What it is instead, plainly, is a very, very Ronald D. No, “Sins of the Father” isn’t a Michael Piller story. If you think I’m talking nonsense, go rewatch the story he wrote to kick off the supposedly conflict-ridden, character focused station show that everyone thinks deconstructs the concept of the voyaging starship. This gets at a confusion that seems to exist over what people think Michael Piller did as opposed to what he actually did: Piller didn’t shift the focus of Star Trek away from voyaging, planets-of-the-week and utopian idealism to character interiority, he showed people how character interiority could be used to further and emphasize utopian idealism.
#Star trek tng sins of the father serial#
Regardless, the fact is this statement is plainly ridiculous-The Star Trek film series was nothing if not an attempt to revive the film serial narrative structure and the whole deal with the Borg has been pretty damn obviously a long-term story arc (albeit something of a clumsy one due to production issues).
I’m going to leave aside the second half of that argument for now: I have some pretty strong feelings on it, but this isn’t the time for me to rant about them (for now, all I’ll say is once again take a gander at Dirty Pair). Then there’s the argument that “Sins of the Father” was the first episode to introduce serialized, arc-based storytelling to Star Trek and that this was manifestly a Good Idea. Yes, those particular story threads weren’t ever fully developed on after those episodes, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have been had the creative teams that worked on them stuck around for longer than one season apiece. So then the argument goes this is the first time a so-called “second tier” character like Worf got a large-scale story arc all to themselves, which would be a fine argument if you chose to conveniently ignore “Heart of Glory” and “The Emissary”. The only characters who did seem to lack a bit of detail were Doctor Crusher (who got better) and Tasha Yar (who isn’t around anymore to complain and thus doesn’t matter anyway). Maybe it’s just me and my judgment is clouded by over 25 years of familiarity with this show, but I haven’t had a hard time piecing down who people like Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Geordi or Data (or, much as I hate him, Wesley) are so far. Which would be true except for the minor fact it does none of those things. That’s all true to be sure, but it’s also blindingly and bluntly obvious to the point I don’t even think it’s really worth taking the time to talk about.īut then what is there left to say about an episode like “Sins of the Father”? I could be my usual grouchy self and dispel some myths about the backstage stuff: This episode is frequently touted as being the moment where real characterization, serialization and world building was introduced to Star Trek: The Next Generation. And yes, it sets up “Redemption”, about which I have a lot to say, but I’ll save for the fifth season. Yes, the award-winning set design and matte paintings are all gobsmackingly good. Yes, yes, this episode sets in stone pretty much everything we think of when we think of Worf and the Klingons, yes it’s a strong character piece and yes it’s a major step in the development of more explicit serialization in episodic Star Trek. This is the kind of episode I hate because it leaves me with perishingly little new erudition to add to the glut of discourse that already exists. But “Sins of the Father” is also the kind of episode that’s exceedingly difficult for me to write about as it’s been extensively analysed and historicized by just about every major publication to cover the franchise. This episode is frequently held up as an important turning point for the series and rightly so, as it defines a lot about what Star Trek: The Next Generation (and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine too, for that matter) is going to look like going forward. What “The Enemy” was for the Romulans, “Sins of the Father” is for the Klingons.