“Up the Long Ladder”
Written by Melinda M. Snodgrass
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 2, Episode 18
Original air date: May 22, 1989
Star date: 42823.2
Mission summary
This episode begins with an S.O.S. This is your only warning.
The strange signal, whose nature Riker instantly guesses despite it taking Starfleet a month, is a call for help used by Earthlings over three hundred years ago. Even though the distress call’s a month old no one has bothered to check it out yet, which winds up having been a strangely prescient move. Alas, Picard decides to save humanity’s “lost sheep,” in between healing some lepers and turning water into synthehol. Worf wants out of this episode and collapses to the floor of the bridge, thereby cementing his role as the most sensible person on this godforsaken boat.
To Worf’s everlasting resentment, Dr. Pulaski comes to his aid and diagnoses him with rop’ngor, or Klingon measles. Since we’ve long established that Starfleet has no HIPAA laws, Picard asks what happened over the intercom system. Pulaski covers for Worf by saying his condition is excessive manliness a Klingon fasting ritual. Worf thanks her with a Klingon tea ceremony, which is either really sweet or really cruel given that it’s poisonous. She gives herself an antidote and they bond in a Precious Moment never to be referenced again.
Back in hell, Data finds a cargo manifest for a ship that set out to this sector of space at about the right time. Onboard it had two very different sets of equipment: one highly advanced, the other quaintly self-powered. The advanced equipment needs no explanation, but as for the spinning wheels Data guesses it’s Neo-Transcendalists, or twenty-third century throwbacks longing for a simpler life. Because we must, the Enterprise reaches the source of the distress signal and learns that the sun is having solar flares which threaten to scorch the planet. The people below have been in isolation for three hundred years, so Picard decides to send Riker down as the sacrificial goat intended to make first contact. Riker does so and communicates that something is wrong, but is necessarily vague for Maximum Hijinks Purposes. When the colony begins beaming aboard we see…
…a bunch of space Irish and farm animals. At least the whole planet only had 223 of them. The leader is Danilo Odell, who seems pleased by the ship and more pleased by the fact that Picard is single and thus an eligible match for his daughter. Olde timey laughs, yessir. He puts them in a cargo hold where they promptly try to burn the place down, and the captain gets a righteous emasculation attempt from Ms. Odell, who’s supposed to be a strong female character but is actually a Strong Female Character. Predictably, she takes a shine to Riker and asks him “where can a girl go to wash her feet on this ship?” I won’t belabor the suspense: the answer is in his pants, but not until after she tries to clean his quarters (not a euphemism; rather, a sexy opening move!) and he says something horrendous:
RIKER: I can see why your father wants to marry you off.
BRENNA: Oh, and why is that?
RIKER: So he can have a pipe and mug of beer in peace.
And then she lets her hair down and they make out. Romance! It just brings a tear to the eye. More than one, really. A lot, actually. Oh god.
Meanwhile, Daddy Odell asks Picard about the other colony. What other colony? Well you can’t find out until after an “amusing” interlude in which Odell a) bitches about the lack of real booze; b) drinks Klingon booze; and c) gets harangued by his harpy daughter who I guess is a quickie because she’s already back in the cargo hold.
A hail! Maybe it’s the Borg! No, sorry, it’s Wilson Granger, prime minister of the Mariposa colony. He’s happy to see some humans after all these years and alludes to some kind of catastrophe affecting his people. Riker, Pulaski, and Worf beam down to the surface. Maybe it’s just deja vu, but there are an awful lot of Walter Grangers here… and some identical women. Someone left the DNA copier on, because Pulaski does a secret scan of one of the lackeys and discovers they’re all clones.
The bad news is that the Mariposans had a hull breach on their way to the planet and only five survived. But they were scientists, and egomaniacal, so they decided to clone themselves. Over and over again.
GRANGER: We had no other option. Two women and three men represented an insufficient gene pool from which to build a society.
PULASKI: How did you suppress the natural sexual drive? Drugs? Punitive laws?
