Heart of Glory

The Enterprise enters the neutral zone, to investigate the distress call of a Talarian freighter. The freighter is badly damaged and three life forms are detected aboard. An away team beams over and finds three Klingons: Korris (Vaughn Armstrong), Konmel (Charles Hyman), and Kunivas (Robert Bauer), the latter found wounded. The away team returns with them to the Enterprise before the freighter explodes. Kunivas is taken to sickbay, and Korris meets with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). The Klingon explains that they were passengers when the freighter was attacked by a Ferengi ship; the Klingons took over the freighter to fend off and destroy the Ferengi ship but the damage sustained left the freighter adrift and faltering. As Korris and Konmel are shown to quarters, they are surprised to hear about a fellow Klingon, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn), who is serving within Starfleet. Kunivas' condition worsens; Korris, Konmel and Worf are present when he dies. The three let out a fierce roar as per Klingon custom (a warning to the dead that a Klingon warrior is about to arrive). As they return to the Klingons' quarters, Konmel is disappointed that Kunivas was not killed by an enemy, leading Worf to question the nature of the attack on the freighter; Korris and Konmel quickly change the subject. Worf forces Korris to reveal the truth: the three had commandeered the freighter, to seek out a place they could live as true Klingons and the damage to the freighter was a result of a battle with a Klingon ship. When the two are seen near the ship's battle bridge, hoping to steal the drive section and escape, they are placed in the brig. The Enterprise is soon met by a Klingon battlecruiser, captained by Commander K'Nera (David Froman), who demands the return of the fugitive Klingons. Knowing that Korris and Konmel will be tried and executed if they are returned, Worf argues instead for their exile to a hostile planet but K'Nera refuses. Korris and Konmel use parts secreted on their uniforms to assemble a disruptor pistol and escape from the brig; Konmel is killed as Korris takes over the Engineering deck. Picard and Worf race to Engineering and Worf tries to reason with Korris who is threatening to destroy the warp core and take the Enterprise with him. Korris attempts to persuade Worf to come with him and conquer the galaxy as a true Klingon, but Worf retorts that a true Klingon fights out of honor and loyalty and that Korris has demonstrated neither. Korris is enraged and Worf takes the opportunity to shoot him dead. K'Nera is told of the deaths of the fugitives and Worf declares that they "died well", when asked of their manner of death. Worf agrees to consider an offer to serve aboard the Klingon battlecruiser after his service aboard the Enterprise is complete, but when communications with K'Nera are broken off, he assures the bridge crew he was just being polite. ==Production==

portions of the script didn't make any actual sense in translation and were simply Klingon sounding words created by Hurley. The Klingon battlecruiser seen in "Heart of Glory" was footage re-used from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, while the freighter was a general model which would come to be reused throughout The Next Generation and other Star Trek television series. He was pleased with the outcome, describing it as the easiest of all of the Next Generation episodes he directed. He said that it was a show where "every hand we had was a 21. It just worked." ==Reception==

"Heart of Glory" was first broadcast in the United States on March 21, 1988, in broadcast syndication. Critical response Several reviewers re-watched the episode after the end of the series. Keith DeCandido reviewed the episode for Tor.com in July 2011. DeCandido is a novelist and has produced works based in the Star Trek universe, and describes himself as "the Klingon guy" as far as Star Trek novelists are concerned. He was not overly pleased with the episode, describing the plot as being slow and saying that Michael Dorn's acting was "mediocre" but would get "much much better" later in the series. He praised David Froman as K'Nera, describing him as having "tremendous presence" and thought that although Vaughn Armstrong was excellent as Admiral Forrest in Enterprise, in this early episode he was "overly histrionic". He described the overhead shot of Worf after the death of Korris as "just silly", and thought that the episode overall was a "forgettable mess". He gave it a rating of four out of ten. Michelle Erica Green watched the episode for TrekNation in August 2007, and described it as one of her favourite episodes from the first season. She thought it laid the groundwork for later episodes in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager regarding the Klingon culture. she felt that the drama seemed artificial and that the writers forced a situation where Worf had to kill one of the Klingons as if "justifying the brutality as necessary for the good of Starfleet". Jamahl Epsicokhan at his website "Jammer's Reviews" also thought that the drama with Worf deciding whether or not to join the Klingons was questionable. He thought it was hard to believe that the crew seemed to know Worf as little as they did at this point in the series but praised it for being the starting point for Klingon-based stories in the franchise. He gave it a score of three out of four. ==Home media release==

The first home media release of "Heart of Glory" was on VHS cassette, appearing on November 11, 1992 in the United States and Canada. The episode was later included on the Star Trek: The Next Generation season one DVD box set, released in March 2002. The season one Blu-ray set was released on July 24, 2012. ==Notes==