TNG Deathmatch Episode 19: Heart Of Glory vs Genesis

Heart Of Glory is another first season episode I remember as being much better than it was. I suppose it was enough for an episode to make a minimal amount of sense and not be phenomenally racist or sexist, and it would clear the bar at this point in the series’ development. I guess the novelty of featuring Klingons and Worf’s origin story made the episode stand out.

The Enterprise encounters a derelict cargo ship adrift and on the verge of explosion, and decides to check for survivors. They find three Klingons aboard, though it's not a Klingon ship, and they beam them back. (One dies, and we get the first ever Klingon death yell, and it's pretty cool.) Turns out that they actually hijacked the ship because they're sick of being peaceable, and they want to go back to being angry shouty warriors like all good Klingons used to be. They try to tempt Worf to join them, he doesn't, and the two remaining Klingons die rather than surrender. One of them crashes through the glass floor in Engineering, which is very dramatic but ridiculous in real terms. Why is the floor made of glass? So you can enjoy a scenic tour of Engineering, looking down at other people's scalps (or up at their feet)?

A huge chunk of the running time is spent watching the images from Geordi's visor as they explore the other ship, and Picard comments something to the effect of "I'm finally beginning to understand him" - because, I don't know, Geordi was such a conundrum until now, such a tortured and mysterious soul...? Then the episode becomes a bit of a trudge, with the visiting Klingons trying to flatter and cajole Worf into joining them so they can take over the Enterprise. It's dramatically inert, because at no point do we get the impression that Worf is interested in joining them at all. They walk, they talk, there's a tense nanosecond where Yar thinks the Klingons have taken a child hostage but they immediately let it go.

Essentially, nothing actually happens between the Klingons' arrival and their deaths, almost as if the writers had the set-up and the finale written, and then had nothing to go inbetween. It's not terrible, it's just a way of giving us an infodump about the current state of the Klingon Empire. (It's also interesting that when Worf speaks to the Klingon Captain on the viewscreen, they don't go for the usual LOUD AND GROWLY setting, but something muted, like a tiger purring. I wish they'd kept just a little of that variety in the Klingons as time went on: considering how the TOS Klingons were often urbane, sly or physically unimposing, it seems reductive that all the modern Klingons are just massive guys in padded shirts who yell and butt heads. There's so little variety, and it's hard to imagine how the Klingons managed to make it to space at all sometimes.)

So: to Genesis.  I’m always amazed by how many people hate this episode. 

This is the one where Data and Picard go off in a shuttle to pick up a lost torpedo, and in the meantime, the crew starts de-evolving into more primitive creatures. By the time they get back, they've got a short time in which to admire the freak show and find a cure before Worf eats them.

Okay, so it’s scientifically braindead – evolution simply does not work the way it’s depicted here, and the idea that the whole crew starts to de-evolve because of Barclay’s wonky DNA interacting with Dr Crusher’s medication is just insane, especially when we get to the wrap-up, where the crew are treating their experiences as no big deal. Troi turned into a frog. Barclay turned into a spider. Crusher’s face melted off. People died and Worf probably killed them. Could you at least have a moment of silence?! No, nope, there's a feeble gag and everyone's back to normal.

Honestly, though, I love this episode and embrace its many flaws. It’s hugely entertaining, and creepy when it needs to be (“Worf, open your mouth” followed by Gates McFadden’s horrifying collapse still shocks me). Little touches like Ogawa knuckling her way out of the meeting room in the background, Troi’s mouth opening and closing when she’s feeling her way along the side of the bath, Worf eyeballing the waitress in Ten Forward – it just has a vibe about it that I love. Data telling Picard that he will most probably turn into "a lemur, or pygmy marmoset", with a sort of embarrassed sympathy, because it's not bad enough that he'll soon be de-evolving but it'll be into something really silly. The show commits absolutely to its daft premise. It’s never boring, and in season seven, that makes it worthy of some sort of prize.

WINNER: Genesis