GRANGER: In the beginning, a little bit of each. Now, after three hundred years, the entire concept of sexual reproduction is a little repugnant to us.
PULASKI: How did you overcome the problem of replicative fading?
GRANGER: We haven’t.
PULASKI: You have got a problem.
RIKER: Wait. I don’t understand replicative fading.
Neither do we! Layman’s explanation: that Michael Keaton movie, which is looking pretty good right now.
Granger is desperate for a fresh tap of DNA, and the Enterprise is looking sexier by the minute. Hey baby…can I get your tissue samples?
RIKER: No way, not me.
GRANGER: How can you possibly be harmed?
RIKER: It’s not a question of harm. One William Riker is unique, perhaps even special. But a hundred of him, a thousand of him diminishes me in ways I can’t even imagine.
GRANGER: You would be preserving yourself.
RIKER: Human beings have other ways of doing that. We have children.
PICARD: I think you will find that attitude prevalent among all the Enterprise people.
GRANGER: I see. Well, if you are not willing to share your DNA, will you at least send some people to repair our malfunctioning equipment?
Yeah, because anyone would believe that a society on the brink of collapse would settle for some duct tape. Picard agrees and sends down Riker, La Forge and a technical team, and Pulaski, who’s basically just curious about these freaks. But it’s a trap! Riker and Pulaski are knocked out and needles are stuck into their abdomens. La Forge eventually finds them and asks what happened. They don’t remember, but a medical scan reveals that both Pulaski and Riker are missing some epithelial cells. To the cloning bay! There, in tubes, are replicas of both Riker and Pulaski (fully grown, of course). With a silent nod from Pulaski, Riker phasers them, which raises absolutely no moral qualms whatsoever. Granger rushes in indignantly but Riker’s in a rage, calling their behavior assault.
In the ready room, Riker’s still got the jitters about this whole thing:
RIKER: I want the cloning equipment inspected. Who knows how many tissue samples were stolen. We certainly have a right to exercise control over our own bodies.
PULASKI: You’ll get no argument from me.
Huh. That’s… dare I say it… almost… feminist?
TROI: I know the Mariposan culture seems alien, even frightening, but really, we do have much in common. They’re human beings fighting for survival. Would we do any less?
PICARD: Are you saying we should give them the DNA samples they require?
PULASKI: That’s just postponing the inevitable. If they get an infusion of fresh DNA, in fifteen generations they’ll just go back to the same problems. Cloning isn’t the answer. What they need is breeding stock.
PICARD: The Bringloidi.
TROI: Yes. They have the energy and drive, and the clones possess the emotional maturity and the technological knowledge.
PICARD: They started out together. It seems only fitting they should end up together.
PULASKI: It’s a match made in heaven.
RIKER: Unfortunately it will have to be a shotgun wedding.
Oh. Right. Nevermind.
They propose the idea to both groups, who bristle. The Mariposans think the Bringloidi are primitive anachronisms (check); the Bringloidi think the Mariposans are sterile weirdos (also check). But desperation is the mother of, um, a society?, so they give the proposal some thought.
PULASKI: Now if this is going to work, you’re going to have to alter your society, too. Monogamous marriage will not be possible for several generations.
DANILO: I don’t quite understand.
PULASKI: Thirty couples are enough to create a viable genetic base. But the broader the base the healthier and the safer the society. So it will be best if each woman, Bringloidi and Mariposan, had at least three children by three different men.
DANILO: I think I could handle that, yes.
GRANGER: Oh, God, it’s so…
PICARD: Frightening?
GRANGER: Repugnant.
DANILO: So, it’s a done deal? And here’s my hand on it. Right, now, let’s go and stake out my three women. Send in the clones.
And just to make sure we all know it’s OK, Brenna starts ogling the clones and thinking about her three mates.
Analysis
Donations to the Viewscreen Psychological Rehabilitation Fund may be made in cash or credit. No checks, please.
If I had to list my bottom five episodes before this re-watch, this episode wouldn’t have factored. I remembered it as shitty, but only generically so, like all the other “comedic” episodes. This time around I’m convinced this is the worst episode of Star Trek ever made. Let’s look at the problems starting with the least offensive and working our way down.
