“Firstborn”

Yeah, we had a taste of time travel as regret therapy in Voyager's Timeless, and as you mentioned, again here. If that is common in the future, then the temporal free-for-all we saw in "Year Of Hell" may well be the future's norm. Surely Lucsly and Dulmur will be needing somer backup.

Hm, probably the reason why Future Worf's death is so far into the future -- when he's 80 or whatever -- is to avoid having to suggest that Worf himself will die any time soon. Caution, thy name is TNG season seven. At any rate, you are right that that hurts the episode badly, and I think an episode

I do think that bringing Alexander back as a clumsy idiot who wants to be a Klingon in DS9 undermined the strengths of this episode, and was a much worse end to the character arc, such as it was.

But at any rate, the most important arc is not Alexander's, but Worf's -- for Worf to realize that he should not be imposing his own values, and in particular his own insecurity about his Klingon heritage. Like Spock with Vulcanness, Worf feels he has to be more Klingon than most Klingons *because* he is so immersed in human culture and has so little deep connection to Klingonhood. The recognition that Alexander, like K'Ehleyr, largely prefers human/Federation culture and values and that's okay is really the ending (an ending) to Worf's series-long struggle uniting his Klingon genetics and Federation allegiance. This is what I think is important about this episode in a low-key way -- TNG character arcs are seldom flashy in the least, and are sometimes so subterranean as to be nearly nonexistent. But I think that's what Worf's story mostly is in TNG and this episode, for its flaws, gets Worf to a good end-place. I'd have to think about how DS9 works with this -- I feel like Worf's ending up as Federation ambassador to Qo'noS is not particularly justified, though his relationship to Martok is well-developed over the show.

I'll guess I'll have to be the lone voice of dissent here. I always thought this episode was both an enjoyable romp in trying to find the Duras Sisters (with a wry cameo from Quark) coupled with some family drama that wasn't teeth-pullingly cloying. It's an Alexander-centric episode that works well with the character as Jammer points out.

As for the casualness of the time travel, it's no more casual than The Orb of Time from DS9 (who's to say it wasn't used in that alternate future for Alexander in this story). In fact, the Original Series was pretty blase about time travel in "Assignment: Earth" to to the point where they just do it to check on 20th century earth. I was just pleased that it wasn't a time travel story that wasn't mired in heavy technobabble . Not even TNG's series finale can claim that.

Raspy voiced James Sloyan is ,as usual, brilliant. Whether it's Admiral Jarok or Jetrel or Odo's adopted father, he punches up the drama at least five fold.

A solid three stars for me.

I am with you, Patrick, this episode isn't half bad. People are actually complaining about the time travel? Do they even "KNOW" what show we are watching?

Anyways, for season 7, this one was fairly acted, moved nicely, I was never bored, and never yawned once, which rarely happens in S7 TNG. Now, if there is a complaint, it is the end. Why should someone not try to give their kids their own values? You can always tell when something is written by a non-parent. If you don't fill your kids mind with values, someone else will, that is FACT. If the kid is yours, you might as well be the one to fill him with "values". I know I am, and I don't feel bad about it for one second.

This episode isn't terrible, but it really lacks punch. The scenes at the Klingon festival are really boring and even the Duras sisters can't spice things up.

Worf as a character is really odd to me. He's given as much material as any TNG character (save Data and Picard) but sometimes the episodes are really weak. Really, anything that doesn't involve Klingon politics (other than 'Parallels') in TNG and DS9 that centered on Worf wasn't that good.

I hate Alexander. He's relentlessly boring and he generates a Stupid Jerk field that makes Worf awful, too. This episode, and the later DS9 one, also makes him an inconsistently portrayed continuity snarl, elevating him from Bad Character to Intolerable Disaster.

@Nick: Full agreement on values. Good for you sir.

@Sanagi: Mostly agreed on Alexander. I don't hate him, I merely loathe him because he diminishes Worf by his very presence.

I won't say much about the time travel since I've said more than enough on it elsewhere. Star Trek has just never accepted the central truth that the very act of arriving in the past from the future contaminates the timeline. Star Trek thinks you must actively interfere in order to contaminate. Incorrect.

@William B.:
"...bringing Alexander back as a clumsy idiot who wants to be a Klingon in DS9 undermined the strengths of this episode..."

Respectfully disagree sir. As far as Alexander's arc is concerned this episode was centrally about him making his own choices. It was his choice to embrace Klingon culture at a later date. It may have been a poor decision but at least it was his.

Full agreement though on Worf's arc and very much enjoyed the Spock comparison. How true.

"Respectfully disagree sir. As far as Alexander's arc is concerned this episode was centrally about him making his own choices. It was his choice to embrace Klingon culture at a later date. It may have been a poor decision but at least it was his."

That's a good point. I suppose you could also say that the fact that Worf stops pushing Alexander all the time about Being a Klingon is what makes Alexander realize maybe he wants to be one after all.

