Worf

[Plomeek Broth]

Worf is by far my favorite character in the Trek universe. Do other fans feel the same as me on this matter? I love how serious he is and how funny he can be at the same time. Michael Dorn is a great actor too. Do you think the character was better portrayed on TNG or DS9? I love his obsession with prune juice, honor, glorious deaths, bloodwine, etc., etc.

 

[Michael]

I'm afraid Worf ranks pretty much at the bottom of my favorite (main) characters in all of Star Trek. I think Michael Dorn is a very capable actor and I enjoyed many episodes/scenes where his character was involved. But I could never stand the whole Klingon honor schtick and didn't like his inclusion in the pretty much perfect cast of Deep Space Nine at all.

 

[dave_R_treker]

I liked Worf, he ranked up there as one of my favorite characters. I liked it when he joined the cast od DS9.

 

[KimMH]

Liked him a lot but cannot put him in my top ten. I quite like the honor schtick but like humans Klingons tend to adapt it's meaning to meet heir needs. Also find it fascinating Romulans are so attached to it as an ideal and yet are such ferocious enemies of Klingons.

Worf is the perfect Kilingon to make Klingons approachable to humans as he was raised by them - another child of two worlds as it were - seems to be a recurrent theme in ST - outsiders who don't quite belong anywhere else finding home/family in Starfleet.

 

[Captrek]

Best characters, by series:

TOS: Spock, followed by Kirk
TNG: Guinan (wish we could have had more of her), followed by Picard
DS9: Garak, with Dukat a close second
VOY: The Doctor, followed by Seven. (IMO, none of the characters in Voyager were very interesting on paper, but I loved Robert Picardo’s performance. I also enjoyed Jeri Ryan in those sexy outfits.)
ENT: Yuck. Uh... the dog? Followed by what comes out of the dog’s rear end?

 

[Too Much Fun]

He's one of my favourites too. I think he really reinvigorated DS9 in its fourth season. I had a lot of problems with the first two seasons, was just starting to become a real fan of the series in the third one and felt he played an important role in making the fourth season the best of them all up to that point (and possibly overall...can't decide which I like more between it and season 5).

I also generally found episodes centred around him in both TNG and DS9 very entertaining and/or touching. He was our window into an understanding of Klingon culture and the way Dorn's acting sold Worf's passion for it helped me appreciate it more. I don't like him as much as Picard, Data, Jadzia, Guinan, or Q but he's still one of the characters I liked most on TNG and DS9. On TNG I liked him most for the way he'd play the 'straight man' in comedic situations, and on DS9 I appreciated him more as a serious character, so I enjoyed him on different levels in each series.

 

[sbk1234]

I just find it interesting that he was such an interesting character - the longest running on episodic Star Trek, and he was basically an after thought. I think this helped in that he was not over-written.

 

[rahullak]

Liked him a lot but cannot put him in my top ten. I quite like the honor schtick but like humans Klingons tend to adapt it's meaning to meet heir needs. Also find it fascinating Romulans are so attached to it as an ideal and yet are such ferocious enemies of Klingons.

Worf is the perfect Kilingon to make Klingons approachable to humans as he was raised by them - another child of two worlds as it were - seems to be a recurrent theme in ST - outsiders who don't quite belong anywhere else finding home/family in Starfleet.

Actually Romulans are attached to Pride as an ideal not really honor. If it were possible to deceive someone in order to appear strong and lawful, Romulans would not hesitate to do so. The Klingon ideal however is honorable head-on combat to settle differences.... no slinking away slyly like a petaQ and stabbing someone in the back.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I really like Worf, though I feel he is a bit overused at times.

I think making him a deadbeat Dad really hurt his character though. They make the (ill advised) decision to give him a son and devote a fair amount of time to establishing their relationship...and then he is gone.

Alright Worf!! For all of your talk about honor and responsibility, when your son becomes an annoyance and gets too hard to deal with you ship him off and forget about him for years, til he shows up on DS9. I find that incredibly irresponsible and it seems to completely go against his character.

And whatever happened to that kid that Worf bonded with after the kid's mother died? They were supposed to be "like brothers" and that kid is never seen or heard from again either.

 

[Piper]

Together with Picard, my favourite character on TNG. I love their relationship too, the respect Worf shows Picard, and the way Picard treats him with dignity. The Klingon episodes with those two are fab.

Not such a fan of him on DS9 - I never felt he quite fitted in with that crew, and I was always glad when he returned for the TNG movies.

 

[RyuRoots]

He's not my favorite, but I'd probably put him in a top 10 somewhere (not that I know who/where the other 9 would rank in off the top of my head). Worf was a perfect straight man, a perfect foil for comedy when written well and he was pretty cool. I do bemoan how much, on TNG, he got beaten up to let the audience know that the threat was serious though.

