“Code of Honor”
Written by Katharyn Powers & Michael Baron
Directed by Russ Mayberry and Les Landau (uncredited)
Season 1, Episode 3
Production episode 40271-104
Original air date: October 12, 1987
Stardate: 41235.25
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise travels to Ligon II to negotiate a treaty in order to acquire a vaccine. Lutan beams aboard with his entourage, and is greeted by Picard, Riker, Troi, and Yar. Lutan has his second, Hagon, give Picard a sample of the vaccine, which Yar tries to take first in order to check it. When Hagon resists allowing her to perform her duty, she throws him to the floor, embarrassing the crap out of him.
Lutan, of course, views this as an opportunity, because he’s a suspicious-looking alien leader, and if he didn’t view this as an opportunity, there would be no plot.
After a diplomatic exchange of silly niceties, Lutan asks Yar for a demo of self-defense on the holodeck. Yar does well against the hologram, but Hagon fares less well, being tossed to the floor for the second time in one day. When the Ligonians beam down, they kidnap Yar. Data analogizes what Lutan does to counting coup—he’s being heroic by taking something from a superior enemy.
When Picard politely asks for Yar back, Lutan invites him down to the surface, where they meet Yareena, Lutan’s “first one.” She owns Lutan’s lands, which he protects and rules. Picard agrees to again politely ask for Yar back, this time at a big banquet in front of his peers.
Lutan, however, goes off-book by deciding to keep Yar and make her his first one. His existing first one takes umbrage for obvious reasons and challenges Yar to a duel to the death because, well, that’s what people do. I guess.
Result: cat fight in a jungle gym! Yar and Yareena (yes, really) have a particularly ineptly choreographed battle, using glavins—a mace with poisoned spikes. As soon as Yar (of course) wins, she beams herself and Yareena’s body to the Enterprise, where Crusher administers an antitoxin and revives her. Thanks to her dying, however temporarily, her mating with Lutan is dissolved, and she chooses Hagon, as he’s the only other Ligonian male with a speaking part.
The Enterprise gets the vaccine, and warps away.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: “Lieutenant Yar is physically very attractive.” Good thing she mentioned that, or we might not have noticed!
Can’t We Just Reverse The Polarity?: “It reads similar to early Starfleet efforts, but uses the Heglenian Shift to convert energy and matter in different… Which is actually not important at this time.” Data showing uncharacteristic restraint.
What Happens On the Holodeck Stays On the Holodeck: Yar demonstrates aikido with a holographic fighter. This leads to one of the episode’s better lines, which was sadly not followed up on: “You can create people without a soul?”
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: Yar does find Lutan physically attractive, and Lutan definitely finds her and her ability to throw his second to the floor pretty hot as well. Yareena loves Lutan because, well, everyone loves Lutan, but not enough to keep him when he tries to have her killed. Hagon has the hots for Yareena, and wins in the end, thus vindicating his constantly being thrown to the floor.
The boy!?: Picard, in order to appease Crusher, lets Wesley temporarily sit at ops. He emphasizes the word temporarily very loudly. Later on, for no reason that the script adequately—or even inadequately—explains, Riker lets Wesley again sit at ops, despite there being an entire crew complement of qualified Starfleet personnel on board.
If I Only Had a Brain…: Data and La Forge’s friendship, which would become a cornerstone of the series, is on display for the first time in this episode. Data tries to tell a joke, and fails rather spectacularly.
Welcome Aboard: Jessie Lawrence Ferguson has tremendous presence as Lutan, which is one of the episode’s few saving graces. The same cannot be said of Karole Selmon, who is painfully overwrought as Yareena. James Louis Watkins falls down well as Hagon.
I Believe I Said That: “I’m sorry—this is becoming a speech.”
“You’re the captain, you’re entitled.”
Picard cutting off his Prime Directive rant, and Troi letting him off the hook.
Trivial Matters: Russ Mayberry, the episode’s director, was fired by Gene Roddenberry partway through filming. Apparently, the casting of entirely African-American actors as the aggressively primitive Ligonians did not sit well with the Great Bird of the Galaxy, and Les Landau—who would go on to become one of the franchise’s most prolific directors—finished the job. Also Katharyn Powers would go on to write a first-season Stargate SG1 episode, “Emancipation,” with several similar plot elements.
Make It So: I’m trying to think of a cliché that wasn’t used in this episode, but none spring to mind. A flat, lifeless hour with no kind of suspense, no interesting character development, and a plot that was aggressively paint-by-numbers. Among the lowlights are clunky dialogue, ranging from the stilted diplomatic backing-and-forthing to the clumsy exposition about the Ligonians, to the Ligonians themselves describing their culture as if it was from a textbook rather than their own experiences. Worst is quite possibly the most unsubtle discussion of the Prime Directive in the history of the show by Picard. Mercifully, he cuts it off before it becomes a tiresome speech.
