Code of Honor (TNG)

As much as I’ve been dreading what I remembered as an objectively terrible episode, I was sort of looking forward to reviewing one of the few Tasha-centric stories the show has to offer. Unfortunately, this isn’t really a Tasha story. Inasmuch as its about anything, it’s about the Prime Directive, and when it comes into conflict with Picard’s mandate to protect his crew. It’s also about pride, and when it’s necessary to swallow it for the greater good. Ultimately, it’s about a power struggle between Picard and the alien Lutan, in which the Strong Female Character Tasha is pretty much treated as a commodity.

Let’s back up a little. Our story opens as Picard and co. have been given an important mission by Starfleet command – negotiate for a rare and valuable vaccine that can’t be synthesized and is needed to treat a plague on a nearby world. The plague provides the stakes for the episode, though not terribly well because we never see it and have to rely on Dr. Crusher constantly popping up to remind us that it’s terrible. But unfortunately, the planet is controlled by a power-hungry guy named Lutan, and his demands in exchange for the vaccine are kind of… unorthodox. He kidnaps Tasha Yar and wants to make her his wife.

Of course, this is not immediately obvious. Data’s research into the planet’s history shows that they have a tradition of stealing things basically just to show that they can, and to humble an enemy by forcing them to beg for the object back, in this case Tasha. Picard is initially extremely reticent to play this game, but ultimately the importance of the vaccine convinces him to swallow his pride and ask for Tasha back. Lutan says he’ll return her at a banquet being held in Picard’s honor. At the banquet, though he reveals his true plan.

There’s just one problem (well, one more problem) Lutan already has a wife (whose name is Yarina. Yar vs. Yarina? Seriously? But I digress.) Anyway, by their alien laws, she has the right to challenge Tasha to a fight to the death. Which she does.

YARR!

            I’m actually super confused about what happens next, because as far as I can tell Lutan never actually promises the vaccine to the crew whether Tasha wins or loses, and while Tasha does think Lutan is kinda cute, she doesn’t actually want to leave Starfleet to marry him and live in his weird, misogynistic, oppressive society. But Picard has a secret plan, and Tasha commits to the fight and kills her rival, at which point everyone is beamed to the Enterprise to be revived by Dr. Crusher. But because she technically died, her marriage contract with Lutan is void, and because of weird alien politics that aren’t explained very well, this makes Lutan no longer the planet’s leader. Yarina chooses a new husband who is more than happy to send the Enterprise on its way, vaccine in tow, and everyone lives happily ever after.

            Despite the jarringly racist costuming and casting choices – the hyper-masculine machismo driven race is all black in in stereotypical African Tribal getup - this episode was actually not nearly as bad as I’d feared. It’s reasonably entertaining. The main problems I think come from the fact that the interesting conflict, Picard’s mandate to protect his crew vs. the Prime Directive, is examined only briefly, as the Captain comes up with a loophole pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the specifics of the alien political system aren’t set-up well enough ahead of time to make the ending feel like anything other than an ass-pull. I also would have liked to see a little more of Tasha besides “she’s a badass”, as I think the writers are struggling a little with who exactly she is beyond that.

She is kind of a badass though.

Random Observations:

The conversation Troi and Tasha have about Lutan being what every woman secretly wants was just ugh in so many ways I don't even want to get into.

 

The subplot with Wesley and Picard was just the tiniest bit distracting, but I can’t help but feel those are minutes that could have been used to help build up the tension in the main plot and also make it make a little more sense.

The first season sees contact with a lot of misogynistic cultures, of which this is the first. I’m not sure why this is a recurring theme. It might have something to do with the eighties.

Deanna Troi is actually kind of useful here, offering Diplomatic advice and an analysis of the alien culture.

The Holodeck! Now we see it can make characters, but not any smarter, really, than what current AIs are capable of. They can learn from their opponents. It’s an inkling, though, of the Pandora’s box this seemingly innocuous technology is going to turn out to be.

