User Reviews

When Worf's brother Kurn arrives on Deep Space Nine it is not a happy occasion; Worf's refusal to leave Star Fleet and fight for the Empire has left his family stripped of its land, status and worst of all its honour. This has little effect on Worf as he had little to do with the Empire but Kurn can't live with the dishonour and insists Worf carries out a Klingon ritual and kills him. Reluctantly Worf agrees but he is interrupted by Dax and Odo and Kurn survives. Odo offers him a job with his security team but has to let him go when it becomes clear that he still has a death wish. While this is happening on the station Kira and O'Brien have a run in with the Klingons on the Bajoran border, they claim to be on routine exercises but the evidence suggests that they are in fact sowing a minefield. When one of the Klingon ships accidentally triggers a mine it is towed to DS9 and Worf and Kurn go aboard to discover the locations and detonation codes of all the cloaked mines. With this information it is possible to destroy the field which would have cut Bajor and DS9 off from the Federation. Kurn still wants to die but Dax come up with a way for him to live without the dishonour; it does mean Worf will still lose his brother though.

This was a good episode with both action and good character development. As has happened before Worf finds himself divided between his Klingon heritage and his loyalty to Star Fleet and its laws. Tony 'Candyman' Todd did a good job as Kurn even though I didn't recognise him under his Klingon make up.

This is one of those episodes that I enjoy but I need to guard myself against contemplating the plot holes big enough to fit the Enterprise E through.

Even if some of the writing and plot resolution is .... murky .... Tony Todd is always so compelling when playing the Kurn character. In my viewing of this episode I could see parallels between a drug addicts internal shame and Kurn's reaction to losing his honor.

I have to agree with some of the more negative reviews for this episodes handling of death ---- Erasing Kurns memories could be considered a fate worse then death. In hindsight, the writers should have inserted some space magic line about storing Kurns memories on a data drive should something crazy like Worf regaining his families honor happen in the next 2-3 years.

Perhaps Kurn could have found some sketchy Cardassian doctor to perform a brain wipe surgery so that the dubious decision would not fall onto Worf/Bashir? Well, I am pretty sure the Klingon honor rulebook would consider that a form of suicide but maybe the Klingon's are philosophical about such things.

At the very least the episode does manage to stimulate discussion on the definition of death. There's a guy who reviewed this episode on IMDB and he completely destroy it but he was fired up enough about the subject matter to write at least 1000 words. I think Worf should have done the Klingon death scream before reanimating Kurn 2.0.

And yes, this is definitely a black eye moment for the starfleet medical profession. Julian ---- What the hell man? This is one of those moments when you put a sheet over the Hippocratic oath.

I'm giving it an 8. The ending is completely insane but it's something to talk about and Tony Todd is just a joy to watch.

When I saw the title of this I knew Kurn was in it and I was delighted because he is one of my favorite guest characters in the modern Star Trek universe. Then he asked for the Klingon ritual of ceremonial death by the hands of a family member I was heartbroken. Tony Todd brought us a wonderful Klingon in Kurn and the contrasts between him and Worf were amazing character wise. Eventually Worf does the Klingon thing and agrees to kill him only to be stopped by Jadzia and security. Eventually Dr. Bashir wipes the majority of Kurn's memory and he's surgically altered to look different. A friend of Worf's family takes Kurn, now known as Rodek and poor Worf walks lonely and alone again onto the promenade. A sad episode left wide open to be followed up and never was..........

This episode begins as Kurn, Worf's younger brother arrives at DS9, drunk and belligerent, demanding Worf perform a ceremony of death ritual on him.

Kurn lost everything when Worf sided with the Federation; he lost his family, home, ships, seat on the council and his honor. He is a broken man, and wants to die.

Worf agrees and goes thru with the ritual, but Dax and Odo bust into Worf's quarters moments later, and Kurn is saved by Dr. Bashir, much to Kurn's deep frustration.

Once he is healed, Worf sets about talking Odo into giving Kurn a job as a security agent. The problem being, Kurn still has a death wish and almost immediately ends up back in the hospital, with a disruptor wound. Odo informs Worf that Kurn is no longer a security agent, which should come as no surprise to Worf, yet seems to. A man who has a death wish will end up getting others hurt or killed trying to put himself in danger.