I thought adding him to DS9 was really cool, and I particularly enjoyed that it took some effort for him to successfully integrate himself into DS9 with how by-the-book he's used to doing everything. There are some Worf-centric episodes that I'm less than fond of ("Birthright, Part II" and "Sword of Kahless" especially) and the whole "Klingon, honor, warrior, etc." bit really was done to death, especially on TNG. I think Martok and Worf on DS9 did a lot of good for Klingons from a narrative perspective tho.

 

[The Sneeze Police]

In general I liked him, but he is not my favorite. I like him in small doses rather than in Worf-centric episodes. Of the Worf-centric episodes, I preferred those not heavy into the Klingon-honor-thing. Parallels is one of my favorite TNG episodes.

Michael Dorn has very good comedic timing, and I think he had the capacity for infusing humor which was sorely lacking in some of the other characters on TNG which could be outright stodgy. I just didn't like it when he bordered on slapstick or parody.

 

[Captain Fine]

I've always loved Worf, and I always will. I loved him as The Regent. That persona was such an egomaniac it was hilarious. I liked his promotion at the end of DS9, and was upset they didn't follow through with it in the TNG movies.

 

[Praetor]

The Klingon honor shtick got a bit worn thin at times, but I loved Worf too. In many ways, he was more an inheritor of the "Spock" role than Data to me. I always thought Worf should be a Captain rather than an Ambassador, though.

 

[Plomeek Broth]

I am surprised there are not more Worf fans out there. My next two in line would be Dukat and Garak. For some reason I thought he was more popular than he actually is. Oh well, I guess Worf can wallow in his prune juice about it.

 

[Praetor]

I think the reason Worf isn't more popular is this: it's like Worf was my favorite food for a while, but I eat so much of it that I get kinda sick of it. It doesn't mean I dislike it, it just means I don't need to eat it so often. And it's by no means a reflection on the character or Michael Dorn, it's that the writers overused him.

Worf was generally overexposed, and reused in the same ways almost every time. And he was an overly stereotypical Klingon by DS9. Whatever happened to the guy who didn't really feel at home with Starfleet or among Klingons? I miss that guy.

 

[flemm]

Worf was awesome. One interesting aspect of his character is how he fit into the two crews he was a part of. On TNG, where the majority of the characters are so well-adjusted and unflinchingly virtuous, Worf often seemed rebellious and reckless. On DS9, where everyone is so flawed and where everyone's actions tend to be morally questionable, Worf came across as relatively rigid and traditional.

I thought that was one of better aspects of the character overall: he was as motivated and dedicated as anyone else, just not always to the same principles as Starfleet.

 

[Praetor]

That's a good point, flemm. Worf was the relative "do-gooder" of DS9. Consider that a moment, everyone.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Alright Worf!! For all of your talk about honor and responsibility, when your son becomes an annoyance and gets too hard to deal with you ship him off and forget about him for years, til he shows up on DS9. I find that incredibly irresponsible and it seems to completely go against his character.

And whatever happened to that kid that Worf bonded with after the kid's mother died? They were supposed to be "like brothers" and that kid is never seen or heard from again either.

Worf was my favorite TNG character when the series aired. I liked him in DS9 also, but I have to admit as I watched it (recently), I completely forgot about Alexander.

I hadn't noticed before the soap-opera like time warping of Alexander. They accelerated his aging dramatically, with no explanation. His "canon" birthdate is in 2366; he is then serving with Worf in the Dominion War in 2374 at the chronological age of 11.
So it seems Alexander's age got distorted by 8-10 years. Of all the shows not to explain something like that, Star Trek is the most unforgivable!
It would also help to explain some of Alexander's difficulties in DS9: he literally hasn't had a chance to grow up.

As to Worf's honor in raising his Son, I can see those points. When Worf gets his spine replaced (In "Ethics"), he tells Troi he couldn't send Alexander home as his human parents were too old to raise Alexander. It ends up making a nice emotional foreshadowing of the relationship with Troi, but also underscores Worf's fumbling to make the best decisions.
However, I don't see this as a failing of Worf's honor. Worf is fairly archetypal in this sense, moreso than many Klingons in fact. I see him more fairly as struggling to make the better choices, and sometimes failing.
I used to hate the Alexander character, originally, but now I like him. His character often hits an emotional chord we otherwise wouldn't have.

 

[NCC-1701-B]

I loved Worf! He is brilliant. with some of the best quotes.

"he is Romulan. Romulans are with OUT Honour"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Impossible..."

"He has no honour"

"Honour"

haha. I love Worf!