when “Riker” dissed O’Brien so completely and humiliatinlgy in front of Kira. I mean, he should have known that it was a bit out of character for Commander Riker to openly diss a person, even if he was so much lower in rank than himself, in front of another officer. It bordered on bullying. They always had the “Torture O’Brien” eps every season and this is a light one…because you never saw him again in this one so I can imagine him just sitting in his quarters throughout the events of this episode, ignoring Keiko, and trying to figure out just what in the hell Riker was talking about (“I think you know why.” “No, sir, I really, really don’t.”) That just makes me laugh. Good episode.
@8: Yes, but the Enterprise is a deep-space exploration vessel that, by all rights, should spend most of its time even further beyond the Federation’s borders than DS9. So it’s plausible that he could pass near DS9 when heading back in from the frontier toward a Federation world like Risa.
@9: The Order doesn’t have its own equipment because they and the Central Command are locked in a struggle for dominance and the Command doesn’t want to cede its monopoly on military force. These aren’t agencies answering to a united government like the CIA and the US Navy; they’re power-craving factions of a dictatorship, jockeying with each other for control.
It’s not implausible that Riker would go from wherever the Enterprise is to Risa via any star base…. I have to imagine the normal procedure for an officer going on leave would be to get on a supply ship or other vessel to wherever that ship was going, then transfer to another ship going where you want to (like making a connection in Atlanta to go from DC to Chicago). Riker might even try to transfer towards Ds9 so he can go to Quarks… So not that unusual for him to be there
My question is, how did Thomas know so much about Will’s previous visit to the station? I mean, for all we know, he could have been making up the stuff about cleaning up at the Dabo tables (and it does seem like something Will would do), but he’s able to recognize Dax after she mentions that she lent him money, a memory which, theoretically, only Will should know.
LazerWulf: Keep in mind that his conversations with Sisko and Dax were after he spent three hours talking in the bar with Kira. A smart operative could easily divine more specifics of Riker’s previous visit there with cleverly phrased questions and leading sentences and such. Over the course of those three hours, Quark could’ve asked him if he was going to give him a chance to win back all the dabo winnings from last time, or pointed him at the dabo girl he dated last time or some such.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I always liked the bit in this episode when Dukat really seemed to hating what he was doing because he was missing his son’s birthday and he didn’t want to be in the office. It was a very ‘real’ moment in the show that worked well.
I also liked the ingenuity with the effects. The writers wanted an absolutely ludicrous screen in the Cardassian war room, like the one in DR. STRANGELOVE, and were upset they didn’t have the money to do it. Then the effects guys said, “No problem,” and built the viewscreen as a miniature instead and just bluescreened it in. It looks great and I could never tell it wasn’t a real set dressing until I read the DS9 Companion.
@10 ChristopherLBennett
Well, DS9 is in Enterprise’s patrol zone, but it’s also right on the Cardassian border. The initial conceit of the show was that without the wormhole, the station was a dead end. That’s why they gave it to a lowly commander, after all. Since this must have happened just before Generations, I guess the question is where the Enterprise was at the time, though that isn’t necessarily something Sisko would have known.
@11 MikeKelm
I don’t know, on TNG it always seemed like people just took one of the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft whenever they went on leave. Obviously, what you describe would make more sense, but that’s not what we usually saw. There were tons of episodes where somebody was on their way back from somewhere or heading out in one of the shuttles. That also raises the question of just how Tom arrived at DS9. Presumably a Maquis ship, but they would have wanted to make it look reasonably probable, too.
@12 LazerWulf
DS9 is also probably rife with Maquis agents. It’s right on the edge of the Badlands, close to Cardassian space, and has close contact to Starfleet. A report on Will Riker’s visit had to have wound up with Maquis intelligence (which also implies a very high degree of organization on their part).
@15: I don’t think the spatial geography was worked out in that detail at the start of the series. It was only later that they started treating Bajor and Cardassia as next-door neighbors as a story convenience. The initial concept had nothing to do with “dead ends” and galactic geography. I don’t know where you’re getting that from. DS9 was never presented as an unimportant posting from the UFP’s perspective. On the contrary, in “Emissary,” Picard stressed to Sisko the importance of bringing Bajor into the Federation, both for the recovery of Bajor itself and for what the Bajoran civilization could offer the UFP. What the wormhole’s discovery changed was Bajor’s importance to the Cardassians and to the rest of the galaxy. Cardassia had abandoned Bajor because it was mined out and the profit they could get from it was no longer worth the cost of lives inflicted by the resistance. Once the wormhole was discovered, Bajor became strategically important again.
There’s a lot in this episode that verges on cliche (Kira’s speechifying about ‘terrorists don’t get to be heroes,’ Sisko’s brilliance in tracking down the Defiant, even the way that Dukat is given additional depth), but it’s all done so well that it feels absolutely right. Just a great effort all around.
One thing I liked about this episode that hasn’t really been touched on.
