"Defiant"

[MyCylon]

I'm just rewatching "Defiant" from S3. It's a really good episode, I think. There's a few interesting things about it which I always felt made it sort of special.
I remember looking forward to this back in the day as an "event" episode because it was featuring a guest appearance by Frakes. However, I don't think it's your typical event episode in that's so well integrated with the overall canvas of DS9 at the time. It's also just about the only key that could work in terms of having the Maquis stealing the Defiant without the crew coming across as complete morons. At worst, you can blame Starfleet for not taking some precautions (though I don't know what you actually COULD do) to ensure that Will and Tom could be told apart.
Bringin Tom in as a Maquis IMHO was nothing short of a little stroke of genius. It works, IMHO, in terms of DS9's backdrop but also in terms of Tom's character. From where he starts out on TNG, I can really see him going down such a path.
One of the really neat effects of this seeming to be an event episode at the time was that time was that I didn't fully grasp the groundwork that was being laid here. Some major elements for the excellent The Die is Cast / Improbable Case are put in place right here. And it's a joy watching the episode for that alone.
Performances are pretty strong across the board, and Sisko's visit to Cardassia with Dukat has many great moments between Brooks and Alaimo.

Oh, and the look on Dukat's face when he learns the Defiant has been stolen by the Maquis is PRICELESS

Btw.: This is one of those episodes that features a really bad supporting actor whose so bad it's fun. There's a communications guy in the operations base on Cardassia who makes we want to laugh and cringe everytime he says "anti-proton beams". He says it as though he's really proud of it or something the likes
There's a guy in the opening two parter in S7 whose even worse, actually. He's also a communications officer but this time, he's Bajoran. Know who I mean?

 

[Angel4576]

Always liked this episode. Couple of reasons why;

First, they didn't go down the traditional route with the 'event' guest star. Instead, they used his appearance to further one of the little side-stories that TNG started.

Second, it's a Maquis story. Always one of the most interesting arcs for me in DS9. Roddenberry would have hated it, but it finally shattered the myth that all in the Federation was eternally rosy.

A fantastic episode in itself, slightly marred that we should really have had a followup episode with Tom Riker later in the series. A shame.

 

[MyCylon]

^
I agree that a follow up would have been nice especially since IIRC Kira promises to free him.

 

[Angel4576]

Yeah, I think a lot of people were kind of expecting a follow up based on those comments.

There were always rumours that they were going to bring Sito back in DS9 as well (presumed killed by the Cardassians in TNG's Lower Decks).

Given that they were both likely imprisoned by the Cardassians, freeing them both would have been an obvious followup to Defiant.

 

[Kegek]

In fact, the episode idea for bringing back Sito was subsequently reworked into an O'Brien episode, "Hard Time." Discussions about Frakes' return went on even into the seventh season, he publicly expressed interest, but we all know what came of it.

"Defiant" has always been a favourite episode of mine. It's terse little drama that exploits the excellent Sisko/Dukat relationship - much like "The Maquis" the previous season - but this time they're teaming up to defeat a Maquis leader who is likeable, and not mere cardboard like Hudson. It's tense and to-the-point, IMHO the best Maquis episode.

And it sets up "Improbable Cause\The Die is Cast" when Riker comes across a secret Cardassian fleet being built illegally by the Obsidian Order... the same fleet they would use in their invasion through the wormhole. Pretty cool all and all.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ A shame on both fronts there. Although to be fair, in terms of Sito, Lower Decks works so much for the better knowing that she didn't later turn up on DS9. As good an episode as that one is, a moving conclusion would have been undermined somewhat if she'd popped up in DS9.

Tom Riker's return would have worked. Bugger.

 

[Kegek]

Not including Sito Jaxa not only didn't ruin "Lower Decks", I think "Hard Time" is a much better episode for being O'Brien-centric than Sito-centric. So one episode's integrity was perserved and a better episode came out of it.

The return of Tom Riker, though, was one of the major plot threads of DS9 never tied up. I'd have been quite content with a specific mention of him being killed - like Cal Hudson - but we never even got that much.

 

[Angel4576]

I think that by the time they eventually got to the point in the seventh season where it became clear that Riker wouldn't be coming back, it was a bit too late to really broach the subject, be it on or off screen.

The kind of episode that Hard Times is, ie. heavily-focussed on the principle, I'm not entirely sure that the girl who played Sito would have been able to pull that off. Certainly not to the extent that Meaney did.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

Justtoyourleft said:
One of the really neat effects of this seeming to be an event episode at the time was that time was that I didn't fully grasp the groundwork that was being laid here. Some major elements for the excellent The Die is Cast / Improbable Case are put in place right here. And it's a joy watching the episode for that alone.

That's alright. The writers didn't grasp the groundwork being laid here either. During the writing process for "Improbable Cause" somebody realized, "Hey, wouldn't it be great if..." and tied Tain's plot with the established Obsidian Order build up.

DS9's so-called "arcs" were always a seat-of-the-pants cobbling of random story elements forming an oddly coherent storyline. If only we could say the same about Ron Moore's current series.

 

[Angel4576]

^ Could be worse, Braga could be running it, in which case, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever, on any scale imaginable.

 

[DS9Continuing]

AdmiralGarak said:
DS9's so-called "arcs" were always a seat-of-the-pants cobbling of random story elements forming an oddly coherent storyline. If only we could say the same about Ron Moore's current series.

True, but the fact that the arcs did make as much sense as they did in retrospect, and could easily be mistaken for pre-planned ones, proves that the writers (under the command of Mr. Behr) paid attention to what they'd written before and asked the very sensible question, "What happens next?" It's a trick the Voyager writers never cracked.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ If you believe Ron Moore and Rob Beltran, the Voyager writers didn't give a damn about the series anyway.

