Star Trek: The Emissary

Episode: "The Emissary"
Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2, Episode 20
Original Air Date: June 26, 1989

via Memory Alpha

Starfleet sends the Enterprise to intercept a Klingon warship.  The crew is emerging from a 75-year cryogenic hibernation and it is feared that they will assume the Klingons are still at war with the Federation.  But that's all just window dressing for the real story.  Joining them for the mission is K'Ehleyr, a half-human, half-Klingon diplomat who also has a romantic past with our own Worf.

As stated before, I love the Worf stories and this is one of the most important.  We get to observe the Klingon mating rituals first hand which is, of course, awesome - not to mention deliciously uncomfortable.  K'Ehleyr herself, however, is the real treat, the perfect romantic foil for Worf.  Her biracial identity is, if anything, a more concrete manifestation of Worf's own self-concept struggles.  She teases him and challenges him.  She loves him but she is her own woman.  When Tracy Tormé wrote the character Doctor Selar (also played by Suzie Plakson) for "The Schizoid Man," he saw her as a potential mate for Worf.  He was disappointed when it didn't happen, feeling a Klingon-Vulcan relationship would have been more interesting.  I disagree.  K'Ehleyr is ideal.

"The Emissary" is also a good Picard leadership style episode.  When Worf raises objections to working with K'Ehleyr, Picard insists he do so anyway.  Lean into the discomfort, Lieutenant...

Board Game Notes

The episode begins with a poker game and appropriate to the rest of the story, the focus is on Worf's style of play.  "Klingons never bluff."

via Memory Alpha

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Suzie Plakson (K'Ehleyr) was born June 3, 1958 in Buffalo, New York, though she was raised in Kingston, Pennsylvania.  She went to Northwestern for college.  This was her second of five Trek appearances as four different characters.

via Memory Alpha

In television, Plakson had a principal role in Love & War and recurring roles in Mad About You and How I Met Your Mother, plus a recurring voice role on Dinosaurs.  In film, she appeared in such movies as My Stepmother Is an Alien, Disclosure and Wag the Dog.  She has dabbled in country music as well, releasing an album called DidnWannaDoIt!