Production Order: 13
Air Order: 13
Stardate: 45470.1
Original Air Date: February 10, 1992
Picard's Log 45470.1: "We're going to the Moab sector. Our scientists have been tracking the stellar core of a neutrino star, to see if it fucks with any of the planets it passes."
Picard enters the bridge, and Riker tells him that they have a problem: the core fragment will pass by Moab IV in six days, and while that was expected, they were not expecting a colony to be on that planet. And they're human.
"The hell?" asks Picard. "There shouldn't be humans here."
"They're in an artificial environment on the surface," Data confirms.
"Ships reported missing in this sector?" Picard asks.
Nope, none. And hails are getting no response.
"How'd they get here?" Picard is baffled.
"Pretty sure they know we're here," La Forge calls from the Engineering station. "I can see some activity."
"Let's try the lower EM band channels from the last century," Picard suggests to Worf, who opens the channels.
"Hey, this Picard from the Enterprise, the ship in orbit? Sorry to ring your doorbell, but we need to talk to you. Kind of urgent here."
"The defensive shield went up," Worf announces.
"Okay, we're not here to hurt you," Picard says. "Hella earthquakes coming to you in less than a week. Like, real bad. Everything-coming-down bad. Please answer."
And now they wanna talk.
A human named Aaron Conor shows up onscreen, and see that guy hovering in the background? That's Martin Benbeck, and he is not happy.
"Look, not to be rude," says Conor with diplomatic patience, "but we're not into chit-chat, and we don't like outsiders."
Huh, same. A whole colony of introverts?
"We only answered because of your warning," he adds.
"Yeah, this core fragment -"
"Cool," says Conor. "Listen, we've also been tracking that thing, and we're fine. Our structures have been designed to handle 8.7 on the Richter scale."
"Here's the thing," says Data. "Given the core's size, and what kind of quakes this will cause... y'all gonna die."
"We need to evacuate you," Picard says.
"Ooh, that's not gonna happen."
Like, flood waters are rising here, and you're all gonna drown, and they come by in a lifeboat, and you say No Thanks?
"Okay, we can find alternatives." Picard is losing patience. "You wanna come on board our ship, and we can figure something out?"
"Our environment is sealed," Conor argues. "Nobody can come in or out."
"Our environment is sealed," Conor argues. "Nobody can come in or out."
Picard smiles a Not-A-Smile. "We have matter/energy transport."
Conor has an "ooh, shiny!" reaction to that. He doesn't want to leave. He's the HBIC, and he's needed there. But he will consent to a few E crewmembers beaming down, if nothing more so than he can see it in action.
Benbeck's face has a "the fuck you say!" look now. We have no idea who this guy is, but he's pissed, and wondering how Conor has the audacity to let these people beam down.
We go down to the surface of Moab IV and get a nice matte painting of the surface:
Kinda scary, and... Mars-like. Not inhabitable outside.
Inside the biosphere, Benbeck follows Conor to berate him: outsiders are not allowed, period.
The away team - Riker, Troi and La Forge - beam down in a courtyard, and Conor has another star-struck moment.
But Benbeck is having none of it.
Dramatic music! Opening credits break!
In the courtyard, Conor and Benbeck tell the away team about how they have a closed society, which has been completely genetically-engineered: each person has been engineered to be the perfect specimen of their job and part in society, and their environment has as well, which is why leaving would fuck up all the shit.
"It would be suicide," argues Benbeck.
Getting a bit hyperbolic there, buddy. Have you all been genetically-engineered that you breathe a slightly-altered form of oxygen that's only available in this biosphere? No? Then it wouldn't be suicide to leave, just difficult. And it would leave an imbalance in the system, but no one would die.
Conor explains that the founders of their society selectively-bred its members to be without flaws, and to build a paradise.
"We've evolved," marvels Benbeck, "beyond..."
He stumbles in his thinking, because he's looking at La Forge, who is standing before him, physically disabled with a prosthesis.
"Beyond us," La Forge finishes in disgust.
You expect Benbeck to push back a little at that, to declare that that isn't what he's saying at all, but he says the quiet part out loud, possibly because good manners wasn't part of his genetic menu.
"Well, yeah. No one in our society would be blind. No offense," he adds.
Sassy La Forge Moment: "I can see you just fine, sir."
Benbeck starts to argue, but Conor cuts him off to say that this is an example that they haven't perfected everything yet, and they still need to work on some things.
Cooler in that shade, y'all.
