Birthright, Part I

Of course, Part One is there to lay the foundation for Part Two. In this episode we have two coinciding story lines. The first involves Worf meeting an alien in a bar who, for a price, will give him information on the location of his father. Worf is intrigued because he has assumed his father is dead and his existence on a Romulan controlled planet would bring disgrace to generations of his family, including his son, Alexander. He and the alien embark on a trip to the planet. Meanwhile, Data has begun having strange, surreal dreams. He wanders hallways, seeing the same images of his "father"/creator. He tries to analyze these things, using the science of dream interpretation and Jungian symbolism. Since as an android, he shouldn't be dreaming, where is this coming from? Both plots are interesting but I have to admit, I wasn't totally grabbed at this point.

In this episode of TNG the Enterprise welcomes on board while they are docked at Deep Space Nine, Dr. Bashir. Alexander Siddig has found a piece of alien space equipment he thinks is medical.

Medical or not it gives off a charge that incapacitates briefly. When he wakes up Brent Spiner finds he's had a vision. If he were human he'd be considered to be dreaming.

After that we delve into the psyche of an android if indeed they have one to find the meanings.

The rest of this episode concerns Michael Dorn who is contacted by an alien saying his father is still aliv along with other Klingons from the Kittimer massacre of his youth. That is continued in the next part.

This happened at DS9!

When I first saw Picard and Crusher walk into the Promenade, I was expecting more interaction with the DS9 cast.

It didn't happen.

Oh, we did get Alexander Siddig El Fadil onto the Enterprise, but there would have been:

Picard arguing with "The Sisko" about Aqueducts

Worf and Odo catching Quark in some crooked "enterprise"

Riker getting Fleeced by Quark and Rom the first time he ever plays Dabo...

And Howlin Mad Broccoli screwing up the Holosuites, he gets trapped in one with Geordi.

That's what could have happened.

I really don't know why there were not more Crossover eps like this, of course the first DS9 ep was a crossover, involving Picard, O'Brien, and The Sisko.

But there was a real opportunity here, to totally merge the casts of both shows. I have always wondered why it never happened. It could have even happened in the TNG Movies, while DS9 was still on the air.

But all we got was this meager episode.

As an episode, important things happen for Data and Worf and Data did get to spend time with Bashir. Even though Bashir forgot to put his shoes back on for his last walk down the Corridor.

Within the parallel Data/Worf stories there is an internal continuity. The Data story is rather interesting, but the Worf story, that's another missed opportunity.

And of course this is one of James Cromwell's 3 TNG Appearances, this time, well, see if you can guess who he is? It took me a few viewings for me to figure out who he was in this.

Look also for Tom Paris' "father" Richard Herd. And Harry Kim's fiance from "Non Sequitur".

It's not that this pair of episodes were not good, But a huge missed opportunity: TNG and DS9 were the most watched shows from this time period, they could have done so much with this.

This jungle is very dangerous and you need weapons and to be wary but hey let's put a naked clingon female baithing by herself in the middle of it.. So stupid.

The Golden Age of Star Trek: we had the 6th Season of The Next Generation and the 1st Season of Deep Space Nice on our televisions, Generations on view in our cinemas and First Contact due out soon. This season of TNG contains some excellent stand-alone episodes and several spectacular two-parters, with only the occasional make-weight. Despite the length of time it had already been on the air, it still represents some of the highest standard of television Science Fiction ever broadcast.

This episode could be viewed as little more than the set up for Worf's adventures on a remote planet which is home to a long forgotten Romulan prison camp for the Klingons who were captured after the battle of Khitomer. After all, this part of the story is set up at the very beginning of Part I and does not really get going until Part II. Various bits of narrative seem to have been inserted to change it from a one-and-a-bit-length episode into a two-parter. That doesn't much matter if you are enjoying the various excellent storylines and only seems a bit weird if you try to break it down afterwards.

Well, quite a few "rule books" have been abandoned by this stage in the series and who would want to miss the cross over appearance of Doctor Julian Bashir from the fledgling series, Deep Space Nine? Alexander Siddig (at the time still going by the name of Siddig el Fadil) radiates the youthful enthusiasm with which his character joins the new series' regular crew and is an absolute joy to watch. If it was intended to encourage US viewers of TNG to try out the brand new DS9 then I hope it was a success. In the UK, because of the VHS release schedule, we had already had the chance to see Deep Space Nine and, for Star Trek cognoscenti, there was simply no going back. We were hooked.

Data's dream world is extremely imaginatively presented. A lot of work must have gone into depicting such a surrealistic view of the Enterprise interior and the symbolism, as illustrated in Data's fantasy paintings, is fascinating. These scenes have a freshness and a creativity which speaks highly of the continuing commitment of all concerned at this late stage in the series' run.

My favourite character, of course, is the cunning and rather repellent Jaglom Shrek, played to perfection by Hollywood A-lister James Cromwell. He exudes avarice and guile despite being encased in a full head of latex prosthetic; the repulsive worm-like detail of which stands up very well to high definition viewing. Even his hands are rendered completely alien and thumbless by some clever camouflage. Imagine having to go around like that for a prolonged day's filming? Now that's true dedication to the craft.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.