ST:TNG Season Five, Episode Sixteen "Ethics"

ST: TNG Season Five, Episode Sixteen "Ethics"
Production Order: 16
Air Order: 16
Stardate: 45587.3
Original Air Date: March 2, 1992

A quick trigger warning here: discussions of suicide

We open in the middle of a casual conversation, and I love crap like this. These people do not power down after a shift. They're coworkers who talk about mundane, unrelated shit at work. (That being said, as much as I love the Borg, I would probably not enjoy a show set on a Cube. Unless it was done like The Office.... BRB, gonna pitch an Office-style Borg show to Netflix.)

Anyway, La Forge tells Worf that Troi was bluffing during their last poker night, and that's why Worf lost.

"No, that's really not like her," Worf insists.

They're looking for some kind of minor leak somewhere, and in between, Worf tries to convince himself that his hand was not strong enough to call.

"Your hand was fine, her hand was crap," La Forge argues, scanning stuff.

"How do you know what I had?" Worf demands.

"Y'all are playing with decks that are transparent in infrared light," says La Forge, tapping his VISOR.

YO. OUR MANS CHEATING AT CARDS.

La Forge still isn't finding the leak, and remarks that he should get a different kind of equipment. He walks away, talking to some others, and Worf continues down a line of big canisters, still scanning.

We can see from the POV on the upper shelving where the leak is coming from, based on the fact that one canister has partially iced over on the backside.

The lower, leaking canister beings to buckle, and both come crashing down on Worf, striking him in the back. The others rush forward, and La Forge frantically calls for a medical emergency to the cargo bay.

Worf wakes up on a medbay bed. Crusher explains that a leaking container fell on him.

Nurse Ogawa sighting!

He tries to sit up, then tells Crusher that the restraints on his bed aren't necessary, that he doesn't intend to bolt from sick bay.

"So about that," says Crusher gingerly. "Those containers hit your back and crushed your spine. It isn't possible to repair it."

Well, fuck.

Dramatic music! Opening credits!

Picard's Log 45587.3: "We pulled Worf off of active duty, and we're bringing into a neuro-specialist, but Dr Crusher thinks he may be permanently paralyzed."

Crusher meets Dr Toby Russell in the transporter room, and they greet one another warmly. Dr Russell tells Crusher that she read Crusher's paper on cybernetic regeneration, and our good doctor is stoked, as the paper went largely overlooked by the medical community. They seem pretty excited to be working together.

Russell tells Crusher, as they make their way through the corridor, that she's surprised at what little interest the Klingons seem to have concerning Worf's condition, and the type of medicine needed for treatment.

"Yeah, they have a cultural bias," Crusher admits. "When I asked about it, they said they usually let the patient die. So they have little to no research on neurological trauma."

Klingon neurology: the final frontier.

"Worf is struggling with his injuries," Crusher adds. "But he's a good guy, once you get to know him."

"Oh, um, I like to maintain distance with patients," Russell admits. "Like, as the ship's doctor, you need to get to know them, but I feel like if I take a step back, I can give you an unbiased opinion."

Crusher agrees that this is a good course of action.

OMG.

OMG, Y'ALL.

I paused the video and caught Riker making kawaii face.

Sassy Riker Moment: "You look pretty good for someone who's been eating sick bay food for three days."  

Okay, that was a solid joke, but I'm kind of sad that it still lands in the twenty-fourth century. Replicator food can taste like anything, but somehow sick bay food still sucks? Boo, replicator engineers. Get your shit together.

Anyway, Worf does not laugh. He asks Riker to sit.

(We get a Picard Maneuver here instead of a Riker one. Mixing it up.)

Right away, Worf hauls out the self-pity. "Thank you for seeing me in this condition."

Jesus. Okay, buddy. Rein it in.

"Meh," replies Riker. "There's no shame in being injured."

"Okay, but I'm not just injured. Dr Crusher thinks my paralysis is permanent."

Ah. This was not yet common knowledge.

Riker's face falls, and his cheerful demeanor evaporates. He apologizes, and when Worf asks for a favor, Riker fiercely replies that Worf should name it.

"I want you to help me die. There's a Klingon suicide ritual, the hegh'bat, and I need help to perform it."

"Whut?" asks Riker. "You're kidding."