"Full agreement though on Worf's arc and very much enjoyed the Spock comparison. How true. "

Thanks!

I talked a little about this before, and I agree with what I said at the time, though I will go a little further in this. What's interesting is how much this episode is a bit of a collage of of other Worf-centric stories in the show's past. Alexander's entry into the First Rite of Ascension makes reference to the Second Rite, with the pain-sticks references "The Icarus Factor," the description of the story of Kahless chasing his brother and fighting him for telling a lie goes back to "New Ground," the sense of Klingon culture and songs recalls "Birthright, Part II," the Duras sisters go back to "Redemption." Kurn and the House of Mogh are referenced. And maybe most of all, the ghost of K'Ehleyr haunts this episode, not in a magic candle anaphasic life form kind of way, but this episode spends a lot of time reminding us of K'Ehleyr and what she means to Worf and Alexander. Alexander and Future Alexander talk about her, we see her picture on the table beside Alexander, Worf mentions that he wishes to is trying to abide by her wishes but doesn't know how, and the way Future Alexander identifies himself to Worf is by relaying what happened the moment his mother died. “The Emissary” is an underrated episode, and pretty key to how Worf’s character works, and his attraction to and frustration with K’Ehleyr is because from a very similar initial vantage point (positioned between human and Klingon cultures), she took the opposite tactic of how to deal with it.

It's hard to get involved in Alexander as a character, because Brian Bonsall is pretty annoying and many of these stories just make Worf look like a buffoon. But James Sloyan (previously Admiral Jarok and Dr. Mora) is a great actor, and I think his performance is the first (only?) thing that makes Alexander fully comprehensible as a character. Now, look, yes, the time travel device is probably silly and represents a weird overuse of time travel. But in his last scene with Worf, he talks both about his mother dying *and* his father dying, because of petty Klingon disputes, and he feels the folly of believing that Klingon culture could be tamed by some pacifistic outlook. Future Alexander’s desire to change his younger self is mostly about Future Worf’s death, but it’s about K’Ehleyr too, and I think Future Alexander’s desire to change himself makes a lot of sense when you consider that it’s about preventing *both* his parents from dying with him being unable to do anything about it. The line he quotes of Worf’s from “Reunion,” where Worf tells him in ferocious Klingon tones to look upon death, and that he never has forgotten it, somehow makes me see how deeply this moment imprinted itself onto Alexander in a way that can never be clear with the kid. Even if this Future Alexander will cease to be since the time has changed, it is clear to me now that any Alexander will always be marked by K’Ehleyr’s death. No wonder, when he convinces his younger self that Life Is Not Safe, Future Alexander he makes it appear to be a Duras family attack, because this brings to mind the fundamental trauma that turned his life around.

And K’Ehleyr’s death is the first time he sees what a harsh, unforgiving life Klingons can lead. It’s true that Duras was beyond dishonourable in killing K’Ehleyr for finding out information about him, and so does not represent the “truth” of Klingon honour, he does represent the truth of Klingon violence. Alexander’s first real exposure to full Klingon-ness is his mother being killed for standing up for justice, and then Worf going and killing her killer in revenge. There are (basically) two ways he can respond to this loss of innocence. He can deal with it by becoming more like K’Ehleyr, recognizing the worst traits of Klingons and devoting himself to standing up against it, modeling himself after human society and becoming more peace-loving and merciful, as a way of hoping to change the Klingons by example. Or he can become more like Worf frequently is, incorporating the violence and brutality into his life but accompanying it with a strict honour-code, albeit a code that still means he will be killing anyone who crosses him. This conflict itself in the choices presented to Alexander reflects the choices available to Worf, who knows (deep down) that Klingon culture is on the decline but who fits uneasily into human society and recognizes that Federation values, while perhaps honourable, can also be foolishly trusting. (Hence being the guy who always wants to raise shields and fire at the first sign of trouble.) We learn in this episode that Future Alexander basically chose to be like K’Ehleyr, and tried to prevent things like her death from happening by dedicating himself to peace and reform, and this led to his father’s death. And so he wants to prevent himself from ever making this choice.

We see how Alexander gets started on this path, and for the first time how Alexander is the product of two different worlds. “New Ground” gestured vaguely to Alexander having a Klingon side in that he was angrier than other children, or something, Alexander’s petty thieving and rude behaviour would not be unusual for a human child whose mother died before his eyes and whose father didn’t seem to want him. Besides his forehead, Alexander mostly never seemed to have much Klingon in him, and this always made sense as the influence of K’Ehleyr, who disliked her Klingon heritage, but was part of the package that rendered Alexander flat. But in this one, we actually see that Alexander, the child, does take to Klingon culture if you give him a chance—to a point. He likes getting involved in the bat’leth fight (and takes it too far); he seems to get a kick out of fighting. His real objections, though he’s too young to voice them, are to the ruthless aspects of the warrior code. He shows mercy even to holographic men, and while he may want to fight he doesn’t want to kill. He can’t quite deal with the rigidity of some of Klingon mythology—that Kahless’ brother must be a coward, for example.

