Waltz

Waltz

In many ways, this is a very entertaining and important episode. I'm a fan of actor Marc Alaimo, who gives a tour de force performance as his character of Gul Dukat is explored in greater detail than ever before, with great assists from Nana Visitor, Jeffery Combs, Avery Brooks, and undoubtedly director René Auberjonois. Though at times remarkably humorous, we eventually find that Dukat is in actuality at one of his darkest and most disturbing hours here. Understandably so, as we go through the details of what's going on inside him.

The saddest part is that this is really the last time that Dukat is interesting as a character on Deep Space Nine. Sisko's final response to what he learns in this episode once more betrays the abandonment of Roddenberry-style ideals, and I assume he is expressing the attitudes of the writing staff and producers of the show. Dukat's entire character is dumbed down to a label of "evil", which in my experience is used by people who have given up on trying to understand their opponents in a given conflict. If we really give up on him, he doesn't then deserve the amount of screen time that he continued to get in future episodes.

Of course, Alaimo's performances are always compelling, therefore we should have more of Dukat on the show until the very end, but if the character is going to remain interesting, he needs to maintain all his multiple facets, his shades of grey, his kaleidoscope of colours, his good traits that surprise us time and again. No one truly is evil, and if the writing staff can't understand that about Dukat, they won't be able to keep us interested in seeing him.

I think a large part of the problem in this episode in particular is that the thing that decides Sisko's opinion (and the audience's I might add should they agree with him) is all backstory that we never actually saw on Deep Space Nine. What we have seen through Alaimo's portrayal over five and a half years is a much more charming, thoughtful, redeemable character with emotional scars and rough edges who has made some bad choices.

More to the point, what does it say about Sisko and Dax that they should give up on any attempt to see and draw out the better side that Dukat still has within him? They don't give up on Damar, or the Changelings, and Odo will be seen to give Weyoun a chance later on..... It remains true that the best dramas are not enemy-centered, as the Dukat plots now become.

Ron Moore definitely does work some significant magic here to put a lot of good stuff into an episode that in some respects creates anticipation of a cheap bottle show stuck in a cave for 38 minutes, and by the work of the actors and a good director, it really rises above that. It is just such a shame that the coda's dialogue is a tainted brush, painting over this fine display of complex characterization and dumbing it down to a level that did not bode well for the future of this character with so much potential.