There are some very nice character moments in this episode. Riker is good with kids and happily humors Wesley, in sharp contrast with Picard. Troi kind of insists on talking to Tasha woman to woman, which makes Tasha uncomfortable in kind of a fun way.

Bros.

Most importantly, this is the first we see of the Data/ Geordi bromance, possibly the third greatest bromance in Star Trek lore (it must, of course, follow Kirk/Spock and O’Brien/Bashir.) It is on point, as Geordi tries to teach Data how jokes work.

Speaking of Data, at some point he makes a disparaging remark about the French, and Picard takes offense. Because Picard is French. Hee hee.

Wesley’s shirt is in this episode is exceptionally ugly. 24^th century teenage fashion continues to be terrible.

The Corbomite Maneuver (TOS)

The first episode of Star Trek (well, second first episode) took the Enterprise to the edge of the galaxy, and to the edge of human evolution, which are both very appropriate Star Trek themes. But it didn't really get into the "seek out new life and new civilizations" part of the opening credits.

"The Corbomite Maneuver" is a first contact story, and for the first like 40 minutes of this 45 minute episode it's a really disastrous one. (Also an almost unforgivably cheesy one.) There are some big ideas we're getting across in big ways. One is that humanity is small and the universe is big and dangerous. The other is that humanity has some X factor of pith and vinegar that lets us triumph even over overwhelming forces, provided we can master ourselves.

What actually happens in this episode? The Enterprise, now with Dr. McCoy and Lt. Uhura at last aboard, encounters a series of geometric shapes with weird powers. First its a multicolored cube that parks in front of the ship and won't get out of the way, matching their position whenever they try to go around it. And then it follows them when they try to run away from it.

Kirk is going through the paces of measured responses and playing it safe, while young bridge officer Bailey is itching to fire phasers at it. Finally, when the cube is emitting harmful radiation damaging the crew, Kirk fires the phasers, destroying the thing.

And then they make the same decision they made last episode, to sally forth into obvious danger for no apparent reason. Kirk wants to make contact with the alien race that sent the object. He does, and it turns out their ships are spherical and many times the size of the buoy, and also massively powerful.

The captain of the alien ship identifies himself as Balok of the First Federation and abruptly sentences the Enterprise to death for ignoring the warning buoy and trespassing into First Federation space. Kirk's protestations and attempts at peaceful contact fall on deaf ears.

Balok's speech is the cheesiest part of the episode and deserves to be reprinted in full:

"We make assumption you have a deity or deities or some such beliefs which comfort you. We therefore grant you ten Earth time periods known as minutes to make preparations."

Over the course of the ten Earth time periods known as minutes, rather than preparing to meet the deities they may or may not have, Bailey flips out, Kirk removes him from command, and Spock suggests that, like in Chess, it's time to give up and die. Kirk is inspired by a chance reference to bluffing by Dr. McCoy, and decides the game afoot is not chess but poker. So he performs the titular maneuver, bluffing to Balok that the Enterprise is filled with a volatile substance called corbomite which, if ignited, would destroy both ships.

Apparently just convinced enough to be cautious, Balok alters his plan and dispatches a small vessel to tow the Enterprise to an uninhabited planet, empty it of crew, and then destroy the ship. How does this solve the corbomite problem? I have no idea, just go with it.

The smaller ship is more of a match for the Enterprise, and when the tractor beam wears down its power supply, the Enterprise is able to make an escape which damages the other ship. Captain Kirk sees this as an opportunity not to take revenge or merely to flee, but to offer aid, potentially salvaging the first contact situation and "showing what our high-sounding words mean." He brings Bailey and McCoy along too.

What they find on the ship is a small, child-like alien with a fondness for a drink called Tranya, who informs them, in the final minutes of the episode, that the whole encounter has been a test. He asks that the Enterprise leave an officer with him for a cultural exchange.

Here we finally thought we had an episode that wasn't about the heroes being tested by God-like beings, but in fact, that's exactly what it is. Perhaps not so God-like.

This isn't a great episode of television. The plot is kind of convoluted and confusing, the resolution bizarre and unsatisfying, and it takes a lot of thought to figure out the message. But it does have some things going for it.

