Law and Order Reviews J

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“Pride” Season 5. See this for a plot summary.

This is basically about homophobia and I think it’s a fairly good reply to the homophobes.

“Savages” Season 6. See this for a plot summary.

The Death Penalty 

This episode is about the death penalty, but the main characters, collectively, have mixed opinions about it. I won’t bother describing or analyzing those statements with two exceptions. First, it’s stated that (possibly looking just at NY state and it’s death-penalty situation) there was some kind of trend where the suspension of the death penalty saw a decrease in capital crimes or something like that.

One of the main characters (the senior detective) in a practical but not principled way opposes bringing the death penalty back to NY and says that it will create more desperation among criminals who might become more willing to shoot cops when police try to arrest them if they’re already facing charges that could involve the death penalty.

I am generally against the death penalty. To some small degree you could say this is partly inspired by or reinforced by the fact that my Church opposes it (until very recently I was a Catholic and I am now converting to the Episcopalian church that also opposes the death penalty). I know that the statistics indicate that independent of the thoughts of judges, prosecutors, and jurors, it’s application really is racist and classist. I believe there’s no reason to say that it deters serious crime.

I am open-minded about it being used in one situation. If someone is already serving a life sentence in prison with no chance of parole, where life means life, and they are convicted of a serious crime (murder (and maybe rape should also be included)) and there is no other way to significantly upgrade their sentence to reflect the new conviction, maybe they should get the death penalty. I am not sure how often murder and rape happen in prison, but it might possibly happen less often if what I just proposed was an option for judges and/or juries.

“Jeopardy” Season 6. See this for a plot summary.             

First, the Wikipedia summary is REALLY bad. The dead brother’s business had created a financial vulnerability for his family’s business. There were no rival businesses and there was no stealing of clients.

This is a type of episode that I have only inconsistently high-lighted until recently, but my plan for 1-3 years now has been that I’ll make a brief note about this when it comes up. First, the defendant is a wealthy businessperson who doesn’t seem political at all (i.e. he’s not made to look bad because he’s liberal or progressive, since he’s neither as far as we know- he’s made to look bad because he’s the kind of powerful person who thinks the rules don’t apply to him). Second, his even wealthier Mom uses her wealth-created power to subtly BRIBE the judge who gets the case and then rules in favor of the defendant a few times.

“Angel” Season 6. See this for a plot summary.

There’s 2-3 parts where racism towards Puerto Ricans in NYC is illustrated. The first time, I have to admit, the police don’t seem too offended. That doesn’t necessarily exclude the thing I want to highlight as anti-racist. After a well-attended Coleman-organized press conference is basically told that at that point the police are looking for a Puerto Rican man, the police get flooded with tips. One of the two detectives, while answering calls to the tip line, says to his supervisor: “Since the Colemans’ town meeting every nut job in the city who ever got a bad taco is pointing the finger.” It could be a better objection to what is happening to their investigation- it’s sinking into the muck of popular racism- but the detective is basically caricaturing that racism, saying that any White person who had a negative experience with a “hispanic” person is making false allegations about Puerto Ricans and the disappearance of the baby and are doing so in a way that doesn’t distinguish between different “hispanic” racial and ethnic groups. It turns out that the baby's White mother killed the baby.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews Z

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)

“PTSD” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “Benson and Tutuola get a first-hand look at how women in the military are treated when they respond to the murder of a pregnant marine who was raped by one of her fellow marines in Iraq. The two find a suspect (Ryan Kwanten) and become convinced of his guilt, but Greylek faces difficulties when the Navy Commander (Frank Whaley) threatens to shut down their investigation. Benson discovers new evidence and the real rapist (Dominic Fumusa) is identified along with his wife (Amy Spanger) who committed the murder. During the proceedings, Benson's prior sexual assault stirs up painful memories.”

First, there’s one brief anti-death penalty statement by the ADA.

It’s generally about sexual assault in the US military. About 5-15 years ago I read 1-2 articles about that and got the impression that the military doesn’t handle the issue very well. In this episode a military officer says that the national average rate of conviction for rape is 13% and it’s 10% in the military. This episode also highlights the fact that a service member who accuses a superior officer without evidence will be court-martialed. With that in mind I can only imagine how often a woman in the military is raped by a superior officer who gets away with it.