So finally after it's clear Kurn isn't suited to life aboard DS9, Dax comes up with the solution to selectively wipe Kurn's memory, and place him with a friend of the Mogh's, who is willing to take Kurn in and pretend he's his son and help him thru his memory loss, etc. Once the selective memory wipe is done, the only thing Kurn knows for sure is that he is Klingon. How convenient!

This episode was really good up until the moment "selective memory wipe" was introduced. It feels so skeevy to see them take a grown man's entire life away from him, without actually taking his life. Which is worse?

Not to mention, I can't imagine someone like Dr. Bashir going along with it under any circumstance. I sympathize with Kurn. He's lost everything over something he had zero control over. It is one of the dumber tenets of Klingon society, in my opinion.

I wish the writers had written this episode differently.

Instead of openly siding with the Federation, Worf could have sided with the Klingons while secretly spying for the Federation. There were enough hints about changelings, that he could have gone under the premise that "something is amiss in the Klingon High Council." His attempts to investigate and interrogate Gowron et al covertly, could have been interesting, I think.

And they still could have ended that scenario with the episode where Sisko, O'Brien and Odo go in disguise as Klingons to expose the changeling in the Klingon's midst. Worf would have just met them when they got there, rather than travel with.

I realize it would change a lot of episodes in between, where Worf's activity would be completely different, but it was just a thought. Could've been fun.

This is not a bad episode, by any means, but the ending is deeply flawed for a variety of reasons.

This episode has always creeped me out. The decision to erase Kurn's memory is a really disturbing one. Kurn's entire identity is erased. For all intents and purposes the person that was Kurn is dead, and his body is walking around with an artificially engineered personality. I find this deeply disturbing. And I think it's incredibly unethical for Bashir to do something like this, especially without Kurn's knowledge.

In the end they should have let Worf complete the ritual, but instead they want us to believe they had a way to totally erase Kurn's memory while conveniently leaving the part about his own race, but the plan wouldn't be complete if they didn't have one family to pretend he's part of, how lucky they found one quick humm.

The resolution here can't possibly jive with the very well established notions of Klingon honor. It's honorable to wipe somebody's memory (whether they agree or not)?

So they expend an episode telling worf that murder his brother is wrong, then worf brings his drunk brother to bashir to completely erase his memory and basically end his life without any approval from him, bashir is completely fine with this

It has the seed of a good episode but the end lost itself totally... don't ger drunk near worf he can bring you to bashir and completely erase your memory without your approval...

As as cherry on the cake worf says in the end he has no family as he has no brother anymore, I thought he had a son not?

I always liked Klingon episodes in Star Trek TNG, because they had depth, great character development and offered great insight into the Klingon culture. Sadly, in DS9 the writers destroyed everything good that was built in TNG regarding Klingons, and their role as 'strange aliens' was largely taken by the Cardassians. Now I don't have a problem with focusing on the Cardassians, as most DS9 episodes involving them are really good, but it makes no seanse to negatively affect another race while doing that. "Killing Kurn without killing him", as Dax put it, is a simplistic way to cut the remaining ties with the Klingon world, eliminate one of the few Klingons (if not the only one) who was truly authentic - i.e. Kurn, Worf's brother - and artificially develop further the pathetic romance between Worf and Jadzia Dax. The fact that the Founders (i.e. The Changlings, the Shapeshifters) managed to seed distrust between the powers of the Alpha Quadrant - especially between the Klingons and the Federation - could have been much better and more realistically achieved than making Gowron turn his back on the allies that provided him with his Arbiter of Succession, making the Federation treat Klingons like "allies" that should better keep the distance (despite them coming to help DS9 against the Dominion in the previous episodes) or arbitrarily discarding Kurn's character because he was temporarily 'persona non grata' in the Empire. After all, Worf endured a greater dishonor for decades until he briefly restored his family's pride - why couldn't Kurn successfully face the same problem using his brother's guidance?

Anyway, all these illogical choices of the writers pale in comparison with the abomination of erasing a sentient being's whole memory because, aparently ... "it's better" than physically killing that being. Excuse me? How is erasing someone's memory (I'm not talking about one particular piece of memory here, but the ENTIRE memory and experiences of that person) different from killing that someone, apart from the issue of terminating his biological body? The whole concept of life in the case of sentient beings (even more so for intelligent life) revolves around their memories and experiences - without them, that particular person is non-existant. Resequence a person's DNA and erase that person's memory, and he's a different person altogether - his or her old self is dead, period. It's still a crime, and the perpetrator is still a murderer, albeit not in a 'standard' fashion. That can go for real life too, not just for a TV series character.

