Redemption II

Klingon civil war! Tasha Yar beds a Romulan! Data in command! Season five opens with a bang in more than one sense of the word

We open on a bird-of-prey being chased down by two others, then cut to the bridge where Worf’s brother Kurn is in command, aided and abetted by our former chief of security. In a daring manoeuvre, they fly close to a star and use their wake to suck up the corona and toast their foes (Worf 10, Aliens 13). It’s an explosive opening, and the rest of the episode does not disappoint. Between intrigue with the Romulans, partying with the Klingons, Worf getting captured by the Duras clan (Worf 10, Aliens 14) and then beating up a Romulan (Worf 11, Aliens 14), the revelation of a moderately baffling backstory following on from “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, a Tachyon detection grid that serves as an anti-cloaking blockade, and a brilliantly conceived subplot involving Data being given the captain’s chair of the USS Sutherland, this is one of those rare situations where the conclusion of a two-parter improves on the opener.

Words

Note that there is no ‘part’ in this title, it’s just “Redemption II”, a pattern repeated later this season with “Unification II” and then never seen again as far as I know! But then it rather seems that on Star Trek: The Next Generation planning ahead was low on the agenda. Just as with last season’s “The Best of Both Worlds Part II”, once the first part was in the can, everyone was off on vacation and not worrying about what might happen next. Writer Ronald D. Moore later remembered:

I had more fun writing Part II than I. We knew there were a lot of stories to tell but I didn’t want to lose any of those threads, and the Data thing was the most fun of all of them. I wish there were a couple more minutes because you watch it and it blazes along, it was a little constrictive. The parallels to the coup in the Soviet Union was very ironic. It was something that resonated around in my mind. Part II had a little more life than part I.

Moore’s screenplay is full of wonderful moments, most especially on the Klingon homeworld which still has no name. I particularly like the idea that the capital city is neutral ground, as this allows great opportunities for enemies and friends to drink flagons of unnamed Klingon beverages and pound each other with their fists just for the fun of it. It all feels just right.

While the Data subplot works brilliantly, the Sela subplot is clunky and doesn’t integrate into the main story very well. The idea for this came from Denise Crosby herself:

The part of Sela sort of came about from me sitting around in my house one day thinking about how much fun it was for me to go back and do “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, and it was so much fun that I thought what else can I do? I thought it was pretty well established that Lt Yar and Lt Castillo on “Yesterday’s Enterprise” had something going so perhaps they had a child or Yar was pregnant when she went back into the past to fight her final battle. And I sort of thought it out and it seemed to really make sense, and there were no flaws.

As contrived as this scenario evidently is, Crosby brought it to the producers, who apparently liked the idea and played around with how to make it happen. Months passed, and eventually the TNG production team decided that they didn’t like Crosby having a child with Castillo, and decided it worked better if Yar was captured and sired a child with a Romulan General. ‘Contrived’ doesn’t seem quite adequate to capture this stilt-walking love child of nonsense and absurdity, and Moore did not find it easy to work with:

It was tough to write and I knew it would be confusing and that, in essence, is the difficulty with doing continuity on the show. It’s fun and gives us the sense of being a real place, but you have to explain it to people who haven’t seen all those other episodes. It was not an easy explanation – that all came from Denise. She came up with the concept, which I rolled my eyes at the first time I heard. But as we started to get into story on “Redemption II”, I needed some sort of Romulan thing to actually happen this time since we kept saying they’re doing this stuff. It just seemed natural. It fit and we did it.

Does it work? Not really. But it atones for the guilt of sacrificing Tasha Yar to an oil slick (yet again) by giving Crosby a recurring role, although really we’ll only actually see Sela one more time.

Acting Roles

It’s an absolutely whopping guest cast again this week, but let’s start with Crosby’s Sela (pictured above). I don’t think it’s any secret that Crosby's acting is less than stellar, and if she’s not the greatest Romulan commander we encounter in TNG, she is still fun to watch here. Nicholas Kepros’ Movar helps a great deal, as the two make a good double act and support each other nicely. Dramatically, Crosby’s contribution works well in the context of the story giving us a villain to show us what's happening on the other side of the Tachyon grid. (It is a waste of Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan, however, to be reduced to Basil Exposition for Sela this week - “I don’t understand it either, but let’s just go along with it folks!”.)