"Nope," says Worf. "When a Klingon becomes a burden on his friends and family, and can no longer face his enemies, then he should choose to die. My life as a Klingon is over."

Remember in "A Matter of Honor," when Riker is talking to his Klingon crewmates on the Pagh, and Klag talks about how his father was captured by Romulans rather than killed by their hand, and now he will die useless and old, and he should have died? Same shit... different day. It's the idea that, once you have outlived usefulness, you no longer have a purpose (either self-imposed or societally). It's what the Kaelons were trying to avoid by creating a "maximum age" that one might reach in "Half A Life."  And avoiding uselessness due to infirmity was (kind of/part of) the object of genetic engineering on "The Masterpiece Society." The low down? We've talked about this a lot.

Less than ten minutes in, and we're getting heavy.

Riker is nonplussed. He stands up.

That equipment is giving TOS

Worf was not expecting this answer, and I feel for him. I've also made a comment about myself/my life, and thought I would get a sympathetic response from a friend, but instead got something completely different.

But it's because of their friendship that Worf decides that he should explain his reasoning better.

"We've been friends and colleagues for a lot of years now, and we've fought together. I want to go out with honor and dignity, but I need your help. Please."

Quiet dramatic music. Commercial break.

There's a cool scene next were Dr Russell and Dr Crusher talk about Klingon anatomy with a hologram of Worf's spine between them.

Russell remarks that she thinks Klingon bodies are "overdesigned" because they have redundancies of all of their vital functions. Crusher replies that the Klingons call it brak'lal, and she thinks it's freakin' sweet. (For the record, I do as well.) It kind of makes sense: you're a warrior race, and could die in battle. If you do die, it means your back-ups failed, too. You're hella injured. You gonna complain? No. You were probably meant to die, because someone did the job well enough. And the attitude that you're hearty enough to withstand most things, and brag about it? Kind of deserved there.

Russell points out that there's just more to go wrong with all of those redundancies, and I guess there's something to that.

She then takes Crusher to a machine she had brought on board and tells our CMO that it's basically a 3-D printer for DNA. You tell the machine what part to grow based on the DNA input, and it spits out a new one. It's called a genetronic replicator, and Crusher says she's read some stuff on the early research that Russell has been doing with it.

"Instead of fixing him up in little ways, we can just grow Worf a new spine," says Russell.

Crusher is surprised. "You've already progressed to doing this on humanoids?"

"No, this will be the first time on a humanoid," Russell says casually. "But I've done a bunch of holo-simulations."

Wow, a whole 37%

Sassy Crusher Moment: "Even a holographic patient would balk at those odds."

Then they both make some excellent points:

Russell: "We have to try it on a person eventually."

Sure...

Crusher: "Yeah, but it's a spinal column, and we don't know enough about Klingon physiology to detach the old one and reattach a new one."

In the end, Crusher admits that the genetronic replicator is awesome, and that the progress Russell is making is great, and the whole thing could revolutionize medical science, but right now, it's still in the early stages, and the risk is too great to Worf for her to sign off on it. She tells Russell that they'll have to use conventional methods this time.

Picard calls Crusher to the bridge, and Russell is left looking disappointed.

Crusher hits the bridge, and Picard and Riker tells her that they've gotten a distress call for a ship that needs medical help. They'll be at the crash site in 7 hours.

"The ship's complement is 23," says Riker, "but they were carrying 517 colonists."

"Well, fuck," says Crusher. "I need to convert all three shuttle bays into triage centers, and can you ask all personnel with medical training to report to me?"

They agree, and she leaves to set things up.

Riker asks Picard to talk in the ready room.

He is openly pissed off now, and kind of using Picard as a therapist. Which is not his job, but this dude does have a pretty good moral base, so.

In this case, Riker is struggling with the old, "that's against my beliefs, so you can't do that."

"They aren't against his, though, " Picard points out. "They're very much within his beliefs. You're coming at this like a human. You or I, we could live with a disability like this. Worf considers his life over, and his culture backs that up."

"I would be more okay with it if he wasn't asking me to participate," growls Riker.

"He's asking because you're his friend," says Picard gently. "If you take the personal beliefs part out, then you're just left approaching it as his friend. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't value your friendship."

"That's where I started," sighs Riker.

