Amnesia of the Future: Code of Honor

13th November, 2009 5 Comments

Three episodes and four hours into Star Trek viewing.  As entertaining and cheesy as the show is, I’m not quite sure why this has such a cult following.  Had I been watching at the time it first aired, these past two episodes wouldn’t make me excited to see what was going to happen next week. 

I do find the approach to physics and philosophy that is featured to be rather interesting, this episode being quite decidedly on philosophy, ethics, and morals.  And I find I can’t much talk about my reaction without getting all philosophical myself  (note:  I just re-read all I wrote and realized why people compare me to Leonard on The Big Bang Theory.  Look, I too could be a Star Trek actor and ramble on and on with pointless drivel.)

In Code of Honor, I get to really learn about The Prime Directive for the first time.  As advanced as western civilization has become, it is still something we regularly deal with.  Obviously I went to my own version of Data to learn more about what this Prime Directive was.  In other-words, I pulled up Wikipedia.  What on earth did nerds do in the 1980s to figure this all out? 

Apparently there are variations; the main one (and dumbed down here) being that if a planet has not developed advanced technology, StarFleet can’t interfere and teach them or gift them anything.  Okay, that kind of sucks, but I get it–if a people aren’t mentally advanced enough for said technology, the end result could be disastrous. 

In this case though we’re talking about a different side of the directive–don’t mess with the social order of a people.  When European society began colonizing other parts of the world, they certainly didn’t have their own prime directive and as a result we’ve lost a lot of knowledge about various civilizations thanks to a combination of physical force and Christian missionaries telling natives of different lands that their beliefs are wrong and actively changing them in an attempt to “civilize” them.  Essentially it was playing god and creating another people in their own image.

So how do you decide whose social behavior should be adopted when two interact?  The Prime Directive sort of takes care of that, but then you also get personal ethics involved.

This becomes confusing to me because shouldn’t that lack of involvement mean that Styris IV doesn’t get to have the vaccine?  And don’t Tasha’s personal ethics about fighting for the vaccine yet not wanting to kill Yarinna interfere? 

Ultimately, the episode was just as hokey for me as The Naked Now.  I appreciate the analogy and moral questions raised and the set-up for what happens rolls out very nicely.   But where is the Jell-O?   If you’re going to have juvenile boy-thoughts about a girl fight, shouldn’t they be in bikinis and Jell-O?  Give them such “advanced” weaponry and have them fight on the set of Flashdance, but Tasha gets to remain in her uniform with her communicator on?  At least Yarinna got to wear a pink lamé bodysuit and come out like the reigning champion.

For its sexist approach at the beginning, I was rather surprised by the twist of strength in women.  Both with Tasha as Chief Security Officer (despite how far gender equality has come, for 1987 this was rather progressive) and the fact that Yarinna is really the one in charge and with all the power–not Lutan and the men.

Memories of the Future:  Chapter 4

Really, Wil Wheaton?  Pillow fight was as good as you could come up with?  Were you afraid of trademark issue in mentioning Jell-O?  Because Jell-O fight trumps pillow fight any day.  At least you had the Beavis and Butthead running joke.  I found that to be infantile and pointless at first, but you pulled it off nicely. 

Thank you for pointing out the fact that Captain Picard’s staff isn’t exactly helpful with the whole lack of advance pertinent information.  I’m guessing there are unions in space and you can’t fire someone for being piss-poor at their job.

Wil Wheaton also points out that this is the second episode in a row, right at the beginning, to rip off one of the original series episodes (Amok Time), and I have to wonder if the the rest of The Next Generation is going to be equally as unoriginal.  At least let Picard get a little action a la Kirk if you’re going to just copy what came before. 

In both a creative writing and a film class I had taken in high school, my teachers really stressed the concept of “show, don’t tell.”  Some people are really good at this (W. Somerset Maugham), others are terrible (come on, Stephanie Meyer–2,400 pages and a good 40% of that was to tell us, again, that Edward has really cold, marble hard skin?).  Apparently, Wil Wheaton had the same teachers because he points out that in future episodes there’s a lot of telling going on, but for all its faults, Code of Honor is able to show the characters recognize and poke fun at themselves when they start to get to heavy on the telling.

The show, so far, has done a pretty decent job of balancing exposition to explain and set up the story of each episode.  There’s a a lot of talk and some action.  I’m a little nervous that future episodes promise to tip the scales towards more talk.  While it can be funny and interesting, those are the moments I start to tune out by checking Twitter or picking up my knitting.*

*If you haven’t seen the Star Trek-a-thon photos, check out the set-up for watching.  In a chair in the background is a blanket I’m working on based off the Fibonacci Sequence.  It can take a bit of focus to get the rows and stitches just right.

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