In the middle of The Next Generation's sixth season, there is a two parter called "Chain of Command". It is one of the show's best, and beloved for a haunting turn by Patrick Stewart as Picard, who is captured and tortured by the Cardassians. He is vulnerable like Jean-Luc Picard, who admits how close he came to giving up in the end.
Picard is almost broken by Warner's Madred, who turns in a truly fascinating performance that catapults him into the top tier of the best guest stars. Madred doesn't appear until the end of the first episode and the second intersperses his torture of Picard with the action back on the ship. Madred is captivating from the second Warner.
He glides around the dimly little office/torture room that becomes the primary stage of the back half of "Chain of Command," barely entering the sharp pockets of light as he verbalizes and sometimes technologically with an implanted device in Picard's chest. Warner's voice for Madred was almost barely a whisper, precise and controlled as he pulled Picard's strings over and over. Madred is a shade, detailed and detailed but never booming and domineering, held by his complete and utter control, not just of Picard but of himself. The only scene in which Madred breaks this facade is when Picard mocks his upbringing as a starving orphan on Cardassia. Warner is a threat until the end of the episode, as Picard discovers a gap in Madred's armor.
The performance is great, but what makes it shine is that he is not the only Cardassian villain. Although they barely share screen time save for a scene near the two parter's end, Gul Lemec is a vital foil to Madred that creates a greater whole, abstract as what would be the hallmark of the Cardassians' portrayal when they truly entered Trek's spotlight in Warner's Madred is not all that different from Lemec's. As he spits demands and insults at Troi, Riker, and Jellico, there was almost an element of camp to the way he spoke. Lemec is the embodiment of Cardassian haughtiness and arrogance.
As both beings and as characters for Star Trek, they show an incredible picture of what the Cardassians were capable of, as both beings and as characters. Even though they are barely sharing the screen, Durbin and Warner's dual roles feel like a performative dance, a duet of opposites, each contrast making the other performance shine just as strongly. Madred feels all the more cold, calculated, and chilling due to the subdued performance of Lemec, who makes Warner's choices feel all the more angry and arrogant.
Warner was one of the all-time greats of Star Trek guest stars and I came back to "Chain of Command" last night in the wake of his death. I was surprised that it only hits its biggest heights thanks to the performance of the two actors who set the stage for what Cardassians could be, ready for them to ascend into Trek's annals as one if its most fascinating societies just a few years
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