Conor further explains that every living thing in the biosphere has been engineered to work in harmony with all of the others, to maintain a balance, so they can't just extract themselves.
"You being here has already affected The Balance," snaps Benbeck.
Spoiler alert: they will never show any evidence of this balance being tipped, which makes it hard to believe the struggle to evacuate is a real one, and not just something they've been programmed to think.
"If we all die, then The Balance won't matter much, will it?" asks Conor.
Benbeck closes his mouth and walks away.
Conor apologizes to the away team, but explains that Benbeck is "performing his function" exactly as he was designed. Dude is a human Data?
He explains that Benbeck's function is to interpret the desires of the founders and make sure that they're being carried out, like a judge.
HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING COMM BADGE.
Dude is a one-man Supreme Court? This is a TERRIBLE idea. Not to mention stagnating. What if the people decide to move forward in a progressive way, and Benbeck tells them no? Is there any way to enforce that, or is that the be all, end all? What The Founders Wanted isn't the only way to live. Just... this idea is awful. Maybe there are 8 other Benbecks who meet and make a judgement? I don't know. I just hate this system so much.
Conor says that he was designed to be the leader of the people, and that everyone knows exactly what their role is, and what to do. He launches into a defense of their society that's definitely still an issue here: are there people who go their whole lives without knowing their purpose? Are there people who are listless because they haven't figured out what they're good at? What if there are amazing poets stuck in deadend jobs, who can never become those amazing poets because of the aforementioned unsuitable work?
Now, I think about this a lot, because the things I am good at are not deemed worthy of paychecks in the current system.
But they took one problem, and genetically-engineered a solution? An entire society full of people who have been designed to never be unhappy at work, with a Benbeck to make sure they're smiling through it all? What if their scientists want to take up music as a hobby? Are they allowed hobbies?
Anyway, Conor says they treasure their way of life, and Troi tells him that they'll help him preserve it.
Conor takes the away team to a science lab and introduces them to Hannah Bates, a theoretical physicist. She and La Forge start comparing notes right away on the stellar core and what they can do to protect the colony.
Riker beams back, but Troi asks to stay to see more of the biosphere.
When Riker beams out of the lab, Bates also has an "ooh, shiny!" moment.
Spoiler alert: they're going to have Troi and Conor fall for one another.
Also spoiler alert: nobody ships this.
Troi and Conor walk through a garden, and she worries (but not a lot) that being there has fucked up all of the shit, but he shrugs it off as "damage done." He admits that today has been exciting, meeting new people, and meeting her. She tells him that this place is great, and that if they had a hotel, she'd book her next vacation there.
"I'll have them build a hotel," he tells her cheerfully.
Meh.
In the lab, La Forge and Bates agree that the magnitude of the earthquakes caused by the stellar core fragment would destroy the biosphere enough to ruin the careful environment set up inside. Bates asks La Forge what kind of power the E can generate, and she shows him a theory she came up with when they first noticed the fragment headed their way: that they can move the fragment just enough to pass by them without impacting the planet. She tells La Forge that the colony doesn't have the power to move the fragment, but the E might.
La Forge and Bates tell Troi and Conor about their plan, and of course, Benbeck is there. He needs to be so he can tell them sternly that the founders would not approve.
Basically, Bates needs to transport up to the E to help La Forge alter the ship's tractor beam.
Conor notes that, prior to this day, no one had ever left or visited.
Benback tries to convince Conor not to let her leave, but does so in a plaintive voice rather than a lecturing one. He talks about The Balance again. And he's worried about how transporting Bates will affect her DNA.
La Forge is over this ableist asshole. "It won't! We have more than 100 years proof of that!"
Conor agrees to let Bates transport up, and she goes with La Forge and Troi. But not before Troi gets permission from Conor to come back. Because, you know, she like-likes him.
A shot of Benbeck looking disapproving! Dramatic music! Commercial break!
What is this, the animated series? He stood like this through the entire scene |
Picard's Log, supplemental: "La Forge and Bates have been working on their plan, but they have to get it done within 48 hours, or we'll have to evacuate the colonists instead."
In the ready room, Picard asks Troi how likely it is for the colonists to evacuate. She tells him honestly that they're very attached to their environment, and some will choose death over leaving.
He makes an irritated comment about how the colonists have taken "dubious science and turned it into dogma."
"You don't approve?" she asks.
"Eugenics was a crappy idea, and it should have been left in the past."
