While commanding the Defiant in a dangerous area of space, Worf accidentally destroys a Klingon transport ship full of civilians. Now a hearing will determine whether he'll be extradited to the Klingon Empire for trial.
This story was the first from Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, who after this would join the writing staff and go on to work on Battlestar Galactica with Ronald D. Moore (who gets the script credit here). Show runner Ira Steven Behr had read a biography of Sam Peckinpah written by Weddle and invited him to come tour the Paramount lot. Weddle parlayed that into a chance to pitch story ideas with his screenwriting partner, Thompson, and thus arrived a big influence on the latter half of Deep Space Nine.
Some elements of the episode are quite great. The character of Ch'Pok, the Klingon lawyer prosecuting Worf, is fantastic. First, he's well conceived and well written. He looks at the courtroom as a battlefield to conquer; he is a warrior Klingon as surely as any we've seen before, but in a very different context. (And we see he cares about the fight itself more than the cause, offering to defend Worf once he's extradited.) Second, the character is well portrayed by actor Ron Canada. He preens and postures and powers not only through the makeup, but reportedly through a major cold he came down with halfway through the filming.
Also great is the gimmick of mixing flashbacks with trial testimony, with witnesses delivering their statements straight to the camera. The overt artificiality of it makes each version of events seem a bit unreliable. The technique is used effectively for comedy (when Quark can't remember which dabo girl Bashir was chatting up) and for tension (when O'Brien is asked to speculate on what he would have done in Worf's place). Director LeVar Burton really makes the most of these moments (as well as Worf's nightmare in the opening teaser), infusing the episode with great visual style.
But just as "Dax" was an episode that largely marginalized the very character it put on trial, so this episode gives Worf very little to do. He sits and stares into the distance for three-quarters of the episode as Sisko and Ch'Pok battle over his fate. He's a secondary character in what ostensibly is his story.
The legal procedure depicted throughout the episode is also horrible. Sure, most TV shows that aren't courtroom drama (and many that are) tend to fudge the trial process. But this episode is the poster child for getting almost everything wrong. Lawyers provide their own testimony in the middle of questioning witnesses. They offer objections to the judge without stating the grounds. They call each other to stand as witnesses. And that's just the incorrect lawyering. Then there's the bad lawyering, such as Sisko failing to cross-examine half the witnesses, and failing to call out Ch'Pok's blatant attempts to play for the judge.
Avery Brooks does make a delicious meal out of this legal nonsense, though. It's simply fun to watch him best the "villain" in the end with his surprise evidence. He's also great in the final scene when he dresses down Worf for his mistake, but then offers him encouragement and advice for the future. If Sisko is unintentionally going to become the star of Worf's episode, you at least know Avery Brooks is going to do something good with it.
Other observations:
- The hearing opens with a ringing of a bell that calls back to the original Star Trek series.
- The judge is a Vulcan... and it's interesting to ponder whether you'd want a Vulcan judge at your trial. You could probably rely on logic and fairness to rule the day, and yet there would be no measure of compassion in your justice, which I believe to be an essential element for it to be called justice.
- Odo delivers quite a zinger: "I'm always suspicious of people who are eager to help a police officer."
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