Heart of Glory (S1 ep 20)

I remember, way back in the early 90’s, probably during seasons five or six, again, when I was really into TNG, that I really didn’t like the first couple of seasons of the show. I also remember thinking that this episode, the one I’m supposedly reviewing now, was perhaps the best episode of the first season.

I’ll drag out the drama of whether or not I still feel that way until later, but I’m glad that I at least understood that the early episodes were pretty awful. I tended to be pretty uncritical of whatever it was I consumed, media-wise. I liked it or I didn’t. I thought that perhaps the only reason I didn’t like the first season was simply because the combination of spandex jumpsuits and a Riker without a beard.

Well, that and some pretty awful production values, something I hope to talk about a bit at a later date.

But it’s also weird for me now because, much to my surprise, the missus has been joining me for watching these episodes. It’s made it hard to do this reviews the way I’d intended because she wants to consume these way faster than I can write a review, so I’m well into season 3 as of this writing, and going back to a season one episode feels like I’m going back to something I watched a very long time ago. And even though I still am going back to watch these episodes a second time when I review them, that first impression is already gone, I’ve lost that sense of continuity from what happened the previous episodes. I’m not sure what to do about that, but I’ll figure out something.

Anyhoo - So, this is the ep where Worf gets to finally be the focus. I saw in an interview with Michael Dorn that the character was supposed to have only been a reoccurring role in the beginning, but an 11th hour decision was made to make him a regular. I really liked his stoicism over the course of the first season, and Worf has been one of the few characters I’ve not wanted to punch in the face in frustration this season. He’s not been written stupid, unlike Yar, Wesley, and to a lesser extent Troi, and at times, Geordi.

So, what happened in this episode? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Enterprise is called to the Neutral Zone where there has been a battle, the stumble upon a freighter that has taken on a lot of damage. After guessing about who it could have been that fought with the freighter for a bit, Data says it was probably Romulans. Then they beam over.

They away team finds a ship falling apart. They find three survivors, who happen to be Klingons. After some tense moments, they’re all beamed back to the Enterprise as the damaged ship explodes.

On the Enterprise, the Klingons are polite to Picard and tell a story about how they were passengers on that ship when it was attacked. Apparently, whatever it was they said had enough holes in it that Picard and Riker both believe them to be liars.

Then the Klingons and Worf go off to hang out. They all eat and make fun of Worf.

In sickbay, a third Klingon that I hadn’t previously mentioned died from injuries received while battling the attacking vessel. The Klingons (and Worf) come back to sickbay because they know how badly hurt he is. They scream as he dies and say the body is disposable, then stalk off like cool guys walking away from an explosion in an action movie.

Like fish begging for food pellets

Worf bonds with the Klingons to the point that when they confess to him that they’ve been lying to the captain about what they were doing on that damaged vessel he barely even shrugs at it. They also sorta pity him for not really being raised a Klingon. He seems to be susceptible to peer pressure.

So, after confessing to Worf that they’re full of lies and they’d taken the previous vessel by force, and then destroyed the Klingon vessel that came to take them back, Worf happily agrees to take them on a tour of the Enterprise.

Meanwhile, a Klingon vessel approaches the Enterprise. The commander of that vessel fills Picard and the bridge crew in on what Worf has also discovered and says he wants them as prisoners. Picard sends Yar and a security team to arrest the Klingons that Worf is showing around the vessel. A little girl wonders up to he Klingons just as Yar tries to arrest them. She calls the bridge and says the Klingons have taken hostages. Then the girl wonders away and Yar calls the bridge as says, ‘never mind.’

Ugh.

The Klingons are arrested and Worf goes back to the bridge, he begs the captain of the Klingon vessel to find a way for the guys they’ve arrested to die with some honor.

In the brig, the Klingons assemble a disrupter out of all the lumpy stuff that was sticking out of their clothing and escape, they also kill a security officer that clearly has never even considered the tactics of facing armed combatants.

So, the main dude escapes, the other dude dies (No one yells for him) and Picard tells the Klingon vessel that whatshisname is loose on the Enterprise, killing people willy-nilly. The Klingon says he’ll send over a team to capture him, no big deal, but Picard says he’s got it.

So whatshisname goes to Engineering and points his hodgepodge disruptor at the Dilthium crystals, which I assume is bad, and so Worf and Picard go to see what’s up.

Worf goes and meets the terrorist Klingon guy and he seems unable to understand why Worf doesn’t also want to take over the Enterprise and the two of them go off and terrorize the galaxy. Worf tries to speak some wisdom before he shoots the dude in the chest.