First, neither of these cultures make any sense. Why would the Bringloidi have only 223 people after 300 years? Let’s say their seed population was the 30 couples mentioned as the minimum necessary to create a society (DUBIOUS SCIENCE ALERT). That’s sixty. Let’s say on average they started having kids at 25 years old and had, oh, three each. The population should be at least in the low thousands. And I’m sorry, but a population with pre-industrial technology would be seriously lacking in birth control and as such these people have way too few kids, or else are recent survivors of a plague. In any case, if they’re seriously committed to a non-technological life, there should be absolutely no incentive to pairing up with the Mariposans. Any culture that insists its goats and pigs are essential to its future success would wait for the next Class M planet to start from scratch, not jump to the future it worked so hard to avoid.
As for the Mariposans, I still cannot wrap my head around this cloning idea. Granger claims that it was the only way to create a “society.” Why was creating a society so important? Earth is still out there chugging away. They’re not the last of their kind. They can probably survive, the five of them, for the rest of their natural lives. Why perpetuate that natural life? And how is it that the clones spring forth fully formed? And why are they all the same age? Do they just create them in batches, like a bunch of flavorless muffins? And how is it that their technology made it to this planet mostly intact, and they have the ability to clone, yet they aren’t capable of space travel. Just leave! Get out! Find some other humans! Jump on a different colony ship! Also, the “we’re so advanced we don’t need sex” line is absurd given that these clones are still genetically 23rd century humans. Cultural suppression can kill a lot of things, and while I think they’d feel guilty and dirty and otherwise buy into the puritanical tyranny at play here, they’d still be doing it.
Then there are the women. Or should I say, the one woman, Eve. She cooks! She cleans! She nags! She drops her panties for an insult! Brenna Odell is one of the worst TNG characters ever, in the running with the king of black savages, the holographic lounge singer, the incubus, and Tuvix. She’s not independent or sassy, she’s a berating bitch who finds the need to assert petty power and yet, of course, is secretly vulnerable and likes to be belittled by arrogant jerks. If the episode made her out to be a conniving little Napoleon it’d be bad, but at least you knew you weren’t supposed to like her.
But even the puritanism and sexism are blemishes compared to its treatment of free will. It brushes right up to something ballsy–abortion and the right to control your own body (remarks smartly made by Riker and not Pulaski)–but the resolution relies entirely on eliminating choice and turning the peasant ruffians into breeding stock for a future society of, well, slaves to an alien culture that perceives itself as superior. First, it’s utterly appalling to me that Picard sets up a “shotgun wedding” between these cultures. He should be taking every one of these people–the Irishmen and the clones–to the nearest Starbase, and let each person or family choose their own fate. The fact that no one gets a vote sends a chill down my spine. Why is Picard trading slave stock instead of allowing them to choose? I’m sure some if not all of the Bringloidians would want to start anew on a quiet world. Some may want to integrate with the future. Maybe a few will go to Mariposa after all. But that is for them to decide–not Picard, not Granger, and not even Odell.
As for the Mariposans, isn’t there a serious risk to allowing thousands, or tens of thousands, or even millions (remember there are whole cities) of identical genetic materials to proliferate in the galaxy? Even if it takes a few generations, shouldn’t there be some discussion about the ethics of allowing one genetic line to overpower all others in a twisted manipulation of Darwinism? And why is it so important to preserve the genetic material of these five individuals anyway? They’ve existed long past their time. Not everyone has a “right” to continue his or her DNA. Plenty of people fail to pass on their seed and the human race has survived, by some miracle of miracles! If they don’t want sex and don’t have a distinct culture to speak of (they seem pretty Earthy to me), why not just let them live their lives and die off, naturally? Stop making clones! Problem solved.
But what do I know, I’m just breeding stock anyway.
Torie’s Rating: Floating Debris (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: This is totally what I’d wear on a space farm. Good thing she has time for those ab exercises between emasculations.