Worf is usually the one pushing Klingon values onto a son who doesn’t seem to want them. In this episode, Alexander is more willing than he has been in the past. In order to show Worf the limits of his behaviour, Future Alexander comes along as K’mtar to basically out-Worf Worf, to push for Klingon values hard enough to try to push out mercy and perceived human weakness. When he sees how K’mtar treats his boy—and the eventually ruthless tactics that this involves—Worf is able to see more clearly the ways in which he is crushing out of his son some of the human values which Worf himself and K’Ehleyr, especially, valued. (That Future Alexander has to lie and deceive Worf and Alexander in order to impress the importance of becoming a ruthless warrior for self-protection suggests that Worf’s balance of maintaining real honour and integrity in a warrior system is very difficult—even Future Alexander becomes involved in some of the corrupt machinations that pretty much typify the Klingon government.) And then when he gets a chance to hear what his son’s life had been/would have been, Worf realizes that he’s willing to die (at some indeterminate point in the future) if that means his son comes into his own.

As to the point others mentioned above about Worf deciding not to instill his values to Alexander: I think I agree and disagree. I do think parents have a responsibility to instill values into their child. But Worf is also a child of two cultures, Klingon by birth but raised by humans. And K’Ehleyr wanted Alexander to be raised mostly as a human. Worf isn’t letting Alexander pick up any old value system—he even says that he thinks the cause of peace is a just one. And it’s, ultimately, his mother’s cause. Worf believes in peace, too: he values the act of war, but also dislikes bloodshed for its own sake (as we saw in “Redemption II”). I think that he can become more comfortable with his own values *and* Alexander’s in this moment. Worf has to be constantly vigilant, to the point where he cannot dedicate himself to peace and diplomacy, but he is willing to bear that burden if his son can pursue his (and his mother’s) just cause. I think this is touching both for Worf-as-a-parent, and Worf-as-man-of-two-worlds. Back in “Heart of Glory,” the first episode where Worf came alive, Worf was attracted to the warrior code presented by Korris, but recognized that Korris was a throwback to the past, whose desire to hold onto his warrior ethic in a world that no longer supported it meant that he had to dismiss honour as well. In this episode, I think he recognizes that his son’s way of resolving the difficult questions of how Klingon society should work when peace is genuinely seen as valuable will be different from his own, and this is okay. Even if he is sacrificed at some point in the future in the growing pains of the Klingon Empire moving toward peace, or in Alexander’s attempt to do so, Worf can deal with it.

I think that all works very well in this episode, making it one of the most interesting late season seven episodes, though admittedly there is not much competition. What holds it back from greatness are some of the expected season seven problems. The time travel element is pretty necessary to tell this story—I think that Future Alexander really has to represent the future, here—but it is still overused in the final season. Brian Bonsall is better than he’s ever been as Alexander, but he still can’t convey the conflicting emotions he needs to. The pacing Is not great—the episode is quite slow at times. And there are not one, not two, but three separate scenes of the Enterprise crew talking to some amoral mercenary in trying to track down the Duras Sisters, a plot point which is itself mostly a diversion. Yes, one of them was Quark, so, it’s nice to see that I guess. And I think that the emotion of the last Worf/Future Alexander scene is somewhat blunted by the fact that there Is no real way Worf should have accepted and been able to deal with all the revelations in that scene quickly. All that said, I think this episode still deserves three stars for what it accomplishes.

Finally back on track with a sensible story. Nice twist that I didn't see coming . I'm not actually a member of the Brian Bonsall hate club. As far as I'm concerned, he was a kid playing a kid so I wasn't looking for an award winning performance. He says his lines and makes appropriate faces; that's adequate enough for me.
Nice episode
3 stars

God how I hate the Klingons and their culture.

Anyways, for season 7, this one was fairly acted, moved nicely, I was never bored, and never yawned once, which rarely happens in S7 TNG. Now, if there is a complaint, it is the end. Why should someone not try to give their kids their own values? You can always tell when something is written by a non-parent. If you don't fill your kids mind with values, someone else will, that is FACT. If the kid is yours, you might as well be the one to fill him with "values". I know I am, and I don't feel bad about it for one second.

You're a bad person and you should feel bad.

This is a pretty cool episode overall, not a bad way to wrap up the character, at least on the TNG side of him. I thought it was a pretty touching story.

@Rosario
"I won't say much about the time travel since I've said more than enough on it elsewhere. Star Trek has just never accepted the central truth that the very act of arriving in the past from the future contaminates the timeline. Star Trek thinks you must actively interfere in order to contaminate. Incorrect."

You sound pretty certain about the mechanics of something that is entirely fictional. Might as well be debating the central truth of the speed of Superman.