The accusations of racism against the episode that have been leveled by many—most notably actors Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner and staff writer Tracey Tormé—are a bit iffy, only because the script didn’t explicitly call for the Ligonians to be played by African-Americans. If the Ligonians had been played by white people, none of the dialogue would change, and nobody would call it racist.
However, this episode doesn’t need to be racist to be mediocre.
Warp factor rating: 2
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written a mess of stuff about Star Trek. This rewatch is simply adding to the mess. Follow him online at his blog or on Facebook or Twitter under the username KRADeC.
And this is where I stopped watching TNG during broadcast. I simply could not believe how badly this episode was made. The writing, the acting, the score, the choreography, everything. Absolutely terrible. Worse than the worst of the original series.
I came back when a close friend made me watch the season 2 finale, and I was forced to admit that perhaps the series might have some future. I eventually watched seasons 1 and 2 later in re-runs.
Keith,
Thank you so much for the YouTube link to the 2007 DrogonCon panel with Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden and Brent Spiner.
Hilarious stuff!
In retrospect, it is amazing that I continued to watch this show. I suppose I simply willed myself to forget how bad these early episodes were.
The high point of this episode is the musical score by Fred Steiner, the most prolific composer for the original series and the only TOS composer to work on a subsequent Trek TV series. His score for “Code of Honor” isn’t on a par with his best TOS work, but it’s still good, and it’s awesome that a TOS composer got to do a new TOS-style episode score 20 years later. It’s too bad Berman decided to take the music in a more “modern” direction and didn’t bring back Steiner or any other classic Trek composers.
I agree there wasn’t any intended racism in the script; indeed, the dialogue likened Ligonian culture to Ming-Dynasty China rather than anything African. It was the choice of the casting department and the director to go for African-American actors, and I guess it was the director’s choice to have them use faux-African accents, which was probably a mistake. Aside from that, though, I always felt it was a rather progressive step for its time, since until then, you almost never encountered a humanoid-alien culture in sci-fi that wasn’t Caucasian. It was a nice try that misfired.
Still, Katharyn Powers did have a tendency to write anthropologically iffy alien-culture episodes both here and on Stargate SG-1. Keith, you mention “Emancipation,” which is probably the stupidest episode of that series and a serious case of Did Not Do the Research. (Women in horse-nomad cultures like the Mongols were actually far more equal than in sedentary cultures, and didn’t wear veils or live in purdah. And in cultures where women are veiled and sequestered, they don’t simultaneously wear plunging necklines!!!)
It’s interesting that this early Picard apologized for his speechifying, considering how much he embraced highfalutin rhetoric later on. It shows how differently the characters were initially conceived — and how much they were trying to distance TNG from TOS, since it seemed like a conscious effort to differentiate Picard from Kirk, who was known for his big moralizing speeches.
Again, one of the episodes I didn’t see until much later. By the time I saw it (IIRC, it was well after VOY started), it was hard to believe it was even the same series.
I love the episode. It’s the only ST episode I know of in any series with an all African (or all non-Euro, for that matter) planet. I think it’s completely absurd that through 5 series, an animated series, and 11 movies, the producers were so comfortable with the idea that the whole galaxy would look . . . just like them. That’s what’s racist, not the script or cast of this episode.
yeah so what? the planet of big old jerks is black this week. Nobody Ever mentions TOS klinons look just like Martin Landeau when he played Poncho Villa on Bonanza!
I can’t wait until this rewatch gets to Season 2, maybe 3.
I don’t buy the racist claim either. It’s just too bad the rest of the episode sucked so thoroughly.
I never stopped watching TNG, but I do think it was given a chance because it very fortunately had the history of TOS and the movies behind it. Had it been an entirely new series/concept, I honestly don’t know if it would have made it past the first season.
Katharyn Powers also wrote the “Dukes of Hazzard” episode “Swamp Molly,” in which a strong female wrestler tricks Uncle Jesse into going fishing with her because she’s supposedly afraid of being molested! (Another Dukes/TNG link: Jonathan Frakes played Boss Hogg’s nephew in the season 4 opener.)
Chris Bennett: I’m glad you discussed the music in your post. Do you happen to know if Fred Steiner was any relation to Max Steiner?
I didn’t dislike any of the music, but I would have to agree that, in going for a more “modern” sound, Berman let the composers get pretty synthesizer-heavy. I think my favorite score is for the arrival of the Borg ship in “Best of Both Worlds.”
I always thought Fred Steiner was Max Steiner’s son, but I double-checked just now and can’t find any indication that they’re related, or indeed that Max ever had children.
The synth was the choice of composer Ron Jones, who actually had very different musical tastes from Berman’s, which was why he and TNG eventually parted company. What I meant by a more modern musical style was one that was less thematic and leitmotif-driven, more generic. Steiner’s music, like Jones’s, was strongly driven by recurring leitmotifs, as was the norm for Steiner’s era. (The same era produced Jerry Goldsmith, whom Jones considered his role model.) Berman didn’t like recurring themes because he thought they sounded like recycled stock music — which is odd, because the largely themeless orchestral scores that he preferred instead, and that dominated later TNG and all the other Berman-era series, were a lot more repetitive.
