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| Worf's human brother, Nikolai (Paul Sorvino), violates the Prime Directive. |
THE PLOT
The planet Boraal II is dying. Its atmosphere is tearing itself apart through the phenomenon of "atmospheric dissipation," manifesting as fierce storms that will leave the planet uninhabitable within hours. The Enterprise has not come to save this world or its people. The planet is beyond saving, and as a pre-warp civilization, any interference would be a violation of the Prime Directive. They are just here to rescue Worf's foster brother, Nikolai Rozhenko (Paul Sorvino), a Federation scientist assigned to observe the planet.
Worf beams down to some caves near Nikolai's outpost and does find him - along with several Boraalans Nikolai has rescued. Worf is appalled, as is Picard, both decrying this violation of the Prime Directive. Picard allows Nikolai to upload his data to the Enterprise computers, but states that he will not compound this violation of the rules with one of his own. The survivors are doomed.
Nikolai will not accept this, and uses the cover of the storms to camouflage beaming the Boraalans into a holodeck simulation that looks exactly like their caves. By the time Picard finds out, it's too late to return them to their planet. Picard is left with no choice but to go along with Nikolai's plan: Use the holodeck to convince the survivors that they are being led to another part of the same planet, while the Enterprise races to an uninhabited world that will act as their new home.
But the storms have left the holodeck systems damaged, leaving Nikolai and Worf to cover for various glitches as best they can... and hope that the ship reaches the new world before the holodeck fails entirely!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: As the planet Boraal dies, Picard steps forward to make a small speech about honoring the ramifications of the Prime Directive. When confronted with the news that Nikolai actually beamed survivors aboard the holodeck, he is furious - but he doesn't entertain any notion of returning them to their dead world to perish with it. As with Pen Pals, when confronted with living people, he becomes a touch more flexible. He endorses Nikolai's plan as their only option, and does all he can to make it successful. Patrick Stewart does his usual sterling job, but "Prime Directive" Picard is probably my least favorite version of the character.
Worf: Has clashed with Nikolai ever since they were children. Worf has always been the responsible one, prizing self-discipline and duty, while Nikolai would take rash and impulsive actions with no thought for the consequences. "Wherever you go, you create chaos," he growls to his brother. "How many times did our parents lie awake at night, wondering what kind of trouble you were in?" When Dobara (Penny Johnson), Nikolai's Boraalan wife, questions Worf about their clashes, he simply says that "it is an old argument." His anger at Nikolai does not extend to the Boraalans, however, and Worf shows respect for them at every turn.
Data: Though this is not a big Data episode, he gets one very good scene. When he and Dr. Crusher review their options for a new Boraalan planet, Crusher agonizes over the consequences of making the wrong choice. She observes that they can't know what factors may cause things to go wrong - unwittingly echoing the regular Prime Directive defense that if an individual life is saved against the rules, then there is no telling what consequences may ensue. Data's response is all the more perfectly-judged for being totally logical and emotionless, and is an unwitting defense of Nikolai's actions: "I do not believe we can offer any guarantees. We can simply make the best choice we have at the moment."
Guest Star of the Week: "I wasn't going to let those people die just because your captain started quoting Federation dogma to me... I refuse to be bound by an abstraction. The lives of the people of Boraal are far more important to me." When he snaps this at Worf, my response is to applaud - Can we beam him over to Voyager to give the same little speech to Janeway, please? Paul Sorvino's a terrific actor with enormous presence, and he's always been able to balance that presence with an ability to share the screen with others. He and Michael Dorn do a lot to make the fairly hackneyed sibling rivalry between Worf and Nikolai feel somewhat real, which helps keep this episode watchable.
THOUGHTS
Anytime the words, "Prime Directive" are uttered in a TNG episode, you know that Picard is about to get unbearably self-righteous. The first 15 minutes or so of Homeward are so bad that I would have switched off if not for the sake of these reviews. In the TOS days, Kirk and company violated the Prime Directive for all sorts of reasons, ranging from a society being static to, yes, a society being doomed to imminent extinction... Which makes it all the more ridiculous when latter-day Trek captains proclaim that doing nothing while planets die is somehow a moral choice.
What saves the episode from being as bad as Force of Nature is that the Prime Directive arguments are dropped by about 20 minutes in. By midway through the episode, the only residue of this poor start is a weak "B" plot involving Vorin (Brian Markinson), the Boraalan chronicler, who inadverdantly finds his way onto the main ship and suffers a massive case of culture shock.
The ending tries to show that Vorin's plight wouldn't have happened had Nikolai not violated the Prime Directive... but honestly, Vorin's plight seems a small price to pay for many of his people surviving, so Picard's attempt at moralizing falls rather flat. The way the episode plays out, Nikolai is right and Picard and Worf are wrong - and while this isn't harped on (1990's Trek never questions the sanctity of the Prime Directive), Worf is shown acknowledging as much in the final scenes.
What keeps the entire episode from falling flat is that the "A" plot shifts narrative gears to a combination of three types of story: quest narrative, as Worf and Nikolai lead the survivors on a holodeck journey; race against time, as the ship flies at maximum warp to the Boraalans' new world before the holodeck fails because of Technobabble; and an examination of the life-long sibling rivalry between Worf and Nikolai.
I admit to finding some cleverness in the use of the holodeck to persuade the Boraalans that they never left home even when transplanted to a new planet, but I'll also acknowledge that none of these three strands is original. All of them are competently played, however, making the second half of the episode fairly entertaining.
The end result is that an episode that starts out looking like another Season 7 disaster ends up being a fairly average TNG episode. Not a must-see, by any means... but not an unpleasant time-filler, once you get past its dreadful first Act.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
Previous Episode: The Pegasus
Next Episode: Sub Rosa
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