I was never quite so taken with Sisko making a huge moral compromise and then brushing it off as perfectly acceptable, never to be referenced again. It felt like the writers were trying to make Trek edgy and real, man. The execution of it was very good, though.
The tone of Pale Moonlight pays off in the finale. This was never a war where Sisko and Garak were going to come out with happy endings.
Pale Moonlight loses a ton if you're not familiar with the show. They still sell it well, but the fact that this is a big deal for a Starfleet officer to do needs you to be familiar with the fact that in the past, the Starfleet officer doing this would be a one-off admiral who is unequivocally the bad guy, and gets read the riot act by Picard.
I would've liked to see a short story of Picard finding out about the events of Pale Moonlight after the fact, but during the war.
"Oh I'm sorry Jean-Luc. What were you doing during the war? Diplomatic missions to barely post-warp cultures with the most advanced starship in the fleet, and ensuring we didn't have a revolutionary new medical treatment for our hundreds of thousands of wounded?"
Sisko could give a shit what Picard thought. He never forgave him for his role in his wife's death, and Picard's return to the ranks was a huge part of Sisko's overall disillusion with Starfleet.
Pale Moonlight loses a ton if you're not familiar with the show. They still sell it well, but the fact that this is a big deal for a Starfleet officer to do needs you to be familiar with the fact that in the past, the Starfleet officer doing this would be a one-off admiral who is unequivocally the bad guy, and gets read the riot act by Picard.
I would've liked to see a short story of Picard finding out about the events of Pale Moonlight after the fact, but during the war.
"Oh I'm sorry Jean-Luc. What were you doing during the war? Diplomatic missions to barely post-warp cultures with the most advanced starship in the fleet, and ensuring we didn't have a revolutionary new medical treatment for our hundreds of thousands of wounded?"
Sisko could give a shit what Picard thought. He never forgave him for his role in his wife's death, and Picard's return to the ranks was a huge part of Sisko's overall disillusion with Starfleet.
I'd like to have seen that addressed a little more, but it only ever comes up in the pilot.
If First Contact were being made in a post-MCU world, some of the DS9 cast would have totally been on the Defiant, and the clashes between Sisko and Picard would have been excellent.
I wish they kept the last line in the show where Picard end the conversation with
"Oh and my deepest condolences for Drone 8 of ... ah... I mean your wife"
Pale Moonlight loses a ton if you're not familiar with the show. They still sell it well, but the fact that this is a big deal for a Starfleet officer to do needs you to be familiar with the fact that in the past, the Starfleet officer doing this would be a one-off admiral who is unequivocally the bad guy, and gets read the riot act by Picard.
I would've liked to see a short story of Picard finding out about the events of Pale Moonlight after the fact, but during the war.
"Oh I'm sorry Jean-Luc. What were you doing during the war? Diplomatic missions to barely post-warp cultures with the most advanced starship in the fleet, and ensuring we didn't have a revolutionary new medical treatment for our hundreds of thousands of wounded?"
Sisko could give a shit what Picard thought. He never forgave him for his role in his wife's death, and Picard's return to the ranks was a huge part of Sisko's overall disillusion with Starfleet.
I'd like to have seen that addressed a little more, but it only ever comes up in the pilot.
If First Contact were being made in a post-MCU world, some of the DS9 cast would have totally been on the Defiant, and the clashes between Sisko and Picard would have been excellent.
Did Sisko work out some of those feelings with Mirror Universe Jennifer?
Black lives matter.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
I wish they kept the last line in the show where Picard end the conversation with
"Oh and my deepest condolences for Drone 8 of ... ah... I mean your wife"
There wouldn't be a Picard anymore if he had said that.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Ehhhh I think it's more that they were trying to create someone that is unambiguously bad, as in he literally oversaw death camps, but at the same time was more than a 2D space Hitler caricature. The best villains are ones that occasionally manage to make you sympathise with their point of view, if only for a moment. Dukat was that guy and for that reason alone he was an excellent villain.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
+9
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
The important thing is that all of the "good man trapped by circumstance" stuff comes from Dukat himself as part of his self delusion. Everyone else is just waiting for the penny to drop.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
Part of the reason they wrote Waltz was the producers getting unnerved by Dukat's supporters (in the "did nothing wrong" sense) in the fandom, and wanted to make it as clear as possible what kind of person he was.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
Part of the reason they wrote Waltz was the producers getting unnerved by Dukat's supporters (in the "did nothing wrong" sense) in the fandom, and wanted to make it as clear as possible what kind of person he was.
