UNCUT - Homeward (TNG S7E13) | Star Trek Journey 302

man, it's a real bummer seeing how no one understands the value of the prime directive. it's crazy to see. it does explain why a lot of the world is the way it is currently, with the never-ending wars, strife, and rampant imperialism. sucks to see even intelligent people like these two not understand it.

I found this dull as hell as a kid and it's still dull now. D for me.

When we get to Enterprise and Disco the Prime Directive will make more sense.

1:00:50 It's safe to presume that Worf's brother Nikolai is the "PhD" type doctor, not a medical or osteopathic doctor.

The crux of this episode is how Vorin reacted to just the idea of his people being transplanted onto a different planet. He was horrified at the idea. Even at the cost of his people all dying out. THAT is why the Prime Directive exists. And, now, human DNA will perpetually also pollute Boraalan genetics.

7:08 Worf's brother is not in STAR FLEET. He's still a Federation citizen ("in the Federation").

Finally getting around to watching this reaction. Ugh, I don't like this episode. Season 7: Bigger ups, Bigger downs

I feel like the Prime Directive was inspired by this scene from The Gods Must Be Crazy, LOL (a unique comedy which I assume neither of you have seen). In this context, I get why it exists. Everything in Star Trek is basically analogy for human civilizations and cultures and how they interact, and so I can see why it was necessary to include it when creating a show about a morally evolved civilization. Especially when you consider how many less developed civilizations humanity has essentially demolished in the name of charity. Anyway, I doubt this movie would ever make it on to your watch list, so enjoy this little clip. :) https://youtu.be/EnU-CN7Bgvo?si=AXbMdjF7eVIXxU5D

Hey if the Prime Directive is worth the paper it's printed on Picard should beam these people back down to the planet and let them die horribly. What difference does it make they were beamed on board? None.

The issue I have here is the crew does this exact maneuver of secretly saving someone or some planet all the time so they can pretend they didn’t actually violate the prime directive, but this time they balk, especially since it is Picard which is also totally out of character for him

Do you think Kirk would have acted differently?

this episode felt redundant. C-

I know to us now, it's obvious that something like the Chronicle isn't going to hold up over time, but I don't think that was the point of that line, and I don't think the Boraalans have realized this yet. There's a reason why Vorin is the Boraalan they chose to find out the truth. He seems to be the character that is the most bought in to Boraalan culture and Boraalan values, to the point where he is willing to die for something like the Chronicle. Maybe another Boraalan wouldn't have gone so far, but Vorin is meant to be the character who teaches us what the die hard traditionalists are like on this planet. People like Vorin, DO think the Chronicle is infallible. They see it as eternal truth. They write something down, and it will always be preserved. They will always have their history. And from Vorin's lines, we see that Boraalans see themselves AS their history. To the point where, as Vorin says, without their history, their is no point in living the future. This is why Vorin ends up killing himself. Maybe another Boraalan wouldn't have, but Vorin was adamant about the idea that they ARE their past, their past is true, and they know their past is true and who they are because they have documented truth and preserved it., and that truth is paramount. Now Vorin has been told, "your past is completely gone, and going forward, anything that you write in your chronicle will be a lie passed on to all future generations. They will never know where they actually came from, or the true nature of the life that they are currently living." This completey turns this guy's entire purpose of life and reason for living upside down. He been shown that all of his beliefs are false, and it throws him into an exitential crisis. He's unable to grow past that belief, and thus, he is unable to live without it. Which in the Prime Directive's defense, this means that to people like Vorin, If these people actually knew what was going on, they would say that they all should have all died with the planet. And they would rather have their entire culture die off than have it exist as a lie. Vorin was meant to show the price of violating non-interference, and the true damage that this could have actually caused them. Don't get me wrong though. I still think the Enterprise should have intervened and saved the entire planet without the Boraalans knowing. They probably could have stabilized their atmosphere somehow.

Chapter 1 of the unofficial "This large group of people on that planet over there need to be shifted out of the way" series of storylines. All of which make a decent stab at interrogating the ethics of the Prime Directive. None of which cleanly pull it off.