When she notes that the colonists have seemed to make it work for them, he remarks that genetic manipulation has done away with all of the things that make a human a human: uncertainty and struggle and the like.
"I wouldn't want to live like that, with my future having been written before I was born. Would you?" he asks her.
She admits that she's been thinking about that a lot, but doesn't have an answer.
When he asks about Conor, she waxes poetic about how he's "the perfect administrator."
"Could you talk him into leaving, if need be?" he suggests. "If he's a good leader, he should be able to see reason, and the others may follow."
Downstairs in Engineering, things are not going well. Bates and La Forge keep trying to beef up the power to the tractor beam so they can shift the fragment, but the system keeps overloading.
La Forge sits down at a console, tired, and takes off his VISOR.
Bates is stunned to see his eyes. "Were you always blind?
Girl, how did you not know? Did you think he was wearing a banana clip on his face for fashion?
La Forge apologizes - he thought she knew, and didn't realize he'd dropped a bomb on her. But when he starts to put the VISOR back on to cover up, she quickly tells him not to, that she didn't mean to embarrass him.
At least she's not a jerk like Benbeck is.
He tells her that he's never been embarrassed by it, and that he was born blind.
She asks to see his VISOR out of scientific curiosity, which he allows.
"I would never have been born on your planet, would I?" he asks.
"No," she admits.
"I would have been eliminated as a fertilized cell," he continues.
Bates explains that it was the wish of the founders that no one should suffer with disabilities. She isn't defending it, per se. Just stating facts. But she's lived her whole life with these facts, and no one has ever challenged them in her very small world.
"Who gave them the right to decide that I wouldn't have something to contribute?"
Bates is stunned. She doesn't have an answer to that, and says so. She's being far more open-minded about the situation than Benbeck. Handing La Forge his VISOR, she asks how it works.
He's more than willing to explain the science behind it, and when she asks how it handles sensory overload, he has a lightbulb moment. He realizes that the answer to their problems comes through with VISOR technology - that short pulses of energy won't overload the tractor beam system like a continues stream would.
She sees the idea immediately and recognizes that it could work.
"You see the irony that a man who never would have existed in your society, is about to save it, using tech that allows him to work around that disability, right?"
A little heavy-handed, Star Trek. But it's a point in favor of disabled people that he gets to point that out directly to her.
To her credit, Bates takes it in stride, and gives him a bashful smile in return.
Troi and Conor are enjoying an outdoor concert with a bunch of others, while a kid plays the piano. The concert is interrupted by a brief earthquake, and Conor tells the kid to continue playing, then he walks away. Troi follows.
"Maybe I'm naïve," she says, "but couldn't you just remake this somewhere else?"
He responds by citing Humpty Dumpty, and there's her answer: once broken, they can't put it back together again.
She says she's sorry she can't help more, and he tells her that she's been very helpful and supportive these past few days. Then they both agree that starting an affair would be wrong of them, and proceed to make out in the garden.
Again, nobody ships this.
Upstairs, Bates and La Forge show their progress and plan to Riker and Picard, noting the VISOR technology. They can boost the power of the tractor beam by 300% this way, with the pulses.
"But you said you needed 400 percent," Riker reminds them.
"We do," Bates admits. "We can't get that, but we can move the fragment just enough that it won't do catastrophic damage. We'll have to shore up the biosphere. Between the two, that should do the trick."
"We can beam down teams of engineers to help with that process," adds La Forge.
And now, the inevitable break-up.
It's morning on Moab IV, and Troi is picking out a song on the piano like an adult who half-learned a song as a kid and wants to see if she can still remember how to play it.
Conor approaches and says she's up early, implying that she slept with him.
"I'm going back to the ship, and I won't be coming back here," she tells him. "This is wrong, and I'm angry with myself for letting it happen."
"It's fine," he tries to tell her, but she cuts him off.
"Really? And how would Benbeck feel about adding half-Betazoid DNA to your society? A few days ago, you wouldn't talk to us, and now you're inviting me to stay here and further fuck up The Balance!"
He attempts to argue with her, saying that they don't have to continue a relationship, that he'll be a good boy, and keep it in his pants if she'll stay and help him, but they're interrupted by Bates and La Forge beaming down.
"We can do the thing," Bates reports. "But we need 50 scientists and engineers to beam down and help us fortify the shields and structure."
Conor balks. That's a lot of people messing up this unseen Balance that they keep going on about. "Alternatives?"
"None," she states.
He agrees, and La Forge starts beaming teams and equipment down.
