New Ground is a decent episode with a touching story about Worf accepting his responsibilities as a father. It generally works but some of the stuff feels a little cliched. I guess Klingon school is the Trek equivalent of military school in Alaska. The B story about a new form of warp drive works alright and the climax ties the two stories together nicely. The scene with Geordi gushing about how excited he is about the new tech is one of my favorite scenes.
The episode opens with the Enterprise en route to help with a test of an engineless warp drive technology, but while preparing in engineering Worf gets a call from his mother. She and Alexander are on a transport ship and would like to visit. Worf arranges for it any meets them in the transporter room. Alexander is a bit distant but his mother is happy as always. However when Worf asks how long they are staying Alexander appears to be under the impression he isn't leaving. Worf confronts his mother about this in Ten Forward and sure enough, she and his father are too old to raise another Klingon son and they are having problems.
Worf takes Alexander to the school to get him enrolled but Alexander pretty much refuses to talk to the teacher. When he returns to work Worf is constantly getting calls about his son and the captain tells him to worry about Alexander first. The two of them go on a field trip together to one of the biolabs that has some endangered species. The teacher catches Alexander trying to steal a model of a lizard and at first Worf is outraged she would accuse his son, but when he finds out she is right he is even more mad. Worf decides the only thing he can do is send Alexander to a Klingon school where he will learn about honor.
The B story comes back near the end and the Enterprise assists in a test of the warp waves. The test works at first but the test ship explodes and the wave just keeps growing in power. It gets so powerful it will devastate the world it is aimed at so the Enterprise has to get in the way and blast it with torpedoes. As they pass through the wave there is an explosion and fire in the biolab. Sensors show there is one person trapped inside, Alexander! Worf and Riker rush to save him and find him near the endangered animals. Worf saves Alexander who insists Riker save the animals. In the end Worf agrees to allow Alexander to stay on the Enterprise.
Review: A fairly straight forward episode, but one without any glaring flaws. The actor playing Alexander this time is alright, especially for a child actor.
6 out of 10
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