 

[Navaros]

I disagree that Defiant was a good episode. I put it on the same exact par as Q-Less is on.

I found Tom Riker to be an incredibly bland and useless character that added nothing whatsoever to the DS9 show, and actually dragged the show down for that one episode to a TNG-esque level. DS9 for the most part had moved past that after Season 1, until "Defiant" took a major step backwards to that.

 

[Angel4576]

I didn't find the character to be any more or less bland than most other guest spots on DS9. His motives were fairly sound. He couldn't fit back into Starfleet and had lost confidence, he still had Wil Riker's sense of honour and duty, if somewhat slightly distorted, and he took up the Maquis' cause to distinguish himself from Wil whilst at the same time proving a point to himself that he could do important things, just like Wil. As guest characters go, those motives are quite well defined.

Then there are the wider implications of the story, the build up of ships, the growing rift between the Cardassian military and their Obsidian Order, plus the juxtaposed position of Kira, the former terrorist, having to diffuse the situation with Tom and the Maquis.

Works pretty well for me. Q-Less comes across as an early attempt at trying to grab some of the TNG crowd. By the time Defiant aired I think they were past that, and this one actually meant something, where Q-Less did not.

 

[Navaros]

Angel4576 said:
I didn't find the character to be any more or less bland than most other guest spots on DS9.

Guest spots like Keevan, Kilana, the Jem'Hadar baby, Laas, Bilby, the weapons seller in Business as Usual, Brunt etc. etc., the list goes on and on, are dripping with personality, depth and nuance. Tom Riker has none of this, and pales extremely badly in comparison to them in terms of those factors.

 

[Michael]

Loved this episode. But always wondered why they couldn't use the set for the Cardassian HQ from this episode for the Dominion HQ later on, too. At least this doesn't look like two people squeezed into one tiny room. This HQ is believable.

 

[-Brett-]

When I saw this thread title, I was sure it would be yet another "what's with Riker and O'Brian..." thread.

Good job for not going that route.

 

[Angel4576]

Have to admit, I didn't find Keevan to be too enigmatic himself, he just played into the stereotypical duplicitous Vorta charicature, likewise Kilana, she didn't add anything that we hadn't already seen through Eris earlier on.

Brunt was developed over a number of episodes, and whilst charismatic, rarely ventured too far away from the Ferengi archetype of being a self-centred/self-interested, backstabbing, greedy little troll.

Laas and the Jem'hadar baby were fairly well developed, however both had more screentime in their respective episodes from memory.

Personality is a subjective term, for me, Riker had it. It was both Riker-esque, yet subtly different.

I guess most of this is actually subjective. I liked Riker on TNG, and by extension probably liked Tom Riker more than he deserved in Defiant. I'll have to dig it out soon and reassess

 

[Navaros]

Angel4576 said:
Have to admit, I didn't find Keevan to be too enigmatic himself, he just played into the stereotypical duplicitous Vorta charicature, likewise Kilana, she didn't add anything that we hadn't already seen through Eris earlier on.

Brunt was developed over a number of episodes, and whilst charismatic, rarely ventured too far away from the Ferengi archetype of being a self-centred/self-interested, backstabbing, greedy little troll.


Personality is a subjective term, for me, Riker had it. It was both Riker-esque, yet subtly different.

I guess most of this is actually subjective. I liked Riker on TNG, and by extension probably liked Tom Riker more than he deserved in Defiant. I'll have to dig it out soon and reassess

Keevan is wily, cunning, and devious as are all Vorta, but how does that equate to being a caricature? Those things are interesting qualities which make him great. Keevan didn't even stick to the status quo, and rejected his duties as a Vorta. Which paved the way for fascinating dialogues and a fascinating situation that would not have existed had he followed his Vorta rules.

Tom Riker's greatness and only redeeming/interesting quality is limited to: "I'm pretty, so love me." And maybe also "I was on TNG, so love me."

Kilana is completely different from Eris. Eris played as if she was a dumb stick in the mud for her whole appearance until the very end when her true colors as bold, sinister alien were revealed. Whereas Kilana took the completley different, fascinating approach and did something never been done before on DS9 or any other show. Tried to relate to Sisko and manipulate him diplomatically by approaching him as a motherly figure. A mom-like diplomat. Yet, still trying to throw him off guard dressing in a provocative way. Amazing, unique concept, amazingly rich character.


True, Brunt stuck to the "bad guy" archetype for Ferengi, but so what, being a bad guy doesn't make him a bad character. It's his delivery of all that which makes him immensely more interesting than Tom Riker. Brunt's inflection, word choice, pacing, facial expressions, mannerisms, body movements are always changing from moment to the next (as with all JC characters, which makes it kind of ironic in my view how Frakes beat JC out of the Riker role on TNG. ) Contrast this with Tom Riker, who consistently gives a one-note delivery for everything.

I agree with the idea that Tom Riker character gets generally favorable reviews and is popular solely due to nostalgia-based emotions for TNG.

Of course the most ironic thing of all of this is that Mr. Frakes brought JC on board to DS9 and thus sort of paved the way his own character on DS9 being trumped by such contrasts. Mr. Frakes is of course, owed much thanks for bringing JC aboard onto Trek. :thumbsup:

 

[Angel4576]

Very true.

I really need to rewatch DS9 sometime soon by the looks of it.

Oh, and for the record, I liked Riker because he was on TNG, not because he's pretty (or not, I don't know, I'm not really qualified to make that assessment!)