Redemption

Klingon civil war! Romulan skulduggery! The debut of the Duras Sisters! Pulling out all the stops for the climax of season four

Worf is working out with his Klingon sword in a bathrobe he stole from a hotel when out pops the newest Klingon studio miniature so that Gowron can break out his bug eyes and warn us of impending Klingon civil war. Soon afterwards, the intrigue starts piling up as Gowron provides exposition and Guinan owns Worf on the Phaser Range, leading to the Enterprise’s security chief taking a leave of absence in embarrassment from being defeated by a bartender.

Off he goes to utterly violate the Prime Directive with his brother by stoking the flames of war between the different Klingon factions, Gowron on the one side and L’il Duras on the other, backed by the wickedly scheming sisters, Lursa and B'Etor. There follows all the intrigue you’d expect in a political battle for the Klingon throne, accompanied by more cleavage than such power struggles usually attract.

It all leads to a touching conclusion as Worf - freshly reinstated in the eyes of the Klingons - is forced to resign his Starfleet commission as he goes off to fight in the civil war.

Words

“Lies must be challenged.”

Tell me that isn’t a free hotel bathrobe Worf has stolen. How dishonourable!

With this episode we are moving towards the climax of The House of Mogh storyline, TNG’s first and greatest story arc. It was almost entirely the work of Ronald D. Moore, admittedly with considerable support from the rest of the writing room. The plot was originally proposed as the cliffhanger for the third season before “The Best of Both Worlds” bumped it back a year. In the season three pitch meetings, Moore suffered great resistance from Gene Roddenberry, as Moore later recounted:

It was the first time we ever did a war story, even though it was with the Klingons. Gene wasn’t a big fan of going in that direction, nor of placing such a big emphasis on Worf. Gene did not feel that Worf was a primary character – the show was about Picard. We had to fight a bit to get there.

Michael Piller had a fair amount of influence on the story, including inventing the memorable characters of Lursa and B’Etor. Piller thought of the first part of this two-parter as a “Shakespearean-style royal drama, I Claudius-type intrigue at the highest levels”. You remember that Patrick Stewart was in the BBC adaptation of I, Claudius, of course...?

This is TNG’s 100th episode, which is no small achievement for any TV show. By design or by accident, former President Ronald Reagan visited the Paramount sets during the filming of this episode. Gene Roddenberry, whose health was starting to flag, apparently dropped his walking stick, and Reagan picked it up for him.

On seeing a group of actors dressed as Klingon warriors, Reagan was asked what he thought of the Klingons, to which he replied: “I like them, they remind me of Congress.”

Acting Roles

So many returning guest stars! So many new guest stars! There’s so many, in fact, that Marina Sirtis’ Troi, Gates McFadden's Dr Crusher, and LeVar Burton’s LaForge appear solely in the farewell scene for Michael Dorn's Worf, with none of them having a single speaking line in this episode. Meanwhile, Guinan gets to own Worf on the shooting range… seems a little unfair on the regular cast, to be honest, although it’s a fun scene.

Now about those guest stars…

Robert O’Reilly’s Gowron (left) and Tony Todd’s Kurn (right) remain as excellent as ever, but the material here gives far more room for O’Reilly to impress. His performance here is phenomenal, full of all the political calculations and posturing that you’d expect from the heir apparent of the Klingon Empire.

They are joined by new Klingon extras, Ben Slack as K’Tal (left), who basically mills around the Great Hall of the Empire looking serious, and J.D. Cullum as Toral, Duras’ heir (right), and a lot less annoying that most child actors (which is not to say that he’s not still annoying). Slack, incidentally, is that rarest of things: a TNG guest star whose guest slot on L.A. Law happened after appearing on this show.

Then we have Romulans! Nicholas Kepros plays Movar (left), whose job is primarily to introduce Denise Crosby as Sela (right)... but she’s only here as a shock ending, so let’s save talking about her until next time.

Because frankly, all these guest stars are utterly overshadowed by the introduction of Barbara March’s Lursa and Gwynyth Walsh’s B’Etor. These two throw themselves into their roles with as much gusto as O’Reilly does Gowron, and are such incredible fun that they captivate every time they’re on screen.

Considering the power she projects here, it's amazing to me that Barbara March (left) only has 13 TV and film credits to her name, and five of those are in Trek as Lursa. However, it seems she was a well-known stage actress in her native Canada, with such meaty roles as Desdemona in Othello and Lady MacDuff in Macbeth - this has to be the reason for her casting here, and it was a great choice! And guess what? March also appears in L.A. Law after TNG, like Slack.

Gwynth Walsh (right), on the other hand, followed the usual course of being in L.A. Law before TNG, and as well as a theatrical career she has appeared in hundreds of other TV shows and movies, including cropping up in Stargate SG-1, Smallville, American Horror Story, the Van Helsing TV show, and The 100.

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

Spare a moment to consider just how much time and effort the make-up department has to put in every time there’s this many Klingons on screen!

The great sets for the High Council’s Great Hall and the Klingon matte paintings are back, of course, and are joined by a new matte painting of the Great Hall in daytime.

And of course, they didn’t spend all that money on the Klingon attack cruiser studio miniature not to use it!

It gets a nice fight scene here, but it’s a little overshadowed by the far more dramatic scenes of Klingon battle at the start of the second part.

But the effects team’s greatest triumph this week is in costuming. Robert Blackman’s designs for the Duras sister’s outfits (see above) - impishly dubbed ‘Klingon kleavage’ among fans - were to push the great performances by March and Walsh into legendary status, elevating them to the ranks of the most beloved recurring guest villains on Trek. (My brother never forgave Moore and Brannon Braga for killing them off in Star Trek: Generations.)

Extras! Thousands of ‘em!

This isn’t as great a cliffhanger as “The Best of Both Worlds”, but then, nothing ever tops that, but they certainly give it a good try with Worf apparently leaving Starfleet and the lighted-debut of Sela. Director Cliff Bole, however, remembered it as being quite the challenge to land this one:

It was the last show of the season, which is probably one of the most difficult show to do. It’s like taking twelve kids to camp in a bus, stopping for a pit stop, and then trying to get them all on board the bus. They’ve just been working their asses off for the better part of eight or nine months, and everybody wants to go home. People think it's all fun-and-games, but it's not. They really bust their asses.

It’s amazing to think that back in “Encounter at Farpoint”, Michael Dorn’s Worf was just another bit part, like the short-lived conn officers of McKnight, Allenby or Rager, all failing to fill Wesley’s irritating shoes. Here, at the end of season four, Worf is such a part of the furniture that the mere possibility that he might be leaving the show is enough to end on. It’s been quite the journey for Dorn! And Worf's tale is far, far from over.