A Matter of Honor by: Burton Armus from a story by: Wanda M. Haight, Gregory Amos, and Burton Armus and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“A Matter of Honor” is written by: Burton Armus, from a story by: Wanda M. Haight, Gregory Amos, and Burton Armus, and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 134, was the 8^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 34^th episode overall, and was broadcast on February 6, 1989.

 

Three authors on a script is rarely a good sign, yet “A Matter of Honor” is one of those episodes where it actually works.  Now it helps that two of the three names are just ones collaborating with Burton Armus on getting the idea behind “A Matter of Honor” down before Armus writes the actual script.  This is a good episode of television: it’s an episode that has a structured A-plot and B-plot that mirror each other on the theme of cultural exchange.  In a word, it’s a structured episode of television, again something that Star Trek: The Next Generation struggled with during its first season.  “Heart of Glory” from the first season begun Star Trek’s rehabilitation of the Klingons as part of the Federation, and is the first episode to really focus on Worf as a character.  “A Matter of Honor” is actually quite important for making the shift work: the audience has already had a year to come to like and trust Worf as a character, but not really to trust other Klingon characters.  This works because it is an episode about Commander Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, integrating with Klingons as the A-plot in a literal exchange of crew program for the Federation.  Now, Worf does have a role to play in the episode, in the first act he gives Riker primers on Klingon culture, another addition of Star Trek’s expanding the race beyond the caricatures of the original series.

 

The most interesting idea is that on Klingon ships, now part of the Federation yet still run in line with their culture, the first officer’s main duty is the assassination of the captain.  This is not presented as some awful, barbaric practice, but an aspect of the Klingon’s warrior culture: the assassination should only occur when the first officer sees the captain as no longer fit for duty.  Klingon culture believes that a warrior should die a noble death in battle, not be able to live past their prime.  “A Matter of Honor” doesn’t do any deconstruction on this idea, such as where it might fall flat or be corrupted, however, that isn’t what it is intending to do.  The intent is to create a culture for the Klingons.  Writer Burton Armus understands the importance of food in culture, one of the central scenes between Riker and the Klingon crew he works for is eating dinner, something that could easily have been played for laughs in a culturally insensitive “look at these gross foods” a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, however, Riker while occasionally being taken aback, isn’t ever framed as being tortured by the food.  Riker takes the food in his own stride, even if the Klingons are aware of the lack of appeal of their food to the human palate.  They make jokes about Riker needing something softer, suggesting breastfeeding which gives some insight into some of the toxicity of Klingon society (though the episode also presents female Klingons as equally strong warriors, mixed with tropes of the femme fatale).  Those insights are not elaborated on, but they are laying the groundwork for future Klingon episodes.  Much of the material is also elevated by Jonathan Frakes’ performance: from his scenes with Michael Dorn to the Klingons to his scenes opposite Picard, Riker feels like a fully developed character and impossibly amicable.  He has his own concerns, but he made an oath to both the Enterprise and the Pagh, he will be keeping them both when the conflict eventually arises.

 

“A Matter of Honor” also gets Rob Bowman directing, further cementing himself as the best director thus far for Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The Pagh sets are clearly small, but Bowman disguises this fact by shooting things as tightly as he possibly can, which has the secondary effect of bringing out a lot of the drama.  Now this does have the knock on effect of the standing Enterprise sets almost feeling less tense by comparison, though the B-plot itself generally is just less tense.  It’s another cultural exchange: the Enterprise gaining a Benzite called Mendon who just desperately wants to be helpful.  There are more cultural clashes by far in the B-plot, yet somehow that makes the plot less interesting.  Now the Benzite’s have only appeared in one episode previously, “Coming of Age”, the lack of a history is clearly contributing to the B-plot feeling shallow, but it also is just underwritten in general, not devoting enough to making Mendon feel like a character distinct from Mordock, the Benzite in “Coming of Age”, both played by John Putch.

 

Overall, “A Matter of Honor” is very good at being a groundwork laying episode.  The performances elevate the intricacies of Klingon culture, even if this is an episode where the non-Klingon related B-plot is leaving a lot to be desired.  While some of it hasn’t aged the best, there is the occasional problematic trope, the entire episode is a fantastic showcase for Riker and making Klingons feel like an actual culture.  7/10.