ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Ten "The Defector"

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Ten "The Defector"
Production Order: 10
Air Order: 10
Stardate: 43462.5
Original Air Date: January 1, 1990

We get an unusual opening this week: we don't know right at the first that it's the holodeck, but lo and behold: holodeck. Anyway, two dudes are talking around a campfire in iambic pentameter, and the show doesn't want you to know that one dude is Patrick Stewart, because they slathered him in make-up and stuff, but there's no disguising that voice, no matter which accent he uses.

Data comes in, disguised as Henry V, who is disguised as a commoner, and he delivers some lines in a cool-ass cloak. We then see Picard off to the side, in uniform, mouthing the words as Data says them. At one point he breaks in to tell Data that he's getting better at this, and Data is forced to freeze the program, because the other two guys come at the captain with weapons, because who is the dude in raspberry-colored jammies?
Data thanks Picard and lists off which performers he plans to study and imitate, and Picard says that while it's worthwhile to study Shakespeare to get the hang of the human condition, he should find his own style, rather than imitating others.

*raises hand* Hi, that's bullshit? Because not only is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, it's also the best way to learn a technique, thereby creating one's own sense of style? And it's been done that way successfully for thousands of years? Otherwise I would have bitched more vocally about being forced to paint a bunch of Cezanne still lifes? Have things really changed so much by the 24th century that we're ditching that notion, or is it just crappy advice from the All-Powerful Picard?
(Also, how did Data get that awful bowl cut? Does his hair grow? Who cut it like that? Was it Mott, the ship's barber? "Hello, Mott. Can you give me a terrible haircut for a thing I'm doing briefly on the holodeck?")

Riker calls Picard and interrupts all of these weird musings. Scans show some ship in the Neutral Zone.
"Be there in a sec," says Picard, and they walk into the corridor
Data reaches up, and thank fucking fuck, that crappy bowl haircut was a wig.
Like a furry showercap. I can't even imagine them handing this to Brent Spiner and saying, "We're gonna open in this."
Anyway, Data asks Picard what the point is of Henry going among his own people dressed as one of them, and Picard cites empathy as the main reason.
"Can I do a show for the crew?" Data asks out of nowhere.
"Ummm... maybe later."
Does Picard want to sit through 2+ hours of Data doing Shakespeare? No.

They hit the bridge, and Riker reports that the weird ship is actually a Romulan scout.
"The hell?" asks Picard. "What's it doing in the NZ?"
Worf formally requests to verbally bitch-slap the ship over subspace communication, but Picard wants to do it.
Unfortunately, he doesn't get to do it. The scout ship hails them.
"Hey! Federation ship! I need help! Also, asylum! Also, being pursued!"
And a big-ass Romulan decloaks behind it.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

"The fuck?" yells Picard. He has Worf open the channel to the warbird. "Hey! Romulans! Why the hell are you in the Neutral Zone, and hella close to our space?"
"Being ignored," reports Worf.
Instead, they call the scout back.
"Yes! Please help!" yells the Romulan in the scout. "My ship is not great and getting less so!"
The screen goes all staticky, and the warbird fires on the scout, disabling it.
Picard calls Geordi. "Can we put our shields around that scout?"
"Um, yeah?" replies Geordi. "But it's taking a huge risk, because they we won't have the juice to keep the Romulans at bay."
"Okay, do it," says Picard, and you know that was the right choice, because we're a third of the way into season three, and why would they have the Romulans blow up the ship mid-season?
The warbird comes nose to nose with the Enterprise, weapons all powered up, and Picard begins a blustery speech to them, but then they're like "Eh," and the warbird turns away and leaves before decloaking.

"...whut?" asks Riker.
"Search me," says Picard.
"They're going back to Romulan space," reports Worf, giving all of the important exposition, and none of the juicy reactions.
"Scout ship falling apart," announces Data.
Of course they beam him aboard. They were going to do that regardless of whether or not his ship was shot to hell. They're not going to save a dude, then wave good-bye to him as they goes their merry way through space.
But they also elect to tow his ship.

