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Josh: "One of the most emotional moments of the show thus far". Hold on to your seat.

Basically, K'Ehleyr works for the US Dept of State. Worf works for the US Navy.

K'Ehleyr is not in Starfleet. She works for the Federation. The Federation is the government organization. Starfleet is the Federation's military, after a fashion.

"Klingons never bluff" was a bluff.

She was awesome as the Vulcan doctor and being a Klingon. I would have loved to see her play the Vulcan regularly.

There is an episode of Batman the animated series where the villains play poker and talk about how they ALMOST defeated Batman.

Before TNG Ends you will learn enough about Klingon History and Culture to become an Honorary Klingon!

The ShiKahr desert rings a bell because it was in the Yesteryear TAS episode where Spock uses the Guardian to travel back in time.

I think Worf & K'Ehleyr are a great example of this quote by Guillermo del Toro, "...perfection is unattainable. Perfection is a conceit. Perfection actually lies in fully loving the defect. I think that's perfection. It's like what the guy says in Hellboy, he says, 'We like people for their qualities; we love them for their defects.' It's true in life. It's the same."

Anytime a Starfleet officer is wearing "special garb" they are an Admiral.

That poker table in Riker's quarters has officially become a permanent guest star of the show. It'll keep appearing.

On "caring about the show", TOS did often have a lot of concern for putting together continuity. There's a story about a guest director who was telling Koenig and Takei to "push this button to do this, then this one" in a scene, and they told the director those were the wrong buttons for that. Consistency is what helped sell the show, a big depart from many scifi B-movies from before that just did some motions and called it a day.

Data, La forge, O Brien, Wesley Crusher, Riker, Picard ....... if you ask me... But actually, i can't tell who is my real favourite .. they're all ah so great in this show. ;)

Dr. Selar was great. Maybe go back and rewatch her scenes. It's super funny when she sneaks around and tries to get a good reading on the old man.

I feel like K'Ehleyr was a rare instance of a well-written TNG guest character made even better by an actor's performance. I've seen Suzy Plakson in other roles where her charisma isn't so evident. But K'Ehleyr + Plakson = OUTSTANDING!

Errand of Mercy was a good TOS Klingon episode

If you add a TV tray with a white tablecloth draped over it, you’d have a real space that you could put your drinks and/or phones on. If you position it where the ten-forward table is virtually, the real set in the foreground will merge into the background 🥃🖖

Continuity became a thing when J Michael Straczynski proved, with Babylon 5, people would find and rewatch a continuing story. Also he proved that independent stations would show them in order. In fact that it was already standard practice.

Continuity became a thing with Trek during the 70s. We were watching TOS religiously & noticed every detail & event that took place. By the 80s we had an entire timeline for all the characters.

Despite being mostly a season 1 punching bag, Worf grew into a top tier TNG character. He also has some of the best lines in all of Trek.

I am enjoying this series of reactions sooooo darn much. I really like how authentic and honest you are about what you thought was great and what sucked and everything in between. Sometimes I don’t agree with your take, most of the time I absolutely do and sometimes I even see something new in a show I’ve watched more times than I care to admit, because of you both. It’s like remembering my own journey to being a Trekkie all over again. So thank you for making this old Trekkie smile 🤣 🖖

P.S. I know from my own life that some women who are descended from strongly paternalistic/misogynistic cultures don't want to marry men from that culture. My mother is Italian American. After seeing what happened to two older sisters who married Italian American men who stressed the traditional ways, my mother made sure to marry a man who was not Italian. Klingon culture is sometimes portrayed in such a paternalistic/misogynistic/traditionalistic way. Worf may be different in being raised by a human family, but I think that both K'Ehleyr and Worf carry personal and emotional baggage that would make their relationship difficult. After all, I don't think we actually know if K'Ehleyr's parents had a relationship that lasted very long after her birth.

I appreciate the picture on the cocktail table behind you.

As Mick Jagger said "You ain't seen nothin yet!"

serialization didn't work for TV prior to home recording. they were afraid that people would stop watching if they missed an episode. people had a much more casual relationship with TV shows due to the demands of having a social life, pta meetings, sports, etc.

Love seeing the Klingon ship through your ship window! 😂

love the pic in the back ground LOL!

I've read that there are a lot of in-jokes and easter eggs on the LCARS panels. Supposedly one of the standard medical readouts measures Medical Insurance Remaining.

