7.11 — “Parallels”
Plot: Upon Worf’s return from a Bat’leth tournament on Forcas III, he experiences spells of dizziness and notices unusual discrepancies. Soon reality is changing by the moment. Wait–in what reality is Worf married to Troi?
Thoughts: I have a feeling you can distinguish between different types of TNG watchers by their reaction to this episode. Is this a high point of the series, where TNG explores new theories of quantum physics and totally blows your mind? Or is this where TNG jumps the shark, or less politely, disappears entirely inside its own ass?
It doesn’t have to be just one or the other, but I incline more towards the latter opinion. Wikipedia reveals that plenty of people hold the opposite! For example, Keith DeCandido, author of 15 Star Trek novels, gives it 10 out of 10 stars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation).
Multiple realities coexisting in a multiverse may comport with current theories of quantum physics, but it is not the way time travel has worked heretofore in Star Trek canon: see “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
I can overlook this if there is a good story. There is, I submit, no story in this episode.
Worf slips into a series of different time streams, for no reason. He alone can tell the difference, for no reason. And then things go back to normal, for no reason. Well, because Data discovers that the fissure caused when the warp engines of the shuttlecraft placed Worf in a state of quantum flux triggered by the subspace field pulse in Geordi’s VISOR can be resealed only by a broad spectrum warp field emitted from the original shuttle containing Worf’s quantum signature. That is, no reason whatsoever.
Instead of a story, we have a series of “Oh no they didn’ts!” ONTD put Worf in a relationship with Troi! ONTD bring back Wesley Crusher just to give him a handful of rote dialog and ignore him! ONTD kill Geordi and Picard! ONTD create an alternate reality where the Borg wins “The Best of Both Worlds” and the replicators run out of beard maintenance products for Riker! ONTD have Crazy RIker fire on Captain Riker and force him to kill Crazy Riker!
Here’s where you find yourself either thinking “This is the best episode I’ve ever seen,” or “Holy crap, this show has gone on too long. Somebody stop this before someone gets a permanent brain injury.”
There’s a lot of fan service, including callbacks to various episodes. I’ve learned that when TNG starts calling back to previous episodes, it’s a sure sign that the script needs help to fill up 44 minutes.
Most of all “Parallels” shows how little the TNG staff respects these characters. No wonder Wil Wheaton developed a complex about his time on the series. There is zero respect for Wesley, or the eternally absent Alexander, or Beverly Crusher who is made to look like a fool again when presented with incontrovertible evidence that Worf is cracking up, and she sends him away with a smile and “Let me know if you have anymore problems with dizziness.” The repeated failures to relieve Worf of duty show disrespect for the whole crew, and Worf himself.
Any episode that respects Worf and his history would have brought back Brian Bonsall to play Alexander. If this parallel universe story had featured the return of Suzie Plakson as K’Ehleyr, I would have given it five stars and a presidential pardon immediately.
I can see how it might have felt different when this first aired in November 1993, not knowing where the series was going. Today we know that there are exactly 14 more TNG episodes and four TNG movies, and this Worf/Troi business will be abandoned soon enough to enable Worf to join the cast of DS9, and Troi to get back together with Riker for the film series. In hindsight, these convolutions look less like innovation and more like desperation to pad out the pages of the final run of scripts.
Still, bad as Season Seven has been so far, it seems more fun to watch on average than TNG was during the first three seasons. Have I become inured? At least they have soap opera, schtick, and self parody to fall back on when little else is working. ONTD!
2 out of 5 absent children. When Worf finds he has lost Alexander forever by entering a universe where his child was never born, Michael Dorn could have reacted at least a little.
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