Hero Worship is as average an episode as you can have. While there are no glaring errors, its premise, writing and acting are all unremarkable. Not even the prominence of Data can save this episode from mediocrity.

The Enterprise finds the wreckage of the Vico, a starship that was researching a nebula known as the “Black Cluster.” During an Away Team mission, Data rescues a young boy, named Timothy, who just lost both parents. Timothy tells the story of an attacking alien force that destroyed his parents’ starship. So the Enterprise sets off to explore the Black Cluster and investigate. At this point, the episode is humming along as a run-of-the-mill TNG offering. There’s nothing particular to get excited about — aside from seeing the shattered hull of the Vico — but there aren’t any glaring mistakes, either.

Things begin to degrade when Timothy, still traumatized from the tragedy, starts mimicking Data as a means to cope with his emotions. Even though Timothy does a decent enough job of acting, his performance isn’t particularly endearing. In other words, we can empathize with Timothy’s plight, but nothing from his performance accentuates that empathy.

Data, too, doesn’t add to the episode, either. As usual, Data gives a solid performance. However, for an episode that uses emotional trauma as a primary foundation for its premise, having Data teach Timothy to be “the best android possible” actually saps the emotion from the story. And so Data’s performance is literally lost within the story itself.

And as it turns out, Timothy lied about the alien attack. He was under the impression that his arm hitting a computer console caused the destruction of the Vico. It’s a really, really tenuous story, even for a child in trauma. And the sole purpose of the story was to mask the real reason for the Vico‘s destruction so that the episode could have a “surprise” twist right near the end. And the solution itself is just as uninspired as the rest of the epiosde.

The real threat was a result of raising the shields. The shields set up some sort of “echo” which sent graviton waves crashing into the Enterprise. Increase the shields, and you increase the waves. Of course, everyone on the bridge is utterly blind to this correlation. Even Data takes minutes to figure it out — with a whining Timothy telling him the correllation, no less

Of course, Data does figure it all out. They lower their shields just in time. And all is well — except for Timothy. He stops acting like Data and returns to being a normal boy who misses his parents. The best part of the episode is the question Troi asks of Data: Does Data miss having Timothy’s adoration?

The episode does a pretty good job of leaving the question open.

Hero Worship is a rather nondescript episode. And while it isn’t exactly profound, or ground-breaking, it also manages to avoid catastrophic mistakes, too. I’m sure some fans will enjoy the episode. But compared to the rest of the series, it is simply mediocre.

Filed under: TNG Reviews