I mean, those people are idiots. From episode one it was made abundantly clear that Dukat was directly responsible for brutal repression, concentration camps and death on a planetary scale. It's not the writers fault that no matter how obviously bad someone is you'll still find edgelords wearing their "make Cardassia great again" hats.
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
Part of the reason they wrote Waltz was the producers getting unnerved by Dukat's supporters (in the "did nothing wrong" sense) in the fandom, and wanted to make it as clear as possible what kind of person he was.
I mean, those people are idiots. From episode one it was made abundantly clear that Dukat was directly responsible for brutal repression, concentration camps and death on a planetary scale. It's not the writers fault that no matter how obviously bad someone is you'll still find edgelords wearing their "make Cardassia great again" hats.
I think there was also an undercurrent of fans expressing that they found Marc Alaimo hot in a very unfortunate way.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
the end of dukat’s arc was really stupid to me and if i think about it to much it kind of sours my memory of the show
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
I was never quite so taken with Sisko making a huge moral compromise and then brushing it off as perfectly acceptable, never to be referenced again. It felt like the writers were trying to make Trek edgy and real, man. The execution of it was very good, though.
Rotating guest writer systems will do that. I think the only general guidelines most of the writers were given is that it has to be related in some way to the currrent overarching plot.
Into the Pale Moonlight actually originated with the writers' room and ended there. Apparently it went to guest writer Peter Allan Fields, then it came back to the writer's room to be scripted by Michael Taylor, and then Ronald D. Moore finished it. I don't know if it was meant to be a bottle episode, but I think it might have ended up there just because of how hard it was to write ultimately. (I.e. the original attempts involved Jake playing an important role as a reporter revealing everything.)
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
It didn't have enough setup. Instead of a slow build, it felt like he just went apeshit because the finale was here, and they needed him to be over the edge for the final confrontation.
Pale Moonlight loses a ton if you're not familiar with the show. They still sell it well, but the fact that this is a big deal for a Starfleet officer to do needs you to be familiar with the fact that in the past, the Starfleet officer doing this would be a one-off admiral who is unequivocally the bad guy, and gets read the riot act by Picard.
I would've liked to see a short story of Picard finding out about the events of Pale Moonlight after the fact, but during the war.
"Oh I'm sorry Jean-Luc. What were you doing during the war? Diplomatic missions to barely post-warp cultures with the most advanced starship in the fleet, and ensuring we didn't have a revolutionary new medical treatment for our hundreds of thousands of wounded?"
Sisko could give a shit what Picard thought. He never forgave him for his role in his wife's death, and Picard's return to the ranks was a huge part of Sisko's overall disillusion with Starfleet.
I'd like to have seen that addressed a little more, but it only ever comes up in the pilot.
If First Contact were being made in a post-MCU world, some of the DS9 cast would have totally been on the Defiant, and the clashes between Sisko and Picard would have been excellent.
I mean, it comes up but then he gets over it. That's the entire arc of the pilot. Sisko comes to terms with his wife's death and reaffirms his belief in the mission of Starfleet.
Sisko/Picard clashes would be pointless and silly. There's nothing there to clash about. Sisko's wife's death is too raw a thing for him to feel comfortable hanging around Picard and Picard feels guilty over the whole thing but that's fodder for nothing more then awkward conversations and both people mutually avoiding each other, not some sort of silly neverending arguments.
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
His arc is pretty bad. What made Dukat interesting was that he was a person. He'd done monstrous things and was unrepentant about them and constantly tried to pass off the blame but he was also a guy you could understand and sympathize with sometimes. Like when Kira is helping him out in that one episode. It's a really interesting dynamic.
Waltz and everything after that reduces him to a villain with nothing but a Big Evil Plan and that's it. They stripped out all the things that made him interesting and gave him a dumb plot to try and make work.