Riker and Worf go down to the transporter room. A wounded Romulan stumbles off the pad and tells them he has some fucking bonkers information.

Picard's Log 43462.5: "We picked up a hitchhiker who says he's a low-ranking logistics clerk, and that he's defecting, and he has info on a secret thing the Roms are doing."

At a senior officers meeting in the Obs Lounge, the Romulan (who says this shit is too important for him to have gone straight to sick bay to be treated) tells them what he knows. It seems that quite a few of the younger leaders are still pissed off about the treaty that was signed, establishing the Neutral Zone, and they want to take all of that space and then some. He mentions an "embarrassing defeat" at The Battle of Cheron, and some kind of base at Nelvana III.

Wondering where you've seen/heard of Nelvana? Here you go.

"We have sensors in that area," argues Riker. "Did they just fucking miss a whole base?"
"I guess so!" barks back the Romulan, whose name will be revealed as Sublieutenant Setal. "The whole thing goes online in two days, and the Romulan fleet will be within a stone's throw of 15 Federation sectors."
"The Federation won't put up with that shit," growls Worf.
"Yeah. Talking about war," says Setal sarcastically. "If you get rid of that base, there won't be any more threat."
Picard has had some interesting body language for this scene. He's in that end chair, but it's swiveled toward the window, so Setal is mostly getting his profile. He's listening, but not giving Setal his full attention.
Now he turns to the guy and says, "Okay, well, you're probably tired. I'll have Worf take you to sick bay, and we'll see about getting you some quarters in the meantime."
The Romulan is surprised. "Oh. Um, you want to ask me more questions later, right?"
Picard blinks. "Duh."

Setal and Worf leave.
Riker thinks Setal is lying, that the Federation would never allow the Roms to build anything in the Neutral Zone.
Data makes a good point: "Commander, that would not be an atypical Romulan ploy."
Apparently, the Romulans like to test the waters, let other people strike first.
Riker thinks that Setal is faking it, and that he's drawing them into the Neutral Zone to check on this supposed threat, so that the Romulans can then pop up and go "A-ha! You broke the treaty, so now we can blow you out of the sky!"
Data: "That would also not be an atypical Romulan ploy."
"Sneaky motherfuckers," mutters Picard.
"Eh, at least we can check out his ship," muses Geordi, right before the damn thing gets blown to hell.

"Lol, of course I set it to auto-destruct," laughs Setal when Riker confronts him. "Wouldn't you?"
Riker, standing in sick bay with Setal as Crusher fixes his face, is pissed as hell. "I thought you were defecting?"
Setal makes a good point: "Yeah, but I'm not a traitor. All you can see is the opportunity to exploit me."
Reminder from the show: the Federation is not as squeaky-clean as it likes to think it is. Sometimes they do shady shit for their own benefit.
"I came to you to prevent war," Setal points out, "and you guys just want to strip down my ship for secrets."
(Yeah, well, friendly reminder from Lady Archon that the Romulans would have done the same, Setal.)
Crusher barks at him to hold still while she knits his face back together again.
He remarks in return that it's awesome that she knows about Romulans.
"I gained some knowledge recently," she says, shooting some side-eye at Worf.

"Oh yeah, Galorndon Core," replies Setal.
Worf is suspicious, because how does this lowly clerk know about that?
"Common knowledge," says Setal shiftily.
Worf implies that Setal is a spy.
Setal replies by calling Worf a bunch of Klingon swears.
Sassy Riker tells Setal that only a Romulan veruul would use such phrases in public. Setal is amused.
Riker dismisses Worf, who is now pretty pissed off. Setal admits that he likes Worf, and understands what kind of guy Worf is. Unfortunately, he also thinks "the kind of guy that Worf is," is the kind of guy who will get everyone killed in this war.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Riker shows Setal to his room, perfunctorily introduces him to the food dispenser, then nopes out of there. Setal requests some cold water from the dispenser, and as we saw just last week, the dispenser is picky enough to ask for an actual temperature.
"12 onkians," he murmurs.
"Bitch, this is a Federation ship," says Majel. "We don't do onkians."
Sassy Guest Star Moment: "Any temperature at all on the cold side of whatever your system is."
Setal drinks his water and looks around his quarters which, as ever, is decorated in Twenty-First Century Mid-Range Hotel style.
Then he sits and takes an orange SweeTart out of his boot and stares at it while suspicious music plays.