This episode is a distillation of Kirk's character, which is meant to be a future vision of the best of humanity (we'll politely ignore the sexism inherent in his objections to having a female yeoman). He's smart and tough against the probe, inventive and cocky against the ship, and then finally compassionate in the end, when he has no reason or need to be. Kirk keeps doing the right thing instead of the expected thing.

This episode paints a picture of the Enterprise as a little ship in a big, scary universe, but it also pitches human ingenuity and compassion as the tools that will see us through it. We'll see how they fare in the years to come.

Random Observations:

- Costumes are not quite settled into the norm here. Uhura in yellow is particularly jarring. Uhura, Scotty, and Sulu's characters, however, have settled into where they'll be for the rest of the series.

- Also debuting is Janice Rand, who never gets counted among the main cast but really was in a lot of the series and several movies. All she does here is bring Kirk a salad, so it's hard to get much of a sense of who she is.

- Classic Spock and Kirk: "Has it occurred to you that there's a certain...inefficiency in constantly questioning me on things you've already made up your mind about?" "It gives me emotional security."

- The only part of this episode I remember from watching it as a child was the final scene with Balok and the Tranya. Balok does seem quite preoccupied with that Tranya.

- They always call phasers "phaser weapons" as if phaser is an adjective, not a noun.

Past Prologue (DS9)

The second episode of a show gets a smaller budget than the pilot and less attention, but it's just as crucial, especially if the pilot was original enough to make people a little unsure what they were getting into even after it ended.

TNG's second offering, The Naked Now, made the mistake of trying to be a lot like a TOS episode, to assure the old fans that they were still getting Star Trek. Deep Space Nine might have been tempted to try the same stunt, delivering a TNG-style offering. And they do offer us two TNG guest stars in the form of Klingon sisters and politicos Lursa and B'Etor. But it's more of an Easter egg for returning fans than anything else -- the sisters' role on TNG is totally irrelevant to their presence as galactic petty thugs here.

For the most part, this is Deep Space Nine opening with DS9 strengths, not TNG throwbacks. It's a plot with Bajoran politics at its center, a looming Cardassian threat at the edges, and interpersonal cast conflicts throughout. Plus, it introduces Garak, one of many semi-regulars that will enrich the tapestry of Deep Space Nine life.

There's no real "B-Story" here, just a few different threads that come together in the end. The first thread, though, feels as if it's going to be a B-Story, as the young, naive Julian Bashir is joined for breakfast by Garak, the enigmatic tailor that Starfleet assumes is a spy. This relationship has absolutely captivated fans, many of whom have turned it into a bonafide 'ship. It's easy to see why. Garak is supremely quotable, and Bashir feeds him the perfect straight lines. Dialogue between them crackles with nuance and double meaning.


Clearly excited about his enigmatic breakfast, Bashir bounces up to Ops despite having no reason to be there and begins to pester the rest of the crew. Ops is playing the role of the bridge here, but visits to it will diminish as the show goes on. It's where everyone has to be though, when plot comes crashing into the system in the form of a Cardassian warship chasing a Bajoran vessel carrying a former resistance fighter turned Kohn-Ma terrorist.

Tahna Los is kind of a dull white guy, like pretty much every other former Bajoran freedom fighter we'll meet over the course of the show. When it comes to non-clergy Bajoran men on this show, it seems like the writers don't make much of an effort at characterization. They're all pretty interchangable. But Tahna is the first, I guess, so we'll give him a pass.

The conflict here is mostly an internal one for Kira. While the rest of the cast (including Garak and Bashir) are involved in tracking the nuances of the criminal plot that brought Tahna and the Klingons to the station, Kira is being forced to choose between old loyalties and new, and to confront whether she's sold out by allowing and assisting the Federation presence on Bajor. Nana Visitor plays internal angst really well, delivering certain lines such that you can just tell she doesn't quite believe herself.

