Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episode 19: Duet [VHS] Review
Arguably one of the best episodes of Deep Space Nine and a jewel in the entire Trek canon (it was shown during the Museum of Television and Radio Broadcasting's Tribute to Excellence in 1994), "Duet" is a powerful and moving tale about the apparent capture of a notorious war criminal. When a middle-aged Cardassian (Harris Yulin) arrives on the station to receive medical treatment, Major Kira (Nana Visitor) accuses him of being a monster named Gul Darhe'el, the "Butcher of Gallitepp," who killed thousands of Bajorans at a notorious labor camp. What ensues is an incendiary exchange between Kira and the imprisoned Darhe'el, in which he boasts provocatively of his crimes and strikes a nerve in the major by accusing her of ignoring the pain and deaths she caused as a Resistance terrorist. Seeing red, Kira keeps returning to Darhe'el for more verbal combat, but Sisko (Avery Brooks) and Odo (Rene Auberjonois) suspect something is amiss.
Pitched by a couple of interns on the show as a Judgement at Nuremberg-like courtroom drama, "Duet" was instead given a Man in the Glass Booth spin by writers and coproducers Ira Behr and Peter Fields. Ironically, the episode was made during a state of end-of-the-season exhaustion and under a frustrating mandate to shoot cheaply. Yet the result is stellar, a morally and politically complex drama. --Tom Keogh
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