Day 84: DS9, Return to Grace

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S4EP13, “Return to Grace”

 Summary: Kira is being sent to a Cardassian outpost to help the Cardassians defend themselves against the Klingons. To her surprise, the one bringing her to the outpost is Dukat, who has been disgraced following the events of “Indiscretion” and has been demoted to freighter captain, though at least he has his daughter Zyial along for company. When the ship arrives at the outpost, they find that it’s been completely wiped out by a Klingon ship, who doesn’t think the puny freighter is worth destroying and flies off. Outraged, Dukat wants to destroy the Klingon ship, both for revenge but mostly in the hopes that it will allow him to return to a position of power. Kira questions his motives, but is willing to help, especially since Bajorans were also killed in the attack. You might think this is a setup for “smaller ship takes on a much more powerful ship”, but the actual plot is way more complicated than you’d expect.

Standalone Thoughts: While there’s a lot that works about this episode, something feels slightly off about it. My best guess is that it has to do with the pacing; things happen just a little too fast. First, there are two large exposition dumps early on, one to set up why Kira is going off the station, and then one to explain Dukat’s new situation. It would have been hard to get the information across any other way, but it definitely comes across as clunky. Then the episode kind of goes in the opposite direction by skipping over material. For example, Kira and Dukat decide to reconfigure a disruptor so it can work on the freighter, and after a little discussion, we cut to them testing it out. A montage of them working on it would have felt a little more natural. Later, during a fight, they make a plan offscreen, and while we can figure out what happened after the fact, it’s a little baffling in the heat of the moment. Finally, it kind of feels like there are three plots in one, and while the conference Kira’s going to is a Maguffin more than anything, it still makes things difficult. One plot does flow into the next, but once they get underway, they each have entirely different feels, which also contributes to the disjointed nature of the episode. I’ll give the writers credit for trying to apply “Show, don’t tell”, but in this case, I think they either needed to show a little more, or give us just a little bit of telling.

While the pacing does impact my feelings on the episode, it doesn’t diminish the good parts. Visitor and Alaimo work well off each other, which is what sells the plot, Zyial is shaping up to be an interesting character, and the plot itself goes in unexpected, but intriguing, directions. Had the pacing been a little different, I could unquestionably say this was a good episode. As it is, it’s somewhere in the upper middle of the pack.

How it Relates to the Whole: Despite the feel of the episode, it’s wound up setting a lot in motion. Dukat’s character is going off in an interesting direction, and Zyial is now in a position to appear more often. Also, we get the first appearance of Damar (Casey Biggs), who is basically just the guy pressing buttons in this episode but will become surprisingly important in later seasons. Given how little attention he gets here, I’m guessing he wasn’t intended to play a major role, which means I’ll be very interested to read about why his role was eventually elevated.

Other: *We get an interesting example of continuity today. Thanks to bringing Zyial back to Cardassia and admitting that she was his daughter, Dukat was disgraced, lost his position, and his family left him. This may seem harsh, but way back in “Cardassians”, we were told that abandoning Rugal on Bajor would mean the end of his father Pa’Dar’s political career. So this episode simultaneously uses “Cardassians” to build off of, without referencing the events of that episode. I feel like that was a missed opportunity, especially since Pa’Dar was Dukat’s political rival. Having Dukat reflect on the irony or Pa’Dar calling to taunt him would have been a nice callback. Then again, there’s been some political upheaval since “Cardassians”, so Pa’Dar may not even be around anymore. Still, I’d have enjoyed the direct connection.

Best Line/Exchange: The only line that stood out to me today was more meta than actually related to the episode;

Dukat: I’m a much more complicated man than you give me credit for.

Regardless of if you’re looking back like I am or watching the show for the first time, that line is incredibly accurate when it comes to Dukat. He started out as an annoying bureaucrat, but has been turning into someone much more complex over the course of the show, and will continue to be so as the show continues. If Nog’s the supporting character with the biggest arc, Dukat’s the one with the most moral ambiguity. And both of those examples go to show just how good Deep Space Nine could be when it came to fleshing out its side characters.

After the Fact Update: To my surprise, the DS9 Companion reveals that they did apparently have long term plans for Damar from the start, a fact they informed Casey Biggs about shortly before his first day of shooting, though they apparently declined to tell him their precise plans. I wouldn’t have expected that given the track record of how other supporting characters developed, but I guess that’s a sign that the writers were spending more time thinking things through, so I’m not about to complain.