The Bonding
Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections:
NextGen:
Season Three:
The Bonding
"The Bonding"
Production Staff
Directed By: Winrich Kolbe
Written By: Ronald D. Moore
Guest Cast
O'Brien- Colm Meaney
Jeremy Aster- Gabriel Damon
Maria Astor- Susan Powell
Teacher Raymond D. Turner
Stardate- 43198.7
Synopsis: A routine mission exploring the ruins of the Koinonian civilization turns tragic when an away party lead by Worf accidentally detonates a long-hidden bomb beneath the planet's surface, injuring Worf and killing ship archaeologist Marla Aster. Aster is survived by her 12 year-old son, Jeremy, whose father has also died. Accordingly, Troi and Picard attempt to find solace for the boy, who also receives empathy from Wesley and Worf. Worf, in fact, blames himself for the accident, and even though Picard assures him that it was not his fault, his guilt is strong enough that he offers to perform a Klingon bonding ceremony with Jeremy. Suddenly, though, Troi senses an alien presence on the ship, and Jeremy turns to find his late mother has returned, telling him that they will leave the ship and live on the planet. When Worf arrives, the apparition vanishes, but a short time later she re-appears and transformes Jeremy's quarters into a replica of their old home on Earth. The confused boy appears ready to stay with his "mother" but, the crew determines that the image of Aster is being generated by an energy beam from the planet below. Picard orders the beam severed, but the energy attempts to take over the ship's transporter room while Jeremy and his "mother" race to leave the ship. However before they can get there, his "mother" is trapped by a force field. She then reveals that she is a part of a life form that survived the wars on the planet. Feeling guilty about the death of Aster, her race has decided that it will atone by caring for Jeremy. Picard and Troi both argue against this, Picard by noting that humans must feel pain as well as joy, and Troi by charging that Jeremy's life will never be complete on the surface. Wesley and Worf both tell Jeremy their stories of their parents' deaths, and the alien relents. Jeremy decides to stay aboard the Enterprise, and he and Worf perform the R'usstai, a ceremony that will make them brothers.
synopsis by Sparrow47
By Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Saturday, July 29, 2000 - 11:27 pm: The wounds of the explosion seemed relatively minor. Usually, explosions rip off chunks of a person's body, or create large gaping wounds, but Dr. Astor just seemed to have bloody cuts & gashes.
Picard tells the boy, "Jeremy, on the Starship Enterprise no one is alone." Then we see a number of scenes showing Jeremy alone. I guess Picard just enjoys being ironic.
Troi thought it would be good for Wes to talk to Jeremy, because he also lost a Starfleet parent, but isn't Troi's father dead, and wasn't he in Starfleet?
Picard & Troi are in the Turbolift, when Worf contacts them and says, "They are heading for Transporter Room 3." and Picard says, "We are on our way.", but Picard never tells the Turbolift the new destination.
On page 152 of the NextGen Guide, Phil wonders how Jeremy could rattle off a Klingon phrase he has only just heard. Maybe the Universal Translator did it for him?
By Chris Thomas on Sunday, July 30, 2000 - 12:26 am: Troi probably got Wes to speak to him because Wes is closer to Jeremy's age, and also lost his father when he was very young.
By Teral on Tuesday, August 14, 2001 - 3:07 pm: Doesn't Troi reveal herself to be a really poor counsellor? Wesley has been onboard the Enterprise for more than 2 years and Troi knows that he has repressed feelings and blames towards Picard. Why haven't she helped Wesley face theese feelings a long time ago, she is after all empathic and an educated psykologist.
The again maybe she did counsel him:
"Wesley the best way to deal with theese feelings is to bundle them up in a small ball and then push them way down into your subconscience. After that all will be just fine" 
Moreover why haven't Starfleet helped Wesley? In our time we have crisis-psykologists and supportgroups for almost everything. In a recent train-accident here in Denmark crisis-psykologists arrived on the scene together with the paramedics and rescueworkers. Yet Starfleet apparently lets Wesley cope with his fathers death by himself.
Okay maybe they did help him, but apparently they did a poor job.
By John A. Lang on Saturday, July 06, 2002 - 7:38 pm: That Klingon warrior-babe REALLY REALLY shorted out Worf's brain..ONCE AGAIN he's doing things from a "world now alien to him"... like "The Bonding" ritual, dressing like a Klingon, speaking Klingonese & handling a Klingon dagger.
By KAM on Sunday, July 07, 2002 - 5:07 am: Well, maybe after thinking about the warrior babe for a few hours he changed his mind about that "world now alien to me"?
By Sven of Nine on Sunday, July 07, 2002 - 8:54 am:Or maybe it's my suggestion on another board that Worf's "world now alien to" him is not Qo'noS at all but his sordid past involving naughty women of the night and [that's enough - everyone]
By Bad joke courtesy of Thande on Monday, November 29, 2004 - 4:22 pm: Riker: So, how was your date with the warrior babe, Worf? Did you manage to hit on her?
Worf: No. I tried, but I inevitably missed and hit a cello on the other side of the room.
By Marka on Sunday, April 24, 2005 - 10:11 am: What Wesley said was that he used to be angry at Picard but "no more". It indicates that he had been counseled after all :-)
By John A. Lang on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 12:19 pm: The kid playing Jeremy Aster looks like he's reading a cue card when he repeats the words for the Klingon Bonding Ceremony
By Joel Croteau (Jcroteau) on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 9:30 pm: Why does Worf have this big blue screen in his quarters?
By John-Boy on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 5:48 pm: Who in the episode said that those were Worf's quarters? I've seen nothing to indicate this.
By Mike Nuss on Friday, August 04, 2006 - 7:03 pm: At the beginning of the episode, Troi shouts "Beam them up! Now!" a second before the explosion. Do Troi's powers include telling the future?
By Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Saturday, August 05, 2006 - 5:43 pm: I think she senced something from the lifeforms down there that the bomb was about to go off.
By John A. Lang (Johnalang) on Tuesday, October 09, 2007 - 6:50 pm:I'm puzzled about the location where Troi & Worf are talking about the "Bonding Ritual" What room is this?
By Andre Reichenbacher (Amr) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 11:22 pm:"I'm puzzled about the location where Troi & Worf are talking about the "Bonding Ritual" What room is this?" - John Lang
The scene took place in the main computer core, where the nanites had infested the ship's systems in "Evolution". In that, Dr. Stubbs fired a weapon that shot gamma radiation into the core, killing most of the nanites, and the surviving nanites retaliated by pumping toxic gas onto the Bridge, which Riker fixed by switching the filtering system to manual override.
I don't think they ever used that set on TNG after this episode. I know that an alien technology dealer stealing a computer core from Voyager was the dilemma in one of that show's episodes, but I don't remember which one it was.