6x22 Valiant

The episode has something to say, at least, but I find this infuriating to watch. That is really the point, though. Red Squad are a bunch of the most unlikable, bratty, all-American stereotype, non-diverse bunch of white kids that the franchise has ever presented to us and it's almost a joy to see them wiped out at the end. It also digs into my dislike and mistrust of military mindsets (something which Trek usually handles beautifully).

That is a bit of a disservice to the episode, because there is some nuance in there. The conversation between Jake and Collins is a gorgeous high point with some wonderful dialogue and acting, plus we get to learn more about the moon (or 'Luna') as it is in this 24th century. Nog also gets some great character development as he falls prey to the charms of the elite cadets he always looked up to, then realises the danger in blindly following someone. Red Squad turns out to be little more than a cult, and Captain Watters is so overcome with notions of duty without the experience to back it up that he's doomed his crew from the start.

The ending scenes in which we return to our regular crew with Sisko at the helm feel like a moment of relief, and seeing them utilising their own experience in such a smooth and natural way serves very well to highlight the insanity we've been watching for much of the episode. I also really like the opening section with Quark pining for Dax.

It bugs me a bit that the only escape pod that survives is the one with the main characters on. TV contrivances! This is a bit of a ridiculous episode and I can't say that I have any good feelings towards it, but it's not a throwaway.

[7.3/10] Being a teenager is legitimately dangerous. I know, I was one. You are physically mature. You’re near or beyond the age of majority. You’re swimming in hormones. You feel like you can do anything, like you could take on the world if you have to.

But you can’t. Your brain hasn’t finished developing. The last part of it that takes shape is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for judgment and discernment. So you have a fully-grown body, often with the legal right to make your own choices and a deep-rooted desire to do so, without a mind that’s fully ready to weigh the risks and consequences. Frankly, it’s a miracle any of us survive adolescence.

So when Nog and Jake end up on the U.S.S. Valiant, a Defiant-esque ship that is, through unfortunate circumstances, crewed entirely by cadets, there’s something that makes you leery from the start. On the one hand, you want to admire these kids. Their commanding officers were killed, they stepped up to get the job done, and they’ve kept the ship running and hidden for eight months behind enemy lines. The fact that they were able to step up was impressive.

On the other hand, you can’t shake the sense that they’re over their skis, continuing their leaders’ mission because they think they’re up to, when in reality, they should have bolted for home at their first opportunity. The fact that they’re spying on a Jem’Hadar warship, one that could theoretically obliterate them, gives you a sense of their overconfidence about all of this.

The script, from Ronald D. Moore, gives us Nog and Jake as the two conflicting views on what the unexpected crew of the Valiant has done. Nog admires them. He’s a cadet who stepped up too. We already know from “Paradise Lost” that he admires the fabled Red Squad of top recruits who get special treatment and special missions. He’s flattered when Acting Captain Waters, the cadets who stepped into the breach when their actual captain perished, wants to make him Chief Engineer. The idea that even if you don’t feel you're ready, you can step into the role you always dream of, is an inspiring one.

But Jake, the outsider, also sees the way some of the cadets are cracking having been away from home for so long, how the plans to continue the original mission are dangerous, about how this crew of young men and women are not yet ready to face down a warship single handedly, non matter how much pluck and gumption they have.

There’s an interesting dichotomy there. “Valiant” gives the impression of a ship that is half the Lost Boys from Peter Pan and half Lord of the Flies. On the one hand, this is adolescents taking care of themselves, leaving one another, proving themselves capable of the jobs they covet. On the other, the Captain is having to take pep pills, his first officer is helping him run a harshly disciplined and surveillance-enforced regime; his subordinates are crumpling under the pressure, and he’s ready to imprison Jake for daring to question the order of things. More than anything, you get the sense that on the surface, this thing is working, but if you poke below it, you’ll see the rot spreading.

In truth, the idea is more interesting on paper than it is in execution. Much of the goings on aboard the Valiant feel like Star Trek’s preemptive answer to a CW drama. Most of the young actors vary from “fine” to “bleh”, and many of these conflicts play out like high school drama or a teen sports movie as much as they do the lived-in conflicts of messy teenagers with different ideas about how things should be. The dialogue is pretty blunt, and the young performers aren’t quite up to making it sing despite that. If not for the ending, you could see this being the pilot for a new UPN show about “Starfleet as High School” in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Maybe they could make Quark the principal!) It drags the proceedings down.

