Plot Synopsis: Worf’s son Alexander comes to live on the Enterprise, unfortunately; the crew helps guide a test vehicle for a ridiculous new form of interstellar travel.
Plot A and B Analysis: The teaser is only slightly more interesting than the rest of the episode. The Enterprise will observe the newest and stupidest form of propulsion, the soliton wave. Meanwhile Worf’s mom and son come on board the ship; Worf greets Alexander with a warm Klingon handshake. When asked how long they’re visiting, Alexander announces he’s not leaving! Plot A is about Worf and Alexander, plot B is about the soliton wave. Worf’s mom hits him with some truth: she and her husband are old, they can’t keep up with a Klingon child, and “he needs his father.” Half the episode is Worf dealing with his son, the 24th century troublemaker–it’s the better half. Plot B is the Enterprise following the soliton wave, which almost immediately goes haywire. Worf fails to understand Alexander, his son keeps getting into trouble, and because the writers felt some sort of threat was needed, the soliton wave now threatens to wipe out a whole planet. *rolls eyes* Worf gets to save his son’s life, Riker saves a couple of over-sized puppets, and the episode comes to an end.
Favorite Scenes: Worf saving his son is supposed to be the climactic moment of the episode, but even as a father myself I didn’t feel much at all. To me the best moment is when Picard only has moments to decide whether to fire torpedoes at the wave knowing Riker, Worf and Alexander may be killed if he does. He decides to fire torpedoes anyway, the right decision.
Use of Cast/Characters: Worf is front and center for this mostly character-driven episode. He gets significant character development as he actually takes on the responsibility of being a parent—and a single parent at that. He makes several believable mistakes in the process and decides to keep his son on board, which would be the right decision in real life. What I’d forgotten is that Troi actually gets to be useful in this episode. She provides needed insight and encouragement to Worf and really contributes to resolving the primary conflict. Picard only has to make one tough decision in this episode and doesn’t do much else. Riker helps a little on the bridge, but his main contribution is saving the two ugly endangered species specimens (which looked like puppets even in the original SD quality broadcast). Geordi has several lines but doesn’t actually contribute much. Data and Beverly have the least to do here. The actor playing Alexander is now Brian Bonsall, and he’ll reprise the character in six more episodes. He does a good job for a child actor. It’s nice to see Georgia Brown reprising her role as Worf’s mother, even if she only has a few minutes of screen time.
Blu Ray Version: There is a deleted scene included in the Blu Ray version. It occurs right after the observation lounge scene where Picard decides on a plan to dissipate the soliton wave. I can see why it’s deleted: Worf says he’s dissatisfied with the performance of his duties but he’s trying to remedy the situation. Picard replies that while Klingons don’t permit their children on board their ships, Worf has been able to do a lot of things that most Klingons don’t. Worf says thanks, and that’s it. The planet looks better. The soliton wave itself was redone, but looks almost like the original version in most places. The effect when the Enterprise’s shield hits the soliton wave and later when they destroy it was noticeably changed.
Nitpicks: The concept of the utility of the soliton wave for a starship is full of flaws, I’ll just list a few: if it only carries a ship from point to point, how would you turn if you needed to? How would you go someplace no one has been? How would you speed up or slow down if you needed to, mid-way? It’d also be bad if a Romulan hit it with a photon torpedo, which would blow up whatever ship was riding the wave. It might be useful for point-to-point trips well within Federation borders, but every time it’s mentioned in the episode Geordi is ready to replace the entire Warp drive with it. It’s a flat-out bad idea for a starship from a TV perspective also, I don’t need to see the Enterprise “surfing” every episode. Another nitpick: it always seemed incongruous that if Worf could barely lift the beam pinning Alexander (even with Klingon adrenaline helping him), I don’t buy he’d be able to easily throw it aside. I’ve always thought Dorn should have dropped it after moving it out of the way.
Overall Impression: This episode is not as terrible as I remembered, but it’s ultimately forgettable and uninteresting. It’s one of the worst Worf episodes, alongside Firstborn. While yes, Worf stepping up and being a dad is crucial if this were real life, from the point of view of a TV show the kid did nothing but get in the way whenever he appeared. I’ve always viewed his presence as a mistake; I don’t think the writers ever got a good handle on how to use him, he was just this annoying kid. At the risk of sounding like a millennial, the soliton wave is one of the worst. plot. devices. ever. It’s obviously there to give the rest of the cast something to do, which would be OK if it weren’t so stupid. Maybe the best thing for this episode is it gives the audience some insight into the difficulty of balancing the personal and professional lives of Starfleet officers. Faint praise, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m rating this episode 2 out of 5 stars.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: We learn that Alexander was born on Stardate 43205, which would put it right around the time the episode Booby Trap was taking place. Since Reunion takes place on Stardate 44246, wouldn’t that make him at most 1.5 years old when Worf meets him for the first time, and around 3 years old here? Also, since The Emissary took place around 42901, that means K’Ehleyr and Worf had sex while she was on board and she gave birth about three months later? That is some kind of mutant, fast-growth strain of kid! This is the second of eight total appearances of his character on TNG. Alexander only appeared twice on DS9, lucky them. Come to think of it, he would have been much better on DS9; he’d be at a more interesting age by then and could pal around with Nog and Jake. Speaking of kids, Family Ties fans (of which I am one) will recognize the actor playing Alexander as Andy Keaton from that show.
Georgia Brown, who played Worf’s mother Helena, had her very last performance ever in this episode because she died later that year. For some reason I’ve always remembered that Michael Dorn pronounced Kahless differently than it would be pronounced every other time his name is mentioned in Star Trek. It’s ironic that Geordi was comparing the soliton wave to being present when Cochran first engaged the Warp drive, because that’s exactly what happens in the First Contact movie!
Missable/Unmissable? Not just missable, but forgettable also. Skip it. The next episode handles having a kid on board much better.