This is the first episode devoted entirely to character development. Like many other firsts, it's kind of hit and miss, but that can be said for any character development episode depending on which characters you like and if you think they're being handled properly.
They have Mitchell Ryan in to play Will's father, Kyle Riker. Without digressing too much I just want to lavish some attention on this man. I think he's one of the best character actors ever. Most would remember him from Lethal Weapon. But he was also in High Plains Drifter, the mini series North and South (which Jonathan Frakes was also in, although I don't think their characters had much interaction,) and he was the first Burke Devlin on Dark Shadows once upon a time. I'll definitely have to do a Dark Shadow's character profile on him soon. He's mostly cast as a bad guy, but he's actually a wonderful actor and he gets to wear all hats in various scenes of this episode and as an added bit of trivia, he was originally a top studio choice to play Captain Picard.
Okay, so one at a time. Riker has been promoted to a command of his own ship and has 12 hours to think it over. This is the second time since the beginning that they've been nudging at Riker to be promoted. In a way it's a good thing because adds a realistic feel to the series - that people are promoted and come and go and it's not like the first series where you never have to worry about your favorite characters even considering leaving the Enterprise as part of the job. But focusing on Riker's potential future career was becoming a habit in the writing and it was a little stale to me already, although the Picard moments were improving greatly. Stewart was finally getting control of that character. This, along with the arrival of Riker's father is the primary focus of the show.
Secondarily, Wesley notices that Worf is... edgy... so he is determined find out why.
I thought that was awkward and inappropriate and, if it had been real life, that kind of nosy behavior should've been discouraged in a teenager. However, I guess his curiosity comes from the fact that he is a teenager, although I feel it was just more wasting of his character. This is why people didn't like Wesley. However, I can look past it because when he started asking for help in his endeavor, he was told that he was on his own, which is another correct response if the nosiness can't be discouraged. Geordi's motivation for leaving Wesley to his own devices was another minor character development point - he was feeling slighted by another ship's analysis of some of his engineering functions which is used to fill in the gaps throughout the episode.
Kyle and Pulaski are old friends and had a romantic interest in one another at one time. I liked this idea and I often thought it would've been nice if they'd mentioned in passing later on that these two decided to marry, making her Will's mother-in-law. This angle was good for showing Will that he didn't know his dad as well as he thought; that he had other sides and dimensions. It was good for the situation.
But the tension between Will and his father never made sense to me. His mother dies before he's really even aware of her and that's part of his problem which seems weak. His father wasn't the hugging, touchy-feely type and that's another part. It all seems pretty thin. They have Will behaving very childishly again... too childish for a man who is second in command of the flagship of Starfleet. It has Pulaski and Troi trying to explain to Kyle why he's at fault although I gotta say, I'm not seeing it. It seems like something taken from a bad book on men's psychology. As the episode wears on, it seems to turn into a commentary on men in general, and naturally, it's not favorable.
Men are brutes. Men are savages. When Kyle's had enough of Will plugging his ears he challenges him to an anbo-jytsu match claiming it's all they have left between them *eye roll at the melodrama.* I wanted to like this sport. I liked the idea of fighting blind. But good grief, they had so much body armor on that it made Pulaski's concerns about "violence" seem pretty stupid really. The stunt actors had to be in Hell trying to move in all that gear. Consequently, the action was sluggish. And those American Gladiator type of pugil sticks looked like they couldn't do anymore damage than knock someone over, especially as heavily padded as they were. It was anticlimactic at best. They make up after Will realizes that his dad had been cheating to win all time when he was a kid. Man hug. Whatever. The whole thing was just very vague and unsatisfactory.
Worf's problem was more interesting, however. Wesley finds out that it's the 10 year anniversary of his Right of Ascension ceremony and it's celebrated by recreating it with family present. It's a little simplistic, but it's another stab at developing Klingon culture that is actually really cool. I guess they didn't realize the audience would like this kind of thing because we have more whining about barbarism and violence out of Pulaski. It was not only hypocritical but another way of stunting the growth of Klingon culture at the same time. She specifically states that humans are past this kind of barbarism while finding Will and Kyle's anbo-jytsu thing to be somewhat charming by comparison. So... we have to learn how inferior humans are in every other episode - except when it comes to Klingons. Even though we're all friends now, they're still the savages from TOS. Talk about stereotyping and racism. Just saying. I think this Right of Ascension thing must have gotten rave reviews from the fans because it wasn't too long before they stopped all of the characters from being so disgusted and smug about Klingon rituals after this, and rightfully so.
I thought the Riker angle in this episode was not as good as it could've been. Too much melodrama. He and Troi even have a tearful goodbye although he decides to stay on the Enterprise which, of course, we all knew that he would. So everyone gets a happy ending.
I'm not sure how to score this one. Although I wasn't impressed with the Riker story and thought that Worf's was impeded by Wesley and Pulaski, I like it that they made an effort to do serious character development. That alone deserves quite a bit of merit. It was a first time for this sort of thing, so obviously, there were bugs to be worked out. it mostly didn't work for me, but others may disagree. I think I can give it three stars.
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