Since the pilot of TNG was the two part “Encounter at Farpoint”, we pick up today with episodes 3+4, “The Naked Now” and “Code of Honor”. While I have some real issues with these episodes, especially the second, I do think that, taken together, they offer an interesting look at the dichotomy of potential episode types TNG will hopefully continue to play around with. Given that the show involves a crew exploring space to discover new civilizations, many episodes (I assume) will involve encounters on alien planets, providing fodder for largely external conflicts. On the other hand, much of the show’s action takes place in a confined space, The Enterprise, and this allows for another engine to drive plots along: the internal conflict, where something alters the equilibrium of the ship and the crew must adjust. “The Naked Now” provides a nice example of this latter conflict, with the crew dealing with an invasive threat, while “Code of Honor” shows external conflict with an alien race. Whether they do so successfully is another matter entirely, of course.
“The Naked Now”
Having been repeatedly warned about the quality of season 1, I was bracing myself for this episode to be a real clunker. The basic plot – investigating a collapsing star and the scientific vessel monitoring it, the crew becomes infected by a disease that makes them act as if they are drunk – is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds (and apparently a rehash of an episode from the original series). And yeah, the episode has its fair share of clunky moments. Lt. Yar becomes a bit horny under the influence, apparently, and seeks a means for release. That she finds a partner in Data, while funny, also seems odd. He does claim to be “fully functional” (WINK), but still. He’s an android – does he feel arousal? Or is this a will without desire scenario, like St. Augustine’s take on relations before the fall (what Peter Holcombe calls “erections on demand”)? And Denise Crosby’s acting is so wooden (DOUBLE WINK) that Yar’s lasciviousness seems just as unlikely as Data’s. Maybe robot on robot action gets your motor running, but for the rest of us it’s just weird.
The other big problem with the episode is, sorry to say, Wesley Crusher, boy wonder. I want to keep an open mind, but I can definitely sense why Wes drew the ire of many fans. It’s a weird dynamic having a teenage boy among so many stoic Starfleet officers. Of course, Wesley’s Encyclopedia Brown fashion sense doesn’t help. Seriously, the guy looks like he’s about to head down to the soda shoppe for a ten cent malt. Nor does his gee whiz pop demeanor, especially paired with his supposedly precocious brains. So when he takes over the engine room through a bit of chicanery, and almost blows up the Enterprise before rescuing her at the last moment, it’s hard not to want to punch him in the face. The only redeeming aspect of this subplot is Benjamin Lum as the assistant engineer whose experiences with intoxication make him revert to the third grade. He sits there stacking blocks as the Enterprise (almost) burns, but his expression is pure gold.
What surprises me about the episode is how serious it comes across. Faux intoxication seems like the perfect opportunity to get a little silly onboard the Enterprise, but the stakes remain high and the show plays it fairly straight. Nevertheless, a few moments of comedy break through, mostly thanks to Picard’s Herculean attempts to tamp down his own silliness. Patrick Stewart carries himself with such gravitas, and Picard strikes such a serious tone, that the moments when he cracks are all the more valuable (that’s perhaps the number one reason that Wesley Crusher is worth anything on the show, since Picard clearly has no idea how to act around a kid, especially one who’s mother is a potential love interest). To see Picard struggle against his desire for Dr. Crusher, and to fight back a case of the sillies, is to see a mighty oak sway in the wind. Stewart sells these moments so well that they almost single-handedly redeem the episode. Geordi has a few good moments, since his intoxication makes him reflective, wondering what it would be like to really have sight, but other than that the episode mostly falls flat.
Yet, in the end, I did not hate this episode. It does a good job showing the dynamics of the newly brought together crew and provides some moments of levity to boot. I doubt I’ll come to consider it a classic episode, but it could be a lot, lot worse.
“Code of Honor”
Oh hi there, “Code of Honor”, didn’t see you. We were just talking about how the last episode could have been a lot worse and I was about to say “Yeah, it could have been Code of Hon…”. Wait, sorry, I was going to say “Code of Honeybuns” – it’s a pretty deep cut, you wouldn’t know it. So, yeah, anyway.
We need to talk about the Prime Directive. Simply stated, the Prime Directive is Starfleet’s Golden Rule: don’t mess with the development of alien civilizations. They have to be left alone to develop in their own way, like a blue cheese or a Polaroid. This rule supposedly guides all Starfleet interactions with alien species, no matter how advanced or primitive they may be. You cannot provide technological boosts, nor can you tangle with the internal laws of a civilization.
On paper this sounds really great. In fact it sums up what I think an effective, ethical foreign policy should look like. Interact, but leave well enough alone. If we really believe in human dignity, shouldn’t we believe in the right for societies to shape their own meaning? Living in a global society has made this issue an important one, and we tend to respond with calls for toleration and diversity, but when real differences emerge we tend to get uptight and assert the inherent superiority of the way we do things. So we rush to support democracy by any means necessary, and otherwise force our ideologies upon the world. This comes as a result of the pernicious belief in progress, that nebulously defined concept that everyone believes must be true because, well, technology and stuff.
The world of Star Trek comes naturally endowed by its creator with certain inALIENable preconceived notions, foremost among them progress. Mankind has progressed, in the world of the show, beyond its primitive trappings to a world of peace and awesome. Naturally, because Starfleet believes in freedom, they want everyone to achieve that exact same measure of progress. Yet the Prime Directive holds them back from causing change in other civilizations. That’s admirable, I suppose, but it would be more admirable if it also held them back from being real dicks about it, too.
“Code of Honor” gives us the clearest sense yet of the smug superiority of the Starfleet gang. While negotiating for a precious vaccine with the Zulu tribe Ligonian people, the Enterprise encounters trouble when the Ligonian chieftain becomes enthralled with Tasha Yar and captures her, intending to make her his “first wife”. His current “first wife” naturally finds this arrangement a little offputting, and challenges Yar to a fight to the death.
Everything about this episode just raises the hackles on my neck. The overt, cloying righteous indignation of Picard and the others. Their utter condescension to the Ligonians even before the s hits the f (Picard “compliments” the Ligonians by comparing them to a revered, ancient Earth civilization). Oh, and let’s go ahead and make the subtext explicit by making the Ligonians black, and dressing them like a tribe of the Serengeti!
What results is an utter mess of an episode. Not so much structurally, where things progress by the book (though I did kind of like the “twist” ending), but thematically. What good is “tolerance” of other cultures if that means heavy handed condescension and barely disguised contempt? And really, the conflict in the episode only really develops when the chieftain violates the rules of his society, so the message isn’t even entirely consistent. Just a frustrating, frustrating episode.
The one brief glimmer of hope comes from a throwaway subplot. Data, as we know, strives to be more human (in “Farpoint”, Riker jokingly calls him Pinocchio). Last episode he made major strides, having his V-Card punched (sorry, I know that’s a gross, frat boy way of putting it, but the whole mechanical thing…) by Yar. This episode zooms in on an urge almost as human as the one to procreate: humor. Data does not understand human jokes, as he takes things very literally as a rule. He pursues the matter with Geordi, trying and failing to make him laugh before ultimately succeeding. It plays a very small part in the episode, but it points to the sort of thing the show should be doing more of – developing its characters, not writing off entire races of people.
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