“Heart of Glory” is written by: Maurice Hurley, from a
story by: Maurice Hurley, Herbert Wright, and D.C. Fontana, and is directed by:
Rob Bowman. It was produced under
production code 120, was the 20th episode of Star Trek: The Next
Generation, and was broadcast on March 21, 1988.
From a production standpoint, “Heart of Glory” should
not work. It’s an episode credited to
three separate writers for the story idea, one of them being D.C. Fontana who
by this point in the season had left Star Trek: The Next Generation due
to the poor working conditions and chaos behind the production. Fontana as a writer excelled during the
original series, but rarely were her scripts allowed to shine when it came to Star
Trek: The Next Generation. It also
is an episode that wraps its plot around a supporting character, Michael Dorn
as Worf instead of giving any of the main cast members an episode dedicated to
them. Now, Dorn as Worf is a casting
that would be elevated to main cast status and would go on to be a main
character in the back half of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there clearly
is potential in exploring who the character is and developing the Klingons in
general after the original series and the first four films kept them and the
Romulans largely as stand-ins for the Soviet Union in the Cold War in space
(depending on the episode/film). One of
the big shames about “Heart of Glory” is that while it is a fantastic showcase
for Worf, it feels like the final nail in the coffin for Tasha Yar as a
character: in giving Worf development and backstory Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar
is reduced to being a superfluous character with a similar backstory of being
an outsider, though an outsider through poorly handled trauma rooted in sexual
violence. Now, I know the character is
written out at some point during the first season, but if her general lack of
engagement wasn’t enough, it’s clear that at this point Crosby made the correct
decision to leave the show.
The first act of “Heart of Glory” is, despite what
comes after being quite good, a bit of an odd beast. It’s mainly an exploration of a decrepit
spaceship. Director Rob Bowman takes the
limited sets and imbues the sequences with this great sense of tension and
dread, as if anything could be around any corner, but there is also this
misdirect where you think the episode might actually be about Geordi La Forge,
spending time with the development of a feed from his visor being sent to the Enterprise
screens. The episode actually
acknowledges Geordi’s disability and the fact that it makes him see the world
differently, Picard not being able to recognize Riker and Data through Geordi’s
eyes, both appearing as more blob like outlines and Data having an inorganic
aura round him as an android. While the
dialogue has a tendency towards clunky, Maurice Hurley writing the actual
script clearly not really knowing how entirely to engage with the issue, is
coming at it with a genuine sense of humanity.
It’s a precursor to exploring Worf when the big twist is the only
survivors of this ship are Klingons who were there when the ship was attacked
by Ferengi using Romulan technology, because yes Star Trek: The Next
Generation still wants to prime the audience for Ferengi as the big bad
villains of the series despite the messier nature of their only appearances
this season. The big twist is great at
redirecting the plot to something interesting, the audience is going to have to
properly reckon with the fact that Klingons have changed and their culture has
been developed from the films and reruns the audience would be used to.
The rest of the episode is an examination of culture,
Worf as a Klingon is set up largely as an outsider. His family died in a disaster and he was
adopted by humans, losing a lot of the links to Klingon culture but still
feeling that connection to who he is. He
was loved as a child as a human, but raised to the best of his human parents’
ability as a Klingon. He understands the
general culture, the rituals surrounding death as leaving an empty shell, the
ritualistic screaming, and the honor of being a Klingon, but “Heart of Glory”
asserts him as largely being somewhere in the middle. The episode ends with Worf committed to the Enterprise
because he actually likes the work he is doing, albeit that comes across as
slightly flimsy due to the rocky nature of this season of Star Trek: The
Next Generation of keeping the crew less as a crew and more a group of
characters stuck together. But Michael
Dorn does so much to sell the ending that it actually works, it sells the idea
that the Klingons have more depth than any Star Trek really had
previously established. Dorn is carrying
the episode on his back, really playing off Vaughn Armstrong and Charles Hyman
as Korris and Konmel. The pair are
eventually revealed to be outsiders of the current Klingon Empire so to speak,
they want to conquer the galaxy and believe that any honor should come through
conquest and not battle. The episode
posits the pair as temptation for what Worf can become, again through the
occasionally awkwardly blocked scene where Tasha has to take a security force
against Worf and declares a hostage situation.
Again it is these three actors really carrying the episode and making it
work. This is an episode that very much
had the potential to be one of the best, even Ron Jones’ score is particularly
memorable as it mixes percussion with horns to really make the idea work.
Overall, “Heart of Glory” is generally a great
time. It works because of how much time
it dedicates to really deconstruct the preconception of Star Trek fans
towards Klingons. Klingon culture even
on paper could have come across as ridiculous, but the episode frames it
completely straight. It is treated as
more than the planet of hats that would largely plague the original series, and
much of science fiction in the intervening years. Like the best episodes of Star Trek: The
Next Generation so far it is moving things forward into the 1980s. Michael Dorn earns his place in the main cast
even with the telltale signs of the awkward blocking and dialogue that Gene
Roddenberry is just in love with. “Heart
of Glory” is the second best episode of the show thus far, only really behind
“Datalore” both as character pieces.
8/10.
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