It also becomes a conflict with Sisko, with Kira attempting to go over his head on the decision about whether to grant Tahna asylum. The attempt is hilarious -- why would Kira ever think a Starfleet admiral would trust her over a Starfleet commander? -- but understandable. Kira needs to be in control of things and gets frustrated when she's not. For her, doing something is better than waiting for someone else to make a decision, even if it's a stupid something.

I love the Sisko-Kira arguments, by the way, because they're written in such a way that it's not clear who's right and who's wrong. But it is clear who wins and who loses.

The episode has internal conflicts driving interest throughout, but it finishes with action, and pretty good, keep-you-guessing action at that. The one odd thing is that Kira and Tahna are so blase about sealing off the wormhole. Their back-and-forth is almost entirely about the economic benefit of the wormhole for Bajor, but it completely ignores the whole "Celestial Temple" angle. As a setup for the rest of the show (which this episode does mostly strongly) it's a curious omission.

This is a pleasantly surprising second episode, and one that makes me eager for more Deep Space Nine. I'm investing in not just these characters, but this place, and the surprisingly complex politics within and around it. And we haven't even gone through the wormhole yet!


Random Observations

- Really nice Kira-Odo scene here that sets up their friend relationship as one where Kira trusts Odo enough to be vulnerable in front of him.

- Weird that Kira and Tahna are old friends, but call each other by their first names (the Bajoran family name) rather than their last. It's like the writers forgot that detail about Bajorans.

- No Quark this episode. (Or Jake actually). I can't decide if this is smart or not, dropping some characters early on to focus on better developing others. But I have to say I didn't miss him too much.

- All Cardassians are hams. It's a simple characterization, but somehow it works wonders. Garak is much more subtle than, for instance, Gul Danar, but there's a subverted hamminess to his performance as well.

Parallax (VOY)

Today we're pulling a little switch because Jonah didn't get his article done. Today's scheduled DS9 review will run Friday and Nathan's Voyager review will run today.

Star Trek has gotten us very used to seeing the Federation from one perspective – the inside. But The Federation isn’t paradise to everyone. To B’Elanna Torres it’s a stifling, oppressive system that bogs itself down with unnecessary protocols and regulations. She believes in settling disputes more organically. Unfortunately, she’s also half Klingon, so a small disagreement with acting chief engineer Carey lands the man in sickbay with a broken nose.

It’s a promising way to start a second episode, as news of the altercation reverberates throughout the ship, bringing Chakotay into conflict with Tuvok, B’Elanna, and finally the Captain. And it gets us right to the heart of what this crew is going to have to deal with. The Enterprise was a flagship staffed with the best and the brightest. Voyager can barely keep itself staffed at all.

The A-plot and B-plot are surprisingly well integrated in this episode, which is good because the A- plot, Voyager’s attempt to escape a quantum singularity, is pretty dumb. It’s an escalating series of technobabble that’s eventually solved by more technobabble. But the B-plot, Janeway and Chakotay’s power struggle and Janeway’s search for a Chief Engineer, is compelling enough to keep the episode afloat (The C-plot, a bit of physical humor involving the Doctor shrinking, is merely distracting most of the time.)

So on TNG, Riker would often challenge Picard’s decisions. But Picard knew that Riker always had his safety and the ship’s best interests at heart, and would always back down and follow orders if it came to that. Janeway has no such guarantees from Chakotay. For all she knows at this point, he could still be contemplating a mutiny. This adds a real tension to the scene in Janeway’s office when she calls out her new XO.

Chakotay is remembered in the long canon of Star Trek characters for being always either an obnoxious Native American stereotype or insufferably bland. But early on he’s not like that at all. He’s a rough and tumble Han Solo-type forced into having to adjust to military discipline, a microcosm of all the Maquis on the ship. My guess is the main reason this characterization disappears is that he was too much like Tom (and to some extent, B’Elanna.) The edgy rule-breakers are fun, but too many and the ship becomes total chaos.