Damar in many ways ends up taking over Dukat's place (as a sort of understandable antagonist) and you can see how the character really works well.
I really despised what DS9 did with Dukat. I always felt like they couldn't decide if they wanted him to become one of the "good guys" or continue being a villain, and ended up continually being wishy washy over it.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
The important thing is that all of the "good man trapped by circumstance" stuff comes from Dukat himself as part of his self delusion. Everyone else is just waiting for the penny to drop.
There's also that, given the very clear Nazi allegory thing going on there like
There were plenty of Nazi rank and file and commanders, that went home at the end of the day and likely had what they considered to be warm, fulfilling family lives.*
Which makes the utter inhumanity of it all that much more terrifying: these are/were people clearly capable of empathy. They just don't have it, or suppress it in one way or another, for their victims.
*Though even then, Dukat actually utterly fails at this. Given, you know, he abandoned his daughter for years rather than risk his career.
I wish Picard had appeared during the Dominion War arc. That would've been an interesting way to explore the contrast between them, and it would've helped the war feel larger. We're told that the fate of the entire quadrant is at stake and the core worlds are threatened, but we only see the stretch of space between DS9 and Cardassia.
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
His arc is pretty bad. What made Dukat interesting was that he was a person. He'd done monstrous things and was unrepentant about them and constantly tried to pass off the blame but he was also a guy you could understand and sympathize with sometimes. Like when Kira is helping him out in that one episode. It's a really interesting dynamic.
Waltz and everything after that reduces him to a villain with nothing but a Big Evil Plan and that's it. They stripped out all the things that made him interesting and gave him a dumb plot to try and make work.
Damar in many ways ends up taking over Dukat's place (as a sort of understandable antagonist) and you can see how the character really works well.
I'm gonna spoiler this for folks who may be rewatching or haven't yet seen DS9
I think part of the deal with Dukat from Waltz onward is like, Zal's death basically broke him. Our vector for sympathy regarding him tends to be this view of family he seems to have, but I think in a way that's something of a trap: we're lulled into sympathy because he always talks about how he wants to be with his family, but duty always gets in the way somehow. But this is a man who abandoned his daughter to like... wasn't it a Breen labor camp or something? Anyhow, and a man who never seems to have time for the family he actually acknowledges, and also implied to have cheated on his wife back home countless times, beyond the instance we see, with various Bajoran women who were basically pressed into what amounts to a "Cardassian Comfort Women" nightmare.
And with that he's a man whose form of oppression was always wrapped up in this very paternalistic view of himself in regards to the Bajorans. That's the theme to just about every excuse he ever gives about the occupation. And for whatever reason he can't actually extricate himself from that idea, even as he's deciding now he should have genocided the planet. He's sacrificed so much of himself, he'll tell you, by having to neglect his family instead of his duty. It's "cost" him so much you see.
But up until Zal's death, it's all just so much fucking bullshit on his part. He's practically thrived on exploiting others and leaving his family to their own lives back at home while he continues the march of oppression. And on some level, he seems to actually be aware of that, and maybe regrets it, but never enough to actually do something about it.
But Zal coming back into his life, he actually finally... commits to being a father. His position has been lowered thanks to being "the dude who had a half-bajoran lovechild with one of his prisoners," not to mention his various failures with maintaining Cardassian interests in the sector. He's basically brought low enough that he doesn't have the excuse of "duty" anymore to hide behind, so he throws himself into the whole "actually try to be a family man thing."
And then she's killed.
And so now he's a man who has lost his position within his society, who has alienated his socially recognized family, and lost the daughter whom he'd pinned his fucked up ideas of redemption on.
And then the society that he, for years, viewed in that fucked up paternalistic sense of oppression decides "we're going to finally hold you accountable for war crimes."
