{"id":6409,"date":"2016-03-14T06:48:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T06:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/517-The-Outcast"},"modified":"2016-03-14T06:48:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T06:48:26","slug":"517-the-outcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/14\/517-the-outcast\/","title":{"rendered":"5.17 — \u201cThe Outcast\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

5.17 — \u201cThe Outcast\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> Circumstances involving a rescue mission into \u201cnull space\u201d cause Riker to work closely with Soren, a gifted pilot from an androgynous race called the J\u2019naii. Soren\u2019s identification as female is branded as perversion among her people, and exposes her to the threat of psychotectic therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> Just when I was starting to despair over the quality of recent fifth season episodes. There isn\u2019t much action, and the story centers on Will Riker\u2019s love life. But I like it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I paused the episode at one point to write on my pad that Jonathan Frakes is doing a good acting job. I froze right on a smirk. Oh well, but the performance we get from him is subtle and layered. The guest star, Melinda Culea, is fantastic and has good chemistry with Frakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Riker has a tough ending that reminds me of some of the hard knocks that Kirk took at the end of episodes like \u201cThe City on the Edge of Forever.\u201d \u201cThe Paradise Syndrome,\u201d and even \u201cDagger of the Mind.\u201d Is Soren the one that he will never recover from?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And what was going on with Soren in her last scene? Did they start the \u201ctherapy\u201d early, and it worked very fast? Or is she lying to Will? If the therapy is not just a cruel sham, like gay reparation therapy is in real life, is there a chance that she is better off?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s the chance of shows like this that makes watching the series worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The discussion of gender, including pronoun problems, in 1992 seems ahead of its time. Soren’s story about how her identity makes her an outcast in her own society is metaphorically about 20th century attitudes towards homosexuality. There are dueling quotes from Rick Berman and Jonathan Frakes on IMDB and Memory Alpha indicating there was some discussion about whether the actor cast to play Soren should have been a man or a woman (they cast women to play all the J\u2019naii roles). I don’t fault their choices, but If Soren had been played by a man, this episode would have joined \u201cPlato\u2019s Stepchildren\u201d in the annals of historic television broadcasts, and would be a good deal more famous today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As it is, very few episodes in the 725-episode Star Trek canon touch on homosexuality, even indirectly, as I would argue happened in \u201cA Private Little War,\u201d \u201cMudd\u2019s Passion,\u201d and TNG\u2019s \u201cThe Host.\u201d “What Are LIttle Girls Made Of?” was an episode that examined fluidity of identity and sex, but not gender specifically. I understand the topic of homosexuality will be raised a couple more times in forthcoming episodes of DS9 and ENT. Perhaps this will become a more visible part of the future when the new Trek series premieres in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If the episode wasn’t as strong, I would spend more time carping about the ridiculous concept of \u201cnull space\u201d–technobabble at its worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4 out of 5 strong interests in exobotany.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/The_Outcast<\/a>