YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S5E16 "Ethics"

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Picard tells Riker it's up to him if he wants to assist Worf in suicide. A few years later, another Starfleet captain expresses quite a different opinion.
• Misaimed Fandom: Some reviews have commented that Crusher's condemnation of Russell taking risks with medical treatments could be seen as hypocritical when Starfleet doctors are often shown testing treatments to deal with new diseases or medical threats, but the key term in that context is new medical threats. Most of the time Starfleet doctors coming up with new cures are doing so because they're dealing with something unfamiliar and know that it's either try something new that might save their patient or do nothing and know that the patient will die. Crusher's problem with Doctor Russell's treatments are that Russell is basically testing new ways of dealing with existing medical issues that either aren't immediately fatal or can be treated in other ways. The issue here is that Dr. Crusher thought that she could ultimately get Worf to accept life with a disability (despite Picard pointing out that she was grossly underestimating how hard it would be to get him to let go of his Klingon customs), regarding the experimental treatment as an unnecessary risk.
• Special Effects Failure: We're somehow supposed to believe those barrels are full of something heavy enough to cause irreparable damage to Worf's spine, which is hard to convey when the prop outright bounces off of Michael Dorn's stunt double's back due to how light it actually is. It's especially egregious given that the season 3 episode "The Hunted" showed Worf getting hit by multiple crates but still unharmed.
• Strawman Has a Point: Russell proposes an experimental procedure to restore Worf's legs that hasn't been officially approved by Starfleet and could kill him if it fails (and nearly does kill him — he flatlines on the operating table, and is saved by a quirk of Klingon physiology). She's framed as taking advantage of his condition to get him to agree to be a guinea pig for her, and the episode as a whole treats her as a borderline Mad Scientist. However, she only mentioned the procedure to Worf after he has rejected the conventional treatment Crusher offered, and it is known he wants to die if he cannot be fully healed. Even if Russell is taking advantage of Worf, when the other option he's considering is suicide, the experimental procedure is preferable if not ideal. While Crusher's strenuous objection to Worf's suicide is contrasted against other points, her criticism of Russell throughout the episode is never challenged.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Letting Geordi, who has been disabled all his life (and who was working alongside Worf at the time of the accident), weigh in on Worf's situation/decision might have led to a much richer and deeper story.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: It's easy to sympathize with Riker and Crusher not wanting Worf to kill himself. How they handle the situation, not so much. Riker chews out Worf for being determined to follow Klingon tradition without regard to how his suicide would affect his friends and family, citing examples of recently deceased crewmembers who fought for life until the end. Crusher expresses a willingness to put Worf in restraints to prevent him from doing the deed. Yet neither of them are ever shown making any attempt to actually convince Worf that he could potentially achieve a life worth living in his condition. As such, their behavior can easily come off as them blindly upholding the human paradigm of "suicide bad" with little to no actual concern for Worf's quality of life or concern for Klingon cultural norms. Picard points out to both Riker and Crusher how Klingon cultural norms would make adjusting to life with a disability almost impossible.
  Jean-Luc Picard: You and I could learn to live with a disability like that, but not Worf. His life ended when those containers fell on him. Now, we don't have to agree with it, we don't have to understand it. But we do have to respect his beliefs.

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