There's another slight earthquake, and now I'm wondering... is the earthquake supposed to represent the shift in The Balance? It's never talked about, and this whole time I've been thinking that these smaller tremors were due to the fact that the fragment is inching closer to them, but maybe these other, smaller ones were due to the balance shift. That's confusing. Is it an indication of imbalance or not?
Anyway, beam-down, tremor, dramatic music, yada yada, commercial break.
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Gonna do the thing."
They bring the ship up next to the fragment, and down in Engineering, La Forge and Bates wish each other luck before going to different stations to work on shifting the stellar core.
They start the process, and to make the scenes involving "move big ball a little bit" more tense, they're moving life support to the minimum levels, and then they lose life support completely on several decks. Worf gives evac orders to those decks. La Forge calls for more power, Riker gives it but warns that they need to use the power quickly, and some emitters shut down. They manage to move the Big Glowy Ball just enough, five seconds before all life support shuts down ship-wide.
Picard calls Conor to tell him the good news, and they also patch Bates and La Forge in in Engineering.
"That's so great!" says Conor. "Bates, we can't wait to honor you when you get back!"
And Bates smiles, but when they cut the screen, she stops smiling, and steps into the immediate foreground, with the faraway look that says "trouble brewing."
Dramatic music! Commercial break!
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Moved the fragment enough that, even though the colony was rocked heavily, it's in one piece."
Downstairs, La Forge and Riker are overseeing the pack-up and beam-up of the E crew and their equipment, and they say goodbye to Conor.
An alarm goes off, one that Conor recognizes as a breach warning. They all run for Bates.
We jump to Bates scanning the inside of the biosphere with a little handheld. She tells them that there's very tiny structural damage, and that the biosphere has been breached, and that they may have to evacuate in the next few hours. They begin moving very fast toward the lab to run diagnostics, and in the end, only La Forge and Bates end up there.
She starts typing frantically, telling him that there's a small crack below the surface, and includes a toxic leak.
"Uh-huh," he says flatly. "Why are you doing this? There's no leak, and no breach. My VISOR would have seen it instantly."
Ah, Bates had not banked on that. "Well, fuck. Here's the thing: I was bred to be the best scientific mind in my generation, but here I am, seeing your tech, which is so far beyond what we have. And I have to wonder if someone deciding all of my needs would be met way before I was born would lead us all into a situation where we're living in the Dark Ages."
"I guess necessity really is the mother of invention," he replies.
We jump to the Obs Lounge, where La Forge tells the senior staff that Bates wants to leave the colony.
Riker then tosses in that there are probably more than just Bates: the away teams were getting a lot of curious questions from the colonists about the World Outside.
"She wants asylum," La Forge says.
A discussion erupts about whether or not they can grant that. Starfleet basically says yes, and Gates McFadden gets paid to sit in on this one scene and deliver two lines about how genetically integrated the colony is, and how there will be big gaps in The Balance if some people leave.
"Well, we saved them from destruction," shrugs Worf.
"Did we?" demands Picard. "Fuck, I need to meet with Conor."
Troi is chosen to go to the surface with Picard, to introduce him to Conor, and they get in the lift.
"So hey," she says uneasily. "I screwed Conor. Thought you'd like to know. It was not professional at all, and I ended it, and I didn't intend to see him ever again, but here we are."
Picard pauses. "Everybody makes mistakes. Pobody's nerfect."
Awkward Elevator Conversations With Your Boss, Vol I |
On the surface, we're joining an argument already in progress between Conor, Benbeck, and Bates. Bates tells an angry Benbeck that the best course of action would be for the colony to rejoin the human race. Benbeck chastises her for wanting to leave, and further upsetting The Balance. Troi and Picard come in, and Benbeck yells that they should have never picked up the phone when the E called.
"We'd be dead if we hadn't answered those hails!" Bates yells back.
"You can't take her!" Benbeck yells at Picard.
"I'm leaving, and I'm taking the dozen or so people with me that want to go!" she fires off.
Troi takes Bates for a walk while Picard and Conor talk.
That... leaves a weird taste in my mouth, two dudes deciding whether or not a woman can leave. I know there's a bit more to it than that, but... yeah.
Benbeck does not go quietly.
Seriously, what is this TAS homage? |
"He saw this coming," laments Conor.
The following argument between them is basically Conor talking about how he knows how Bates feels, because he has also been dazzled by the outsiders, but he was bred to be the leader of the colony, and cannot allow it to be destroyed by letting people leave.
