The Enterprise is participating in a Federation officer exchange program. A Benzite officer joins the ship's crew, and immediately decides to impress Picard by making suggestions for procedural improvements. This goes down about as well as expected. Meanwhile, Riker joins the crew of a Klingon ship as First Officer - a change that will take some getting used to, given Klingon advancement practices include assassination of one's superiors.
Riker adjusts to his new assignment surprisingly well. He responds to the Klingons' honesty and courage, and seems to enjoy the chance to be more physical and less formal than usual. But when an organism is found eating away at the Klingon ship's hull, the Klingon captain decides that the only explanation is an attack by the Enterprise. Now Riker finds himself serving a captain who is determined to interecept Enterprise and destroy her!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Has little patience for Mendon's attempts to impress him with suggested procedural changes, politely but firmly impressing on the Benzite that the Enterprise does follow a chain of command. When he learns that Mendon knew about the organism and kept it to himself, he becomes less polite, making it very clear that he expects his officers to inform him of any potential dangers immediately.
Riker: After spending the first seven episodes of Season Two being little more than a bridge prop, Jonathan Frakes finally gets an episode where he becomes the focus again. I'm as glad that the series took a break from Riker-centric episodes, as Season One had too many episodes where he was basically the star of the show, too many of which were not well tailored to Frakes' acting strengths. This episode is very well-suited to him. He seems to enjoy turning up Riker's more roguish qualities, and it may be the most relaxed performance he's given in the series to date. We also see Riker's shrewdness at play, as he uses what he has learned of Klingon culture to resolve a seemingly irresolvable problem without bloodshed.
Worf: Considers it his duty, as chief security officer, to prepare Riker not only with information about Klingon chain of command, but also to give him some extra tools to make sure that he survives his temporary assignment. He gets some genuinely amusing reactions to the annoying Mendon, making it clear that he finds the Benzite irritating and being vaguely (and entertainingly) threatening about it.
The Klingons: One thing that can be said for Next Generation is that it was this series that took the Klingons from the mostly one-dimensional baddies of the 1960's run (a role they maintained in the '80's movies) and turned them into a genuinely multi-layered culture. Season One's Heart of Glory began this process, but A Matter of Honor takes it much further. These Klingons are not just warriors. They are men and women with a lust for life, a strong sense of bawdy humor, and a genuine cameraderie. Even their tendency to assassinate the man above them is justified within their culture, and it is with this episode that the theme of Klingon honor starts to become dominant with regard to that race.
SHUT UP, WESLEY!
Wesley decides to befriend Mendon, for apparently no other reason than him looking like his friend Mordock. This part of the Mendon subplot is actually perfectly fine, and I'd go so far as to say that it reflects well on Wesley that he remains friendly with Mendon even when the Benzite becomes truly irritating. However, it tips a little too far into Wesley the Wonderful territory when he decides to stop all dramatic momentum by giving Mendon a 2-minute pep-talk that stops the episode dead in its tracks.
THOUGHTS
At last, a genuinely good one! Unnatural Selection was a competent episode with a decent pace, but it still was far from top drawer Trek. A Matter of Honor presents a story that carries some genuine tension and interest as we get our first detailed look at the Next Generation Klingons.
I've already praised Frakes' performance in this. The other regulars largely fade into the background, though Picard, Worf, and Data all get some decent moments. This isn't an ensemble episode, though. This is Frakes' show, and both he and the character of William Riker do very well here. I particularly enjoyed the genuine friendship that builds between Riker and his potential rival, his Klingon Second Officer.
One area in which this episode is strongly distinguished from most of the other episodes of this season is in its directing. Rob Bowman is one of the few Next Generation directors to really grasp the dramatic possibilities of lighting. The scenes on the Klingon ship work particularly well, in part because it's a good script that's well acted, but also because of the more dramatic lighting utilized for the Klingon scenes. When the show cuts back to the Enterprise, that familiar floodlighting really stands out by comparison, though Bowman still finds minor ways to keep things dynamic where possible. I was left almost wanting to keep following the Klingon ship, simply because it was so much more visually interesting than this version of Enterprise.
Rating: 7/10. A good one.
Previous Episode: Unnatural Selection
Next Episode: The Measure of a Man
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