Best Line: PICARD: Sometimes, Number One, you have to…bow to the absurd.
Trivia/Other Notes: The title refers to the line “Up the long ladder/ and down the short rope,” an Irish rhyme about the gallows. How appropriate.
Riker’s comment about how special and unique he is will be challenged in “Second Chances.”
Snodgrass says the original concept was for this to be a commentary on the benefits of immigration. Her boss, Maurice Hurley, decided to make them Irish. Rewrites and budget cuts made them awful. Irish-Americans criticized the episode for being so stereotypical, and the Right to Life Coalition didn’t much like the subtle pro-choice remarks.
Previous episode: Season 2, Episode 17 – “Samaritan Snare.”
Next episode: Season 2, Episode 19 – “Manhunt.”
Where the seven hells was the Prime Directive in this episode? Huh? You know that pesky inconsistent little law that just a few weeks ago was insisting an entire people die off because they had the misfortune of living next to bad special effects volcanoes? Seems to me Picard violated the hell of the PreD so much more so much worse than Jimmy K ever did.
Oh, don’t get me started on dumb country types. Yeah they made them Irish, but overlaid on the simple country bumpkin crap. Really, these people are so dumb that they make fires indoors without smoke-hole or chimney? And for a low-tech (Gods this is the start of luddite SF, right here we’re at ground zero for that Trek Trash) peoples that certainly have the sexual mores of an advanced one. (either that or they just throw the babies away with their common sense.)
replicative fading?
replicative fading?
Oh goods this is stupid.
Doctor? knocking on her forehead. Doctor? You do know that you’re genes are copied over and over and over fro the time you started out as a wee little cell until the day you die. And it’s a hell of a lot more times than fif-flipping-teen!
Please please can’t I have more of the Tholian Web, please?
@ 1 bobsandiego
ARGH I KNOW.
I don’t think the prime directive comes into play here because they’re not aliens, they’re Earthmen colonists. They had FTL travel and just chose not to use it.
OK, it’s over, behind us. “Shades of Gray” is still lowering out there on the horizon, but we’re finally getting there. Caitie probably still won’t believe us for a few more weeks, but we are getting there.
I’m rather surprised that this is a Snodgrass episode. She usually produced much better scripts. It’s possible that the original was better, but if it resolved the overarching problem in the same way, then it was still terrible.
The Mariposan’s original solution also makes no sense. Their biological technology is obviously sophisticated enough that they could have weeded out any dangerous recessive genes. The resulting society would probably still have been rather unpleasant, with women essentially being brood mares and excessively nasty genetic screening, but at least it would have made more sense. Danilo is going to be very disappointed when he gets handed a test tube and is told to fill it.
Riker’s reaction to being cloned offers an interesting perspective on much later events. His reaction to “Thomas” Riker (and Tom’s reaction to him) taken on a new aspect.
All I want to know is, what sense is there in turning an Irish wool sweater into a bikini with sleeves? Someone should be exiled to another planet for that fashion decision alone.
Contrary to your take on it in the review, I think the episode was trying to say that Riker would not have been guilty of murder for destroying his clone in the cloning chamber . . . because the clone was still growing and not yet viable. (Although it is weird that clones are produced in adult form, both here and in the DS9 episode “A Man Alone”.)
As you allude to, this really gets into questions similar to abortion. When does the clone (a new life and offspring) gain its own rights to life versus just being a parasite or growth inside a cloning chamber (or the womb “mechanism” of another person). We know that killing a fully grown and viable clone is illegal, based on DS9 episode “A Man Alone”, which makes sense. One would assume that other forms of murder are also illegal in the Federation. But what about not yet developed clones, like when the clone is still growing and dependent on outside machinery to stay alive? What about abortion?
Say someone accidentally unplugged a cloning unit before the clone was ready and it died. Would that person be guilty of murder, or manslaughter, or just accidentally turning someone’s machine off?
