I think Tom Wright’s portrayal of Tuvix made this so controversial. He captured the essence of Tuvok and Neelix and made you care about the blended Tuvix. A weaker portrayal would have had us just thinking that they corrected an accident instead of erasing a life.
@oryx3 The context is still the same, regardless of the fact that Denise Crosby left of her own volition and Worf would be promoted to chief of security
You forgot about ENT S.3 ep.10 Similitude. Where they grow a clone of Trip (name him sim) to be a donor for a transplant to save Trip. SIM and Phlox’s last interaction had me more emotional than the Tuvix episode. SIM “you were a damn fine father” Phlox (tears welling up) “ you were a damn fine son”
I don’t think Similitude sparked quite the same controversy as in these episodes, since it was definitely a war time episode, so what Archer did is a bit more understandable than what Janeway did.
@@spiderboy43I think only because growing whole human beings to harvest organs Isn’t a thing in the real world. If you stop to thing about it, it’s actually pretty horrifying for Sim. But we don’t (yet) have an equivalent practice. You can see it as a metaphor for animal research, and for this it works well. Is if ethical to grow entire beings (even if not sentient) to do research on them to which they can’t consent, and which affects their life quality and/or quantity? In this story, at least Sim could consent.
Also they stold a part for t they needed from a friendly race to save the planet. Seems after the e d end the arc tehy should have made an episode to give back the tem they stole
I wouldn't say remove Code of Honor despite how little there is to redeem in it. It is a reminder that even when you are trying to create art that you intend to be inspirational it is possible for bad actors (the director in this case) or even mistakes by well intentioned people to create a product that is counterproductive to it's intended goal. You keep it as a reminder that you must be weary of people that would pervert your message and also that you must be careful in crafting a message yourself so that you don't cause more harm than good. Don't hide it because it was a mistake, learn from it so that mistake is not repeated.
I think it's a bit unfair to assume everyone upset with April's casting are racist. While, unfortuntely, I'm sure plenty are, I'm also sure a lot are just upset with the contradiction with the animated series. For the record, I have no real opinion on it either way.
That's too controversial - everything that might possibly be racist definitely is racist and that's final. The idea that after decades of struggle for equality there are people that only saw skin colour as a problem of continuity is far too optimistic for this world.
@@JohnnyWednesday I do have to admit it's out of character for me to care so little about this. Normally changing that kind of thing in a single continuity really bugs me, like replacing Billy Dee Williams with Tommy Lee Jones in the Batman movies (granted, some newer things are treating the Burton and Schumacher movies as separate continuities).
I dare say 99.99% of people who are made about the April casting are not "racist" They are simply mad at how they ignored "canon." Yeah I know his only other appearance was in the animated series which is debatable at best about canon. But I guarantee you that if the same actor was cast as a different named high ranking admiral, played the same way, no one even bats an eye. It has nothing to do about race. And the overwhelming majority of those who were upset about changing canon, would still agree that Adrian Holmes has been fantastic in the role.
As are most things early Chkotay run, unfortunately. This stems from them hiring a hack posing as an expert on native american studies, and the showrunners and execs not going to the source with developments and asking, "Is this ok?"
@@redixdoragon To be fair, Iron Eyes Cody fooled the whole damn country for decades. He met US Presidents. They _thought_ they were doing the right thing.
@@redixdoragon I knew that was the case when I started watching Voyager only a couple years ago, and I was still inadequately prepared for the cringe that awaited.
I've said this before in Trekculture comments, my final opinion on Tuvix is, he died to save two cremembers, the other chief of security, its the "Needs of the Many" argument
It's an understandable decision. It's basically the trolley problem, where Janeway elects to kill one person to save two. Given Voyager's circumstances I don't think it was even the wrong call - but she still made the decision to more or less execute someone.
The problem with needs of they many is it isn't a good idea. A many is still a group of ones. If the one does not have value, how can a group of them have value? More importantly, where are the dividing lines at, if you can ignore moral principles for a larger number of people. Spock chose to die for his ship and crew. In other cases, real and fiction, a choice was forced upon the person and not their choice to put people to harm. "Close that hatch or the ship dies" is a decision of a lesser evil, but not a situation created by the decision maker.
@@icecold9511 - If there's only one person to save and no other lives to lose? you blow up a thousand stars. But if there are two people - that one person is done for, no matter how much of a coward they are - it's not their choice - it's no choice at all.
I don't think that was fair at all. There are two kinds of controversy in in Star Trek. On the one hand you have things like code of honour ether whole or in part. The mistakes. Then there's episodes like Twovix. That episode hit the mark, it was intended to be controversial, to spark debate. It was not a happy ending, it left you feeling like uncomfortable and not really resolved. I got the impression that was the intent, and I think they nailed it.
i actually agree with you. ones like code of honor are just bad episodes, stuff like the sexual assault in the original series also shouldnt be depicted. tuvix is a controversial episode but its not bad
Tuvix is just a stupid episode though. Janeway murdered a dude and there’s no argument around it The writers’ intention is obvious but the episode wasn’t well written. There as no external pressure to the situation, no ticking time bomb that made the crew NEED Neelix and Tuvok. They were just sad their friends died and killed a guy to get them back. It happens in a vacuum and the episode completely sucks as a result
@@boat1280 There's clearly argument about it. The EMH refused to perform the procedure that would destroy Tuvix. There was argument in the episode about the options. Janeway was captain, outside the reach of being able to go to a senior officer or committee for guidance, and short of mutiny, had the first, last and only say in what happened. Now, in Lower Decks, the argument was revisited again with T'illups, wherein Freeman was faced with the same dilemma and DID have the benefit of resources to fall back on.
The Retconning of Picard's mother for dramatic effect never sat well with me, and I would much rather have had that character portrayed not as Picard's mother, but could have been written as an older sibling. This could also have been a factor in Picard's relationship with his brother.
I didn't mind the Picard's mother plot line so much although I think it was (like Picard season 2 in general) too far drawn out and paced much too slowly. The entire season should have been 6 episodes long at maximum given the substance they covered and the mother flashbacks were so numerous and kept re-using the same footage over and over every time that by the end of the season I was absolutely sick of them.
This fails to mention that the issue of killing a clone comes up again in DS9 (the one alien that fakes his death). Odo explicitly states that killing your own clone is still murder.
But, again like the abortion argument, there's a line. Very few people, no matter how pro choice they are, would advocate for killing an infant. Ibudan's clone was a living, conscious entity when it was killed in an attempt to frame Odo, while the partially-formed Riker and Puhlaski clones were not.
That is where the factor of intent comes in for the ethical debate. Fusing them to create Tuvix was an accident. Splitting Tuvix to bring them back was an intentional premeditated action. If they had been injured by a random exploding conduit would their right to live justify killing someone else to get replacement organs needed to save them?
@@nobodyimportant2470 - Their technology means the explosion was still happening and all three were inside. Tuvok and Neelix were not dead - just unable to make the case for their own lives.
The core of the problem with Tuvix is people liked him. Had the result of the orchid merging the two resulted in; a creature all tooth and claw, A trek version of Audrey ii (little shop of horrors) or an amorphous blob, there would be no controversy. That's why people like squirrels, hate rats, love baby seals and hate baby bats. Janeway was always in the right and if we disagree it means we must look inward, not outward.
To be fair to the Nazi episode of TOS, it was made quite clear that the statement about Nazi Germany being "the most efficient" was being said by a character who was clearly insane.
There's also the thing of being the most efficient doesn't mean the best there...being very good at one thing doesn't mean that it isn't a horrible thing. Remember that you also have the Borg where efficiency is a big thing and that is NOT a good thing there...similar to the paperclip maximizer thing
The Tuvix episode is one of several that overlook the potential of Trek's transporter technology. Just stick Tuvix in the pattern buffer while you recreate Neelix and Tuvok, then free him from the buffer. Abracadabra! One new crew member and no moral dilemma. They didn't kill Riker's transporter twin, did they? And Scotty spent decades hidden in a pattern buffer. Transporter technology has been demonstrated to be capable of creating eternal youth, yet no one has ever picked up on this. It may also have other medical implications, e.g. lose a limb, why not keep an emergency pattern in the buffer and combine with it to make yourself whole again? You could do the same thing with pathogens or cancer. Star Trek scientists must be the dumbest smart people in fiction. And don't get me onto what you could do by combining transporter, replicator and holodeck technology!
I took a different view of "Up the Long Ladder" because of Deep Space Nine. A clone is not you. It is its own person. A delayed twin. But the Federation doesn't hold that view, because Riker and Pulaski weren't reprimanded for killing theirs. Meanwhile, on DS9, a man murdered his clone to fake his death and frame Odo. Odo says that under Bajoran law, killing a clone is a crime, implying they see clones as independent entities. This argument could be used to explain Archer's treatment of Sim, and could be stretched to explain the treatment of Tuvix.
Take into account the clones killed by Riker and Pulaski were not fully developed. Neither conscious or sentient. They were still in a late embryonic stage. This helps to set it up with the allegory to abortion. This does maintain a continuity as it seems that the clone murdered on DS9 was fully developed and aware. Basically analogues to infanticide. Of course this makes it WORSE for Archer who did order the killing of Sim. Honestly I'd like to see a Trek episode where the captain doesn't fall into the trap of "If I don't do this THE MISSION/WAR is lost!" and might say, "If I do this, the mission's a success/we win the war, but we lose ourselves." and go with the other consequence. The captain has to make hard choices sure, but it seems every time a federation captain is set with this choice the decision they make is darkly predictable.
When Kirk was split into two beings-he had a reason to be made “whole” the two parts couldn’t survive alone. With Tuvix, there isn’t any outside necessity to split him back. Thus, this became a truly moral story with no absolute right or wrong.
Transport Tuvix, save pattern buffer, transport again, split being to component personages, restore pattern buffer and rematerialize Tuvix- all three entities exist, done and done.
@@Sephiroth144 That would have been a very Star Trek ending to this episode. But that's not what the writers were going for, they wanted more of a gut punch.
@@STSWB5SG1FAN Oh, obviously; but for the "there's no (good) solution" stuff- its right there. (Also, its really a shame that none of the alternate versions/timeline episodes in Voyager didn't bring back Tuvix at least one time- I mean, Tuvix on "Warship Voyager" would've been a nice Easter Egg...)