Christopher: Thanks for the stuff on the music. I did notice the music was more distinctive when I was watching this again, but never got around to putting it in the rewatch writeup.
Sumek: Agreed on “BOBW” having great music.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I seemed to have completely blocked this episode from that memory o’ mine. (Gee, I probably *should* have remembered Yar fighting…)
I’m looking forward to the “Where No One Has Gone Before” rewatch partly because it’s one of the episodes where Data uses a contraction (“This shouldn’t be…”). I wonder if that was a mistake or the producers simply hadn’t decided that he would speak contraction-less.
I’m glad Ron Jones is still around: years later he landed on FAMILY GUY where he sometimes writes action music (like when Peter fights the giant chicken) that’s like Jerry Goldsmith fight music on crack.
Random, this comment’s been. (Like Yoda I talk, kinda, when tired.) Time to close it and post it.
Over the years I had wondered why I never really got into Tasha Yar as a character and why Denise Crosby semed so much better as Sela later in the series. While reading this review, I found myself thinking ‘What would Starbuck have done in this situation?’ then it hit me. Tasha should have been more like Starbuck – especially given what we learned about her background. True, even the ’80s version of lines like “Striking a superior asshole” would have driven half the viewers crazy (“That’s not Star Fleet!”), but it would have made the character more interesting. Dr. Pulaski (Season Two) was one of my favorite characters in the series because of her attitude. Tasha with an attitude might have been a character Denise Crosby could have enjoyed working with. Thinking about it, Ro Laren’s attitude would have fitted Tasha nicely. Oh well, what has passed is past.
My problem with the episode was that it came across to me as a poor man’s (a very poor man, think the apothacary from Romeo and Juliet) “Amok Time”. There are elements of the show from the faking of the deaths to the manipulations of Lutan and the Vulcan hottie (whose name I forget at the moment) that just scream “rip-off”, even more so than “The Naked Now”.
Chronic Rift: Yes and no. Honestly, the shared plot elements of “Code of Honor” and “Amok Time” are ones that are pretty well-established cliches. What made “Amok Time” work was that it was our first time seeing Vulcan and that it directly affected Spock, a character we’d spent the past year growing to care about.
This had structural similarities, yes, but no different from a thousand other like stories. The problem was nothing to really hang yourself on characterization-wise, since the only real character work going on was Data trying to tell a joke to La Forge in a scene that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode.
And the Vulcan hottie was T’Pring. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I don’t know that I ever stopped watching it was never high on my list and the next I rember is the “royle”
Any episode where Ryker doesn’t have a beard is automatically a bad one.
krad: That’s my whole point. When the show premiered, we were told that with the technology available, with the show being in syndication, and with the stable of writers being brought in, we’d get tales that could not be told on the original series. Instead, we got these derivative stories that didn’t do anything new and certainly weren’t any different than the original series, other than being not as good.
It wasn’t a very good start for the series. Season one was a very bumpy ride. I’ll be curious to see your thoughts on “Where No One Has Gone Before”, “The Battle”, “11001001”, “Too Short a Season”, “Heart of Glory”, and “Conspiracy”. They stand out, for one reason or another, as better episodes of the season, IMHO.
Live and learn. I would have guessed this was a “bad by commitee” episode (and not the best of commitees, either). Guy A thinks it would strike a good, moral tone to have a completely nonwhite planet (and, just to strike the right note of inclusiveness, keep commenting on how amazingly similar this planet and its culture is to one from Earth).
Guy B likes this but wants to make sure their are references to how these people are more refined and cultured than the Federation ones.
Meanwhile, Guy C wants a story where Yar gets some screen time and be established as fighter at least as tough as Kirk ever was.
Guy D just wants a cat fight.
Guy E, who was only half-listening to both groups, suggested these two stories be brought together by having a guy from the planet wanting to marry Yar.
F caught the poor intern writer (who was already drowning in all these plot requirements) to make some suggestions about what kind of villain they needed.
G didn’t make it to the meeting but did pass on a memo that the women on the planet of the week had better be assertive and have power and influence because they didn’t want accusations of Kirk’s kind of sexism.
So, too many cooks, and none of them listening to each other or thinking about what the end result would be.
To find out it didn’t happen that way . . . THAT’S scary.
@Christopher:
“I’m looking forward to the “Where No One Has Gone Before” rewatch partly because it’s one of the episodes where Data uses a contraction (“This shouldn’t be…”).”
It turns out it’s one of many. Brent actually said, “Yes, Captain. I’m fine,” at the end of Datalore! You know, the episode that actually established that Data could not use verbal contractions…? Brent Spiner probably used on average 1 verbal contraction per episode.
@ellynne, you forgot about guy producer and/or guy casting director who didn’t stop to consider whether using an all-black cast as the aliens-of-the-week would be considered racist or not. Frankly, I can see both points and I’m still torn about it. @Reader is right that most aliens on the show were white and/or based on euro-centric cultures. Maybe this episode was intended to be different. But Frakes and Spiner were there, and they seem to agree that the show was an embarassment. The bottom line, though, is that it wasn’t a very good story. I did like the actor who played Lutan, though. I thought he did a very good job with bad material.