"Just take your ship and go," he begs.
"I can't," says Picard. "They as humans have a right to request asylum. I can't ignore that."
"But what about the rights of others who would stay behind and have to deal with their loss in the colony? The loss of The Balance?"
"Let's have a meeting with the people who are thinking of leaving," Picard suggests. "I can encourage them to stay, but if they want to go, I'm taking them with me."
And now, another argument: Picard admits that they have been disruptive to the colony; Conor begs the defectors to stay; Benbeck yells that they can't leave, and Bates insists that she and the others want the opportunity to explore the stars, like Picard does.
Conor proposes that the defectors wait for six months, as a compromise.
"That's six months of you trying to convince us to change our minds," Bates points out.
"Wait the six months," Picard urges. "See if you really want to leave. We'll come back then, for those who still want to leave."
"I'm not changing my mind," Bates insists.
Conor pauses. "When you want to come home, we'll welcome you."
Later, Troi and Conor walk in the garden again.
Conor ends up telling her that he's in love with her, and always will be.
She doesn't reply.
Because even she doesn't ship it.
In the last scene, Riker enters the ready room to tell Picard that 23 colonists have come aboard, and they're ready to leave now. Picard suggests that this is a good example of the Prime Directive, but Riker doesn't think it is, because the people in question are human, and the PD is about alien cultures. Picard ends the episode by stating that he thinks their presence at this colony may have been just as destructive as the core fragment might have been.
So... this episode is not really worth writing home about. Director Winrich Kolbe noted that it lacked energy, and I have to say that I agree. There are multiple takes on eugenics in Star Trek, and this is just another. Let's put it this way: you go to the library looking for a book about the Earth. You take down all the books the library has about Earth, and you look through them all, trying to find the most new information. Each book has repeat information, though some have something new. This episode is like the book that has repeat information only. It tried to have something new, but didn't succeed. The closest it comes is to ask, "we saw what happens when people who have genetic manipulation like what they got, what happens when they don't?" And the answer is... they are dissatisfied, and leave. Honestly, I think the better story here would have been to follow those people and see how they fit into the society they were re-entering, as people who had had their flaws genetically removed prior to birth. This episode is really just an entry in the category of "Star Trek episodes that deal with eugenics." And there are better entries.
The one thing this episode has going for it is the point that disabled people have something to offer society at large. In this case, La Forge's VISOR held the key to keeping the colonists alive, and without that technology, finding the answer to their problem would have been nigh on impossible. Interestingly, fans found themselves wondering if this episode had a pro-life theme. Show-runners denied this, though it is a conversation that occurs organically here.
In the end, there were several things that bugged me about "Masterpiece Society."
One was that it takes place so soon after last week's episode. Troi, Riker, and Crusher were all mentally assaulted, and the last time we saw the E, it was headed for the Ullian homeworld so those crewmembers could undergo treatment for their assaults. We have no idea how long they were there, but less than two weeks lapsed between the beginning of that episode, and the beginning of this one. Not only was the time short, but it feels like Troi would know that it was not a good idea to jump into a new relationship with someone right after that kind of trauma. And she fell immediately for a guy who's about as interesting as dry toast.
Second: the whole Balance thing was murky at best. It's never show in any tangible way, and it's never explained if those smaller quakes were The Balance trying to shift itself. The whole episode keeps telling us about an invisible boogey man, but never gives evidence. Was the evidence supposed to be those smaller quakes? It's unknown; not one line of dialogue ever indicates that the quakes were either related to the core fragment, or related to The Balance. Why not toss a line in, and clear that up?
Thirdly, this colony was established after the (in-universe) Eugenics War of the 1990's, but before Khan and his ilk reappeared on the scene in the 23rd century. (Given how isolated the colony was, they would not have known about his return either way.) This means that these founders chose eugenics for their colony, knowing only that a race of superhumans had been bred on Earth, and proceeded to take over, and fuck up all of the shit. Did the aforementioned founders decide that they alone knew how to genetically manipulate DNA to make good humans? Did they figure that being tied to a society, as well as the conditions in the biosphere, would keep them all in line? What were they using to prevent more Khans?
This could have been a pretty good episode, but it just wasn't.