As fun as it is to watch him not be boring, Chakotay is somewhat secondary to this episode. Mostly, it’s about B’Elanna and Janeway, and it really takes off when they connect while trying to solve the singularity problem. By the end of the episode, Janeway has decided that the volatile former Maquis has what it takes to be her chief Engineer. But they don’t explicitly trust each other – B’Elanna is still resentful of Janeway for stranding her in the Delta Quadrant, and Janeway is still extremely apprehensive about asking her officers to take orders from a Starfleet academy dropout. And unlike most of the conflicts Voyager sets up, this one won’t have evaporated by season two – B’Elanna remains a deeply conflicted character throughout the series.

I want to take a moment how cool it is for a network show in 1995 to be doing a plotline about two women that doesn’t involve romance at all. The feminism of Voyager is riddled with problems, and believe me, we will get into them, but for now, it’s nice to enjoy an episode that passes the Bechdel test more than just incidentally.

Random Observations:

We will be talking a lot about race, gender, and B’Elanna Torres – another time. Suffice it to say I once wrote a five-page paper on the subject, citing this episode, “Faces” and “Lineage”, and then adapted that paper into a panel I led at Connecticon this year. So it’s something I’ve thought a lot about.

Because she’s half-Klingon, almost no one remembers that B’Elanna’s human father is named Torres, and she’s portrayed by Hispanic actress Roxanne Dawson, making her the first Latina Star Trek regular. Interestingly enough, that honor was supposed to go to Tasha Yar, originally named Macha Hernandez before blonde, blue-eyed Denise Crosby got the part. Just something to mull over.

The C-story does feature a very sweet scene between the EMH and Kes, and they have fantastic chemistry. They’re both kind of naïve in their own ways – Kes is only two years old, after all and technically the EMH is only a few days. He has a lot of preprogrammed knowledge, but not much real experience.

Neelix has a story or an anecdote for everything.

In a rare bit of foresight, Harry Kim mentions that it’s impossible to reroute power from the Holodecks, explaining why they will be able to keep hanging out in French pool halls when they don’t have power to use the replicators.

Recurring character watch: Joe Carey, B’Elanna’s long suffering assistant, will be a familiar face for the next couple seasons. He’s a salt-of-the-Earth type, like O’Brien but less interesting.

Also, is that Seska in a blue uniform?

No new fatalities.

No shuttlecraft lost.

The Naked Now (TNG)

"I am programmed in multiple techniques, a wide variety of pleasuring."

           “Everyone acts weird” is not a bad premise for an episode. There are plenty of decent, or even good examples out there. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, thrived on these, with episodes like “Band Candy” and “Once More with Feeling” serving as important catalysts for plot developments and changes in character relationships. But it seems to me an especially poor choice for the second episode of your series. Especially with a premise like “The Naked Now”, where impaired judgment leads to people acting out their deepest desires. A season later, this would be an awesome way to explore these characters and their relationships with one another, but at this point we don’t know these people well enough to really care. The writers are grasping at straws in a big way.

Indications of what humans would call "a wild party."

            I haven’t seen “The Naked Time”, the TOS episode this one plays homage to, in too long for me to say whether it had the same pitfalls. The set-up, in brief: The Enterprise receives a distress call from the U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky, a science ship, which consists of the Captain coming on the whole Enterprise crew, then some daring someone else to pull a lever, then everyone being sucked out the airlock. In short, Frat boys… IN SPACE! Of course Picard sends an away team over, and finding evidence of a “Wild Party” they quickly contaminate the Enterprise with the “everybody acts wacky” virus. Geordi becomes a sad sack about being blind, Tasha tries to fuck anything with a pulse (er… and some without), and Wesley Crusher does what any drunk sixteen year old would do if he could, and seizes control of the Enterprise.

            Seriously, this kid is terrifying. More on that later.

            Anyway, I’m not going to do this review in the form of a scene-by-scene synopsis. That was really just for the pilots because there was so much new stuff being introduced that I wanted to react to. This week I want to focus on a few specific issues, most notably the developing Wesley/ Picard situation and blatant sexism that runs rampant through the episode.