This is one of the very few episodes I didn’t see until years after the original run, and when I did, I couldn’t believe it was the same series. This one is bad for 1st season TNG. The Naked Now was oscar material compared to this.
As for the Rascism charge, the few black star trek fans I know seem to like this episode. There is something to be said that of ANY science fiction I have ever seen, this is the only non-caucasian actors to portray a culture I can think of off the top of my head.
@@@@@ Christopher Bennet. The music of TNg is something I am immensily interested in. I agree with you but would go further and say that the music of TNG got so bad in the last 3 seasons that I would dare to say it actually hurt episodes. I think DS9 didn’t suffer in the same way because it NEVER had good music. TNG had 4 years of Ron Jones and a not-terrible McCarthy, but after Jones left, the quality plummeted. There are episodes that I can barely even watch anymore. One episode I think of the top of my head is “starship Mine” from season 6. I felt like I WOULD have loved that episode, but the music was so bland and boring it really took the “umph” out of the action scenes.
Anyways, that is my biggest critique of Berman and how he destroyed
Star Trek.
In season 4, the suits wanted to change the feel of the show. Ron Jones was fired… and the other composers, who all put out great works, now had to – what seemed like – replace their orchestras with a room full of frogs eating a pint of beans. Seriously, “farting frogs” describes the new tonal style for seasons 5-7 and it definitely drags episodes down. “Power Play” being a prime example of the new style not fitting the material at all… Chattaway and McCarthy both know their stuff, as did the sublime Jones, so something else was the cause of the downhill quality of the music…
And yet “The Next Phase”‘s score was perfect…
It doesn’t help that many stories of 5-7 are one-dimensional and flat, but even for the better material the music brings them down… :(
Jesse Lawrence Ferguson does indeed steal the show. Every scene he’s in he puts in a sincere performance that makes me feel for the character. From what I’ve seen of him in other shows, he’s a solid character actor. “Code of Honor” might be drek-filled Trek, but he does make the story watchable. And, wow, the Blu-Ray does the story justice as well…
As for story tropes, Shakespeare once said there are only so many… (and it’s how the tropes are used and innovated on that make theater/tv/writing good, trite, bad, etc…) Season 1 TNG often has reused aspects of TOS (“Heart of Glory” has “Space Seed” as a reference, as Worf freely tells the Klingon survivors all about the ship while someone else looks up their history and finds out that, oops, they’re bad guys. But the motivations, handling, etc, of “Glory” are much different, and as such it’s not so face-smackingly obvious that the same trope was used…
One of the biggest Trek mysteries to me is why people insisted (and still insist) on describing Denise Crosby is if she were the sexiest woman who ever lived. She was so spectacularly average it always baffled me. Troi and Crusher were the hotties.
I actually was good friends with Katharyn Powers (and, to a lesser extent, Michael Baron) while they were writing this episode. I read the original script. It’s actually good.
Also, Katharyn became Story Editor for Stargate SG1 starting with season 3–the point at which, many of my friends say, the series actually started making sense.
This episode would have still been bad….but I would have enjoyed it much more if they used the music from Pon Farr during the Tasha fight scene.
So many years later and I still find myself returning to this rewatch page to read people’s notes and share my thoughts. Having caught this one on TV the other day, I have to agree with most of the posters here that it is a dreadful episode. Awful, acutally. Perhaps horrible. Definitely terrible. I can’t think of one reedeming aspect, performance or tidbit from this monstrosity. An embarassing, ridiculous plot, and horrid acting across the board highlight what could have been a series-killing episode this early in the show’s run.
That’s as kind as I can be about “Code Of Honor” and I’m a huge fan of Season 1.
During the girlfight scene, Yar keeps grasping the metal bars that are part of the arena. All the other chick had to do was tap Yar’s fingers with her weapon, which looked like it was borrowed from the set of Conan the Barbarian, and that would be that, since the barbs were poisoned. Small detail, and I wouldn’t bother mentioning it except it was apparent for pretty much the entire sequence. How difficult would it have been to tell Crosby to stop hanging on… ?
I’ve actually never seen this episode, or at least not that I can recall. Once I started going through the rewatch, I tried to watch it, but I don’t think I got past the first five minutes. I just found it incredibly dull. In fact, I think I shut it off before the opening credits were even finished and skipped ahead a full season to watch “Q Who?” instead.
Some logical holes in this one, it being sluggish and dull notwithstanding. If men don’t own property, what did Lutan plan to gain by arranging the death of his wife? The whole episode is about cultural differences, but this different culture is totally willing to accept Crusher’s “she was dead but now she’s not” where beliefs about the nature of death should very much be affected by culture. The final movement where women turn out to have significant power is also not the surprise I felt it was trying to be; it’s an obvious consequence of what little we’d already learned about this people.