I thought that last week's episode was bad, but I liked this even less. The main lesson I took from it was how stupid Klingon culture really is. Here we have a whole civilization built on superstiton, stagnancy, sexism, the glorification of violence and disrespect for science and diplomacy. Its values are incompatible with those held up by the Federation. The conversation between the two Alexanders about the legend of Kahless and his brother shows this clearly: Being Klingon is defined as telling the same stories over and over again without questioning their inconsistencies. It is about feeling, not knowing. The whole episode (along with that one where he rescues the Klingon prison camp inmates by teaching them the value of anti-Romulan racism) really made me question Worf as a character: If he values traditional Klingon culture so much and wants his son to grow up according to it, then what is he still doing in Starfleet? Why doesn't he just move to the Empire and raise Alexander there?

Another thing: Would anyone else from the main crew have believed Future Alexander as easily as Worf did? Some guy comes along and claims to be sent by your brother to protect you from being assassinated, and you don't even request his personal file? Then he claims to be your son from 40 years into the future, and all the proof you want is his recollection of how his mother died? You don't even do a DNA check, or ask what technology he used to travel through time? Did he ever plan on returning to his own time, or just expect to disintegrate after having changed the timeline? I wouldn't feel safe on the Enterprise, knowing that the chief of security is that easy to fool. I actually expected until the last second that Future Alexander would be exposed as a fraud. I mean, he obviously staged the attack on Worf, and placed false evidence to make him suspect the Duras sisters. Well, he obviously learned one central Klingon value right during those 40 years: to cover your own immoral actions with loud talk about honor.

@ CPUFP:

I think he mostly remains in Starfleet to honour his human parents (the Rojenkos) to be honest.

I'd guess Worf saw his son in his eyes, a person's eyes don't really change that much over time. So even though it's obviously a different actor I think that's how he recognized him. Plus Alexander isn't a full-blooded Klingon so he probably recognized that as well.

Worf stays in Starfleet because he prefers Starfleet. In Redemption he lives out his desire to be part of the Klingon fleet and finds the joy in killing actually offputting, culminating in his sparing Toral. Worf's loyalties remain with the Federation because he prefers their values, and this runs through Heart of Glory, Redemption, Way of the Warrior....

That said, he LOVES Klingon culture in the way you tend to get only with expats. That he wants his son to take on the most essential Klingon cultural values is not so strange. I guess it's a matter of holding the religious/cultural elements if his birth sacred while preferring the overall dominant values of his national allegiance. Lots of people are like that. That Worf would not be able to stand loving with all Klingons for long without massive reforms means he should be more sympathetic to his son's inability to understand what Worf finds valuable. That Worf is not a very good father is pretty consistent. I suspect he wants Alexander to continue to be Klingon because he feels guilty about his own ambivalence, his love for Klingon values in theory but not in practice, his desire to save the empire from itself combined with his desire to basically keep Klingon honor alive in himself if it continues rotting elsewhere.

*stand LIVING with Klingons, I meant.

Worf is more a Klingon culture enthusiast than practitioner, IMO, at least until he joins the House of Martok. When Worf is handled well, this means he sees the actual positive values of honor, self-reliance, courage, loyalty, honesty etc. underpinning Klingon culture where within actual Klingon culture these values are largely corroded, at least at the top.

For me, this has been the best episode of Season 7 so far, a season I am watching for the first time.

Like one or two others here, I've never hated Alexander or the child actor who plays him. I recently got to see a very early movie for actor James Stewart, in which he played a secondary role and looked like he was in his early 20s. Stewart's acting was wooden and just not believable. And I say that about one of my favorite actors. Everyone gets better with practice, I guess. If Alexander/Bonsall was annoying, I blame the script more than the acting. This story did indeed serve the character well. His motivations make sense for a character caught between two cultures and differing views of his late mother and father about the value of Klingon culture.

Interestingly, while I don't disagree with the commenters here who said, "If you don't instill your values into your own child, someone else will," I don't think that's what's at stake here. It's not a question of Alexander accepting or rejecting concepts such as duty and honor. It's more a question of deciding on a career path. If he is to become a Klingon warrior, he is already quite late getting started. If he wants to pursue a career as a diplomat, or maybe a scientist, or maybe a Starfleet officer, he still has plenty of time. Either way, he is not necessarily being forced to accept or reject a set of values. Ask Picard about duty and honor, for example. Those things are hardly the exclusively property of Klingons.

I'm also not bothered by the time travel twist as much as others here. While I understand the theory that it's impossible to change something in the past, what matters here is what the older Alexander believed would happen if he traveled back. He might have been simply HOPING his plan would work. Either way, it is quite sad that a 50-something would look back on his life path and see only failure. While I understand the guilt he would feel over his father's murder (I disagree with Jammer that his father being 80 somehow makes his murder less traumatic), it is a shame that he doesn't see the inherent value in trying to make peace between feuding Klingon families.

All in all, I'd give this episode a solid 3.5 and mark it as a standout in the season.