I always thought this was an "OK" episode. Mostly it's C tier, and I could put it as low as D tier for making me hate Picard for his bullshit moralizing to make himself feel better while he sits back and watches a species go extinct. But, I'm a sucker for stories about brothers(Warrior being one of my favourite films), so this gets a B from me. Like others, I believe there should be a clause in the PD for cases like this. Who Watches the Watchers was a great example of why the PD is a fantastic policy in most situations. The Mintakans weren't in any real turmoil nor was their planet dying. In that case, unintentional interference was disastrous. I'd also maintain that observations should be done from orbit with drones modeled off local birds/insects. The idea of waiting till they develop FTL on their own, and will therefore meet aliens soon anyway, is correct, though First Contact demonstrated their procedure needs work. Deploy a comm satellite in high orbit, transmit a greeting, and invite them meet at nearby coordinates outside their star system when they're ready. OTOH if an entire species is going to die, it's very hard to argue that finding out about aliens would be WORSE than everything they are and everything they could be ceasing to exist. I also don't buy hypotheticals along the lines of "what if that kid was the next Hitler/what if this species are the next cardassians". There are far more doctors, inventors, philanthropists, etc... throughout history than there are Hitlers. Could they be a hostile species down the road? Maybe, but they'll be a millennia behind the rest of the alpha quadrant technologically, so good luck with that. Nikolai does deserve some flack for just randomly inserting human DNA into a small gene pool, but realistically, within a few generations that'll be so diluted it almost won't matter. It might actually be useful for the purposes of genetic diversity given their limited numbers. I always assumed the episode never really fully portrayed their numbers anyway, and we just saw one of a number of groups(only so many extras to put on screen). If Nikolai beamed them into several holodecks(perhaps with a shared simulation, people in 1 holodeck transmitted as holograms to the other holodecks), there could be several hundred or a thousand, which is what you'd want for them to have a broad enough gene pool to repopulate(again, a bit of human DNA spread around probably actually helps). I don't however see Nikolai setting himself up as some kind of king or anything, or trying to influence their society. The whole reason he went to such lengths to save them was BECAUSE he came to respect their culture and wanted to preserve it. I do think the episode ends on a hopeful note. Worf and Nikolai reconcile, and the Boraalans have a chance to start over. Shame about the one dude though. For his own personal situation, and given how rational he seemed talking to Picard, it seems pretty drastic he'd choose to kill himself. I guess though, it's not just finding out there are aliens and having to deal with that reality, it's also the fact he found out that his entire species is dead save his own village, AND that he can't even return to them without doing even more damage.

Also, imagine if the dude leaves the holodeck and the first guy he bumps into is Quark

The episode is mostly quite good but the Prime Directive is stupid here on 2 levels - 1) the Federation seemingly has the tech to save this world and keep it hidden 2) saying Worf needs to disguise himself to save Nikolai in case the locals see him - they are about to die in 3 days…? Nikolai and Bev were 100% in the right.

As I said in my Take, I think the basic purpose of the Prime Directive is to prevent inter-species power imbalances. Starfleet doesn't want to raise a species up and either have that species consider them gods, or feel indebted to Starfleet, or heaven forbid, give them technology that the species will then use to wipe themselves out with. I also don't think Starfleet would waltz down to a planet and stop wars - again as any help they give could end up wiping out that species. And if a species' own actions brought about an extinction level event, I don't think Starfleet would step in to stop that kind of self-destruct. But natural disasters? Species that you could surrupticiously help without revealing your presence or influencing them? Why not help? This episode would have been better were it a rural town of an industrialized species whose own actions caused their atmosphere to fail, but who nevertheless had a culture Nikolai wanted to save (as well as his wife and unborn child) at least then there'd be a debate.

Who Watches the Watchers is way better imo

All the way back in "Heart of Glory", Worf does mention his foster brother who entered Starfleet Academy and left after a year. I don't think he mentioned his name. I feel like someone back then was going through older episodes to look for any callbacks they could do as the series wrapped up.

His brother IS in the Federation -- everyone's in the Federation -- but he's not in Starfleet.

I’m not sure Worf’s brother is a medical doctor, he likely has a PhD in a field of study that made him suited to studying these people.

My opinion of this episode is a little better now than when I first watched it in 1994. C

RIP Paul Sorvino (2022).

Sing-song voice "Worf's got a Sybok! Worf's got a Sybok!"

One solution to their problem when they realized the holodeck wouldn’t sustain the simulation would have been to flood the holodeck with gas and put them all to sleep until they found a new planet.

Discussions in the observation lounge reminds me a lot of Pen Pals, I am never sure what to make of it but I do like that we get a Worf story that’s not tied to the Klingons.

I feel like the beginning of this episode is all about hammering it home that the way they follow the Prime Directive in this episode is standard procedure. The times we see them break it are the times that someone gets personally involved somehow. Since we don't see the 9 times out of 10 that they allow something like this to happen, it seems out of place for us.

Narrator at the end: "In six months, they all contracted an alien virus that their DNA had no chance of defending itself from. They died in agony, they died slowly, and they died alone."

Nicolai works for the Federation. He is not in Starfleet. The Federation=The Government. Starfleet=The Navy.

