After time away from the station, Sisko returns to Deep Space Nine with a surprise -- a tough warship named the Defiant, built in response to the Borg threat. With it he brings a mission to enter the Gamma Quadrant and seek the Founders, the mysterious leaders of the Dominion.
Adding the Defiant to the series was reportedly a real battle the writers had to win with Rick Berman and the executives at Paramount. Voyager was right around the corner, and it was supposed to be the "starship show." There were fears of brand dilution if Deep Space Nine were to add its own ship and start "boldly going" every week. The writers had to provide reassurance that the goal here wasn't to take the characters away from the station any more than usual. In truth, they just wanted to be able to take more characters than a runabout could comfortably hold (from both a story and production perspective).
There were still more fights beyond getting the ship itself. Staff writer Ronald Moore had wanted to name it the Valiant, but another "V"-named ship was not going to fly. Rick Berman was reluctant to let the ship have a cloaking device, worried that Gene Roddenberry would not have been happy about the Federation "sneaking around." Then there were budgetary considerations; the series wouldn't be able to show all the expected locations aboard a starship, and would have to make do with just a bridge, hallway, and single crew quarters.
All of these limitations led to some clever creative decisions that made the Defiant the compelling part of Deep Space Nine it would become. Its warship nature made for a really different visual design, more like an armored turtle than any Federation ship we'd seen before. The close crew quarters allowed for intensely personal scenes, like the one here in which Odo doesn't want to show vulnerability by "sleeping" in front of Quark.
Not every aspect of the Defiant was fully realized out of the gate, though. The machine gun-like phaser fire, though cool here, would be retooled. The idea that a Romulan character would be around to supervise the use of the cloaking device would be dropped after the two-parter (though actress Martha Hackett would get to play a recurring character on Star Trek -- Seska, over on Voyager).
The same attitude with the Defiant to "try new things -- some will stick, some won't" permeated other aspects of the episode too. Dax has a new (and wildly big) hairstyle here, never to be seen again after the two-parter. Odo has a new uniform with a belt and collar (a request from Rene Auberjonois, who liked these aspects of his "mirror universe" look); it would last a bit longer, though not permanently. What would last was the new character of Michael Eddington. Like the minor character of Primmin from season one, he was put there so that on screen he could clash with Odo over security issues, and behind the scenes he might fill in for Colm Meaney when he booked movies mid-season (as he'd done the first two years).
In many ways, this episode functions as a second pilot for the show. Explanations of the Dominion, the main characters (especially Odo), and the overall situation are laid on extra thick as if for first time viewers hopefully making the jump from the now-ended Next Generation. It's probably not a coincidence that this was the first episode scripted by Ronald Moore, a writer from The Next Generation who himself was making the jump to Deep Space Nine. Moore fits in right away, nailing a tense submarine-like scene of cat and mouse with the Jem'Hadar ships, delicately weaving in a discussion of racism (Odo thinks Starfleet is anti-shapeshifter; Sisko has to talk him down), and depicting friendships that feel comfortably and realistically lived in (both Kira/Odo and Sisko/Dax).
What Moore nailed on the page, director Kim Friedman nailed in the execution. Returning from the second season finale, Friedman puts great camera work in this episode. A roving, handheld camera stalks Dax and O'Brien while they're on a risky away mission. A "Vertigo zoom" captures Odo's reaction to meeting other shapeshifters for the first time. Friedman is also good with the actors. An early scene between Ben and Jake Sisko really convinces you they think of the station as home now. Odo's animalistic draw toward the Omarion Nebula somehow feels both spooky and natural. Eddington comes on nice; actor Kenneth Marshall said Friedman coached him that just the fact of his being there was threat enough to Odo.
The ending of the episode packs quite a punch, when Odo comes face to face with another changeling for the first time. As fun as parts of the season two finale were, it would have truly been something if this had been the cliffhanger end of that season. Odo has found his people? What?! Writers Behr and Wolfe had been cooking up the twist of the Founders being Odo's people for much of the previous season, but according to Behr, "we never thought they'd go for it in a million years." Similarly, Rene Auberjonois had often joked of his character that "the day we find out where Odo is from is the day that they will be writing me out of the show." But producers Michael Piller and Rick Berman were reportedly on board with the idea right away, and Auberjonois quickly realized that the development would only make his character more complex.
Other observations:
- One moment that doesn't play well at all is when Sisko produces the Grand Nagus staff and forces Quark to pay homage by kissing it. It's a weirdly petty moment for Sisko. There's also no particular reason why Quark should trust it's the genuine article and not a replica. (I mean, if Sisko can be that petty, why not that deceitful?) As actor Armin Shimerman aptly put it: "it seems to me that this was another example of the Federation making fun of, taking advantage of, and ridiculing the Ferengi way. So kissing the scepter was a bit irksome to both the actor and the character."
- In a small role as an alien, "I know that guy" actor John Fleck makes an appearance in the episode.
- When the Jem'Hadar board the Defiant, they barely fire their weapons at all, engaging instead in hand-to-hand combat. Is this saving the special effects budget, expressing the race's bloodthirst, or hinting at the truth (revealed in part two) that the goal of this attack is to take prisoners? All of the above?
- The Founders' homeworld is described as a rogue planet not orbiting a star, though when we see the planet from space, there's a very prominent and bright star in the visual.
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