It's just triage. In the Tuvix situation, Neelix and Tuvok wern't dead, as they could be bought back. So they saved two lives instead of one. Tuvix is the immoral one - he's the one that wanted to kill two other people just so he could live.
For your next list: TOS: A Private Little War - Kirk arms a bunch of villagers with flintlocks for balance of power. DS9: For the Uniform / In The Pale Moonlight- we know what happens there ENT - Dear Doctor - Phlox withholds a cure to a life threatening disease because of "evolution".
TOS was directly mirored to the US and USSR. The episode from TOS was commentary on veitnam. Phlox and Archer more like what if the vulcans 10k years ago had gave the neanderthalls a genetic leg up.
@@0011peace Your comparison of Vulcans aiding another human species doesn't hold water. Even assuming it did, it seems like an attempt to move attention away form the moral question presented in the episode. 'Help someone who is asking for help when it costs you nothing, or let them die because you don't know what will happen to the person next to them if you do' Neanderthals became extinct due to competition and interbreeding with Homo sapiens, not because some contrived plot mechanism decreed they should. So the situations are fundamentally non-analogous. Your analogy implies it would have been wrong for Vulcans to favor Neanderthals-isn’t Archer and Phlox’s siding with the Menk, like they do in the episode equally wrong? The Enterprise opts to favor the Menk based on a hypothesis that has literally no foundation and the episode doesn't present any actual evidence that it is correct, Phlox just says this is how it is "BecAUsE eVoLUtIooOon" and everyone just goes with it. After this archer chooses to outright sabotage and mislead the Valakians’ plea for help and indirectly mislead them about the possibility of a cure. This includes returning the sleeper ship to the planet and withholding potentially helpful technology like communication (these actions are hindering their search of aid), they also lie about the difficulty of making a cure which leaves the impression that even if they can find advanced technology (or help) then it might not do anything to save them. So they're actively interfering with them and the protagonists literally do all of this driven by a questionable hypothesis that would fit perfectly in a 20th-century eugenics discussion, hindering one group over another, by exacerbating their plight through deceit and interference. You are at best a useful idiot who blindly accepts anything the writers say without thinking about it, even in cases like this where the writers unironically promote ideas of racial superiority and genocide, or you're a moral coward who can't accept that the show you like made a really poorly written episode which at best could be described in one word, 'Evil'.
I felt Picard’s portrayal of parental mental health illness and the impact it can have on a family was incredibly powerful. Having gone through something similar I was incredibly appreciative of the series undertaking an issue that is underrepresented in media today, I personally felt it was handled with grace and understanding. It portrayed the sorrow and guilt one can feel alongside the incredibly difficult choices a family can make to protect or attempt to protect a loved one suffering from serious mental illness. Although I respectfully disagree with Trek Cultures opinion on this episode I appreciate the channel bringing the issue to light as it will add to the discourse on mental health.
Its just a shame the writing for Season 2 was terrible, because it was a good idea to include that. More talented writers could have made it compelling.
I don't think it's "racist" if fans didn't like blackwashing of an already established character (which seems to be the norm these days). I hope these so-called "racist" fans didn't actually make any racist comments toward the actor: I think he did a fine job, but yeah, should have just made a new character instead of crapping on the fans.
I'm a necromancer. I can bring two people back to life, fully as they were, the only price to do so is the child that is part of both of them. I can sacrifice that child in order to bring two people back. You'd call me a monster I'm guessing. Tuvik was essentially that child, the child of Neelix and Tuvok, no matter how he was brought into the world. Janeway killed him to bring back two others who were gone.
I have to admit I had not a clue about the rasict tropes or depictions in Code of Honor until I read about it as an adult - I was 14 when the episode debuted, and had lived a very sheltered life. My parents weren't bigoted and I had very progressive teachers at school. The result of this however is I had zero inkling there was anything racist about the episode, I just thought this was how the alien society in the episode was written with maybe some faint hints taken from certain African cultures, and that was all. It never occurred to me to think there was anything wrong in the episode and it certainly never made me think that all people in real-life African countries behaved like this. In fact, to this day, I still don't know EXACTLY what the racist tropes at work in the episode are, I can only take other people's word for it that it's present. I'm not defending the episode (it was never that special to me, just an average episode for early in a first season at best), but I'd be lying if I said I fully understood exactly where the problems are and why they are problems, and I'd really like to know to be better informed.
'In fact, to this day, I still don't know EXACTLY what the racist tropes at work in the episode are, I can only take other people's word for it that it's present.' It's pretty much the whole thing, the episode's plot is basically 'Ooga Booga where the white women at?' The original director read the script where some members of the Ligonian delegation were described as 'blackguards' (as in, synonymous with villain or highwayman) and just kind of ran with it. It turned a story about one of the Enterprise crew being kidnapped, and the whole ship having to play along since the aliens had something they needed, into a story freighted with overtones of 'black people are savages and black men are sexually obsessed with white women'. Of course, it's a season 1 episode, so it would still be pretty bad even if it didn't have the racial shading.
Greetings. There are many things in USA culture that are racist, but are so ingrained that seem normal or pass unnoticed. Unless you are at the receiving end of that kind of racism. There are people in the USA (and around the world, to be fair) who sincerely believe that all Africans live in huts in the jungle, and behave like cartoon characters. Remember the cartoon trope of Africans boiling white people in a big cauldron? Given that slavery had to have some justification for good Christians and freedom-loving Americans, the idea that Black people were (are) intrinsically inferior or less human than whites persists until today. Watch again Gone With the Wind and pay attention to how *slavery* is portrayed: the ""good"" Blacks are the ones who stay in their place, serving whites. Or pay attention to comments under videos about crimes in which there is a racial component: you'll find people openly saying that it is scientifically proven that Blacks are more violent/less rational than whites. A certain POTUS consistently calling a Black representative "low IQ" goes the same road. With all that context (and there's much, much more), any depiction of a group of Black people behaving silly, showing barely any advancement in the 24th century (don't ever forget, Star Trek is essentially about the human condition, USA version), filling squarely inside each and every cartoonish trope about Black people ever conceived - yep. An extremely controversial story, even more in a sci-fi franchise that's supposedly anti-racism. For more reference, watch the series of videos Black American History from the Crash Course channel, and pay attention to the algorithm-suggested videos accompanying them. There's so, so much about USA's history that's not mentioned at school - you can't even imagine. Some great things too, Black people's accomplishments - also silenced. For laughs, take a look at the videos by Charity Ekezie debunking myths about African cultures. Good luck. ✌
Here’s one racist troupe from the episode: the fear of black men stealing white women, and Tasha Yar suddenly becomes the focus of an entire black society, talk about ridiculous!
not sure why your comment has so many likes. youre missing something rather obvious. the other commenters who replied to this one explained it well. its the entire episode really. it depicts a savage culture that is intentionally cast as being all black. given the context we have of social issues, current and past, its really not hard to see how thats problematic.
"Each of you is going to have to live with this!" "Joke's on you. We're mostly episodic." "Yeah, well, people will still remember this! And someday, be it years, or decades, or centuries from now, something less episodic will remember it, and call it out! Maybe even make it the whole B-plot to an episode!"
The one thing that always bugged me about the Tuvix episode was the historical creation of Tom(?) Riker. why such a technique couldn't be utilized to allow Tuvix, Tuvok and Neelix to o on.
That's always been my issue too. They have so many random things that the transporters can miraculously do. From cloning, to time travel, to de-aging people. And yet beyond what is done in any given episode to deal with the plot challenge, such things are not mentioned or utilized.
There's also an ST:NG episode where Pulaski is restored using the transporter and her hair. Why couldn't they recreate a Tuvok and a Neelix? Heck, why couldn't they recreate any crew person that has been through the transporter and died?
I’m Black and don’t personally PREFER racelifts unless it’s an inspired choice that adds compelling dimension such as A-Train from The Boys, for instance. Or Namor. But sometimes it seems to be courting unnecessary controversy for engagement. I wouldn’t have done that, personally.
I don't mind racelifts if they still get the character traits. I liked Jeffrey Wright's Jim Gordon in the Batman, and Jurnee Smollett-Bells' Black Canary in Birds of Prey. Then there was the actress who played Julia Pennyworth in Batwoman. White actress playing a black character from comics, but she was brilliant in the part.
In The Pale Moonlight from DS9's 6th season comes to mind. Sisko was an accomplice to murder of a Romulan Senator. He got the Romulans to join the Dominion War by lying to them, which indirectly caused the deaths of even more innocent Romulans. I forgot Garak also killed the alien that created the forged data rod.
@JohnnyWednesday agree to disagree, but Sisko betrayed everything Starfleet and the Federation believes in. He did it to save the Federation, but it's still objectively terrible. Which is why he says at the end, "I can live with it." He knows he did a bad thing, but the alternative was the end of the Federation.
I feel like the most controversial thing about Pale Moonlight is the fan response. Especially from american views. The admission of "He had to do it" "It was necessary" seems to be a salve to our wars and conflicts and bombings around the globe. A blanket statement of "For the sake of victory, anything is permissible."
@@TheValoriusValcorin - it's my favorite episode by far :) everything you said - but also having to watch this person we respected so much have to make that decision. None of us wanted that for the Federation - for Starfleet - but for Sisko? ten fold.
One thing I'll say for "Angel One", it acknowledged that gender equality comes gradually, over time, with the work of many people, and with resistance from above. As opposed to the ludicrous arc on Ferenginar, where "Ishka waves her magic wand and women go from livestock to full equality".
Then you missed the entire point of the episode. The Ferengi aren't human and it wasn't a metaphor for human gender equality. It's really easy to determine this because the episode aired in the 1990s and not in 500BC. If you thought that the ridiculously exaggerated treatment of Ferengi women was in any way representative of gender empowerment in the 90s and was thus a metaphor for it? then you shouldn't be watching shows you don't understand and can only appropriate at face value. That episode was about rule based law and the stagnation of a society - it was a parallel for Japan entering the modern world.
