Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 Episode 21

Popular Star Trek guest star James Sloyen plays the mysterious "family friend" and "advisor" in this Worf/Alexander story reminiscent of "Yesteryear" from the Star Trek animated series. "Firstborn" begins with promise: Sloyen plays the Klingon well, and writer Rene Echevarria fleshes out some interesting Klingon rituals as the plot begins to take shape. Unfortunately, while Sloyen and Bonsall (Alexander) develop a chemistry that only becomes more intriguing as the story progresses, Sloyen and Dorn (Worf) are not a good pairing. Their characters bring out the worst in each other, and their relationship becomes tedious to watch, especially as it becomes the focal point of the episode.



The B story, about the hunt for the Duras Sisters, includes a cameo from Quark and is mostly filler but good fun.

It's in noteworthy that for at least 4 or 5 years, the best Klingon episode was one that did not at all involve Worf ("Blood Oath"). The resolution of Worf's arc in "Redemption" really killed Klingon episodes for the rest of the series. The character's tortured internal conflict was settled, forcing him either into the role of a dad (Alexander episodes) or a mediator ("Birthright", "Rightful Heir"). This episode brings closure to these experiments, at least until Worf would reappear in DS9's 4th season.





We get some bits of Klingon culture here - obviously there is a niche of Star Trek fandom that finds this interesting, but I do not. The plot moves along incredibly slowly, has a thoroughly boring search-for-the-Duras-sisters tanger, and has more annoying Alexander than I could stomach. I feel bad for James Sloyan, who as future-Alexander offers another one of his typically fine guest appearances.





The finish line is awfully close at this point...

Worf’s son has reach the age for the first Rite of Accession , a ceremony in which a young Klingon declares his intention to become a warrior. Worf is shocked to find that his son does not want to become a warrior. Worf being a little detached at a Senior Officer’s meeting has Picard worried. Worf tells Picard of Alexander not wanting to hold up a klingon tradition. Picard suggests Alexander attend the festival of Kot’baval on Maranga IV. Alexander is somewhat impressed until his dad is attacked. Worf handles it well. I rate this one a 9.1

...... I like this episode because of the scene with this one guy and Alexander, when he tries to convince Alexander about becoming a warrior, and it was very well written, and it worked perfectly, and Worf has been trying to convince Alexander to become a warrior for a long time, then this guy comes in, and it works perfectly. It turns out that he cares about Alexander becomeing a warrior more than Worf does, but later we learn that this person is actually Alexander, who went back in time, to tries to convince Alexander to learn how to defend his family, since he lost Worf in the future, but this entire episode was surprising, I learned a lot by watching it twice.