A lot of people are angry about this situation.

For instance, the very young son of a murdered woman, who was sent away to live with human grandparents for a while, and is now living on a starship with a paralyzed father who may also die. It must suck to be Alexander sometimes.

And now he's yelling at Troi, because he's certain that Worf wants to see him, but Troi is not letting it happen.

"That's not true," she says gently. "He's been very badly injured, and he doesn't want anyone to see him in that weakened state."

"That sounds like Klingon crap," Alexander spits. "My mom wasn't into that, and I'm not, either!"

"No, but it's very important to him."

"I just want to see him," says Alexander sadly.

I think maybe he's staying with her while Worf is in sick bay. It's not really covered where children go, or who is looking after them, if their parents aren't available for whatever reason, but he's definitely too young to just hang out by himself, and she suggests that he get ready for bed, so she may have picked up some babysitting duties.

"Your kid is pissed," Troi tells Worf in the next scene. "He's hurt and confused, and doesn't understand why he can't see you."

"You know why I left the instructions I left," he argues.

"Yeah. Klingon honor. But right now, I'm dealing with your terrified kid, and maybe instead of worrying about your honor and everything else, you start thinking about your child."

Girlfriend does not mince words. Then she turns and marches out of sick bay.

Drs Russell and Crusher approach him. They're here to map out his recovery for him. Crusher explains that they'll basically implant some relays that go between his muscles and brain, so that when he thinks about getting up and walking somewhere, the implants will facilitate that. 

"You'll eventually regain 60-70% of your motor control."

Worf tunes out about halfway through.

Russell then explains that they're going to start by putting what look like ankle monitors on his thighs. He'll train with them for a while to get him and his muscles used to the process, then they'll go in and implant the relays.

She puts one on and encourages him to think about moving his leg. He does so, and his leg jerks on the table.

Worf is not into this. He gives Crusher a "this is some bullshit" look, but she assures him that this was a great start.

Russell and Crusher assure him that he just needs to start working with the cuffs, but he gets mad and rips it off, flinging it across the room.

"No way. Sixty percent of my mobility is not good enough. I'm not doing this."

Russell jumps in, and starts pitching her method while Crusher frowns behind her.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

If looks could kill, you'd be reeling from the pain

Worf clearly has some kind of private room in sick bay, because Russell and Crusher go back to sick bay to talk, using the front door. Maybe there are private rooms across the corridor?

Okay, yeah. Found a thing. Sick bay is massive, y'all. But we only ever see it piecemeal.

Oops, forgot to include the critical care/triage section in my yellow loop

Anyway, Crusher yanks Russell back into the main patient area.

"WTF? We talked about using genetronics, and decided that it was too risky," says Crusher.

"He doesn't want to do it your way, and I offered him an alternative to suicide," Russell argues.

Crusher sighs. She doesn't want to malign a colleague, but said colleague did just fuck up all of the shit. "I checked with Starfleet Medical, and you've been rejected for humanoid testing for genetronics three times now. You can't use my patient as a guinea pig."

"That's some red tape bullshit," says Russell.

But they're interrupted by Picard, who calls to tell Crusher that they've reached the crash site. She tells Picard that they're ready, and she starts to leave sick bay, when Russell grabs her arm.

"Do you need help?"

Crusher agrees, because this woman is still a doctor, and her patient load has gone from manageable to insane.

Troi takes Alexander to Worf's sick bay room, and they both surprised to see him standing next to the bed. He's wearing the cuffs on his thighs that he though were BS, but he seems willing to do it if it helps him save face in front of his kid.

"Deanna says you hurt your back," says Alexander.

Read: "Deanna spun me some bullshit lie, and you're clearly fine, as you're standing."

"I did hurt my back," Worf confirms. "We have a lot to talk about."

But the cuffs fail or something, and he crumples to the floor. Troi and Alexander rush to him, to help him, but you know that's not what he wants, and he growls at Troi to take his kid out of sick bay.

We go down to the triage centers in the cargo bay, where beds are set up in a grid pattern, and the patients are in various states of injury. We follow Crusher as she does quick visual scans of them, then encounters Russell, who has a blanket pulled up over one patient, indicating that he's dead. She's running a medical tricorder over the body.

"What happened?" asks Crusher.

