Valiant

Episode aired May 6, 1998
TV-PG
46m

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

2.2K

YOUR RATING

Action Adventure Drama Sci-Fi Thriller

Jake and Nog's runabout come under attack from the Jem'Hadar, and are rescued by the Valiant, a ship manned by Red Squad, an elite group of young Starfleet cadets.Jake and Nog's runabout come under attack from the Jem'Hadar, and are rescued by the Valiant, a ship manned by Red Squad, an elite group of young Starfleet cadets.Jake and Nog's runabout come under attack from the Jem'Hadar, and are rescued by the Valiant, a ship manned by Red Squad, an elite group of young Starfleet cadets.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

2.2K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
It has often been pointed out that Nog, a commissioned officer, outranked the entire cadet crew of the Valiant and should have assumed command when he arrived. Ronald D. Moore explained his rationale for the command structure in an AOL chat: "I decided to go with a somewhat older idea that a lawfully designated commanding officer cannot be removed from command except by someone of flag rank. (I'm over-simplifying this idea, but this is roughly the way that things worked in the 18th-19th century Royal Navy.) Captain Watters was given a valid commission and had held his command for eight months. It didn't seem like I was stretching things too far to allow him to continue in that role when Nog arrived - and remember that Nog was also commissioned as a young cadet who hadn't even been at the Academy for as long as Watters".

Goofs
Watters claims a battlefield commission, but his story later is that he took over when the actual commissioned officers were all killed. The death of a superior officer would only place him in command until a commissioned officer would arrive. As such, Nog, being commissioned already, should automatically become the ship's captain upon his arrival.

Quotes
Nog: You gonna write a story about all this?
Jake Sisko: Probably.
Nog: What are you going to say?
Jake Sisko: What do you think I should say?
Nog: That it was a good ship, with a good crew, that made a mistake. We... let ourselves blindly follow Captain Watters, and he led us over a cliff.
Chief Dorian Collins: That's not true. Captain Watters was a great man.
Jake Sisko: Dorian, he got everyone killed.
Chief Dorian Collins: If he failed, it's because we failed him.
Nog: [to Jake] Put that in your story too. Let people read it, and decide for themselves.
[Nog gives Dorian his Red Squad insignia]
Nog: He may have been a hero. He may even have been a great man. But in the end, he was a bad captain.

Connections
References Cheers (1982)

Soundtracks
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Main Title
(uncredited)
Written by Dennis McCarthy
Performed by Dennis McCarthy

User reviews21

Review

Featured review

4/10

Unpleasant to watch

I'm working through a full series rewatch and this may be my least favorite episode yet. The young "captain" is unwatchably obnoxious. Perhaps that was the intent and he's a good actor, but I wanted to look away whenever his smug face was on screen. Might rate lower but there were actually serious consequences by the end, which gave the episode a certain gravity.