Birthright, Part I
It's a daddy issues double bill as the Enterprise visits DS9, Worf goes looking for Mogh, and Data gets blasted by a gizmo and goes on a trippy dreamquest
We’re visiting Deep Space Nine - they even play the theme from the spinoff during the teaser! Worf discovers that his father might still be alive, while Data meets Dr Bashir, messes around with a gadget from the Gamma Quadrant, and goes on a wild robodrug trip. Two plots, one theme, it's almost like we're watching a TV show! In the course of the story, Data has visions about Dr Soong, Worf intimidates a Yridian with unnecessary force (tying up his all time stats - Worf 19, Aliens 19), and LaForge declines to eat pasta. At the end, Worf escapes capture from two Klingons (Worf 20, Aliens 19)... and then is captured by Romulans (Worf 20, Aliens 20), all in the space of about three seconds. That puts his season stats at 3-2 - still a winning season for now!
Words
Remember when they couldn’t go to Deep Space Nine in “Chain of Command, Part I” because the show hadn’t started airing yet...? Well, when this episode was put into production DS9 had still not begun airing, but it was in full production. All those pre-existing sets were out there, promising cost savings from TNG’s perspective (because each franchise is its own accounting entity - a situation that occasionally caused awkward complications…).
However, this story did not begin with the idea of the crossover so much as it vacuumed up the opportunity while it was stitching together two completely different plot concepts. The first had been pitched by George Brozak (who would go on to write episodes for both DS9 and Voyager) and was about captured Klingons who could not go home because of their warrior’s pride. The second was a pitch from Daryl F. Mallett, Arthur Loy Holcomb, and Barbara Wallace (about which I can find very little) concerned Worf learning that his father didn’t die at Khitomer.
Michael Piller proposed breaking this one into two parts - the first time Trek had put more than one two-parter into a season:
Because this was season six, the season of taking risks, of not being afraid of doing things Star Trek hadn’t done before, I said “Why not do another two-parter? Why wait until the end of the season or wait for a Spock? If a story justifies being bigger than an hour, let’s do it.” I had been very happy with the results of “Chain of Command” and I said to Rick we should do it and he said fine. I also felt, much mistakenly as it turned out to be, that we would be able to save money if we expanded it into two hours by using the sets twice.
Unfortunately for the writing staff, they didn’t have anywhere near enough material to make this a two-parter! This required a B-plot, and as Jeri Taylor recalled it was not easy:
The whole Data thing started in desperation, with our just saying, “What can we do with Data? What haven’t we done with Data?”
It was Ronald D. Moore who proposed Data having a ‘religious experience’. As Taylor put it:
It came from the Klingons sort of having a mystical, mythical, spiritual side and we thought maybe Data can have one.
Brannon Braga, who got the teleplay credit, suggested giving Data a near-death experience, but this was felt to be too similar to “Tapestry”, so Braga started exploring the idea of giving Data dreams instead, much to the initial scepticism of Michael Piller:
I really tried to delve into Jungian archetypes and dream images that had never really been shown before... At first Michael didn’t find the Data dream story very compelling and he’d had a couple of notions to fix it, namely showing a piece of the dream early on, which I had not done. His suggestions were very good and made it work.
The result is an extremely unusual two-parter, because the B-plot about Data’s dreams is contained solely in this episode (and fits very well with the Mindwarp theme of this season), while the A-plot about Worf’s father spans two stories (but isn’t enormously Mindwarpy). For me, this is a mark against this two-parter, which feels clunky, but I freely admit this is mostly prejudice on my part (although other fans have likewise lamented that Data's story doesn’t span into the second part).
The Yridian is named ‘Jaglom Shrek’ after the independent filmmaker Henry Jaglom (pictured above) and the old Yiddish Word for ‘shriek’ that had not yet become the name of a grumpy ogre.
