Poor Terry Matalas. Itās clear from numerous post-season interviews that, for as elaborate as S3 became by the end (rebuilding the Enterprise-D! Bringing back Ro and Tuvok! Changelings and Borg and Lore!), his original vision was yet more elaborate. Apparently he originally planned to have Janeway and Kim also appear, and to show Ro still alive in the brig with Tuvok at the end of the season. The man clearly was dreaming big.
Given that, it seems slightly implausible that he would omit material purely out of carelessness. And the absence of Alexander seems like a pretty large omission ā especially in a season that was so focused on the parent-child relationship and the idea of āthe next generationā. Yes, there are all these memes about Worf forgetting Alexander, but that doesnāt strike me as the kind of fan service Matalas was going for.
From a storytelling perspective, omitting Alexander seems pretty similar to why Odo was mentioned adoringly as āa man of honorā but not named: there was already a lot of backstory and reference being woven into the story, and throwing out a random name ā or a random concept like, āOh yeah, Worf has an estranged sonā ā would create too much to unpack.
Likewise, it seems like they wanted Worf to have a paternal presence with Raffi, so omitting Alexander simplified that story.
But still: in a season that was all about parents and their children, it seems significant that they couldnāt find any way to reference him.
Unlessā¦
Worf has a memorable scene with Raffi where he tells her, āDonāt presume to know what I have sacrificedā (or something to that effect). Surprisingly, that line is never followed up onā¦ explicitly.
But I suggest that that is where we learn of Alexanderās fate: Worf has lost his son. Whether to death or desertion or deep undercover work, who can say? But we have an open question ā where is Alexander? ā and we have a vague statement that is never otherwise explained ā that Worf has sacrificed a great deal ā and given how much the rest of the season ties itself together, I suspect this was meant to be a subtle nod to explain away Alexanderās absence.
Why not make it explicit? Why doesnāt Worf tell anyone about Alexander? I argue itās because they wanted to save the āgrieving parentā story for Riker + Troi, especially Riker. Explicitly portraying both Riker and Worf as grieving fathers would create an elephant in the room too big to ignore, and wouldāve taken up much more space in the story.
So, instead, poor Alexander is consigned to a mysterious comment from his father ā perhaps fodder for some future tie-in novel, or perhaps someone we might meet in Star Trek: Legacy.
Are there other theories as to where Alexander might be, or why the writers did not mention him?
Even though I wouldnāt be terribly surprised to learn that this is the case, I think youāre making a lot of assumptions based on little to no evidence. That the notoriously private Worf didnāt mention Alexander to anyone doesnāt necessarily provide that they have a strained relationship; Alexander may very well have died and Worf suffers in silence over it. Conversely, Alexander may be a prominent member of the House of Martok and is well-known in the Federation so no one needs to ask about him.
Iād like to think that Worfās emotional maturity means that he probably did or does maintain a better relationship with Alexander, and itās simply that he didnāt come up in the context of what was going on in the story.
I would like to believe that as well, but we are left with very little to make us believe that other than good will towards Worf. It seems like a particularly glaring oversight to have the season of Picard featuring Picard and Beverlyās long lost son, Geordiās daughters, memories of Thaddeus Rikerās death, and the first time weāve seen Worf in a long time not explicitly mention at least once that Worf is also a member of the parent club.
Instead what we do see are exclusively episodes where Worfās relationship with his son is not treated as a core part of Worfās character - even attempts to reconcile go basically no where.
A single line to Enterprise-D crew about how Alexander is the commander of an entire Klingon battle fleet now and that fills Worf with great pride would have solidified that the characters reconciled. Hell, itās kind of weird that no one asks about Alexander since all the Enterprise-D crew readily know that Worf has a son. But instead, just like the writers, Worf has apparently forgotten that he has a child and so is written as though he doesnāt have one.
The fact that the oversight is so glaring is what makes me think that we are supposed to read in to the vague line about āsacrificeā, and that we are supposed to infer that itās about Alexander. Itās subtle and I think itās unsatisfying narratively, but I think that was the intent.
As to why they didnāt just make an offhand reference like āAlexander is in command of an entire fleetāā¦ Iām guessing they felt (rightly or wrongly) that it would be weird not to do more with the idea of āWorf as a fatherā, soā¦ they opted to quietly make him Not A Father (Anymore). Which, to be clear, Iām not saying was a good decision, Iām just trying to do some tea leaves reading here.
This is a good point and perhaps there is unused footage that mentions Alexander in more detail which would understandably be cut out if they werenāt willing to lean in on it. Itās easier for us to forget Alexander existed and to wonder āmaybe he diedā than to waste lines on that kind of backstory - at least in some writerās opinion which I could see an argument for.