Episode of the Week: Heart of Glory

[MikeS]

Again - typing as watching so forgive my disjointed thoughts...

At least they acknowledge the ability to seperate saucer before going into a dangerous situation. Later on it seems to get forgotten about.

"The Romulans, now there's a name we've not heard in a while" - really? I'm sure we heard of them a couple of episodes back in Angel One? I understand why they wanted each episode to "stand-alone" but what is achieved by blatantly ignoring established continuity?

Lieutenant Yar doesn't look happy when she is told to wait at her post whilst the away team beams over to the Batris!

Geordi's futuristic "head-cam" mustn't even have seemed futuristic in 1987, surely?! What is nice about this little scene though, is that it shows Geordi to be the one person who perceives Data very differently, yet he is the one that treats him the most humanly.

Worf's agreeing to show the Klingons around the engine room shortly after they admit having lied to his Captain has been covered before.

Do all Klingon uniforms have the ability to make a weapon? Or were the renegades just well prepared?

"Kling"? A moon of Q'onos perhaps? A colony?

One of the highlights of Season One.

[BillJ]

Inconsistencies creep when episodes are being written at the same time. Not really a big deal.

Kronos is a retcon.

Great, great episode. One of TNG's best and, I think, one of the definitive Klingon episodes. I liked these Klingons a hell of a lot more than Ron Moore's drinking biker gang.

[MikeS]

BillJ wrote:

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Kronos is a retcon.

I know. Was trying to ask if there'd been any attempt at an "in-universe" explanation in fiction or anything. I realise I had not explained my thoughts properly...

So this and Angel One were written at a similar time? Thanks for the explanation.

[DrBeverly]

According to Memory Alpha, at the time 'Kling' was intended to be the name of the Klingon homeworld. They later on decided that sounded crap, so changed it to Kronos for ST VI. I believe it's been speculated that Kling could be the name of the capital city of Kronos, for example, but I don't know of any canonical statement.

And indeed, Heart of Glory is a good episode, but suffers from the all-too-common early-TNG failing that everyone, Worf included, is just really dumb.

[BillJ]

Kling could just be an older name for the homeworld that some still use.

[sbk1234]

I remember when this first aired it was a big deal, since it actually showed different Klingons, and even a Klingon ship. Also, at the time they apparently thought the Klingons had joined the Federation, since the Klingon bridge shows the Federation seal, but written in Klingon.

This could have been an even better episode, but it suffered from many of the same issues lots of other first season episodes did. They had trouble actually just telling the story, and not stopping to talk too much along the way.

I did really like how they adressed that the alliance with the Federation was painful for the Klingons who were therefore restricted from fighting their greatest foe. It showed how it was basically killing their very soul, being forced to be all nicey-nicey.
It was kind of a nice follow up in the Klingon Civil War when they showed how happy many of the Klingons were to be fighting in battle. Even if it was against each other.

[Jeyl]

Not a bad episode, but it does have some strange padding issues. Geordi's vision was almost pointless and it did a poor job at convincing me that he sees better than we do. It's just random shifting color filters! Give us that Predator 2 sequence where he can shift his sensors to detect different anomalies. That would have been cool.

And the moment the Klingons started hanging out with Worf, I knew where this episode was headed. Are you one of us? Where does your allegiance lie? You would fight for them? Yadayadayada. Doesn't take much to know how this will end.

I do give this episode credit for showing us the TMP Klingon D7. Always good to see that beauty again.

[BillJ]

Jeyl wrote:

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And the moment the Klingons started hanging out with Worf, I knew where this episode was headed. Are you one of us? Where does your allegiance lie? You would fight for them? Yadayadayada. Doesn't take much to know how this will end.

I'm sure you knew where it was heading the moment you saw the Klingons on the Batris, I know I did.

[Timo]

MikeS wrote:

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"The Romulans, now there's a name we've not heard in a while" - really? I'm sure we heard of them a couple of episodes back in Angel One? I understand why they wanted each episode to "stand-alone" but what is achieved by blatantly ignoring established continuity?

Well, in theory, "Angel One" takes place on Stardate 41636 while "Heart of Glory" is 41503, therefore precedes the competition!

Geordi's futuristic "head-cam" mustn't even have seemed futuristic in 1987, surely?! What is nice about this little scene though, is that it shows Geordi to be the one person who perceives Data very differently, yet he is the one that treats him the most humanly.

That's nice, yes. It's a bit funny how LaForge's VISOR abilities are reduced later on, so that he doesn't spot the Julianna Tainer android and loses the ability to detect lies.

Worf's agreeing to show the Klingons around the engine room shortly after they admit having lied to his Captain has been covered before.

That's a good plot twist, as it makes it plausible that Worf might be turning against his Federation comrades. Of course, it's only a few episodes later that we learn that Klingons are supposed to be trusted allies of the Federation, and that Picard would have been within his rights and wits to let Korris pilot the Enterprise while Konmel manned (Klinged?) the phasers...

Do all Klingon uniforms have the ability to make a weapon? Or were the renegades just well prepared?

The plot sort of suggests exceptional survival skills for the renegade trio. Exceptional equipment might explain some of this.

"Kling"? A moon of Q'onos perhaps? A colony?

