I love the one couch in the captain's office that basically only gets used when Sisko needs to have an Important Conversation with Jadzia.

Surprise Guest in IDW's Star Trek Comic

I was reading the latest issue of IDW's new Star Wars comic, which involves Ben Sisko returning from the Bajoran Wormhole with a new mission, as Emperor Kahless II has begun a quest to kill and take the power of god-level beings, using the long-lost Bajoran Orb of Destruction as his weapon.

Sisko goes to Deep Space Nine to look for a weapon of his own, and we get an unexpected guest star:

This is going to be awesome.

Shaxs!!!

last one i promise

Part of what makes Dukat such a compelling character is his core belief in his own superiority and that he is the main character of the universe. This is accomplished through writing but also because Marc Alaimo really, really believed in Dukat as a character. He never plays him with a hint of self doubt. If he experiences opposition to this self image Alaimo plays him as deeply embarrassed, angry or even mentally compromised - all signs of someone who's self hinges completely on this image of himself he has constructed. To the point that any real opposition, like the realisation the universe doesn't revolve around you, crushes him if he can't reconstruct it to fit his own narrative.

Alaimo wanted redemption for Dukat and a romance with Kira. I'm very glad that didn't happen. But the fact that Alaimo never accepted Dukat as fundamentally bad is part of why Dukat works. Dukat can't be redeemed. Not because he doesn't have the opportunity. But because he is fueled by greed and lust for power and that's always behind the choices he makes.

So he needs to be played without self doubt. Without a trace of any remorse. Another actor might have been tempted to play Dukat with cracks in the armor of his bravado where he shows remorse or realisation. Because we want to believe villains have complex feelings about their behavior, right? That deep inside, they doubt? But Dukat always carries this unfaltering belief in himself. He doesn't feel sorry. He doesn't regret anything. In fact, he revels in his crime. In his oppression of the Bajoran people.

It really is interesting how Alaimo having a different view of the character is such a big part of what makes him a good villain.

OP I looove what you're saying about narratives and roles here, because I think another very compelling character arc to view through this lens is that of Dukat's main foil: Benjamin Sisko! (I can already feel a giant essay forming so I'm just gonna warn for that and then put it under a cut lol)

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