Something that has to be stated to preface this: I’m a low-level Trekkie. Before I started watching DS9, I had the most experience with Voyager, which I saw most of while it was airing. I’d seen a good chunk of TNG as a kid, but I’m talking “fourth through sixth grade” here, so my memory of it is spotty to say the least. And I’ve only seen part of TNG’s first season recently.
So getting to see Frakes do his thing in this episode? It was such a treat. He just has this amazing, casual charisma that wasn’t there in the first-season episodes I saw. And I’m not gonna lie, he’s pretty handsome. It’s not hard at all to believe he could charm the pants off Kira if he felt like it. I feel like this whole episode was as good as it was because Frakes is a great actor, and they put him down in the middle of a cast of similarly great actors – Visitor, Alaimo, especially Brooks. I’ve come to love the cast of DS9 for how much chemistry they have, and Frakes just feels like he’d fit right in.
So was it ever explained why the Romulans are now fine with the Federation having a cloaking device without a Romulan around to babysit it? The last I remember seeing the original Romulan babysitter was when she was tied up with the rest of them when they were inside the Founders’ Matrix.
Quasarmodo: that was, in fact, never explained.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quasarmodo & krad: I’m pretty sure that we got some hand-waving about this later on, but I never watched DS9 as much as TNG so someone more familiar is going to have to corroborate. I thought there was an episode with a Romulan where they’re like “What? You’ve been using the cloaking device without telling us?” Which is just all kinds of ridiculous.
The real reason is that they didn’t want to pay to have a Romulan extra hanging around all the time. The whole conceit was pretty stupid to begin with, especially considering that we know the Feds have the phasing cloak from the the TNG episode “Pegasus”. If the Defiant is supposed to the ass-kicker to end all ass-kickers, then you can bet your ass they’re secretly putting that puppy onboard and not informing any of the other races about it. They could even keep it a secret from most of the crew members. Who would really have to know about it, except for an engineering crew and the bridge crew?
Before anyone goes all “Feds have a treaty preventing cloaking development” on me, who cares? They’re already not abiding by the terms of the loan from the Romulans, so they’re not acting any better.
Drunken5yearold: Your post makes nothing like sense. In this very episode, Sisko reiterates that the cloak is a loaner from the Romulans in exchange for providing any data they receive on the Dominion. (Said data is put to use by the Romulans, to their regret, in “The Die is Cast.”) No treaty violations at all — more like an amendment to the existing treaty.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Back in the ancient days of AOL (don’t judge), I was a frequent visitor to the forums for DS9, as was Ronald D. Moore. It was a great place to get insight into the writers’ thought processes as they were actually writing the episodes (along with some killer spoilers!). The question Moore was asked more often than any other was “When is Kira going to rescue Tom Riker?”. I often wondered if he regretted putting the line in where Kira promises to get Tom back. It was one of those things they all agreed should happen but could never seem to work in to the show. I would have liked even a throwaway line to resolve it, something to say that there was a report that Riker escaped on his own or was rescued by the Maquis, or was killed by the Dominion when they took over, or something, anything to explain why Kira didn’t follow through. Instead it was just one more hanging thread no one ever mentioned again. In any case, this episode remains one of my favorites due to Visitor’s excellent performance. Kira’s speeches to Tom about terrorists/freedom fighters and heroes are delivered with the passion and pain of someone who has lived the difference.
The only only drawback to this excellent episode is there was never any followup, as mentioned above, not even a throwaway line as to what happened to TR, and Star Trek Online did a really unsatisfying story on it, also mentioned above. Other than that, a gripping hour of television, made even more great by Jonathan Frakes. Mixing him in with Avery Brooks, Marc Alaimo, and particularly Nana Visitor made for television gold.
I have to admit, I gave a little squee when Riker showed up, and then when he shot Kira I knew obviously something was up, and then it took me about a split second to think, “hey, it’s the OTHER Riker!”
Definitely a fun episode, and the discussion on the aims of terrorism vs. being a hero was pretty good. Although I’d like to think that Thomas Riker was at least partially truly motivated by wanting to help the colonists and caring about his cause, not JUST trying to differentiate himself from the other Riker.
I also wondered about Kira’s comment about rescuing him…to be honest, it seems like that would be a bit underhanded to do so since that was part of the agreement.
Also, I do not think Riker, charming as he is, was entitled to that kiss. I get that it was supposed to be thrilling drama and it’s how stuff like that works in movies/TV but…lately I can’t help viewing everything through the lens of more serious topics and it kind of ruins stuff like that for me!
I just rewatched this episode myself. Upon seeing the scene between Tom and O’Brien, another thought occurred to me. Yes, since O’Brien would know Will Riker the best out of anyone on the station, Tom would have to figure out a way to get him out of the way. But for Tom, it might be more than just strategy. Recall that Tom was created as a result of what was basically a transporter accident. Also recall that O’Brien spent five or so years on the Enterprise as a transporter chief. If Tom knew O’Brien well enough to know he spent years on the Enterprise serving under Will Riker (not to mention occasionally dining with him and playing poker with him), Tom might also know O’Brien’s job there. For Tom, acting rude to O’Brien could have been personal; a transporter chief on the Potemkin just like O’Brien inadvertently caused the transporter accident that created two William T. Rikers. It’s an odd bias, to be certain, but most prejudices are formed around circumstantial reasons anyway.
