Plot Synopsis: At Deep Space 9, Worf investigates an alien’s claim that his father is still alive. An engineering accident causes Data to experience a vision of his father, Dr. Soong.
Plot A and B Analysis: The longish teaser has the Enterprise visiting DS9 to help with aqueducts on Bajor, a nonsense reason to have the Enterprise crew at DS9. Data meets Dr. Bashir who is examining a strange device, and an alien tells Worf his father is still alive! Plot A gets going right away, the alien saying Worf’s father was captured at Khitomer and taken with other Klingons to a POW planet, which disturbs Worf. Plot B begins when a plasma shock from Bashir’s device knocks Data into his first ever dream, where he sees his creator, Dr Soong. The rest of the plot involves Data chasing his vision and Worf going to the planet to find his father. Data learns he now has the ability to dream, signifying he has achieved a more advanced state of being. Worf arrives at the POW camp to learn his father is dead, and is then taken prisoner by the Klingons! The plot moves at a steady pace and sets up part two reasonably well.
Favorite Scenes: The dream imagery is compelling the first time you see it, especially the later sequence. The Klingon song we hear toward the end of the episode is one of my favorite songs on TNG. An underrated scene takes place in the 17th minute, where Worf encourages Data to learn more about his father and ultimately realizes he is talking to himself as well. It ties both plot lines together to the common theme of fathers and sons.
Use of Cast/Characters: Both Data and Worf share the limelight in this episode. We learn that Data can control the rate at which his hair grows, he breathes and has a pulse. Becoming a being who dreams is supposed to represent his advancement in complexity to more than what he was at the beginning of the series. We also learn Worf had a vision when he was young, but confirmation that his father really is dead I wouldn’t qualify as character development. Picard, Riker, Troi and Beverly have almost nothing to do while Geordi gets a couple of scenes, both of which are oriented toward Data. Siddig El Fadil guest stars on TNG as his character from DS9, and he’s just fine. James Cromwell plays the alien who sells Worf information, and is fine also.
Blu Ray Version: Pause at 57 seconds, when Geordi and Worf are sitting down at a cafe on the Promenade. Look up at the three signs in the background. If you look closely you’ll see they mean Klingon food, Ferengi food and Cardassian food respectively. Nice details on the set! Ever wonder what’s on Troi’s console on the Bridge? Stop at 8:20 and you get a look at it in beautiful detail. In the original version of the dream sequence, the make up artist could be seen sitting in front of the door on the left at 37:59–she was digitally deleted for this version. Watch carefully for the next blooper: Bashir is walking with Data down the corridor in the 39th minute, wearing black shoes, but by the time they separate at 39:30 he’s wearing white sneakers.
Nitpicks: This is the second time Data and Geordi have been experimenting with a device that has the potential to cause massive energy surges right next to the warp core. For two intelligent guys that’s not very bright! Other than that not much.
Overall Impression: This episode is better than average. The enigma of the dream sequence and what it means keeps us watching, while the tantalizing possibility that Worf’s father is alive is another hook, but both get resolved in part I. Why resolve both in the first half of the two-parter? I can’t say this episode stands out for me for “re-watchability”. It just doesn’t fire my imagination or hit me emotionally after having seen it, like some episodes do. I’ll rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars on a good day.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: A standalone episode was supposed to be about an imprisoned Worf and his Romulan captor, but after Berman gave approval to make it a two-parter there needed to be a plot B for part one. Filling that in was when the writers came up with the idea of Data dreaming. Does the fact that Data dreams ever come up again? Yep, in the episode Phantasms. This is not the first time the Enterprise has been to DS9, that occurred back on the pilot episode Emissary. This is the only TNG episode to open with part of the DS9 theme song playing. This is the first time we see a Yridian on Star Trek, but they’ll become popular enough that we will see them again on TNG, a ton of DS9 episodes, Voyager and even Enterprise. For those interested, Troi’s console display was replaced late in the fifth season. If you want to know what it looked like previously take a look back in The First Duty. Does the Yridian shuttle look familiar? It’s a reuse of the shuttle from Legacy, Final Mission and a Matter of Time. Evidently it was supposed to be Terry Farrell as Dax that was in this episode instead of Bashir. Terry was broken-hearted about it:
I cried. I thought I should have fallen off the rock so I could have gone over there instead of Sid disappearing, because when we were filming “Move Along Home” his character disappeared, and I was acting throughout the rest of it with Nana and Avery, and we got caught up together.
Evidently James Cromwell as the alien was supposed to be in the two-parter more, but he broke his leg between filming the two parts, so we don’t see him as much in part two. Part of what was cut out of the finished episodes was a sympathetic scene where we learn the alien used to be a prison camp inmate himself, and later on gets killed! Finally, a new Spot was cast for Data in this episode.
Missable/Unmissable? Missable. Worf and Data fans (aren’t most people?) will have plenty to watch, but this episode and part II just never stand out for me.