Waltz (episode)

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"Waltz"
DS9, Episode 6x11 Production number: 40510-535 First aired: 3 January 1998
←	133rd of 173 produced in DS9	→
←	133rd of 173 released in DS9	→
	{{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 173 released in DS9 Remastered
←	498th of 726 released in all	→
Written By Ronald D. Moore Directed By Rene Auberjonois
51408.6-51413.6 (2374)
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Following the destruction of the starship Honshu, Sisko is severely injured and trapped alone on a deserted planet with Dukat, who becomes increasingly unstable.

Contents 1 Summary 1.1 Teaser 1.2 Act One 2 Memorable Quotes 3 Background Information 3.1 Video and DVD releases 4 Links and References 4.1 Guest Stars 4.2 References

[edit] Summary

[edit] Teaser

"Captain's Log: Stardate 51408.6. I've been aboard the Honshu for two days now and I still haven't spoken to him, although the doctors have assured me that he's made a full recovery. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of. Maybe I prefer to think of him as a crazy man... a broken man. He'd be less dangerous that way. As terrible as it sounds, there's a part of me that wishes he were dead. But that's a thought unworthy of a Starfleet officer. He lost an empire, he lost his daughter, and he nearly lost his mind. Whatever his crimes... isn't that enough punishment for one lifetime?"

The episode opens with Captain Sisko aboard the USS Honshu. He walks into the ship's brig. Gul Dukat is there. He is on his way to an appearance before a special Federation Grand Jury on war crimes charges. Dukat asks Sisko if he thinks he is guilty. Sisko tries to dodge the question, but Dukat calls him on it. Sisko offers Dukat his sympathies over the death of Tora Ziyal. Dukat talks about how her death led to his "momentary instability," but adds that he has recovered. He thanks Sisko for caring for his daughter. Their conversation is interrupted when the ship is attacked.

[edit] Act One

Major Kira walks out of Captain Sisko's office and informs the rest of the senior staff that the Honshu was destroyed that morning by a wing of Cardassian destroyers. She tells them that the only ships searching for survivors will be the Defiant and the Constellation. Additionally, the Defiant will only have 52 hours to search as it must leave to guard a troop convoy near the Badlands. Worf orders an immediate departure, but before he goes, Kira reminds him that there are 30,000 Federation troops on the convoy, and that he has 52 hours to find Captain Sisko and not a second more.

Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat have crash-landed on a planet; the actual crash is not shown. Gul Dukat has actually saved Sisko's life and nursed him back to health. However, Sisko's body is badly damaged and Gul Dukat has the upper hand. Dukat then takes the shuttlecraft and escapes, leaving Sisko with a broken transmitter. However, Dukat has a change of heart and contacts the Defiant, telling them where to find Sisko. The crew find the captain, but Dukat escapes.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"You and Major Kira took care of her for almost a year. I want to thank you for that it was very generous."
"Ziyal was a very special young woman. It was a pleasure to have her with us, even for a short time."
"A short time was all she ever had."

- Dukat and Sisko

"Behold... Benjamin Sisko: supreme arbiter of right and wrong in the universe."

- Dukat

"I should've killed every last one of them! I should've turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should've killed them all."
"And that is why you're not an evil man."

- Dukat and Sisko

"I'm so glad we had this time together, Benjamin, because we won't be seeing each other for a while. I have unfinished business on Bajor. They thought I was their enemy. They don't know what it is to be my enemy, but they will. From this day forward, Bajor is dead! All of Bajor!! And this time, even their Emissary won't be able to save them!"

- Dukat

"Sometimes life seems so complicated, nothing is truly good or truly evil. Everything seems to be a shade of grey. And then you spend some time with a man like Dukat, and you realize that there is such a thing as truly evil."
"To realize that is one thing. To do something about it is another. So what are you going to do?"
"I'll tell you what I'm not going to do, I'm not going to let him destroy Bajor. I fear no evil. From now on, it's him or me."