Maybe there was an obscure hidden message... maybe not. Point is, a society's underclass went from chattel to apparent equality, not from years of effort by a legion of said underclass, but by one woman seducing the right man.
I could not disagree with you more regarding Yvette Picard. Very few things can make me react the way that episode did. It’s the only Episode I couldn’t rewatch. I cried every time I thought about it for the rest of the day. Fiction usually doesn’t hit me that hard, but that one did. It’s something I certainly wouldn’t be glib about considering the subject matter.
I feel like the Tuvix episode would have been so much better had they had to actually live with the decision instead of just the standard "past events? What are those?" attitude that hurt so many of the choices in the show.
I would have loved to have seen things continue from it. Hell, that could actually be a reason for Tuvok and Neelix to end up friendlier due to sharing the memories of that...and a lot of reasons to distrust the rest of the crew save for, perhaps, the Doctor there. Kes and Neelix's relationship should have ended there because would you really want to pursue someone who is one of the people you have direct memories of calling for your death...that's nightmare fuel to start with there. It would also have been a major thing for even Tuvok handling because of how he was portrayed as one of Janeways friends and even with logic, that's something that would, likely, have created distance there. The end of that episode is pure nightmare fuel...
@AzraelThanatos except Neeliz didn't hear Kes calling for his death, he heard her calling for his return. Same with Tuvok and Janeway, he now knows how far she will go for him, that would deepen a relationship. What I wish they would have done is, in a later episode, have Tuvok and/or Neelix talk about how they felt about it. We're they grateful to Janeway for saving them, did they regret the decision. Maybe even have them disagree with each other, Neelix being happy and Tuvok thinking it was the wrong choice, or vice versa. It definitely should have been referenced later.
I actually enjoyed Angel One because I thought it was addressing how some men treat women and put them in role reverse. The message it brought to me is I should treat women with love and respect because I wouldn't like it if a woman abused, raped or mistreated me because I am a man.
Tuvix was a homonculus who was holding Tuvok and Neelix hostage. Neither of them gave their consent to his creation and lacked autonomy and voice to contest Tuvix's control.
Re: the April issue, I've already thought that some of the new shows are set in 'the universe next door", not the same one as TOS. that's fine with me because a lot of science fiction already does that. So Holmes playing April is not a biggie for me. He does play the role well.
Well, if you go with the the idea set upon by the episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" that the attempts to kill Khan Nonnian-Singh has caused the timeline and technology to shuffle itself around just to fit things around, it could also go about that certain characters have been changed by it as well.
Yeah I thought the same thing, that it's just a reimagining of it like with Strange New Worlds. So many companies do that situation now with multiple universes I don't even bat a eye at it anymore. 😂
I can somewhat sympathize with people who do have a bit of an issue with the color of Robert April having been changed from the TAS episode to his depiction in Strange New Worlds, but it's not a deal breaker for me. As he wasn't a heavily established character on-screen at any point prior to now [basically a one-off in a series that while technically canon, isn't quite on the same level as other depictions], I'd be fine if he were depicted by whichever ethnicity that the producers decided to cast, and Adrian Holmes has been excellent in the role. Also, AshuraH makes a great point as well about how the timeline reasserting itself might muddy things around, so outside of them outright changing the species of major characters, I'm not really that bothered.
I see that Sean is an aspiring movie star now with the Power543 folks. Well done mate!! Also, I thought all Star Trek episodes were kinda supposed to be controversial, calling out societal ills and all that stuff. It's in Star Treks nature and purpose.
What I love about the episode Tuvix is that even though Janeway definitely chose the unethical route and did "the wrong thing", she is very much aware of it and it shows in the closing shot. It could've given her character so much more depth had they only at least mentioned this event in a later episode.
@@JohnnyWednesday They're not being silly. He was selfish, sure. But he had no obligation to kill himself for two more. That's freedom of choice. There's no right answer, hence the debates.
Even from first viewing I alway regarded "Tuvix" as two people suffering the side effects of an accident, which Janeway correctly ordered to be fixed, curing them both. I'll always hold that Janeway made the most ethical choice! But the way this episode still stirs up intense debate decades later is definitely pretty awesome. The writers must absolutely love that!
The part about events never being mentioned again really irks me. Like when Troi had an alien baby that died in season 2 of TNG. She looked fine in the closing scene
I distinctly remember watching the "High ground" uncut on Irish channel RTE as a teenager when it first aired and been so excited that Ireland got a call out. Maybe I am misremembering ?
I don’t think it’s fair to deem criticism for Robert April’s race change as automatically racist. That’s always going to be controversial. I personally love his casting in SNW, and the actor’s chemistry with Pike is fantastic. but I do take exception to the fact that April was just portrayed as white, he was intentionally portrayed as a doppelgänger of Gene Roddenberry.
Finding continuity important does not inherently make you racist. Robert April was established as white, so they should have stuck with a white actor to portray him. Just like if Nogura makes an appearance (which would be quite interesting, come to think of it) he should be played by a black actor. It gets into a sketchy area when you consider Khan was supposed to be Indian, but was played by a Mexican actor... so casting an Indian actor to play him is fair enough. Whereas casting a white actor was absolutely barmy and I don't know why Into Darkness isn't called out on it more!
@@noirangel6416 that's good too. Her affections go deeper though, but I'm unsure if it's for the replicator or it's for the ship. It's not Chakotay. She's just really really fond of him.
Tuvix really was a great 'Trolly problem' episode. His very existence means the effective death of two other people, but also a constant reminder of them. But to bring them back, he, an independent person all of his own, would have to be effectively killed. There is no right answer. And the episode does a fantastic job of portraying that fact.
You know what would be a funny thing to see? Jean Luc Picard and Tom Paris having an argument in French!! Yeah, the fact that Tom is fluent in French is not mentioned very much. I know it was talked about in the book Pathways which gives the back stories of the Voyager crew except for Janeway. She got a whole book to herself.
I have to congratulate the editor Martin Wilkinson in the handling of this. There isn't really a good place to insert a Horgon in scenes dealing with racism, naziism, sexism, rapism, clonism, duplicanism etc. And I appreciate you wouldn't want to insert a request to 'Like & Subscribe ' or want the audience to LOL at such moments, So Very Well Done with the finale - the intro for Number 1 in this list: Code of Honour. Picard clapping and the roll of the red carpet showing the episode title, to Sean's narration "Here It Is" was brilliant. I howled out loud. That was handled perfectly.
Thank you good sir. I had a lot of fun making it. Glad you enjoyed 👍 I think there should be the usual items in there. I certainly remember where the NX-01 is.
not s fun fact: The author of Code of Honor did the exactly same thing with the episode Emancipation in Stargate SG1. Like Code of Honor it was a early episode in the first season. this time they did it with mongols
I was just thinking of that episode. I remember how channel four would chop bits out pre watershed. So you got this build up to a fight scene for most of the episode. Then it was over in seconds with one bad jump cut
"Tuvix" was certainly intended to be controversial and provoke thought and discussion. And it succeeded. We are still talking about it 27 years later. I think they were trying to go into the darker places that DS9 lived in but they didn't do it quite as well as DS9 did those things. The episode could have been executed a little better, but overall it wasn't too bad. It took some courage to make that episode. Tuvix was a living being, but Tuvok and Neelix were also living beings. Tuvix had only just come into existence and had no history, friends, or family. The other two did. Tuvix was Tuvok and Neelix combined together. They were both in there. Tuvix himself said so. To leave them in there gone from the world and leaving their friends and family to grieve when you could save them is as wrong as killing Tuvix. This was Janeways Kobayashi Maru. Like "In The Pale Moonlight" was Siskos Kobayashi Maru.
Tuvik was for all wants and purposes the child of Neelix and Tuvok. Could you kill an orphaned child if it mean bringing back that child's parents? Now those two people could go on to have other children, other loves, etc but that child would still be dead.
In proximity to the "Tuvix" episode there was also "The Children of Time" from DS9 (S.5, E.22) as well as the Enterprise episode, "Similitude" (S. 3, E. 10).
Excellent list with good, clear commentary. Just two notes: Is Code of Honor really controversial? Does anyone actually _not_ think it is disgusting. On The High Ground: I disagree with the view in your conclusion. I saw it as an excellent exploration of not only The Troubles, but also many multi-generational conflicts that include resistance and terrorism. It showed the tragedy of the situation in a clear, challenging way. One of the best uses of TV for social commentary I've seen, personally, up there with The Hunted.
Angel One reminds me a lot of the lost Doctor Who episode Mission to Magnus. Trying so hard to put itself in a reasnoble middle ground it actually ends up being pretty monstrous.
I'm going to be honest, I've never watched the animated series so my first Admiral Robert April is the current one, so I could care less if he was depicted as white.
Regarding Riker and Pulaski phasering there clones, I still remember the DS9 episode and Odo's comment "Murdering your clone is still murder!" which opens so many questions.
Odo was enforcing Bajoran law, Bajor wasn't part of the Federation, perhaps it wasn't against Federation law? something similar came up in the luck/probability ep, when Sisko said there wasn't anything he (the Federation) could charge the new guy with, & Odo chimes in, that *he* can (meaning there was a violation of Bajoran law)
Ok... the whole race swapping thing. I totally acknowledge there are tons of r*cist comments in Trek centered forums and comment section. I acknowledge that many of those types of comments were made at Nicholes, Burton, and Brooks when they were performing their respective roles. However, I do find it as a black man a little annoying when race swapping happens, especially when we've had some amazing original characters played by black actors and actresses over the past 50 years. It's one thing to do a new universe and give a character a new spin and back story (a la Miles Morales's Spider-Man or Jon Stewart's Green Lantern), but swapping a character already established some way in the same universe is silly to me. It also does injustice to the actors performing their butts off to bring these characters to life. Imagine if Gordi was just a black Scottie or Sisko just a black Kirk or Tuvok just a black Spock. Star Trek is at it's best creating new characters for us to enjoy and love rather than giving us yesterday's soup in a different colored bowl.
I personally don't care, but how is it racist to complain that they race swapped a character? If they race swapped a PoC character to a white character, the people complaining wouldn't be called racist. And wasn't April's appearance supposed to resemble Roddenberry? So what if the writer "welcomed" the change. What's he supposed to do? Complain about it and get cancelled.