There’s much more for Tony Todd’s Kurn to do this week, and he is wonderful throughout, and given far more screen time than Robert O’Reilly's Gowron. To be honest, it sometimes feels like he's being given more to do here than Michael Dorn’s Worf, which is a sign that the writer was completely swept away with portraying Klingon culture, although this does successfully set up Worf’s eventual and inevitable return to the Enterprise. We’re not in any doubt that he belongs back in Starfleet by the end of the show. Not to mention, two wins and a loss in the opening episode - could this be a rare winning season for Worf…? We’ll have to find out the hard way!

Barbara March and Gwyneth Walsh remain a brilliant double act as Lursa and B’Etor but they’re not given much screen time here and, sadly, this is the last time we see them in TNG. Yes, it’s true. Although they have a guest spot on DS9 - and of course their swansong in Star Trek Generations - it’s striking that the previous episode was not just their debut, it really was their finest hour.

We do, however, get a new Klingon in Michael G. Hagerty’s Larg.

It’s a small role, serving mostly to set up the idea that the capital city is neutral ground, and so enemies can drink and brawl together. Larg pairs well with Todd’s Kurn here, but then, a broom would pair well with Tony Todd. They will get him back later in a different role on TNG. Also, you may think you don't know Hagerty from anything else... But I bet you do - among his more than a hundred roles, he was Billy in the 1987 comedy Overboard and, perhaps most memorably of all, Mr Treeger the building superintendent in Friends.

We get just one scene from Fran Bennett as Fleet Admiral Shanthi, although sadly in fandom her performance is overshadowed by the fact that costume gave her the pips for a Vice Admiral by mistake.

I quite enjoy her performance here, although her role in the story is just to stress how super-serious Picard’s idea of a blockade is. According to the screenplay, she is the head of Starfleet:

PICARD and RIKER are seated across the table from FLEET ADMIRAL SHANTHI and a N.D. STARFLEET ADMIRAL. Shanthi is the head of Starfleet, and is a woman of African descent in her late fifties with an almost regal bearing. She is listening to Picard while the N.D. Admiral looks on with disapproval.

However, this is never established on screen, and it seems that the fandom eventually closed ranks on her being the Commander in Chief, although why I have no idea! Bennett is another performer with more than a hundred roles to her credit, quite often in authoritative roles (she was a Judge in two episodes of L.A. Law and one of Boston Legal), with her longest recurring role being as Head Nurse Lenore Ritt in the short-lived medical drama Nightingales. They’ll get her back in this very role in the final season of TNG.

Then there’s Timothy Carhart as Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hobson, whose job is to behave like a total butthead to Captain Data. I mean, he does this well, but obviously this is never going to be a likeable role.

The quiet dignity with which he eventually accepts Spiner’s Data as his captain is delivered well, though, and in some respects this was the toughest role in the story. Carhart is no stranger to being given unlikeable characters to play - you may remember him being shot dead by Susan Sarandon’s Louise after attempting to rape Geena Davis’ Thelma in a movie whose title you can derive from those remarks. Also, and similarly unlikeable, he was ‘the Stiff’ AKA ‘the Violinist’ in Ghostbusters, who was dating Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett much to Bill Murray’s Venkman’s chagrin.

Lastly, let’s not forget to mention that Colm Meaney’s Miles O’Brien is on the bridge at the tactical station, the first time he's been at a command post since the pilot episode when he was looking sombre on the battle bridge. His job is to remind us that Worf isn’t there, which frankly, is a waste of Meaney’s talents, not that I’m never going to complain about getting to see him.

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

And there’s so much to see in the special effects too! First and foremost, that opening sequence involving the three birds-of-prey is a wonderfully high-octane kick-off.

There’s very little of the Klingon Attack Cruiser here, which is surprising, but that’s mostly because the story contrives to move the action to Romulans vs Federation at the blockade, and there’s much to enjoy here, including of course returning footage of that beautiful Romulan Warbird.

Lots of studio miniatures reappear - there’s a scene with the Stargazer model representing the USS Hathaway, and the Excelsior model as the USS Excalibur. The model for the USS Sutherland that Data commands is slightly modified from its first appearance in “The Wounded”, and we get to see a reuse of the McKinley station model with it too as an unnamed spacedock!

To be fair, most of what goes on with the blockade is handled in Okudagrams and Romulokudagrams.

...but it all works well dramatically.

Lastly, but never leastly, there’s all the matte paintings of the Klingon homeworld to enjoy, including this great sequence when the capital city is on fire in the cataclysmic climax of the civil war.

Whatever this episode’s flaws, it’s a bombastic way to kick off season five!