Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 Episode 13

I saw this episode for the first time in a long time today. It deals with Worf and Worf's brother, along with this civilization of people and the Prime Directive.





This episode was very entertaining and should be watched. Paul Sorvino guest star in this episode as Worf's half brother. He is better known from his work on Law and Order.

The “Enterprise” responds to a distress call from Boraal II. Worf’s brother Nikolai ask for help on saving Boaraal II. In order not to violate the prime directive. Picard allows worf to beam down to the surface disguises as a Boraalan. There is nothing that Worf can do to help , so Nikolai and Worf beam aboard the “Enterprise”. Boaraal II atmosphere is rapidly losing the ability to sustain life. A power drain occurs on the ship. Worf investigates and finds his brother has beamed the settlers to the holodeck. Now how is Picard going to react to this?

I liked this eposide. It isn't action packed and mind tingling as other episodes, but I enjoyed how they showed a whole other side to Worf. This episode to me was more at sibling rivalry than anything else. You see Warf kind of acting human in the sense that he bickers with his bother and they bring up past arguments. But what I really like was at the end when Worf hugged his brother. It showed a small human part to Worf which we really get to see. But when we do its fun and sometimes funny.

Paul Sorvino and Michael Dorn work well together as foster brothers in this throwback episode that, much like "Pen Pals" and "Who Watches the Watchers" from earlier seasons, builds its drama out of the noninterference principal of the Prime Directive.



The story uses a clever plot device (which, in fact, is reused in TNG's third feature film, Insurrection) and marries it with the recycled idea of a malfunctioning holodeck... with mixed results. The languid pacing does the episode no favor, nor does its use of the Prime Directive, which comes across here as cold-hearted and abstractly enforced. The end result is an uneventful road trip with a tone poem tucked inside. (Or you can call it a battle of wills between bickering brothers if you want to be less poetic and more alliterative.)

The Star Trek business was pretty busy at this time, finishing up TNG's final season while simultaneously juggling its first feature film, DS9's second season and the to-be-Voyager. Unfortunately this had an extremely detrimental effect on TNG, which despite being halfway through the season had only about 2 great episodes left in it.





"Homeward" is not bad or painful to watch. It's just dull. I actually think this is one of the better Worf roles from the last 3 season, simply because the overdone Klingon theme gets a rest. (Not to mention no Alexander!)





That said, the whole story is rather dull and banal. Another Prime Directive violation, big whoop, and the "victims" are a rather dull alien race.





You won't miss much if you skip this one.

Actually this episode somewhat pissed me off more then anything else. The very concept that its better to let a culture, nah a species die out then save it, and risk cultural contamination, was the most asinine of ideas. Picard and the entire series always struck me as the world is not black and white. Nor are the concept and ideas being presented in the show and the world. And yet here we are with something that is shockingly black and white: Prime Directive overrules survival of a species due to a natural disaster.


Not a good example of an enlightened culture.

Clearly the Prime Directive needs to be looked at hard if this is the result. Let people die rather than interfere and save them from certain death? Stupid, stupid, stupid. And how sad that Picard could have looked like the humanitarian and violated the prime directive to help people, rather than follow some dumb rule. Isn't the whol epoint of these directives to protect the sanctity of life? So you let them die? And you even sacrifice yourself and your ship to prevent interference? Idiotic! I'd want out of any such organization that had such scary, inflexible rules. Don't let your dogma run over your karma, Picard! Worf's brother is the only hero in this one. Ugh, so far Season 7 is weak. Sad notes to go out on. If I were in the Federation at this time, I'd want to secede.