Klingon episodes in Star Trek tend to be Very Serious Indeed. Some of the most powerful pieces of drama in the franchise have been Klingon-focused, from “Errand of Mercy,” “A Private Little War,” and “Day of the Dove” on the original series to episodes on the spinoffs ranging from TNG’s “Reunion” to DS9’s “Blood Oath” to Voyager’s “Day of Honor” to Enterprise’s “Judgment” to Discovery’s “Will You Take My Hand?” to SNW’s “Under the Cloak of War.”
But Klingons and humor can mix just fine. After all, the most popular comedy episode of the franchise, the original series’ “The Trouble with Tribbles,” was a Klingon episode, and DS9 did some great Klingon comedy in “The House of Quark.”
LD has already mined the Klingons for humor in the past (“Envoys,” “wej Duj,” “The Inner Fight”), and we get it again this week with half the storyline, which takes place on Qo’noS. Boimler and Mariner are sent there to investigate another of the quantum fissures that has opened, and Mariner takes advantage of their little side quest to catch up with Ma’ah. Introduced in “wej Duj” as a junior officer with aspirations, who then became a captain, only to lose his captaincy following his own junior officers taking over his ship thanks to Nick Locarno in “Twovix.”
Ma’ah is now back on the family farm with his brother. Malor is the quintessential younger brother: a bit of a layabout, always making fun of Ma’ah, doing as little work as possible, spending more time putting decorative horns on the ship than working. (The horns are from an animal he slew in battle. When Ma’ah points out that he just ran the beast over, Malor bellows, “that counts!”) In particular, Malor takes great glee in his brother’s fallen state, reduced to making and delivering bloodwine, as well as wrangling targs and harvesting gagh.
In addition, Ma’ah is ignoring Mariner’s multiple attempts to contact him, as he has no interest in letting her see him in his reduced state.
Eventually, though, she finds him at the Warrior’s Pit, a bar to which Ma’ah is delivering bloodwine. Boimler is, of course, having the time of his life getting beat up by Klingons in a bar. Mariner wants to help Ma’ah get his groove back, as it were, and Boimler finds a tradition—the Klingons, after all, have tons of traditions and rituals, which was also a source of humor in “The House of Quark”—by which he can have his captaincy restored by the Oversight Council.
The makeup of the council is a good news/bad news thing. One member is Mariner’s old friend K’Orin, whom we met way back in “Envoys.” He’s on the council now because he threw his back out disemboweling a Romulan spy. The head of the tribunal, unfortunately, is Bargh, the brother of the captain Ma’ah killed, and he will continue to deny Ma’ah’s petition to be restored as long as he’s in charge.
Boimler, however, pulls a ritual out of his ass, by which a petitioner can be restored via an endurance test. However, he has to have a minyan—er, that is, a quv beq of four taking the test.
And so Ma’ah, Mariner, a very reluctant Malor, and a very enthusiastic Boimler go through a gauntlet of painstiks (similar to what Worf went through in TNG’s “The Icarus Factor,” and which they survive by all jumping on top of the very large Malor so the painstiks are only hitting one physical form at a time spread out over four bodies, yay science) and then have to subdue a very very very very very large targ.
The final test is the tricky part: they have to pick someone in the party to sacrifice. Boimler—who is way too much in the spirit of all this—actually volunteers, but Ma’ah would rather sacrifice himself. This is not a surprise, as he’s obviously just going through the motions and has lost his will to live. The only reason he’s done this much is because Mariner bullied him into it. He finally admits that he doesn’t want to be a captain again, because it would be in Bargh’s fleet.
Luckily, there’s another solution, helped by the fact that the other two members of the council don’t like Bargh much, either. Ma’ah invokes the Rite of Forced Conscription, and forces Bargh to become part of his minyan—um, quv beq. And then Ma’ah chooses Bargh to be the one sacrificed.
This, of course, results in a big fight between the two of them, with betrayals and reversals and lots and lots of purple blood, before Bargh finally winds up dead, and Ma’ah winds up captain—of his truck, with Malor as his first officer. He doesn’t want anything more than that.
The other plot gives us some insight into Dr. Migleemo, as we find out that the Klowahkan people are epicures, and food critics occupy the highest social class on Klowahka. The Cerritos is escorting two of the most renowned food critics back home from a tour of alien restaurants. Migleemo is falling all over himself to treat them well (he’s so nervous, he’s molting).
Disaster strikes when the critics hate every bit of food he brings them. He even tries to prepare a meal himself rather than rely on the replicator, but they hate that, too—so much so that they are forced to arrest Migleemo for feeding them poor food, which is a high crime on Klowahka.
Freeman objects, but doesn’t really do anything to stop one of her crew from being arrested, which seems to me to be a jurisdictional issue that should’ve gotten more screen time.
However, Rutherford and Tendi are on the case, and they figure out that the problem must be with the critics. Upon arrival at Klowahka, visitors are given a dish of oysters. Rutherford and Tendi swap the oysters for excrement, and the critics don’t even notice, proclaiming it the best food they’ve ever had.
Upon revealing that they’ve just sung the praises of eating shit, they admit that their taste buds have atrophied due to the pressure of providing constant criticism, and they’ve been bullshitting their way through eating for months. Migleemo is freed, the critics are disgraced, but Migleemo offers them therapy to help them get over their issues and get back to tasting food properly. The critics—who have viewed Migleemo’s becoming a therapist the way that wealthy people view sanitation workers—are suddenly sucking up to the doctor. (When Tendi questions if helping them like this is ethical, Freeman waves it off. “They’re punks, let him have his win.”)
This is a delightful episode, giving us a deeper look at Klingon life, with Ma’ah’s family farm, and exploring the Klowahkan culture, all with the show’s trademark humor, but never bleeding over into ridiculousness. Everything we see of Klingon culture is consistent with what we’ve seen before, and everything we see of Klowahkan culture is, as usual, a bit too planet-of-hats, but enjoyable for all that.
Random thoughts
- One of the guest voices is Mary Chieffo, marking her second time voicing a Klingon. She had the recurring role of L’Rell on Discovery’s first two seasons. Given that she’s in charge of the Klingon Empire, it’s disappointing that we haven’t seen her on SNW, but good on LD for having her be Klingon again.
- At one point, two Klingons flying airbikes nearly crash into each other. “Experience bIJ!” they yell at each other, a deep-cut reference to the Star Trek VHS Interactive Board Game.
- In a very clever bit of world-building, the Klowahkans’ silverware are tiny beak-like tools that “bite” off tiny bits of the food that they can then put on their tongues. It’s exactly the kind of tool a bird-like species would develop, and bravo to the production staff for thinking that through. (Now if only they’d realized that a species with a beak for a mouth wouldn’t be able to form M or P sounds, so the name “Migleemo” doesn’t really work…)
- Boimler now has a pencil-thin mustache and more stubble (which he insists on calling a beard) as he works his way toward the beard his alternate-universe counterpart had in “Dos Cerritos.” He also describes his transferring from Titan back to Cerritos in a way that doesn’t entirely match how I remember it happening in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open,” but whatever, he was trying to motivate Ma’ah…
- Your humble rewatcher showed life on a much larger Klingon farm in his novel Star Trek: Klingon Empire: A Burning House. The scenes on that farm were among my favorite to write in any of my works of fiction. The vibe of the farm in this episode is very similar, which was extremely cool to see.