What if the OWNER of the genetic material and/or the cloning unit saw that some unwanted mutation had taken place and the clone s/he was trying to create was going to be deformed or in some sense not what s/he was trying for, then s/he choose to stop the process (before the clone was viable)? Would that cloner be guilty of murder/manslaughter? Or was s/he just “aborting” an unwanted growth before it became a person with rights? And would that be illegal in the eyes of the Federation?
Star Trek has generally been silent on the issue of abortion. And for obvious reasons. It’s a controversial topic. I mean, if the producers wouldn’t dare to have a gay character, they certainly wouldn’t dare touch the issue of abortion.
But in the episode “Up the Long Ladder” we actually get a hint at the Federation’s take on abortion. Riker and Pulaski both stop the unwanted growth of a new person (an offspring from their own genetic material) after growth had started (i.e. after conception), but prior to those new lifeforms being viable. (Although it was Riker who actually shot the phaser that destroyed Pulaski’s clone, she was the one who gave Riker permission to do it.) And apparently this is considered OK by Federation law, presumably because they have rights over their own genetic material, up to and THROUGH at least some part of gestation. We can assume so anyway because no one was perturbed by what Riker did (other than the Mariposa cloners of course) and neither he nor Pulaski were brought up on charges of murder.
I think, although never explicitly stated, Federation law goes something like this:
-all forms of procreation are legal, including “natural” birth and cloning and even building sentient machines or holograms (Although genetically engineering improvements in a new offspring is illegal, at least in most of the Federation.)
-once a new sentient life is considered “viable” they have the right to life and are protected by laws against being murdered/killed
-“viable” is defined a lot like a new-born baby (or even an unborn baby in late-term gestation): able to live outside the womb (or cloning equipment) for up to hours with no medical or technological intervention, but possibly (and probably) still requiring help getting food or staying out of dangers not yet understood (What I’m suggesting here is some kind of cut-off between the time when abortion is allowed and the time when it is not, while still acknowledging the initial period of dependency of young lifeforms.)
-prior to the point of viability, the right to abort the growing lifeform resides with some combination of: (1) the owners of the original genetic material or components of life and (2) the owners of the mechanism necessary for gestation to make this material viable. (This would include parents of not-yet-viable baby fetuses, pregnant women (even if the child is not theirs genetically), donors of genetic material for clones, owners of the cloning chambers, cyberneticists putting together sentient androids, engineers building sentient machines like the EXOCOMPS, and even programmers of sentient holograms.)
It’s a little unclear just how far a person’s rights go to control the life and death of these not-yet-viable offspring. It’s probably ridiculous to think, for instance, that the father of an unborn baby could force an abortion onto the mother. In this instance it could be argued that he gave his consent for the gestation and birth of the child (possibly at the mother’s whim) just by having sex because that was a taught and understood consequence of having sex. Maybe even mothers in Federation society don’t generally have the right to abort pregnancies at a whim because they also are argued to give consent for the gestation and birth of the child as an understood consequence of having sex.
But if the conception was not by choice, probably this idea of “implied consent” would not hold up. So a woman who became pregnant by rape would retain the right to abort the pregnancy if she so wished to. Like Troi in TNG episode “The Child” or Trip in “Unexpected”.
Follow this thought-experiment for instance: Say you were kidnapped against your will and drugged into unconsciousness. You awake to find yourself hooked to a machine that is allowing some other person to live. Maybe you’re providing a blood pumping action because the other person doesn’t have a heart. Or maybe your one-and-only kidney is being used as a dialysis machine for both yourself and this other person. Or some other contrived connection. Whatever the specifics, you retain the ability to unplug from this machine and walk away alive at any time. But if you do the other person will die in a short time. You could even further suppose that this is a temporary situation and if you just agree to this for, say, 9 months, the other person will be able to survive the separation and not just yourself. (Because they grow a new heart or kidney, etc.) So the question is, in such a situation, do you have the moral right to disconnect from the machine and let the other person die? Yes, you do. You never agreed to the situation, it was forced upon you. Although many would probably say it would be morally PRAISEWORTHY of you to stay and help that other person live, you clearly do not have a moral OBLIGATION to do so. And this is a fully adult person that we are talking about letting die, not even a fetus or baby or undeveloped clone. So, if you have the right to abort this described situation even though it would cause the death of the other person, then certainly you would have the right to abort a growing offspring that was created by actions taken against your own free will (like rape or someone stealing some genetic material to make a clone of you).