"(Medical science)," replies Russell.

"From (medicine)?" asks Crusher, puzzled.

"No, he couldn't have that. I gave him (some other treatment) that I've been working with. Been getting good results with it."

Crusher is stunned. The audacity of this bitch. "You experimented on him?"

"The treatment I tried is leagues ahead of those other medicines," Russell argues.

"Yeah, but (medicine 2) would have saved his life!"

They're basically rehashing the earlier conversation in sick bay: Russell wants to test her theories on people in the hopes that there will be a better outcome, but Crusher wants her to use more conventional treatments that will result in a less risky one.

"He didn't die for nothing," says Russell. "I got really good data from him regarding the treatment I gave him, and we can use that to save lives in the future!"

"Cool, you gonna tell his family that?"

Y'all, now we know why she doesn't like to get to know her patients. 

They're at an impasse here, but only one of them is Chief Medical Officer on this ship, so Crusher relieves her of medical duty.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Crusher is in her office doing paperless paperwork when Picard drops by.

"So you relieved Russell of medical duty?"

"Yeah, she's nuts. Thinks it's cool to experiment on people because she has a hunch and a few good tests." Crusher is not having it.

"So you're probably not going to like this..." Picard starts. "... but what if we let her do that treatment on Worf?"

"Are you high?" she asks. "If we do my treatment, he could get 60% of his mobility back. If we do her treatment, he could die on the table."

"Sure," he concedes. "But he'll end it before your treatment. He knows about risks and dying. We could maybe convince him to put off the ritual until after Russell's surgery. If he dies on the table, then he dies. We do the surgery, it doesn't have the intended outcome, he ends it anyway. In most of these cases, it ends with his death."

"Cool, so I should ignore the Hippocratic Oath? Also, fuck that noise - dude is not committing the ritual under my care. I will post security Golds to his room to keep it from happening."

Like Riker, she's thinking like a human. And not even every human, because we can't agree how we feel collectively about suicide.

He scoffs. "How long are you going to do that? You can't watch him every second. And you're ignoring his culture and beliefs in favor of your own. He should get a say in his own life."

Riker enters Worf's room. He's got one of those floor-length grey ceremonial vests that Klingons like so much, and he drops it on Worf's feet, pulling out a wicked-looking Klingon dagger as he does so.

Worf steels himself. "I'm ready."

"Yeah, no," snarls Riker. "Been reading up on this ritual, and it sucks. I have to respect your beliefs, but I don't have to like them. How many of our friends and colleagues have died on this ship, fighting until the end? And you want to just do it? Have you considered how your friends might feel afterward?"

"It's not like I'm eager," Worf argues. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"I might have, because we're friends... but like I said, I've been studying the hegh'bat ceremony, and it turns out that I'm not supposed to. The right person for the job, according to Klingon law, is a family member, preferably the eldest son."

"Alexander is a little boy," argues Worf.

"But he's old enough to hold a blade, which makes him a man in Klingon tradition. You just don't want it to be him because you don't want to look at him."

Damn, Riker. This Alexander move is kind of bitchy.

"Nah, bro. I'm not helping you." Riker drops the knife on the vest and leaves.

In the next scene, Alexander has been paged to Worf's room. The vest and knife have disappeared from Worf's feet.

"So I've tried really hard to teach you about Klingon ways and traditions. According to Klingon tradition, I must kill myself after this kind of injury."

Alexander lowers his head. Seems like he kind of expected something like this. This kid is way too used to disappointment from life.

"But I'm breaking with tradition here," Worf says. "I'm gonna live. I still have to have a dangerous operation, and I could end up dying anyway. Just... I won't be doing it myself." He hands Alexander the knife. "Can you take this back to our quarters, please?"

Alexander takes the knife and starts to leave, but turns and smiles at Worf, who smiles back.

Slightly hopeful music! Commercial break!

Crusher's Log, supplemental: "I talked to Starfleet Medical, and I thought long and hard about how I felt about stuff, and we're going forward with the genetronic procedure."

Alexander and Troi are in Worf's room, and Alexander is eagerly telling his father about how they're doing multiplication in school. Nurse Ogawa comes in and says nothing, but everyone knows that It's Time. Worf assures his kid that they'll talk again soon, and Alexander leaves.