And so, he snaps. He appears like a two-dimensional villain because of how strong and visceral his hatred has become, and perhaps in a way there's some truth to the idea that an overriding emotional state renders people only partial versions of themselves. But at the same time, there's still bits of that old Paternalistic Dukat that linger, which we can see in him opting to undergo surgery to blend in as a bajoran, and associating himself with what amounts to the demon/devil figures of Bajoran faith
So in the end, you have this very toxic paternal figure dealing with the grief of his daughter's death, the alienation from his family, and what he views as a "betrayal" by a society he saw himself as a "father" to... well, I think we've seen enough abusive father types to see where that goes.
I think Dukat's arc would have been better if it had ended with him insane in "Sacrifice of Angels". It was the logical conclusion of his character IMO. The Cardassian/war arcs were carried by Dukat and Weyoun after that point anyway. Also, it would have spared us the pah-wraith stuff and Dukat boning Kai Wynn (*shivers*).
Now that would be cutting edge Trek: an Admiral who isn’t insane, planning a coup, or just generally a jackass.
Nechayev doesn’t quite fit those categories I don’t think. She was stone cold in getting stuff done, and implemented some very questionable Starfleet decisions, but I wouldn’t put her in the jackass column by any means, and she doesn’t belong in the first two.
That line to Picard she had “Your priority is to safeguard the lives of Federation citizens, not to wrestle with your conscience” sums her up pretty well I think.
Chain of Command mostly had her delegating her jackholery out to Jellico. S
ending the captain of your flagship into a trap and having his replacement be a no-talent ass clown is prime Admiral type behavior.
Jellicoe wasn't the ass in those episodes. Riker was.
I'm still not sure that twisting the knob all the way over into unrepentant cartoon villainy was the best way to address that. IMO, they freaked out, over compensated, and ended up flattening the character quite a bit.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
His arc is pretty bad. What made Dukat interesting was that he was a person. He'd done monstrous things and was unrepentant about them and constantly tried to pass off the blame but he was also a guy you could understand and sympathize with sometimes. Like when Kira is helping him out in that one episode. It's a really interesting dynamic.
Waltz and everything after that reduces him to a villain with nothing but a Big Evil Plan and that's it. They stripped out all the things that made him interesting and gave him a dumb plot to try and make work.
Damar in many ways ends up taking over Dukat's place (as a sort of understandable antagonist) and you can see how the character really works well.
I'm gonna spoiler this for folks who may be rewatching or haven't yet seen DS9
I think part of the deal with Dukat from Waltz onward is like, Zal's death basically broke him. Our vector for sympathy regarding him tends to be this view of family he seems to have, but I think in a way that's something of a trap: we're lulled into sympathy because he always talks about how he wants to be with his family, but duty always gets in the way somehow. But this is a man who abandoned his daughter to like... wasn't it a Breen labor camp or something? Anyhow, and a man who never seems to have time for the family he actually acknowledges, and also implied to have cheated on his wife back home countless times, beyond the instance we see, with various Bajoran women who were basically pressed into what amounts to a "Cardassian Comfort Women" nightmare.
And with that he's a man whose form of oppression was always wrapped up in this very paternalistic view of himself in regards to the Bajorans. That's the theme to just about every excuse he ever gives about the occupation. And for whatever reason he can't actually extricate himself from that idea, even as he's deciding now he should have genocided the planet. He's sacrificed so much of himself, he'll tell you, by having to neglect his family instead of his duty. It's "cost" him so much you see.
But up until Zal's death, it's all just so much fucking bullshit on his part. He's practically thrived on exploiting others and leaving his family to their own lives back at home while he continues the march of oppression. And on some level, he seems to actually be aware of that, and maybe regrets it, but never enough to actually do something about it.
But Zal coming back into his life, he actually finally... commits to being a father. His position has been lowered thanks to being "the dude who had a half-bajoran lovechild with one of his prisoners," not to mention his various failures with maintaining Cardassian interests in the sector. He's basically brought low enough that he doesn't have the excuse of "duty" anymore to hide behind, so he throws himself into the whole "actually try to be a family man thing."
And then she's killed.
And so now he's a man who has lost his position within his society, who has alienated his socially recognized family, and lost the daughter whom he'd pinned his fucked up ideas of redemption on.
And then the society that he, for years, viewed in that fucked up paternalistic sense of oppression decides "we're going to finally hold you accountable for war crimes."
