"The Defector" Ending's Oversight?

[Orphalesion]

I never had a problem with Klingon episodes. (My wife, however, does not like them.)

Maybe the writers hit a few mental blocks, and decided to... Kling-on to a race that was already there.



(I know that kind of pun has been done to death. Even with a bat'leth. But I couldn't resist.)

If you were on board a Romulan ship, you'd probably face execution for that pun :-P

The problems I came to have with Klingon episodes is that over time they became overused in 90s Trek and in comparison to their behaviour in TOS, the movies and early TNG they became almost this cartoonish caricature of rowdy space bikers. Like to the point were sometimes you had to wonder how their society could even function.
And of course there was the tendency of most characters to just roll over and accept every rude or threatening behaviour from Klingons because "we must respect their culture!" Or even worse, all those characters who fanboied/fangirled Klingon culture as if we were meant to believe it's the best thing in the Alpha Quadrant, if not the galaxy.
And then they threw in nonsense like "Klingon love poetry is considered the best in the known universe!" (you know that typical 90s humour)
Yeah I can imagine it, whole poems about skinning people alive to see your beloved smile or stuff like that

 

[Farscape One]

Caricatures is exactly the term my wife uses about Klingons.

One of the best aspects about Klingons is their zest for life. They know death is a certainty, but they live fully. They eat well, they party well, they have sex well. Look at how B'Elanna explains how to have sex to Tom in "BLOOD FEVER".

"What are doing?"
"Enjoying myself?"
"Then prove it."

They have a passion for life that is pretty singular in the franchise.

 

[Orphalesion]

Caricatures is exactly the term my wife uses about Klingons.

One of the best aspects about Klingons is their zest for life. They know death is a certainty, but they live fully. They eat well, they party well, they have sex well. Look at how B'Elanna explains how to have sex to Tom in "BLOOD FEVER".

"What are doing?"
"Enjoying myself?"
"Then prove it."

They have a passion for life that is pretty singular in the franchise.

IDK there's plenty of non-Klingon people in Star Trek who enjoy live, just because they don't do it as violently/stupidly as the Klingons or draw their enjoyment from other sources doesn't mean it's less then the Klingons.I mean really you don't have to get drunk, start potentially deadly bar fights and eat squirming blood worms to enjoy live.

I mean...Lwaxana! Just...Lwaxana.

So no, they are not singular in that.

Really what the Klingons have is "zest for life", I don't want it.

 

[Farscape One]

Lwaxana is a good example, and I really like her. Her tragic history with losing her daughter and her husband really explains so much of that.

But comparing her to other Betazoids, she is pretty much the only one of her kind that is that way. Klingons, in general, are.

I'm not for eating worms and starting a brawl on a whim either, but I respect their devil may care attitude and just grabbing the bull by the horns mentality. They live hard, they love hard, they play hard, and they fight hard.

(And in defense of their eating worms, there's any number of things different races will eat that are just as unappealing. So I can't damn them alone for their cuisine choices.)

 

[Noname Given]

The more unbelievable part of this episode is that four Klingon birds of prey would not just open fire on two Romulan vessels as soon as they're in range, regardless of what the Federation asked them to do.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I can totally see Picard giving the Klingon's limited intel. Letting them know a Romulan defector is on board the ship might get them heated and lead to demands for Picard to hand him over. "We'll get the truth out of him" sort of thing.

Need to know and all that.

My issue with the Neutral Zone is that the Romulans are always trolling about there but as soon as the Feds trot over, "this means war!" What a bunch of dicks.

 

[Mojochi]

My issue with the Neutral Zone is that the Romulans are always trolling about there but as soon as the Feds trot over, "this means war!" What a bunch of dicks.

Those are the costs of setting yourself up in the moral high ground position. The Romulans are an empire built on conquest. The Federation is a union of benevolent entities. Any border or treaty will have to be acted on in the utmost perfect manner for the latter

The Romulan's favorite cold war-esque move is to undermine faith in the Federation by implying it's not what it lauds itself as. Being caught in any way sneaking into the neutral zone achieves that end very well, even if only a little, & gives them hope that it could shake the unity of the Federation members. Basically, any treaty with the Romulans (Like even Algeron) has this disadvantage. It's a shackle for the Federation, while only being an inconvenience to the Romulans.

It's hard to be the boyscouts... which is why that whole organization didn't fair too well either

 

[ThankQ]

The Romulan's favorite cold war-esque move is to undermine faith in the Federation by implying it's not what it lauds itself as.

Change two words and we could post this downstairs.

 

[Mojochi]

Change two words and we could post this downstairs.

Faith & imply? Lol just kidding

 

[Vale]

I can't believe he didnt seperate the ship and took all those children to possible war

I just happend to rewatch this episode again over the weekend and it occurred to me at the time that this would have been the perfect opportunity to have an off-screen separation. Okay, so Picard had an ace (or several Klingons) up his sleeve – but that's a hell of a lot of confidence for someone who's spent most of the episode (and the previous episode with Romulans, "The Enemy") fretting about accidentally starting a war with one false move.