Agree about the good performance of Jessie Lawrence Ferguson. His non-verbal acting while his wife takes way his status was very good indeed.
This episode did have a GREAT bit from Data, almost worth the pain. Spoken to Picard:
“Counting coup. That’s from an obscure language called French.”
There are actually some rather intriguing aspects to Ligon culture that of course go unexplored: The idea that women own the land and its produce and men gain wealth and influence through the role of ‘protector’ of his consort’s economic power base. And the idea that both men and women have multiple spouses graded by seniority.
Of course this makes Lutan’s desire to take Yar as his First, displacing Yareena nonsensical since Yar has no property and wealth to offer so what the hell was that all about?
Nothing, he just wants Yar, and would still keep his other wives and their lands.
But why make her his First thus pissing off his richest wife?
Because he’s an idiot.
Clearly.
@36 Because he is arrogant. He’s the boss -in his mind- and he cannot imagine any of his underlings and subservients doing anything other than knuckling under to whichever deranged plan he comes up with. It is a trait and mental trap that all arrogant leaders tend to fall into.
He seems to ENTIRELY overlook Yareena’s power and agency. It looks like he’s been manipulating her for their whole relationship, maybe she’s finally noticed and since she can take her goodies and go he comes up with this murderous little plot. It doesn’t say much for Yareena’s intelligence that she falls into his trap. On the other hand she doesn’t deny the attempted murder when she’s revived and she takes him back as a second, which I bet is a BIG demotion.
Seriously, you could write a novel about the sexual,economic and power politics on this planet!
Will Wheaton said of this episode: Oh good, we’re going to be racist AND sexist in this one.
FYI, this is a long one.
Before I really get into things, it’s kind of strange to read KRAD saying this episode isn’t racist in 2019, a year in which merely stepping outside your door in the morning is inherently problematic in at least fifteen different ways. I will say that in this era of cancel culture that far less egregious portrayals have brought down far better stories, never mind this complete mess of an episode. Beyond the lousy acting, poor characterizations and a concept that comes across like a rejected TOS plot, there’s two things about “Code of Honor” that really jump out at me.
First off, it’s the spineless approach to diplomacy that Picard and the Enterprise crew engage in, despite the supposed urgency of the plague and the reprehensible behaviour that Lutan engages in. Lutan is not negotiating in good faith whatsoever; he’s constantly shifting the goalposts, going back on his word, and generally being so slimy and untrustworthy I’m surprised there isn’t any orange makeup involved. And that’s before you consider that he repaid Picard’s generous welcome and hospitality aboard the Enterprise by kidnapping a woman for the express intent of raping her, an act that’s both vile in its own right and a violation of sacred hospitality so severe Lutan must have learned the art of negotiation from Walder Frey.
Yet despite all of that, the mere notion that Picard should call him out on his crap is somehow an unbearable breach of diplomatic conduct and/or an egregious act of imperialism that must be avoided at all costs. Now, of course Picard shouldn’t be threatening to conduct an Exterminatus the instant there’s the slightest issue in the negotiations, but there’s this stupid assumption all throughout the episode that diplomacy requires putting up wholesale with whatever self-serving, petty and manipulative behaviour the other party engages in, even when it’s utterly in bad faith and only undermines further negotiation. Diplomacy means working with an opposing party, even a hostile one, to come to a mutually satisfactory outcome: you might not like the guy sitting across the table, but you can recognize you can come to a common accord to which he’ll abide. “Code of Honor” seems to imply that even when the other party is actively betraying you and has no interest in meeting you halfway, you should still bend over and take it like a dog, as actually standing up for yourself is the height of poor manners.
Next is Picard’s response to this, and the failure of the writers to understand that kindness and tolerance do not translate to weakness. I get that Picard, particularly in Season 1, is supposed to be the thoughtful, deliberate sort rather than the more action-oriented character who solves his problems with a swift right hook, yet even so, even patient men have their limits and even those not inclined to violence can still take a hard line against evil and corruption. One of Picard’s crew has been taken, one of the people for whom he is responsible as Captain of the Enterprise, snatched out from right under his nose by a petty tyrant who took advantage of his generosity to make off with her, all for the sake of his own selfish desires.
What does the hero of the story do when faced with such a challenge? Why, indulge him, of course! He barely even offers a half-hearted request for Tar’s return. Think about how many times we’ve seen in fiction a good leader put it all in the line for those who follow them: Commander Adama risking a shooting war with his own superior officer to save Helo and Chief Tyrol. Richard Sharpe tempting the Duke of Wellington’s wrath by pulling a gun on the provosts trying to string up the most objectively useless soldier in the South Essex Light Company in Sharpe’s Gold. Colonel-Commissar Gaunt risking both his own life and the mission on Gereon to save Major Rawne, a man who’s actively tried to murder him in the past, in Traitor General. What should have been a really good opportunity to show Picard’s commitment and strength of character just makes him look weak, a man dumb enough to take Lutan at his word and unwilling to stand up for those under his command.
