This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.
(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)
“Disabled” Season 11. Wikipedia summary is: “When she fails to show up at a bus stop, Cara Raleigh (Lisa Arrindell Anderson), a disabled former opera singer with multiple sclerosis who cannot speak, is found by her bus driver (Ralph Byers), beaten and raped in her home. Her nephew (Quinton Aaron) gives an alibi that does not check out and her sister (Jill Scott) is seen physically abusing her on video. As a result, both caregivers become suspects. Cara eventually reveals that the bus driver was the rapist but is put in a nursing home and becomes unwilling to cooperate. Benson manages to persuade her to stand trial with the unit's temporary ADA (Teddy Sears).”
There’s one thing fairly hostile to those who organize dog fights.
“Conned” Season 11. Wikipedia summary is: “A homosexual prostitute (Pressly Coker) is found dead in the storage room of a hotel during a wedding reception with the ID of a friend named Andrew Hingam (John Magaro). Fin Tutuola questions his son Ken (Ernest Waddell) about the two boys since they were all known to volunteer at the same place. Ken leads Fin to Hingam, who confesses to killing his friend in self-defense. Hingam's case deepens when detectives learn that his psychiatrist (Ally Walker) who prescribes a regimen of drugs and electro convulsive therapy may be performing other procedures on him as well.”
At one point, while questioning a hotel’s kitchen staff, they assure them they’re not concerned about anyone’s immigration status.
“Beef” Season 11. Wikipedia summary is: “Following the vicious rape-murder of a beautiful worker (Ioana Alfonso) at "Donna Rosa's" meat packing plant, the police initially suspect that a vegetarian (Aaron Tveit) who lives in her building is the killer. However, suspicion shifts elsewhere when they learn that the victim was an undercover animal activist attempting to document and expose unsanitary practices in the meat packing industry. Information from the company owner (Lynn Cohen) and foreman (John Petkoff) leads the detectives to arrest a plant worker (Juan Javier Cardenas) and match his DNA to that found at the crime scene. This turns out to be a dead end as well after an interview with his jealous wife (Nancy Rodriguez) reveals that he was framed. Detective Benson goes undercover herself to retrace the woman's steps.”
First, they assure immigrants that they’re not Immigration.
The story is about a business-owner and her manager killing an undercover journalist investigating their meat-packing plant.
“Ace” Season 11. Wikipedia summary is: “Detectives Benson and Stabler must track down a pregnant rape victim (Hanna-Liina Võsa) who disappears from the hospital. In the process, they uncover a vast baby-trafficking scam, led by a Bulgarian crime lord (Pasha D. Lychnikoff). When the woman (Gordana Rashovich) who housed the pregnant mothers is discovered murdered, Benson and Stabler go undercover as infertile parents, while ADA Marlowe clashes with Cragen over methods to protect the kidnapped woman and her newborn child. Matters become complicated in the trial when the gynecologist (David Paymer) involved is assigned the same lawyer as the mob that used him for his access to pregnant women. He realizes that if he testifies truthfully he will be killed so a shadow counsel is arranged.”
First, a rape survivor leaves the hospital before SVU can talk with her, because she’s undocumented and is worried Immigration will be called. Second, when a US government official makes some anti-immigrant comments, one of the detectives says: “spoken like a true racist.”
“Bullseye” Season 12. Summary is here.
There’s a brief appearance of a very minor character- a gay man raising a child with another gay man.
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Law and Order: SVU Reviews CC
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Law and Order: SVU Reviews Q
This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.
(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)
“Sacrifice” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “An unidentified man (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is found shot and sexually assaulted in an alley outside of a gay bar. Detectives Benson and Stabler learn that the victim and his wife (Elizabeth Banks) have a young daughter (Audrey Twitchell) with cystic fibrosis and that they worked in the porn industry to pay for her medical bills. The lead witness (Kevin Geer), who is a recovering drug addict, angers Fin, causing him to re-think his police role.”
A witness at the beginning is an off-duty detective exiting a gay bar. The SVU detectives offer to keep his name out of their report if he’s worried about people learning that he’s gay. And he’s Black (I mention that because of the significance of intersectionality- he's both Black and gay).
