“The Sword of Kahless” is almost a love letter to the treasure-hunting adventure genre. There are so many borrowed tropes in this episode that one wouldn’t be surprised to see Indiana Jones himself show up, perhaps with a phaser in the place of his trusty revolver, cracking away with a Ferengi energy whip.

As I’ve said so many times, no one owns tropes, and I can think of worse things than such an homage within the Star Trek universe. But the affection might have gone a little too far, because this adventure’s similar ending to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade undermines the plot development up to that point. As in, we’re left wondering if there was a point. Read the rest of this entry →