And that’s the thing: even within the confines of peaceful negotiation and diplomacy, there’s still plenty of room for Picard both to employ creative solutions and flex his muscle. How about countering Lutan’s demands by threatening to shut the door on any future engagement with the Federation? No new trading partners, no shiny tech, no Starfleet protection or possibility of Federation membership, none of the numerous benefits that would come with actually playing nice for once. Is he willing to risk his world becoming an interstellar pariah, and having his name given as the cause to boot? Hell, if Yareena is the one holding the purse strings, why not go directly to her and rely on her rational self-interest to bring Lutan into line? Or even open-source the threat, let the entire planet know what they risk missing out on because Lutan can’t keep it in his pants. Season One of Babylon 5 had Commander Sinclair frequently finding peaceful solutions to problems in ways that give insights into his character and made us want to root for him; no reason they couldn’t have done the same here. Just because violence is an absolute last resort doesn’t mean you have to be a spineless worm about it.
TLDR: Purge this episode with fire.
Personally I thought it was great to finally encounter dark skinned aliens.
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Is there another thread in this whole rewatch with more comments killed by the Mods? Even one last week! Fascinating.
@43 – I don’t entirely disagree with you, but isn’t the point of Picard’s speech about the Prime Directive because they are dealing with a “primitive” culture? They could overpower them or out-science them without breaking a sweat, but this ep is taking pains to show they aren’t going to bowl them over. Also, we are probably spared even worse connotations of the white, British! guy colonize-splaining how things are going to go to the all-black space culture.
While race may not have been a component of original script, the costume designer certainly took a page from Afro-Futurism (not that that is a bad thing).
@47: On the subject of this being a “primitive” culture, I don’t really buy that. First off, it smacks of the sort of condescending paternalism that postcolonial thought is supposed to stand against, a sort of “boys will be boys” infantilization of a culture and the people who comprise it. Just because the Ligonians are less technologically advanced than the Federation, it doesn’t deprive them of agency or responsibility for their choices. This is still a culture sophisticated enough to possess the tech necessary to jam Federation sensors, not to mention unified global governance, a willingness to engage in interstellar trade with another culture, and an acceptance of the existence of alien life. One would think they would be sophisticated enough to recognize that violating sacred hospitality for the sake of one privileged individual’s lust and ego is neither smart nor moral.
More to the point, the fact that they’re the weaker party doesn’t automatically make their actions correct, or Picard any less justified in giving Lutan the smacking he so clearly deserves. I’ll spare you the rant about our contemporary fixation with power dynamics and how they’ve eroded genuine human morality, but suffice it to say, weakness doesn’t give you the right to do as you will without consideration for others any more than strength does, and victimhood (real or imagined) is not a shield from the ensuing consequences. If I were to punch a Grey Cup-winning linebacker out of the blue, the cry of “I’m nearsighted and out of shape!” would neither justify that action nor protect me from his wrath; I should never have committed an unprovoked act of assault to begin with. Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing.
And that’s the thing; Lutan started this crisis, not Picard. The Enterprise did not attack his world, the Federation did not threaten conquest, and Picard did not issue an ultimatum expecting it to be obeyed. This humanitarian mission was a sincere one, and the hospitality they offered Lutan genuine; any breakdown in diplomacy is his fault alone. The fact that his world is the weaker party against the Federation doesn’t make him the valiant underdog. It makes him a complete moron for provoking an unnecessary confrontation with a force that could crush him utterly if unrestrained, a rat picking a fight with a tiger and expecting to come out on top. I also don’t care if a white guy laying down the law on a black one comes across as colonialism, A) because it could hardly be worse than the portrayal of race relations we actually got in this episode, and B) this specific black guy truly has committed acts that demand condemnation. If he wants to act like Sextus Tarquinius, well, there are consequences for that, and ones his melanin count will not shield him from.
@45/Roxana: Me too. Did they ever do that again?
@49, Jana, I don’t think so. Though we got dark skinned Vulcans and Klingons.
@50: That was probably for the best, if only to avoid any inadvertent stereotyping.
@51/Devin Smith: Surely they would have gotten better at it after a while. On the other hand, if they never even try…
A further look at this episode, including recent comments from Crosby and Frakes: https://trekmovie.com/2020/06/14/jonathan-frakes-and-denise-crosby-cant-see-star-trek-tngs-racially-charged-code-of-honor-playing-now/
My first reaction was, ‘Oh boy, aliens who aren’t white. About time!’ then of course the plot happened. As Will Wheaton wrote, ‘Oh goodie, we get to be racist and sexist in this one!’
Reptilian samurai sound cool. They should have stuck with that.
@54: Captain Picard meeting the Arbiter from Halo: that would be a neat little crossover.
There was absolutely a way to have a planet of black characters and make it work.
But between the wardrobe, the accents, and the emphasis from our TNG regulars about “oh my this is so different and primitive, we’re so much more evolded than them” high-horse arrogant moralism…
Yeahhhhh…. intended or not, it winds up feeling too much like a 40’s/50’s “explorers vs natives” jungle adventure film.
