I’m honestly not sure that I can muster up too terribly much to say about this episode. It’s kind of just there: not bad, really, but certainly not great, either. Conceptually, it seems well-intentioned, in that I very much respect and appreciate the show making an effort to “do something” with the fact that Worf was established, in the previous season, to have a son. If that’s a thing that’s true, then probably it ought to matter, which means probably the son ought to actually be on the show, and Worf ought to have to raise him, right? And for sure, there’s something to be said for the idea of trying to round out our somewhat one-note “I’m a warrior” security chief by making him a parent. But I feel like the episode really doesn’t try very hard.
Putting that another way…maybe what I really mean is that the show seems perversely determined to introduce Alexander into Worf’s life without actually changing Worf at all. That Worf would struggle with the challenge of being a father was a given, but despite the (fairly routine) difficulties that he encounters, does he actually learn anything here? Certainly nothing particularly interesting or profound, I’d argue—nor does one get the impression that he is likely to change or grow much going forward as a result of this development in his life. He just makes some fairly predictable and routine mistakes trying to deal with the kid, then quickly decides to give up; then Troi tries to intervene, and then a very conveniently timed life-threatening incident provides an emotional catharsis that pushes him to decide to keep trying, although probably in more or less the same ineffectual way that he has been doing thus far. Despite the episode’s title, absolutely no new ground is being broken here.
It also needs to be said that Alexander himself is neither written nor acted at all compellingly. Both Worf’s adoptive human mother and the shipboard schoolteacher character assert that he’s all rambunctious and out-of-control (a bully, even!), but that’s not at all what we actually see. On screen, Alexander is mostly a timid, sullen, lost-looking boy, who seems more likely to be bullied than to bully anyone else. That is, except for the fact that, weirdly, the kid can also handle a bat’leth surprisingly well for his age and circumstances. He also vacillates wildly between seeming to resent Worf and wanting this near-total stranger of a father to be proud of him. Honestly, as a character, Alexander is kind of incoherent and all over the place.
Meanwhile, there is a background plot about testing an experimental new propulsion technology that, in itself, is perfectly fine as a low-key background plot, but should have been nothing more than that. Alas, the episode leans on this unrelated-to-Alexander plot to manufacture a very specific crisis that just happens to endanger Alexander. This is sloppy. And yet, if I’m being honest, I still manage to find it affecting when the computer identifies the occupant of the on-fire bio lab as Alexander, and Worf visibly freaks out a bit, and a moment later requests “permission to leave the bridge”—and Worf and Riker going and rescuing the kid even kind of works for me emotionally, despite the contrived nature of the whole situation. That’s sort of what this episode is like. It’s not boring, exactly, and various bits of it are executed capably enough; it’s just really, really nothing special.
Helena Rozhenko remains, as she was in “Family,” an appealing character, and she and Worf do have a couple of nice moments together early in this episode. I enjoy their exchange about the lamp that Worf used to repeatedly knock over. So there’s that, at least.
I appreciate your dissection of Alexander as a character; we’re not saying anything surprising by observing that the child’s acting is about as convincing as a bumpy forehead, but your point about the absolute incoherence of the character’s motivations is right on. They needed to spend a few minutes thinking about what this kid’s psychology is supposed to be. But the best point you make here is that the core of the issue seems to be their lack of willingness to let Worf change in any way as a character. I mean, I like Worf okay, but like you say, he’s so one dimensional that I can’t really care much about him. If any character needed to change in his run through Trek, it’s Worf, and making him a parent could have been a good way to do that. Not that he doesn’t change at all, if you count his later behavior in DS9, but rather than coming to integrate his warrior self with his Starfleet self, he basically starts acting like a fascist. I can appreciate a character who helps us understand how to integrate more traditional or conservative attitudes into a progressive future, but Worf’s trajectory is toward threatening other officers when he doesn’t get his way, losing tolerance for all perspectives, and even supporting reactionary terrorism (DS9’s “Let He Who Is Without Sin…”).
I would argue that Worf does change (in positive ways) over the course of TNG—just not in connection with parenting his son, particularly. The crap that the writers did with him on DS9, though… Yeah, what you said.
Well, he certainly changes from a totally undefined character to a defined one. Do you think you can make an argument that his changes go beyond the writers figuring out more or less what to do with him? Through the klingon saga of TNG, you could probably argue that he changes to have more depth and empathy, but not too much, I’m not sure that those changes stick, which makes it seem less like character growth and more like episodes that have good endings without much follow through. But I’m not gonna die on that hill.
Admittedly, with TNG it can be hard to draw a clear line between character growth and characters just being written better over time. And I mean, the early seasons had mostly different writers from the rest of the show, even, which complicates any argument about whether or not apparent character growth was “intentional” on the part of “the writers.” But I would argue that he gradually moves toward letting his guard down more with the other characters as the seasons progress, loosens up, and yes, also shows more empathy—and not just in the Klingon Saga™ episodes. And hell…Alexander episodes usually suck and were wasted, but Worf DOES ultimate make peace with his son not wanting to be a warrior…