It’s believable that people would be pausing the episode back in 1989 also. We would record shows on our VCR to watch later, similar to TiVo.

within two minutes seeing you guys so excited i had to watch the reaction again. i thought it was lackluster at the moment, but it's clear with this perspective you're just intensely captivated and in the moment.

You said that “ShiKahr” sounded familiar. That’s because it’s the Vulcan city you saw in the animated series episode, “Yesteryear,” where Spock grew up.

I'm sorry, but "Errand of Mercy" was a classically great episode with a good Klingon character, Commandar Baltar.

Ever since season 2 episode 12 Riker has had a “Royale” program where you can request a “door sock” from the front desk

"Of all the Starships in all of the galaxys, she flies onto mine." I can just hear Worf groaning about this in Ten Forward to Guinan. "Casablanca" and Rick's relationship with Ilsa is such a great trope to borrow.

I've just been binge watching your series here. TNG is one of my favourite TV shows of all time, so it's fun to experience through the eyes of people that have no idea what's coming next. Though, the amount of times you say "I hope they do X" or "I wonder if they'll bring this back" and I have to bite my tongue is mildly frustrating, lol!

The pod K'Ehleyr arrived in was Spock's "casket" prop from Wrath of Khan (modified). Lots of costume, props, ship models, and sets in the TV shows were reused from the movies, often with alterations.

Similar to your idea of an episode of nothing but the crew playing poker and telling stories, there was a series of Star Trek novels in the 90's called "Captain's Table," the premise of which is Starfleet Captains have an ability to access a secret location where only starship captains can gather. They sit around over drinks playing cards and telling stories of their adventures, and because there was a cosmic element to the location, captains of different eras could get together - for example Kirk during his five-year mission meeting Picard during what would be season 5 of TNG. There was a book put out for each of the starship captains from each TV series up until the late-90's, including a couple of characters who only became captains in the non-canon novels published by Pocket Books.

24:18 - To answer your question - B-Plot Relationship Continuity had been a thing for quite some time, even going as far back as the early 80's with shows like HILL STREET BLUES and its 90's successors NYPD BLUE and even other adult dramas like LA LAW and ER. Even adult oriented sitcoms tried it too like CHEERS. They used to sometime refer to this as the show's "soap opera" component because the only other thing on TV that it resembled was how soap operas were written and structured. But what sparked the Modern Age / Golden Age of TV where the A-Plot started to get serialized was the Alien Invasion episodes of THE X-FILES and............. ........the Dominion War episodes of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. Those two shows were the first successful prime-time shows to play with the idea of, what was then known as, "mythology" episodes where they tried to string together some episodes into a grand story-arc. The success of these two shows (X FILES in particular, as it was one of the biggest shows in the world at the time) then very directly inspired the first wave of semi-serialized TV shows e.g. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and LOST also the first true serialized shows like HEROES, THE SOPRANOS and DEADWOOD. But, for that added little bit of spice, you know what inspired DEEP SPACE NINE and X-FILES to try creating "mythology" episodes in the first place? None other than STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and its habit of repeatedly and constantly making sequel episodes to stories from earlier seasons (rather than just doing one-off special sequel episodes that other shows would do e.g. KNIGHT RIDER bringing back villains like Garth Knight or KARR for their own, one-off, return before killing them off permanently). So you're basically in ground-zero for where American TV truly started to play with the notion of serializing television, in the big expensive grand storytelling sort of way rather than the cheap, low-budget, soap-opera format.

28:49 I'll agree that ST3 is where the new Klingons get fleshed out. But you should give credit to Mark Lenard and Co. from TMP, where it's pretty clear the Klingons were going in a new direction from TOS

I always regret that they cut away from the poker. But in these first seasons of TNG, the writers didn't know how to play poker, so I think it'd be pretty infuriating after a bit.

Deciding on a favourite character in TNG is almost impossible; almost every main crew member is so damn good! As for your dislike of Prime Directive episodes, I kinda get it at this point, but they get better. Some of my favourite TNG episodes are based around Prime Directive shenanigans, but they're later in the series.

So we indirectly find out the Holodeck is self-cleaning. As for Holodeck locks? That is something you may or may not find out as the series continues.

Shi-Kar/ShiKahr/ShirKahr is a major Vulcan city, and was where Spock was born and raised. You probably remember it from TAS "Yesteryear".

