TNG – Reunion

 

Plot – Worf gets so wound up by K’ehlyr’s utter disrespect for Klingon traditions but I just want to cheer. She points out in entirely reasonable terms why duty and honour should not be paramount in society and why it has led the Klingon Empire to the political precipice it is now facing. This is marvellous stuff, TNG diving into a form of serialisation whether the producers want it to or not. The Klingon plotline runs through TNG like a gold seam and some of the shows best episodes feature in that narrative. DS9 would tackle this sort of thing in a far more dynamic and detailed why but kudos to TNG for laying down all the foundations and for having a good stab at a continuing story when it certainly wasn’t a popular choice behind the scenes.

There’s a suggestion that Klingon Wars very rarely refuse to allow any of the neighbouring systems to be bystanders. That’s proven to be the case in Way of the Warrior when the Federation is their target and the entire Alpha Quadrant is on red alert.

Klingon politics amuse me at times because what is needed is somebody like K’ehlyr to tell all these silly boys to stop puffing out their chests and strutting about like masculine peacocks and to simply try and work together. It is a feudal system based on who can kill their rival in the most effective way. All of these Klingon episodes eventually lead to a savage shot by Ezri Dax in Taking Into the Wind where she deconstructs Klingon society and exposes its flaws in such a compelling way that even Worf cannot find the words to argue with her. Klingon society is utterly corrupt and troubled, that’s why the franchise keeps coming back to them. It makes for great drama.

Where the Klingons are, the Romulans are usually right behind. At least on TNG. They are the devious buggers of the series and where political intrigues are involved you can be guaranteed that they have some involvement.

Character – It’s a bad day in the office when your ex shows up on the viewscreen in a ship that comes out of nowhere and she didn’t even let you know she was coming. Worf, who started this show as little more than a savage animal has become one of the standout characters of the show simply because the amount of effort the writers and Michael Dorn have gone to to flesh him out. Very sweetly he thinks that his dishonour in Klingon society might offend Ambassador K’eyhlyr and so requests that somebody go and receive her but Picard in an even kinder gesture informs him that he is a member of the Enterprise crew and that that should be enough for any visiting dignitary. Except Picard uses stronger words and blazing eyes. His face when Alexander beams onto the ship and he realises that he has a son is an absolute picture. Finally, Worf has been caught up in the same soap opera machinations of TNG but in the best possible ways.

Performance – It’s always a delight to catch up with Suszie Plakson, who across TNG and Voyager plays three separate and rather wonderful characters. It’s to the producer’s discredit that they never managed to secure her for a continuing role because I think she would have brought something unique to either of the shows. We see later in DS9 what a coup it is to set Worf up with a domestic setting and a wife. TNG tries to do that here but they choose Alexander rather than K’ehlyr, which was entirely the wrong choice. Imagine Plakson being all plummy and fruity and rude with everybody on TNG and embarrassing Worf on a regular basis. How marvellous would that have been? In a moment that made me want to stand up and cheer, K’ehlyr admits that she doesn’t care what other Klingons think of Worf and that she will pursue a relationship with him anyway.

Jon Steuer on the other hand seems to have come from the Matthew Waterhouse school of acting. He has terrific difficulty even walking across the set with any degree of conviction. Child actors are a real lottery and it does feel that the producers made a poor call with Steuer and should have kept trying until somebody naturalistic within this fantasy setting was found. They try this and we end up getting stuck with Brian Bosnell for three seasons, who is somehow even worse. Bosnell is agonisingly twee in future episodes. Take a look at DS9, where they recast Ziyal three times until they found the actress they were happy with.

Robert O’Reilly steps into the Star Trek scene with a ready-made character in his head and he seems perfectly comfortable playing this slimy, creepy Klingon that is trying climb atop the political tower. He’s famous for his burning eyes and psychotic smile and would go on to have a memorable role on both TNG and especially DS9 when the Klingons get caught up in the Dominion machinations. There’s never any doubt that he was born to play this part – I can’t imagine anyone else attacking ti with such gusto.

Great Dialogue – ‘I won’t bore you with the intricacies of Klingon politics…’ – oh thank God.‘You have never seen death. Look, and always remember.’

Production – Model shots versus CGI? When it comes to stationary objects (which most of the vessels are in this story) then the detail and motion control work on model is vastly superior. And for TNG they are brushed up in HD so the quality of the miniatures looks even more impressive. Once DS9 starts adding epic scaled action sequences with ships then CGI enters the scene to make the movement and the suggestion of a vast army of ships more plausible. However, it is when the two combine in Way of the Warrior where Trek’s effects work is at its height. You have all the precise features of the models with the energy of the CGI work. For TNG’s purposes, model work is pretty much entirely sufficient.

Best moment – That sick feeling in your stomach when you realise that K’ehlyr has stumbled across some dirty information on Duras and that he is going to prevent her from revealing it. The suspense in these scenes is palpable. I never thought TNG would go through her murder in such a graphic way but the writers (and director) refuse to hold back, leading to one of the great injustices of the series and one of the most spectacular twists. Worf’s reaction to his lover’s death remains one of the most breath-taking sequences in TNGs run.

I wish they hadn’t done that – It’s a fascinating climax because it exposes one of my biggest objections about TNG but in a way where I am in agreement of Picard, rather than criticising him. He suggests that if people are employed by Starfleet then they should abide by the rules. That I agree with. The trouble is they then encourage people from a huge range of species to populate the crews of their ships and a conflict between their personal cultural ethics and the Prime Directive collide. It creates great drama (such as here) but it exposes a fundamental flaw in the set-up.  Essentially it is ‘we want to explore new life and new civilisations’ but follows that up with ‘but we want you all to behave just like us.’

A reason to watch this episode again – I love the TNG Klingon episodes because they are played as though they are the most sophisticated of Shakespearean dramas being playing to the crowned heads of Europe. With absolute conviction, with no concessions to the pasties on the actor’s heads, and with the belief that the events could genuinely shift the Alpha Quadrant as we know it. And with Patrick Stewart as the lead it has precisely the sort of gravitas to convince that this really is high art. They are genuinely the best episodes of TNG to my mind, because there is a conviction and commitment to drama that is unparalleled elsewhere in the series. AND it is the series dipping its toes into serialisation, which I love. A Klingon assassin is trying to shift the balance of power and war with the Federation looms. It feels like the stakes are high. The direction of this episodes is quite extraordinary; the production value is high and the lighting and action are both staged with some skill but most impressive of all is the work that the actors do and it takes a director of some expertise to drive performances this intense out of a cast when playing science fiction. Jonathan Frakes deserves a massive round of applause for the drama he has assembled.

***** out of *****