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).
“The Quality of Life” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode (I’m not going to go into the stuff about the exocomps being alive- I am unfamiliar with the scientific and philosophical parts of that). I give it two stars out of five.
“Chain of Command” Parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.
A fairly political two-parter. Some notes:
1. I usually don't bother making this sort of comment, I’m not sure it made sense for them to have Picard and Crusher go on the Special Op.
2. It’s in this episode where they started having Troi wear her uniform, which is a good thing- she is a Lt. Commander, once took on a leadership role in a crisis, and she should wear her uniform.
3. The largest chunk of politics is the torture of Picard. Clearly ST and Starfleet are against torture, and it was a powerful portrayal of someone being tortured. It also showed that even “good family men” can be torturers. And Picard at one point made an explicit criticism of torture when he mentions that it’s unreliable and self-defeating and it’s a wonder that torture is still used at all.
4. There’s one disappointing thing, the Enterprise uses mines against the Cardassians, although they are mines that somehow attach themselves to the Cardassian ships, which means that maybe they’re an acceptable kind of mine.
I give it three stars out of five.
“Ship in a Bottle” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of fivw.
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