Not a location at all, IMHO, but rather the Klingon equivalent for "mankind". A traitor of Kling is akin to a traitor of mankind. Or perhaps a traitor of the Klingon spirit, Klingonness, whatever.

Geordi's vision was almost pointless

Seconded - there's quite a bit of padding in many of these early episodes, not all of it explainable by writer strikes and the like. OTOH, it could be taken simply as a different artistic choice in pacing...

Timo Saloniemi

[Mott the barber]

I enjoyed the episode and especially the use of the multi-level engineering set, which was rarely used after S1.

I didn't like the constant re-use of the approaching Klingon ship, however.

And yeah, the whole, they lied to us but let's take them to the most sensitive area of the ship thing is crazy.

[Captrek]

It’s our first look at post-treaty Klingons. The episode does a good job of establishing the concepts of what Klingons are going to be in TNG. (It certainly gives them a better introduction than the Ferengi get in The Last Outpost. Like Konmel says, “As adversaries the Ferengi are not very worthy.”) The Klingon death ritual is a good touch. Unfortunately, the execution of the episode is in many ways so lacking that it almost seems to have been done by children.

Tasha beams the landing party and Klingons from the Batris to the Enterprise in a scene that is plainly intended to be suspenseful. The music rises to an exciting crescendo (itself a stock cue without a lick of originality) as the shots cut back and forth between the transporter room and the Batris, everybody puts on a worried look, and the transporter works then doesn’t work then finally works and gets everybody to the Enterprise at the last possible moment just as the Batris explodes. It’s as if it were written, directed and edited by kids mimicking what they have seen in suspenseful scenes in other works, but who understand it so little that they don’t realize a necessary ingredient is some uncertainty about what’s going to happen or how it’s going to happen. In another moment of psuedo-tension, the Klingons ask Worf to betray the Enterprise and join them as Worf looks back and forth, the music rises, and we cut to commercial. Frankly, I find it embarrassing to watch. (That happens a lot in S1.)

The Klingons narrate the story of how they defeated the Ferengi with phrases like, “We had only one chance,” as if somebody thinks it makes the story dramatic or interesting. The Klingons beam with pride as if they’re describing something clever and original, but it’s a perfectly ordinary tale of false surrender, devoid of any novelty. The tactic is as old as warfare, it’s obvious and known to most adults. We don’t see it a lot because it’s prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

The escape from the brig is similarly hackneyed and too obvious to be believable. Yet we spend nearly a full minute watching the Klingons put their gun together. (The guards, as is typical, don’t bother to watch.) The director (Rob Bowman) evidently thought it was interesting enough to be worth that much of our time. It’s like asking people to read a big wall of text griping about obvious flaws in the episode that...

Oh.

[T'Girl]

Timo wrote:

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Not a location at all, IMHO, but rather the Klingon equivalent for "mankind". A traitor of Kling is akin to a traitor of mankind. Or perhaps a traitor of the Klingon spirit, Klingonness, whatever.

I like this, Kronos is the homeworld, but Kling is the ethos of the people.

The species name Klingon come from who they are, not where they're from.

[Timo]

In another moment of psuedo-tension, the Klingons ask Worf to betray the Enterprise and join them as Worf looks back and forth, the music rises, and we cut to commercial.

Just two seasons later, the audience would be having a serious debate during the fridge raid - the character of Worf would already have been revealed as being perfectly capable of betraying the Enterprise. Why not in this episode already? We don't really know he has a heart of gold, even if it takes "The Enemy" to finally prove that he does not, or "Where Silence Has Lease" to establish him as a fricking psycho.

The Klingons narrate the story of how they defeated the Ferengi with phrases like, “We had only one chance,” as if somebody thinks it makes the story dramatic or interesting. The Klingons beam with pride as if they’re describing something clever and original, but it’s a perfectly ordinary tale of false surrender, devoid of any novelty. The tactic is as old as warfare, it’s obvious and known to most adults. We don’t see it a lot because it’s prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

And that's classic Klingon, too. They are all about childish pintside stories of glory in DS9, so what we have here is... (waaait for it, and insert dramatic music to accompany the ellipsis...) Fooooreshadowingh!

The director (Rob Bowman) evidently thought it was interesting enough to be worth that much of our time.

Well, in James Bond, it always is, even though the Brits do it so much more clumsily.

Timo Saloniemi

[Harvey]

Magus on a Star Trek wrote:

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The music rises to an exciting crescendo (itself a stock cue without a lick of originality)

Harsh. In my estimation, Ron Jones' score is one of the best things about the episode, and it keeps things moving even in light of some earth-shattering stupidity (which you mention).

Rob Bowman's direction is the other thing that keeps the silly script alive. The only thing to distract from the fact that the Klingons build a gun in the brig under the noses of the guards is the percussive editing (and music) in this sequence.

[Jeyl]

Harvey wrote:

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Harsh. In my estimation, Ron Jones' score is one of the best things about the episode, and it keeps things moving even in light of some earth-shattering stupidity (which you mention).

I especially liked Ron Jones' Klingon theme that played when the D7 was approaching the Enterprise. It had all the right musical elements that clearly identified it as Klingon from the violin build up to the more pounding instruments like drums. Great way of sounding familiar without directly resorting to Jerry Goldsmith's or James Horner's Klingon themes.