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Episode
148
The Bonding
A young boy aboard the Enterprise is orphaned when his mother dies on a mission led by Lt. Worf. Now it is up to Counselor Troi to take care of the boy. Or is it up to Lt. Worf? Or maybe it is up to the alien intelligence pretending to be the boy’s mother. Death and dying. Friends and family. There is much to explore when we put The Bonding in the Mission Log.
This was the most glaring example of the “one and done” phenomenon of TNG. Just rewatched and …
1. Why was Worf putting out candles w his knife so SOON?! Picard was barely out of the turbolift! Lol
2. The kids on ship concept seems more out of place than ever…it would be terrible to risk newborns in a Neutral Zone incident (episode?) or get them stuck in a turbolift.
3. Worf never mentioning Jeremy Aster again. Geez couldnt you just mention he is doing well in school ? Or visited your parents in Minsk? Just dialogue.
4. Wish Jack Crusher’s death could have been elaborated on.
5. Kubler Ross’ stages of grief should have been touched on at least a la Homer Simpson vs Poison Blowfish. Haha.
6. Who is that asian security guard at tactical reacting to Worf’s boobytrap explosion? Intense button pushing!!!! Someone help me find out his name! I’ve been on Wikia Star Trek’s TNG UNNAMED 1701-D page. He is pictured but not named. Lol
7. You’d think the Alien would at least explain herself to Jeremy and say goodbye.
Gabriel Damon “Jeremy Aster” in episode of “ER”
I barely remembered this episode prior to rewatching it before Mission Log. While I didn’t warm to the actor playing Jeremy or the energy being’s motivations, this episode hit me unexpectedly hard. The change of pace to slow down and deal with grieving and how others are affected was wonderful. The heart of the episode, I felt, was with Wes’s reactions and in his interactions with his mother (I completely agree with Ken here – Beverly’s wordless reaction brought tears), and Wil Wheaton’s acting in his last scene with Picard was perfect, capped by his gentle “but not any more. Not even a little”. This one was a pleasure to revisit.
I agree. More episodes to show the aftermath of a battle, incident or death were needed. Lower Decks, Data’s Day were good examples. People die and its important to show the process.
There’s a surprising roster of random orphans just being stockpiled by the Enterprise crew.
Just to throw in my cents on Omicron Ceti III, an induced happiness may be good but being true to thy self is more important. The people we see freed from the spores are not satisfied having been under their influence, or nowhere near enough to return to that state.
And it is a shame that Aster wasn’t heard from again because Worf as a surrogate to an orphaned Human lends itself so well to his care by Human parents. However unlikely it is that we’ll see Michael Dorn’s Federation Captain Worf, I can accept such a role for this complicated character as well as any position in the Klingon Empire.
Poor follow up. At least a passing reference to how he’s doing? Having soup w Russian grandparents? Geeeez.
The thing that strikes me even more so that it did when it first aired is, why was Jeremy left alone after the death of his mother? Counselor Troi, Counselor No Name, Doctor Crusher, Doctor Selar, someone should be with him. 24th Century or not, this boy has lost his father and his mother and being left alone is not only not healthy but possibly dangerous.
Agreed. I recall noting that glaring error as well back in 1990.
During the podcast you asked why the Marla Thing feels guilty and wants Jeremy to feel happy. I have an idea why. Worf’s away team doesn’t detect the danger of the mines and it costs Marla her life. When Geordi’s away team heads down they find all the mines, uncovered in plain sight and disarmed. The energy beings feel guilt, because they didn’t disarm these mines before (they weren’t in any danger, since the mines couldn’t hurt them), but after the mines take a life they disarm all of them and seek to repair the damage that they could have prevented.
The Marla copy indicated guilt when she said something about death from an old war… The energy beings seemed disappointed by their physical being co-planet denizens. Lol. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
You mentioned it was good seeing the computer core set again. I agree. However I’m still puzzled why are bot Troi and Warf are there to begin with, and why it’s such a good place to have that kind of conversation.
Wow, I did NOT take Riker’s drinking as loosing a one time fling. Nor did I take his comment to Data to indicate that anything went on between them.
Her husband died maybe 3 years ago, with a young child to take care of. I mean, I don’t know what Marla’s lifestyle was like, but I’m not so sure Riker would want to get in the middle of that, or find the time to.
Oh hey, another species that rendered themselves extinct do to civil war. I need to get a tally on that, with a side note for the races like in The Dauphin and Loud As A Whisper.
It just occurred to me that, realistically, if Picard was responsible for Jack Crusher’s death and as a result had forged a relationship with Wesley and Beverly, he’d be pretty sympathetic to their plight. Of course he is, and this is written into the show. BUT, he’s also (in the past) fond of yelling “shut up Wesley.” I don’t know about you, but to me that’s borderline psychotic behavior. If we take this Jack Crusher backstory into account, then Picard being mean to Wesley is out of character, and WAY over the top.
This may be my favorite episode so far, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear Ken agree.
By the end, it felt like Star Trek was spoon feeding us the morals about dealing with death but honestly, I was gobbling it up. Especially the heart-breaking sight of the adorable little kid in the oversized Klingon vest- symbolic of how his world may be a little big for him now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love it when Star Trek sweats the small stuff. ONE death. We’ve seen more deaths, we’ve seen worse deaths, we’ve even seen the deaths of characters we know. Still, this episode put the aftermath of one death under a microscope and forced us to feel every thing that follows. It was beautiful and painful and it worked.