I agree 2-1/2 stars. Actually works pretty well, and wraps up the Alexander/Worf story much better than Wesley's. I like the some of the subtleties like similarities in the head ridges, teeth, and nose ridges between the two Alexanders and the eye color is similar as well. I only noticed because I knew the twist, so it makes it worth watching again.
I guess the irritating question I'd have is if he can time travel, why not go back to save his Mother?
(And also Worf dying in his 80s in a combat type of situation, isn't that a Klingon warrior's dream?)

A pretty good outing.

"Firstborn" has some good character work (it's nice to finally see Worf acting like a good parent, if only a little bit, at the end by allowing Alexander to make his own choices), a nice look into some more Klingon culture (I enjoyed seeing an actual Klingon festival take place), enjoyable continuity with the Duras sisters reappearing (the mention of their appearance on DS9 was also a nice touch and any appearance of B'Etor's Klingon Kleavage is always a plus - yes, I'm a pig, sue me :-P) and a wonderful crossover from Quark (his one scene cameo is a much better DS9 crossover than the entirety of Bashir's in "Birthright, Part I" could ever hope to be). The real standout scene, however, had to be the one with Gorta, the Sisters criminal mining partner. I have to admit, that scene made me chuckle more than it had any right to.

As the final episode of TNG to feature Alexander, this was a real winner. Granted, I don't share the dislike for the character that a lot of others seem to have, but even I can admit that this much better than most of his appearances. That's because we finally get a chance to agree with both his and Worf's perspectives. Up until now I had firmly been on Alexander's side in his arguments with Worf because, sadly, Worf hasn't been a very good parent, to put it mildly. Here, while Alexander's point-of-view is still dominate I think, Worf's position is given more nuance. He clearly wants Alexander to embrace Klingon culture but he's also not willing to see various alternatives, even before he finds out the truth about Old Alexander. The scene in Ten Forward where Worf decides that Alexander should stay on the Enterprise wonderfully shows this. Not only is he willing to take Alexander's wishes into consideration, he's also determined to honor K'Ehleyr's wishes as well. Nicely done. And, of course, there's the episode's final scene which is very touching.

If there is one problem with "Firstborn" it's the revelation about Old Alexander. I'm not opposed to the idea of it, per se, or with its use as a sci-fi twist. However, the execution of the concept leaves a lot to be desired. We get one dialogue scene where Old Alexander spells everything out and Worf just accepts it all. That seemed rather rushed. Worf just up and accepts everything way too easily. And why? Because Old Alexander recites what happened in K'Ehleyr's last moments? Granted, it's an effective use of continuity but there really needed to be more here. I almost hate to say it but maybe we shouldn't have had the scene with Gorta and spent more time developing the revelation. And then there's the question of what happens to Old Alexander. Seriously, where did he go?! Worf just says that he was "called away." Well, I guess he served his purpose for the story so just drop him like a hot potato, right. Did he go back to Qo'noS? Are they going to find some place for him in the House of Mogh? Yeah, more time needed to be spent on this part.

8/10

A strange one this in that the set up takes so long the time travel element almost seems like it's come out of another story altogether, has no time to explain itself, and then disappears.

Up until that point this had been a fairly interesting character- driven story, that further examines the implications of Alexander's cross-cultural heritage. That by its conclusion Worf has concluded that Alexander should choose his own way is a step forward.

And it's always fun to see a Luras and B'Etor cameo. Not forgetting Quark too. 2.5 stars.

Why doesn't the universal translator recognize the Klingon language?

This episode's beginning shows how great of a captain Picard is. He not only recognizes Worf's problem, he takes time to talk with him about it, and has studied Klingon culture enough that he actually had a solution in mind for Worf's problem.

I also agree with William B here, Alexander is as good of a character as he's ever going to be in TNG, and this episode indeed paves the way to DS9's "Sons and Daughters" several years later. James Sloyan is a good actor, and I like his portrayal of K'Mtar (Alexander). I do think his Admiral Jaleco character shines through a tad too strong, but that could just be because he nailed his former role.

As for the time travel plot, it's pretty standard Trek fare. It doesn't bother me as long as it tells a good story and doesn't substantially alter the show (I'm looking at you, Voyager's "Endgame"). Everyone loves a good mystery, and I think there are enough drops and hints to make us realize K'Mtar has a prophetic future knowledge, even if he's not the most clever of individuals.

Finally, I love how Quark is involved in this episode. It makes me wish TNG had continued for a few more years and interacted with DS9's plot to some degree. One thing I will pick at is that Riker is giving away too much latinum here (12 bars!!? Why not try a slip or two?) for the relatively minor information that Quark is offering. Surely, Riker could've strong-armed Quark a bit more than that. I'm sure, at least, Luke was happy Riker wasn't picking on Quark the way Sisko does.

3 stars.

I'm a California-raised son of a Japanese dad, and a lot of the dynamics of culture in this episode felt just about true to me. Worf's wanting to be proud of his son but unable to get rid of his disappointment that his son thinks and acts like the culture he was raised in and not his dad's culture, Alexander's resistance to his dad's pressure to do things that are appropriate from a Klingon point of view but seem wrong to him...