So, because these clones of Riker and Pulaski were created without their consent, they retained the right to abort the lifeform. At least up until some point (like viability), which hadn’t occurred yet, regardless of how “fully grown” the clones appeared to be on the outside.
There’s a number of points that could be argued one way or another. It’s a little unclear in Star Trek at exactly what point a fetus gains the right to life. It’s never been stated on screen. Maybe some other point is used in Federation law other than “viability” to differentiate between the rights of the mother/sperm donor/parents/owners/engineer to abort and the rights of the fetus/baby/clone/android to live. It’s unclear because every unexpected mother in Star Trek has quickly decided to keep the baby (like Troi, Kira, B’Elanna, even Trip). And what level of rights the father has is a little unclear because every unexpected father we’ve seen in Star Trek also quickly wanted to keep the child (like Ben Sisko when Kasidy got pregnant, or Tom Paris when B’Elanna got pregnant, or Kirk when Miramanee got pregnant, or even Neelix when Kes almost got pregnant).
But it is clear that there are at least some situations where abortion is legal in the Federation. Like destroying incomplete cloans lie Riker did in “Up the Long Ladder” or what Worf and other crew members were considering in “The Child”.
@2 Torie
That’s going with the no contanmination rule, but these people are clearly seperate and distinct culture with their own values and mores.
@3 demeteriousX
You’re so right. Given the tech that was displayed, screening for recessive genes, hell altering genes to *create* diversity would be within the realm of the possible. If they can grown clone, they can make artifical wombs so you don;t even have to chain the ladies into breeding pens, but rather recognize them as you know human beings.
@4 Toryx
I know I am bored with an episode when I an noticing, repeatedly how attractive an actress is, that was the sole point of the bikini sweate.
Oh an additional point —
How the HELL the Worf catch the Klingon Measales? With this episode I’d expect parthnogenesis.
This just didn’t work on any level. It is morally offensive in its treatment of societies at different levels of advancement and of individual autonomy; its attempts at science fictional concepts are absurd and implausible; and its resolution is trite, unmotivated, and arbitrary.
I mean, really. There’s no reason these two groups should have even the faintest thing to do with each other, except there’s some unwritten Dramatic Unity of syndicated television that says that everything you pick up in one episode is related. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with two pieces — it’s not entertaining; it’s insulting and pointless.
The episode is also so obviously the product of committee work with nobody able to say no. Never mind the pointless filler of Worf never getting his shots; the main plot touches upon so many issues (freedom of choice! control of one’s reproduction! advanced-and-sterile societies vs. backward-yet-earthily-wise ones! the role of women vis-a-vis leadership! logic-vs-emotion! rural-vs-urban!), yet explores none of them in anything but the most cursorily superficial sense, nor does it even treat them consistently from one moment to the next. This is what happens when an author has no clear idea what to write about or what she wants to say (or is overridden in doing so).
Not to mention that neither of these societies are remotely viable. If the Mariposans (why the Spanish name if there are no Latinos? oh diversity in television, you didn’t exist) don’t have enough genetic material for stable biological reproduction, they’re even worse set for enough intellectual material for stable cultural reproduction. I can’t find the exact post, but I think Charlie Stross instigated some interesting discussion on this a year or two back. The number I recall was around 60,000 people of varying skills being required to have enough knowledge bases covered to ensure complete cultural transmission to subsequent generations. Clones are not transporter duplicates, they still have to be taught things — and there’s no way the five surviving scientists would’ve known enough even to maintain their own farming equipment. Let alone make massive numbers of reproductions and create cities and cities (where are the architects? The sewage treatment plant designers and operators? etc.) It’s all the usual problems of the Planet of the Hats, but in a way that’s thematically far more appropriate…
The one good thing I can take from this episode is a rule of literature: revision begets greatness, but rewrites beget mediocrity (or worse).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_the_Darians SPACE:1999 did it better, but that’s not saying much.
