Hero Worship
Deep in the Black Cluster, the Enterprise puzzles about why it's so blue, while a child decides Data's so cool he gives up on biology and becomes an android
Wait, didn’t we just get a kid episode? Well, now we get another one, back-to-back, whether we want it or not. Anyway, the Enterprise is on the hunt for the research vessel Vico, which has gone missing near the Black Cluster... oh look, there it is! That didn’t take very long at all, maybe it’s going to be a quick episode this week. Anyway, Riker, LaForge, and Data beam aboard and search the wreckage where they discover a small boy. Amazed by Data’s strength and utter lack of emotional expression, Timothy decides to become an android-in-training, in strict denial to the biology of the situation. Fortunately, Troi is nearby to give questionable advice, and soon the whole ship is playing along. Fortunately for everyone, forging a relationship between Data and Timothy eventually saves the ship from destruction. That was lucky!
Words
The news of Gene Roddenberry’s death reached the cast and crew while this episode was being shot. An additional day of filming was eventually added to the schedule, but whether this was a consequence of everyone’s shared grief or just the pragmatics of the required footage is anyone’s guess. Either way, the scriptwriter this week was Joe Menosky, who seems to have had a tough time of it.
It was a Troi-heavy episode, and I had a love/hate relationship with Troi. Loved the actress, but hated the character. I used to say that having a full-time therapist on board the Enterprise – in a command position no less – would date our series more than any other story element. And in retrospect, that was true.
There’s not much that’s interesting in the screenplay to be honest, although one thing of note is the second mention of the Breen. In “The Loss” (also a Troi-heavy episode), they were mentioned as one of several alien species that are immune to telepathy. Here, Menosky decides to set them up as a warlike species, making a direct comparison with the Romulans and the Klingons. This isn’t foreshadowing, it’s totally pulled out of his writerly-ass, because as a writer your alimentary canal is always standing by to deliver. Anyway, the Breen will get mentioned one more time in season seven of TNG, but they don’t actually get an on-screen appearance or anything much to do until DS9, when the writing team dug them up as an already-mentioned alien adversary to throw into the war-strewn mix of the later seasons.
One fan of the episode was fellow writer Brannon Braga:
I like “Hero Worship” the best of all the kid shows because it’s the most interesting. Good performances and an intriguing mystery, thinking that aliens had destroyed the ship... Picard’s saying, ‘Make him the best android he can be’, and the scene where Data confesses to wishing that he knew what the taste of his drink was like, is very touching.
Even I have to admit, this scene is rather special.
So while it does seem a shame to have had back-to-back kid episodes, there’s no doubt there’s far more interesting things going on in this one than there was last week, even if I feel that the premise of indulging this child’s android fantasy feels slightly unhinged.
Acting Roles
Astonishingly, despite all the focus on Brent Spiner’s Data, the focal character is quite often Marina Sirtis’ Troi.
Indeed, head writer Michael Piller felt this was an exemplar of the way that Troi was given more to do in the later seasons:
I think “Hero Worship” and, as a whole, this has been a very good season for Deanna Troi. We have used her as a counsellor as well as she has ever been used. She certainly had more time on screen and what I think has come out of it is proof that she is really a wonderful actress and has levels of credibility and truth on the screen. I’m a big fan of hers and she really rose to the challenge this year.
I’m less inclined to pick out these kinds of episodes for attention, to be honest... to some extent, Troi is a more interesting character when we get away from her job role, as we did two weeks ago in “Disaster” and will again in later episodes.
Still, its the double act of Spiner's Data and Joshua Harris’ Timothy that drives the episode forward, and the two make a great pairing.
In so much as this episode has its fans, it’s largely because of Spiner’s performance, although Harris as a child performer is really quite impressive. This was his penultimate role, in fact, and the bulk of all of his acting was in Dallas, where he played young Christopher Ewing for over a hundred episodes (mostly in the background).
We have another insipid teacher this week, played by Steven Einspahr. It was his debut role... and also his second to last role. Make of that what you will.
Finally, we have some returning faces below decks! Sheila Franklin returns as ‘Ensign’ (Ensign Felton in the screenplay), still making so little impact that you didn’t even know she existed until I pointed her out to you.
…Meanwhile, Harley Venton is back in the transporter room for the first and only time after “Ensign Ro”. There, he was ‘Transporter Officer Collins’, but this time he’s namechecked on screen and in the screenplay as ‘Transporter Chief Hutchinson’, so it seems he got a promotion and a name change (perhaps he got married and took his partner’s surname...?).
But I think everyone’s reaction to seeing him is more or less the same as my wife’s: where's Miles...? It’s just so disappointing when we don’t get to see Colm Meaney.
Models, Make-up, and Mattes
All the great special effects are in the teaser, more or less. Firstly, there’s the Black Cluster... which is blue.
Seriously, it's blue. I can’t even begin to imagine how something this blue could have picked up a name like ‘the Black Cluster’, but if you can, please share your ideas in the comments.
Behind the scenes, I’ll bet ‘the Black Cluster’ was one of those writerly ideas that flowed freely out of Menosky’s digestive tract and the technical team were then at an utter hair-rending loss on how to bring it onto the screen because an all-black interstellar feature inevitably looks like total crap because black-on-black give you literally nothing to see. This was why it took so long to discover black holes, after all, which at least had the good grace to be derivable from the mathematics of gravitation.
Anyway, moving on from the nonsensical Blue-Black Cluster, I rather like the moody wreckage of the Vico on the inside.
This is a redress of the Penthara IV science lab from “A Matter of Time”, which was also used as the Biolab last week, so basically they’ve used the same set in three different ways in three episodes - quite impressive in itself!
But the highlight of this week’s SFX is the damaged Vico. Although we’ve seen this class of starship before (suprafanonically, the Oberth class), the beaten-up studio miniature we see on screen here was made especially for this episode.
It looks amazing! Which is just as well, as we see it in quite a bit of detail. Model maker Greg Jein was commissioned to build - and destroy! - this model personally, which I imagine was a great deal of fun for him. There’s a really impressive level of detail to the damage, too - you can see individual decks inside it, for instance. A lovely piece of work from the Oscar-nominated master of models, and by far my favourite part of this episode.