- Sisko and Dax

[edit] Background Information

• This episode sets the stage for the showdown between Sisko and Dukat in the series finale "What You Leave Behind". Indeed, after this episode, they would not see one another again until their confrontation in the fire caves in the finale.
• Originally, this episode was to be structured similarly to the third season episode "Distant Voices", with the regular crew appearing as different aspects of Dukat's personality. According to Ronald D. Moore, "Waltz" began life as a story we called "Dukat's Head" around the office. The notion was for Sisko to go visit Dukat in the mental hospital and while Sisko was trying to engage the catatonic Cardassian in conversation. We would push in on Dukat's face and then go inside his head and show us the fantasy life he was living. The story would've gone into the past, dealt with his Bajoran mistress, his rise to power, his treatment of the Bajorans and even the fantasy life he was trying to construct for himself on Terok Nor with Kira as his wife and himself as beloved leader of Cardassia and Bajor. We struggled with the storyline for quite a while, but never found a way to make it compelling. Eventually, we noticed that the scenes we liked the best were the ones in the hospital room between Sisko and Dukat and we decided to toss out everything but that. However, some of the character dynamics we had envisioned for the fantasy sequences eventually were realized in the phantom images of Weyoun, Damar, and Kira as they appeared in Dukat's hallucinations." [1]
• Of the idea behind doing the episode, Moore explains, "The intention was to dig down and reveal something in Dukat, both to the audience and to the character himself. He really did hate the Bajorans and he really does wish he'd killed them all. That's the dirty little secret he's tried not to confront head-on all these years, and now finally, he's said it out loud and accepted it about himself." [2]
• Ira Steven Behr echoes Moore when he says of this episode, "I wanted us to come away from this show with Dukat finally having faced who the hell he is and what he's done. To get him to finally admit that he hates the Bajorans and he wishes to kill them all. And he does. Evil may be an unclear concept in this day and age. But Dukat certainly has done evil things. And since he refuses to admit to them, we then have to simplify things, deconstruct things, until we get to the most simplistic level. Which is: 'He does evil things, therefore, he is evil'." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
• By the time this episode aired, the character of Gul Dukat had become exceptionally popular among fans of the show, far more popular than any of the writers had ever intended. This was primarily attributed to Marc Alaimo's superbly charismatic performances as Dukat. Alaimo's portrayal had presented the audience with a character possessed of a very real pathos and sense of humor, a character with many different aspects composing his psychological make-up. The writers however were not entirely happy with how popular Dukat had become. He was supposed to be the villain of the show, and while they were proud to have created such a multi-dimensional villain, they were shocked when they saw fans online actually defending Dukat's behavior during the Occupation. Despite the writers' attempts to make Dukat the epitome of evil in subsequent shows however, his popularity would remain undiminished until the end of the series. Indeed, in relation to "Waltz", some Dukat fans were unhappy with how quickly Sisko denounces him after he tells Sisko about his initial actions as Prefect of Bajor. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
• Of the character of Dukat, Moore comments, "Dukat is the hero of his own story. He definitely thinks that he's on the side of the angels, and he doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't see that." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion). Furthermore, he explains, "I don't see anything incompatible in the idea that Dukat wanted to be loved by those he despised. This seems to me like a complex, yet very believable, dynamic. I think you could find many, many instances where a person both loves and hates another person for very complex reasons. Dukat's egotistical need to be loved doesn't seem to be in conflict with his need to dominate and rule. In fact, one could argue that it was the Bajorans' refusal to love him (in his somewhat twisted view of reality) that prompted him to hate them." [3]
• Of Marc Alaimo's performance in this episode, director Rene Auberjonois comments, "He was in touch with where it was coming from in his own psychology and where it was going. And that's the way a good actor plays a villain, by finding ways to rationalize what he's doing." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
• This episode references an attempt on Dukat's life on Terok Nor within the first month of his administration where someone placed a bomb outside his quarters. This might well be the attempt on the life of Kira Meru as seen in the episode "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"
• This episode originally ended with Dukat saying to Sisko, "You too will learn what it's like to lose a child," but the writers abandoned this idea because it was too specific and it locked them into one path in terms of where to next take the character. They also didn't like the prospect of having to work into every single scene involving Jake that he was living his life under a death threat.
• Damar and Weyoun appear in this episode only as hallucinations witnessed by Dukat. Indeed, because this episode proved so popular with fans, the writers considered bringing the chorus back for the next episode involving Dukat, but they ultimately abandoned the concept as they felt the technique carried more dramatic weight by being used only once.
• The corridors of the USS Honshu are reuses of the Defiant sets; the brig is a reuse of the same set from Voyager.
• This is the eighth episode directed by Rene Auberjonois. Of this episode he says, "It was a stage piece, and it dealt with acting, acting, acting all the time. The challenging part was to keep it visually interesting." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
• Armin Shimerman (Quark) and Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) do not appear in this episode.

[edit] Video and DVD releases

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 6.6, 15 June 1998.
• As part of the DS9 Season 6 DVD collection.

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Guest Stars

• Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun
• Marc Alaimo as Dukat
• Casey Biggs as Damar

[edit] References

Badlands; Bajor; Bajorans; Bajoran Resistance; bone regenerator; brig; Cardassia; Cardassians; Cardassian Central Command; Cardassian destroyer; Cardassian orbital dry dock; cast; Constellation, USS; Cox; Dahkur Province; distress beacon; distress call; Dominion; Emissary; Federation troop convoy; field rations; Honshu, USS; kanar; Kornaire; McConnell; medkit; Occupation of Bajor; Orion slave girl; pepper; plasma; plasma fields; Prefect; Prophets; ration packs; salt; Shakaar government; soup; Starbase 621; Type-6 shuttlecraft; Yeager-type starship; Ziyal, Tora

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 6

Next episode: "Who Mourns for Morn?"