208. Redemption IIFORMULA: A Matter of Honor + The Galileo Seven + Yesterday's Enterprise
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Klingon bits.
WHY WE DON'T: The preposterous plan. The forced ending.
REVIEW: Redemption part 2 is split into two parts. As long as we're in the Klingon half, we're fine. Kurn using some devious strategy to win a lopsided battle. Enemies drinking together because to Klingons, it's all about the fighting, they don't care who they do it with. The Sisters whispering things to each other, really working in tandem. B'Etor trying to seduce Worf. Worf starting to realize that maybe Gowron isn't really a representative of Honor with a capital H. Worf later going his own way by sparing the life of Toral. All great scenes that would leave one to believe they could have sustained a Klingon-centric show easily.
Because it's the Federation side of things that has problems. One of these is technobabble, something that hardly ever comes up in a Klingon setting. The tachyon detection grid used to blockade the cloaked Romulan ships just doesn't make any sense, and if you don't buy the premises, you don't buy the climax. As shown, it would be incredibly easy for a cloaked ship to just fly around the damn thing, and in any case, it's full of holes even when they don't expressly say there's a hole.
Data's experiment with ambition comes across well at first, reacting with uncompromising authority when Hobson asks to be reassigned, but it gets more and more forced until Data is uncharacteristically ignoring hails from the Enterprise just so he can be the big hero while letting Hobson think he's leading the crew to the brink of destruction. It's just upping the ante for its own sake at the end.
Finally, we have to mention Sela. Denise Crosby's own little idea to come back on the show isn't a bad one, and it allows her to play a much less strident character. It's weird timeline stuff that makes sense given the events of Yesterday's Enterprise, and again, Guinan seems to be the only one that's time-sensitive enough to see what's going on. (Is this thanks to her echo in the Nexus?) Since the Romulan commander's identity has no bearing on the plot at hand, it smells of a stunt, and it serves the character poorly. I mean, if you're gonna bring back Crosby, do it in an episode that's about that. Still, nice little chess game between her and Picard (now imagine it had been Tomalak instead).
LESSON: A human can lead a Romulan fleet, but an android can't command a Federation starship. Who are the xenophobes now!?
REWATCHABILITY - High: The soft science and artificial climax to the Data story aren't enough to bring down another Klingon success as the Klingon Civil War wraps up nicely and Worf moves on with his life.
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