The Defector

The episode is by all means ok, not terribly good or awful. James Sloyan who plays the Romulan defector often has the same approach for all his characters which doesnt mean its a bad performance but its more like he is playing himself. The episode is mostly mind games until the very end of course.

Enterprise gives asylum to a Romulan defector.

This is a classic episode that has an excellent story and a number of great character moments.

The plot works on a number of levels, presenting aspects of a political thriller alongside a focus on command responsibilities in a volatile conflict situation. There is an inspiration from the Cuban missile crisis, some nice tributes to Shakespeare's Henry V and a clear anti-war message.

I cannot go into detail without spoiling key areas of the plot, but it's safe to say that the opening holodeck sequence sets the tone for what is to come and every character exchange that follows is memorable. Picard, Riker, Data, Worf and all the Romulan characters have many strong scenes of dialogue and for me it has one of the most effective endings to a Star Trek show.

'The Defector' is one of the definitive Romulan episodes and thoroughly establishes their deceptive nature and desire for conquest, whilst at the same time adding layers of depth with the portrayal of the title character.

Visually it works well with a number of nicely filmed sequences. The opening scene in particular is very atmospheric. Everything is edited in a way to keep the pace ticking over in an interesting way, especially with so much dialogue.

All performances are great with Patrick Stewart leading the cast brilliantly with great support by Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton. Andreas Katsulas has another excellent cameo. The star of the show though is guest actor James Sloyan with a fantastic turn as the defector.

This for me is the first Star Trek episode to compare favourably to the similarly themed original series classic 'The Balance Of Terror'.

There are some minor plot holes but nothing that distracts from the entertainment, so I think it's a 9.5/10 and round upwards.

This is Star Trek at its finest. Superb plot, the writing is amazing and the performances are best in class.

The best thing here is the character reactions to Setols story, they plain don't believe him, they aren't naive, and most of the episode is spend trying to work out how much of his tale is a lie.

You just don't see stuff like this anymore. People just take what's said at face value, or maybe there's a blatant lie to be revealed but here there are so many layers. Sloyan is superb and as always Stewart is sublime.

I loved the twist at the end, on a rewatch the clues are obvious but they were perfectly written and directed to not give the game away.

I've loved this one since I was 8, and 34 years later it's still for me one of star treks finest hours.

During the height of the Cold War in the '60's, G. Roddenberry had a vision of a TV show that would portray Mankind in the distant future as having become the best we are capable of becoming.

Original Star Trek was the result, and it really started something. Proof of that is that today we are still praising film and written examples of mankind overcoming our own differences and faults, uniting as one, and thereby becoming an example for all life. Anywhere.

The crude and poor resources of the '60's TV industry managed in getting this ideal across, otherwise, we would not be here 50 years later discussing this.

ST-TNG (so far) has been the pinnacle of this vision. This episode stands as one of the best example of it.

Patrick Stewart's background in Shakespearian acting really comes across here, and sets the standard for all of the others. And they all rose to the challenge and delivered amazingly.

This stands as one of the best episodes of ST-TNG, when it was in it's prime! The feelings, tension, and drama it shows are far beyond the capability of those behind the latest movie efforts to carry on the ST storyline.

Some alien somewhere has 10 thumbs, and they are all 'Up' for this one.

Perhaps the only episode in which Stewart plays a second character, not as Jean-Luc. In the introductory scene, Data is on the holodek enacting a scene from Henry V, One of the two commoners interacting with Data, as the King Henry, in commoner guise, is Stewart, playing Michael Williams (presumably as a holodek-generated character). Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard looks on, in appreciation of Data's performance.