Picard and Data check out the Nelvana system star charts at the science station on the bridge. Nothing is coming in as far as bases go.
"Hey, you got a decoded message from Starfleet," says Majel.
Picard goes to his ready room after finding out that there's a two-and-a-half hour delay between his ship and where the message was sent from.
When he opens it, we see that, once again they've changed the freaking admiral uniform. It's not my favorite.

Admiral Haden tells Picard that the Romulans asked for Setal back but that Starfleet told them to fuck off. No one is sure if Setal is lying or not, but they're kind of leaving it up to Picard to decide. Sounds like a cop-out, Starfleet, but okay. Anyway, they're sending the E to a part of the Neutral Zone border that's kind of close to Nelvana III so Picard can check it out.
Picard shuts off the communique and calls Worf to the ready room.

Later, Picard is at the science station again with Data, but this time they're joined by Crusher and Geordi. Geordi shows them, from some data they recorded, that the warbird had three opportunities to capture the scout ship and didn't.
"But they fired on it," Crusher points out.
"Sure," says Data. "but like us, they have the ability to regulate their weapons fire so as to disable instead of destroy."
"Do you think Setal's wounds were self-inflicted?" Picard asks Crusher.
"They were pretty bad..." she replies uncertainly.
"But, yes," Picard finishes.

I love shots like this. The uniforms look amazing together.

Picard's Log 43463.7: "Okay, so we're at the border near Nelvana III, and if Setal's info is correct, we only have 21 hours left until the base goes live."

Another communique comes in for Picard.
"Two more Federation ships are coming," says Haden, "but they won't get there in time. We also warned all of the outposts along the Neutral Zone border."
Data comes in, called by Picard.
"Set up a probe," says Picard. "I want Nelvana III hella scanned."
"Cool," says Data, and he turned to carry out Picard's orders.
"No, wait. I want your take on this. But more than anything, I want you to keep a record of what's going on, like a dispassionate view for posterity. Because what happens in the next 24 hours could lead to war." He pauses, and then asks the question that he should be asking Troi, which is weird: "How is the crew feeling?"
"Nervous," says Data, "but confident." Then: "Do you not see that?"
Picard in-joke: "Unlike Henry, it is not easy for me to disguise myself and walk among my troops."

Data leaves, and Picard quotes Henry V: "Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king who lead them to it."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Riker and Troi are interrogating Setal, and it is not going well. Troi accuses Setal of hiding something. Riker accuses him of being a spy.
"I told you everything I know!" yells Setal.
"Who is your CO?" demands Riker.
"Admiral Jarok."
"What's the size of the Romulan fleet?"
"Like I know anything like that!"
"I'm not playing this game with you," says Riker.
"This is dumb. I came looking for courage in a lair of cowards."

 Picard is on the bridge when Majel tells him that there's a priority message coming in from a Klingon vessel, and for some reason, he asks Worf to take the message on some other station on a lower deck. Then he asks Data to get the probe info from Nelvana III, and sync it up with Geordi's info. He wants to be able to send all of it to Starfleet.
Later, Data and Geordi are working down in Engineering, and they get into a discussion about facts versus gut feelings. Data thinks that Setal is not a defector. Geordi thinks they'll catch the Romulans in the act. They take a look at some info coming back from the probe, and find something suspicious.