The funny bit is that I applaud how Janeway handled Tuvix. Tuvix owed his existence to the "death" of two other crewmembers, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself so that they could live again. Would Tuvok and Neelix done likewise? For all the superior advantages Tuvix supposedly offered, I think this was a significant character flaw. Imagine if your life could be extended, but the process would require one or more people die so you can "harvest" what's needed? Maybe you'd be okay if the items acquired were donated freely by the families of those who died, but what if they were forcibly obtained to "fill your order?" Would you be able to enjoy your extended life knowing what was involved to get it?
My problem with Robert April wasn't the skin color, it was the uniform. In the novel Final Frontier, he always wore a sweater or cardigan or whatever because of a blood disease that made him feel cold. I guess space anemia, but they never just called it anemia, I think. I can't find my copy right now, too many moves. I don't' even remember if there was any other description of him except that he had the cardigan over his uniform rather than thermal lining added and that was his indication of being less tied to rank, so the clean cut appearance of that April surprised me.
The sad part is code of honor could have easily been avoided as racist by making them ferengi that looks like what we know as ferengi. Or something similar to that idea.
'The Outcast' from TNG should absolutely have been on this list. Forcing someone through a medical procedure to change their sexuality/gender identity???
Gene Roddenberry said he only considered the episode “Yesteryear”, about Spock saving his younger self, as the only episode he considered canon. So, from that viewpoint how April was drawn in TAS is completely irrelevant. Even if you do consider it canon there no need to match how characters looked like in TAS. However, Sean you were right about bringing it up since it made some fans mad.
1:13 i had no problem with this because i seem to remember that in the BSG reboot Starbuck was a woman so its only fair that in this alt trek time line captain april is a african american
As a Black man, I fail to see the controversy of Code Of Honor. If there was blatant racism towards the actors on set, that's 1 thing. But depiction of the tribe is in line with my studies of African Culture. In fact, many of the forest kingdoms in Western Africa are Matriarchal Societies. Just like in Code Of Honor, the lineage, wealth & all are handed down through the females. Most of the slaves brought over from Africa came from these Western Matriarchal Kingdoms. That's why African-American women are spirited & strong-willed. It's in their DNA to be leaders.
So by that logic there may be something about European and Asian people that is genetically based which predisposes them to being more intelligent. Sorry but if you start down such a ridiculous path you need to consider the logical conclusions.
@drstevej2527 , hey, how are you? Will you elaborate, please? I'm not seeing where I said that because of the Matriarchal society of some Western African tribes leads African-American Women to be strong-willed, precludes them from being anything else. I'm not seeing the line linking my statement to whether that makes anyone predisposed to greater or lesser intelligence.
@@bonusbaby801 Yet you cited no evidence for any of this and CLAIMED that it was in their DNA. This means that there can be DNA in Europe and Asia that makes those populations predisposed to higher IQ if we use your nonsensical logic. Do you have any research credentials? Any at all?
@drstevej2527 , and yet despite your unpleasant demeanor, I will continue to address you politely. It is an absolute fact that many West African societies are Matriarchal. The women are the ruling body & said leadership is passed through the woman's lineage. I should probably have then said they are raised to be leaders rather than attributing it to DNA. I apologize for my poor choice of words. Perhaps that makes it less "nonsensical", no?
With around 800 episodes out there, this could be a list of 50 controversial episodes. Some were deliberately so, but some...just missed the mark. The IRA comment in "Higher Ground" did strike me at the time. I have friends in Manchester, England who had a bookstore within a block of a car bomb that destroyed the front of the store and injured one of my friends. I suppose that's as close as I've been to The Troubles. As much as I knew of the IRA, that particular bombing made things much more clear to me.
10:23 I don’t know why you would call Tuvix controversial?! I never see it mentioned or discussed online in any forum. It was just a random season two episode of Voyager, with no staying power or controversy that I have ever seen…🙃
I have to agree. The Tuvix episode was fairly dumb. I mean when there's an accident and you reverse it I don't see how that's killing someone. Imagine how Tuvok was feeling in there for crying out loud.
@@All_I_can_say_is_Wow Tuvix was completely acutuatedSinetient being with hsi own peronality . o it was lie killing living human top bring back ones who died. But wasn't last time Janeway did thator the first.
@@All_I_can_say_is_Wow They died so technically they wern't alive anymore whjat you don when someone dies is omoprn them moa nd move on not kill somone who tp bring them back
Patterns of Force was already shown on Sat 1 in 1996, during the 30 Years of Star Trek night. However, it was only allowed to be shown after 11 o'clock.
I love the new Robert April. That said, fans not liking it because it breaks continuity with the animated series doesn’t make that opinion racist. You should be ashamed of yourself trying to make it a racial issue, spreading hate. I saw many comments complaining and every single one was purely about breaking continuity. I’m disappointed in you Sean
The idea of stereotypical Irish people looking and dressing like they were from th 17th century living in th 24th century in outer space was just totally absurd.
It would be interesting to see if you can do a list of the best political statements made on Star Trek. I see it being an entirely different set of episodes. You can get another still set of episodes if you specify the controversy or even specify the groups that make episodes controversial.
I thought you were going to talk about the inclusion of footage from the January 6 riots at the Capitol, which irked quite a few right wing commentators, when I saw Strange New Worlds on this list.
I saw a lot more about that (and inclusion of riots in Ukraine to stand in as riots on the alien world - there's a visible Ukrainian flag on one of the alien monitors) than I did about April being black. I don't actually remember seeing anyone referencing his race, even on a web forum where people discussing Discovery would say things like 'Did they run out of straight white guys in the future or what?'
Picard and his trauma with his mother also lead to him joining Starfleet, cause that is what his mother wanted. Which make the episode with Q important. If Picard didn't get stabbed in the heart, then he would be just a Lower Decker with NO ambition, drifting from job to job. Picard really wanted to be an archeologist. His mother ruined his choice. But at least he can fund archeological groups in retirement.
I am not alone in this. A lot of this is an interesting look at ourselves over time. Let's see how Discovery figures into a list like this in 10 years or less.
An episode I can't believe is not controversial is the episode where the Ferengi are first encountered. Their depiction looks like it is straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Correct me if I';m wrong, but wasn't the original captain going to be called Robert Winter? Then he became Robert April. Then Christopher Pike. Trouble with the High ground is that it ends all smiles with the Enterprise going off into the sunset. It should have ended with a scene showing bad things still happening on the planet, and that nothing had been resolved. Would have been a downer, so that's probably why they didn't do it. But it would have been more to the point. I recall Brent Spiner in an interview in Tv zone 'it's not worth the fuss. It's not that good an episode anyway'. And that Gates McFadden was totally unaware of the ban till they told her about it. I recall the Daily Mail trying to make Haven a controversial episode. With one of those right side of the front page showbiz stories about 'British actress Marina Sirtis in steamy scene in her nightie.' Then I watched the episode. Should have learned long ago not to trust the Daily Mail..... But none of these ever bothered me. Not Even the High ground. Because none of them were real! There's real life issue far more important to get worked up about.
@@0011peace - Speak for yourself. Some of us have empathy and have no choice but to put others before ourselves. That's who we are even if it means death.
@@JohnnyWednesday Most people wiil not give tier life for stranger. And, no one gives tier life for someone who is already deaf, Ruvpok and Nelix were effectively dead. But, it isn't the first or lat time JAnewqay did this nor the last. Cmanging time to save a crew memeber who had died. OFten causing other cre memebrs or todie,
Re Up the long ladder. You might want to check on who complained. At the time I read Irish Americans complained and the Irish Embassy was like oh yeah we recognize the play you lifted the characters from.
Calling the majotity of people racists for noticing an error in continuity (like this Robert April issue) has me wondering how you would react if it was done the other way round. I can only imagine the fallout if that was the case but go ahead and be small minded if you like 🙄. I guess everything is "racist", these days and if you call out this fact, you're even more of a "racist" 🙄
It's the NX01 refit. I edited this video and I like to hide it as well as some other things in each of my videos. This choice of clip is my favourite as it mirrors the flashback scene where we see young Picard playing with the ship.
If I had a nickel for every time there was really racist season 1, episode 4 of a TV show with "Star" in the name, I'd only have two nickels. But it's weird that it happened twice! (The other episode being Stargate SG-1 "Emancipation")
Why all this supposed uproar saying Janeway murdered Tuvix to bring back Tuvok and Neelix. No one seems to be saying that by letting Tuvix live, she would be murdering Tuvok and Neelix. The choice, kill two to save one or kill one to save two. Can you make that decision?
Remember: in TOS, the budget was so low that any time they could use recycled sets/costumes, they would. So: we get the nazi episode, the western episode, the gangster episode, and lots of toga episodes.
Not sure how it fits in to this discussion, but a recent episode of Death Battle uses "Code of Honor" as an insult during the fight since one of the combatants was originally voiced by John deLancie.
I wonder if there’s enough for a list of episodes the producers were worried would be controversial, and the audience took in stride. An example would be Dax kissing another woman.
I think you could find ten episodes where producers and audiences had opposite reactions! It wouldn't even have to be controversial ones. It could be episodes producers thought would be meaningful but audiences thought were silly, etc.
I think Tom Wright’s portrayal of Tuvix made this so controversial. He captured the essence of Tuvok and Neelix and made you care about the blended Tuvix.
A weaker portrayal would have had us just thinking that they corrected an accident instead of erasing a life.
That's a very good point, I think you're on to something here
Like I said, the writers wanted more of a gut punch.
I didn't care about Tuvix at all
Yeah, Tuvix is controversial because of how strong an episode it is, not because it's weak.
@@AmaranthOriginal you're just stupid then i guess
4:07
It's a small thing, but the editing and the timing of Worf showing up next to Yar talking about "fridging" was really well done.
Thanks, sometimes I just luck into these things 😂
Fully agree here! When I think of “fridging” on Star Trek, I think of Yar and Worf.
Except that Denise Crosby decided to leave the show voluntarily. She wasn't bumped off to "further Worf's career."
