Star Trek The Next Generation: Every Season One Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

This episode brought the Klingons into the 24th century, offering Worf some of his best scenes in the entire first year of the show. Guest star Vaughan Armstrong plays the Klingon captain Korris here, marking the first of many roles he would go on to play in Star Trek. He is most recognisable as Admiral Forrest from Enterprise.

Despite extensive scenes around the Klingon fugitives, Michael Dorn was not as satisified with this episode. He felt that this entry offered more information than anything else, establishing Worf's loyalties to the Federation over the Klingon Empire. The issue was not that this information wasn't necessary, rather than it had already been implied along the way.

Director Rob Bowman however loved the experience of working on the episode. He managed to make a change to the climax that offered a more interesting visual take. In the original script, Worf was to simply shoot the Klingon with his phased on the same level and that would be it. Bowman changed this so that the action takes place on different levels around the warp core, allowing them to shoot vertically. He also added the detail that it took three shots from a phaser to bring the Klingon down.

The episode also features one of the many times the footage from the Motion Picture was reused to depict the Klingon battlecruiser, thus also making the first appearance of a Klingon ship in the Next Generation. This same shot was also reused for the second season episode The Emissary.