David Warner, who sadly handed away earlier this week, is beloved for his villainous turns. From Time After Time to Time Bandits, from Tron to Batman: The Animated Series’ Ra’s Al Ghul, the actor’s legendary profession is paved with them. But maybe his best hour on tv comes from his third and last Star Trek function in The Next Generation.

“Chain of Command” sits as a two-parter in the midst of The Next Generation’s sixth season. It’s one of many present’s greatest, and beloved for a haunting flip by Patrick Stewart, taking part in a Picard who’s captured and brutally tortured by the Cardassians—an interrogation lead by Warner’s sinister Gul Madred. He’s left as susceptible as we maybe ever see the good hero Jean-Luc Picard, who ends the story by admitting how shut he got here to giving up.

Picard is almost damaged by Warner’s Madred, who turns in a very fascinating efficiency that catapults him into the highest tier of TNG’s greatest visitor stars. Madred is definitely not in “Chain of Command” that a lot—he doesn’t seem till the climactic scene of the primary episode, and the second intersperses his torture of Picard with the motion again aboard the Enterprise, the place substitute Captain Jellico (Ronny Cox) is trying to strong-arm his manner via negotiations with one other Cardassian, Gul Lemec (John Durbin). But from the second Warner enters the scene, Madred is straight away charming.

He glides across the dimly little workplace/torture room that turns into the first stage of the again half of “Chain of Command,” barely coming into the sharp pockets of sunshine as he verbally and, generally technologically with an implanted machine in Picard’s chest, needles the great captain till he’s a writhing wreck. Madred’s presence is swish and terrifying—Warner’s voice for the character virtually barely a whisper, exact and managed as he utterly pulls Picard’s strings again and again. That’s actually what makes Madred so compelling and creepy, past the actual fact he’s brutally torturing our hero: he’s a shade, meticulous and detailed however by no means brash and booming, dominance held by his full and utter management, not simply of Picard however of himself. There’s a single scene during which Madred breaks this facade—when Picard mocks his childhood upbringing as a ravenous orphan on Cardassia—but it surely’s just for a second. Even then, as Picard celebrates discovering a spot in Madred’s armor, Warner’s subdued, imposing presence retains him a menace till the episode’s very climax.

It’s a unbelievable efficiency in isolation, however what makes Gul Madred really shine as a personality is that he’s not the one Cardassian villain of the piece. Although they barely share display time save for a scene close to the two-parter’s finish, Gul Lemec is a crucial foil to Madred that creates a larger entire, abstracted as what could be the hallmark of the Cardassians’ portrayal after they really entered Trek’s highlight in Deep Space Nine. Durbin’s Lemec is every thing that Warner’s Madred isn’t—grand and pompous, sneering and theatrical. There’s virtually a component of camp to Durbin’s flip, virtually voguing concerning the Enterprise convention room as he spits calls for and insults at Jellico, Troi, and Riker, palms dramatically splayed as they dance stroking from chair to chair. If Madred skulked within the shadows, Lemec leaps into the sunshine, the embodiment of Cardassian haughtiness and conceitedness.

They’re each unbelievable performances in isolation, however in symbiosis they paint an unimaginable image of what the Cardassians had been able to, as each beings and as characters for Star Trek to work with—the lethal, calculating sneaks, the pompous warriors. Even barely sharing the display, Durbin and Warner’s twin roles really feel like a performative dance, a duet of opposites, every distinction making the opposite efficiency shine simply as strongly whilst they juke away from one another. Durbin’s the proud, livid efficiency Lemec makes Warner’s selections as Madred really feel all of the extra chilly, calculated, and chilling, and in flip that subdued sinister efficiency makes Lemec’s rage and conceitedness all of the stronger.

I got here again to “Chain of Command” final evening within the wake of Warner’s passing anticipating to recollect his efficiency, and his alone—one of many all-time greats of Star Trek visitor stars. But I used to be shocked in realising that it solely hits hits its largest heights because of as simply as laudable efficiency in Durbin: two unimaginable actors setting the stage for what Cardassians might be, prepared for them to ascend into Trek’s annals as one if its most fascinating societies only a few years later.

Want extra io9 information? Check out when to count on the newest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and every thing you should learn about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.