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).
There are several episodes in VOY that involve the question of whether or not holograms are alive, and/or feature conflict between holograms and organic beings. I’m going to ignore that part of VOY, it’s a bit too philosophical, and comparing the maltreatment of holograms to the maltreatment of, for example, Black people, seems stupid. Although I kind of make an exception for The Doctor (it’s impossible to be a fan of ST and not do that) I lean towards saying that holograms are not life forms, but I don’t feel like going into it.
“The Omega Directive” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political but pretty good episode. I give it four stars out of five.
“Unforgettable” See this for a plot summary.
I’m a little disapointed that Janeway and Chakotay were okay with Kellin taking the stowaway and erasing his memory. When it’s Kellin who’s being tracked by the Tracer, they feel that the Tracers are wrong and Chakotay feels that Kellin’s society should allow people to leave if they want to. The fact that the first person was a stowaway doesn’t seem to justify the differences in Starfleet attitudes. If people want to leave a society they should be allowed to and they certainly shouldn’t have their memories wiped.
I give it two stars out of five.
“Living Witness” See this for a plot summary.
This episode has many aspects that I want to comment on.
First, it’s entertaining to see the Voyager crew acting as they do at the beginning.
Second, the idea of the Doctor being activated again after 700 years and then a little bit later resuming a course to the Alpha Quadrant to learn if Voyager made it home takes what I like about VOY a little further.
But the bulk of this is about how the episode illustrates oppression, historical memory, and reconciliation.
Although it’s not clear, it seems like there was bigotry towards the Kyrians (and they may have been oppressed) before the war but that they started the war and were less than completely innocent. Although it’s not clear how much they were the victims before and during the war, it’s clear that they still experience some oppression 700 years after the war.
In the Doctor’s version of events the Vaskan ambassador makes derogatory comments about the Kyrians and carries out an extrajudicial execution of the Kyrian leader. 700 years later, Kyrians are still excluded from many institutions and forced to live outside the city center.
The brief description of how truth and reconciliation won in the end is inspiring, although it’d be better if there were some more details.
I give it five stars out of five.
“Demon” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
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