Customer Reviews

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 77: Indiscretion [VHS]

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As I'm sure you're well aware, the Cardassians and Bajorans don't like each other too well. Cardassian occupation and abuse of the Bajoran homeworld will do that to a species. But Bajoran Major Kira and Cardassian Gul Dukat must put aside their differences and solve a mystery together.

Kira is forced to bring her nemesis, Dukat, on a mission. It seems a piece of a Bajoran ship is found and Kira wants to find out what happened to the rest of the ship as well as find any survivors (the ship has been missing for over ten years). A friend of Kira's was among those who disappeared. Dukat has his own reasons for finding this missing ship.

As the story unfolds, we find that Dukat knew one of the Bajoran women that was onboard the ship when it was lost. And they find her grave, as well as more wreckage, on a barren desert planet. It turns out that this woman was Dukat's mistress. And they had a child together, Tora Ziyal. Dukat wants to kill the child if he finds her because her presence as a hybrid (half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran) would cause him much grief on Cardassia and he would be disgraced and possibly lose his position as one of Cardassia's leaders. Kira and Dukat find Ziyal (but not Kira's friend who died a few years earlier) enslaved by the alien species Breen. They rescue Ziyal and the other remaining Bajoran slaves and Dukat, predictably, finds that he cannot kill his daughter. This is a good thing because Kira would have killed Dukat if he had murdered Ziyal. Ain't it fun?

Solid episode and the interplay between Dukat and Kira is good. The ending was okay and I found the existence of a Cardassian/Bajoran hybrid to be extremely fascinating. There is, as we would find out, much potential in this development.

Episode title: Indiscretion

Teleplay by: Nicholas Corea

Story by: Toni Marberry & Jack Trevino

Dorected by: LeVar Burton

"Indiscretion" tells a story about a Cardassian transport vessel full of Bajoran prisoners that dissapeared mysteruously.

Several years after the incident, Kira receives information about the ship's whereabouts, and decides to go investicate the lead further. When the Cardassian government learns of this, they insist on sending our old familiar Gul Dukat to go with Kira.

So begins a journey between the two arch enemies to uncover the mystery of the hidden transport. During the trip hidden sides of Gul Dukat are revealed and the previously two-dimencional character deepens and becomes more easy to relate to by both Kira and the audience, as his history and secrets are put on the open, escalating into a characterwise dramatical dilemma.

The episode starts promisingly enough, but stumbles eventually on too much effort and trying. The character growth of both Dukat and Kira is forced and the interaction between the two of them is left with a feeling of vagueness, especially after a few bad attempts of humor attempting to bring the characters closer to one another, to make the interaction between them more solid. Nana Visitor's less than adequate acting performance might be an affecting factor in this, though.

The episode manages to establish Gul Dukat as a supporting character to the series in a way never seen before. He becomes an actual character, not just 'the bad guy'.

The subplot isn't that great either, as it deals with Captain Sisko and Kassidy Jates' argument over her staying permanently on the station.

After all of this, "Indiscretion" is a mediocore piece of drama, that is essential to the show as a whole, but leaves something to be left desired for as an individual story.