Like “The Wounded” before it, “Ensign Ro” is one of the key building blocks of what became Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with the introduction of the Cardassians’ other halves, the Bajorans. Those two intertwined races and their decades-long conflict forms the spine of DS9, and if the Bajorans are slightly off-model in “Ensign Ro” (the series dropped the idea that the Bajorans had, after the Cardassian invasion, become a nomadic race wandering the galaxy), kudos to the writers for establishing most of the rest of the species’ particularities with such aplomb. We get our first looks at the Bajoran resistance, the Bajoran earrings, the Bajoran naming conventions, and the Bajoran temper. And we get Ensign Ro, of course.
Ensign Ro is a fascinating late-day addition to the Next Generation ensemble. She never completely clicked into place, unfortunately, probably because Michelle Forbes didn’t want to lock herself down to a series as omnipresent as Star Trek. (She was meant to become the female lead of Deep Space Nine, the following year, but turned that down too – leading to her slow removal from the Next Generation cast. Of course, her decision lead to the creation of the most kickass woman in Star Trek history, Major Kira, so no harm, no foul.)
Ro is an unvarnished rejection of one of the core elements of Gene Roddenberry’s vision for his series: she is actively combative with other members of Starfleet, and has a troubled history including a court martial and imprisonment. I recognize that this ain’t what the Great Bird had in mind when he designed The Next Generation, but there’s no denying that Ro’s fox attitude injects a dearly needed electric charge into the slackening tension of the Enterprise. Most of her episodes in Season Five work because she’s just so endlessly uninterested in being nice about anything, and Forbes cranks her sarcastic snarl to eleven and nearly becomes a walking challenge to everything dull and dry about Star Trek.
It’s always problematic when a script calls upon the Enterprise crew to behave like a bunch of bigots, and we get a bit of that here; I guess it’s understandable that Riker and Geordi would dislike Ro on reputation alone, but it doesn’t explain why an organization theoretically built around peaceful exploration and scientific discovery would be wholly unaware of cultural conventions like the backwards naming that Bajorans use, or the religious significance of their earrings. (Worf gets to wear his baldric; why doesn’t Ro get to wear her earring?) Nonetheless the scenes between Ro and Guinan, and eventually Ro and Picard, ring with a kind of real warmth and drama, and Forbes delivers a monologue or two that are far more interesting than anything to do with the episode’s plot proper, which is a bit soft. It’s an exciting start for the character, and back when it seemed like Ro would become the full-time Wesley replacement, I was pleased as punch.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Five is in stores now.