* A quick note about using the name Moab here. For all of us asking, "Like the Mormon city in Utah?" the answer is no, it was named after the biblical city of Moab (MOH-ub), which was in Jordan. While digging for whether or not there might be Moab, UT connections, I found that Moab, UT was so named (as the tale goes) by a postmaster that noted that both Utah and Jordan were part of the "far country." Future residents didn't like that Moab the biblical city was known for incest and idolatry, and several attempts were made to change the name, but it remained Moab. Could some connections be made between the Moab System and ancient Moab being incestuous and idolatrous? Meh. You can make it if you want to. But the writers only cared to share enough with interested fans that they used that name to reference Moab in Jordan. (They did, however, seem to use the Moab, UT pronunciation of the name: Moh-AB.)
Fun Facts:
- The story for this episode was titled "The Perfect Human," and featured an Eden of beautiful people and skimpy clothes. Which sounds exactly like season one's "Justice," honestly. In this case, everyone was beautiful and perfect because of genetic engineering. But there wasn't anything terribly interesting about that.
- It passed through the hands of five writers before getting to Michael Piller, who wrote the script we see here, which is... kind of nothing like the original story. Piller's struggle with this script was to figure out how to define a genetically-engineered society.
- Producer/screenwriter Adam Belanoff suggested that it would be far more interesting to have a more diverse group of people, who have each been engineered for their specific goals in life, and to have them work and exist in perfect harmony with each other and within the biosphere. Belanoff explained that, in a world where everyone is perfectly engineered, people would get bored, and things would stagnate. So, the struggle comes from one person destroying the balance if they left.
- Rick Berman wanted to make sure that the tumultuous outdoor effects could be seen through the windows of the biosphere, which proved a little tricky for the production team. It involved a lot of blue screens in the background.
- Sick bay scenes were filmed at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Maybe those ended up on the cutting room floor? There were no sick bay scenes in this episode.
- Ron Canada (Martin Benbeck) and Dey Young (Hannah Bates) will return again in episodes of DS9.
- Ron Canada (Martin Benbeck) and Dey Young (Hannah Bates) will return again in episodes of DS9.
- John Snyder also played Bochra on season two's "The Enemy."
- Picard's opinion of eugenics being a bad idea whose time has passed refers to the Eugenics Wars of the 1990's, and Khan Noonien Singh.
- It also comes up in "Unnatural Selection," though Picard offers no criticism there.
- Eugenics will come up again in DS9 and Enterprise.
- Michael Piller was apparently not loving this season up to this point, but considered this to be kind of a turn-around for him. He liked the idea that this situation featured a Kobyashi Maru, in that everyone did everything right, but things didn't turn out well in the end.
- Neither Rick Berman nor Jeri Taylor liked this episode. Berman thought it was "slow and talky," while Taylor just didn't like the concept at all.
- Berman and director Winrich Kolbe both referred to "casting difficulties" when discussing their dislike of this episode, which is a diplomatic way of saying that neither liked John Snyder (Aaron Conor) in this role. There may have more to it than that, but that was all that Memory Alpha would admit to on the subject.
- Ronald D Moore had a colorful way of expressing himself here: "This is another example of a show that doesn't really work too well. We sort of show up at a genetically perfect colony - which in and of itself is starting to bore me - and when we get there, it's "Gee, Troi falls in love with one of the people." You can't wait to get up and get a beer." Lol.
- Adam Belanoff's genetics teacher called him after watching the episode, telling him that the drama was good, but the science was "terrible."
- Found a 47:
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Our Don-Don passed away this weekend. Gentle reminder to consider senior cats and those with FIV when adopting. <3 |
This also seems to be another entry in the "reluctant colonists have to be moved/helped in some way" category. It's not overused but it never seems to produce interesting episodes. I'm also surprised, given the literacy of the writers, not to mention the senior staff, that there was no mention of Brave New World which had the same idea of a genetically engineered society where everyone knew their place.
ReplyDeleteThen again Huxley handled it a little better so maybe they didn't want to draw attention to it.
Part of the problem I have with this episode (and dystopias like in Brave New World) is that, thanks to my pretty bad social anxiety, I'd actually love knowing where I fit in, everyone else knowing where I fit in, and not having to worry about being fired or having my job switched out from under me like happens in real life.
ReplyDeleteSo, I guess the "this society is awful because it's planned and predictable" message doesn't resonate with me. Especially since what we're shown on screen doesn't seem bad at all.
I'll never buy the argument that some social disruption is just as bad as annihilation. That's just nasty. Benbeck's concerns aren't any different than Picard's when he was condemning the people of Drema IV to death in "Pen Pals".
ReplyDeleteCome back to us Lady Archon!
ReplyDelete