At one point a military officer asks detective Benson if she likes the military and she says she doesn’t because of the problem of rape in the military.  I’m going to keep this fairly brief but I have mixed and mostly negative thoughts about the military. I feel pretty good about what they did during the Civil War and during WWII and I used to be sort of positive about what they did in Somalia in the early 1990s. I imagine a small majority of people in the US military are good people. I believe it’s possible that they can do something good in the future. More of my thoughts about the US military are scattered throughout posts here.                               

“Hothouse” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When the body of a fourteen-year-old girl (Juliet Brett) is found floating in the Hudson River, Benson and Stabler think she was smuggled into the country by sex traffickers. Tutuola discovers her exceptional academic success and suspects that this had something to do with her murder. The detectives find out that the girl's father (George Tasudis) uses violence to coerce their other daughter (Aya Cash) into non-stop studying, and their mother (Funda Duval) is afraid to stop him. The killer turns out to be a high school student (Sarah Hyland) who obsesses over impressing her mother (Enid Graham). Mitigating circumstances come into play when the SVU discovers that she suffered from sleep deprivation and overdosed on drugs used to treat ADD.”

The Medical Examiner, who is a main character in some seasons and recurring in other seasons, says that sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

“Transitions” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When a man (Frank Grillo) is found badly beaten in a strip club parking lot, a fake fingernail leads the detectives to believe that the attacker is female. The victim awakes in the hospital with no memory of what happened, but brings the attention to his ex-wife (Wendy Makkena) and their thirteen-year-old transgender daughter (Bridger Zadina). She makes it no secret that she hated her father for not accepting her as a girl, causing the detectives to suspect her as well as her transgender boyfriend (Daniela Sea). The perpetrator is eventually revealed to be a guidance counsellor (Aisha Hinds) who has her own painful memories regarding gender identity.”

This is an episode about transphobia. It’s about a teenage transgendered girl named 
Hailey transitioning to being female. I get the impression that there are often state laws in this country that prevent minors from going through that transition. At one point the viewer thinks Hailey has tried to kill herself and that reminded me of something. In the Republic of Ireland, if a female is diagnosed as suicidal by two psychiatrists, she can have an abortion (abortion law sucks there). The LGBTQ+ community and their allies might demand something similar if there’s no way that a state will allow minors to transition- allow them to transition if the state’s refusal makes them suicidal. If it’s either that or nothing, I think what I’m suggesting as a compromise is better than nothing.

Two other notes:
1) The transgender teacher who supports Hailey is Black.
2) The bouncer at a strip bar seems to be a gay woman.

“Selfish” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When a woman (Gail O'Grady) reports the disappearance of her 11-month-old granddaughter, the detectives suspect the girl's mother (Hilary Duff) of killing her daughter. The detectives however find out that the baby actually died of measles because another mother (Anastasia Barzee) refused to vaccinate her son. After Cabot puts the evangelical mother on trial, she is found not guilty of manslaughter, prompting the baby's grandfather (Mike Pniewski) to take the law into his own hands.”

 

About halfway through the issue in this episode switches from a murdered baby to the issue vaccinations. I want to say a few things about vaccines. I think that they should be optional in a lot of cases, maybe all of them. But I think there should be an effort to encourage people to get them. That’s basically how I feel about the COVID-19 vaccines. Although I’m worried that they were rushed because of Trump putting pressure on the medical science industry (because he thought his elections chances would go up with vaccines being ready for use) and there might be problems with them, Dr. Fauci has said that they’re good and I really want to see America return to normal as soon as possible, and I encourage people to get them and I’m going to get one as soon as I can.

Law and Order: SVU Reviews R

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)

“Denial” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A drug addict (Martha Plimpton) is sexually assaulted. In her purse, detectives Benson and Stabler find a decomposing baby's finger. When looking for both her attacker and the baby, they suspect she might be withholding information to protect her mother (Mary Steenburgen) or grandmother (Estelle Parsons). Tutuola tries to help by getting her clean.”

The detectives don’t pursue her for doing drugs.

