Parallels (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Plot

After returning from a bat'leth tournament, Lieutenant Worf comes back to the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D for a surprise birthday party. He begins to notice small oddities: the cake tastes different, and a painting from Data has moved to another wall. These changes grow more severe. When a Cardassian vessel attacks, Worf cannot operate the unfamiliar controls to raise the shields, and Geordi La Forge is killed. Although Worf remembers everything, he cannot prove reality has shifted, and his own logs back up the crew's accounts. More dramatic shifts occur: in one reality, Riker commands the Enterprise because Picard was killed by the Borg; the Bajorans oppress the Cardassians and are enemies of the Federation; Wesley Crusher serves as a lieutenant; Alyssa Ogawa is chief medical officer; and Worf is married to Deanna Troi. The crew discovers that Worf's RNA carries an unusual quantum signature, proving he comes from a different universe. They theorize that while returning from the tournament, Worf passed through a space-time fissure. The shuttlecraft's engines, and later his proximity to La Forge's VISOR, caused him to jump between realities. Each universe represents a different possibility, so anything that could happen has happened somewhere. The Enterprise returns to the fissure to send Worf home, but a Bajoran ship attacks, destabilizing the fissure and merging countless realities. Innumerable Enterprises begin appearing at an exponential rate. Data calculates that the only solution is for Worf to pilot a shuttlecraft into the fissure, using its engines to seal it, and head for his own universe's Enterprise. He locates the correct ship and starts back, but an Enterprise from a Borg-dominated universe attacks, its crew refusing to return. The Enterprise Worf left behind fires on that ship, accidentally destroying it. Worf passes through the fissure and emerges in his own universe with a single Enterprise before him. No time has passed since he first entered the fissure. Expecting a surprise party, he finds only Troi waiting with a gift. Knowing they are married in many alternate universes, he asks her to have dinner with him.

Production

Brannon Braga first imagined this episode with Captain Picard as the lead, but while developing the story he saw that Picard’s life wouldn’t vary much across alternate realities. So he switched the focus to Worf, and decided to pair him romantically with Troi because he thought most viewers wouldn’t see it coming. Braga also considered bringing back Tasha Yar, but worried that would repeat “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” so he used Wesley Crusher instead, played by Wil Wheaton. Another early idea had Worf being sung “Happy Birthday to You” in Klingon, but the cost of licensing the song was too high and the scene was cut.

Executive producer Jeri Taylor approved the initial outline despite worrying it might confuse audiences. After seeing the finished episode, she called it a success that “worked like gangbusters.” She believed the writers had been subtly building toward a Worf/Troi romance since the fifth-season episode “Ethics,” and that it had been a goal since “A Fistful of Datas” in season six. After “Parallels,” the relationship appeared several more times in the final season. Michael Piller wasn’t keen on the original concept, but Taylor felt the way it developed saved it.

Looking back, Braga thought Wesley Crusher’s appearance could have used more explanation, but at the time he found it most intriguing to leave him “just there.” He also wanted to avoid making Worf seem insane, since that theme had already been explored in the previous season’s “Frame of Mind.” Director Robert Wiemer pushed for a clear ending that showed Worf’s future intentions. Taylor wrote the line where Worf suggests champagne to Troi to give that closure.

Themes

The multiverse idea featured in "Parallels" has been discussed by commentators. Theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss praised the episode for the inclusion of the idea in his book The Physics of Star Trek, although added that it incorrectly explained measurement in quantum mechanics. This quantum mechanics theory explained during the episode was called "a little sketchy" by Michelle and Duncan Barrett in their book Star Trek: The Human Factor. They based this on mathematical physicist Roger Penrose's theory that there is no identified physics for bridging the gap between physics and quantum physics. The Barretts noted the use that the Star Trek franchise has made of the idea of the multiverse and different timelines.

Reception

"Parallels" first aired in syndication during the week of November 27, 1993. Nielsen Media Research reported a 12.8 percent rating, meaning that 12.8 percent of all households with televisions tuned in during its timeslot. That made it the second most-watched syndicated show that week and the fourth most-viewed episode of the season, trailing only "Descent" part two, "Eye of the Beholder," and "All Good Things...". The episode sparked some fan backlash for introducing a romance between Worf and Troi, as many viewers believed Riker and Troi were the correct pairing. According to Taylor, some fans thought the Riker/Troi relationship was so inevitable that the show should have simply "got it over with" rather than giving Troi a new love interest.

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club awarded the episode an A-minus, calling it a "nicely balanced" installment. He praised the chemistry between Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn, and specifically highlighted Dorn's comic timing. Handlen enjoyed the visual of multiple Enterprise versions appearing in the same universe but criticized the heavy use of technobabble in the second half. IGN's Scott Colura released a podcast questioning whether "Parallels" might be the most underrated episode of the series. Keith DeCandido gave it a perfect 10 out of 10 in his Tor.com review, expressing his love for the episode and noting that centering it on Worf worked "partly because no one does frustrated befuddlement better than Michael Dorn." He appreciated the escalating changes between universes but singled out the Borg-invasion-timeline Enterprise firing on the shuttle at the end as his highlight. DeCandido said that moment kept the episode memorable after 19 years and "cemented this as one of TNG top episodes."

In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter listed the scene with a frightened Riker from the Borg universe wanting to stay as one of the top ten "most stunning" moments of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 2017, "Parallels" was ranked the 9th best time travel episode in all of Star Trek. That same year, Popular Mechanics called it one of the top ten most fun episodes of The Next Generation. In May 2019, The Hollywood Reporter placed "Parallels" among the top twenty-five episodes of the series. Charlie Jane Anders at io9 ranked it 84th on a list of the top 100 episodes across the entire Star Trek franchise.