Although there is one big difference that has always bothered me about the Worf character. Culturally speaking, he shouldn't act like a Klingon living among humans. He was raised from a young age by humans and among humans. I know plenty of other immigrant kids here in California who came over from the other country when they were pre-teens. Most of them are as Californian as anybody, and they have only a very limited understanding of the culture and language of their parents. If they have any more than that, it's effortful. More specifically, we children of Japanese immigrants in California tend to feel like, and be regarded as, foreigners when we go to Japan. It's hard for me to believe Worf would fit in as easily with Klingons as he is shown doing in TNG.

Did anyone catch Quark's quip at Riker with regards to his proclivity for 'special' holodeck programs?

I thought this episode was good, right up until the ending. So basically Alexander is telling Worf, "Make me a proper warrior. I was no good as a peacemaker and I let you die. It was a disaster."

The proper response would be to double down and make sure Alexander is taught Klingon ways and becomes a skilled warrior. But Worf's response is to... respect Alexander's choices? He just came from the future to tell you that they were A DISASTER, you moron!

Worst parenting from Worf I've ever seen!

If Future Alexander killed Present Alexander, wouldn't Future Alexander cease to exist?

And if he ceased to exist, then he couldn't have traveled back in time to kill his younger self -- right?

@Jez

IIRC, Worf believes that now, since he knows the future, he can help to make sure it will go down fine. Based on what Future Alex says, he was alone in his efforts, but now he and Worf would be on it together.

As for the time-travel complaints, yeah, but we've seen any ship can just go around a sun and go to the past anyway. And we at least know that Future Alexander didn't just go to the past the same way you go on a plane to Australia or something, he had to go to a specific guy that could make it happen.

A very decent episode. I didn't see the twist coming, either. It was a believable and nicely written episode. Some very nice acting, and it's always nice to see some of Trek's biggest guest/recurring actors. A solid 3 stars.

One problem I have with this episode is where Crusher asks Worf "What are they saying" when they're on the Klingon colony. Why wasn't the universal translator working??

"Why wasn't the universal translator working??"

Because the UT reads brainwaves and can pick up the speaker's intent. If someone intends to speak so foreigners don't understand, it won't translate.

^ Yay! Someone understands how the UT works

2.5 seems right. Nice episode, silly ending. Could have been easily avoided with a little creative writing. But still very enjoyable.

2 stars dull eyes glazed over with throwing in the Duras sisters for no reason, a gratuitous Quark cameo , an uninspired time travel story and more warmed over Klingon honor schtick

Yet another example of money not existing in the Federation...except when it does. There's never been any consistency on the subject and it's a minor pet-peeve of mine.

Love the write-up and I agree about the emotional angle having something to it. What bothered me about this episode was the final scene, where Worf meets Alexander in the Holodeck and basically tells him he doesn't have to practice. They walk out together. Credits roll. The problem, though, is, as a father, I would have liked to see at least some emotion from Worf. Maybe hint that, instead of Batleth training, they're going to do something together than Alexander wants to do. Instead, it plays like Alexander has FINALLY committed to doing what Worf wants and, instead, Worf's like, "Nah, never mind."

The whole adult Alexander traveling back in time revelation at the end was a surprise -- like this kind of thing can be done so casually. I think that detracts from the integrity of the episode which is typical Klingon culture / character stuff. Good to see Alexander being a bit more mature and deciding not to want to become a warrior -- not being around Klingons that much should do that to a young boy.

The ending scene with Worf and K'Mtar's explanation, while perhaps making sense from a Klingon way of looking at things was quite the stretch overall to try to alter the future.

Good guest actor for K'Mtar - was engaging and convincing, although would Worf really not know that he's not the real K'Mtar who is kind of like the consigliere to the House of Mogh? And would Worf not recognize or be slightly suspicious of K'Mtar given what Alexander would grow up to look like?

The B-plot of chasing the Duras sisters around and even getting Quark involved was moderately interesting -- and somewhat comical -- a bit of a lighthearted plot to go with the serious main plot. I liked the symbol on the dagger for the House of Duras having a son.

Alexander's character gets some development and Worf comes to an understanding of how to deal with him -- although I thought TNG had sort of dealt with that Worf and his son relationship once and for all.

2.5 stars for "Firstborn" -- probably wraps up the Worf family story arc for TNG with Alexander on his way to being a mostly-Klingon among humans -- no warrior crap for him. A decent but not great Klingon-centric episode. TNG has done much better with a handful of Klingon-centric episodes.

When everyone is watching the ceremony at the beginning, Worf buys what looks like gagh from a street peddler. While Alexander is eagerly gobbling down all the worms he can, Worf offers some to Geordi, whose reaction is priceless.

wanna make a warrior/man out of Alaexander? When he turns 18 give him a roll in the hay with the Duras sisters. Yowzah!