“Competence” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A woman (Lois Smith) reports her twenty-two-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome (Andrea Fay Friedman) is pregnant because a rapist (Matt DeCaro) took advantage of her innocence about sex. Detectives Benson and Stabler have to make sure that it is not just her mother being overprotective and in denial of her daughter's sex life. The girl's boyfriend (James Badge Dale) who also has Down Syndrome offer to help raise her baby. ADA Cabot then has to interfere and take on her superior, to settle the mother–daughter dispute on whether the daughter should have an abortion or not.”

In another season 3 episode there’s something that makes me think some of the people calling shots behind the camera are pro-union. With that in mind, when the character who got the woman pregnant brags that he pays union wages in his business, it’s a pro-union statement even though he’s sort of the “bad guy” in the episode.

“Silence” Season 3. Wikipedia summary is: “A murder takes place in a church. Detectives Benson and Stabler learn that the murderer (Sean Dugan) had been paid off by the church to stop him from reporting how he was sexually abused by a priest as a child. He blames the church for taking away his innocence and accuses a priest from his youth, Father Michael (Eric Stoltz) of molesting him.”

First, there’s one little bit about a nun (I assume a Catholic nun) who supports prostitutes by, for example, giving them free condoms. Catholic nuns tend to be a little bit to the left of the church.

This episode is mostly about the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. As I explain in some sections of a post here, I believe there is anti-Catholic bigotry in this country and sometimes I think that’s a small part of some peoples’ reaction to that scandal. But it’s a horrible scandal and it often really pisses me off and probably 99% of all Catholics. I haven’t heard of a mass exodus of victims and their families and I assume most of them are still Catholics. On the other hand, if I do leave the Church at any point it will be partly because of the scandal (but mostly other things (the second to last section of that post has more information)). Between the fact that lots of reasonable people criticize the Church about the scandal and the fact that one of the main characters is very Catholic, I don’t think it’s an anti-Catholic show. I just think that some people take a reasonable criticism of the Church too far and think that the Church was okay with what those priests were doing. They weren’t okay with it but their solution (transferring pedophile priests) was horrible.

“Chameleon” Season 4. Wikipedia summary is: “The detectives go on the trail of a recently paroled rapist responsible for the murder of a sex worker during a raid at a men's club and are called to the scene where he was shot in self defense by his own gun. However, the murder weapon was also used in another crime while he was still in prison, leading the detectives to investigate the victim (Sharon Lawrence) through a trail of previously unsolved cases, a spending spree and another victim.”

I’m not sure if this is liberal-progressive the way that opposing racism or homophobia is, but I should mention at least once that the detectives make it clear that they’re not Vice. I don’t know what Vice does except going after prostitutes but I believe that prostitution should be legal, safe and unionized, so I don’t think I like Vice very much.

There is also some opposition to the death penalty. Two ADAs support it, but the DA (a main character on Law and Order who gets along with the two ADAs in that show) and the FBI agent helping SVU oppose it.

“Juvenile” Season 4. Wikipedia summary is: “A cancer patient who was growing marijuana in her apartment is found raped and murdered, sending the detectives on a hunt for two junior-high students (Shane Lyons and Connor Paolo), each blaming the other. The prosecution team is faced with the dilemma of trying the older boy as an adult, despite evidence that he was not mentally capable of being able to carry out the crimes.”

The average reaction of the main characters to the fact that she was growing and selling (or distributing) marijuana is slightly positive. It’s very pro-medical marijuana.

Babylon 5 Reviews C

Years ago I did what you might call “reviews” of Star Trek episodes. I mostly just briefly noted what progressive politics were involved and sometimes used that as an excuse to talk about similar situations in reality.

Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it is more significant than usual. Lastly, there are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes.


**Season 1 Episode 15 “Grail”** See this for a plot summary.

After some serious criminal activity, the stations’ security chief wants to do a sweep through a high-crime area that, of course, is also a very poor area (A: Earth and B5 aren’t utopias like the Federation  is on Star Trek, and B: the security chief seems to be a mixture of different political tendencies whereas the commander is  more consistently progressive (the doctor, and, maybe, the second-in-command are also progressive)). The Commander rejects that request and says: “most of them are just people with no where else to go. They come here looking for a new life, a new job and when they don’t find it they can’t afford transport back.”


**Season 1 Episode 16 “Eyes”** See this for a plot summary.

At one point the chief of security, a male, refers to God with a female pronoun.