Director Michael Vejar makes up for that with some dynamic cinematography. The editing in the montage showing the cadets at work getting ready for their big mission has a type of ebullient but determined energy that Star Trek doesn’t typically go for in terms of its presentation. And the score goes above and beyond to sell both the military glory that Red Squad aspires to aboard the Valliant, while also conveying the sense of dread about what they’re walking into. The craft on display is great, even if the acting and writing are a mixed bag.

And yet, there’s something well-observed at the heart of the episode. Waters’ resolution to his crew, that if they don’t try to take down the Jem’Hadar warship, some other crew will have to, has a nobility to do it. But it also comes with a cavalier sense that he and his comrades are up to bringing the massive ship down, that their one-in-a-million shot could give them the glory they want.

This episode has shades of “Paradise Lost” and the way bad elements in Starfleet Command took advantage of ambitious cadets’ enthusiasm and belief that they could do any job. (I think they even bring back the kid with the distinctive jaw line who was in that episode here.) But it also has shades of “The First Duty” from TNG, where a group of hot shot cadets wanted to leave their mark and prove they were worthy of trust and adoration with a wild stunt that ended up getting someone killed.

So when Waters makes his approach to the Dominion warship, and they hit the target, and the explosions erupt, you think he’s done it. If you’re like me, you just knew something was going to go wrong because these poor kids were in over their heads. But there is something undeniably rousing when the plan seems to work, and their courage and boldness seems to have saved the day and proven their mettle.

Ultimately, though, it only makes the turn for the worse that much more devastating. In the afterglow of supposed victory, teh warship survives the attack just fine, and turns its weapons on our poor young heroes. Suddenly, the “senior staff” is dead. Suddenly, the ship is adrift and soon to self-destruct. Suddenly, the belief that we can do anything is replaced by a frantic effort to abandon ship before their dreams go down with the ship. It is a heartbreaking loss, one made all the more painful by that fleeting sense of hope and triumph that Deep Space Nine lets hang in the air before it crashes and burns.

I’ve watched a lot of Star Trek over the years, and a lot more genre film and television in general. Death and destruction on screen doesn’t really faze me anymore. You can only see cities razed and hordes of combatants decimated for so long before it stops having much of an impact without more to earn your attention and investment, especially if you just met them. Ships blow up. Officers perish. It’s part of the deal.

But I’ll admit to getting choked up when the Valliant’s escape pods burst forth from the ship, only to be shot down by Dominion fire, or bathed in flames, or consumed in the explosion of the ship itself. Because these are children. Whatever uniforms they may wear, whatever roles they may play, whatever positions they may aspire to, they’re still kids to me, capable of great things but in a way, still innocent and unfinished. It’s painful, even in fiction, to see them suffer the lethal consequences of their own mistakes, the kind of mistakes anyone who’s been young and hopeful knows in kind, if not in scope.

The note “Valliant” goes out on is one of ambiguity between good or bad. Was Acting Captain Waters a great man who did a challenging thing and ultimately lost, or was he a well-intentioned but foolhardy cadet who led his subordinates “off a cliff”? Frankly, I don’t really care.

Yes, he’s reckless and overconfident and clearly in over his head. But who among us hasn't been at that stage of our lives in some way? That’s the benefit and hardship of getting older. You don’t want to infantilize young adults. They are more capable and perceptive than anyone gives them credit for. But you also remember what it’s like to have that special mix of confidence and vulnerability, where too much of the one leaves you exposed to the other.

You’ve seen futures snuffed out by wrong turns among people who didn’t have all the directions yet. You’ve seen well-meant decisions lead to disaster. You’ve come out on the other end of such a fraught, tender time, recognized your mistakes, and the people who didn’t come through unscathed.

Jake and Nog come out unscathed, because the plot armor says they have to. But however caricatured the depiction, “Valiant” gets at a truth about what it feels like to be that age, and the pitfalls that follow. To feel big enough to do anything, but not ready for what it entails, is a curse. If we’re lucky enough, we survive it. Many, sadly, do not. That’s the irony of it all. Sometimes, the stretch of years where you feel like you could take on the world, is the time when it’s most able to crush you.