Another witness is a homeless man who sleeps near the gay bar and who says that the patrons of the establishment treat him well. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. I imagine that even today a lot of gay teenagers either run away or are expelled by their parents and they spend a lot of time homeless.
“Inheritance” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A young Asian woman (Lynn Chen) is severely beaten and raped at a burglary site. Benson and Stabler initially suspect rival Asian gang members, who are in dispute over the victim's loyalty. This theory is disproven when they find another Asian victim and track down serial rapist Darrell Guan (Marcus Chong). Guan was ostracized throughout his childhood and feels that even his own mother (Wai Ching Ho) did not love him. The case hits close to home for Benson because Guan is also the product of a rape. The trial focuses on the impact of genetic predisposition versus environmental upbringing on the nature of violence.”
There are four things worth a note each.
1. An Asian-American detective says “Chinatown’s got no love for cops.” If that’s true, it’s very interesting to me. I have heard very little about conflict between (East) Asian-Americans and the police, and about 1/3 of my Bachelor’s degree is Asian-American Studies. Asian-Americans DO overwhelmingly vote Democrat, but I had no idea there was widespread hostility towards the police among Chinese immigrants. If this is true it just means that the internal problem police have to overcome (racism) is even bigger than I thought.
2. At one point the detectives assure an Asian-American man they need help from that they’re not Immigration. I haven’t spelled this out when doing a comment like this before, but the point I’m trying to make is that they’re acting like the cops of a sanctuary city, which is what NYC is.
3. There is a fair amount of material about racial conflicts between Blacks and Chinese in America. I think there is some evidence of that in reality and I think it’s partly because the right-wing part of the establishment want to create a schism between Asian-Americans and other people of color, by, for example, pushing the model minority theory and pushing the idea that the former don’t need or support Affirmative Action (in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of a post here there’s some info about Asian-Americans and Affirmative Action). There’s also the fact that a significant minority of Blacks are anti-immigrant.
4. This episode also brings up the issue of abortion and rape. I am 100% pro-choice but if I were pro-life I would make an exception for rape- if a woman chooses to avoid being frequently reminded of such a nightmare by having an abortion, she should have that right.
“Monogamy” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A pregnant woman (Tricia Paoluccio) is attacked and has her baby ripped from her womb. Detectives Benson and Stabler quickly look for the baby hoping he's still alive. The woman's husband (John Ritter) seems shocked, but it is soon discovered she may have had an affair with a construction worker (Bobby Cannavale). In the resulting trial, ADA Alex Cabot tries to find a way to charge the husband while avoiding the controversial territory of reproductive rights.”
You get the impression that all the main characters (the detectives and the ADA) are pro-choice.
“Prodigy” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A man and a woman are stabbed during a supposedly romantic park encounter. The woman's head as well as her hands are missing, which makes it difficult for detectives Benson and Stabler to identify the victims. They soon learn that the crime scene was staged and that the woman was an officer of the Manhattan Federation for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This leads them to various people from her organization, as well as its opposers, and a young sociopath (Michael Pitt) who had a troubled relationship with the woman. However they soon uncover a more violent suspect (Brian Sullivan) much more close.”
This is almost entirely about cruelty to animals.
“Popular” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “Detective Stabler's wife (Isabel Gillies) tells him that her nurse friend (Laura Duncan) at a local hospital treated a fourteen-year-old rape victim (Brittany Slattery), who refused to report the crime to the police or her family. Stabler decides to investigate her unofficially with the help of Detective Benson. They find out she and her classmates were involved with drugs and alcohol, a fact which troubles her family.”
In a Teacher’s Lounge at a Jr. High there’s a bulletin board below the words “Union News.”
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Law and Order: SVU Reviews P
This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.
(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)
“Pixies” Season 2. Wikipedia summary is: “The investigation of a gymnast's murder involves her strict trainer (Philip Casnoff), a wealthy benefactor (Armand Schultz) and a competitor (Kate Mara).”
There’s one point where one of the detectives talks about how little labor is paid in the tennis shoe industry compared to how much the shoes cost. I don’t know what’s been happening with that in the last 20 years but around 1999 I did some political activism on the sweatshop issue, including some small contributions to the effort by WAAKE-UP at CU-Boulder.