All the times Hagon was thrown to the floor in this episode made me think of how awesome it would have been if Michael Palin had played Lutan:
“Thwow him to the fwoor.”
“What sir?”
“Thwow him to the fwoor!”
An absolute travesty of an episode. Not even watching some of the worst The Original Series had to offer prior to “Code of Honor” can make it look better. Nothing about this script works and it would be racist regardless of any race you have standing in for the Ligonians due to the orientalist stereotyping that inspired their culture; even if they carefully cast a variety of different races to play to Ligonians you still get an orientalist mess that’s painted as completely backward. There’s no saving this one; the screenplay shouldn’t have been considered in the first place.
What happened to my TNG! When I was 22 I for the first time was able to watch all of ST:TNG episodes in order. In a few months, I finally got to see all 176 or so episodes in a way that made clear the evolution of the show. The horror that was season 1 actually made me angry at the time (season 2 as well) I had not cared for season 1 episodes since I was at least 10 which was around the time of season 5, my issues with them being things such as the bad production values, the strange way the characters acted, Dr. Pulaski and the lower quality of storylines to young me. Given this, young adult me was stunned by things overlooked by me as a kid. These new problems, I felt, were a betrayal of Star Trek values. The misogyny and racism on display was baffling.
Yes, this episode is racist. In today’s world, we understand racism commonly in two forms: At a personal level, that is, x person judges other people less favorably because of the perceived racial class they belong too. We also understand racism as a systemic societal issue that does not need to have any intentionality behind it. Though it is often a byproduct of intentionally racist systems in the past such as slavery or Jim Crow.
This form of racism can be the by product of interactions of various systems that lead to negative outcomes for members (or precived members) of a given racial category. This episode’s existence is an example of that. The fact that the people that made it thought it was ok to cast people of sub-Saharan African descent, have them use an “African” accent, dress them how they did, portray their customs how they did, even including what appears to be ritual scarring on the males faces (common to many tribal peoples, and people in general, but the stereotype is tribal, more primitive people) and doing all this with the script as written is racist in outcome if not intent.
Now let’s get to the misogyny, how Yar is portrayed is appalling. She is throughout the episode shown to be attracted to Lutan. She seems to have a kind of crush on him almost immediately. Then even after the kidnapping, even after being put in a fight to the “death” she is still shown to have some kind of attraction to him, it is atrocious. The way they write Yar in this episode is baffling to me.
But even if this was an all white cast and Yar was not attracted to Lutan I still have many issues with this episode. The fight scene is appalling, even by Trek’s silly hand-to-hand combat standards. As a big combat sports fan and someone that has taken classes in Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, BJJ and Taekwondo I am well aware of how fake the fight scenes tend to be in Trek. Similar to the bad science on TNG it is something that normally has no negative effect on me. So even if the double fist attack is a fake absurd in real life technique it gets a pass from me as the move normally looks effective (same with bat’leth stuff, Worf uses it, and it works, good enough). But in this odd duel to the death with strange hand weapons it comes off so fake to such an extreme that even as a little kid and thus having no concept of hand-to-hand combat, I thought it looked bad. Now as an adult wow, just wow.
In addition to this, I don’t like the music. Normally when it comes to music in TNG from season 3 on, I tend to not notice it, or if I do, I like it. In the first two seasons, though, I tend to have an issue with how the music is used. In other words, it is not that the music is good or bad, the music itself I might be fine with in a different context, but I don’t like how it is used in the context of the scene it is featured in. Sort of like using a death metal song in some romantic scene out of nowhere. It jars with the scene, whereas the same song featured in a Mad Max style action chase scene would be fine. In this case, it is worse. I don’t like the music itself. This is simply a personal taste thing, the music is professionally and competently done, I just don’t like it. And this makes how it is used even more jarring to me than how music is often used in season 1. Every time the music kicks it, I tend to get confused. Why are you using this lame piece of music and doing so at this moment?
Also, this is early season 1 and everything from the lighting, sound, editing, character writing and acting is so off and inconsistent with later TNG that rewatching the episode for a long time fan like me is very jarring. I especially dislike the way Patrick Stewart does captain logs this early in the series. He uses a soft tone of voice that is nothing like later episodes in season 1 let alone the whole show. I just rewatched the teaser to hear this aspect again, and even the sound mixing and levels seem off to me. Not only do I dislike the music, dislike how the music is used, I realized I also have an issue with how the overall sound editing and mixing is done! UGH! Lower music by 15% in the mix, please.
While I am hating on everything season 1, might as well mention how Troi always looks so uncomfortable sitting on the bridge in early episodes. This might have to do with her outfit in season 1, but maybe it is more growing pains and the actor learning how to act in their given role? Moreover, the long conversations between crew members on the bridge that in later seasons would tend to take place in the observation lounge I find off-putting and odd. Looking back, the production value jump that happened starting in season 3 is pretty astonishing.
Good points: I like the matte painting of the “Center Place”.