To me this episode feels like bad Voyager, bad late Voyager (and especially "Renaissance Man") ignoring a character's/characters' past developments and growth, ramping up flaws and conflicts that were previously already reduced so that going back to the conditions in place before the episode suddenly made things worse could somehow, supposedly, feel like growth.

"A Fistful of Datas" was bad but its ending seemed a decent enough resolution to Worf and Alexander's relationship, this episode basically both ignores and redoes it.

Stupid episode.

Random stranger comes along, then reveals he's actually Alexander from the future...and Worf just goes along with it.

How about a DNA test, or have Crusher do a technobabble scan (like a neurophysiocranialblatheryblah).

So the time travel trope is thrown out there, is accepted in 5 seconds, and the story moves on. When I saw there was only 5 minutes left, I wondered how things were going to go, and boom, quick wrap-up as usual with this series.

So much randomness. And Patrick Stewart must been busy with another job, so he conveniently exits stage left from the Enterprise for the episode.

And then there's the fact that they fly all the way across a nebula so Worf can attend a festival...can a single junior officer of a Navy ship really comandeer the ship for the sake of personal indulgence?

I like Worf and Alexander and enjoy seeing them both evolve as characters and as father and son.



9/10

Not a great episode. The progression of scenes played out so flatly that the whole couldn't be puffed up into a semblance of life even considering the great performance turned in by James Sloyen. The music was not intelligibly matched to the actions on screen, a lapse which was both inexplicable and depressing. Time travel ?....? Please god, stop.

Although I don't dislike Alexander nearly as much as some viewers, I do enjoy the creativity displayed by others in heaping insults upon him. I really laughed at Jammer's "dead on arrival" comment. That was Choice!

I feel that the writers were so pathetically in love with the Klingon 'warrior thing ' back in 1994 that they became unable to advance anybody's arc properly. It may not be a popular thing to say, but the writers' take on Klingon culture had slowly decayed into a rather drab Kabuki theatre piece.

One longs to be beheaded by a bat'leth rather than watch one more second of this stuff. Alexander isn't the problem either. It is Worf who was misused by the writers and became boring, oh so boring. They never had him developing any outside interests, despite the fact that he had, according to them, lived his entire life among humans. By comparison, Data, alas merely an android, paints pictures, plays the violin, conducts, acts like Sherlock Holmes, has a cat, who he spoils, and tells jokes, etc , etc., etc.

In one episode Worf sings a little Klingon opera. That should have been developed further into a hobby of his. If this had been done, then he could have taken the shuttle to a music festival to perform and something original might have happened there; he might have had stage fright or something; he might have met an alluring performer and finally gotten a life.

But oh no....he returns again and again to that bloody bat'leth.

It would have been so easy.... Poor Alexander.

Season 7 is about closing out everyone's stories, and I was really happy that they included James Sloyan in that mission. He is one of the most sympathetic and enjoyable guest actors in every role over three series. No prosthetics can hide his distinctive voice, much the way we recently enjoyed J.G. Hertzler in BD. If he'd started his tv career before 1970, I'd hope he would have been in TOS as well.

Weird how Picard disappears after the first scene and it is basically Riker commanding the Enterprise. Also funny how contacting DS9 gets them Quark and not one of the Starfleet or Bajoran crew.

If anything, I'm even less fond of Klingon culture than Alexander, and I groaned when I realised that this was going to be a Klingon episode, with all the attendant scenery-chewing and overwrought, aggressive nonsense about being a warrior, honour and the rest of it.

And I found the story really dull. I was bored, and I stopped paying attention. I have no idea why the Enterprise was pursuing the two sisters, or what mining had to do with it. I'm sure it's all in there but I don't really care, so please don't bother to explain.

But I was won round, partially, in the last 10-15 minutes. I loved the twist at the end. Fascinating, and clever. But at the same time I was pretty bored for a good 30 minutes, so I can't really overlook that, therefore this is not a good one, for me.

This idea of time travel being possible in the Star Trek doesn't really withstand close scrutiny, when you think about it. In some of the original series episodes it's shown as being routine. In one or two of the films it's shown as being possible, but difficult. But to my mind, a world in which it's possible to travel through time both ways would be absolutely chaotic. The Romulans would be forever sabotaging things by preventing them from happening. Pretty much every problem the Federation is faced with could be fixed in a similar fashion.

Picard would turn up from a few days in the future to have a diplomatic chat to himself about sending Sito on that mission in 'Lower Decks'. He'd stop himself being captured by the Borg. The possibilities are endless.

Yo! Riker in command manages to make a decent fist of it.... That was some hot cleavage once again from those Duras harpies. And on the subject of sexual matters, that statue of Woofs is well homoerotic....

Very good episode.


A small bit of dialog stuck out to me:

K'MTAR: You don't understand. I did not become a warrior. I was a diplomat, a peacemaker.


I don't know whether it was intentional or not but the way that adult Alexander spit out out the word "peacemaker" like it was a curse was reminiscent of Michael Dorn's delivery of a line early in season two's Loud as a Whisper:

WORF: Before him, there was no Klingon word for peacemaker.