“Consent” Season 2. Wikipedia summary is: “College girl Kelly D'Leah (Tammy Blanchard) is raped during a frat party, but can't remember anything that happened. The detectives find that she had a date rape drug in her system, leaving the squad with many suspects and accomplices. They ultimately discover that the boy who had sex with Kelly (Zak Orth) was unaware that she had been drugged.”
I think this may be the only episode that mentions in a significant way the oral contraceptive that is part of a rape kit (the exam done to establish that rape took place and to gather evidence used to identify the rapist). In 2008 John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate for the White House. There were a lot of horrible things about her but perhaps the most damning allegation failed to stick in the eyes of most of the voters. And that is the fact that when she was mayor of Wasilla, the Police Dept. there charged for the rape kit to be done, and either the survivor or her insurance company had to pay.
At some point I read somewhere that the inclusion of an oral “morning after” contraceptive might be why Palin didn’t want to pay for the rape kits. I read some more about that in a blog post here. It seems that Palin only supports abortion when the life of the woman is in danger, not when she’s been raped.
“Paranoia” Season 2. Wikipedia summary is: “The rape of a veteran police officer (Khandi Alexander), who trained Benson, is first linked to her ex-husband's gambling debts and then to her fellow officers.”
This story is about a rape committed by a cop.
“Scourge” Season 2. Wikipedia summary is: “The team searches for a serial killer (Richard Thomas) who justifies his crimes with paranoid religious motivation set on by a rapidly deteriorating medical condition. Even though she knows that he has been driven to kill, his wife (Karen Allen) begs the prosecutors to show leniency because of his condition (Neurosyphilis).”
I’m not sure I do this every time it comes up, but in this episode a corporation (or its CEO) is targeted by the cops at the end for the indirect role it played in four murders and it’s action was sort of motivated by greed.
“Rooftop” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A series of rapes, each more violent than the previous, takes place in a community of African-Americans. Detectives Benson and Stabler promptly suspect a known HIV-positive sex offender (Dorian Missick) who was recently released from jail, however he dies of an overdose and is found on a rooftop. The attacks continue and Detective Tutuola's childhood friends' daughter is killed. As they find nothing, her brother Rodney Thompson (Todd Williams) accuses the police of limiting the budget put on the case. Only when a fifth victim is killed, do her final moments alongside Thompson's persistence give them what they need to find the killer.”
There are two things worth mentioning.
1) There’s a reference to how serial killers often start with harming animals.
2) The detective played by Ice-T agrees with some angry young black men that the media are less concerned about black females being raped and killed than they are concerned about white females being raped and killed and criticizes the police for responding to the series of rapes and murders with an insufficient number of officers when there would be more officers if the victims were white. He even takes a pretty hard-line on the issue in a conversation with his captain.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews D
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).
“Rogue Planet” See this for a plot summary.
This episode tells us that decades earlier on Earth, hunting animals ceased. I have weak, negative feelings about hunting- I have basically nothing besides that to say on the subject.
I give it two stars out of five.
“Acquisition” See this for a plot summary.
This episode is about Ferengis, who practice raw capitalism. There is an exchange between Archer and one of the Ferengi about the Rules of Acquisition, a Ferengi code of conduct.
Ferengi: ... the most important one- “a man is only worth the sum of his possesions.”
Archer: Back on my home world that kind of thinking almost destroyed our civilization.
“Oasis” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it four stars.
“Detained” See this for a plot summary.
A very political episode. The internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans in most of the US during World War II is mentioned as something similar to what the Suliban are experiencing.
One of the interned Suliban explains that, “they told us it was only temporary, it was for our own safety- ‘once the cabal has been destroyed you will be free to go back to your homes.’ We’re still waiting” (eight years on).
This brings up two things:
1) It kind of reminds me of people being detained without a trial in the War on Terror and how that will probably not end in a few or even several decades.
2) If they were really interested in the safety of the Suliban (who were being attacked violently by Tandarans), the government would have made it very clear that attacks on them were unacceptable, and backed that up with the Army.
In general a good illustration of bigotry and oppression. I give it four stars out of five.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews CC
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 Perfect Mate” See this for a plot summary.
At the beginning there’s some good political talk as they discuss whether or not a woman is being transported on the Enterprise as some kind of property.
I give it two stars out of five.
“Imaginary Friend” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.
“I, Borg” See this for a plot summary.