Speaking of O’Brien: http://chiefobrienatwork.com/post/108775686736/episode-58-table-for-three-read-the-previous
Chief O’Brien At Work :)
I really like this episode, but the one moment that made my eyes roll out of my head was when Tom Riker dramatically ripped off the side parts to his beard. I mean come ooonnn…aside from how cliche it was – what was the point? Was someone really going to say “I know Will Riker, and you, sir, are not Will Riker! Will Riker has a slightly different beard!”. Did that happen when Will first grew his beard? Did that happen when Sisko grew his beard? Of course not. At most somebody might say “Oh, you changed your beard again, huh”.
And anyway, even if he did it just to be safe, didn’t he plan this mission for longer than a week or two? Why not just grow out his beard to where he wants it?
so riker gives miles all that ice cold attitude by he didn’t want to be found out. Was there anything else behind it?
A very good episode, but I’m left slightly unsatisfied at the thought that (leaving aside the security protocol issues raised @5) that a bunch of Maquis can sit down at the controls of one of Starfleet’s newest ships and operate it with the best of ’em. Even assuming they are former Starfleet personnel and not just disgruntled colonists, I’m sure they wouldn’t have been trained in how to operate a Romulan cloaking device. Can it really be that simple?
Excellent episode, I particularly love the Sisko/Dukat scenes.
@2 – DemetriosX: Distrust of military varies depending on where you are. When your country has been under military dictatorship sometime within the past 40-50 years, distrust of the military can be rather high in certain circles.
Shouldn’t Riker have reported to Sisko before going to Quark’s, or was that a clue that it’s Tom Riker? The DS9 writers felt the character of Tom Riker had run its course after Defiant because they had no interest in a follow up. 9: Keiko was on Bajor during this episode although she does make a brief return in the next episode (eek!) Fascination. Jonathan Frakes looks downright creepy in that picture of him in Sisko’s office.
Anyone else interested in a TNG follow-up to this episode? It would obviously start off like this:
Sisko: “Actually, that’s part of the reason why I contacted you. Captain, I need to speak to you and Commander Riker privately about an incident that just occurred.”
Riker: “Can you be more specific, Ben?”
Sisko: “I’m sorry, it’s rather personal. Believe me, Commander, you’ll want to hear this in private.”
Riker has a twin who deserted Starfleet, impersonated him and joined the Maquis. Big, big deal!
My favorite bit about Dukat’s speech is the venom at the end. How much of it is anger at missing his son’s birthday, and how much is Dukat sticking it to his rival?
@35: And that’s one of the things that makes Dukat such a great character and antagonist; you’re never really quite certain, as his self-serving pride colours his every action.
@33/David Sim: Technically if he was on shore leave, as he falsely claimed, he wouldn’t be obligated to report to Sisko at all. The scene in Sisko’s office was simply for etiquette sake and to maintain the illusion that he is Will and not Tom.
@37: Yeah, Will Riker making a courtesy call to the local Starfleet commander out of basic politeness seems entirely in-character for him, and it would be something Tom would have to emulate to keep up appearances.
Lockdown rewatch. A very good episode, not a classic but some great moments, All the Sisko, Dukat and Korinas stuff is pure class as is most of the Tom Riker and Kira scenes.. with the exception of the cringe kiss at the end…definitely would not have happened in the me too era. On the subject of never following up on Tom Riker as Kira promised him I have half a memory of reading somewhere that Jonathan Frakes was never happy about the Transporter twin story in TNG that created Tom and that he only agreed to reprise the role here as the script originally had Tom killed off at the end of the episode. It may be they never revisited Tom because Frakes was reluctant to do it.
Jeremy Marr’s (Comment No. 6) assessment on the timeline is probably correct. This episode aired the following Monday after Star Trek: Generations premiere.
This was the episode that really sold me on Sisko’s pimp hand…I mean, uh the USS Defiant when it effortlessly crippled that Cardassian Galor-class.
A pretty good episode, a nice character piece for Riker’s same-but-different duplicate. I was glad to see they didn’t forget about him and I think his decision to go rogue made sense; he was alone and forgotten for eight years and was eventually found…only to be living in his own shadow. His sense of pride made him feel the need to go to the extreme opposite of William Riker just to stand out in his own way, which is pretty tragic.
I agree with Keith’s 8 rating.
I may be in the minority finding this episode rather less than the sum of its parts. There’s some good material but it feels oddly anticlimactic to me and that kiss at the end massively undercuts all the positives from the episode.
We did get such a laugh from the clank of Kira’s jumja stick dropping onto its plate that we had to rewind.
I also found this episode meh. I appreciated seeing Tom again but previous-to-this-episode rewatches on here spoiled me to expect that. Otherwise, the Kira kiss was weird and uncool, and Tom’s acquiescence to the new terms comes too easily. The Maquis members *are* terrorists and didn’t have much fight in ’em compared to Kira “I’ma blow up this whole ship here and now, and probably die in the act” Nerys