1x19 Heart of Glory

[7.2/10] One of the advantages Star Trek: The Next Generation has over its predecessor is that it’s more of an ensemble series. The Original Series was basically “The Kirk, Spock, and Bones” show, with the other characters rarely getting B-plots in a given episode, let alone stealing the spotlight. But TNG evolved on that front, allowing folks outside of the captain and his closest pals/advisors to take center stage, adding more depth to those characters and the world overall.

“Heart of Glory” gives us an episode focused on Worf who, outside of last week’s conversation with Wesley, had barely had more than three consecutive lines in an episode up to this point. But it’s to the show’s benefit, not just because it was soon to shift Worf into a more prominent role in the series, but because it gives us more insight into the lives and thoughts and feelings of the members of the Enterprise crew, adding a richness to the series overall.

I’ll confess that it’s hard for me to imagine coming to the show wholly fresh and evaluating Worf’s step into the limelight here without the knowledge of where the franchise will take the character over the years. But I’d like to think it would be compelling and fascinating to learn more about this stoic figure, to get more details about his backstory, to wonder whether he’s loyal to his Starfleet duties or his Klingon blood. This episode plays that last note to the hilt, but in a good way.

What I can do is appreciate how “Heart of Glory” firmly establishes aspects of Worf’s character that would be with him for the duration of his residency in the franchise: his unique position as a Klingon raised by humans from the time he was a boy and the only one of his species serving on a human vessel, his struggles to reconcile the allure and impulses of a history and culture he’s only known from afar with the ideals and expectations of Starfleet, and most of all, his devotion to loyalty and honor in his guise as a true warrior.

Those elements are all explored and tested by the arrival of three stranded Klingons on the Enterprise, rescued by the ship’s away team after a freighter damaged in battle catches their attention. It’s a chance for the show to veer into some action/adventure territory, with senior officers finding their unexpected refugees surrounded by danger on the failing ship and beaming out just in the nick of time.

But it’s also an opportunity for the show to do a bit of exploration with one of its other secondary characters -- Geordi. The ship’s helmsman has already received a little more shading than Worf, with a budding friendship with Data, a rejection of Riker’s Q-bestowed gifts, and a handful of other character moments to call his own. Still, he hasn’t really gotten a story yet.

“Heart of Glory” doesn’t change that exactly, but he gets more focus during the rescue than he’s gotten previously. In all honesty, it’s more of a tech demonstration than a character story, when a new device allows Geordi to transmit the visual information from his visor to the Enterprise’s main viewscreen. But it is a chance for Picard (and the audience) to see the world through Geordi’s eyes and understand him a little better for it.

For one thing, we learn that he sees a ton of extraneous visual detail that he had to learn to block out in order to focus on what’s relevant. We see how he can identify Data by a glow or aura that we unaugmented humans can’t see. Most importantly, we see how the things that amaze Picard are standard operating procedure for his helmsman, not only expanding our perspective on the unlimited ways people might experience the world, but making Geordi more impressive and comprehensible for how he effortless navigates this ship and this blast of information to be a consummate professional and reliable officer.

Worf is that too, but has his mettle tested (and, frankly, questioned) by what follows. It turns out that the souls rescued from that vessel are no ordinary Klingons, but rather purists, committed brutes who value the hunt and belligerent character of Klingon history and abhor the comforts of peace and “civilization” that the Empire’s alliance with the Federation has brought. They encourage Worf to give into his Klingon roots, to sate his bloodlust, to throw off the strictures of his molding by human culture and Starfleet protocols and the attendant Klingon capitulation, to join them and seek glorious conquest on the proverbial battlefield.

It’s an interesting tack. This is the non-Worf Klingons first appearance in TNG, and while the TOS movies had already altered them a bit (most notably introducing the now-famed ridges), “Heart of Glory” does well to dramatize how the transition from recurring foe of Kirk’s Enterprise to reluctant ally of Picard’s is not necessarily an easy one.

Commander Korris sees it as a betrayal of Klingon principles and tradition. Commander K’Nera, the Klingon captain trying to bring these “renegades” to justice confesses his hesitancy to execute them rather than letting them die in battle, but explains that it’s not his choice, while flanked by both Klingon and Federation icons. Even Worf seems to lament that these lost causers do not deserve such an ignoble fate.

But when push comes to shove, he is a Starfleet officer. He considers himself a warrior, but that the battle is internal, one of honor and integrity. So when Korris breaks out of the brig and holds the entire ship hostage (via one Klingon disruptor aimed at the dilithium crystal chamber), Worf reaffirms his commitment to that new battle rather than refighting the battles of old. And when Korris challenges him, he’s not afraid to blast the guy, in a cinematic (albeit mildly contrived) shootout that results in Worf’s attacker falling through the glass floor onto the Engineering deck below.

“Heart of Glory” toys with its audience a little bit. It teases Worf siding with the renegade Klingons when Tasha comes to take them into company, seemingly only compelled not to take their side when one of the Klingons seems to pick up a civilian child as a hostage. At this early stage, when he goes to Engineering to confront Korris, it’s not clear whether it’s to talk him down or join him in his crusade. Even after reaffirming his commitment to a noble, modern version of Klingon honor instead of the dated, battle-hardened one that Korris endorsed, he has to reassure Captain Picard that his gratitude for a job offer from K’Nera was merely a show of politeness and that his home is on the Enterprise.

He remains a Starfleet officer through and through, one loyal to his captain and to his fellow crewmates, despite the Klingon impulses roiling inside him. He rejects Korris’s vision for their people’s future, but still performs the Klingon death ritual for his fallen foe and howls to the dead. Those are facets of the tug of war that subsist within Worf at all times, and this episode gives us a glimpse into both Klingon culture and an officer shaped by its absence and the presence of competing duties and loyalties, making him a more interesting character by the end of the hour.

That’s the benefit of the broader franchise extended within TNG. There’s time and space to explore those contradictions and complexities, to see through eyes other than the captain’s, and to find a more nuanced version of the future than the one presented twenty years prior.