@@oryx3 you are correct
@oryx3 The context is still the same, regardless of the fact that Denise Crosby left of her own volition and Worf would be promoted to chief of security
You forgot about ENT S.3 ep.10 Similitude. Where they grow a clone of Trip (name him sim) to be a donor for a transplant to save Trip. SIM and Phlox’s last interaction had me more emotional than the Tuvix episode.
SIM “you were a damn fine father”
Phlox (tears welling up) “ you were a damn fine son”
But was Similitude controversial like these episodes on this list were?
I don’t think Similitude sparked quite the same controversy as in these episodes, since it was definitely a war time episode, so what Archer did is a bit more understandable than what Janeway did.
@@spiderboy43I think only because growing whole human beings to harvest organs Isn’t a thing in the real world. If you stop to thing about it, it’s actually pretty horrifying for Sim. But we don’t (yet) have an equivalent practice. You can see it as a metaphor for animal research, and for this it works well. Is if ethical to grow entire beings (even if not sentient) to do research on them to which they can’t consent, and which affects their life quality and/or quantity? In this story, at least Sim could consent.
Also they stold a part for t they needed from a friendly race to save the planet. Seems after the e d end the arc tehy should have made an episode to give back the tem they stole
Justice for Tuvix
I wouldn't say remove Code of Honor despite how little there is to redeem in it. It is a reminder that even when you are trying to create art that you intend to be inspirational it is possible for bad actors (the director in this case) or even mistakes by well intentioned people to create a product that is counterproductive to it's intended goal. You keep it as a reminder that you must be weary of people that would pervert your message and also that you must be careful in crafting a message yourself so that you don't cause more harm than good. Don't hide it because it was a mistake, learn from it so that mistake is not repeated.
I think it's a bit unfair to assume everyone upset with April's casting are racist. While, unfortuntely, I'm sure plenty are, I'm also sure a lot are just upset with the contradiction with the animated series.
For the record, I have no real opinion on it either way.
That's too controversial - everything that might possibly be racist definitely is racist and that's final. The idea that after decades of struggle for equality there are people that only saw skin colour as a problem of continuity is far too optimistic for this world.
@@JohnnyWednesday I do have to admit it's out of character for me to care so little about this. Normally changing that kind of thing in a single continuity really bugs me, like replacing Billy Dee Williams with Tommy Lee Jones in the Batman movies (granted, some newer things are treating the Burton and Schumacher movies as separate continuities).
I dare say 99.99% of people who are made about the April casting are not "racist" They are simply mad at how they ignored "canon." Yeah I know his only other appearance was in the animated series which is debatable at best about canon. But I guarantee you that if the same actor was cast as a different named high ranking admiral, played the same way, no one even bats an eye. It has nothing to do about race. And the overwhelming majority of those who were upset about changing canon, would still agree that Adrian Holmes has been fantastic in the role.
Hey, if they really want to screw with people's heads, they can give him vitiligo, so the melanin has left his skin by that point in his life...
@@jimcaratenuto2958exactly!!
Tattoo's depiction of Native Americans is arguably just as racist as Code of Honor.
As are most things early Chkotay run, unfortunately. This stems from them hiring a hack posing as an expert on native american studies, and the showrunners and execs not going to the source with developments and asking, "Is this ok?"
@@redixdoragon To be fair, Iron Eyes Cody fooled the whole damn country for decades. He met US Presidents. They _thought_ they were doing the right thing.
@@redixdoragon I knew that was the case when I started watching Voyager only a couple years ago, and I was still inadequately prepared for the cringe that awaited.
This gets into issues with the entire character, though, and as such isn't really limited to just one episode
Yeah, and? Everybody is racist. So long as they don't let it permanently cloud all their decisions, it's not relevant.
I've said this before in Trekculture comments, my final opinion on Tuvix is, he died to save two cremembers, the other chief of security, its the "Needs of the Many" argument
It's an understandable decision. It's basically the trolley problem, where Janeway elects to kill one person to save two. Given Voyager's circumstances I don't think it was even the wrong call - but she still made the decision to more or less execute someone.
The problem with needs of they many is it isn't a good idea. A many is still a group of ones. If the one does not have value, how can a group of them have value? More importantly, where are the dividing lines at, if you can ignore moral principles for a larger number of people.
Spock chose to die for his ship and crew. In other cases, real and fiction, a choice was forced upon the person and not their choice to put people to harm. "Close that hatch or the ship dies" is a decision of a lesser evil, but not a situation created by the decision maker.
Yeah, but one of those people was Neelix...
@@icecold9511 - If there's only one person to save and no other lives to lose? you blow up a thousand stars. But if there are two people - that one person is done for, no matter how much of a coward they are - it's not their choice - it's no choice at all.
@@JohnnyWednesday
And with that mindset, people could decide to grab someone off the street and go vadian on them, harvesting organs aplenty.
I don't think that was fair at all. There are two kinds of controversy in in Star Trek. On the one hand you have things like code of honour ether whole or in part. The mistakes. Then there's episodes like Twovix. That episode hit the mark, it was intended to be controversial, to spark debate. It was not a happy ending, it left you feeling like uncomfortable and not really resolved. I got the impression that was the intent, and I think they nailed it.
i actually agree with you. ones like code of honor are just bad episodes, stuff like the sexual assault in the original series also shouldnt be depicted. tuvix is a controversial episode but its not bad
Tuvix is just a stupid episode though. Janeway murdered a dude and there’s no argument around it
The writers’ intention is obvious but the episode wasn’t well written. There as no external pressure to the situation, no ticking time bomb that made the crew NEED Neelix and Tuvok. They were just sad their friends died and killed a guy to get them back. It happens in a vacuum and the episode completely sucks as a result
@@boat1280 There's clearly argument about it. The EMH refused to perform the procedure that would destroy Tuvix. There was argument in the episode about the options. Janeway was captain, outside the reach of being able to go to a senior officer or committee for guidance, and short of mutiny, had the first, last and only say in what happened. Now, in Lower Decks, the argument was revisited again with T'illups, wherein Freeman was faced with the same dilemma and DID have the benefit of resources to fall back on.
@@samurphy yeah I agree with you, I really don’t think it’s a bad episode either
That’s a good point. I think it meant to do what The Measure of a Man did for Data, put upped the stakes and conclusion.
The Retconning of Picard's mother for dramatic effect never sat well with me, and I would much rather have had that character portrayed not as Picard's mother, but could have been written as an older sibling.
This could also have been a factor in Picard's relationship with his brother.
I didn't mind the Picard's mother plot line so much although I think it was (like Picard season 2 in general) too far drawn out and paced much too slowly. The entire season should have been 6 episodes long at maximum given the substance they covered and the mother flashbacks were so numerous and kept re-using the same footage over and over every time that by the end of the season I was absolutely sick of them.
Or at least, not having Picard's mother unaliving herself, but rather have her death be the result of an illness or a tragic accident
I would rather watch Spock's Brain for eternity than watch Code Of Honor one more time.
Wow!!! 🖖
Same! Same Same!
Brain brain what is brain?!?!
Pain and delight
Really?
This fails to mention that the issue of killing a clone comes up again in DS9 (the one alien that fakes his death). Odo explicitly states that killing your own clone is still murder.
But, again like the abortion argument, there's a line. Very few people, no matter how pro choice they are, would advocate for killing an infant. Ibudan's clone was a living, conscious entity when it was killed in an attempt to frame Odo, while the partially-formed Riker and Puhlaski clones were not.
As far as Tuvix...What about Tuvok & Neelix's right to live?
That is where the factor of intent comes in for the ethical debate. Fusing them to create Tuvix was an accident. Splitting Tuvix to bring them back was an intentional premeditated action.
If they had been injured by a random exploding conduit would their right to live justify killing someone else to get replacement organs needed to save them?
@@nobodyimportant2470 - Their technology means the explosion was still happening and all three were inside. Tuvok and Neelix were not dead - just unable to make the case for their own lives.
The core of the problem with Tuvix is people liked him. Had the result of the orchid merging the two resulted in; a creature all tooth and claw, A trek version of Audrey ii (little shop of horrors) or an amorphous blob, there would be no controversy. That's why people like squirrels, hate rats, love baby seals and hate baby bats. Janeway was always in the right and if we disagree it means we must look inward, not outward.
Baby bats are fantastic Don't know how anyone could hate them.
To be fair to the Nazi episode of TOS, it was made quite clear that the statement about Nazi Germany being "the most efficient" was being said by a character who was clearly insane.
Also we know a lot more about how things were ran now than I imagine they knew when it was written.
There's also the thing of being the most efficient doesn't mean the best there...being very good at one thing doesn't mean that it isn't a horrible thing.
Remember that you also have the Borg where efficiency is a big thing and that is NOT a good thing there...similar to the paperclip maximizer thing
Europeans here. As you might can imagine, it still is a rather sensitive issue here.
The Tuvix episode is one of several that overlook the potential of Trek's transporter technology. Just stick Tuvix in the pattern buffer while you recreate Neelix and Tuvok, then free him from the buffer. Abracadabra! One new crew member and no moral dilemma. They didn't kill Riker's transporter twin, did they? And Scotty spent decades hidden in a pattern buffer.
Transporter technology has been demonstrated to be capable of creating eternal youth, yet no one has ever picked up on this. It may also have other medical implications, e.g. lose a limb, why not keep an emergency pattern in the buffer and combine with it to make yourself whole again? You could do the same thing with pathogens or cancer. Star Trek scientists must be the dumbest smart people in fiction. And don't get me onto what you could do by combining transporter, replicator and holodeck technology!
I took a different view of "Up the Long Ladder" because of Deep Space Nine. A clone is not you. It is its own person. A delayed twin. But the Federation doesn't hold that view, because Riker and Pulaski weren't reprimanded for killing theirs.
Meanwhile, on DS9, a man murdered his clone to fake his death and frame Odo. Odo says that under Bajoran law, killing a clone is a crime, implying they see clones as independent entities.
This argument could be used to explain Archer's treatment of Sim, and could be stretched to explain the treatment of Tuvix.
[identical bodies]+[different souls]=different persons. Closes we'll come to is twins.