            Let’s start with the latter concern. So, while this contaminant is described as being like alcohol, i.e. lowering inhibitions, impairing judgment, etc, everyone does not react to it the same way, just as everyone does not react to alcohol the same way. Picard is a kind of a tired, sluggish drunk, Data is super friendly and rambles, and all of the women become nymphomaniacs. And here is issue number one. None of the men seem to develop increased libidos. Even Riker, who’s libido is pretty intense under normal circumstances, doesn’t hit on anyone. But Tasha, Beverly, the unnamed Captain of the Tsiolkovsky, and to a lesser extent Troi, all respond to the contaminant in the same way.

TNG's most popular ship. (You thought it was the Enterprise?)

            I’m not really sure what else to say about this. Beverly at least has some self-control, but her feelings for Captain Picard should be blatantly obvious to the entire crew by now. Tasha is out of control, as sexually aggressive as she usually is just aggressive, and doesn’t appear to have a particular target in mind. She’s ready to seduce whoever walks through the door, and while her dalliance with Data is played entirely for laughs, I can’t help but feel a bit skeezed out by it, especially as I don’t think Data was capable of giving consent. Still, he is sort of game for anything when it comes to experiencing new aspects of humanity, so he probably wasn’t too bothered by it.

            Incidentally, Data seems a lot more biological in this episode than in later ones. For example, he can be administered the cure via hypospray.

           In brief though, I feel like the writers could have tried a little harder, and seeing Beverly and Tasha go all boy-crazy in episode two does not bode well for how this show treats its female characters. Along similar lines, having its only disabled character spend all his drunk time whining about his disability is a bit pandering. Like seriously, “blind” is the entire extent of Geordi’s characterization as of yet. He doesn’t even have a real job, the Chief Engineer and Assistant Chief Engineer being people we never see again after this episode.

"Like taking candy from a baby."

            Speaking of the Chief Engineer, perhaps the reason we don’t see more of her is that a drunk sixteen-year old can easily wrest control of the ship from her. Apparently good judgment and inhibitions were the only thing keeping Wesley from pulling off a successful one-man mutiny, which honestly just does not bode well for the Enterprise. Although this kind of behavior is totally believable for a bratty teenager, other aspects of his personality in this episode make him seem like he’s nine or ten, for example talking to Geordi about using his Picard’s voice recorder to pretend he’s on the Enterprise. I mean, dude, you have a Holodeck! Or his proclamation the “a desert course will follow every meal, including breakfast” which is also quite silly because people have replicators and eat what they want when they want anyway.

            Wesley doesn’t get thrown in the brig because as well as recklessly endangering the ship, he ultimately manages to save it, he and his mother being basically the only two crew members capable of keeping their heads and solving problems while under the influence.

Random Observations:

The Tsiolkovsky's Captain says they're going to have "a real blow-out", just before everyone gets blown out the airlock. Ha!

This is another very ensemble-heavy episode – no one crew member takes center stage, but if I had to call it I’d say it’s a Beverly or a Wesley episode. Tagging Data and Tasha because of the famous scene.

             

Best laugh line in the episode was the Picard/ Data callback to the famous Tasha/ Data seduction scene:

“Well at least your functioning”

“Fully, Captain.”

            

 I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that “Fully Functional” has become one of the premier Star Trek Convention Pick Up Lines, and if nothing else this episode gave us that.

             

Deanna is still talking with a weird fake accent.

             

There is actually something charming about Will Wheaton in this episode. Sort of Ferris Bueller-esque.

             

The scene between Beverly and Picard was actually well-acted and quite funny. So was the scene where Picard finds out Data isn’t immune. Basically, Gates McFadden, Patrick Stewart, and Brent Spiner all managed convincing portrayals of “Drunk but trying to act sober” while the rest of the cast either went too far (Tasha, Geordi) or didn’t go far enough (Riker, Deanna.)

             

Worf manages to avoid getting infected possibly because Klingons have awesome immune systems and can also hold their liquor.

             

The Tsiolkovsky is a blatant reuse of the Enterprise D sets – they barely even tried to disguise it.

             

Still seeing a few of those miniskirts on the junior officers.