And so, he snaps. He appears like a two-dimensional villain because of how strong and visceral his hatred has become, and perhaps in a way there's some truth to the idea that an overriding emotional state renders people only partial versions of themselves. But at the same time, there's still bits of that old Paternalistic Dukat that linger, which we can see in him opting to undergo surgery to blend in as a bajoran, and associating himself with what amounts to the demon/devil figures of Bajoran faith
So in the end, you have this very toxic paternal figure dealing with the grief of his daughter's death, the alienation from his family, and what he views as a "betrayal" by a society he saw himself as a "father" to... well, I think we've seen enough abusive father types to see where that goes.
No. He doesn't appear like a two-dimensional villain, he is one. It doesn't matter that "oh, but his daughter" is the reason for that, it's still what he becomes and it's a terrible flattening of one of the show's best characters.
I remember reading an interview sometime with his actor who always though Dukat pictured himself as the hero, the protagonist, so he would inject that into his performance all the time and it ended up shaping some of the writing for him down the line
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
I remember reading an interview sometime with his actor who always though Dukat pictured himself as the hero, the protagonist, so he would inject that into his performance all the time and it ended up shaping some of the writing for him down the line
i think it's the better way to do villainy
people don't often think of themselves as the bad guy, even when they're doing horrible things, it is almost always in service to what they consider to be correct or just
I remember reading an interview sometime with his actor who always though Dukat pictured himself as the hero, the protagonist, so he would inject that into his performance all the time and it ended up shaping some of the writing for him down the line
i think it's the better way to do villainy
people don't often think of themselves as the bad guy, even when they're doing horrible things, it is almost always in service to what they consider to be correct or just
That's how they wrote him and it's a big part of why he's great. Dukat is mired in self-delusion and sees himself as the hero of his own story who never did anything wrong.
That's the thing with Waltz. Part of the idea is really good. Basically, let's dig down and see who Dukat really is. But this should be an outburst that reveals his true beliefs, not a permanent breakdown that removes everything of interest from the character.
I remember reading an interview sometime with his actor who always though Dukat pictured himself as the hero, the protagonist, so he would inject that into his performance all the time and it ended up shaping some of the writing for him down the line
i think it's the better way to do villainy
people don't often think of themselves as the bad guy, even when they're doing horrible things, it is almost always in service to what they consider to be correct or just
That's how they wrote him and it's a big part of why he's great. Dukat is mired in self-delusion and sees himself as the hero of his own story who never did anything wrong.
That's the thing with Waltz. Part of the idea is really good. Basically, let's dig down and see who Dukat really is. But this should be an outburst that reveals his true beliefs, not a permanent breakdown that removes everything of interest from the character.
It also doesn't quite jibe with the character. I never saw the true Dukat as an unhinged rage monsters. I saw him as a brutal, cold murderer whose narcissism covered him with the veneer of a conflicted savior.
I remember reading an interview sometime with his actor who always though Dukat pictured himself as the hero, the protagonist, so he would inject that into his performance all the time and it ended up shaping some of the writing for him down the line
i think it's the better way to do villainy
people don't often think of themselves as the bad guy, even when they're doing horrible things, it is almost always in service to what they consider to be correct or just
That's how they wrote him and it's a big part of why he's great. Dukat is mired in self-delusion and sees himself as the hero of his own story who never did anything wrong.
That's the thing with Waltz. Part of the idea is really good. Basically, let's dig down and see who Dukat really is. But this should be an outburst that reveals his true beliefs, not a permanent breakdown that removes everything of interest from the character.
It also doesn't quite jibe with the character. I never saw the true Dukat as an unhinged rage monsters. I saw him as a brutal, cold murderer whose narcissism covered him with the veneer of a conflicted savior.
I think he's more a guy who never gave a shit about the lives of Bajorans and was angry that they wouldn't just do what he wanted. They just refused to obey or act like he wanted and so he lashes out at them and blames them for the bad things he does to them.
‘Star Trek’ Animated Comedy Series Lands Two Season Order at CBS All Access
The streamer has given out an order for two seasons of a half-hour animated comedy series called “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” Variety has learned. Developed by “Rick and Morty” writer Mike McMahan, the series will focus on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships.