In real life, I don’t normally have tiers past tier 3, as the tiers are supposed to represent a hierarchy of my personal taste in things I like. But my tier system is essentially the same as my 5-star system that I often use when reviewing movies. That is Great, Good and Ok being tiers 1-3. Bad and Terrible would therefor be tiers 4 and 5. And since I have been clear that I am coming into these rewatches as a major fan of TNG and not someone trying to give any kind of objective review I decided from the start to use my tier system to “rate” episodes, I will keep it that way. This episode is terrible to me, therefor Tier 5.
-Kefka
As an aficionado of stuff that’s so bad it’s good (or, at least, stuff so bad that watching people’s reactions to it is hilarious) I pretty much had to go back and have a look at this episode after seeing all the bad press it got. In general, I’d agree there’s nothing inherently racist about the story: as noted, the script didn’t specify that the Ligonians were to be a collection of “Darkest Africa IN SPACE!!!” stereotypes; the blame for that rests firmly on Russ Mayberry (who—racism aside—was a major jerk to everyone on the set according to just about everyone who had the displeasure of working with him). Turn the Ligonians into reptilian samurai instead (which was indeed Katharyn Powers’ original idea for how to portray them), and you’d still have the awkward acting of TNG’s first season overlaid on a rather by-the-numbers plot.
Of course, what made casting the Ligonians as space Africans racist was the inherent structure of the franchise itself: Gene Roddenberry’s utopian future was one in which the Federation’s human (or humanoid) protagonists were always the enlightened “good guys” who could do no wrong, and the unenlightened antagonists of the week were always evil and/or stupid people who needed to be shown the errors of their ways. Operating within that framework, casting any antagonist of the week as all one ethnicity or another is inherently racist, as it pretty much automatically implies the ethnicity in question is evil and/or stupid and must be shown the errors of its ways. Put another way, I doubt the episode would have gotten so much criticism for racism if it had portrayed the Ligonians as a Federation colony populated entirely with African descendants and done one of the occasional “moral high ground” inversions (seen a lot more frequently in DS9) in which the antagonists of the week are in the right and the protagonists are in the wrong and must be shown the error of their ways.
As for sexism, well, that’s more a matter of opinion: while some may understandably look askance at the idea that there could be any mutual attraction between a Strong Independent Woman™ like Tasha Yar and her abductor Lutan, she herself goes out of her way to point out her attraction to him is purely physical, and just thinking he’s rather easy on the eyes in no way means she’d actually want to have anything to do with him. On Lutan’s side of the occasion, Troi also notes his physical attraction is mixed with feelings of “ambition” and “avarice” toward Tasha, and it’s later confirmed his (somewhat convoluted) motives for abducting her were also partially financial and political. If anything, what’s really sleazy about him is that he seems to think of her as just another gullible foreigner he can use as a pawn in his schemes; it’s not even clear Lutan expected or even actually wanted Tasha to accept his marriage proposal, as her being his new “number one” might actually have forced him to cede control over all his late wife’s property to her.
The greatest missed opportunity for character development and world-building in this episode—in my opinion—is the little-noticed point about Yareena begrudgingly taking Lutan back as her “number two” at the end, which had me saying “Wait, they’ve got polyandry on this world!?” Whereas polygyny has been fairly common in numerous primitive cultures historically—and some to this very day—only about two or three cultures on our entire planet (Tibet, certain tribes of Eskimos, and—in an unofficial sort of de facto way, certain obscure parts of rural China) have ever regularly practiced polyandry. Since polygamy in general is usually established for pragmatic reasons (e.g. skewed ratios of men to women due to one sex or the other being killed off in hazardous occupations) and only a very few places (e.g. Tibet) have more eligible men than women available to marry, one would have to wonder what practical conditions drove the Ligonians to start practicing polyandry, and whether this has anything to do with their culture’s sexual dichotomy in which the men evidently have almost complete control over politics while the women likewise have almost complete control over finances.
Of course, this is one more reason why so many Trekkies consider DS9 a superior series to TNG: whereas the Enterprise typically flew off at the end of episodes like this one and we usually never heard from the culture of the antagonist-of-the-week ever again, everyone on Deep Space Nine had to stay put, and therefore—more often than not—would be crossing paths with the antagonist-of-the-week again in future episodes.
Putting aside the racist casting and directorial decisions for a moment, this is one of a few early episodes where it seemed like Yar was going to be a central character in this new version of Star Trek. Unfortunately, after “Hide and Q,” the writers totally forgot about her for the next 15 episodes, leading Denise Crosby to somewhat impulsively quit the show.
I was 8 when TNG premiered and Yar was initially one of my favorite cast members. I was bummed out when she was killed off by an evil oil slick. I remember the promos for Skin of Evil making clear that one of the cast members died, and also showed clips Troi trapped in the shuttlecraft, and I remember hoping it was her that was leaving. (I know that’s awful, but remember I was 8.)
There’s an alternate timeline out there where TNG went on for it’s successful 7-year run with a better developed Tasha Yar as one of its central cast members. It would be interesting to see what the fully developed version of Yar would have been like.