Probably just a coincidence, but it would be a neat callback if it was intentional.

Any Alexander episode that does not end with Alexander lying dead in a pool of his own blood and vomit is, by definition, a poor episode.

Why doesn't Worf or anyone else in this episode apparently notice that supposed non-relative (gin'tak) K'mtar has identical cranial ridges to Worf, Kurn and Alexander?

(Worf even proudly received a plaster cast of Alexander's cranial ridges once, for crying out loud. The same point can be levelled at Kurn's first appearance in 'Sins of the Father' - no one notices the ridges and realises Worf and Kurn are brothers? Or does everyone notice but it's too sensitive a topic?)

Great guest performance by Sloyan as always though.

Why doesn't Worf or anyone else in this episode apparently notice that supposed non-relative (gin'tak) K'mtar has identical cranial ridges to Worf, Kurn and Alexander?


Because no one is looking for that. You don't assume "hey, he's a time traveller". I didn't notice on first viewing either.

If a stranger had the same nose as you would you notice? I wouldn't.

Fair points, @dlpb, @Jason R. Thanks for the responses.

I was indeed admittedly re-watching 'Firstborn' when I first noticed the cranial ridge 'fingerprint' myself, so no, I didn't notice it first time round either. And also no, I certainly don't recall assuming K'mtar was a time traveller, much less a time-travelling Alexander, when I first saw 'Firstborn' years ago. As with Kurn having the same ridges, it's only a nice minor 'a-ha!' detail one spots when watching the episodes again.

The plaster cast of Alexander's cranial ridges was actually in an alternate reality, of course ('Parallels', eleven or so episodes before 'Firstborn'). In that scene Worf did certainly *seem* to emphasise there was some importance to recognising a family member's ridges. That's why it occurred to me. How easy it might be for Klingons to distinguish their own ridges and strangers' ridges is another matter, of course; one that writers wisely never wasted their or our time on.

It's not important, really. Just an observation.

If, as dialogue states, Kurn needs Alexander to be trained as a warrior because he has no son/heir of his own, how can Alexander "have cousins there" on Q'on'os?

@ Jaxon,

"If, as dialogue states, Kurn needs Alexander to be trained as a warrior because he has no son/heir of his own, how can Alexander "have cousins there" on Q'on'os?"

No one said they have to be first cousins. (I don't actually remember the facts in the episode, but just answering your question as posed)

FutureAlexander says "Because someday Alexander may be called upon to lead the house of Mogh. Kurn has no male heir." Note the "may." Perhaps there are other branches of the House of Mogh that could potentially supply heirs, but there are concerns that they might die first (Klingon warrioring being a high attrition profession, after all).

Note that later, in "Sword of Kahless," Worf will mention having visited cousins of the Klingon homeworld in his youth. So there clearly is an extended family.

Kurn has no son/heir of his own and yet Alexander has cousins on Qo’nos?

Well, I guess Kurn has daughters then.

This is one I watched first run and haven't seen it again until last night. I found it "blah" back in the day and it easily fell into Season 7's senioritis malaise.

I liked it a good deal more last night. Since I found the episode so blah I didn't remember the details (though I did remember the main twist.). In a way it was kind of like a "lost" episode for me.

So I rather enjoyed the unexpected appearance of Quark and especially the Duras sisters. Though, I found it unlikely the sisters would so readily board the Enterprise.

While the extremely casual time travel was off putting, it was nice to see it discovered by the sisters' noting the family seal instead of technobabble chronitons or what have you.

And the recounting of Kehlar's death was a rather stunning scene.

And as others pointed out, Quark's appearance and actually name dropping "deep space nine" were gratuitous and an eye rolling promo for that show. I'm sure that's what I thought back in the day, but this far removed it was nifty.

But I do always find it weird when Riker or Picard have personal conversations with whoever on the bridge view screen.

Worf: "As time passes, a boy inevitably becomes a man but what is not inevitable is that the man becomes the sword."
Alexander: [pauses...bewildered] "What??"

I'm with you, kid. This whole thing is bulls...

I'd not watch a crewman preparing his son for a bar mitzwa, nor would Star Trek ever feature that, so I'm sure as night follows day not going to watch 45 minutes of some make-believe alien race's make-believe primitive passing-of-age ritual. It's pretty much Games of Throne with funny foreheads.

Maybe I missed out on something bigger and deeper by skipping this ep. but life's too short to (want to) find out or care.

Next!

I enjoy this episode but it's hard to gloss over the fact that Klingons are total racists. Worf constantly preached about Klingon superiority for 7 full seasons, and every other Klingon character clearly hated humans.

In this episode even future Alexander doubles down on this superiority complex by telling his younger self that he will always be a victim of racism when he's among humans.

I like how Alexander asks his dad for 50 bucks to go see a mummified head. That and DS9's continual reference to gold-plated latinum shows an economic side to Trek