Riker goes to serve aboard a Klingon ship in the 1989 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "A Matter of Honor". There's a B plot about a new ensign aboard the Enterprise belonging to a species called Benzite. Both stories are about culture clashes and someone from one culture learning to work within another. It's not a bad episode.
I suppose political correctness would make telling such a story about actual cultures a too dangerous minefield. It seems objectively foolish for the Klingons to have a system in which official career paths involve assassination. Rather than making everyone tougher, I'd think it would make everyone quiet and timid.
Riker's fun in the episode. I remember once when I was a kid my mother said he seemed arrogant. I guess that's really what sets him apart from Kirk. Although Shatner seemed plenty arrogant from one angle he also had a somehow congenial self-deprecation about him, at least in his best moments. But Riker's arrogance can occasionally be fun, as when he fearlessly strides among the tooled up, gnarly Klingon warriors wearing only his season one and two spandex uniform. Boy oh boy, those were awful. It is kind of amusing to see how clearly all the male cast members aside from Patrick Stewart gained a substantial amount of weight between seasons one and seven.
I was impressed by the Klingon cuisine created for the episode. I wonder if any of the fan created recipes would measure up. I suppose no-one's tried eating live gagh.
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