Character Insight No. 193: Gul Evek

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we profile Gul Evek, a Cardassian leader who shows up in all three TV series set in the 24th Century.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp193

Evek is a character who shows up a couple of times in Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation. His appearances range from those where he is the usual imperious and hostile Cardassian to others where he has moments of understanding with the Federation.

Speaking of those moments of gray, Evek has more of those when dealing with Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew. In the episode Journey's End, Evek shows up early to try and expedite the transfer of a Federation colony to Cardassian control in the Demilitarized Zone, and that causes a skirmish. However, he decides to withdraw troops rather than escalate the situation, and he reveals his reasoning to Picard in a moment of true honesty:

Evek - "I lost two of three sons in the war, Captain. I don't want to lose the last one."

However, every Cardassian leader has to eventually become a thorn in the side, whether it's for Picard or Commander Sisko. When the Maquis become more aggressive in their attacks, Evek blames Captain Picard and Starlet for not doing enough to control the Maquis and slow the number of skirmishes in the DMZ. He also eventually goes so far as to plant photon torpedoes on a runabout and arrest Miles O'Brien as part of a plot to discredit the Federation efforts in the region.

In another less serious scene between O'Brien and Evek in the episode Playing God, the Gul describes how to solve a vole infestation aboard the Deep Space Nine station. Unfortunately, his help is basically a recommendation to withdraw from Bajor and the region. So helpful!

Evek - "You've got the station, you've got the voles. By the way, their mating season begins in about six weeks."

O'Brien - "Thanks for your help"

Evek does hold an interesting distinction by appearing in the Voyager pilot Caretaker: he's one of only four total characters to appear in these three different series. The others are Q, Morn, and Quark. Much like Admiral Nechayev, the role of Evek was redone in multiple episodes across multiple shows because it served the purpose of establishing continuity with the Maquis storylines while also rewarding the actor Richard Poe who took really well to the part. 

Speaking of Poe, he enjoyed the variations and depth in approach the Cardassian would take to reach his goals of defending his people. He enjoyed the balance between being a strict constructionist of rules and also having some humanity in him, and that showed in the complexities of character he added in these few appearances. Evek continued to show up as a central character in several Maquis related novels and comics.

Richard Poe has also done some voice acting work for video games as well as many other TV shows including different iterations of Law and Order, and most recently, on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

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