**Season 1 Episode 17 “Legacies”** See this for a plot summary.

Commander Sinclair agrees to take part in a memorial service sort of thing for a late military leader of the Minbari who was a hero of the Earth-Minbari war Sinclair had fought in. He says that it would help with the reconciliation between the two alien races. I think that sort of approach is often a good idea. Possibly not when it comes to WWII (I think that had it been tried after WWII it might have made de-Nazification less successful, and it might have contradicted the message that Hitler’s wars of aggression were war crimes). On the other hand, I think that it would have been acceptable and helpful after the American Revolution and the American Civil War, for example; and I am fairly okay with the actions taken by mainstream republican leaders to advance the N. Ireland Peace Process by meeting with people like the Queen, or Prince Charles, or (on a similar note) by marking the Battle of the Somme (something important to Unionists), etc. etc.


**Season 1 Episode 21 “The Quality of Mercy”** See this for a plot summary.

There are about four issues raised by this episode:

1. I can’t remember what we learned about this in earlier episodes, but it seems that B5 doesn’t believe in juries. On the other hand, a judge refuses to allow the sometimes right-wing security chief to go on a “fishing expedition” in relation to a criminal who may have committed more murders than he was charged with and convicted of.

2. Aside from mutiny and treason, the death penalty is not used anymore (well, they CAN sentence someone to having their mind wiped, which seems at best a little bit less offensive than killing someone, but the show still makes a good statement against the death penalty as we know it today)

3. Although this is unclear, we might learn in this episode that one of the main characters is both male and female. This positive statement is slightly diluted by the fact that A) he’s a “bad guy” for the most part; B) he’s an alien; and C) the character he outs himself to is at least a little uncomfortable with it.

4. The very best thing about this episode is that it promotes free health-care. As I’ve said, Earth and B5 aren’t utopias like the Federation on Star Trek. There’s a lot of poverty on B5 and the head doctor there spends some of his time running a free clinic in the poor area of the station. He even gets the second-in-command, Ivanova, to help him with it. UPDATE 5/17/17 In the season 2 episode "A Race Through Dark Places" the doctor says that he was using the free clinic to help telepaths who were on the run. So, I guess it's not nearly as impressive a political statement as I thought it was (on the other hand Ivanova DOES agree to help him, thinking that it's a free clinic for "normals.")

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews Q

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).

“The Cloud Minders” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about privilege. You could also mention national oppression, but privilege seems more appropriate (“elitism” is also very accurate). At one point Spock says: “this troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.” You could also use the phrase “environmental racism.”

There is a scene where torture is being used. Although Kirk and Spock make it very clear they and the Federation won’t stand for that, the planet which is witnessing the use of torture by the government is IN the Federation. The torture is stopped and Kirk ends up leaving the planet when he is ordered to.

So, it is largely about inequality. At the end it appears that progress is being made, and there are moves towards equality.

I give it one star out of five.

"The Savage Curtain” See this for a plot summary.

This episode contained a lot of political or at least sort of political stuff.

At the end, there is the question, from an alien culture’s point of view (without these concepts)- which is stronger, Good or Evil?

The alien concludes that both use the same methods, and achieve the same results. In the battle that the alien had just watched, as far as I could tell, the methods were largely the same, although one fourth of Kirk’s team tried to resolve the conflict non-violently and was killed by the other side. There’s a large amount of truth that in war, most methods are used by both sides. The majority of the time, I’d say there’s no problem with that- the problems arise with things like torture and intentionally killing innocent civilians. In response to a series of sectarian murders of Catholics in south Armagh, some republicans (likely the PIRA (now known simply as the IRA)) killed 10 innocent (and possibly ANTI-sectarian) Protestant civilians. That (the "Kingsmill Massacre") was incredibly wrong (it was also the sort of thing the IRA absolutely or almost absolutely never did (there may have been about 5 times when a much smaller number of people were killed in resprisals for the sectarian murders of Catholics, but even with that, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death)). As far as results go, there’s always or usually some (at the very least) large differences (I think you have a good idea of what I consider “Good” and what I consider “Evil,” so I won’t explain that here).

Some other items worth mentioning:

1) Lincoln. In general I have pretty good thoughts about Lincoln. I’m reading an article about how he was friendly to labor and got along via letters with Karl Marx. Although he wasn’t an abolitionist, he leaned in that direction for years before the Emancipation Proclamation- he often was critical of slavery and as President took some earlier steps in the direction of ending slavery.