Character focused episodes.... Seinfeld was doing it in 1989, but it was a new direction for tv series. A few years later Babylon 5 was doing it regularly.

I love those old teaser trailers with "Staaaaaar Trek" The Next Generation! :)

I don't know if it was intentional or not (I am hoping it was), but Smokey C's comment about how what happens on the *hole*-deck stays on the *hole*-deck made me crack a smile.

All I can hear is Worf singing: So here's a story from A to Z You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully We got P in the place who likes it in your face We got R like MC who likes it on an- Easy D doesn't come for free, he's a real android And as for me, ha-ha, you'll see Slam your body down (in the holodeck) and wind it all around Slam your body down (in the holodeck) and wind it all around If you wanna be my (Klingon) lover You gotta get with my friends (Gotta get with my friends) Make it last forever, Federation never ends If you wanna be my lover You have got to give (You've got to give, but not real money b/c we don't have that) Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is

In terms of continuity, I'm not sure of before this, but the first conscious decision that I know of was by William Hartnell in about 1963 where, as playing The Doctor in Doctor Who, was telling the writers that the little kids watching the show would know when he isn't using the TARDIS console the same way as in previous episode and mdke the writers put in that continuity. I'm not saying that they never retcon'd anything ( ;) ), but it was documented that he argued the point back in the first season/series.

I just wish they could have worked Suzie Plakson's gorgeous red hair into her costume.

I'd have to look it up but there is an episode where they look up info in the computer and if you pause and check it out it lists all of the actors that played Doctor Who up until that point. They have Easter Eggs in a quite a few places.

Suzi Plankston is always fun in Star Trek, having played many different characters across many different shows. You did see her last in TNG playing a Vulcan Doctor, Lt Selar in Episode S2.E6 ∙ The Schizoid Man.

"Worf might be my favorite character at this point" Just wait til DS9.

I made a comment about The TV Series, The Torkelsons S1E5-Poetry earlier where Suzy guest stars. Fun Fact Regular Character "Border Hodges" is from TOS Trouble with Tribbles!!

love that you guys love this episode, i love the Theme that comes up when K'Ehleyr and Worf are interacting, gives me like a Hyborian vibe, ie Conan, Red Sonya, that kind of thing.

I really appreciate you guys, men after my own heart, totally hooked and appreciative, just like I was.. And am learning how to be again. This episode of kind of marks the Turning of the pivot to the Quality boost in season 3. I also really appreciate Alex's opening up and vulnerability to us, during that special moment. Powerful stuff

The reason we're having this meeting today is because it's come to our attention that some of you are not properly wiping down the holodeck after your session is complete.

I imagine anyone going up to the holodeck would see it running Worf's Splatter Jungle VII, presume the safety settings were turned off, and just walk away.

Klingons technically started with TMP, even though it was just a brief opening to introduce the real menace. As a kid my two favorite scenes from that movie were the opening pan of their ships and the music and atmosphere and language, and the (not long enough) Enterprise beauty shot.

The LORE! The SCORE! The holodeck FLOOR!

I love that you guys asking all of the important questions and having all the important thoughts :) :)

great conversation again! since you've been using this 10 forward image I've noticed the background changes of course but, today I've noticed the PI number in the window frame! looking at an infinite universe! now I can't unsee it! ooook! back in ma cage! 😅

If Doc Brown set the new bar for Klingon culture, then Mark Lenard was the prototype as the opening character of TMP. He had the new head makeup and warrior garb, as well as the first utterance of the Klingon language!

Michael Okuda is the man (I hope I didn't space on the name... it's been a while) - he designed all the panels... also, he was head curator of all official memorabilia... at least, he was in the 90s/00s

17:40 That sounds like an emotional scene between Worf and Riker that Worf would want no part of. (So, it's better that it didn't happen.)

'Shades of Grey' could have been the opportunity for Alex's wish for a poker game based character story. The problem was the writers strike prevented a fully fleshed out script from being written. If it was just the budget over-run, then that episode could have been one of TNG's formula breaking shows and Alex would have been fully rewarded.

Seeing you guys enjoy this was such a treat. This is in my top 5 TNG episodes, certainly.

