Title: Heart Of Glory
Airdate: 3/21/1988
Plot Summary
The Enterprise finds a Talarian freighter that has been attacked. They rescue 3 Klingons from it, one who’s wounds are too severe and he later dies in sickbay. Worf connects with them, who believe the peace with the federation have robbed Klingons of their warrior birthright. When a Klingon cruiser comes to apprehend them, they escape and hold the Enterprise hostage in order to be free. Worf must make a choice between his current life, and the Klingon heritage that burns within him.
Make It So
Picard is intrigued by some of the Klingon customs he learns about, particularly the Klingon death ritual. He basically doesn’t do a ton in this. He rescues them, he takes them into custody when they are found out to be fugitives, and he makes completely predicable orders when they escape. He basically takes a back seat to Worf.
He really gets lost in the coolness of seeing stuff through Geordi’s VISOR, almost to the point of forgetting that they got people to save.
Number 1
Riker leads the away team to rescue the Klingons but he, and most of the rest of the away team, have very little to do once they are back.
Fully Functional
Data is essential to getting the Klingons and the away team off the freighter. He’s able to withstand some of the heat and lift a jammed door.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
This is Worf’s episode. We see he hasn’t much contact with Klingons, though he longs to be with them in a many ways. He has to kill Korris and is not happy about it, but much happier than letting him be executed.
Phase Inducers
Geordi gets to have an away mission with a camera on his VISOR. We get an idea of how he sees, something we’ll see again later on in season 4.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna is mostly absent this episode.
Dancing Doctor
Crusher has as much luck saving a Klingon as Bones did.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar has to stay on the bridge when the away team goes to make sure that if whatever attacked the freighter comes back or sends friends, she’s ready. Later on she takes a team to take the Klingons into custody and almost has a hostage situation.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is nowhere to be found in this episode.
Canon Maker
We learn a lot about Worf’s backstory, how he was a survivor from the Khitomer massacre and was raised by human parents. We’ll meet them later. He was just a young boy. It’s unclear how young, but before the age of inclusion. Judging from the Klingon’s reaction, I’d say 5 or younger.
We get the Klingon death scream, something we’ll see again from Worf. He loses a lot of people. Especially girlfriends and wives.
We see it finally stated clearly that the Klingons are now allies with the Federation. It was mostly assumed with Worf on the bridge but this puts a little more detail to it as well as make it official.
Canon Breaker
Worf is a little insulted by Yar’s insinuation that Korris would take a child hostage, claiming only cowards do that, not Klingons. Someone should’ve told Kruge.
Worf claims he was brought up on a colony planet of farmers called Gault. This is mostly contradicted later on that he was actually raised on Earth in Russia. He has quite the fondness for Minsk. Of course this was before the Soviet Union broke up, so we’ll forgive the writer’s lack of knowledge that it was actually Belarus.
Apparently you can sneak aboard a weapon in parts if they are part of clothes. Not sure how the scanners and transporters didn’t pick up on all this. At the very least, it should’ve read the power module. But maybe it was shielded in that boot-horn or something.
That transparent aluminum floor broke real easy when Korris fell on it. Apparently the substance knows when dramatic effect is needed.
A Little Bloody Nose
All three Klingons are killed along with a security guard.
Technobabble
We get to see Geordi’s vision through his VISOR. It’s a mess, and Picard asks how the heck he can make out anything. I wonder that myself, especially looking at control panels and such. But Geordi has a clever explanation, “How do you pick out just one voice in a noisy room?” It’s a nice touch.
Please Repeat You Communication
“I was just being polite.” – Worf to explain why he appeared to consider joining the Klingons after his tour was over on the Enterprise.
Library Computer
The Klingon cruiser shots on the viewscreen are re-used shots from The Motion Picture, making it the second time those shots were re-used. The first being Wrath Of Khan during the Kobayashi Maru test.
I Know That Guy:
Vaughn Armstrong plays Korris. This is his only TNG guest spot but he would go on in subsequent series to do 10 more guest spots, most notably as Admiral Forrest in Enterprise. 11, if you count Mirror Forrest as a different character. He played Cardassians, Vidians, Borg, you name it.
Charles Hyman played Konmel. He’s mostly known for playing Konmel.
Charles Bauer plays the Klingon who dies in sickbay and gets screamed at. He’s notable for playing Moke in This Is Spinal Tap and reprising the role in The Sure Thing. Moke, not the Klingon.
David Froman plays K’Nera. He’s mostly known for playing Lt. Bob Brooks in the original Matlock. (I can’t believe the bottom of the barrel went so deep that they rebooted frickin Matlock.)
What It Means To Be Human – Review
So we finally get Worf’s backstory. While I generally really love Klingon-centric stories, this sadly is not one of them. While it does lay out some important groundwork for future series, this comes across as a surface level examination of Klingons. Korris talks so dramatically and pseudo Shakespearian, you just want to kill him yourself. It’s hard to take him seriously.
I suppose though that in the end, Worf really doesn’t. He immediately pinpoints Korris as a selfish asshole who wants to fight without purpose. Just fighting is enough. Worf fleshes out a lot of what it really means to be a Klingon: Honor, loyalty, duty. Fighting should be a means to those ends, not an end unto itself.
Of course, what people misread sometimes about Star Trek is who Worf is. Many people say that Data is the Spock analogue in Next Generation and on the surface, that makes sense. He’s the science guy, brilliant, gets them out of trouble just by being there, and of course has no emotions. But that is incorrect. Data’s motivations is because he’s alone, he has no culture to speak of.
Worf is the Spock of this series. He, like Spock, does come from a culture he idealizes but is not truly a part of. Both Spock and Worf come to realize that their people aren’t as great as they make themselves out to be. In Amok Time, we find out that Vulcans can be self-serving and duplicitous, wielding logic like a weapon. Worf will come to find out as the series progresses that Klingons aren’t all they make themselves out to be with honor. There are examples after examples of the Klingons being just a conniving as a Ferengi. Maybe more so, since Ferengis don’t pretend to be anything else.
Worf’s journey and story starts here with the viewer and it will resonate all throughout TNG and DS9 moving forward, shaping how we see him and Klingons in general. But this story doesn’t exactly start things off with a bang. It’s really a microcosm of TNG’s first season. A lot of promise but still haven’t gotten it right. I rate it slightly higher for setting down some great backstory that writers will mine for years to come.
