Star Trek TNG: Season 1, Episode Twenty “Heart of Glory”

Stardate: Unknown
Original Air Date: March 21, 1988
Writers: Maurice Hurley, Herbert Wright, D. C. Fontana
Director: Rob Bowman

“The true test of a warrior is not without, but within.”

This episode begins without a captain’s log. Worf announces a communication from Starfleet –there has been a disturbance in the Neutral Zone (it is a battle in quadrant nine, coordinates 070, mark 3). Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise to investigate. Could it be an attack by the Ferengi? The Klingons? The Romulans? Or another nameless enemy?  Upon arrival, the Enterprise finds a damaged, drifting “Talarian” cargo vessel (the “Batris”) with failing life support systems.

Riker, Data, and Geordi form a landing party and investigate since there are vague signs on the ship near its Engineering Bay. Once aboard the Batris, Geordi transmits colorful images via his visor back to the ship (a new experimental feature of his visor) and Data detects high levels of non-toxic “deuterium gas” all around them, likely from the leakage in the drive system. They have only minutes until the hull of the ship ruptures, but suddenly the Enterprise loses the transmission from Geordi’s visor due to a “signal overload.”

At the far side of Engineering, the landing party finds a jammed door and inside are two Klingons named Korris, Captain of the Klingon Defense Force, a Lieutenant Konmel, and a wounded Klingon beside them. Korris insists and carrying his fallen comrade as Tasha Yar manages to beam them all aboard the Enterprise just as the Batris explodes.

The pair of Klingons claim they were mere passengers on the Batris until it was suddenly attacked by Ferengi, even though the Batris was attacked by Klingon weapons. Korris and Konmel seem suspicious. They engage in somewhat hostile banter with Worf about enemies of the Klingons, but their comrade tragically dies of his wounds. Afterward, they bond with Worf and quickly confess that they lied to Picard. They commandeered the Batris and left the crew behind, planning to live their own independent lives. They were followed by a Klingon vessel and destroyed it. They believe they can now trust Worf, but are soon arrested and imprisoned on the Enterprise.    

Meanwhile, a Klingon vessel helmed by Commander K’nera approaches the Enterprise and reveals that the two Klingons are actually criminals, the last survivors of the cruiser T’Acog. From their prison cell, Korris and Konmel mutter “R’iario” to each other and begin constructing an advanced weapon from pieces on their suits. This section is a bit of a farce. Worf requests the opportunity to address Commander K’nera and he pleads for the Klingons’ lives, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the prisoners have been busy in their cell building weaponry to destroy the forcefield and kill their guards. Lt. Konmel is killed in the exchange of fire and Korris runs freely through the ship. He is found pointing his phaser directly at the dilithium crystals leading Worf and Picard to confront the situation. Ultimately, Worf shoots and kills Korris, thus proving his loyalty to Starfleet. In the end, Commander K’nera offers Worf a job with the Klingons should he ever desire to join them, while Picard declares the bridge of the Enterprise would not be the same without Worf.   

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My Thoughts on “Heart of Glory”

A Worf episode! Using the classic Star Trek trope of a mysterious derelict ship, “Heart of Glory” gives us some valuable details in Worf’s backstory. He is confronted by a pair of Klingon renegades who are committed to the “old” Klingon ways of glory in battle. Worf must choose between loyalty to his heritage or Starfleet.

Despite having some choppy acting here and there, I thought “Heart of Glory” was a terrific episode –one of the best in the notoriously poor Season 1 of TNG. Still, as with many episodes of TOS, I found myself asking how feeble the security systems are aboard the Enterprise? Why were the imprisoned Klingons left to their own devices? Was no one watching them? Was there no video recording of their prison cell? Why did Picard reject the idea of a security team stationed to follow the Klingons? There are also a few other awkward moments, such as a scene in which a child suddenly appears in a bizarre contrived moment as Worf quickly decides to do the right thing and returns the child to its mother. Worf’s motivations are a bit ambiguous in this episode –it’s a bit challenging to understand if he intends to defect to the renegade Klingons or not.

Nevertheless, with these quibbles out of the way, “Heart of Glory” is a stand-out episode in a fairly weak inaugural season of TNG.   

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Writer/Director

This episode was written by: Maurice Hurley, Herbert Wright, and D. C. Fontana. The teleplay was written by Maurice Hurley. The script was quickly written in two days and Maurice Hurley claimed this script featured the closest thing to his personal philosophy in a Star Trek script.

This episode was directed by Rob Bowman.

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Star Trek Trivia:

• “Heart of Glory” marks the first Worf episode.
• This episode identifies that updates to Geordi’s visor allow him to record and send back information via a transmitter to the crew on the Enterprise. The images transmitted appear to be in exuberant colors.  
• Worf explains how he came to serve in Starfleet. He claims it was “through an act of kindness.” The Romulans attacked the Khitomer outpost, everyone was killed, Worf was buried under the rubble and left for dead. A human officer found him and took him to his home on the farming colony of Gault and told his wife to raise Worf as his son. It was “before the age of inclusion” for Worf. He and his foster brother entered Starfleet Academy together, but his brother hated it and returned to Gault. Worf has hardly spent any time among his “own kind.”
• This episode features a “Klingon Death Ritual” wherein the Klingons gaze into a dying man’s eyes and then look upward while howling. It is a “warning” to the dead that a warrior is about to arrive. Worf also performs this ceremony when he kills Korris. Twice in this episode Klingons refer to a dead body as merely “an empty vessel” with no further burial ceremony needed.
• Strangely, “Talarian” also seems to be pronounced “Taralian” in this episode.
• The Klingons in this episode are dressed like the Klingons in the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
• The planet of the Klingons is briefly referred to as “Kling” in this episode, but this was apparently alter dropped.
• Since this episode faced production delays, the Klingon words are just nonsense words written by Maurice Hurley.
• The Klingon battlecruiser clip was borrowed from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.