"If I die, he's kind of on his own..." says Worf tentatively.

"I'll get him to your parents," Troi promises.

"No, they're elderly. Um, would you consider maybe... ya know, raising my kid?"

Bro, you're doing this now? Like, after you considered the hegh'bat? And not before? You've had weeks of just lying there, and you didn't think to get your shit together on this?

Troi is stunned. "Me?"

"Yeah. Well, I mean, you were really helpful when he first came on board, and you're my friend, and I respect you. I think you'd do a really good job."

She squeezes his hand and agrees before leaving.

We go into surgery, and they begin by putting Worf's brain on life support. They have just under three and a half hours to get it reattached or the brain dies.

Yoo, Klingons got ridged backs.

Up in the ready room, Picard and Riker are having a very subdued, distracted meeting about routine ship shit. Riker's go-to worried look is generally dropping his chin in his hand, and his elbow on a table. Riker asks Picard if there's been any word on how things are going. Picard responds no. It's a pretty tense moment.

Down in surgery, Worf's spine has been removed and is being scanned by the 3-D DNA thingamabob, and props to whoever decided that, to make the spine look more like it came from a body and less like it's just some piece of sculpture, it should drip. Kinda gross. Good job.

Oop. The machine thing is beeping. Russell says it's having trouble scanning some part of the spine, and that she's seen this in previous simulations, but she was sure that she had corrected for it. She says she can scan it in manually, that it'll just take a little longer.

Ogawa tells them that they have one hour and forty-five minutes left.

We duck over to see Alexander and Troi playing some computer game. She's distracted and not really responding to the game, but in contrast, he seems to be engaging a little too much.

Later, they put what looks like a slimy tube in Worf's back, and I think maybe that's his spinal cord? It isn't clear. He's got less than 30 minutes to brain death at this point. They close him up and can see the treatment growing him new connections. Everybody in the operating theater is feeling pretty good.

Alexander has fallen asleep in Troi's lap.

Go time. Ogawa disconnects Worf from life support, and everything goes well. Until he starts crashing. Crusher immediately starts calling for hyposprays to get his blood pressure and heart activity going again, with Ogawa calling out results from the computer, and handing over the equipment as Crusher asks for it. Russell, though participating, looks stunned.

How? This has happened in 67% of her simulations. How is she surprised? Did she think it wouldn't happen that way because it was a real patient this time?

They use a cortical stimulator, and get a few seconds of brain activity before it flatlines. Crusher orders Ogawa to hit it again, but no activity this time. She asks her to do it multiple times, probably too many. She doesn't want to give up.

"Doctor," says Russell quietly.

Crusher realizes that she just can't pull it out, and calls it. She is not okay.

Crusher goes into the waiting room, where Troi and Alexander are. She's clearly been crying.

"I'm so sorry," she tells Alexander quietly.

"I want to see him," Alexander says forcefully.

Troi tries to deflect him, but he's pretty insistent, and honestly, I'm with him. People seem to constantly tell this kid no, or let him down. Give him one already.

So they let him into the operating room, where Worf is now lying right side up, and Alexander appears to be struggling with wanting to cry, and trying to be a stoic little Klingon, even though he hates that shit. He gives in and sobs while Troi holds him.

And then Worf flinches. Just the tiniest bit.

"What the hell..." says Crusher. She has Ogawa turn the vital signs monitor back on, and gives Worf a hypospray.

The monitor starts beeping.

"Guess those synaptic redundancies have synaptic backups, too," says Crusher.

Later, Russell goes to Crusher's office to eat crow.

She remarks that Worf's recovery is going well, but Crusher is playing Russell is Dead.

"Really?" asks Russell. "You're still not going to admit that my treatment is why Worf is alive, and that my research is good?"

Crusher looks up. She's got that contemplative look on her face, like she's thinking of where to hide your body after she absolutely kills the fuck out of you.

She then proceeds to quietly, murderously dress down Russell, noting that she gambled, and Worf won, and she's glad that he's okay, but that Russell is reckless in her methodology. That medical research is slow and painstaking, but done in a way that mitigates harm to patients. Russell is impatient, and barrels through. Crusher marks that medical science will probably congratulate Russell on her success, but that if Crusher were in her shoes, she doesn't think that she could accept the kudos.

