18: Redemption (4.26, 5.01)

Synopsis:  A culmination of three years of Klingon politics (and some previous time travel shenanigans) comes to a head.

Memory Alpha Summary: And another paycheck for Denise Crosby

Review:  While the politics story is decent (but not great) as usual, Worf’s character develops even further as we see him interact with his brother and Gowron.  The two key moments in the first part of this cliffhanger are Worf’s resignation from the Federation and seeing Sela (Tasha?) come out from the shadows at episode’s end.  It’s not quite the impact that Best of Both Worlds had with its cliffhanger, but it’s still pretty effective.

The second part is a mess of stories, but I love them all.  Sela and Picard talking about Tasha and the Enterprise C is a moving scene.  The faceoff with the Romulans is low-key but tense.  The episode’s slam dunk to win the game is Data getting his first chance at captain and treating his prejudiced first officer like a bitch.  I for one am glad this subplot wasn’t an entire episode; we’ve had plenty of “Humans rule, androids drool” episodes, and the writing team managed to encompass what they needed.

My only quibble is that the fall of the Duras fleet seems to happen fairly quickly without any real exposition to make it seem natural.  The Klingon civil war is too abrupt to even feel like a war.  Perhaps more weeks passed by then I felt, but it wasn’t made very clear if that was the case.

Money Quote:  I understand your concerns.  Request denied.

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