"Sons of Mogh" (season four, episode fifteen; 12 February 1996): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. "Sons of Mogh" features Kurn, Worf's younger brother (played by Tony Todd, who also played the older Jake Sisko in "The Visitor"), who is suffering the effects of formal dishonor in the aftermath of Worf's opposition to the Klingon Empire's invasion of the Cardassian Union ("The Way of the Warrior"). Kurn comes to Worf requesting ritual murder (Klingon honor prohibits direct suicide) & Worf goes through with it; Dax intervenes & Kurn survives. What I really like is Captain Sisko's response: he pulls no punches, dressing down Worf & bluntly stating the limits of Federation cultural tolerance in a way Captain Picard never would.
The resolution is fascinating: Kurn's memory is erased & his physiology & genetics are altered to fit his new identity, Rodek, son of Noggra (an old friend of Mogh, Worf's & Kurn's father), a Klingon warrior suffering from amnesia after an accident. "Rodek" has no memory of his life as Kurn, son of Mogh, but Worf & the crew are satisfied that they have saved Kurn's life & given him a future, as Rodek. Contrast this to Star Trek: Picard, which debuted a quarter century later: Jean-Luc Picard died at the end of season one, but his memories were uploaded into a Soong-type android; throughout seasons two & three, the Picard android was treated as if it was the man Jean-Luc Picard, despite not being human, because it had his memories.
Kurn's desire to die echoes Worf's desire to die four years earlier, after he suffered an accident that left him paralyzed ("Ethics," T.N.G. season five, episode sixteen). Worf tried to get Commander Riker to kill him, but Riker refused because that role belonged to Alexander, Worf's son; Worf changed his mind & agreed to an experimental surgery because he wouldn't ask the young Alexander to kill him. A weakness of "Sons of Mogh" is that these events are never referenced. Worf recovered from his paralysis, a temporary problem to which suicide would have been a permanent, & wrong, solution. Later in D.S.9, Worf recovers his formal honor, first by being adopted into the House of Martok & later by killing Chancellor Gowron in honorable combat. Kurn's formal honor would also have been restored, so his dishonor is a temporary problem to which ritually murdering him (or erasing his memory & allowing him to live as Rodek, as they eventually did) was a permanent solution.
At the end of the episode, Rodek asks if Worf is part of his family. Worf replies, "I have no family." Throughout both T.N.G. & D.S.9, Worf is a terrible, absent father, here denying that Alexander is his son, when he could have easily answered the question in another way. "Sons of Mogh" is far from writer Ronald D. Moore's finest work.
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