Russell looks like she wants to reply, but then closes her mouth and leaves. Wisely.

We jump over to the physical therapy room, where Worf is learning how to walk again, and hey --

Klingon feet are ridged, too.

Crusher tells Worf not to rush, that his body is still getting used to being upright and Doing The Thing again. He crumples on the apparatus, and Alexander starts forward, but is pulled back by Troi.

"Remember, your dad said he wanted to do this by himself," she reminds him.

"That's okay," says Worf. "I would like my son's help."

Yaaassss, be a good parent, Worf.

"We will work together," Worf says to Alexander. They smile at one another.

And Worf sends this text to everyone he knows:

Oof, this one is tough. I like that we get two stories about ethics in one episode, but that they're completely different. (Also, we get two instances in the cold open about ethics: Troi bluffing about her hand, and La Forge admitting that he can see through certain decks. "Don't worry," he adds, "I only peek afterward.")

I'm going to assign Crusher and Russell to the A-plot because we see more of them than we do of Worf and Riker. In that instance, Crusher is forced to grapple with a colleague who - let's admit it - practices medicine in a Nazi doctor-like manner. To Russell, the ends justify the means. It's fine that her colonist patient died, because she still got good data to improve her medication down the line. She's just breaking some eggs to make an omelet, so it's fine, right? Regarding that patient, Crusher states that she doubts that this information will bring his family comfort, but why would Russell care? She doesn't get close to her patients to "form an unbiased opinion," but here she has a bonus: it will be Crusher that most likely breaks the news to that man's loved ones, not Russell. She doesn't have to cover any of the messy parts. She gets a small taste of it when Worf dies on the table, and she actually has to experience what that's like, but she's probably returning to her lab and holo-simulations after that. Crusher gets to pick up the pieces afterward, with Worf's physical therapy and continued care. Does Russell's way produce results quicker? Yes, undoubtedly. But she tends to steamroll over the Hippocratic Oath of "do no harm" in order to get there faster. Or, as Crusher put it, "you take shortcuts, right through living tissue." Even Starfleet could see that her practices were less than stellar, given that her request for humanoid testing had been rejected three times.

The bonus fuckery is that the surgery was successful. Did it rest entirely on Russell's research? Hell no. The procedure was hers, of course, but it technically would have failed, had it not been for Klingon "redundancies." It only worked because Worf "rebooted" after he officially died. On any other humanoid, their odds would have most likely fallen into that 63% failure rate. Crusher's procedure would have meant less risk, but also, a less that favorable outcome, from Worf's point of view. It has to suck for her that Worf chose (and Picard advocated for) the morally ambiguous procedure over her safer, more assured one. A rollercoaster for sure.

Then we have our B-plot with Worf and Riker (guest-starring Troi and Alexander). 

We can't fully know how we'll deal with it when faced with a future colored by disability, until we actually come to that bridge ourselves. We can only guess. DNR papers are signed or rejected on that guess. And we may change our minds. I definitely have.

Worf did here as well. And it was a risk. His culture suggested that it was better to live life entirely whole and healthy, or not at all, and he was willing to go that route, though it does seem that (from conversation) not every Klingon in this situation will choose the same. Ending it would have been clean (for him). Risky surgery, recovery, and possible disability are... less so. And it's possible that his recovery was long and there were setbacks (offscreen), and that there were times when he regretted the choice he had made, however briefly.

Because this show is sometimes serialized and sometimes not, they might have gone either way: showing his recovery over a longer period, noting that he was on light duty, or still on medical leave; or having the genetronic procedure really be the "miracle cure" that Russell proclaimed it was, and showing him back at work functioning perfectly. They might have even gone with Crusher's procedure and shown him with partial mobility, working to gain more. The possibilities are more open with a format like this to show such things.

And the writers did not shy away from showing the emotions involved with the process.

Klingon culture skewing toward ritual suicide lines up with not only what we know of Klingons, but coincides with what Worf seems to have been feeling. "This sucks and I want to be done" is valid. As is, "this looks like it might be too much going forward, and I'd like out." Ultimately, we don't know why he changed his mind. Was it Riker, talking about their friends going down fighting? Troi asking about Alexander? Thoughts of Alexander himself? It's possible that it's because the hegh'bat was never fully off the table. He was definitely of that mind when Crusher was describing only getting part of his mobility back. But, as Picard suggested, he might have still followed through with the ritual after Russell's surgery, if things went sideways. In this way, it might have been a safety net of sorts.