The main political question for this episode is, is it okay to completely and totally wipe out the Borg? Some would call that genocide. But most of the main and recurring characters in this episode are okay with doing that, until they saw that Hugh was becoming an individual and was rejecting what the Borg are about. I also would be okay with wiping out the Borg- they are inherently incapable of co-existing with other races and assimilation by the Borg is horrible, as we learned on Voyager.
There is one line which indicates that testing products on animals is a thing of the past.
After the crew start changing their minds about using Hugh as a weapon, Picard, says that if they did use him, they would be “no better than the enemy that we seek to destroy.”
I give this episode three stars out of five.
“The Next Phase” See this for a plot summary.
The only sort of political thing to mention here is that some of the dialogue indicates that Ro and perhaps Geordi as well, are better described as agnostic instead of atheist. That’s a welcome, small departure from the generally atheist position on religion that ST takes.
I give this episode four stars out of five.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Star Trek: Voyager Reviews Q
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.
“Revulsion” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give this episode two stars out of five.
“The Raven” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.
“Scientific Method” See this for a plot summary.
This is basically about doing laboratory tests on animals. I give it three stars out five.
“Year of Hell” parts 1 and 2. See this and this for a plot summary.
A non-political two parter. But, like most-all two-parters, very good. I give it four stars out of five.
“Random Thoughts” See this for a plot summary.
1. The idea of punishing people for certain thoughts is ridiculous, even in a telepathic society. (some might say that’s an argument against hate crime laws but hate crimes go beyond thought to action and hate crimes are more dehumanizing and terroristic to the victims and their communities than ordinary crimes are).
2. I think that messing with someone’s memories is probably not a good idea, although I suppose it’s possible it could be done without any damage. It seems like a bad punishment for crime.
I give this episode two stars out of five.
“Concerning Flight” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Mortal Coil” See this for a plot summary.
This episode, more so than some others, raises the issue of religion. It has been raised before in relation to some kind of American Indian religion practiced by Chakotay, although as far as I can tell they’ve left it unclear exactly which nation indigenous to the western Hemisphere Chakotay is from. But it does seem like pretty much the first time “Old Earth” religions have been practiced by people who are more or less Federation, and I appreciate it as it erodes the idea in ST that jettisoning religion is part of human progress.
Anyway, I give the episode two stars out of five.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews O
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).
“Visionary” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it three stars out of five.
“Distant Voices” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode. One tiny element of politics is that we learn about the Cardassian equivalent of mystery novels. In the enigma tale, all the suspects are guilty and the mystery is what they’re guilty of. The message sent is that if the authorities suspect someone, they must be guilty.
A good episode, I give it three stars out of five.
“Through The Looking Glass” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode but there are some minor aspects that are political.
1. At the very beginning, it’s made clear one more time that ST and the Federation are against animal fights for entertainment and gambling.
2. I think this is the first episode where we see that the mirror universe Kira is bi-sexual. Unfortunately, she’s a villain and the fact that it’s the mirror universe further erodes the anti-homophobic statement made by having a non-heterosexual character.
Although I’m not a big fan of the mirror universe episodes, this one is good, I give it two stars out of five.
“Improbable Cause” and “The Die Is Cast” See this and this for a plot Summary.
A very non-political two-parter, but a very good one, I give it four stars out five.
“Explorers” See this for a plot summary.
There’s one political aspect to this episode. The Cardassians don’t believe Bajoran claims that early Bajoran spacefaring efforts 800 years earlier made it as far as Cardassia. These are the same Cardassians who must have convinced themselves that Bajorans were inferior in order to justify their occupation of Bajor. Denying achievements by Bajorans would be part of that. It reminds me how the indigenous people of the Americas are denied credit for the many achievements they made before Europeans did. I haven’t studied that for about 10 years and only vaguely remember a few, but there’s an average sized book about it that I read, there were something like 100-150. things that the indigenous people taught to Europeans. The United States constitution was influenced by the Iroquois Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace. I remember reading that some farming techniques were first used by indigenous people of the Americas. There’s a ton of others.
“Family Business” See this for a plot summary.
This episode is basically about how Ferengi society treats women. Not well as it turns out. It’s basically the second of, I think about 3 DS9 episodes that are about a Ferengi woman challenging the sexist nature of her society.