Americans that aren't fan of the prime directive? What a shocker! This episode is a good exemple of why I think the prime directive is extremely important. Worf's brother literally kidnapped a species on the verge of extinction, put them in an alien environment without consideration for the species, or the new environment, then placed himself as the new spiritual leader for what is essentially a brand new species. The fact that all of that was handwaved by the crew of the Enterprise really show that it was written by Americans in the 90's. I'm 100% on Worf and Picard's side on that. Nikolai should have done a better job keeping records of his research, he is a doctor, of archeology I assume, honor them in a museum instead of with his dick. He should have been arrested and charged with something similar to crimes against humanity.

The prime directive seems stupid and harsh in some situations like this. I always understood it as the scope over a longer time frame. If they interfere and move these people, it could radically change the future of an entire region of space, if in 500 years these people become a dominant race and conquer other species (like the cardassians and bajor) are our crew ultimately responsible for potentially millions of future lives that would have been saved had they not interfered. But I agree that regardless, the way the writers change how our character treat the prime directive one episode to the next is disappointing.

So Nikolai says they'll need a new chronicle as they've lost the old one. And 5 seconds later Worf sees the 6 generations of the saved chronicle that Vorin did, and he's like can I take this as a souvenir? Oh yeah, take it.

I agree on the B. First time i watched this i was more at D level, but it's grown on me a lot with every re- watch, i love it when stuff does does that.

Guys, not for nothing... I love when you guys get lost in laughter. Just popping in to say Keep Up the Good Work... 302 down... 700 plus to go.

I’ve always felt the Prime Directive should have a clause for extreme circumstances (like when an entire species faces extinction from a planetary disaster). To simply stand by and let them die, knowing no new life will ever evolve there, feels like an empty adherence to principle. After all, we try to save species nearing extinction on Earth. Why not elsewhere (I thought we learned this with the whales in Star Trek IV)? I also question the strict separation it draws between worlds. On Earth, once humans built ships to cross oceans, cultures inevitably mixed and influenced each other. We grew together as one planet. If we think of other planets as more distant islands, the same logic applies (we just need to learn to be better with our interactions and not kill one another because of a superiority complex or for advantageous gain). At the end of the day, if you can save a life, and that life wants to be saved, you do it. That should outweigh rigid rules.

Considering i've seen your promo for the 'best ever episode of TNG' meaning you have by now seen it, which i' m guessing we have to endure on Saturday, i wonder if Alex will then say 'okay i'm done' 😂😂😂 Don't give up it gets better, you know it's not going to get worse at least.

S-Tier Weather Commentary!

if the choice is to let them die or let them find out about aliens .. it should be an easy choice.

So interesting that Data is so very important in almost every episode. You gotta wonder how other starships operate well without someone like him. He is faster at analyzing situations and coming up with technical solutions than any living being can be.

I put in my Patreon take that this is my season 7 skip episode so I look forward to you guys changing my view on this one as you so often do with fresh insight and view points on the episode

Wow, Phillip Grischa's patron take was vicious. But I do think it illustrates the problem with only emotion being used to make decisions. Which is why when it comes to making the tough decisions that are supremely impactful to societies, reason and logic should be used _as well as emotion._ We're human beings with advanced brains capable of reasoning, not mere knee-jerk emotional response. We should think through the implications of our actions, and learn from our mistakes in the past. Or we're doomed to a series of catastrophic eff ups that harm others and ourselves as much or more than they ever manage to work out okay in the end. And we'll probably end up destroying ourselves in the process. We can think _and_ feel. We ought to do _both_ if we want to prosper.

Synthehol is the deal-breaker. 😆

You guys liked it less as you talked more. Lol

The odd story credit might have something to do with the fact that the writer based his story on someone else’s material. Apparently not in a plagiarism way (though that is unclear in what I’ve read), but someone else contributed ideas.

I still say Nicholai should have had a Russian accent

I had no idea that Penny Johnson was in this episode! I know her from NCIS, obviously she was older then

Not neccessarily with the Prime Directive, but there are definitely going to some "Holy Shot they just did that" in DS9

