TNG: “Sins of the Father” and “Allegiance”

Date: April 4, 2020

Season 3, Episodes 17 and 18

Musical Accompaniment: Hard Rock music, instrumental of course.

Interstellar News: The weather was glorious. We spent 2 hours cleaning out and organizing the carport closet and had a family walk after dinner.

Favorite Quotes from “Sins of the Father”:

Riker: The Commander certainly appears to have the crew on its toes

La Forge: And then some. No offense, sir.

Kurn: None taken. I never kill anyone at the supper table, Mr. La Forge.

Maybe Klingons are like Italians after all. Grandma would be displeased if you killed someone at dinner.

Picard: Are you prepared to hear her evidence in open council?

K’mpec: Obviously, we would not. Kahlest, you can go now. It is good to see you again.

Kahlest: You are still fat, K’mpec.

Such a nice burn near the end of the episode.

“Sins of the Father” looks like it’s going to be the opposite of “A Matter of Honor” where a Klingon, named Kurn, will now be doing a tour of duty on the Enterprise as the first officer. Kurn is allllllll kinds of Klingon business to everyone but Worf, whom he is really kind to and it’s strange. Worf and Kurn have a discussion and it turns out that Kurn is Worf’s little brother. Apparently the Klingon high council has deemed their father a traitor and Worf needs to clear his name or suffer the consequences. Picard decides the whole of the Enterprise needs to go. Picard, Worf, Riker, and Kurn beam down to the council chambers on Qo’noS. The charge is that Worf’s father sent the access codes that led to the destruction of Khitomer outpost, where Worf was orphaned and the only known survivor.

In between all of the shouting, as apparently Klingons really are Italians, Kurn is attacked in the tunnels but survives. However, this means Worf needs a new cha’DIch and picks Picard. I will admit to the whole wide internet that I teared up a little at the exchange between Worf and Picard in that scene. Anyway, there is more to the story. The Klingons had captured a Romulan ship that shows there was a code sent moments before the shields go down and La Forge finds a discrepancy. There was also a Klingon woman found with Worf, apparently his nurse, who Picard finds and gets her to go back to help shake loose the truth. Turns out it was the father or Duras who was the real traitor, but he’s from such a connected family that the council had to blame someone and they chose Worf thinking that he would never answer the challenge since he was off in Starfleet. Worf accepts discommendation instead, so his brother can have his honor and sometime in the future maybe restore the name of their father.

There was so much yelling in this episode I thought I was home for a holiday dinner with my mother’s side of the family. I was expecting this episode to be a mirror of “A Matter of Honor” and was a little disappointed in some ways I never really got to see Kurn get to do much in the ways of the first officer position. In some ways, it was similar in that neither man got to stay on the ship for much longer than a day because of DRAMA, this time it was family drama. On the other hand it was great for Worf to know he was not alone, only for it to all be taken away from him because of someone else’s treachery. While this was an awesome Worf story, it was also a great Picard story. We get to see him back up one of his officers and kick the ass of at least two Klingon warriors. I’m going for 8 bottles of beer on the wall, but I won’t take one down or pass it around, yet.

Favorite Quote from “Allegiance”:

Random Alien #24: We did not, after all, injure you in any way.

Picard: Imprisonment is an injury, regardless of how you justify.

Picard with the hard truths. This “stay at home” is starting to feel like imprisonment, sigh.

“Allegiance” begins with Picard resting in his quarters after a successful mission when he is suddenly kidnapped and in a room with two others. Worf investigates the disturbance, but Picard is just fine (except it’s really a Picard clone). On the ship the Picard clone starts giving strange orders and is definitely acting out of character. There’s a scene with Dr. Crusher that gets a little hot and heavy and then abruptly ends, and Picard even leads a drinking song on Ten-Forward. The bridge crew is hella concerned.

In captivity Picard naturally assumes the leadership position and he’s in with a Starfleet cadet named Haro, a Mizarian named Tholl, and a being from Chalna named Esoqq. They work together to try to get out but then all assume one of them is actually their captor when they break through the door just to find a solid wall behind it. Turns out it was the cadet who was the alien observer and one of four captors. The aliens, who look a little like Brainiac, decide to take everyone home now that their experiment is over. Picard is beamed back to the Enterprise and his clone reveals himself, but Picard gives “eye orders” to the crew and Worf captures the aliens on the deck in a beam that hurts them a little because they are not built for captivity. He explains you shouldn’t do this without telling people and sends them on their way.

I got a little bit of “The Empath” vibe from this episode, where there are beings observing other beings, and a little bit of “The Cage“. I definitely thought it was Tholl once there was the possibility of a traitor among their midst. Look at that, two episodes back-to-back about traitors, fascinating. As most episodes are split with two plots that later converge, this one is no different. What is different is how I feel about each part. The part where they are in captivity and are trying to figure out the puzzle to escape, it’s a real Trek escape room and is fun to watch how everyone tries to work together to achieve a common goal even though they’ve never met. I truly enjoyed watching that part, but it fell apart at the end when Picard is like “oh yeah, we’re being observed and I’m not gonna anymore” and he’s right… when they’ve sort of been on that thread for a while.

The other half of the episode is Picard giving weird orders and you know from the get-go that they are eventually going to mutiny. This “jovial” Picard is fun but predictable. I know he’s going to flirt with Dr. Crusher and I know he’s going to be the life of the party because he’s purposely doing what Picard would never, or maybe he’s just having fun in the Picard suit he’s wearing. Either way there was no surprise, no intrigue, and I didn’t really like it. That means this episode gets 6 slider buns, but not the good kind – the store brand.

TA Out!