It’s a pretty good episode, especially considering the politics, so I give it four out of five stars.
“Shakaar” See this for a plot summary.
A very political episode and the politics are a bit complicated. Here’s how I see it:
Kai Winn, basically the Pope of Bajor, somehow becomes Interim First Minister of Bajor until an election can be held to elect a replacement for the last First Minister who died suddenly. It seems like a big mistake- to have Bajor’s spiritual leader retain that position of power when she becomes Bajor’s political leader as well. That’s too much power in the hands of one person. Of course I also don’t like Winn as she’s a conservative religious fundamentalist.
One of her first moves is to demand that some crucial farm equipment be returned to the government by farmers in one province. The first problem is that they had been told they’d have the equipment for a year and had only had it for two months. The second is that Winn wants the equipment transferred to another province which produces agricultural products for export. She believes that exporting food will improve Bajor’s chance of being admitted to the Federation. There are two flaws with that- first, she probably came under the influence of one segment of the business community that would benefit from such exports and second I doubt the Federation would turn them down because they weren’t exporting. Considering all of that, the drastic steps Winn takes to assert the government’s authority (using the Army, introducing martial law) are a total over-reaction and almost lead to civil war. It’s just a further illustration of how anti-democratic Winn is.
Overall a good episode, I give it four out of five stars.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews N
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).
“Life Support” See this for a plot summary.
A fairly non-political episode. We see more of how repulsive a character Kai Winn is, which is both good and nauseating. We also see more of how sexist Ferengi culture and society are.
One thing I could Northern Ireland-ize is the idea of a peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia. I’m going to skip, for now, the details of the treaty between the Irish and the British that resulted in the South of Ireland getting it’s independence and talk about how the Dublin state got along with the British.
It’s pretty widely accepted that if Michael Collins had not been killed during the Civil War he would have continued the fight for all of Ireland to be independent and united. With his death that didn’t happen. Unlike with the situation between Cardassia and Bajor where the Occupation is completely over, the Irish state in Dublin has generally gotten along with London EVEN THOUGH the British continue to occupy an area that the vast majority of Irish consider to be Irish and want to be united with the area governed by Dublin. The State in Dublin could have been more supportive of the IRA by coming to some kind of arrangement with them and more politically supportive of the nationalist community by consistently making a big deal internationally about how they were treated. At the very least that would make things very awkward between London and Dublin, although it’s unlikely the British would have gone to war over it. If they did, that would have almost certainly increased support for the IRA in the South and re-occupying the South would not have been sustainable for the British considering the resistance they would have met in Ireland and the embarrassment it would have caused internationally. At the very least they should have taken that attitude after the events of Aug. 1969 when there were major pogroms (one successful, one unsuccessful) against the Catholic community in the North. At that point there was a lot of international attention on the North, a lot of sympathy for the Nationalist community, and it seems like at that point the British would not have reacted by directly attacking or occupying the South. Letting loyalist paramilitaries attack the South would have been relatively minor and but would have had a similar effect if the Dublin state had responded the right way, by pointing to likely collusion or the way that the British were turning a relatively blind eye to the loyalists and highlighting what was happening to the nationalist community and all the other arguments in favor of unification as justification for the State’s behavior that brought on the loyalist attacks. Also, such an aggressively republican strategy would have been appropriate at that point as the republican movement and the nationalist community were putting lots of pressure on the British and there was a higher than usual amount of international pressure on the British, which could have been increased if the Dublin state had been more republican. A leading Irish-American politician once responded to critics in the Irish-American community who were pushing him to be more (Irish) republican by saying "What do you want me to do, be more Irish than the Irish government?" Of course, it’s not an issue of being Irish, it’s an issue of being against oppression and injustice and in favor of human right and against imperialism, but it still would have been easier to generate support for uniting Ireland if the Irish state had been more republican.
