“You don’t care about me! All you care about is your honour!”
In 1980s and 1990s television, there was perhaps no greater death knell for a show’s creativity than the introduction in the later seasons of a new child or dog. Yes, Worf’s son Alexander (who qualifies as a child, not a dog, but it’s a near thing) was technically introduced in the previous season’s outstanding “Reunion,” but he was also summarily exiled from Star Trek: The Next Generation at the end of that episode – and boy, oh boy, should he have stayed gone. To make matters worse, “New Ground” even doubles down on the death knell by having the episode’s climax revolve around Worf saving Alexander from doom along with a pair of sweet-potato-looking alien creatures. The kid and the dog.
Klingon maturation update: Alexander, who was conceived at the end of the second season, is now played (two and a half years later) by a nine-year-old boy. At this rate, I truly shudder to think what Klingon puberty will be like for the kid, except that whatever it involves, I feel like the words “uncontrollable growth” would apply. And that it would be painful.
It is now becoming transparent that the series has completely lost track of what to do with Worf. He had a good run, but it ended with “Redemption,” and one wonders if, in the long run, it might not have been better for the character if he’d gone off with Gowron and never come back in “Redemption II.” He could still have re-joined Starfleet in time for Deep Space Nine’s fourth season, which is the next time the character has some fangs. Between here and there, though, it’s just Alexander stories, various comedy bits, and an unlikely romance with Counselor Troi. It’s unworthy of the complex, dark character of the early seasons.
As de-fangings go, “New Ground” spares no expense. There’s something irredeemably emasculating about seeing the gigantic security officer striding down the corridor with his pissy little brat of a kid. There’s a half-second, when Alexander is caught lying to his teacher for the second time, when it seems for all the world like Worf is going to beat the holy shit out of the boy, but of course he doesn’t, because this is a family show. Instead, they bond over the same calisthenics program that Worf shared with K’Ehleyr, while somehow avoiding the awkwardness of Worf having to tell Alexander “hey son, you’re playing holodeck video games about three feet from where you were conceived.” Ewww.
This is also around the time when Star Trek: The Next Generation started tossing incredibly lazy science fiction B-plots into most of its episodes in an attempt to keep its generic mandate going. Here, it’s a giant wave of pure energy that’s sent flying through space in an attempt to create engine-free warp drive. What could possibly go wrong? (The plot does allow Geordi to wax rhapsodic about what it would be like to watch Zephram Cochrane engage the first warp engine… which, of course, LaForge will get to do in Star Trek: First Contact, as mentioned last week.)
The episode’s single saving grace is a surprisingly touching scene between Worf and Deanna, where she discusses the aftermath of K’Ehleyr’s death, and Worf’s unresolved anger towards his mate at leaving him with a child he never knew about. It’s a pretty amazing piece of performance from both actors. Wish it had come about a year earlier, and in a much better episode.
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.