Worf yells for this guy.

Then everyone praises Worf, show over.

Oh boy, there is a lot to unpack here. Ah, so, real quickly, some of my thoughts during the episode.

• Riker is anxious to separate the saucer section after just hearing about something in the Neutral Zone. Sheesh. 
• Haven’t heard the name ‘Romulans’ in ‘some time.’ Weird, as they were talking about them a few episodes earlier (in Angel One, maybe - see what I mean about forgetting continuity?)
• Klingons used Romulan technology, right? Disrupters and cloaking tech both? I forget. 
• Geordi has a ‘visual acuity transmitter’ thingy, which apparently means he can transmit whatever it is that he sees to the Enterprise. 
• Geordi’s visor lets him see things like the color controls are screwed up on a television. It seems weird that they say the visual data is so complex that they can’t easily transmit it. It’s the EM spectrum they’re looking at, not sure what the problem is in filtering it down to something close to what a normal human would use to see, if that’s what they wanted. Or if it’s something Geordi would prefer for himself. 
• Speaking of which, it’s like no one in the future has ever considered using cameras for anything more that talking on the phone. I would think live-streaming every away mission would be standard. Even if I go back 27 years, or whenever, to when this was written - the recording of away missions wasn’t a new idea then, either. Didn’t anyone on the writing staff see any of the Alien movies?
• Don’t know why, but Picard interrupting the away team to ask them what they’re doing seems really distracting. There should be some sort of protocol about constantly doing that sort of thing. 
• Merculite rockets! Don’t know what those are, but I dig the name.
• To date, Worf has been the least insane character on the show. I liked the tidbits of his backstory they’d included here. How he was orphaned and raised on a farming colony by a foster parent human and Starfleet officer. Good stuff. 
• I question Worf’s handling of the Klingons. I feel like he should have reported something up the chain of command.
• The howling that the Klingons did when one of their own died was a warning to the afterworld that a Warrior is coming. That’s cool. 
• The Klingon vessel that comes after the guys Worf is happily showing the Enterprise to has a big Federation stamp right next to their Klingon coat of arms, or whatever that thing is called. That’s interesting. Q said a few episodes ago, rather offhandedly, that the Federation had defeated the Klingons. My Federation history is fuzzy, was that ret-conned away, or did the Federation kick their ass and force them to be vassals?
• Just been noticing the pips on everyone’s collar. Looks like Lieutenant Worf is really only a Lieutenant Junior Grade. No biggie, just something I noticed.
• People are dodging phaser fire. How fast do those things travel? The beam looks like it’s about as fast as a moderately thrown baseball. 
• Worf decides to talk to the Klingon threatening to blow up the Enterprise and for some reason Yar thinks that ‘talking’ is a stupid idea. What they need to do is wait until… um, he gets tired? I’m not sure she thought that out. 
• When Worf shoots the bad Klingon in engineering the Klingon falls over and crashes

  

  Who designed these floors?

  THROUGH the floor. So that means that the floor has barely enough strength to hold someone up that is standing there. That is the dumbest design I’ve ever heard of for anything. Glass flew everywhere and everything. Seriously, whomever designed the Enterprise made a death trap. What if someone tripped or something? They’d fall through several floors, shattering glass all the way, before landing a few stories below on the ground. 
• Something I noticed is that when someone is speaking Klingon… it doesn’t sound exactly Klingon-y. At least not in the way I remember it. I took a few minutes and looked into it, turns out that the whole Klingon language had been worked out, but the staff of TNG, for whatever reason, ignored it and just threw a bunch of sounds out there. That seems pretty dumb. 

So, here’s the thing, this story, like virtually every other in this first season, has ‘dumb’ written all over it. Worf is committing what has to be court martial level of offenses in his dealings with the Klingons. And to say that Tasha Yar runs an incompetent security team is an understatement. It makes me strongly suspect that life in the Federation is really so cushy that while Starfleet might appear to be an organization ran with military efficiency, in reality, it’s a bunch of people figuring out stuff as they go along.

That’s why every race that has a run in with a Federation ship is stunned when they win a battle, or survive an encounter, with anyone. They clearly don’t know what they’re doing. Ever.

But given all that, this episode stands out like a single rose in a sea of sand. Yes, it may be struggling to survive, and it may be a bit malnourished, but you can still see some beauty there.

In all, this is up there with The Big Goodbye as one of my favorites of this first season.

It’s just that it’s really not saying a lot. This is an episode that still has a lot of problems.




My rating?






3 out of 5