That Tea Ceremony scene with Worf and Pulaski is one of my favorite Pulaski moments.
@ 3 DemetriosX
On the Tom Riker front, that was an accident. Here the clones are deliberately stealing his cells (which, hilariously, are countable such that Pulaski can tell when a few are missing). That’s how I distinguish his reactions, anyway.
@ 4 Toryx
Hey, maybe that’s why they’re out there in the first place!
@ 5 Data Logan
Oh I don’t think it’s murder, I just think it’s ambiguous and challenging enough that the episode shouldn’t use it as a throwaway.
I’m not sure I can really follow your theories, but in any case I think you’re extrapolating way too much from a 3-second plot shortcut. The show doesn’t have any ideas on abortion; it can’t even meaningful engage with free will in a non-controversial way. The only time anyone ever gets unintentionally pregnant is a DS9 thing (spoiler!) and there she “forgot to get her shots,” which is perceived by the partner as a little manipulating. But since there aren’t very many children central to the show either, I think it’s just not very interested in ideas of family choice, aside from making sure EVERYONE has daddy issues… I think Snodgrass just wanted to thumb her nose at the Right to Life people in a slight, obtuse way that didn’t substantially impact the episode.
@ 6 bob
I wouldn’t say that’s clear. They’re an accepted Earthican subculture. That’s part of the problem, there’s nothing unique about them. And the Mariposans are obviously cylons.
Worf probably caught the virus from school.
The most troubling exploration of human sexuality since Flint took the batteries out of Rayna 15…..
Caitie probably still won’t believe us for a few more weeks, but we are getting there
Please explain your reasoning behind even implying I should start to believe this yet?
Hmph.
Space. Fecking. Irish.
I rests me case, yer onner, sure and I does now. Please show me Spock’s Brain on a loop, so I can overcome Teh Stoopid of this episode.
—look–i don’t take this episode that seriously—not hard core science fiction of course–but it does have its entertaining aspects–like worf at the replicator and that adams family cocktail he comes up with—it is too bad–i am starting to like kate–she is making connections with the other principals–all to waste–for the best though–it is still regrettable—toryx—what sense is there in turning an Irish wool sweater into a bikini with sleeves? —lololol!!—-
@11 Caitie
“Sarek” (and the sequel whose name escapes me at the moment), “The Best of Both Worlds”, “The Inner Light”, “Chain of Command” (OK, mostly part 2), the massive Klingon arc over several seasons. There is some awesome acting and writing in those episodes, stuff that equals or even surpasses the best of TOS. Even the bad episodes are mostly better than this shite. (I except the Crusher family succubus which contends with “Shades of Gray” for the worst episode of the entire series.) If nothing else, note that we are reaching the point where Roddenberry takes his hands off the controls and there will be things like conflict and imperfection in both the characters and the Federation.
Next week is a bog-standard Lwaxana episode, so you know, ugh. But the two episodes after that are fairly average (as I remember them; I could be wrong). “Shades of Gray” is Fred Freiburger territory and they would have been better served just not making any episode. I guess you could say that the next 3 episodes are a dead-cat bounce and then we bottom out. After that there’s nowhere to go but up.
And I still want to see Danilo’s face when he suggests “a spot o’ baby-makin'” and they hand him a test tube.
I tend to agree with bobsandiego. Even if this is technically not a PD situation—because of the weird contorted limbo dance that is the PD, and because the policy exclusions and exceptions are themselves convenient contrivances—it is certainly what we’re told the PD was intended to avoid: Captains compelled to muck around in complex societies and impose by fiat simplistic and culturally destructive solutions.
The “shotgun wedding” Picard performs here (as Torie notes in her analysis) is not much more in advance of liberty and self-determination than John Gill imposing a Nazi regime on a society for economic advantage.
