Worf is being held in the Romulan prison camp where he'd hoped to find his father. But it's quite unlike any other prison. The Romulan captors and Klingon survivors have been living together in peace for decades, even intermarrying and giving birth to a new generation -- a new generation which, to Worf's disgust, knows nothing of Klingon culture and tradition. He sets about teaching them, and in the process sparks a rebellion.
It's a shame not to see the story about Data's dreams continued here in part two, as it was the more compelling storyline from the first half. Also jettisoned is the question that set the whole story in motion to begin with, the question of whether Worf's father Mogh is still alive. Part one dispensed with that mystery all too fast, confirming that he'd indeed been killed in the massacre.
What remains is the part of the story that Michael Piller felt merited a two-part episode to begin with, a sort of Bridge on the River Kwai inspired battle of ideology between Worf and the Romulan prison commander Tokath. (It's also possible Piller was hoping sparks would fly as they did in "Chain of Command" between Madred and Picard.) But the big problem here is that the story isn't balanced between two valid points of view, nor is it even weighted to favor our hero, Worf. In fact, Worf is pretty reprehensible in this episode.
While the children of this camp are admittedly unable to leave the planet, their home is in no other way like a prison camp. It's actually a society. They've invented their own new traditions (using Klingon artifacts in new ways). They're free of bigotry. They're happy. Into this paradise comes Worf, who brings (in his own words, from his final speech) knowledge. This is a pure Judeo-Christian parable here... and Worf is cast in the role of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Not good company, even if the knowledge he brought was truly to the betterment of these people.
But in fact, I'd say it's objectively not. Alongside Klingon traditions, Worf brings an unhealthy dose of bigotry and racism. (Of course, Worf's traditions play very much like a religion, and bigotry and racism have gone hand-in-hand with religion far too often.) His message is that Klingons and Romulans should hate each other because we're Klingons and they're Romulans. He can't see the harmony this group has found. He can't even continue liking Ba'el, an attractive young (too young?) woman he was drawn to right up until he learned she was half Romulan. Worf teaches Toq that it's important to hunt and kill animals even when you don't need them for food or other resources. He berates L'Kor and Gi'ral for simply doing their best to survive in a tough situation, one in which they in fact thrived, thankyouverymuch.
The only way in which Worf is remotely the good guy in this episode is that Tokath foolishly overreacts to the interference. It defies belief how Tokath doesn't see that martyring Worf with an execution (an unnecessarily public one) is going to undermine his authority. Basically, Worf's point of view is given credibility by Tokath not having a credible one at all. Yet that still leaves Ba'el, who passionately argues that Worf should accept her for who she is. It still leaves L'Kor and Gi'ral, who argue the merits of the society they've built.
Worf isn't the only main character who has a bad week here. We occasionally check in on the rest of the Enterprise crew, who is trying to follow Worf's trail and rescue him. But by the time they finally catch up to him, he has already secured his own rescue without their help.
Still, despite how weak this script is, the episode isn't bottom of the barrel awful. Composer Jay Chattaway provides a solid score, with some particularly interesting South American instruments during Worf's escape attempt. Dan Curry, a visual effects supervisor for the show, was given the chance to direct here, and he really tries to make the most of the character-driven scenes. (Indeed, he gave them so much space that the episode ran 7 minutes long and had to be trimmed down. Much of the cut footage can be seen on the Blu-ray collection of season six.)
It would have been a better episode had there been time to include some of the deleted material. There's a great scene in which Gi'ral takes Worf to task for his criticisms, explaining how she left a son behind on the Klingon homeworld when forging her life here. There's also an extended version of Tokath's final speech advocating Worf's execution, in which he makes individual pleas to members of his community to try to shore up their support. Perhaps there really was a great two-hour episode in here somewhere, had there not been the need to break it in half on a cliffhanger.
Other observations:
- Some deleted scenes you won't find on the Blu-ray involve Jaglom Shrek; they were never filmed. During the holiday hiatus between parts one and two, actor James Cromwell broke his leg. The writers therefore cut his two big scenes, leaving him no dialogue and only a brief appearance in part two. One of the scenes would have helped explain Shrek's motivation for helping Worf, as he confessed that he himself was an escaped prisoner. The other scene would have had Shrek trying to get help from the son of another Khitomer survivor... only to be murdered when that Klingon didn't want to hear the truth about his father.
- Another casualty of the holiday break was the jungle set. It used lots of live vegetation, which accidentally sat in total darkness for weeks and died. The whole set had to be replaced, making a big dent in the budget that was supposed to have been conserved by filming a two-parter.
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