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 have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.
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).
“Elaan of Troyius” See this for a plot summary.
There is one bit of politics, bad ones, when Kirk says that except for Vulcan women, women are all illogical. Not an example of ST’s progressive politics.
I give it one star out of five.
“Whom Gods Destroy” See this for a plot summary.
There is a lot of political aspects to this episode.
The setting is a prison housing the few remaining, un-rehabilitated criminally insane. There’s not much said about what the prison is like, but there is a painless therapy machine that helps with rehabilitation, although in general it apparently makes people docile, and at the end, it seems to also destroy memories, which is very disturbing.
It centers on one prisoner, a former Captain of StarFleet. He had tried to use his ship to destroy a peaceful people’s planet, but his crew mutinied, something I find fairly inspiring. More generally he had become a Federation imperialist and used torture.
I give it two stars out of five.
“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” See this for a plot summary.
This is one of the most political episodes of all ST. There are two main themes, which kind of contradict each other, at least as I see it. The first theme is of a people fighting national oppression, dictatorship, and possibly genocide. The second is of two population groups that hate each other and end up killing everyone on their planet.
Although it isn’t completely clear this is the case, it seems very likely to me that the struggle Lokai was engaged in was for a good cause and probably conducted honorably. There’s talk of slavery of his people, followed by another form of inequality (probably comparable to Jim Crow in the American South). Genocide is mentioned as a goal of his oppressors, many of whom were on the verge of seizing power and creating a dictatorship.
At one point when Lokai is educating some of the Enterprise crew about his plant, he says “you don’t know what it would be like to to be dragged out of your hovel into a war on another planet- a battle that will serve your oppressor and bring death to you and your brothers.” It seems like that line was probably inspired by looking at who was being disproportionately placed in combat units during the Vietnam War (hint- it wasn’t affluent white people). That war was of great benefit to the military-industrial complex, and, if the US had been successful, there probably would have been other benefits for some more elements of the white population.
Regarding his use of violence, Lokai has a couple good lines:
“I led revolutionaries, not criminals- I demand political asylum”
and “why should a slave show mercy to the enslaver.”
Although it’s unclear if he means slave revolts in the past when his people WERE slaves, or if he means killing civilian officials and leaders of the “Jim Crow-”type of oppression they experienced after slavery (which could possibly be questionable (the IRA rarely engaged in such attacks and I'm not sure if they were a good idea)), it’s a good line.
The first of the two lines reminds me of how IRA POWs resisted criminalization.
At one point Bele, the government official hunting Lokai, says that Lokai wants “utopia in a day” in reference to Lokai’s grivences. Lokai says something about how he wasn’t that impatient and suggested that Bele would be happy if it took one hundred thousand years. It kind of reminds me of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which he told white Christian clergy members that there was nothing wrong with oppressed people wanting justice to develop rapidly in the very near future.
As I said there are sort of two themes that contradict each other. At least some of the StarFleet crew generally believe that Lokai and Bele are mirror images of hatred, although there are exceptions who are very open to what lokai has to say. But I believe the dominant and accurate theme is the one of national oppression. The hand-full of lines and imagery about the other theme, are, by themselves, good statements about hatred.
Lastly, Kirk once again exaggerates how non-violent StarFleet is.
In general it is a very good episode, and I give it three stars out of five.
“The Mark of Gideon” See this for a plot summary.
There are a couple of political themes that should be mentioned.
The first is this thing that the Federation and StarFleet have about not taking "no" for answer when they try to establish a relationship with alien civilizations. It’s just wrong.
There is also the issue of population growth. I’m not as educated as I could be about the subject and am going to skip it.
I give this episode two stars out of five.
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