To make my point more clearly, here are your very own ratings for the last five shows:
Warp 1
Warp 2
Warp 5 (generous, Torie, very generous!)
Warp 1
Floating Debris
Seriously. Was there a string of TOS S3 that had a worse run?
@ 15 CaitieCat
I had the opportunity to tune in on a few late TNGs running on BBC yesterday. They were from Season 6, the so-called golden era when TNG supposedly was in glorious maturity. Yet, they were soap operaish and not particularly engaging, mostly forgettable, with an omnipresent and grating musical score (some foolish studio clown leaning too heavily on the organ keys).
It does get better than this dreck. But only occasionally does the series really rise to memorable greatness.
Season Three is soo-oo much better than Seasons One and Two it is breathtaking, astonishing. But the series does not continue to rise in successive seasons.
@ 15 Cait
I should admit that I may be grading TNG more harshly here because it’s not new to me, and I expect better from the series. TOS was always new to me, so even when it was bad I could generally find something interesting to talk about or be impressed with. Here the shiny has rubbed off. But contrary to Lemnoc, it’s still my favorite. Chop off seasons 1, 2, and 7, and you get four really good years of great storytelling and great performances. At least, that’s what I keep reminding myself of. But once they let the Roddenberry stuff go, it’s not afraid to get its hands dirty and be ambivalent about a lot of so-called progress, and expose the warts of the Federation. And like TOS, even where it fails at actually being progressive and forward-thinking (the reverse-gay episode, sigh), I do have to give some points for trying, because no one else was doing it. But mostly the characters really come into their own.
LOL – honestly, it’s not as bad as all that, I’m just having fun yanking yer chains.
It’s not like I’m a real curmudgeon – I just play one (when the conversation is) on TV. ;)
@Lemnoc
Season Six is the golden age? That’s about when I stopped watching. My memeory, which may be faulty, is that I found episodes in season 3-5 to be the best.
I’ve been dreading this episode more than any other. It’s like TNG’s version of “The Way to Eden” only somehow even worse; I didn’t think it was possible, but it was even less watchable than I remembered. Oddly, I had thought the cloning subplot took place in a different, better episode–it’s a fascinating conflict that might have deserved its own episode rather than a few minutes of discussion. I had also forgotten the entire subplot with Pulaski and Worf, which mostly confused me. Not only was I bothered that she had to lie to the captain to protect Worf’s shameful secret–no doctor-patient confidentiality here!–but I felt vaguely ill at the idea of the Klingon tea ceremony. It felt like some weird cultural appropriation, even with the Klingon twist of the tea being poison. (Though I might have given it some points if Pulaski had said, “I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.”)
The whimsical, stereotypical mocking of the Irish is on the order of “Code of Honor,” but the whole forced polygamy “solution” to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place makes it a toss-up over which is worse. Considering by now the TNG writers really should have known better, and on the whole this episode is an embarrassment, this one might score lower. I’m not sure what the difference between “floating debris” and “warp core implosion” is, but I’m calling this one the latter. I am so, so sorry anyone had to re-watch this one. I just can’t wait for season 3.
@ 20 Eugene
The difference is that the warp core implosion destroyed the ship, and later all that was left was frozen, floating debris.
We should have allowed more wiggle room at the bottom.
I’ve been following along with your episode reviews as I re-watch the series, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks for this!
I have to say, though, I was really counting on your correctly identifying the best line(s) as:
DATA: “Mariposa”…the Spanish word for “butterfly.”
PICARD: [dismissively] Thank you, Data.
DATA: I thought it might significant, Sir.
PICARD: It doesn’t appear to be, Data.
DATA: [humbly] No, sir.
Season 3 and on was much better once they got rid of Maurice Hurley and his scripts. This episode should be on the garbage pile along with season 1 episode 3. Let alone choice being removed this episode promotes polygamy with a smile on their faces. Heck, the doctor even black mailed the prime minister. Go ahead and die out in 50 years and the federation will have a new ready made planet to colonize. Horrible script and I’m glad Hurley left or got pushed out.