Another two-parter. They were becoming more and more common by now, but it's hard to think of this one as a two-parter since each part seems to have a separate story. I think it's one of the first forays into an "episode arc" - three or more separately titled episodes in which at least two storylines would play out in detail - which DS9 would go on to employ successfully. But, as always, it's a happy accident at first and even a little lopsided in this case.
It's the biggest crossover show. They put a lot of work into giving DS9 a good start with things like this. The Enterprise has to make a stop at Deep Space 9 to assist with a rebuilding project. And it's a secondary issue that's being dealt with by the peons while the senior officers are busy checking out the space station. Well, except Picard. He informs Beverly that he has to meet with bureaucrats while she's checking out the holosuites. Geordi is with Worf in the replimat where, once again, Worf is enjoy a strange foreign food that Geordi doesn't care for. But while Geordi talks about looking at one of the antique shops, a Yridian is watching Worf from accross the promenade. Up on the Enterprise, Data gets an alert of an unauthorized person using sick bay equipment and Riker tells him to go down to see what the trouble is. There's tension in that scene to fool you into thinking that something sinister is about to happen. But it's only Dr. Bashir testing an alien device that appears to be a medical scanner. He apologizes for not asking permission and explains that examining it would take less time on the Enterprise since their sick bay has more advanced scanning equipment. Bashir is tickled to meet Data, as most characters are, and Data offers to take him and the device to engineering to examine it further. Bashir is also curious about Data, as most characters are,but they take it in a different direction with Bashir that they hadn't up to this point. Instead of marveling at how fast or strong Data is, he is delighted by the little details. That Data appears to be breathing, has a pulse and that his hair grows. Geordi and Crusher have always been the only ones on the ship that provide any outside maintenance to Data, but nobody every really bothered to make note of these things before and it's Bashir that gets to be fascinated by the things that most biological doctors would be fascinated with. It's a nice scene to watch with two lovable characters. Back on DS9, the Yridian introduces himself to Worf which seems rather brave. (His name is, no kidding, Shrek.. lol! Obviously this was long before the kids' movie of the same name.) He claims that his father, Mogh, is alive and that he knows where he is. Worf is angered by this since it's taken him five years just to prove that his father wasn't a traitor and had died an honorable death. He ruffs the Yridian up and calls him a liar.
Worf's story moves slowly. He broods over what Shrek told him and gets in trouble at work. After jumping down the throat of a lower ranking officer, Riker sends him away for rest. Deanna talks to him about his feelings. It's important because if his father was alive and a prisoner, his name would again be without honor and consequently Worf, Kurn and Alexander. He would rather just ignore it and leave things as they are, but also he has a nagging need to find out for sure which Troi points out is causing his bad mood and lack of concentration. She encourages him to investigate so he can find closure, but he's not sure yet. Data's story, on the other hand, moves along at a quicker pace. They've hooked Bashir's mystery device up to the dilithium crystal chamber. While they're working and talking about how much work Dr. Soong put into making Data as human as possible, the device overloads and discharges an energy surge that hits Data. He falls stiffly down and we see in his mind that he's having a vision. He walks through the cooridors of the Enterprise trying to find the sound of banging metal. He finds a blacksmith hammering away on at something on an anvil. When the blacksmith turns around it's the image of Data, only very human. Now, the audience can tell that it's clearly a dream of some sort but when Data wakes up he's alarmed by the fact that he was seeing a vision of his creator, Dr. Noonian Soong as a young man before he was activated. Nothing was damaged in the power surge and nothing appears to be wrong with any of his functions. It's Bashir that suggest that it may have been a dream or hallucination. But Data knows he's not capable of those functions.