In the ready room, Data explains to Picard that the probe is picking up low-level radio transmissions.
"Our scans are too far away to have picked them up," he says. "It took the probe being right there to find them."
"Are they Romulan?"
"Dunno. We couldn't decode them. Maybe."
"Did you see anything on the surface?"
"Nope," says Geordi. "I guess they could hide something there. Hard to tell. We'd have to go down to the surface to actually look."
"Well, crap," says Picard.
Dramatic music, but no commercial break.

Setal and Data are in Ten Forward, but not together. Setal is sitting near the window drinking synthehol, while Data stares at him.
"Dude, WTF?" demands Setal after a minute. "Never seen a Romulan before, right?"
"No, I totally have," Data replies. "I'm trying to figure out what my gut reaction is to you."
Setal smiles. "You're the android. I know a lot of Romulan cyberneticists who would love to get their hands on you."
Sassy Data Moment: "I do not find that concept particularly appealing."
They talk for a moment about how the stars in this sector are different from the ones on Romulus, and how Setal misses Romulan ale.
"We could make some in the replicators, but we don't have any of the original with which to gather the information," replies Data.
Bullshit. For being an illegal substance, the Federation is hydrated by Romulan ale.
Setal waxes nostalgic about his home planet, and Data asks if he's regretted what he's done.
"No, I needed to do it," says Setal. "But the price is pretty high. I can never go home."
Data does a kind thing here, using the holodeck.

Setal seems appreciative of the gesture, but tells Data to turn it off. When the grid reappears, he resolutely says that this is his future, and he asks Data to make an appointment for himself and Picard. He says to tell Picard that Admiral Jarok wants to talk.

Picard gets yet another communique from Haden.
"So we confirmed that he's Admiral Alidar Jarok. Tread carefully. He may be an unreliable narrator."
Picard has a security Gold bring in Setal/Jarok.
"Please have a seat," he tells the Romulan courteously.
"We don't have any more time!" says Jarok impatiently.
"Bitch, I said sit down!"
Jarok sits.
"Okay, look," begins Picard. "you come to me with a bunch of conjecture, and say that your people are going to possibly start a war with my people in less than two days. Now you tell me that you aren't even the dude you said you were in the first place. How the fuck am I supposed to know that you're telling me the truth?"
They get into it. Apparently, Jarok's military record is well-known, as he lead what the Federation calls the "Norkan massacres."
"What one group calls a butcher, another calls a hero," points out Jerok, an interesting call back to "The Battle."
"I have this huge problem," says Picard. "How much are you willing to help us? You say there's a base on this planet, but you won't give us more info. Are you going to help us keep your people from starting a war? Are you going to help us overpower them?"
Jarok sits for a moment. "I can't betray my people."
"Dude, you're already a traitor."
Jarok tells Picard that is doing this for his daughter, because he saw the Empire making all of the wrong decisions, and he wanted his daughter to have a better life. He tried to convince the higher-ups not to go through with this crap, but they just shunted him into running a do-nothing sector. By defecting, he is trying to make a change, but he's aware that his daughter will grow up being taught that he is a traitor.
"But she'll grow up," he finishes sadly.
"I'm not helping you unless you help me," says Picard firmly.

The senior officers are gathered in the Obs Lounge when Picard comes in.
"Jarok has given me everything," he announces. "The locations of the Romulan fleet, the specs of warbirds, things like that. But his field experience is worth more. We're gonna go to Nelvana III."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Data's Log 43465.2: "Heading into the NZ, totally breaking the Treaty of Algeron. Kind of working under the assumption that cloaked warbirds are nearby and watching us, so we'll probably run into them as we get closer to Nelvana III."

Well into the Neutral Zone, and no one has shown up.
"That makes me nervous," remarks Riker. "You'd think they would have come around by now."
"Reminds me of Custer," muses Picard.
"Yeah, thanks for that."

