DS9 S3.E9 - Defiant

Season 3, Episode 9 - "Defiant," or "will.i.am.not"

For the life of me, I cannot remember an episode about William Riker's Chaotic Good twin. I know I've seen this episode, because I have reviewed every episode of TNG. I suspect that if I were to rifle through my archives of TNG reviews, I would have said something about Riker's Twin along the lines of: "an unforgettable episode that will haunt me for the rest of my days."

Serves you right, Past Me.

Anyway, I was absolutely certain Defiant would've been the first DS9 episode I actually disliked. Its first fifteen minutes unfold like a droll by-the-numbers Very Special Episode of DS9 in which an aging Jonathan Frakes appears on set to make one last desperate attempt to remind the show's fans that Riker is still the galaxy's most eligible beard.

Riker saunters into the show with all the swagger of a walrus on a ketogenic diet. Kira and Jadzia give him sidelong glances like gossiping schoolgirls eyeing up the hot new substitute teacher. Riker and Sisko banter about gambling and gambling-related dancers, as men should. And right up until the moment Riker shoots Kira in the back, I'm convinced I'm going to have to MST3K this entire episode.

But something I'm discovering about DS9 is that my expectations are routinely undermined by the show's commitment to good storytelling over familiar, well-worn tropes for their own sake. The concept of a guest star in an episode is an old and familiar one, reminiscent of Chief Engineer Scotty's heartwarming and bittersweet appearance in the final season of TNG. I expected a valedictory episode saying goodbye to Riker (and by extension, Frakes, and all of TNG) using DS9 as its vehicle. I expected this to be an episode where the usual business of DS9 steps aside for a few moments, yielding 50 minutes of space to a charmingly self-indulgent episode about a charmingly self-indulgent William Riker.

As usual, I was wrong.

Defiant's plot is fairly simple at first glance. Commander Riker is actually "Tom Riker," a clone of our original, familiar Riker whose life diverged from his origin point following a tragic transporter accident. Like two species experiencing divergent evolution, Tom Riker and Will Riker become two different people. But there are still similarities, still some overriding characteristics they both share. A penchant for the dramatic, a flair for grandstanding, and a commitment to doing the right thing at any cost.

Tom Riker has joined the Maquis. He steals the eponymous Defiant, ostensibly with the intention of using a massive warship against the Cardassians. The Cardassians--namely, Gul Dukat--freak out at the realization that the Maquis have a warship in their hands. This is roughly the equivalent of the Sinn Fein getting their hands on Optimus Prime and turning it against the British Empire. Riker's actions precipitate the Cardassians and the Federation to the brink of war, so Dukat and Sisko put aside their differences and try to prevent Riker from striking a match on the tinderbox of Federation diplomacy.

What I love about Defiant is its elaborate layering of its own plot. This entire episode reads like a cold war thriller. The Cardassians don't want to go to war with the Federation. The Federation doesn't want to go to war against the Cardassians. Riker doesn't want to hurt Cardassians--he wants to destroy a group of clandestine Cardassian extremists building up their forces, illegally, in the Delta Quadrant. Meanwhile, the Obsidian Order doesn't want Gul Dukat discovering what Riker knows. Everyone has a gun to everyone else's head in this episode, and nobody wants to shoot first.

There's a lovely episode of West Wing about a tense Cold War situation between Taiwan and China involving wargames in the South China Sea. The crux of the episode involves the United States having to choose between supplying Taiwan with advanced ballistic missiles while dealing with Chinese belligerence, and over the course of the episode, we realize that the US was never going to give Taiwan any missiles, but had to pretend like they would, so that China could pretend like they were being belligerent, so that Taiwan could act like they had the US on their side. So everyone's beating their chests and rattling their sabers and waggling their metaphors, but no one's actually going to do anything.

This episode reminded me of that quality of dangerous Cold War brinksmanship. The Obsidian Order is playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship by raising a military fleet in secret, gambling that the Federation's treaty with the Cardassians will inevitably dissolve. Riker is playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship by driving the Defiant right into the heart of the Obsidian Order's operation. Sisko and Dukat are both grappling for advantage, trading one another political favors in exchange for Riker's life.

This episode is political maneuvering on the highest level, and it is delicious. I was stunned by the deftness with which the episode pivots away from a Very Special Riker Episode and hammers right into Hunt for Red October territory. In a way, this episode wants me to be fooled by the folksy, hammy charm of its first ten minutes. As I lower my guard at the sight of Riker's cheesy grin and poorly aged smolder, I'm vulnerable to the sucker punch that follows.

Any episode in which Gul Dukat and Sisko play political chess for the preservation of Federation-Cardassian peace is an episode I love. Throw in some razor-sharp Cold War maneuvering and a genuinely strong performance from our beloved Jonathan Frakes, and I'm in love.

Excellent episode.