So, he goes in search of advice. The first person he chooses, strangely, is Worf. He knows that Worf has had visions before during Klingon rituals. Worf is alone in Ten Forward and obviously moody. Data starts to turn away when Worf calls him back. It's just a small example of the character development over 6 seasons. Earlier on, Data would've just sat down and started speaking only to learn partway in that he's interrupting someone's "alone time." But his observational skills are much improved. And Worf, although grouchy as a general rule, now has more command of his emotions and is more willing to endure social interaction even when it doesn't suit him. Data asks him about his vision, particularly of the science involved in producing a vision which he sees as a hallucination, but Worf tells him of the vision itself regarding Kahless. When Data tells him that he has also had a vision, Worf looks bewildered, but doesn't express disbelief. He just asks how it happened. When Data tells him the vision was of his father, he perks up immediately. Visions of a person's father are very important in Klingon culture. He advises Data to find out as much as he can about his father and trails off talking more to himself than to Data. The conversation had made him decide to find out whether or not his father is still alive. He goes back to DS9 to find Shrek. He tells Worf the location of the camp but Worf won't pay him the full price for his information unless Shrek goes with him to show it to him. He threatens to kill him if he finds out it's a lie. Worf convinces to take him to the planet which is on the Romulan boarder by nearly pushing him over the railing of the promenade. I'm sure the Yridian is now thinking twice about selling information to a Klingon again. But he's not entirely bullied. He has the map and more information he needs about the place of the camp. He will drop Worf off and be back for him in 50 hours at a rendezvous point, since Worf will need at least 12 hours to find the place. Meanwhile Data goes to Captain Picard to ask him about his vision of Dr. Soong. He describes the dream as well as what some of the images may stand for according to several different cultural traditions, religions, and psychological studies. But Picard simplifies the matter by telling him to explore what the vision means to him personally, since he is a "culture of one." So he turns to his own hobby of painting to try and sort out the images from his dream. On the planet Carraya IV, it is dark and Worf moves stealthily through the thick foliage. He chances upon a young Klingon woman bathing in a pond. After she's robed, he accidentally makes too much noise and she comes towards him looking for someone that she thinks she knows and is making playful threats to as she approaches. She's surprised by Worf and runs, but he calms her down and she's curious about him. Soon they're both confused as he begins conversing with her as if she was a prisoner. He wants to know how she got out of the camp and says that he's there to take her home. Her answers of spending a lot of time at that pond and the fact that she is at home make no sense to Worf, but he hears someone coming and disappears back into the jungle after imploring her not to tell anyone of his presence. He sees a Romulan guard talking to her but their conversation isn't clear.
By the time Geordi gets to Data's quarters he's made a mass collections of paintings that depict what he saw in the vision. Pictures of Dr. Soong and of his hammer. And then his paintings deviate from the vision. He felt prompted to paint smoke which Geordi counts as natural since blacksmiths often cool their work in water which causes a lot of smokey steam. But he's also taken to painting bird wings, and flocks of birds which were definitely not a part of the vision. He feels he has no alternative but to recreate the conditions that caused the vision. So in a more controlled situation, Geordi and Bashir seat data to keep him from falling over and intend to monitor him for any damage that the experience may be causing. They overload Bashir's mystery device and the energy beam shoots at Data again. The vision begins again with walking down the corridors and finding Dr. Soong hammering on the anvil. This time he sees that he's hammering a bird's wing. When he comments that it's different, Soong begins to talk back to him. He explains that nobody should understand their dreams, verifying that this is indeed a dream and not a malfunction. The scene switches to the bridge. Soong continues to speak to him as a teacher while he draws from Data his observations of the things he's seeing. Soong comments that the images that he's surrounded himself with are plain and mundane, but that they show promise. Their positions change a couple of more times as Soong tells Data that he's proud that his circuitry had finally developed to the point that his dream program would activate. Data, with no emotions is still trying to make sense of things, but Soong encourages him to relax and embrace the irrationality of dreaming. He tells Data that he is the bird now and the dream begins again from the viewpoint of a flying bird as it soars through the corridors and looks down upon the blacksmith and then out into the space beyond the ship. Data regains consciousness on his own again. It's a wonderful scene and a favorite moment for fans.
His story ends with an explanation to Bashir that the dormant circuits in his neural net that were designed for dreaming had been prematurely activated by the plasma shock. But now that he knows they're there, he intends to shut down for a period of time each day to allow them to work and develop. He gives Bashir permission to publish a paper in a Cybernetics journal on the experience and Bashir wishes him sweet dreams before he goes back to DS9. On the jungle planet, Worf follows the Romulan and the girl until he finds a compound. He sees a group of Klingons, young and old, are singing a song around a fire. The group disperses and as the elder man walks over to a corner, Worf grabs him unaware but assures him he's a friend and asks about Mogh. The Klingon tells him that he died at Khitomer, which is a sad kind of relief to Worf. He explains that many of them were taken prisoner. Worf is angry that they were deprived of their right to die with honor but begins making plans for their escape anyway. The older Klingon is called L'Kor and remembers Worf as a child. Soon other elderly Klingons turn up and he doesn't understand why they aren't responding favorably to his rescue attempt. An older woman Gi'ral insists that he leave but L'Kor says that he'd just bring others. They gang up on him and hold him there until a Romulan guard comes. They tell him that they aren't leaving and that he can't leave now either. To be continued.
So, this two part episode is technically about Worf and more follow up on his issues with his father, but although there was too much to hash out in one episode, there wasn't quite enough for two episodes, so Data's encounter with his own father was added as a sub plot which actually got over better with the audience who wanted more of it even though it was resolved in the one episode. I liked it better than the Worf story too, but the slow build of Worf's story was a really smart and shrewd move on the part of the writing. It made it a much better story as a whole that I and most people can appreciate when the complexities are added in the second part. I can also see that it would've been hard to stretch out Data analyzing his dreams over an entire episode; it would've become redundant like the episode In Theory when he goes to everyone asking about Jenna. So really the balance is very nicely executed when seen in retrospect as opposed to in real time. Four stars.
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