Take into account the clones killed by Riker and Pulaski were not fully developed. Neither conscious or sentient. They were still in a late embryonic stage. This helps to set it up with the allegory to abortion. This does maintain a continuity as it seems that the clone murdered on DS9 was fully developed and aware. Basically analogues to infanticide. Of course this makes it WORSE for Archer who did order the killing of Sim. Honestly I'd like to see a Trek episode where the captain doesn't fall into the trap of "If I don't do this THE MISSION/WAR is lost!" and might say, "If I do this, the mission's a success/we win the war, but we lose ourselves." and go with the other consequence. The captain has to make hard choices sure, but it seems every time a federation captain is set with this choice the decision they make is darkly predictable.
They took a different stance with Thomas Riker. They treated him as If he were twin brother of Will Riker.
When Kirk was split into two beings-he had a reason to be made “whole” the two parts couldn’t survive alone. With Tuvix, there isn’t any outside necessity to split him back. Thus, this became a truly moral story with no absolute right or wrong.
Transport Tuvix, save pattern buffer, transport again, split being to component personages, restore pattern buffer and rematerialize Tuvix- all three entities exist, done and done.
@@Sephiroth144 That would have been a very Star Trek ending to this episode. But that's not what the writers were going for, they wanted more of a gut punch.
@@STSWB5SG1FAN Oh, obviously; but for the "there's no (good) solution" stuff- its right there.
(Also, its really a shame that none of the alternate versions/timeline episodes in Voyager didn't bring back Tuvix at least one time- I mean, Tuvix on "Warship Voyager" would've been a nice Easter Egg...)
It's just triage. In the Tuvix situation, Neelix and Tuvok wern't dead, as they could be bought back. So they saved two lives instead of one. Tuvix is the immoral one - he's the one that wanted to kill two other people just so he could live.
Just what I was about to answer. Neelix and Tuvok had a right to live, too.
@@JohnnyWednesday
For your next list:
TOS: A Private Little War - Kirk arms a bunch of villagers with flintlocks for balance of power.
DS9: For the Uniform / In The Pale Moonlight- we know what happens there
ENT - Dear Doctor - Phlox withholds a cure to a life threatening disease because of "evolution".
TOS was directly mirored to the US and USSR. The episode from TOS was commentary on veitnam. Phlox and Archer more like what if the vulcans 10k years ago had gave the neanderthalls a genetic leg up.
@@0011peace please edit your reply. I can't understand it
@@0011peace Your comparison of Vulcans aiding another human species doesn't hold water. Even assuming it did, it seems like an attempt to move attention away form the moral question presented in the episode. 'Help someone who is asking for help when it costs you nothing, or let them die because you don't know what will happen to the person next to them if you do'
Neanderthals became extinct due to competition and interbreeding with Homo sapiens, not because some contrived plot mechanism decreed they should. So the situations are fundamentally non-analogous. Your analogy implies it would have been wrong for Vulcans to favor Neanderthals-isn’t Archer and Phlox’s siding with the Menk, like they do in the episode equally wrong? The Enterprise opts to favor the Menk based on a hypothesis that has literally no foundation and the episode doesn't present any actual evidence that it is correct, Phlox just says this is how it is "BecAUsE eVoLUtIooOon" and everyone just goes with it. After this archer chooses to outright sabotage and mislead the Valakians’ plea for help and indirectly mislead them about the possibility of a cure. This includes returning the sleeper ship to the planet and withholding potentially helpful technology like communication (these actions are hindering their search of aid), they also lie about the difficulty of making a cure which leaves the impression that even if they can find advanced technology (or help) then it might not do anything to save them.
So they're actively interfering with them and the protagonists literally do all of this driven by a questionable hypothesis that would fit perfectly in a 20th-century eugenics discussion, hindering one group over another, by exacerbating their plight through deceit and interference.
You are at best a useful idiot who blindly accepts anything the writers say without thinking about it, even in cases like this where the writers unironically promote ideas of racial superiority and genocide, or you're a moral coward who can't accept that the show you like made a really poorly written episode which at best could be described in one word, 'Evil'.
"Anyone that disagrees with race swapping an existing character is racist." -TrekCulture. Way to poison the well on that debate.
I felt Picard’s portrayal of parental mental health illness and the impact it can have on a family was incredibly powerful. Having gone through something similar I was incredibly appreciative of the series undertaking an issue that is underrepresented in media today, I personally felt it was handled with grace and understanding.
It portrayed the sorrow and guilt one can feel alongside the incredibly difficult choices a family can make to protect or attempt to protect a loved one suffering from serious mental illness.
Although I respectfully disagree with Trek Cultures opinion on this episode I appreciate the channel bringing the issue to light as it will add to the discourse on mental health.
Its just a shame the writing for Season 2 was terrible, because it was a good idea to include that. More talented writers could have made it compelling.
I don't think it's "racist" if fans didn't like blackwashing of an already established character (which seems to be the norm these days). I hope these so-called "racist" fans didn't actually make any racist comments toward the actor: I think he did a fine job, but yeah, should have just made a new character instead of crapping on the fans.
I'm a necromancer. I can bring two people back to life, fully as they were, the only price to do so is the child that is part of both of them. I can sacrifice that child in order to bring two people back. You'd call me a monster I'm guessing.
Tuvik was essentially that child, the child of Neelix and Tuvok, no matter how he was brought into the world. Janeway killed him to bring back two others who were gone.
I have to admit I had not a clue about the rasict tropes or depictions in Code of Honor until I read about it as an adult - I was 14 when the episode debuted, and had lived a very sheltered life. My parents weren't bigoted and I had very progressive teachers at school. The result of this however is I had zero inkling there was anything racist about the episode, I just thought this was how the alien society in the episode was written with maybe some faint hints taken from certain African cultures, and that was all. It never occurred to me to think there was anything wrong in the episode and it certainly never made me think that all people in real-life African countries behaved like this. In fact, to this day, I still don't know EXACTLY what the racist tropes at work in the episode are, I can only take other people's word for it that it's present. I'm not defending the episode (it was never that special to me, just an average episode for early in a first season at best), but I'd be lying if I said I fully understood exactly where the problems are and why they are problems, and I'd really like to know to be better informed.
'In fact, to this day, I still don't know EXACTLY what the racist tropes at work in the episode are, I can only take other people's word for it that it's present.'
It's pretty much the whole thing, the episode's plot is basically 'Ooga Booga where the white women at?' The original director read the script where some members of the Ligonian delegation were described as 'blackguards' (as in, synonymous with villain or highwayman) and just kind of ran with it. It turned a story about one of the Enterprise crew being kidnapped, and the whole ship having to play along since the aliens had something they needed, into a story freighted with overtones of 'black people are savages and black men are sexually obsessed with white women'.
Of course, it's a season 1 episode, so it would still be pretty bad even if it didn't have the racial shading.
Go watch sg1 season 1 ep4 same people did that 1 and its literally the same
Greetings. There are many things in USA culture that are racist, but are so ingrained that seem normal or pass unnoticed. Unless you are at the receiving end of that kind of racism.
There are people in the USA (and around the world, to be fair) who sincerely believe that all Africans live in huts in the jungle, and behave like cartoon characters. Remember the cartoon trope of Africans boiling white people in a big cauldron? Given that slavery had to have some justification for good Christians and freedom-loving Americans, the idea that Black people were (are) intrinsically inferior or less human than whites persists until today. Watch again Gone With the Wind and pay attention to how *slavery* is portrayed: the ""good"" Blacks are the ones who stay in their place, serving whites. Or pay attention to comments under videos about crimes in which there is a racial component: you'll find people openly saying that it is scientifically proven that Blacks are more violent/less rational than whites. A certain POTUS consistently calling a Black representative "low IQ" goes the same road.
With all that context (and there's much, much more), any depiction of a group of Black people behaving silly, showing barely any advancement in the 24th century (don't ever forget, Star Trek is essentially about the human condition, USA version), filling squarely inside each and every cartoonish trope about Black people ever conceived - yep. An extremely controversial story, even more in a sci-fi franchise that's supposedly anti-racism.
For more reference, watch the series of videos Black American History from the Crash Course channel, and pay attention to the algorithm-suggested videos accompanying them. There's so, so much about USA's history that's not mentioned at school - you can't even imagine. Some great things too, Black people's accomplishments - also silenced. For laughs, take a look at the videos by Charity Ekezie debunking myths about African cultures.
Good luck. ✌
Here’s one racist troupe from the episode: the fear of black men stealing white women, and Tasha Yar suddenly becomes the focus of an entire black society, talk about ridiculous!
not sure why your comment has so many likes. youre missing something rather obvious. the other commenters who replied to this one explained it well. its the entire episode really. it depicts a savage culture that is intentionally cast as being all black. given the context we have of social issues, current and past, its really not hard to see how thats problematic.
Interesting info on Angel One: it was one of the last times we see Patricia Mcpherson in an acting role. She was Bonnie from Knight Rider
"Each of you is going to have to live with this!"
"Joke's on you. We're mostly episodic."
"Yeah, well, people will still remember this! And someday, be it years, or decades, or centuries from now, something less episodic will remember it, and call it out! Maybe even make it the whole B-plot to an episode!"
Or a one off joke/reference in Lower Decks
The one thing that always bugged me about the Tuvix episode was the historical creation of Tom(?) Riker. why such a technique couldn't be utilized to allow Tuvix, Tuvok and Neelix to o on.
That's always been my issue too. They have so many random things that the transporters can miraculously do. From cloning, to time travel, to de-aging people. And yet beyond what is done in any given episode to deal with the plot challenge, such things are not mentioned or utilized.
There's also an ST:NG episode where Pulaski is restored using the transporter and her hair. Why couldn't they recreate a Tuvok and a Neelix? Heck, why couldn't they recreate any crew person that has been through the transporter and died?
@@MaxDollbecause the writer wanted there to be a 'moral' dilemma
I’m Black and don’t personally PREFER racelifts unless it’s an inspired choice that adds compelling dimension such as A-Train from The Boys, for instance. Or Namor. But sometimes it seems to be courting unnecessary controversy for engagement. I wouldn’t have done that, personally.
Or… if I were to racelift April, it would have been a lighter skinned Black guy such as Jeffrey Wright or Harry Lennix.
(Or racelift to another race altogether.)
