Plot Synopsis: Worf’s foster brother violates the Prime Directive by saving a group of villagers from a doomed planet, transporting them to the Enterprise holodeck.
Plot A and B Analysis: The teaser is straightforward. The crew head to a planet due to a distress call from Worf’s foster brother, Nikolai Rozhenko. The planet’s whole atmosphere is dissipating, which would kill pretty much anyone. Worf transports down after being surgically altered to pass as a native, only to find his brother has abandoned his cultural observer role, integrated himself into a village, and moved them all below ground to save their lives. Plot A is about Worf, Nikolai and the Boraalans, there is no plot B. After a conversation with Picard who refuses to further interfere with the village. Nikolai then further interferes by somehow transporting the villagers onto a holodeck! After the crew finds out what he’s done he explains his plan: find a new planet for them to live on, lead the villagers on a made-up ‘journey’ to their new home where they’ll be safe, and transport them to the new planet, being none the wiser. The holodeck is malfunctioning (of course), and things go a bit sideways when the village chronicler wanders down a tunnel and on to the deck of the Enterprise. Nikolai and Worf lead them to a spot, get the village into tents and transports them to the new planet. The chronicler kills himself and this episode mercifully ends.
Favorite Scenes: Sorry, I’m coming up empty. This entry into the series has very few redeeming qualities.
Use of Cast/Characters: This is a Worf episode, and we get character development regarding his family. We learn Worf has a brother, and that Nikolai was a screw-up. How the guy managed to get a PhD we’ll never know. Picard comes across arguably the weakest this entire season–he caves almost immediately to Nikolai’s plan and seems to lack a personality, coming across as cold and aloof. Riker and Troi do virtually nothing, Geordi’s job is to monitor the holodeck the entire episode. Beverly and Data find the new planet, otherwise the doctor is relegated to Worf’s plastic surgeon. Paul Sorvino does a pretty bad job of acting here, he essentially just recites lines. Penny Johnson plays his indigenous ‘wife’ and does a better job with what she’s given. Brian Markinson plays the chronicler Vorin and also does a good job.
Blu Ray Version: Not much to report here, it looks great.
Nitpicks:. Worf gets surgically altered, just like that? Then five minutes later he gets surgically altered again, then again, and again? It’s just a little too casual for me. How exactly did Nikolai somehow bypass all the safeguards and tech of the Federation flagship and transport an entire village onto a holodeck without anyone’s knowledge? Credibility is stretched quite a bit here. Nikolai is a cultural observer, so presumably he’s part of the Federation, subject to the authority of a Federation starship captain. How do Worf and Picard allow him to stay? He screwed up by letting himself fall in love with a villager, hijacks the Enterprise, and gets away with it. Aren’t there any consequences?
Overall Impression: This is another episode in the vein of Interface and Inheritance–this time it’s Worf’s family member and it’s really not any better than either of those. In fact it’s ridiculous. It galls me a bit that Nikolai essentially hijacks the Enterprise and Picard and the crew just all go along with it–in fact most of the crew seem ineffectual and don’t seem to accomplish much of anything. All this in the context of a massive violation of the Prime Directive. Another recycled cliché is the holodeck malfunctioning–doesn’t it always? Then it seems most of the problems Nikolai and Worf have been having seem to get magically wrapped up in one scene, reminiscent of The Icarus Factor. By the way who are the good guys in this episode? Picard, enforcing the Prime Directive and allowing a race to die, or Nikolai, who criminally saves them? The problem is this episode is so bad I don’t really care if the aliens survive. This is a very flawed, forgettable episode. I’ll rate it 1.5 out of 5 stars.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: This episode is the exact midpoint of season seven. This only occurs in seasons seven and one, as they had an odd number of episodes. If you want to see some behind the scenes clips of Patrick and Gates acting together in this episode, as well as a couple of other episodes, check out this video. There are a couple of references to Beverly not being able to wipe the memory of this alien species. This hearkens back to Pulaski doing just that back in Pen Pals, as is the decision to save or not save a race of people. This is the only time in the series that Michael Dorn appears without any Klingon makeup, that won’t happen again until the DS9 episode Far Beyond the Stars. The plot element of transporting an alien race without their knowledge to safety would be re-used in the film Star Trek: Insurrection. Penny Johnson will go on to appear in 15 episodes of DS9 as Sisko’s love interest and later the ship’s doctor on Seth McFarlane’s The Orville. Finally, pay attention to the stardate. It actually places this episode previous to The Pegasus chronologically.
Missable/Unmissable? Definitely missable, this episode is best left forgotten. The next one is about the same.