2) There is one conversation involving Lincoln and Uhura which at first I thought was problematic in a racist way, but a friend convinced me it was was basically saying that the 23rd Century was more enlightened than the 19th Century.


I give it three stars out of five.

“All Our Yesterdays” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Turnabout Intruder” See this for a plot summary.

There are a few things I wanted to note in this review.

First, it’s said that there are no female Captains. Kirk doesn’t disagree with her on this, although we know that in ENT there was a female Captain. It seems likely that even though she was kind of wrong, there WAS a big problem with equality for women in StarFleet (looking at the main characters of all the series also suggests that problem, although it’s only a very serious problem if we assume that in the future women will be half of the military instead of a minority of it (I've been meaning to ask several women what they think about that, I might change my mind about that and assume that they WILL be about half))

There is one line that stands out- a woman says something about the “indignity of being a woman.” After looking at the definitions of the word “dignity,” I’m still not sure what she meant. It almost sounds as if she’s saying that women don’t deserve esteem or respect. I’ll be honest, I’m not as familiar with gender studies and feminist theory as I should be, but if that is what she’s saying, that’s obviously untrue, but beyond that statement I’m not sure what else to say.

We also are reminded that with one crime as an exception, the death penalty is abolished in the Federation. Connected with that, we see something sort of close to a mutiny by some officers, including Chekov and Sulu. That’s fairly inspirational.

This is the last episode of the series, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing something special. Anyway, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews H

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).

“Friday’s Child” See this for a plot summary.

It portrays what could probably be called a “warrior society.” There’s a lot rules, taboos, a lot of glorifying death (and death is usually a punishment for this or that) etc. Crucially there is a belief that the strong survive, and others should not survive- a fairly right-wing belief (the episode is far from a StarFleet endorsement of Capellan society).

I usually don’t bother noting inconsistencies like this, but the Capellans seem to be nowhere NEAR as advanced (technologically, socially or politically) as they should be if Star Fleet is doing business with them.

I give it one star out of five.

“The Deadly Years” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.

“Obsession” See this for a plot summary

A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.

“Wolf in the Fold” See this for a plot summary.

There is one very sexist part where Spock says that women are more easily and more deeply terrified than men. Obviously not an an example of ST’s progressive politics.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews B

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).

“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” See this for a plot summary.


There is one bit of politics. The android Kirk calls Spock a “half-breed” in reference to the fact that Spock’s father is Vulcan and his mother is human. Spock says it was unsophisticated. I don’t like that definition, because it implies that “sophisticated” (i.e. fashionable) people don’t use such offensive terms, only completely backwards people use them (obviously "Kirk's" statement is backwards, but I'm sure there are people who are in some ways sophisticated but nonetheless use such language).

“Miri” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Dagger of the Mind” See this for a plot summary.

There are some political aspects to this.

First, Spock comments on humanity, war, and crime: “Interesting- you Earth people glorify organized violence for forty centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.” I don’t know exactly what he meant, but it is often inconsistent for people to offer unwavering support to the State while it wages an unjust war, and on the other hand, support imprisoning people for often minor acts of violence. The problem isn’t so much the latter (I think it usually makes sense to put violent criminals in jail), as it is the former (sometimes-often it is justified and helpful to criticize one’s nation’s military).

At one point Kirk refers to prison inmates as having “sick minds.” Depending on which crimes are involved, I would be okay with this or offended by it. If they’re saying that people who steal have sick minds, that’s probably nonsense most/all of the time. On the other hand, it could be that since poverty, oppression etc. have been eliminated, the only people in prisons are some of the people with mental health issues; who need and receive treatment in prison.

Then there is the general theme of the episode, a horrible form of “treating” prisoners.

I give it one star out of five.

“The Corbomite Maneuver” See this for a plot summary.

There’s only one political aspect in this episode, and it’s not an example of progressive politics in ST. Kirk complains that he was assigned a female yeoman. In general, although it made some progress in this area, The Original Series is fairly-very sexist.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

“The Menagerie” parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

There were three political aspects to this episode:

1) We learned that only one very specific crime carries the death penalty, which is close enough to ending it that a good statement is made about it.