I don't mind racelifts if they still get the character traits. I liked Jeffrey Wright's Jim Gordon in the Batman, and Jurnee Smollett-Bells' Black Canary in Birds of Prey. Then there was the actress who played Julia Pennyworth in Batwoman. White actress playing a black character from comics, but she was brilliant in the part.
In The Pale Moonlight from DS9's 6th season comes to mind. Sisko was an accomplice to murder of a Romulan Senator. He got the Romulans to join the Dominion War by lying to them, which indirectly caused the deaths of even more innocent Romulans. I forgot Garak also killed the alien that created the forged data rod.
Nothing controversial about the true nature of war. The controversial part was the lie saying it was about honor.
@JohnnyWednesday agree to disagree, but Sisko betrayed everything Starfleet and the Federation believes in. He did it to save the Federation, but it's still objectively terrible. Which is why he says at the end, "I can live with it." He knows he did a bad thing, but the alternative was the end of the Federation.
I feel like the most controversial thing about Pale Moonlight is the fan response. Especially from american views. The admission of "He had to do it" "It was necessary" seems to be a salve to our wars and conflicts and bombings around the globe. A blanket statement of "For the sake of victory, anything is permissible."
@@TheValoriusValcorin - it's my favorite episode by far :) everything you said - but also having to watch this person we respected so much have to make that decision.
None of us wanted that for the Federation - for Starfleet - but for Sisko? ten fold.
@@redixdoragon Don’t forget that he had the full permission from Starfleet to do it.
One thing I'll say for "Angel One", it acknowledged that gender equality comes gradually, over time, with the work of many people, and with resistance from above. As opposed to the ludicrous arc on Ferenginar, where "Ishka waves her magic wand and women go from livestock to full equality".
Then you missed the entire point of the episode. The Ferengi aren't human and it wasn't a metaphor for human gender equality. It's really easy to determine this because the episode aired in the 1990s and not in 500BC. If you thought that the ridiculously exaggerated treatment of Ferengi women was in any way representative of gender empowerment in the 90s and was thus a metaphor for it? then you shouldn't be watching shows you don't understand and can only appropriate at face value. That episode was about rule based law and the stagnation of a society - it was a parallel for Japan entering the modern world.
Maybe there was an obscure hidden message... maybe not. Point is, a society's underclass went from chattel to apparent equality, not from years of effort by a legion of said underclass, but by one woman seducing the right man.
I could not disagree with you more regarding Yvette Picard. Very few things can make me react the way that episode did. It’s the only Episode I couldn’t rewatch. I cried every time I thought about it for the rest of the day. Fiction usually doesn’t hit me that hard, but that one did. It’s something I certainly wouldn’t be glib about considering the subject matter.
I feel like the Tuvix episode would have been so much better had they had to actually live with the decision instead of just the standard "past events? What are those?" attitude that hurt so many of the choices in the show.
You just described nearly all of Star Trek
I would have loved to have seen things continue from it.
Hell, that could actually be a reason for Tuvok and Neelix to end up friendlier due to sharing the memories of that...and a lot of reasons to distrust the rest of the crew save for, perhaps, the Doctor there.
Kes and Neelix's relationship should have ended there because would you really want to pursue someone who is one of the people you have direct memories of calling for your death...that's nightmare fuel to start with there. It would also have been a major thing for even Tuvok handling because of how he was portrayed as one of Janeways friends and even with logic, that's something that would, likely, have created distance there.
The end of that episode is pure nightmare fuel...
@AzraelThanatos except Neeliz didn't hear Kes calling for his death, he heard her calling for his return. Same with Tuvok and Janeway, he now knows how far she will go for him, that would deepen a relationship.
What I wish they would have done is, in a later episode, have Tuvok and/or Neelix talk about how they felt about it. We're they grateful to Janeway for saving them, did they regret the decision. Maybe even have them disagree with each other, Neelix being happy and Tuvok thinking it was the wrong choice, or vice versa.
It definitely should have been referenced later.
I actually enjoyed Angel One because I thought it was addressing how some men treat women and put them in role reverse. The message it brought to me is I should treat women with love and respect because I wouldn't like it if a woman abused, raped or mistreated me because I am a man.
Tuvix was a homonculus who was holding Tuvok and Neelix hostage. Neither of them gave their consent to his creation and lacked autonomy and voice to contest Tuvix's control.
Re: the April issue, I've already thought that some of the new shows are set in 'the universe next door", not the same one as TOS. that's fine with me because a lot of science fiction already does that. So Holmes playing April is not a biggie for me. He does play the role well.
Well, if you go with the the idea set upon by the episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" that the attempts to kill Khan Nonnian-Singh has caused the timeline and technology to shuffle itself around just to fit things around, it could also go about that certain characters have been changed by it as well.
Yeah I thought the same thing, that it's just a reimagining of it like with Strange New Worlds. So many companies do that situation now with multiple universes I don't even bat a eye at it anymore. 😂
I can somewhat sympathize with people who do have a bit of an issue with the color of Robert April having been changed from the TAS episode to his depiction in Strange New Worlds, but it's not a deal breaker for me. As he wasn't a heavily established character on-screen at any point prior to now [basically a one-off in a series that while technically canon, isn't quite on the same level as other depictions], I'd be fine if he were depicted by whichever ethnicity that the producers decided to cast, and Adrian Holmes has been excellent in the role. Also, AshuraH makes a great point as well about how the timeline reasserting itself might muddy things around, so outside of them outright changing the species of major characters, I'm not really that bothered.
I see that Sean is an aspiring movie star now with the Power543 folks. Well done mate!! Also, I thought all Star Trek episodes were kinda supposed to be controversial, calling out societal ills and all that stuff. It's in Star Treks nature and purpose.
What I love about the episode Tuvix is that even though Janeway definitely chose the unethical route and did "the wrong thing", she is very much aware of it and it shows in the closing shot. It could've given her character so much more depth had they only at least mentioned this event in a later episode.
Don't be silly - Tuvix was the immoral one - he wanted to kill two people just so he could live. Janeway chose to save two lives instead of one.
@@JohnnyWednesday They're not being silly. He was selfish, sure. But he had no obligation to kill himself for two more. That's freedom of choice. There's no right answer, hence the debates.
Even from first viewing I alway regarded "Tuvix" as two people suffering the side effects of an accident, which Janeway correctly ordered to be fixed, curing them both. I'll always hold that Janeway made the most ethical choice!
But the way this episode still stirs up intense debate decades later is definitely pretty awesome. The writers must absolutely love that!
@@TheFiddleFaddle - He walked about in that uniform, he considered himself in Starfleet. That responsibility comes with the badge.
The part about events never being mentioned again really irks me. Like when Troi had an alien baby that died in season 2 of TNG. She looked fine in the closing scene
How on earth did Phlox and Archer's genocide in 'Dear Doctor' not make this list?
Either it wasn't well known enough for them to even think of it or, which I truly hope not, the video makers didn't find anything wrong with it.
The genocide was not of Archer's making! It was nautual evolution.
I distinctly remember watching the "High ground" uncut on Irish channel RTE as a teenager when it first aired and been so excited that Ireland got a call out. Maybe I am misremembering ?
I don’t think it’s fair to deem criticism for Robert April’s race change as automatically racist. That’s always going to be controversial. I personally love his casting in SNW, and the actor’s chemistry with Pike is fantastic. but I do take exception to the fact that April was just portrayed as white, he was intentionally portrayed as a doppelgänger of Gene Roddenberry.
Finding continuity important does not inherently make you racist. Robert April was established as white, so they should have stuck with a white actor to portray him. Just like if Nogura makes an appearance (which would be quite interesting, come to think of it) he should be played by a black actor. It gets into a sketchy area when you consider Khan was supposed to be Indian, but was played by a Mexican actor... so casting an Indian actor to play him is fair enough. Whereas casting a white actor was absolutely barmy and I don't know why Into Darkness isn't called out on it more!
Atempt #8
Please do "Top 10 Greatest Friendships in Star Trek". 🖖💙
It's in the works. These things take time to write and then turn into a video.
Great idea,
Spock & Kirk,
Geordie & Data,
Dax & Sisko,
Miles & Julian,
Trip & Malcolm,
Tom & Harry,
Erm
Erm
Picard & his fish,
Janeway & generally good command decisions,,
erm
Erm,
Worf & Spot,
Ortegas & the ship,
Dulmer & Lucsley,
Boiler & Marriner & Tendi & Rutherford,
There's probably one on that Prodigy show.
@@FirstDan2000 Personally i wouldve put Janeway & Coffee but that would fall more in the catagory of romance.
@@noirangel6416 that's good too.
Her affections go deeper though, but I'm unsure if it's for the replicator or it's for the ship.
It's not Chakotay.
She's just really really fond of him.
@@noirangel6416 🏆🏆🏆
Tuvix really was a great 'Trolly problem' episode. His very existence means the effective death of two other people, but also a constant reminder of them. But to bring them back, he, an independent person all of his own, would have to be effectively killed. There is no right answer. And the episode does a fantastic job of portraying that fact.
You know what would be a funny thing to see? Jean Luc Picard and Tom Paris having an argument in French!! Yeah, the fact that Tom is fluent in French is not mentioned very much. I know it was talked about in the book Pathways which gives the back stories of the Voyager crew except for Janeway. She got a whole book to herself.
The Episode where Icheb's parents use him a weapon, the episode where Tuvok has a Mind Meld with Lon Suder and becomes homicidal
I have to congratulate the editor Martin Wilkinson in the handling of this. There isn't really a good place to insert a Horgon in scenes dealing with racism, naziism, sexism, rapism, clonism, duplicanism etc. And I appreciate you wouldn't want to insert a request to 'Like & Subscribe ' or want the audience to LOL at such moments,
So Very Well Done with the finale - the intro for Number 1 in this list: Code of Honour.
Picard clapping and the roll of the red carpet showing the episode title, to Sean's narration "Here It Is" was brilliant.
I howled out loud.
That was handled perfectly.
Thank you good sir. I had a lot of fun making it. Glad you enjoyed 👍
I think there should be the usual items in there. I certainly remember where the NX-01 is.
@@BuhurtUK damn, I didn't see the NX, I had my eyes peeled from the moment I saw the fizzle.
