This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“A Simple Investigation” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode but a good one, I give it three stars out of five.
“Business As Usual” See this for a plot summary.
A political episode about arms dealers. Considering how probably some large majority of the time they arm forces I don’t support I’m not very fond of arms dealers. Is that in conflict with me supporting the IRA? Considering that the IRA got a lot of their arsenal from Libya, the Irish military and the British military and manufactured a lot of their weapons themselves, and considering that I’m concerned about the world outside of Ireland, I’m fairly comfortable saying that I support the IRA but not arms dealers. The overall affect of arms dealers is negative.
On the other hand, there are some conflicts where it’s not the flow of weapons that fuels the fighting but the flow of injustice. So, although I’m not fond of arms dealers and I’m sure they usually arm forces I don’t support, the main thing is that we need to change the world so there aren’t conflicts to be fueled by arms, and although the flow of arms often makes that difficult, it certainly doesn't make it impossible.
So, you could say I have mixed, mostly negative feelings about arms dealers, but I see the actions of participants in a conflict as the biggest problem, and it’s possible that those actions can be stopped without necessarily cutting off the flow of arms. Also, crucially, to one degree or another, the flow of arms to the wrong forces can be cut off by the global community (the fact that there will be disagreement about who the wrong forces are, doesn’t matter to me- that argument is inevitable and we can win it). And if we get to a point where there are no longer arms dealers, we’ll probably also be at a point where people aren’t being oppressed. And if not, there are other ways for oppressed people to get arms.
The last thing to consider when I say that I support the IRA and not arms dealers is when the latter sold guns to the former, they did it for money- it’s not like they did it for free and deserve gratitude.
These mixed but mostly negative feelings are well illustrated in the episode when it turns out that the arms dealers on DS9 supplied the Bajoran resistance with arms, and now the Bajoran government is shielding them from the law.
“Ties Of Blood And Water” See this for a plot summary.
This episode is kind of about a movement for democracy on Cardassia and also about the occupation of Bajor. I usually find episodes with one or both of those themes very enjoyable and very inspirational but not so much with this one. I give it two stars out of five.
“Ferengi Love Songs” See this for a plot summary.
Another episode about how Ferengi society treats women. Such episodes are pretty good.
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