2) There is some talk about slavery.

3) This episode largely contains footage from the original pilot of ST about the Enterprise 13 years earlier, when Captain Pike was in charge of Enterprise. His Executive Officer is a woman. Sometimes it seemed like she was too... passive (or something like that) as a leader, but overall she was a good officer and that makes an important statement about equality for women.


I give this episode two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews D

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).

“Datalore” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Angel One” See this for a plot summary.

This is a fairly political episode. It’s about a matriarchal society where males are considered stupid and are denied the vote. It’s sort of illustrating for men what women have gone through during many centuries and across most of Earth. One of the planet’s leaders label those who dissent “anarchists.”

Lastly, it also includes the Federation’s opposition to the death penalty.

I give it three stars out of five.


“11001001” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Too Short A Season” See this for a plot summary.

The political aspect of this episode is the issue of giving weapons to one or both sides in a conflict. I’d say that this is always a bad idea, considering which States are manufacturing weapons (and ships, planes, etc.). I imagine South Africa might be closest to being ethical arms dealers. In general, the world needs less arms and arms dealers are fairly repulsive (for more of my thoughts on that see this where I discuss the episode “Business As Usual”).

When I think of anyone selling/giving arms to both sides in a conflict, that is a horrible idea. Sometimes giving arms to one side (for example the Soviet Union giving training and arms to the ANC’s military wing) is good, but aiding both sides simply results in a longer war with all that that entails.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews B

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 last Outpost” See this for a plot summary.


This is a fairly political episode. We meet the Ferengi and get some more information about them. They’re uber-Capitalists and sexists. My thoughts about them are in this post when I discuss the episode “A Man Alone.” Riker says that Ferengis are just like Humans on Earth several centuries earlier.

One complaint. Having watched DS9, which uses Ferengi for laughs and which makes it clear that there are VERY few Ferengis who are skilled in combat, it’s kind of annoying to see them portrayed most of the time on TNG as aggressive and violent.

I give it two stars out of five.


“Where No One Has Gone Before” See this for a plot summary.

In general a non-political episode, but there is, for the second time, a reference to a human colony that’s not part of the Federation and that has a major problem with “rape gangs.”

I give it one star out of five.

“Lonely Among Us” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Justice” See this for a plot summary.

One bit of politics is that Picard explains how the Federation doesn’t sentence criminals to death. On the other hand, he says that using the death penalty was ended in connection with progress towards eliminating crime by some investigative method that ID’ed potential criminals (we’re left to assume that therapy or something is used to turn such people away from criminality). So it’s more or less not saying that the death penalty is wrong today or in recent years, but that’s probably just some bad writing- elsewhere it’s made very clear that Starfleet is against the death penalty.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: Voyager Reviews JJ

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.

“Repentance” See this for a plot summary.

A pretty good episode about various aspects of the crimimal justice system. It’s made clear that some large majority of the Starfleet crew are against the death penalty. There’s also some stuff about how inmates are atttacked by guards and about food and drink being given to inmates inconsistently (the former I’m sure happens in US prisons, but the latter, I’ve never heard of that happening here)

Another aspect is about racism resulting in certain races being disproportionately represented in prisons and also more likely to be executed. (that’s another feature of America’s prison system)

I give it four stars out of five.

“Prophecy” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.


“The Void” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Workforce” parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

It’s not clear whether or not the power station they work at is public or private. In any case, what was happening was pretty messed up. Even if it is public and therefore it might seem that ST is taking a swipe at the public sector, that’s not so bad. It’s not like the public sector is above criticism or something.

Anyway, a good two-parter, I give it three stars out of five.

“Human Error” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Q2” see this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Author, Author” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Voyager Reviews H

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).


“Prototype” See this for a plot summary

A non-political episode, I give it three stars out five.

“Alliances” See this for a plot summary.

We learn that the Kazon had been treated formally as second-class citizens decades before. They then threw off their oppressors, the Trabe. It’s a good, brief description of second-class citizenship- segregated housing, poverty, persecution by the police, “treated like animals.”

“Threshold” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode, I give it one star out of five.

“Meld” See this for a plot summary.

This episode raises the fact that the Federation does not use the death penalty, although Tuvock disagrees with Janeway about this (Janeway opposes the death penalty)