the "sacrifice a whole species" isn't normally what the prime directive is about. It's basically "don't interfere with the internal development of a species, especially a less advanced species" If you think this is a bad philosophy, I recommend the short story "Three World Collide" by Eliezer Yudowsky. Humans meet two other species. One , the "Baby Eaters" they are horrifed by, as their evolution happened in such a way that to control population, they eat some of their brood of children, and their concept of "good" is equivalent in their language to "baby eating." The humans think they should reform this species. Untill the "Super Happy Fun People" show up, and find humans manner of existence intolerable, and decide theya re going to re-engineer humans to be more like them. It's a good central idea- the problem is when it's taken to extremes like in this episode where it means people have to go extinct. I think that gets the idea fundamentally wrong. It's not that species have some special destiny, it's that it's arrogant of the federation to try to reform species according to their values, and as is often quoted "every time a more advanced species encounters a less advanced species and tries to update their societies with technology the consequences are inevitably disastrous." On the one hand, it's part of what distinguishes TNG from TOS, where Kirk would come in and solve a society's problems according to his values. The sentiment was a rejection of the idea that western countries should intervene in other societies with the aim of improving them as historically that never went well. But taking it into abstract sci fi, yeah, that idea would even more so be true for entirely different species. The PD is handled better later on- but the episodes where it basically means a world is condemned to die are the worst examples of the idea. There's a lot more to it, and Picard (though I think he's wrong here) very much believes in the principle and is sworn to uphold it, and is very uncomfortable with violating it for slippery slope reasons. I mean, a better analysis here would be the impact a different world and introducing human genes into this small group, plus the possibl central role this story, with seers and magic and signs, may take up in their society. Those things are the issue, not so much saving them. In TOS, the prime directive was purely a plot device, created for drama. But it's often one of the strong dividers between whether you prefer Kirk or Picard. It might have been a book, but Kirk said he never much cared for the prime directive, and that's very much who Kirk is. It's what Wrath of Khan was about. Picard is someone who will uphold the bigger principles even if in some cases where they have a disadavantage, like upholding what is arguably a bad treaty in the last episode. But I agree, the "prime directive compels us to let a species die" is easy in terms of drama, but really misses the point of why the prime directive is a good rule and is a case of taking the rule to an extreme where it no longer serves it's ethical function. By the way, arguments about the Prime Directive are one of the oldest debates in Star Trek fandom, definitely one of the most controversial things in trek. When I was younger I thought it was abd rule. As I've gotten older, I see the wisdom of it, though this episode in particular is the worst case application. To be fair to Picard, when they violated it before to save an entire planet, in this case, they are only saving one particular village because worf's brother happens to have a connection to it as there isn't much they could have done for the planet as a whole short of annoucning themselves months ago and trying to evacuate as much of the planet as they could, which as we saw with the story guy would have not necessarily gone well.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions. The prime directive is meant to keep starfleet from going down that road as policy. For all we know, the events of this episode could condemn this species to a hellish future worse than annhialation. Who knows what introducing human dna is gonna do to their culture when it becomes apparent. Who knows what a different world will do to their psyche. This looks like a happy ending, but the outcome could be disastrous. Picards hand was forced here, and he made lemonaide from lemons.

At a convention, Marina Sirtis said, "For an orphan, Worf sure has a lot of relatives!" 😆 Also, ❤️ 💙 Paul Sorvino!!!

So this one makes Picard look bad. I don't think the prime directive should apply when it's certain death for people. However, what's even wackier is that Picard doesn't want to interfere by saving the people, but he slides on the guy implanting his human genes into the race? I mean, what's more "interfering" then literally adding alien DNA into such a tiny group that could be the starting group of a new world?

Great reaction! The Prime Directive argument is a tricky one. You don't have to look far back in Earth's history to see the damage that interference in the cultures of less developed civilisations has done, whether intentional or unintentional and regardless of the motivations of that interference. A desire to do good can lead to catastrophic consequences for that society. If you start making exceptions to the Prime Directive, where does it end? Does it cease to be worth anything if individuals start interpreting it any way they want? Then again, it is a different thing entirely when you're standing back and watching a society die out. It's an interesting moral dilemma, that I think needed better development in the show, as Picard does come across quite heartless in this episode.

It’s not just that Picard doesn’t want to violate the prime directive. He also faces punishment every time he does. It’s easy to believe a certain way, but it’s always complicated for instance they could only save Nicholai’s “tribe” not the other million or so Barallons.. if they could always pull off a Sarjenka save her planet without any one knowing that would be ideal.

It's all about perspective. An SS compared to the awful insanity of the next episode. (and I say that as a gothic guy!) In all seriousness though: C- I just didn't care.

This one has never been much on my radar, but I found it unexpectedly moving upon a rewatch. I felt really bad for the young man who wandered off the holodeck and I thought the actor's performance was quite good. My main criticism of the episode was that his death was treated a little too casually.

Morbid observation here. The actors who played Worf's step parents, step brother, and biological brother have all passed. Kind of a real life version that relatives of Star Trek characters come to a bad end. Okay, that was just a random thought sitting in my head I let out out.

Starfleet doesn't mean federation

This one's a D for me. I've never liked it; but it's also not bad enough to fall into the 'episodes so bad I want to watch them just to see the two of you realise how bad they are in real time' category; which means it gets added onto the extremely short list of episodes where I skip straight to the whiteboard and watch from there.