With the spectre of Tasha Yar hanging over the series, Redemption, Part II picks up where season four ended and thrusts us immediately into the depths of an all-out Klingon civil war. But it strengths are the developing characterizations of Worf and, surprisingly, considering the lack of prominence in the previous episode, Data. The result, is an episode that manages to improve upon its predecessor.

Worf has become Tactical Officer, under the command of his brother, Kurn. It’s an interesting dynamic considering that Worf is the elder brother. But even more interesting are their interactions away from the ship and from battle, on the Klingon home world. The Klingon capital city is designated something of a neutral zone, allowing warriors from both factions to meet in bars and revel in their combined exploits. The scenes illuminate a fascinating aspect of Klingon culture, as well as the fact that Worf, in spite of embracing his people, is still somewhat of an outsider — not completely at home on his home world.

In the final scene of the episode, with Picard looking on, a victorious Gowron gives Worf Toral’s life. And Worf spares him, over the objections of both Gowron and Kurn. But as Worf says of killing Toral, “It may be your way, but it is not mine.” And so Worf requests to be reinstated to duty on the Enterprise. Picard agrees and Worf returns to the crew. The lesson for Worf is that he is, without a doubt, a Klingon — but his home is, equally without a doubt, on board the Enterprise.

Data’s prominence arises from Picard’s plan to use a blockade of Federation starships prevent the flow of supplies from the Romulans to the Duras faction. The problem: how do you prevent a cloaked ship from flying right past your blockade? The answer: Have LaForge devise a subspace field to detect ay cloaked ships. Of course, the fleet has been decimated since the Borg invasion and both ships and experienced officers are in short supply. So they scrounge ships that are in disrepair and start loaning Enterprise officers to those ships. The result: Data gets his first complete command of a starship, the U.S.S. Sutherland.

Once on board, Data confronts an exceptionally prejudiced fellow Lt. Commander, by the name of Hobson, who requests to be transferred. Hobson is more caricature than a true character, but he is effective because becomes a vehicle through which Data begins to assert his authority. Indeed, Data’s emphatic commands, following near insubordination on the part of Hobson, seem to be the result of the lessons he learned in Ensigns of Command.

Ultimately the Romulans attempt to run the blockade right past Data by disrupting LaForge’s web. Picard orders the fleet to fall back and re-establish the web elsewhere, but Data figures out how to use the disruption to detect the cloaked ships and so he disobeys orders to carry out his plan. The plan is successful, the Romulans are prevented from resupplying the Duras faction, and Gowron is successful. Data’s ability to think creatively, decisively and problem solve also put to rest, once and for all, the questions posed by Dr. Pulaski in Elementary, Dear Data.

The final story thread, involving Tasha Yar, is handled well enough within this episode. It is unfortunate, however, that this episode had to deal with the story at all. Indeed, the explanation is little more than a not-so-subtle contrivance to have Denise Crosby find a way to return once again to the series she quit three years earlier. As it turns out, the Romulan commander is a woman by the name of Sela — who happens to be the product of a union between Tasha Yar and a Romulan general. How is this possible? Apparently when Yar returned with the Enterprise-C in Yesterday’s Enterprise, she did not die the hero’s death we thought we should. Instead, she survived the battle and allowed herself to be the general’s consort to protect the lives of the other survivors.

And here we have the problem. Yar died an unremarkable, senseless death in Skin of Evil. In Yesterday’s Enterprise, she was given the best possible of send-offs: a valiant sacrifice to save the lives of billions. But then we learn that she didn’t make that sacrifice, that she was forced to sacrifice much more than her life. Instead, she died in an escape attempt, betrayed by her own daughter. All of which serves to devalue the impact of Yesterday’s Enterprise. And it was thoroughly unnecessary for the Redemption episodes as well.

All of her scenes could have been portrayed by anyone — Tomalak, for example. And they serve to distract from the real heart of Redemption: Worf. Yes, the shock value of seeing Yar as a Romulan works — it did for me — when you first see it. But thinking about it, this was a pointless decision worthy of day-time soap opera and not TNG.

Redemption, Part II pulls together a wide variety of threads and weaves them into an action-packed, character-driven episode that gives us a great deal of growth from Worf and Data. The pacing, acting and directing are all improved over Part I. And, too, the episode handles the Sela “albatross” quite satisfactorily, making the most out of a relatively pointless, and potentially crippling, contrivance.

Topics: Klingons, Romulans
Filed under: TNG Reviews