Parallels (⭑⭑⭑⭑)

When you watch the first third-plus of season seven of TNG sequentially, “Parallels” is like a light shining at the end of a long, dark tunnel. By general agreement, the show’s final season is, on the whole, not great—but it does still contain a handful of genuinely, thoroughly good episodes. I gave the early-season two-parter “Gambit” good reviews, and I stand by them, but “Parallels” is a classic in a way that “Gambit” is not. It’s not perfect, nor is deep or especially thought-provoking, but it’s solidly constructed, fun, high-concept sci-fi with a generous dose of character charm. It screams “Brannon Braga,” but with more character focus and less over-the-top goofiness than some of his more dubious offerings (resembling “Cause and Effect” more than any of his other episodes, while also calling to mind season four’s Braga-esque but non-Braga-penned “Remember Me”).

Besides the inherently fun nature of the shifting-between-universes premise, there are two (related) things about “Parallels” that I think help to elevate it into something unique and really enjoyable: its solid and quasi-circular structure, and the rather unexpected choice to make Worf, of all people, the central character to whom all the weirdness happens. By the first, I mean things like the fact that there’s kind of nothing extraneous going on in the episode. Yes, we start on a low-key character bit with Worf returning from a bat’leth competition and the others throwing him a surprise birthday party, but these events end up being integral to the story; seeing alternate versions of Worf’s log entry as things progress helps to establish the fact that reality is changing around him, and then, at the end, the episode circles back to his dread of the surprise party in a fun way. In a sense, the entire episode is really Worf trying to return “home” from the bat’leth competition. (Meanwhile, although various versions of the Enterprise are engaged in a mission involving a problem with the Argus Array, this is entirely in the background and doesn’t even rise to the level of an actual plot.) And then, of course, having Worf (rather than, say, Geordi or Data, or even Picard or RIker) be the one having to navigate reality-bending sci-fi weirdness and alternate versions of his life works wonders. He’s so out of his wheelhouse, and yet, at the same time, his growth over six and a half seasons of the show is very much on display, and serves him well. Worf has not always been great at adapting to new or unexpected situations, but he handles this episode’s weirdness pretty well. I particularly like his responses to everyone else’s bemusement at his not “remembering” their versions of the past: “I do remember; I just remember differently.” His dread of the surprise party is perhaps more in the “classic Worf” vein, but the fact of his foreseeing the likelihood of it is fun, and he puts up with it well enough—and of course, his resignation to (he thinks) going through it again at the end of the episode is even better. All in all, this is a very satisfying Worf episode (and a rare one that is not focused on “Klingon stuff,” at that).

Okay, so obviously, I have to address the whole Worf/Troi romantic angle that “Parallels” introduces. It’s difficult, though, because while I by no means think that this pairing makes any sense, I (confoundingly) actually like most of what the show does with it, both here and in future episodes. Worf and Troi should not be a couple. The idea is absurd. And yet, the writers did find a way to ground the idea in actual continuity, by tying it to Troi’s role in helping Worf to raise Alexander. Also, the scene in which this episode springs the pairing on us, by having Troi waltz into Worf’s quarters as though she belongs there (because in that reality, she does) and behave in progressively “inappropriate” ways, is good fun, and then having alternate Troi reacting emotionally to the weirdness of her husband not remembering her, etc., lends some emotional weight to the story. For whatever reason, even though it seems like it shouldn’t, it works (for me), at least within the confines of this episode (nor is this the last time that I will feel that way). Maybe, in the end, we chalk it up to a quirk of TNG, arising from a combination of the show’s characteristic strengths and weaknesses; its writers rarely seem to have much of a clue when it comes to romantic stories, but they do know how to mine gold from the foibles of, and the interactions between, the show’s regular characters. Also, I can’t help but to appreciate how the final scene moves beyond merely playing with this changed character dynamic in alternate realities, and has Worf showing a willingness to explore it for real, with our Troi. It’s still a ridiculous pairing, but it’s just so refreshing to see the writers gesture in the direction of stirring up the status quo for once, rather than completely hitting the reset button at the end of the episode. (And Troi’s crack, in the final scene, about Worf probably wanting to celebrate his birthday by hitting himself with pain sticks? This is a fun little callback all the way back to “The Icarus Factor” that totally works for me, and that I’ve always remembered fondly.)

I’m not going to try to pretend that the plot of “Parallels” actually makes any sense. The idea of a character shifting between quantum universes is some pretty sketchy sci-fi to begin with, and then the specifics of what is actually supposed to be happening are awfully unclear. I mean, the episode follows the point of view and through line of “our” Worf and doesn’t dwell too much on what’s going on wherever he isn’t, but we are presumably to understand that other Worfs are similarly hopping between universes (after all, he never runs into another copy of himself, nor does he ever find himself in a universe where no one has ever heard of him). So I guess “our” Worf passing through the anomaly that kick-started this whole thing essentially started a trans-dimensional game of “musical universes” for the Worfs of the the multiverse, in which every time “our” Worf is triggered, all the Worfs (or at least some subset of them, I suppose) randomly trade places? (And do so, of course, irrespective of their varying locations from one universe to the next, and in a way that doesn’t really disrupt the continuity of events in those universes?) Trek routinely plays pretty fast and loose with sci-fi logic, but this still seems kind of extreme. I compared this episode to both “Cause and Effect” and “Remember Me” in my opening paragraph, but while both of those episodes have premise issues of their own, their internal logic holds up significantly better, in both cases, than is the case for this one. I like “Parallels,” and I have even given it the same rating that I gave to each of those previous episodes, but it still isn’t as good as either of them. With these caveats, though…they did some fun stuff with the concept. Having Wesley randomly show up on the bridge of Worf’s final alternate Enterprise, for instance, is a nice touch (and something that I had completely forgotten about prior to this viewing); how often does a former character make a cameo on a show with so little fanfare, yet in a way that makes good dramatic sense? And then, of course, the brief appearance of the desperate Riker from the alternate universe in which Picard is dead and the Borg are overrunning the Federation is just cool. “Parallels” is mostly about watching Worf react to shifting realities, and trying to do too much more in the way of introducing whole alternate universes would not have fit well into the episode—but a little bit goes a long way.

That’s about all I have to say about this one.