Star Trek fans familiar with the franchise’s 1990s output know that the Cardassians fought Starfleet for at least a decade and a half before the start of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. This infamous alien species remains iconic and relevant, and deeply rooted in the TNG/DS9 era’s deft handling of allegorical stories that reflected real-life geopolitics. But do you know when and how the Cardassians were first introduced? Deep into its fourth season, smack in the middle of TNG’s golden age, the show showed us the Cardassians as though we’d known about them all along. Today, this slick retcon sits comfortably in an episode that holds up not only because of the story it tells, but because it subtly redefined Starfleet’s status quo.
“The Wounded” aired on January 28, 1991, right after the fan-favorite “Data’s Day” managed to convince viewers that Keiko (Rosalind Chao) had been a long-standing civilian member of the crew, even though she was only introduced the moment she and Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) were married. In an era before serialized sci-fi became the norm, TNG had perfected the trick of casually introducing a new character, then immediately capitalizing on our newfound closeness to them. The earlier Season 4 episode “Family,” for example, did this by giving us Picard’s brother, nephew, and sister-in-law all at once.