They reach Nelvana III, but find nothing. Data says he's picking up those faint radio transmissions, but can't locate the source. They call Jarok up to the bridge, and while they're waiting, Riker tries to come up with reasons why the planet could be just another rock in space.
"Did they leave after Jarok defected?"
"No evidence of them having been here and moved anything away," shoots down Data.
"Could it be cloaked?"
"Naw, that would give off distortions."
Jarok enters the bridge.
"There's nothing here," Picard tells Jarok.
"Not possible," protests Jarok. "I saw the communiques, the timetables, the plans and blueprints."
"Yeah," says Picard. "About that - didn't you say you were censured months ago? What if they've been feeding you disinformation this whole time? Could they have been testing your loyalty?"
"No!" says Jarok. "Not possible!"
"They let you escape," says Picard. "They fed you a bunch of lies, and let you come to us with them."
Jarok is staggered.

"Let's GTFO," says Riker quickly.
"Agreed," said Picard.
They turn the ship around and guess who decloaks in front of them? Two warbirds, who start firing. The shields are holding.
"I wanna see what'll happen," says Picard. "If they wanted to, they could have destroyed us."
The Romulans call. It's Mr Smiley himself, Commander Tomalak.

"Hello, Captain Picard! It looks like this time, I'm finding you in the Neutral Zone."
"Yeah, I'm here because I heard there was a base on Nelvana III, which I suspect you know," replies Picard. "And while we're talking about bullshit in space that doesn't exist, what about the subspace radio transmissions?"
"Oh, that's just our cloaked orbiting probe," says Tomalak carelessly. "We're checking out Nelvana III for archaeological purposes."
"Whatever," scoffs Picard. "Tell me what you plan to do next."
"Haul your ship back to Romulus, and display it's broken hull in the capitol as inspiration to others, so they'll praise the might of the Romulan Empire and cheer us on to war," he says cheerfully.
Jarok steps forward to address Tomalak. "So it's true, that you made up all that stuff and fed it to me as a loyalty test."
Tomalak admits nothing, but sighs in irritation. "Captain, I'll need you to give us back the traitor Jarok first. Then you'll surrender as a prisoner of war."
"Fuck off," replies Picard.

                      

They exchange some barbs, and Tomalak suggests that Picard make this easy on everyone, and just surrender.
"Yeah, not doing that," says Picard.
Klingon cruisers decloak behind the Enterprise.
Fuck yeah, a coup!
"You won't survive our attacks," says a startled Tomalak, trying to save face.
Sassy Picard Moment: "Yeah, but you won't survive ours. Shall we die together?"

"Until next time, then," smiles Tomalak.

The warbirds turn and head back for their own space.

Picard gives the order to return to Federation space, then has Worf thank the Klingons.

Jarok stands and laments that he had abandoned his life and family for nothing.

Picard and Data are called to Jarok's quarters, and Crusher tells them and Riker that Jarok took some kind of poison, most likely that SweeTart he had in his boot. She apologizes, because there isn't an antidote to the poison he took, and Jarok is dead. Riker hands Picard a padd, saying that it's a letter that Jarok wrote for his wife and daughter.
"He must have known that there was no way we could deliver this," says Data.
"Yeah," says Picard quietly, "but maybe sometime in the future, if there are more courageous men like Jarok, we might be able to."
And the Enterprise quietly moves back to their own space.

Have you ever watched or read something that you thought was good, but still made you want to punch something? Yeah, that's this episode. This is the Star Trek equivalent of anything written by Orwell. It leaves me frustrated beyond belief, but I can't say that it wasn't good quality content.
So here's my problem: I can't stand when a character does something with the best of intentions, gives up everything, and it all falls apart. Jarok literally destroys his life in order to prevent a war from happening, but it was all for naught. What's more, his future was fucked either way. If he had not prevented war and it had happened, his daughter might have not had a future. If he had defected and prevented it effectively, he would be a man without a country, probably not welcome in Federation space, and definitely not in Romulan space. If he had defected and war was not prevented, he probably would have had the same outcome. But then his information was no good. He did not prevent anything, he only succeeded in telling the Federation that the Romulans might be planning something, then it turns out that they weren't planning anything solid, just heavily thinking about it. So he succeeded in telling the Federation that the Romulans are dicks... which they already knew. His actions were useless, and the Federation got dragged into this weird stand-off wherein they told a guy that he couldn't sit with them anymore. No wonder he killed himself. What choices were left to him?

