Jammer's Review
Star Trek: The Next Generation
"Hero Worship"
Air date: 1/27/1992
Teleplay by Joe Menosky
Story by Hilary J. Bader
Directed by Patrick Stewart
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
The story editors must've been asleep at the wheel to let "Hero Worship" air right after "New Ground" — or at all, for that matter. I mean, didn't we just watch a child-centric character story framed by a technobabble-plentiful jeopardy problem-of-the-week? Both episodes even feature a scene where a child is trapped under a heavy metal beam. (I always love how heavy beams trap people unharmed under them, rather than crushing them.)
Where I could get on board with "New Ground" and its welcome Worf-centrism, I found "Hero Worship" to be completely and totally dramatically inert. It relies on a child guest character we have no connection to, and then uses particularly unconvincing second-rate psychobabble to justify its lame premise. The kid, named Timothy (Joshua Harris), is the lone survivor of a ravaged ship whose crew included his parents, who were killed in what Timothy initially describes as an alien attack. But there are questions about Timothy's credibility. Timothy befriends Data (who saved him from underneath the aforementioned metal beam) and retreats into a manufactured persona (explained by the aforementioned second-rate psychobabble) where he imitates Data's android movements and speech patterns.
I'm sure someone thought the idea of a kid imitating Data would be "cute" and/or "funny." Potentially, maybe, but not as executed. It's mostly just boring (featuring numerous scenes of the aforementioned dramatically inert variety) and goes on for interminable length. There's a contrived scene, for example, where the kid tries to build a model tower by putting up floor supports along one side and then trying to place the floor on top without putting up the supports for it on the other side. He's surprised and frustrated when it collapses, so Data explains his error. (Duh!) Funny how Timothy earlier had no problem constructing the floor beneath the one that collapses. The fact that Data is the one at the center of a story about a child coping with a traumatic loss doesn't say much for Troi's already questionable usefulness as a character with the title "counselor."
The mystery of what destroyed Timothy's ship is solved with clues that are obvious to the audience too long before they are obvious to the Enterprise crew. Overall, this plays as another strike against the series' unlikely notion of having children on board Federation starships, where alien attacks and/or dangerous spatial anomalies abound.
Previous episode: New Ground
Next episode: Violations
Season Index
13 comments on this review
Timothy was well drawn and sympathetic, the Data/Timothy interactions were realistic/warm/comfortable and what make the episode for me involving, I didn't think the emulation by Timothy of Data was psychobabble--the kid witnesses the death of his parents and the crew of the ship, he thinks he triggered it and hears Data has no emotions so the kid decides to pretend he has no emotions--seems like a reasonable coping mechanism. And Troi did play a role--she guided Data in how to handle Timothy and checked in on them. She just didn't hand it over to Data and washed her hands of it.
Te episode I thought also sported some nice visuals inside the nebula
While we can't live for ever in these fictional and impossible creations of this wondrous universe, it does us a lot of good to imitate them for a while. It rejuvenates the mind and spirit and can be the means by which we cope with our own inadequacies and guilt.
3 stars.
As for Troi's competence as counselor, wouldn't it have made more sense to assign timothy to a human family aboard ship? The normal surroundings of human home life you would think would be a far preferable environment than palming the kid over to a walking toaster/computer.
Alexander seemed like a whiny kid acting up because he was a brat. Perhaps that wasn’t the intention, but that’s how it came across. I didn’t get the troubled youth vibe from that episode. In this one though, I totally get the damaged kid vibe. Ultimately the kid lies to ‘protect himself’ (he doesn’t steal and act up, affecting others which has no connection to the problem, as Alexander does). At least he thinks he’s protecting himself because he feels guilt for the death of his parents which he believes he caused. And the crew has to figure this mystery out because ultimately the boy holds the key to saving the ship. Also, the boy’s relationship with Data allows Data to save the ship. This is far better than the previous episode’s child-in-completely-random-jeopardy premise.
Also, as I’m sure there were children of the late-60s who dressed up and wanted to act like Spock, I’m sure there were children of the early 90s who wanted to be like Data. I think the boy’s idolization of Data was believable and relatable (especially since the kid is feeling the immense guilt of believing he killed his parents [and others] – an emotionless android seems like a good shell to hide within). Okay, they took it a bit to the extreme, with the boy pretending to be a robot, but the premise was sound.
It could have given Troi a legitimate ‘something to do’ episode. You make a reasonable point that Troi is somewhat limited from doing her job because the kid will only deal with Data, but I feel like she did have some input. You also make a fair point about the kid building the tower. I put that down to bad direction or execution, as I’m sure they could have come up with a ‘building step’ that the kid could have failed at without making him look completely stupid.
Playing them back to back is a pretty glaring error, tho it's not the first time two story of the week episodes in a row shared similar themes explored with different characters.
"At last! Someone finally points out the obvious ridiculosity of having women and children aboard a starship"
How utterly ridiculous indeed! Women on spaceships! They get their food from machines, so what are women good for?
What's next? Women voting or driving cars? Absurd...
Good review Jammer but what are the 1.5 stars for?
But anyways, the acting in this one was VERY dull. the acting in most of the last 3 seasons was dull. Watch the acting in "booby-trap" or "time-squared", and those were far more believable "in a dangerous void" scenes. I just never bought this crew was in danger in these scenes. But I think that was this cast aging, I thought this was one of the better 5-th season episodes.
One of the biggets fails in it its depiction of 23rd century school life. Star Trek: TNG was always bad about this, but this episode was one of the worst. Here, Timothy's school looks like a damn preschool!
What, is he supposed to be 11 or 12? Should probably be 5th or 6th grade. But the kids here don't do math or science. Instead, they work on "sculpture" (play with building blocks), and gather around to listen to the teacher read them stories, just like circle time.
Later, they even all sit together on bright-colored, preschool-y looking furniture to sing... "Row row row your boat"??? What 12 year old do you know still sings that? What 5 year old for that matter? Maybe they had just watched Star Trek V, and were doing it as a homage to Spock.
Maybe it wasn't a school at all. Maybe it was an insane asylum. That would explain why at the end it looked like Troi and Data were watching the kid through a one-way mirror.
This to me just underscores the biggest failing of TNG, and that is depicting the Enterprise as just a big cruise liner in space. It's the Love Boat, only with aliens. It's fitting that career women should be on the ship. But kids? Give me a break! This was a lame concept from the beginning, and never got better. It worked better for DS9, since it made more sense. Luckily, they learned their lesson and ditched the kids for Voyager! We won't even talk about the series that came after that...
However, I still don't really mind this episode as much as "New Ground", if only because there's little to *actively* dislike about it. I always found the teacher character in that episode grating, and Worf's parenting naivete tiresome. Here we have a reasonable if simple story of a boy who latches onto Data to deal (and avoid dealing) with the deaths of his parents. The problem is that it really goes no further than that. While I don't have any problem with a bit of a downer for an ending, this would have been better as B story or subplot. I should say that both episodes are still far more tolerable than "Imaginary Friend".
Were I to go back and rewrite this episode, there would have been more survivors, and the episode would have followed the challenges of dealing with the tragedy for several characters. An investigation into the destruction of the Vico would run alongside this, but hopefully without the absurd Enterprise-in-jeopardy premise.
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