To make the dream sequences work, director Winrich Kolbe had to invent some suitably surrealistic imagery:
I wanted to go all the way. I saw nothing but shades of 2001. But it was decided by the powers that be, that we would not overexpose or underexpose. If we do anything, I was told we underexpose, but this is not what I had in mind. I wanted to actually flare it out to give it that different look, but some people felt that it had been done too often and would not look good. So then I decided I’m not going to talk about my creative input anymore, I’m just going to do what I want to do.
Kolbe is one of a handful directors who worked all the way from season one to season seven of TNG - and went on to work on all the other franchises in the original run. It’s amusing to hear him at this point, after six years in the job, deciding he can actually do things his own way!
Surprisingly to me, this was a popular episode with the production crew! Rick Berman later said of it:
It was one of my favourite shows. I loved every element of it and so did my son, Tommy… The B-story and the A-story were of equal importance to me, and it all clicked.
Likewise, Brent Spiner was pleased at how this opened up Data:
“Birthright” was the best concept for the character in a long time. It expanded an idea really nicely. I thought the idea of Data having a dream program was inspired; and really excellent writing.
I’m less keen myself, but not because I don’t enjoy the episode, it just doesn’t quite click for me as a whole.
Acting Roles
The special guest star this week is the crow who gets to play Data.
As Brannon Braga put it:
The bird gave a great performance. It’s one of our best guest stars ever. Kolbe executed the dream sequences with finesse. I was very happy that everything came together for me on that episode. The two stories resonated thematically with one another and I don’t have a single complaint.
Slightly less special is Siddig El Fadil (later: Alexander Siddig) appearing as DS9’s regular Doctor, Julian Bashir.
I like El Fadil’s performances as Bashir but it takes quite a while before the character becomes interesting and his presence here adds very little. Amusingly, it was supposed to be Terry Farrell (who played Jadzia Dax on DS9) filling the guest spot, but she was too central to the DS9 episode “Move Along Home” being filmed a the same time. She was not happy:
I cried. I thought I should have fallen off the rock so I could have gone over there instead of Sid disappearing, because when we were filming “Move Along Home” his character disappeared, and I was acting throughout the rest of it with Nana and Avery, and we got caught up together.
Once again, Brent Spiner gets to play multiple parts - this time, revisiting the character of Dr Noonian Soong, but without the age-inducing latex.
This must have been a treat for Spiner, as for at least one day of shooting he didn’t have to endure hours in the make-up chair! He’s good fun as Soong here too, although it’s hardly the most demanding of roles.
James Cromwell plays the Yridian, Jaglom Shrek - yes, the same James Cromwell who goes on to play Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact.
See “The Hunted” for the full skinny on Cromwell's acting career and Trek appearances. Bet you didn’t recognise him under all that make-up, though!
As for the captured Klingons, let’s leave them for next week’s WAM, as they are little more than cliffhanger fodder this week.
Models, Make-up, and Mattes
The make-up team were extra busy this week, as they were on DS9 all the way through its run, because the expectations for alien randos was bumped up a notch by TNG’s sister show. Here, we get to meet our first Yridian (see above), an alien species to remain in circulation for the entirety of the original franchise shows.
The footage of the Enterprise-D at DS9 had of course already been created for the DS9 pilot episode, “Emissary”...
...while the Yridian shuttlecraft is a reuse of the Nenebek from “Final Mission”.
Along with the reuse of the DS9 sets, this all amounts to an inexpensive episode - with one singular exception. It’s the big special effects sequence this week, which is also the most bizarre - Data’s dream of being a bird and flying both around the interior of the Enterprise...
...and then around its outside too!
It’s a striking sequence, and if my wife complained that this would have felt more at home in DS9 (a show much more open to mystical themes than TNG), I have to say that this is one of the most beautiful compositions in the whole of TNG’s run. I’ll admit it. I have more respect for this episode on revisiting it than I ever did before, even if it still feels rather clunky as a two-parter.
Data's dream really boasts an epic quality. I'd say it is truly one of the most memorable and sweeping visuals in all of TNG. Its sort of dreamy poetry is wonderful. Great critique as usual!