This crap is infuriating. Mostly this episode reminds me of why I hate the Romulans. Typically, they're all talk and no action. People just talk about how terrible the Romulans are, but we never see any of these terrible things. Then the Romulans talk a big game, and... nothing happens. They just drop idle threats and walk away. Here, they did it to one of their own. They talked a big game, and when he went running to their enemies, they were all, "Nope, no base. Do you see a base? There was never a base here. Don't know what you're talking about. Oh, beeteedubs, you're a traitor now for running to the Federation." That's some straight-up fascist doublespeak bullshit.

And so... nothing happened. A dude wouldn't stop bugging them about not starting another war with their enemies, so to shut him up, they banished him to bureaucratic hell, fed him misinformation, banked on him going to the Federation, and then dragged two large groups into a possible skirmish. In the end, they spent months essentially leading a guy to suicide, all to what end? To send a message to their people that they too will be ruined if they speak up?
Fuck the Romulans and their stupid head games.

Fun Facts:

- Writer Ronald D Moore describes this episode as "the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Neutral Zone."
- In the original pitch, the two-hour delay would have come into further play, as the message not to cross into the Neutral Zone would have arrived after the showdown at Nelvana III.
- At one point in the rewriting process of the script, there was a love story between Crusher and Jarok. Thank freaking everything that was thrown out.
- The teaser originally started out with Data as Sherlock Holmes again, but they ran into legal problems, so Patrick Stewart suggested Henry V.

Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart

- I was totally not joking about that Nelvana III thing. The Nelvana system was named after the little Canadian animation company, which has both created and distributed popular cartoons. (Not to be outdone, the Star Wars series Clone Wars had Anakin Skywalker travel to a planet Nelvaan.)

- The script called for three Romulan warbirds to decloak, but it was later changed to two, giving the Federation-Klingon fleet a bigger advantage.

- This is the second of four appearances of Tomalak.

- This is the first appearance of James Sloyan (Jarok). He will later appear as a Klingon in this series, and will play several more characters in Voyager and DS9.

- This marks the first of two appearances of Admiral Haden.

- The Henry V scene was an homage to the recently-released Henry V movie. Six Degrees of Star Trek: That film was directed by and starred Kenneth Branagh.Patrick Stewart appeared in Hamlet with Derek Jacobi, who appeared in Henry V. When Data lists his inspirations for Shakespeare studies, he cites Branagh.

- Ronald D Moore, who also wrote for Battlestar Galactica (2004), wrote a similar episode to this one for that show.

- Several locations within the Neutral Zone are named after production staff, most of them from the special effects crew.

- This is the first time we see a Romulan scout ship.
- Possible mistake: the Klingon cruisers appear to be the same size as the Enterprise. Cruisers are considerably smaller than Galaxy-class starships.

- This was the first episode of Star Trek to air in the 1990's.
- This is the third time they've changed the admiral's uniform.
- This is the first time that the TReaty of Algeron and the Battle of Cheron are mentioned.
- The Battle of Cheron was a defeat of the Romulan Star Empire against an alliance of humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. It was initially named after the planet in TOS' "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," but star charts shown later indicated that it had taken place in the Cheron star system.


Red deaths: 0
To date: 0

Gold deaths: 0
To date: 0

Blue deaths: 0
To date: 1
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 0
To date: 8

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 3

Sassy Riker Moments: 1
To date: 8

Sassy Picard Moments: 1
To date: 6

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 1
To date: 3
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 4
Sassy Guinan Moments: 0
To date: 2
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 1
To date: 1

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 1
To date: 8

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 1
To date: 15

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 4
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date: 2
Picard Maneuvers: 2
To date: 15
Tea, Earl Grey: 1
To date: 1

Don-Don