TNG Flashback: Hero Worship

Patrick Stewart returned to the director's chair for the second time -- and again for a Data story -- with "Hero Worship."

The Enterprise is dispatched to a "black cluster," to determine what has happened to the starship Vico. They find the ship all but destroyed, with only one survivor aboard -- a young boy named Timothy. Timothy may hold the key to determining what happened to the Vico, but he is walled off by the trauma of losing both his parents in the disaster. The only one able to draw him out is Data, whom the boy has begun to imitate as a way of dealing with his emotions.

Like "New Ground," the previous episode, this story revolves around a young boy, and provides an opportunity for Troi to do some actual counseling. This time, she's not only working with Timothy and trying to help him cope with the loss of his parents, she's working with Data. She helps teach him how to be a "counselor," and acts as a surrogate for the android's non-existent emotions in the melancholy ending of the episode: Data had helped create a kindred spirit of sorts, only to have the boy ultimately stop behaving like an android.

Casting was key here. Again, as with the role of Worf's son, the producers found a young actor with experience for the role of Timothy. Joshua Harris had recurred as Christopher Ewing on Dallas for seven years. (And again, as with Brian Bonsall, Harris chose to give up acting within a year of finishing Star Trek.) He's a bit wooden in the early scenes where he's found aboard the Vico, but then does a great job mimicking Brent Spiner, and is fairly good late in the episode when he confesses the "secret" he's been hiding.

The visuals are mostly strong in this episode. The set design of the wrecked Vico is effective, made more so by the dark and moody lighting. The visuals of the black cluster are striking, particularly the refracted phaser shots and the approaching shock waves. One effect that just does not work at all, though, is when Data uses super-speed to build the temple model; it looks like stop-motion animation, and not well-realized stop-motion animation at that.

Other observations:

• The costumers do clever work here too, coming up with an outfit for Timothy that looks very much like Data's Starfleet uniform without actually quite being a Starfleet uniform.

• There's an interesting scene for Geordi, in which he recounts being caught in a fire as a child, before he'd first received a VISOR. This trauma from Geordi's past was originally conceived for the next episode, "Violations," where the memory would have been invaded by the alien villain.

• The cast and crew were filming this episode when they received the news of Gene Roddenberry's death. As expected, they were hit hard by the loss. Marina Sirtis was reportedly affected more than most, as her own father had died exactly ten years earlier.

This episode comes dangerously close to being "too much about the guest star." But there are still enough good scenes for Data and Counselor Troi to make it decent enough. I give it a B.