Star Trek: The Next Generation — 2x20 — The Emissary

Aired 1989-06-29

SpaceOpera.com rating:6

Average reader rating:6.34

Synopsis

Worf is reunited with an old flame.

Remarkable scenes

Poker scene at the beginning.
Worf's girlfriend having traveled inside a probe no larger than two meters. Not a trip for the claustrophobic!
The graphics for the probe and the ship intercepting were well done.
Worf: "I've noticed that some people use humor as a shield. They talk much but say little."
I like the part when Worf's girlfriend goes to explain her plan to Worf and Data and suddenly the scene changes over to a briefing.
Worf acting as the commander of the Enterprise.
Worf: "Welcome to the 24th century."

Review

A solid episode with strong character development but little more beyond that. The concept of a bunch of Klingons that still think they're at war with the Federation is enticing, but unfortunately little time is spent on it. The situation is adequately dealt with though. Overall a satisfying episode. A better episode would have developed Worf's relationship with the emissary more along with featuring the ancient Klingons more prominently.

8 reader comments

I don't usually comment on Continuity Errors (i.e. in one camera angle someone's arms are folded and in a different angle their arms are at their side). Main reason, just too many! There are continuity problems in almost every show.
But I thought I should mention the Poker Game. It is a gold mine of continuity errors. As the episode joins the game, Riker, Pulaski, and Geordi all bet "five." Data folds and Worf bets fifty. Riker then bets fifty and drops the chips into the pile in the middle. A close-up shows there are no neat stacks of chips in the middle. Pulaski beats one hundred. She puts them next to the pile of chips in two neat stacks. A long shot shows there are now four stacks of chips near the pile! Geordi folds. Worf bets one hundred, moving two stacks to the piles. There are now six stacks in the middle. Riker folds, and Pulaski calls Worf's bet. A close-up shows her moving the stack of chips to the center of the table. However, hers is now the only stack of chips! Somehow a bunch of chips just disappeared. Did Data take some with his incredible speed when no one was looking? Worf wins the hand, and Pulaski comments that she has no chips left. The next hand begins. Everyone antes up with two chips. Worf opens with fifty. An emergency message comes through breaking up the poker game. A long shot shows the ante-up pile in the center with three stacks of chips standing near it, AND Pulaski suddenly has chips again!
by DSOmo | 07/01/2007 at 7:10 pm

The first scene that Worf and K'Ehleyr have alone together is so, so bad. The dialogue is awful and the incidental music is supercheese. Overall the episode has merit, but they could have executed the concept much better.
And I wish they would have given some reason why the Klingons would send their ship into suspended animation. It's a neat idea except for the fact that I can't think of any tactical purpose for it. If you're in a war, you don't plan for the war to last 70 more years! Plus, you would know that you would be sending a ship that's 70 years out of date into combat. Imagine if Nazi Germany did the same thing, and we suddenly noticed WWII-era planes coming across the Pacific to the US. They wouldn't stand a chance against current technology; they'd be decimated with ease. Those planes would do the Nazis much more good in 1941 than they would in 2011.
I think they should have said it was a mission that was supposed to keep them in suspended animation for just a few months, but something went wrong. They had thought the ship was lost, but now they know that the system just kept them suspended for far longer than intended.
by tigertooth | 04/11/2011 at 10:29 pm

I quite like this episode because I like K'Ehleyr and her clever banter with Worf, and that plot takes up most of the show. I wish she could have been appeared more often, she is a very engaging character.
The plot about the Klingon ship doesn't take much time, which is good, because it isn't handled well. As tigertooth points out, the idea of a sleeper ship is cool, but bizarre. In order for this idea to make sense, they needed to give us a clever explanation. We got no explanation at all.
The Klingons are portrayed as completely irrational beyond belief, more stupid than Ferengi. Are you really going to go to sleep for 70 years, then wake up and launch an attack without even receiving a strategic update from Klingon high command? Even Klingons understand concepts like chain of command and the difference between being at war and not being at war.
However, if you suspend your disbelief and accept the premise, the scene at the end was amusing.
Disturbing that the Federation cannot protect its colonies from the attack of a single 70-year old warship without getting warned ahead of time by the Klingons. How the heck did the Federation survive the war with the Klingons in the first place?
by Christopher Alexander | 04/18/2011 at 1:57 pm

