Overall Comment:
While Gene Roddenbury was running the show more directly, Star Trek: The Next Generation suffered from both haphazard, cheesy writing AND a collection of messages that seem naive and, like its' predecessor show (The Original Star Trek), oversimplified. The group-think mentality that populates Roddenbury's utopia is disturbing to me, and we'll see many examples of it as we examine episodes from the second half of the first season. Thankfully, things do begin improving as we go forward, but I would be remiss if I skipped the opportunity to point out exactly why first season Trek feels so fake and unbalanced. High on my hit list are: Angel One, When the Bough Breaks, The Arsenal of Freedom, Symbiosis, and The Neutral Zone. Let's look at the message (as I see it) in each episode and where I think each one goes wrong.
Angel One:
I could go on and on about how incredibly cheesy it is for Riker to get it on with a dictator of a female dominated planet to further diplomatic relations, but that doesn't go to the heart of my problem with this episode. Here, we have a supposed freedom-loving society arriving on the scene of a world where freedom is limited to one gender, and their first, second and third response is to remove free peoples from their homes and families (by force if necessary, since they have tampered with the Prime Directive, for their own safety...pick your own stupid reason). The awkward plot elements that lead to their being prevented from beaming the refugees away are a sign of how poorly conceived the message here really is. If we're to believe that tampering with an inherently evil society is wrong, no matter what the personal consequences for innocent people, this episode is going to end very anticlimactically, and with a lot of pissed off fans. The writer himself was not comfortable with beaming those people away against their will and yet all we get is ridiculous diplomatic niceties about how all cultures are created equal and blunt use of the Prime Directive to subvert freedom...until a better solution just happens to fall into their laps.
When the Bough Breaks:
Two by fours frackin' HURT, Gene...please knock this crap off! This is how I respond to the asinine last second finger-wag regarding environmental pollution in the modern world. The rest of this show is rather inconsequential, except that the argument seems to be that technology enslaves us and makes us forget how to fend for ourselves, when I happen to be of the opinion that our technological innovations make us more free every day. Otherwise...how would I be pontificating and annoying my readers ( :) ) on this free blog?
The Arsenal of Freedom:
"Peace through superior firepower" is mocked in Hollywood circles, but perhaps it bears noting that the US's employment of this strategy against Russia *WORKED*...and that we've become a less peaceful society as we've made cuts to military spending and deemphasized our own military superiority. Of course, just having big guns doesn't guarantee peace, but having big guns and the right people sitting behind those guns making decisions about how to use them...that's been shown to work very well. Besides, I would argue that not even in this country have we ever lived by this motto to the exclusion of other avenues for preserving peace and I don't like the presumption that this represents us well.
Symbiosis:
Let's see...it comes out that an entire group of people is EXPLOITING another entire group of people...making them slaves to a powerful narcotic so that they can live a little more easily...and the moral answer is...to do nothing? REALLY?!?! This one is an especially egregious example of the misuse of the Prime Directive. Non-interference isn't necessarily a bad idea in the abstract, but this is just ridiculous. I'm sorry, but no...when you encounter abject misery from exploitation, the correct answer isn't to refuse to fight that injustice. It takes a severely self-superior and inhumane person to conclude that they're above getting involved in the politics of another group of people no matter how unjust those politics are. How high and mighty Gene must have felt overseeing that episode...just another example of his tendency to brow beat the audience with MISGUIDED! holier than thou moralizing.
The scene during which Picard teaches Beverly about the necessity of remaining rational and calm in the face of brutal enslavement is particularly disgusting. He gives us all a lecture on how EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that we have interfered in a less developed civilization it's been exclusively bad. Oh really? How about America's intervention during the hostile takeover of Kuwait? Were they negatively impacted by our decision not to allow a dictator to conquer them unjustly? There are in fact countless examples of intervention ending very well and Roddenbury would KNOW that if he did even a REMOTELY honest study of history. Sorry, but you will not convince me that inflexible dogma is ever morally superior to actual morality. The moral thing to do when injustice is found would be to fight that injustice...especially if you have the means. Ridiculous.
The Neutral Zone:
Now this episode isn't all bad...in fact, I think it's at least thought provoking and entertaining. And not all that poorly written either! But I do still feel compelled to grumble about the annoying finger-wagging and liberal chest thumping in response to our cryogenic refugees. Riker, after meeting three basically well-meaning people from the 20th century, concludes smugly that he can't find ANY (!!!) redeeming qualities from our past and Picard strokes his chin and wonders how we ever survived our "infancy." Call me crazy, but I *like* the country singer, and the homemaker (a term that baffles people from our enlightened future because as we all know...there's nothing meaningful about being a stay-at-home Mom...that job is extinct by 2100, right?)...and you know what...I don't find the stock broker all that annoying either. He is self-involved and obsessed with power and control, but I don't think he means ill for anyone around him. And the stupid thing is...I don't think he's an accurate portrayal of what a capitalist is really like in modern society. He's a caricature that's easy to lampoon so that the liberal socialist can feel smugly superior...not a three-dimensional person to confront.
The bottom line for all of these episodes...they wouldn't have been half as annoying if the writers hadn't spent so much time telling us (with a superior attitude) exactly why our society is fundamentally flawed with no balanced perspective on what is still fundamentally great about us. Thankfully, later Treks (especially Enterprise and DS9) are a little more fair. And TNG improves as well. We'll get there eventually.
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