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Worf resigns from Starfleet in the The Next Generation’s “Redemption, Part 1”.
Of all the alien cultures developed in the 40 year history of Star Trek, none has been as developed as the Klingons. From deep cultural practices such as the par’mach to an entire language, with its own English to Klingon dictionary. There are day camps dedicated to the fictional race and clubs filled with men and women living their lives based upon Klingon honor.
Now, I may be a Trek fan, but I’ve never been that kind of fan. Still, people love the honor-bound warrior race. And of any in the franchise, they easily deserve their own “fan collective” DVD set.
Unlike the previous Fan Collective DVD sets, this one actually had a real challenge regarding what to include and what not to. The Klingons were featured in numerous episodes, and paring it down to the best isn’t necessarily easy. Honestly, I’m not crazy about some of the choices here, but that’s not necessarily Paramount’s fault. Although its easy to blame them, you have to remember this is a “fan” collective. Fans votes long ago on StarTrek.com in terms of which episodes should be included on this set. And they chose well in some cases, and not so well in others.
First, let’s start off with what’s good about this DVD set:
The first of two Original Series episodes introduced the Klingons, “Errand of Mercy”. In it, war breaks out briefly between the Klingons and Federation, and as usual Kirk and Spock are on the front lines. A confrontation on Organia, however, introduces the heroes to a race of super-beings that force a peace between the warring governments. The second is more of a comical episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles”, where a Klingon scheme is uncovered with the help of fuzzy little creatures with very healthy libidos. Both are natural fits here, and welcome additions to the list.
The Next Generation’s second season episode, “A Matter of Honor”, was the first time we were given a close up look at the Klingons. In it, Riker participates in an exchange program that lands him on a Klingon bird of prey. This is one of the best episodes of the show’s first three seasons, and really gave us an understanding of the Klingon social structure. Worf later took center stage in “Sins of the Father”, then again in the fourth season’s finale, “Redemption Part 1”, and its season five sequel, “Redemption Part 2”. This was an excellent storyline that basically went on for the majority of season four. Worf becomes exiled from Klingon society in “Sins”, then gains back his honor in “Redemption” when a civil war breaks out in the Empire.
Lastly I’ll mention “Way of the Warrior”, the two-part episode from season four of Deep Space Nine. As the growing conflict between the Cardassians, Bajor and the Dominion grows worse, the Klingons go back to their war-mongering ways and Worf comes to Deep Space Nine to help ease tensions. Personally, I always loved what the writers of Deep Space Nine did to Worf, and this two-parter was quite excellent.
Now, we’ll discuss the remaining episodes in this collection. Enterprise only has one episode to offer on this set, and that’s its pilot episode, “Broken Bow”. Now, I liked “Broken Bow”. It had a lot of potential for the series, much of which really never came to fruition. But that series also had several other episodes that were much better than this. At the same time, I think that its best episodes, which came in season four, were not yet out when the fans voted for this collective. As such, there’s an excuse.
The biggest disappointment is “Sword of Kahless”, a Deep Space Nine offering. This was a terribly boring episode. The most obvious choice should have been “Blood Oath”, which is not only a great episode, it is easily the single best Klingon-related episode of Deep Space Nine. It’s significant also because it brought back all the actors from the Original Series as the same characters they played back then. Why that didn’t make it into this list is beyond me. “Trials and Tribble-ations” is another oddity. Yes, it deals with Klingons, but it could have easily been removed to make room for better, more exciting episodes. That’s not to say I didn’t like it, just felt it wasn’t worthy of this set. It also had a spot in the Time Travel DVD collective, and I’m not crazy that episodes were featured more than once.
Voyager’s “Barge of the Dead” was one of the weakest of that series, and another disappointment. I don’t really understand what fans were thinking when they voted this one in there.
Star Trek: Fan Collective—Klingon also has a unique distinction, I think, of having the most extras. They come mostly in the form of text commentaries (there is also an audio commentary on “Broken Bow”), but there are quite a few. And three of them are actually brand new. Largely, the text commentaries are far too focused on technical issues, but occasionally they put through a nice nugget of information.
With this being the last of the Fan Collectives (unless Paramount chooses to assemble more, of course), the whole series ends on a so-so note. There are some good episodes out here, but balanced with real head scratchers that could have easily been replaced by far greater stories. But like I said earlier, we voted for them, so we have only ourselves to blame.
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