Why weren’t they more republican? Historically and in recent decades, most of the politicians who have had a relatively or very moderate attitude towards the British represented business interests who didn’t want their business disrupted by confrontation with the British. in general the population in the South had their freedom and civil rights, etc. which affected how strongly they felt about the situation facing the nationalist community- they were and are concerned about them, but are not interested in confrontation with Britain since they can live their lives just fine anyway. Much of the left also were anti-republican, something which I’ve heard attributed to something called “post-colonial self-loathing.” It’s also possible that to some degree, opinions on this in the South would have improved if the rest of the world had shown the appropriate amount of interest, and as I’ve explained here and here, almost the entire reason why the world didn’t show more interest has nothing to do with Irish public opinion. It has to do with the Left and and with Sinn Fein making mistakes and the IRA making mistakes.
Going back to the episode, I don’t like it very much. I give it one star out of five.
“Heart of Stone” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, although there is one thing that’s worth commenting on. Nog starts his efforts to be the first Ferengi in Starfleet. Nog is one of my two favorite secondary characters and him being the first Ferengi in Starfleet is a very interesting story. Although as a Ferengi he’s fairly sexist, he clearly isn’t wedded to the way Ferengi society treats women and he has shown, even before expressing a desire to join Starfleet, some dissent from Ferengi values. I also like his friendship with Jake. So I like the idea of him being the first Ferengi in Starfleet.
Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out of five.
“Destiny” See this for a plot summary.
Overall a very non-political episode, two sort of political bits:
1. It’s made clear that the Federation do not allow animal fights for entertainment and gambling.
2. It’s made very clear that religious texts should not be taken too seriously, although they can be used for inspiration.
(Although I am mildly religious and fairly spiritual and the Bible laid the seeds of me becoming a socialist, I’m not a religious socialist. The seeds of socialism that the Bible planted in me when I was very young were further developed by the music I listened to in High School (as I describe in the 2nd 1/3 of an earlier post) and some information I learned about US history in 11th grade and two fiction books I read in High School. So I don’t identify as a religious socialist and don’t quote the bible in favor of my positions, but I respect people who do identify as religious socialists. They use religious documents as a small part of the basis for their arguments and believe strongly in seperation of church and state)
It’s a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.
“Prophet Motive” See this for a plot summary.
A very interesting episode, very political. We learn that the Ferengi were not always greedy and in fact at one time long ago were basically the opposite of what they are on DS9. There’s lots of anti-capitalist talk from the prophets/worm hole aliens.
Overall a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews B
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).
“Babel” See this for a plot summary.
Basically no political themes at all. It’s a good story though, I’d give it two stars out of five.
“Captive Pursuit” See this for a plot summary.
Almost the entire story is about an alien from the Gamma Quadrant who is bred by other aliens to act as hunting game. It raises issues of respecting sentient life, and is anti-hunting in general, although there are differences between the alien and, say, a deer, since the alien is more intelligent than an animal and can communicate with those who hunt him, which makes it different and worse than hunting animals. As far as normal hunting, I’ve got mixed feelings about that, maybe lean towards negative; as far as hunting beings comparable to humans, obviously that’s pretty messed up.
Besides that, the only other political issue to come up is at the very beginning with a conversation that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. A female employee of the Ferengi Quark (Ferengi are very sexist) whose job is to entertain customers gambling, complains to Sisko about Quark requiring her through her contract to provide him with sexual services. Sisko says that he’ll explain to Quark that he cannot enforce that part of the contract.
The main story is pretty good, the idea of the hunt, the technology of the aliens, and the first encounter with life from the Gamma Quadrant are very interesting, and O’Brien’s friendship with Tosk is good. I give it three stars out of five.
“Q-less” See this for a plot summary.
This is the only Q episode on DS9, which I have mixed feelings about. Although the Voyager Q episodes were pretty good, in general I’m not a big fan of the Q episodes. On the other hand, considering how Q was part of the other two 1990s series, it would be weird if there wasn’t one on DS9, and this one has something that is special. That’s how Sisko relates to Q compared to how Picard handled Q. At one point Sisko hits Q, something which Picard never did.
The only political theme is the references to how Vash has an ethics problem with her archeology work. As she admits, she’s more interested in making a profit than anything else. This results in her taking items of various planets cultures and histories that the people on those planets want to keep on their planets.
Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out five.
“Dax” See this for a plot summary.
Overwhelmingly just a mystery, basically no political issues at all. But a good story anyway, even though this is the 4th or 5th time I have seen it and I know how it ends. It also goes into more detail about the Trill host-symbiant relationship, something which is neat and lays the basis for more stories later. I’d give it three stars out of five.