{"id":5570,"date":"2014-10-16T05:09:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T05:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/14-Code-of-Honor"},"modified":"2014-10-16T05:09:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T05:09:44","slug":"14-code-of-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/16\/14-code-of-honor\/","title":{"rendered":"1.4 \u2013 \u201cCode of Honor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

1.4 \u2013 \u201cCode of Honor\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> The Enterprise needs a crucial vaccine from a civilization on an unknown planet, Ligon II. Its culturally primitive keepers, led by Lutan, kidnap Tasha Yar. For reasons understood by no one, she must fight a native woman to the death, in a cage match staged on what looks like a reject set from Xanadu<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> This episode presents an imponderable question: is it more sexist, racist, or stupid?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u00a0cast’s opinions of “Code of Honor” are recorded at IMDB ( http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0708689\/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv<\/a>). Brent Spiner: “It was just a racist episode…. We did our worst early on and it never got quite that bad again.” Michael Dorn: “The worst episode of Star Trek ever filmed.” Levar Burton: “Stinks… without question.” Jonathan Frakes: “Racist piece of shit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wil Wheaton, in Memories of the Future, Volume 1<\/em>, correctly diagnoses the episode’s central problem as “portraying an offensive, 1940s pulp stereotype in 1987.” He later turns into an apologist, writing that “if the Ligonians hadn’t \u00a0been arbitrarily [cast as being] entirely African American, it wouldn’t have even been an issue.” Really? Would white actors still have been directed to play all those racist stereotypes? Sorry, Wil, I disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What made me angry about this episode when I was 14 was not racism or sexism, but that the writers totally misunderstand the Prime Directive. Really? The writer’s room doesn’t get this? That’s a problem. The Prime Directive prohibits interference in primitive cultures. If the Ligonians qualify, Starfleet revealing itself at all, let alone establishing trade relations, would be off the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The dialogue implies that only taking violent action would violate the Prime Directive (never mind Picard’s ill-conceived photon torpedo bombardment over the surface, a bluff that Lutan instantly calls, leaving Picard in a worse position). Phasering the population to death might be a war crime, but it would not be a Prime Directive violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Ligons have transporter technology anyway, and surface-to-spaceship video phones, so they plainly aren’t primitive. The true violation of the Prime Directive would be to deliver the Ligonians’ vaccine to Styris IV, saving the millions of beings there from dying of the plague (assuming they aren’t already a space-faring culture).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are other things I don’t get. If Lutan is so hard up for money, why doesn’t he just sell the precious, rare, and irreplaceable vaccine that he controls, and exploit the first contact opportunities with the Federation? That seems like a more reliable way to gain wealth and power than plotting to kill his wife, er, first concubine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One final thing. I’m afraid I feel a rant coming on. This is, easily, the most sexist episode in the history of Star Trek so far, despite the fact that no one ever says a line like “Her life could have been as rich as any woman’s” (TOS 3.24 — “Turnabout Intruder”). Yes, when Lutan questions Yar’s right as a woman to be Chief of Security, the writers have the characters harumph self-consciously about the lack of political correctness. So that makes things all right, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No! This goes down in history as the episode where Picard barters for possession of Yar with Lutan for political gain. All the hand wringing about “millions dying” of the plague just serves to set up the concept that Yar’s safety and chastity is for sale; it’s just a matter of establishing the price. Picard makes sure to claim the prerogative of deciding her fate for himself, as her patriarch<\/strike> commanding officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Worse, at different times, Picard, Data, and Troi all ask Yar, who has been abducted, what she did to bring Lutan’s attentions on herself. The writers then force Denise Crosby to say that Lutan’s attentions (kidnap with intent to enslave and rape) make her “feel good” because he wants her. All this noise serves the basic sexploitation premise of forcing two attractive women to fight to the death over the dominant male they both desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While outmoded stereotypes certainly crept into the Original Series from time to time, it was never so derogatory or diminishing. Compare TOS’s gladiator episode, “The Gamesters of Triskelion” (no paragon, it’s the episode where Uhura suffers a sexual assault)–that episode is far less misogynist, and more receptive to the idea of women having agency and power, than this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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End of rant. I still think TNG has promise, but I want new writers. I’m afraid this episode gets a Grade:<\/strong> Fail.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/en.memory-alpha.org\/wiki\/Code_of_Honor<\/a>