2.20 — “The Emissary”
Plot: The Enterprise is diverted by Starfleet to pick up a special envoy with a top secret mission. Our heroes must find a Klingon ship coming out of hibernation from a time before they made peace with the Federation and stop it from attacking Federation outposts. The envoy is K’Ehleyr, a half-human, half-Klingon female, and a former flame of Worf’s. Can they manage to work together for the sake of the mission, or will their personal past get in the way?
Thoughts: I enjoyed this episode perfectly well, but it’s a tough one to review. As the TNG pendulum swings towards a weekly drama show format, and away from the science fiction anthology roots of the original show, I find it can be satisfying and entertaining without being especially engaging on an intellectual level, and without inspiring me to write torrents of paragraphs (although this post is rather long).
The nitpicks: the final confrontation with the Klingons goes down too easily. The opposing captain backs down too soon, based on too small a provocation. Why not take the time to force Worf to bring them into submission and give the Klingons an incentive to capitulate? The Enterprise should be vastly superior in technology to the Klingon ship, which has been out of commission for 80 years. It seems the producers achieved all they set out to achieve in the final scene just by dressing Worf and K’Ehleyr in traditional Klingon garb. For which we thank them. That was cool.
So Klingons are sexual prudes now? Can’t mate once without having to undergo instant marriage and monogamy forever? That did not seem to be the case in 2.8 — “A Matter of Honor,” when Riker was temporarily assigned to a Klingon ship (it’s always about free love with Riker). When K’Ehleyr talks about them compromising their careers, what is she talking about? What is her career, anyway? There’s little indication of what qualifies her to be an emissary from Starfleet in this situation (for one thing, she does not appear to be particularly well briefed about the T’Ong).
Whether or not it fits with previous continuity, however, it’s clear what story the episode wants to tell: a story about sex and sublimated desire and a forced choice between commitment and careers. The editors manage to be so coy, by the way, that I completely missed the point that Worf and K’Ehleyr (according to Internet interpretations) were supposed to have had sex in the Holodeck during the commercial break.[*] When Worf says “We mated!” and K’Ehleyr says “I remember, I was there!” I thought they were talking about something that happened when they knew each other six years earlier. The whole digging fingernails into palms thing was too subtle for me. Perhaps they couldn’t afford the extra time in makeup that would have been required if one of the actors had removed part of their clothing. Coming to think of it, Worf does take off his sash–so I guess we’re supposed to connect the dots.
K’Ehleyr is a fun character. I kind of love the creative but ridiculous red superhero outfit with the leather shoulders. The actress (Suzie Plakson) reminds me of Lynda Carter, and K’Ehleyr is the Klingon Wonder Woman. Her most becoming costume, however, is the final Klingon ensemble.
I admit, this is the first episode of Star Trek which makes me understand why people want to dress up as Klingons. Probably because it is a battle of the sexes/romance episode, and not just about gross men beating their chests and eating creepy food. Role playing these characters would be fun.
We end up with “I will not be complete without you.” Sigh. You are special to me, but I cannot bring myself to tell you how I feel until it is too late. Fun, yes, even effective, but a story which defies dissection. At this point, the show has well and truly gone in a different direction from TOS, which would have never considered this plot to lend sufficient support for an hour. There is a lot more action/SciFi business to be found in “The Enterprise Incident” and “The City on the Edge of Forever.” This is all fine, as long as TNG keeps producing watchable episodes, with good roles for female characters. The blog posts might get shorter, however.
Warp 4 of 6.
[*] Isn’t this like having sex in a public gym? I want to hear the Star Trek parody of the Avenue Q song “The Internet Holodeck is for Porn.”
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