‘Star Trek’ Animated Comedy Series Lands Two Season Order at CBS All Access
The streamer has given out an order for two seasons of a half-hour animated comedy series called “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” Variety has learned. Developed by “Rick and Morty” writer Mike McMahan, the series will focus on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships.
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The tone of Pale Moonlight pays off in the finale. This was never a war where Sisko and Garak were going to come out with happy endings.
Sisko could give a shit what Picard thought. He never forgave him for his role in his wife's death, and Picard's return to the ranks was a huge part of Sisko's overall disillusion with Starfleet.
I have now addressed that terrible oversight.
I'd like to have seen that addressed a little more, but it only ever comes up in the pilot.
If First Contact were being made in a post-MCU world, some of the DS9 cast would have totally been on the Defiant, and the clashes between Sisko and Picard would have been excellent.
"Oh and my deepest condolences for Drone 8 of ... ah... I mean your wife"
Did Sisko work out some of those feelings with Mirror Universe Jennifer?
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
There wouldn't be a Picard anymore if he had said that.
Ehhhh I think it's more that they were trying to create someone that is unambiguously bad, as in he literally oversaw death camps, but at the same time was more than a 2D space Hitler caricature. The best villains are ones that occasionally manage to make you sympathise with their point of view, if only for a moment. Dukat was that guy and for that reason alone he was an excellent villain.
Part of that was obviously that they realized they had a charismatic actor and wanted to give him a lot of space to work, but they did wrap around to the "No, this man is not sympathetic or conflicted. He's a fascist responsible for a genocide, a selfish manipulator, and any sign of charisma or decency did nothing to change that."
The important thing is that all of the "good man trapped by circumstance" stuff comes from Dukat himself as part of his self delusion. Everyone else is just waiting for the penny to drop.
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Part of the reason they wrote Waltz was the producers getting unnerved by Dukat's supporters (in the "did nothing wrong" sense) in the fandom, and wanted to make it as clear as possible what kind of person he was.
I mean, those people are idiots. From episode one it was made abundantly clear that Dukat was directly responsible for brutal repression, concentration camps and death on a planetary scale. It's not the writers fault that no matter how obviously bad someone is you'll still find edgelords wearing their "make Cardassia great again" hats.
I think there was also an undercurrent of fans expressing that they found Marc Alaimo hot in a very unfortunate way.
Out of curiousity, do you mean Waltz, or the whole Pah-Wraiths storyline, or both?
I thought the whole thing was very fitting for Dukat, as an egotist who is competing in his own head against Sisko, but I also agree that it got pretty cringey, and I'm not sure that's because his arc was overdone/overwrought/flattening, or if it was just poorly executed.
Into the Pale Moonlight actually originated with the writers' room and ended there. Apparently it went to guest writer Peter Allan Fields, then it came back to the writer's room to be scripted by Michael Taylor, and then Ronald D. Moore finished it. I don't know if it was meant to be a bottle episode, but I think it might have ended up there just because of how hard it was to write ultimately. (I.e. the original attempts involved Jake playing an important role as a reporter revealing everything.)
It didn't have enough setup. Instead of a slow build, it felt like he just went apeshit because the finale was here, and they needed him to be over the edge for the final confrontation.
I mean, it comes up but then he gets over it. That's the entire arc of the pilot. Sisko comes to terms with his wife's death and reaffirms his belief in the mission of Starfleet.
Sisko/Picard clashes would be pointless and silly. There's nothing there to clash about. Sisko's wife's death is too raw a thing for him to feel comfortable hanging around Picard and Picard feels guilty over the whole thing but that's fodder for nothing more then awkward conversations and both people mutually avoiding each other, not some sort of silly neverending arguments.
His arc is pretty bad. What made Dukat interesting was that he was a person. He'd done monstrous things and was unrepentant about them and constantly tried to pass off the blame but he was also a guy you could understand and sympathize with sometimes. Like when Kira is helping him out in that one episode. It's a really interesting dynamic.
Waltz and everything after that reduces him to a villain with nothing but a Big Evil Plan and that's it. They stripped out all the things that made him interesting and gave him a dumb plot to try and make work.
