REDEMPTION II


This episode highlights what I think is one of TNG's major problems:  Many
episodes try to accomplish more than they have time for.  While people
may clamor for a change of format to allow for longer, more complex stories,
the fact is that for the time being, they have this relatively short time span 
in which to tie up major plot elements in each story, and I think this episode 
suffered substantially from plot element overload.

There are, essentially, four basic plot elements here, and all are fine ideas
in and of themselves:

1) The Klingon civil war, and the Federation's relationship to it.
2) Romulan interference in the Klingon empire.
3) Worf finding his place in (or out) of Klingon society.
4) Tasha Yar's daughter.

Any of these elements would provide enough material for an episode (if not
several!) all by itself.  Indeed, except for maybe element (3), each episode
might even demand an episode all to itself.  Throwing them all together here
is just too much.

Of the elements, number (1) seems most fully realized in "Redemption II".
The opening sequence especially (if we ignore the slightly silly solution to
Kurn and Worf's problem) is successful in illustrating the tensions of
battle.  (This sequence by itself was almost more exciting than the whole of 
"Redemption I".)  The idea of a "neutral ground" where the warriors on the two 
sides can meet is intriguing, and seems to fit right in with TNG Klingon 
society.  (Now we know why they have those bumpy heads - from butting them 
together constantly! :-)  

However, element (2) seems to get the short end of the stick here.  Exposing 
the Romulans seems all too easy.  First we have Geordi managing to solve the 
problem of the cloaking device in mere weeks (when the Federation has been 
dealing with the device for about a century!  I mean, come on!)  Second, his 
"solution" is hardly believable.  People, space is big.  Space is very, very 
big.  I have a very hard time imagining that a fleet of twenty ships could 
cover all of the Klingon-Romulan border, in all three dimensions.  Why 
couldn't the Romulans just go around or over the fleet?  They may have lost a 
day or two, but it's better than nothing!  Did we just see this inanity in
"Future Imperfect" last season?  

Element (3), Worf finding his place in Klingon society, is glossed over.
We're presented with some fleeting glimpses of Worf disagreeing with how 
other Klingons place personal honor above the good of the empire, but it
seems very two-dimensional.  We know that some Klingons DO place the Empire
above themselves (K'Mpec comes to mind instantly); surely there are others.
If not, then the Klingons are clearly a much shallower race than I'd been
led to believe.  Worf's return to Starfleet seemed too easy, as well.  Is
Starfleet really going to accept back an officer who so easily resigned his
commission?  Seems hard to believe.  Maybe they'll touch on this in the future.
(Then again, look at their track record in following these threads...)  Also,
we don't get any denouement involving Worf's friends' reaction to his return.
That basically eliminates any real emotional involvement I could have had
with his return to the Enterprise.

Finally, we have element (4) - Yar's daughter.  Obviously, all this was a 
set-up for future stories (which I suspect will end up with Picard and
company finding duplicates of the Enterprise-C's logs stored in Romulan
computers somewhere), but this episode only presented the bare bones of the
mystery, and didn't tell us, the viewers, much that we did not know before.
These elements would have been much more interesting had they been removed
from the story and expanded into a complete 1- or 2-parter.

(Aside:  On the other hand, maybe the creators DO read r.a.s.  I notice they
mentioned both the ideas of a Romulan who had been surgically altered, and
cloning.)

This episode did have its good points, though.  Data's command of the
Sutherland was very well handled (and does much to make up for "In Theory").
Data is clearly learning not just how to display emotions, but how to use them
effectively.  (Maybe he find negative emotions like frustration, irritation
and anger easier to express; now THAT would be an intriguing basis for an
episode!)  His solution to finding the Romulans was just about the only
techie idea in the episode that didn't make me cringe at its silliness.
Oddly, Data was just about the only character in the story who I felt was
really handled well (aside from some Klingon "minors" such as Gowron and the
Duras bitches^H^H^H^H^H^H^H sisters).  No one else really got enough screen
time to be more than window dressing.  One exception, though, was the last
Picard-Data exchange, where I thought Picard's speech about "following
orders" was perfect.  (He really looked like a proud father or something as 
Data was leaving, too!  That was neat.)

The special effects were not bad (especially the sequence around the star
at the start of the episode), though as usual none of the music sticks in
my memory.

I would assume that many of the ships "under construction" in the episode
(e.g., the Sutherland) were construction prompted by the Borg's devastation.

I should probably make another note about Yar's daughter:  Several times this
past week my roommate's girlfriend expressed interest in seeing the episode
"to find out why Tasha had shown up with the Romulans".  It occurred to me
that this was probably how many casual Trek viewers would have viewed the
cliffhanger in the first part, and would have been wondering why Picard
didn't recognize the character if she actually had had no connection to Yar.
So, taken in that context, it seems inevitable that the character would have
turned out to be related to Yar.  But then, hindsight is 20/20.

I think the idea behind the character is decent enough, but it just demanded
more exposure for me to really care about it.

On the whole, this was an episode that just had TOO MUCH going on in it to
really do any of the elements justice.  Most of the successful Trek stories
(of both series) have limited themselves to one plot (or a major plot
and a few VERY closely connected minor plots).  In the very constraining
format they've chosen, I think that this limitation is virtually mandatory.
"Redemption II" did the best it could with what it had, but in a very
meaningful sense, it had too many cooks.

Grade:  B-

Next Week:

"Arena" meets "The Doomsday Machine" and Picard dresses like Wesley.  But
seriously, it looks like it could be good...