The onesie! Here it is again!
For those of you who have not read my other posts, one thing I point out is the use within Star Trek of the "onesie", a form-fitting, tight, stretchy and provocative one-piece outfit for young, attractive females. In this episode we see K'Ehleyr sporting exactly such an outfit. And she looks good, too! Suzie Plakson is so dang tall! What a set of legs.
Suzie appears in several other episodes of TNG, one other as K'Ehleyr, and one (TNG: The Schizoid Man) as an MD. She also appeared in Voyager as a female member of the Q Continuum.
Other uses of the onesie include:
Troi after she loses the micro mini she wore in TNG: Adventure at Farpoint is pretty much always wearing a onesie. Sometimes, it is not very flattering, unfortunately. Marina Sirtis is a bit fat.
Seven (of course). Seven is the archetypal sex bomb on Star Trek. When the camera is on her moving around on Voyager wearing her onesie, we literally wear out our eyeballs staring. (At least I do.)
Kira Nyres ends up wearing a onesie as her uniform, unfortunately. In her case, again, it is kind of unfortunate. Nana Visitor is just not able to pull it off that well. (But how we wish we could get Terry Farrell (Jadsia Dax) in a onesie! I personally believe that Terry Farell is the most meltingly beautiful woman to ever grace the screen on a Star Trek series.)
Other guests have worn onuses. One is Fenna on DS9: Second Sight who is a love interest of Captain Benjamin Sisko. Another is Ishara Yar (sister to Tasha Yar) who shows up in TNG: Legacy and is given an electric blue onesie (with color-coordinate phaser holster!) which shows of her smoking hot body to great effect. (And the Star Trek TNG camera crew takes full advantage of this opportunity, believe me.)
There are probably other examples of the use of the onesie. I will point them out as I come across them. In the end, the onesie is a reminder that, for all it pretensions, Star Trek is really a show for us horny, sexually repressed geeks.
by Jeff Browning | 10/20/2011 at 8:32 pm

Not my favorite type of episode, but if I had to watch a slightly sappy romance story, I would definitely prefer it to involve conflicted Klingons like Warf and his half-human counterpart…
Also, I liked seeing Warf's solution in the end. He is finally becoming a little less comical, less silly and irritating, if that isn't too harsh a word, than in the earliest episodes.
by Ggen | 02/29/2012 at 11:24 pm

I'm not usually keen on love-interest stories, but I quite liked this one. It may be because it contains some actual tension instead of fluffy gooey "your eyes are the stars" situations, or it may be the depth of the characters involved. I like Worf: he always seems to be one of the more sensible people on the Enterprise ("shouldn't we send a security detail, sir?" "No, I'm sure everything will be quite all right!")
The main and subplots interact quite nicely, and the whole thing holds together. I agree the reason for the Klingons' 70-year hibernation should have been given: I expected some sort of plot or battleplan, and was disappointed when neither turned up.
The flute tune at the start, as tigertooth points out, is inappropriate to the situation and rather corny, but it's still good music and I think it worked better in the closing scene. The incidental music that starts when the Klingons come into range is superb.
by Arianwen | 12/15/2012 at 10:06 pm

Can’t believe in ten years nobody has taken issue with Jeff Browning calling Marina Sirtis a bit fat! That is ridiculous! Partly because she plainly is not, and secondly because…. Well I probably can’t say on here why! Crazy.
This episode though, is solid, the Worf/K’Ehleyr stuff is good, the rest is very season one ish. Like the returns of the poker game and the calisthenics program…
by Bernard | 01/26/2022 at 6:53 pm

Why is Worf still using this archaic calistenics program, has he not heard of the "ultimate evolution of martial arts"? :)) And Jeff, the traveler also wore a onesie in the second appearance
by Amelia Obumhardt | 04/26/2023 at 5:01 pm