Damar in many ways ends up taking over Dukat's place (as a sort of understandable antagonist) and you can see how the character really works well.
There's also that, given the very clear Nazi allegory thing going on there like
There were plenty of Nazi rank and file and commanders, that went home at the end of the day and likely had what they considered to be warm, fulfilling family lives.*
Which makes the utter inhumanity of it all that much more terrifying: these are/were people clearly capable of empathy. They just don't have it, or suppress it in one way or another, for their victims.
*Though even then, Dukat actually utterly fails at this. Given, you know, he abandoned his daughter for years rather than risk his career.
I'm gonna spoiler this for folks who may be rewatching or haven't yet seen DS9
And with that he's a man whose form of oppression was always wrapped up in this very paternalistic view of himself in regards to the Bajorans. That's the theme to just about every excuse he ever gives about the occupation. And for whatever reason he can't actually extricate himself from that idea, even as he's deciding now he should have genocided the planet. He's sacrificed so much of himself, he'll tell you, by having to neglect his family instead of his duty. It's "cost" him so much you see.
But up until Zal's death, it's all just so much fucking bullshit on his part. He's practically thrived on exploiting others and leaving his family to their own lives back at home while he continues the march of oppression. And on some level, he seems to actually be aware of that, and maybe regrets it, but never enough to actually do something about it.
But Zal coming back into his life, he actually finally... commits to being a father. His position has been lowered thanks to being "the dude who had a half-bajoran lovechild with one of his prisoners," not to mention his various failures with maintaining Cardassian interests in the sector. He's basically brought low enough that he doesn't have the excuse of "duty" anymore to hide behind, so he throws himself into the whole "actually try to be a family man thing."
And then she's killed.
And so now he's a man who has lost his position within his society, who has alienated his socially recognized family, and lost the daughter whom he'd pinned his fucked up ideas of redemption on.
And then the society that he, for years, viewed in that fucked up paternalistic sense of oppression decides "we're going to finally hold you accountable for war crimes."
And so, he snaps. He appears like a two-dimensional villain because of how strong and visceral his hatred has become, and perhaps in a way there's some truth to the idea that an overriding emotional state renders people only partial versions of themselves. But at the same time, there's still bits of that old Paternalistic Dukat that linger, which we can see in him opting to undergo surgery to blend in as a bajoran, and associating himself with what amounts to the demon/devil figures of Bajoran faith
So in the end, you have this very toxic paternal figure dealing with the grief of his daughter's death, the alienation from his family, and what he views as a "betrayal" by a society he saw himself as a "father" to... well, I think we've seen enough abusive father types to see where that goes.
Jellicoe wasn't the ass in those episodes. Riker was.
No. He doesn't appear like a two-dimensional villain, he is one. It doesn't matter that "oh, but his daughter" is the reason for that, it's still what he becomes and it's a terrible flattening of one of the show's best characters.
i think it's the better way to do villainy
people don't often think of themselves as the bad guy, even when they're doing horrible things, it is almost always in service to what they consider to be correct or just
That's how they wrote him and it's a big part of why he's great. Dukat is mired in self-delusion and sees himself as the hero of his own story who never did anything wrong.
That's the thing with Waltz. Part of the idea is really good. Basically, let's dig down and see who Dukat really is. But this should be an outburst that reveals his true beliefs, not a permanent breakdown that removes everything of interest from the character.
It also doesn't quite jibe with the character. I never saw the true Dukat as an unhinged rage monsters. I saw him as a brutal, cold murderer whose narcissism covered him with the veneer of a conflicted savior.
I think he's more a guy who never gave a shit about the lives of Bajorans and was angry that they wouldn't just do what he wanted. They just refused to obey or act like he wanted and so he lashes out at them and blames them for the bad things he does to them.
He's a bit of both basically imo.
https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/star-trek-animated-series-cbs-all-access-lower-decks-1202993145/
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I don't know if I want trek comedy in REAL trek but you know what? Screw it. Lets just try everything I guess.
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And a two-season order off the bat? That is some confidence.
People love them some Rick and Morty.