Also, what's funny is that of all people, the one performing the procedure is ... a Federation doctor. You know, the same Federation that swore to respect intelligent life (which is fundamentally based on a person's memories and experiences, as explained earlier). Another funny thing is why they couldn't erase just the problematic memories/experiences to solve the issue (maybe even planting a fake memory to help the process), instead of the whole memory. We know that in TNG that was possible, when dr. Pulaski SELECTIVELY erased the problematic memories of Sarjenka, a girl character from TNG's season 2 episode 15, 'Pen Pals', instead of wiping out her entire memory. But then, it seems that the Federation scientific research (and most importantly, its application) not only did not progress throughout both series, but actually regressed between TNG and DS9 - that's probably why the Defiant had to use limited Romulan cloaking technology instead of taking advantage of the MUCH superior cloaking technique from TNG's season 7 episode 12, 'Pegasus'. Granted, there was the Treaty of Algeron that prohibited the development or use of cloaking tech by the Federation, but that was already broken in that TNG episode, not to mention the existential threat that the Dominion posed to the Federation which should logically take precedence over any limitations enforced by an Alpha Quadrant treaty. But then, as I mentioned, logic doesn't seem to be the writers strong point - they mostly decide to do things in the series because, and I quote... "it's fun". Yuck!

I was greatly disappointed by this episode, because it started with so much promise and had a lot going for it until the last chapter. I had always liked the character of Kurn from his first appearance in TNG: s03 e17: Sins of the Father and was always disappointed that the writers didn't do more with him. So again, this story that had so much going for it, reached a climax that totally undermined everything that happened before it. It is as though they had lost the last few pages of the original script and someone made up a replacement on the fly. What a disappointing end for such a great character such as Kurn.

Worf, a character who we've seen experience so much tragedy in his life - and who (apparent to even those who haven't followed his journey from TNG,) is very obviously struggling to feel like he belongs on DS9, is mourning the loss of the Enterprise and the family he was part of there, is given no indication that anyone (with the exception of Dax) is even willing to *try* to understand him, his culture, his complicated history with his people, the tragic separation and subsequent estrangement of him and Kurn during the already tragic events at Khitomer.. Until this point, I had thought Sisko a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and understanding leader - someone more like Capt. Picard and less like a hot-headed commander who didn't care about the well-being of his crew. This episode left me questioning his, and many others' on DS9, sense of compassion, and frankly, their sense of humanity. Even Julian Bashir, who up to this point, would seem the obvious one to object to the ritual but who would at least use the situation to gain a greater understanding of Worf, of Klingon culture - his compassion and curiosity are two of his biggest character traits. It seemed out of character, and far too cruel for the doctor. This is the same Bashir who tries to help Jem'Hader soldiers. Who befriends Garak. Who stays friends with Garak, even after discovering he was part of the Obsidian Order.

He doesn't even ask Dax about it, which would have been a very natural feeling scene to incorporate. Then having Bashir ask Worf, to at least try to understand. And then try to convince Worf there are other ways. I'm not saying I wanted Kurn to die at the end of this episode- although arguably, he did - but I wanted and expected more from the crew of DS9. Especially from Sisko & Bashir. I was happy to see Chief try to talk to Sisko, but that it is only one bit of a scene. Have Bashir and Sisko talk to Chief about Worf. Have the crew ask him. The lack of inclusion of any of this left a bad taste in my mouth.

It made me wish Captain Picard happened to be near the station to argue on behalf of Worf, to make the station see they are sorely lacking in their cultural knowledge. To me, their behavior and attitudes do not reflect any of the Federation values they are supposed to stand for and protect.

And it made me wish Worf had made a stand against them. Showing them all that he has sacrificed his Klingon identity, sense of belonging, and family for the Federation. And now he is alone. And that the people who are supposed to be part of the Federation he has sacrificed so much for are not willing to even discuss or try to understand him. They don't even appear to care that he has now not only lost his place among his people, he has lost his brother. The only link to the family that was cruelly slaughtered and taken from him as a child.

But they, apparently, couldn't care less about that, either. I'm surprised Worf doesn't request reassignment that very moment.