[7.4/10] On 9/11, most Americans were processing some kind of grief. But I remember some specific advice from psychologists about the effect of the tragedy on children. Namely, they warned not to let kids watch footage of the towers crumbling over and over again, because many of them won’t understand that the event is over, that it’s not happening over and over again, and it could magnify the trauma of it. It’s a reminder that children process tragedies differently. Their understanding of the world and themselves isn’t fully formed yet, which makes events that rock both harder to deal with.
Enter poor Timothy, the young survivor of a disaster aboard the Vico, a ship ravaged by a mysterious catastrophe that left him the only one alive. Data manages to rescue the boy, forging a special connection between the two of them, but Timothy has lost everything, including his parents, in the tragedy. The young man comes up with an orthodox but temporarily useful coping mechanism. He pretends to be an android, imitating Data down to the amusingly frequent head tilts, because androids don’t have to experience emotions.
That’s a strong jumping off point. The story, by staff writer Joe Menosky and frequent Star Trek (and D.C. Animated Universe) contributor Hilary J. Bader meld gimmick with psychology and intrigue. Watching a child try to approximate Data’s movements and affect is cute, creating some pleasant and funny moments between the two. At the same time, the show never forgets that Timothy is a boy dealing with unfathomable loss, zeroing in on the emotional thought process behind his choice. And the bond between Data and Timothy matters to the plot, because what really happened aboard the Vico could be the key to saving the Enterprise, which has encountered the same “dark cluster,” from suffering the same fate. It’s a sound script, which speaks to the show’s ability to hum along well in its fifth season.
The catch is that “Hero Worship” comes hot on the heels of “New Ground”, another story about a child still healing from trauma, a parental figure and Starfleer officer struggling to help them overcome it, with the climax of the story validating the bond between them in the midst of a ship-threatening calamity. It’s not the writers’ fault that the episodes were arranged this way, but it creates a certain “We’ve seen this same sort of idea, only done better” shadow that hangs over Data’s turn to be a space dad.
One of the differences between the two episodes, though, is that “Hero Worship” centers more of the story on Timothy than on his surrogate father. Young Joshua Harris does perfectly fine work in the role, but the script asks a lot of him, and the young actor just isn’t up to conveying the realism and emotional range necessary to make some of the more complex scenes truly land. That’s a problem, though, since Timothy’s emotional journey is the core of this story, so it rises and falls on Harris’s ability to convey what Timothy is going through.
Still, performance aside, we see the trajectory of that journey well enough, with a strong emotional throughline. Timothy is laboring under the weight of his psychological trauma. Pretending to be an android, someone who doesn’t feel and doesn’t fail, gives him relief from that trauma. But it’s a temporary palliative, one that Data has to help his young ward move on from despite their bond.
That’s the other half of “Hero Worship”. As always in Data-centric episodes, the experience helps our favorite android understand human concepts like fear and parenthood better through his efforts to help another. Data’s compassion for Timothy, aiming to help him get through this difficult period, aids Data’s own path toward humanity in the way that kids always do, by working as slanted but telling reflections of the people looking after them. From simple realizations about his “head servos” to more profound ones about the value of pain if it means the capacity for joy, Data’s care for this child reveals important things about himself as well.
That last one is the key, though. There’s a powerful thought behind Data’s urge for Timothy to appreciate his humanity rather than run from it. Grief can be difficult. Pain can haunt us, invading our thoughts and making us want to shut it off at all costs. But the same pieces of ourselves that experience those emotional hardships also give us our most rich and satisfying experiences in life. Stepping away from that may be tempting, but it’s ultimately limiting, and confronting our pain is worthwhile, if only to provide for our ability to feel the full range of emotions, joy included, once again.
And yet part of Timothy’s trauma is a misplaced survivor’s guilt. The young boy’s been lying about what really happened aboard the Vico because he blames himself for the disaster. His arm hit a control panel when the catastrophe erupted, and so he mistakenly believes that he caused it. The strongest scene in the episode (save maybe Data explaining his willingness to venture sadness to feel joy), comes when Data, Troi, and Picard all explain to Timothy, in and age appropriate way, that this wasn’t his fault, that the panels don’t work that way, and that by hiding the truth he only prolonged his own unnecessary guilt.
Of course, when Timothy does come clean, he’s able to give Data the info necessary to save the day. It turns out to be a pretty standard “What if we used less power instead of more?” solution, but the import is there. Timothy’s honesty, bolstered by his confidence that he’s not to blame for what happened, allows him to help his friend save everyone from succumbing to the same fate.
But to make it happen, Data had to meet Timothy where he lived and share ideas at his level. Only then would Timothy come clean about the truth of how he experienced this tragedy. “Hero Worship” isn’t the greatest episode of Star Trek. It’s a little slow and a little cheesy and even a little simple in places. But it seizes on that core truth, about the different ways kids understand traumatic events and their own reactions to it, that gives it a piece of something profound to light the way.
It's interesting how Data's always cabable to explain how he isn't emotionally impacted by events yet it sometimes feels like a distraction. And I wonder, by what routine Picard chooses which uniform to wear.
With those questions I think you can assume the episode itself didn't provide much of anything.
Shout by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2017-06-29T21:58:30Z
TNG gets a child actor who isn't terrible for once, but unfortunately the episode is pretty dull all round. Counsellor Troi gets some work at last, and despite all the focus on Data it doesn't feel like the character progresses or learns anything new from this experience.