I can`t wait until we get to the Ronald D. Moore episodes of Trek. He is know as the Klingon guy and wrote/co-wrote 27 episodes of TNG, 30 episodes of DS9 (🤩🤩), 2 episodes of ST Voyager and the movies TNG Generations and First contact.

while we never sere a lock, I always assumed it was an option, but with security and command over-ride. Just to stop randoms walking in on something

It makes sense that Picard would take extraordinary measures to not kill the Klingons for interplanetary relations reasons. Imagine if we ran across a rogue British (our current ally) military ship today and fired on it without trying other things first.

Doc Brown the original Klingon.

Is it hot where you are? You seem warm :-) Love these reactions and talks after, fun to watch along with you again, been a few years since I saw this now.

I guess you just have to put a sock on the holodeck door. It would be funny if they did that!

Did you guys forget that the current Klingons also appeared on Star Trek, The Motion Picture? They were attacked in the beginning scenes of the movie by the V'ger probe.

5:58 - Not defending every single coincidence here, but remember that the Enterprise is meant to be like a diplomatic flagship of Starfleet. It's true in real navys that a flagship would get most attention and all the most distinguished guests and such. I imagine not many Starfleet vessels would venture out so far and often either, so I'd posit that the Enterprise would very likely see the most action.

You should look up the actor sitting next to Data in the final bridge screen with the Klingon ship. She is tremendous too - particularly in Mad About You.

I would really like to see Paramount produce a Star Trek series called "Kronos", about the Klingon struggle for power that took place during TNG's later seasons. It would be mainly Klingons with the occasional cameo by some Starfleet folks. Espionage, political intrigue, strange bedfellows, etc.. You could probably get a couple seasons out of that. Maybe?

Thanks!

Oh, man, you guys premiered this at like 4am my time and I was out! Sorry I couldn't make it live, but always love the discussion.

35:00 it has to remembered that they had engaged in battle. She's half Klingon,. and we saw the agressive side come out. So her KLingon nature could have come out, and she was driven by adrenlin, and realised the implications after the fact. Akin to Spocks loss of control in Amok Time.

Actually yes, if the show features poker, that usually correlates with it being a good episode. Looking at the episode list, nearly half of the episodes featuring a poker scene are either top 10% episodes or close to it.

You guys already saw Suzie Plakson in the season one episode about the scientist who takes over Data's body. She played a Vulcan doctor.

So much more like this to come, can't wait to see how you guys react when you reach them.

9:32 Oh, it's more than implied!

It's NOT a bluff! Worf doesn't say he's captain, he says "commanding". He has actually been given command of the Enterprise, confirmed by Picard and Riker when he "returns command" to the captain and that whole scene. He says the war is over and it is. He doesn't say they won. Worf carefully words everything to be true. No bluffing, just like he said earlier.

I am very excited for you guys to experience the season, three and four

_K'Ehlayr & Worf greet each other_ (Rest of crew): 'Klingon lovers' quarrel! Should we run?'

😂 I don’t think Pulaski is seriously interested in Worf in a romantic way, I think it is just a playful comment when she calls him handsome.

It is an episode that tells us a lot more about Worf and Klingons.

Each ST series dives deeply into an alien culture. For TOS is was the Vulcans to a degree. TNG gives us perhaps our best look into the Klingons. I will let you move at your own pace to see what cultures are explored in the later series.

Maybe they could have a 100% mechanical manual lock on the Holodeck.

P.S. I just purchased a "Thanks." I don't always see my "Thanks" appearing in the comments section, but I want you to know that I really appreciate your channel.

I THINK there was a series of books called the captains table he might like….. and there was a TOS book called the Kobyashi Ramu that is sorta like it…. Except it is about a bunch of the secondary crew from that series stuck on a shuttle craft telling their personal experience with the test

was just thinking that if anyone has full admin access on the enterprise it's Picard. My head canon now is that there ARE locks on the Holodeck it's just Picard always uses "Sudo Unlock" when he wants to speak to Will. :P

This is my favorite discussion yet. I've always liked "The Emissary." I'm now giving it "True Trek Classic" status after hearing from the TA Guys, the Patreon members and KZfaq commenters.

The differences you notice between the scores is probably in most cases due to some episodes being scored by Ron Jones, some by Dennis McCarthy.

I'm with you, Alex. The end of that game also made me change ethnicities. (Good bye, spices. Hello, casseroles.)

“It ends with a heart ripping scene…” 🤫

This is top notch Star Trek

There once was a rumour/speculation that there was going to be a Star Trek series set on a Klingon ship.