Riker's feelings on the matter are also explored. He struggles between being there for his friend by assisting him with one last wish, and being angry that he was asked to do so. He doesn't agree with Worf's decision, and tries to talk him out of it in a rather aggressive way. You know it's grief talking rather than actual anger, because we're like that, as a species. Sad that your friend might be dying? Go aggro on 'em. Once Worf has made the decision not to proceed with the hegh'bat, Riker's main reaction becomes worry: will his friend survive the risky surgery? What if he does, and his condition is actually worse, and it starts the cycle of possible suicide rituals all over again? Was any of Riker's anger at Klingon rituals, or honor, or selecting to Opt Out in the face of an uncertain future? I don't think so. I think it was just sadness that he might not have much time left with his friend, and he was being asked to facilitate that end.

This is a decent episode. It's one I don't often remember, because I saw it so late. (Have you ever watched hours of a show, over and over again, and then come to find out that there's an episode that you've never seen, because it either doesn't get shown often, or by chance, it was played at a time when you weren't watching? This is that episode for me.) But it's interesting nonetheless, because it expands character development and addresses some issues that we don't always talk about. We don't talk about them because they're uncomfortable. But we should talk about issues like disability and suicide, so that we can weather those storms better when we come across them.

Fun Facts:

- Ronald D Moore, who wrote the teleplay, found this episode tough to write. "I wasn't a big fan of doing medical shows to begin with, and that particular one had a ton of medical jargon and technology and medical ethics."

- Herbert J Wright suggested that nanobots be released into Worf's bloodstream to eat away the damage in his body, but this idea was rejected, feeling that the sci-fi elements would take away from the dramatic ones.

- It was important to the writers to show all of the viewpoints on euthanasia evenly here. Moore noted that culturally, Worf would have a very specific viewpoint, and the doctors would have others. Michael Piller noted that it was important not to spoon-feed the audience a solution and call it concrete: "I love grays. I don't love black and whites. I don't like answering questions so easily for the audience [...] with 'Ethics' again, we went out of our way not to make it easy for the audience to know what the right thing to do was."
- The scene where Worf and Riker first argue originally ended in a more heated fashion, where they get right in each other's faces. (Or, you know, Riker gets in Worf's.) This was edited out, as it was felt to be "too much." I gotta agree. It was stronger as edited.

- The surgery scenes were filmed with Michael Dorn's photo double, Al Foster.

Chip Chalmers directs the surgery scenes.

- The containers that fall on Worf are actually made of styrofoam.

- The scientific paper that Dr Russell references on cybernetic regeneration was one that Dr Crusher mentioned working on in "11001001."

- A similar Klingon ritualized assisted suicide will come up in DS9. In that ritual, a Klingon's spirit will be granted entry into Sto-vo-kor. With this ritual, it is not known.

- Both Director Chip Chalmers and Michael Piller felt that this episode succeeded, not only dramatically, but in giving balanced views to the subject matter.

- In the Star Trek novel "A Time for War, A Time for Peace," Russell and Crusher encounter each other again, and after a bristly argument, Russell chides Crusher for still not being able to let go of the situation, despite it being ten years later. Crusher notes that after the surgery, there was an initial chatter and publishing of papers, then genetronics disappeared from the conversation altogether.

                                              

Red deaths: 0
To date: 1
Gold deaths: 1 (Nah, I'm counting it. Dude was dead.)
To date: 1

Blue deaths: 0
To date: 0
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0
To date: 0

Sassy La Forge Moments: 0

To date: 2

Sassy Ro Moments: 0
To date: 3

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Riker Moments: 1
To date: 2

Sassy Picard Moments: 0
To date:  0

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Keiko Moments: 0

To date: 3
Sassy Crusher Moments: 1
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 3
Sassy Guinan Moments: 0
To Date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 3

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 0
To date: 35

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 1
To date: 9

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 1
To date: 3
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date: 1
Picard Maneuvers: 3
To date: 13
Tea, Earl Grey: 0
To date: 6

Mentions of the number 47: 0

To date: 2

Orwin is a dragon