Don't tell me though...
I'll go for a third look.
1:30 , Bonnie from the Knight Rider
not s fun fact: The author of Code of Honor did the exactly same thing with the episode Emancipation in Stargate SG1. Like Code of Honor it was a early episode in the first season. this time they did it with mongols
Written by the same person too. no seriously, look it up.
I was just thinking of that episode. I remember how channel four would chop bits out pre watershed. So you got this build up to a fight scene for most of the episode. Then it was over in seconds with one bad jump cut
"Tuvix" was certainly intended to be controversial and provoke thought and discussion. And it succeeded. We are still talking about it 27 years later. I think they were trying to go into the darker places that DS9 lived in but they didn't do it quite as well as DS9 did those things. The episode could have been executed a little better, but overall it wasn't too bad. It took some courage to make that episode.
Tuvix was a living being, but Tuvok and Neelix were also living beings. Tuvix had only just come into existence and had no history, friends, or family. The other two did. Tuvix was Tuvok and Neelix combined together. They were both in there. Tuvix himself said so. To leave them in there gone from the world and leaving their friends and family to grieve when you could save them is as wrong as killing Tuvix.
This was Janeways Kobayashi Maru.
Like "In The Pale Moonlight" was Siskos Kobayashi Maru.
Tuvik was for all wants and purposes the child of Neelix and Tuvok. Could you kill an orphaned child if it mean bringing back that child's parents? Now those two people could go on to have other children, other loves, etc but that child would still be dead.
These for the most part seem more like people needing to find reasons to be angry or offended than any of this being truly controversial.
In proximity to the "Tuvix" episode there was also "The Children of Time" from DS9 (S.5, E.22) as well as the Enterprise episode, "Similitude" (S. 3, E. 10).
Excellent list with good, clear commentary.
Just two notes: Is Code of Honor really controversial? Does anyone actually _not_ think it is disgusting.
On The High Ground: I disagree with the view in your conclusion. I saw it as an excellent exploration of not only The Troubles, but also many multi-generational conflicts that include resistance and terrorism. It showed the tragedy of the situation in a clear, challenging way. One of the best uses of TV for social commentary I've seen, personally, up there with The Hunted.
Angel One reminds me a lot of the lost Doctor Who episode Mission to Magnus. Trying so hard to put itself in a reasnoble middle ground it actually ends up being pretty monstrous.
I'm going to be honest, I've never watched the animated series so my first Admiral Robert April is the current one, so I could care less if he was depicted as white.
Regarding Riker and Pulaski phasering there clones, I still remember the DS9 episode and Odo's comment "Murdering your clone is still murder!" which opens so many questions.
Odo was enforcing Bajoran law, Bajor wasn't part of the Federation, perhaps it wasn't against Federation law? something similar came up in the luck/probability ep, when Sisko said there wasn't anything he (the Federation) could charge the new guy with, & Odo chimes in, that *he* can (meaning there was a violation of Bajoran law)
Hello there from Germany! First time I saw "Patterns Of Force" was 1995, because I bought this episode on video tape.
A breakdown and timestamps in the description would be great so people can skip anything discovery related
Ok... the whole race swapping thing. I totally acknowledge there are tons of r*cist comments in Trek centered forums and comment section. I acknowledge that many of those types of comments were made at Nicholes, Burton, and Brooks when they were performing their respective roles. However, I do find it as a black man a little annoying when race swapping happens, especially when we've had some amazing original characters played by black actors and actresses over the past 50 years. It's one thing to do a new universe and give a character a new spin and back story (a la Miles Morales's Spider-Man or Jon Stewart's Green Lantern), but swapping a character already established some way in the same universe is silly to me. It also does injustice to the actors performing their butts off to bring these characters to life. Imagine if Gordi was just a black Scottie or Sisko just a black Kirk or Tuvok just a black Spock. Star Trek is at it's best creating new characters for us to enjoy and love rather than giving us yesterday's soup in a different colored bowl.
💯
I personally don't care, but how is it racist to complain that they race swapped a character? If they race swapped a PoC character to a white character, the people complaining wouldn't be called racist. And wasn't April's appearance supposed to resemble Roddenberry? So what if the writer "welcomed" the change. What's he supposed to do? Complain about it and get cancelled.
Janeway straight up murdered Tuvix. Change my mind.
5:36 Aww, look at them giving their hearts to the crowd.
The funny bit is that I applaud how Janeway handled Tuvix. Tuvix owed his existence to the "death" of two other crewmembers, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself so that they could live again. Would Tuvok and Neelix done likewise? For all the superior advantages Tuvix supposedly offered, I think this was a significant character flaw. Imagine if your life could be extended, but the process would require one or more people die so you can "harvest" what's needed? Maybe you'd be okay if the items acquired were donated freely by the families of those who died, but what if they were forcibly obtained to "fill your order?" Would you be able to enjoy your extended life knowing what was involved to get it?
_hands a warm cuppa and biscuits to Sean_ That was a rough episode for the Irish.
4:15 Great Editing. Buy the editor a beer.
Thanks 👍
It was excellent. No 1 made me HOL.
You should’ve made the list 20 episodes, not 10. Cause then you could’ve included Threshold and the series finale to Enterprise.
My problem with Robert April wasn't the skin color, it was the uniform. In the novel Final Frontier, he always wore a sweater or cardigan or whatever because of a blood disease that made him feel cold. I guess space anemia, but they never just called it anemia, I think. I can't find my copy right now, too many moves. I don't' even remember if there was any other description of him except that he had the cardigan over his uniform rather than thermal lining added and that was his indication of being less tied to rank, so the clean cut appearance of that April surprised me.
The sad part is code of honor could have easily been avoided as racist by making them ferengi that looks like what we know as ferengi. Or something similar to that idea.
I always thought that Ligonians were the Black Chinese from Outer Space... If Romulans are the Roman Empire from Outer Spce, then...
Lol, then the same host profiles the episode ‘Angel One’ calling it sexist because it portrays women in a bad light. What an evil person.
'The Outcast' from TNG should absolutely have been on this list. Forcing someone through a medical procedure to change their sexuality/gender identity???
Gene Roddenberry said he only considered the episode “Yesteryear”, about Spock saving his younger self, as the only episode he considered canon. So, from that viewpoint how April was drawn in TAS is completely irrelevant. Even if you do consider it canon there no need to match how characters looked like in TAS. However, Sean you were right about bringing it up since it made some fans mad.
1:13 i had no problem with this because i seem to remember that in the BSG reboot Starbuck was a woman so its only fair that in this alt trek time line captain april is a african american
As a Black man, I fail to see the controversy of Code Of Honor. If there was blatant racism towards the actors on set, that's 1 thing. But depiction of the tribe is in line with my studies of African Culture. In fact, many of the forest kingdoms in Western Africa are Matriarchal Societies. Just like in Code Of Honor, the lineage, wealth & all are handed down through the females. Most of the slaves brought over from Africa came from these Western Matriarchal Kingdoms. That's why African-American women are spirited & strong-willed. It's in their DNA to be leaders.
Well said sir, that's a refreshingly positive view of the episode.
So by that logic there may be something about European and Asian people that is genetically based which predisposes them to being more intelligent. Sorry but if you start down such a ridiculous path you need to consider the logical conclusions.
@drstevej2527 , hey, how are you? Will you elaborate, please? I'm not seeing where I said that because of the Matriarchal society of some Western African tribes leads African-American Women to be strong-willed, precludes them from being anything else. I'm not seeing the line linking my statement to whether that makes anyone predisposed to greater or lesser intelligence.
@@bonusbaby801
Yet you cited no evidence for any of this and CLAIMED that it was in their DNA. This means that there can be DNA in Europe and Asia that makes those populations predisposed to higher IQ if we use your nonsensical logic.
Do you have any research credentials? Any at all?
@drstevej2527 , and yet despite your unpleasant demeanor, I will continue to address you politely. It is an absolute fact that many West African societies are Matriarchal. The women are the ruling body & said leadership is passed through the woman's lineage. I should probably have then said they are raised to be leaders rather than attributing it to DNA. I apologize for my poor choice of words. Perhaps that makes it less "nonsensical", no?
With around 800 episodes out there, this could be a list of 50 controversial episodes. Some were deliberately so, but some...just missed the mark.
The IRA comment in "Higher Ground" did strike me at the time. I have friends in Manchester, England who had a bookstore within a block of a car bomb that destroyed the front of the store and injured one of my friends. I suppose that's as close as I've been to The Troubles. As much as I knew of the IRA, that particular bombing made things much more clear to me.
Code of Honor, move a long home, and threshold were the best 3 episodes EVER
10:23 I don’t know why you would call Tuvix controversial?! I never see it mentioned or discussed online in any forum. It was just a random season two episode of Voyager, with no staying power or controversy that I have ever seen…🙃
I have to agree. The Tuvix episode was fairly dumb. I mean when there's an accident and you reverse it I don't see how that's killing someone. Imagine how Tuvok was feeling in there for crying out loud.
@@All_I_can_say_is_Wow Tuvix was completely acutuatedSinetient being with hsi own peronality . o it was lie killing living human top bring back ones who died. But wasn't last time Janeway did thator the first.
@@0011peace Ok that's all well and good about Tuvix, but then what about Tuvok and Neelix who technically died in the accident?
@@All_I_can_say_is_Wow
They died so technically they wern't alive anymore whjat you don when someone dies is omoprn them moa nd move on not kill somone who tp bring them back
Clearly, the oozing sarcasm was clearly missed…
Patterns of Force was already shown on Sat 1 in 1996, during the 30 Years of Star Trek night. However, it was only allowed to be shown after 11 o'clock.
I love the new Robert April. That said, fans not liking it because it breaks continuity with the animated series doesn’t make that opinion racist. You should be ashamed of yourself trying to make it a racial issue, spreading hate. I saw many comments complaining and every single one was purely about breaking continuity. I’m disappointed in you Sean
We're never going to get over the Tuvix decision, are we? 🤣😂🤣
The idea of stereotypical Irish people looking and dressing like they were from th 17th century living in th 24th century in outer space was just totally absurd.
It would be interesting to see if you can do a list of the best political statements made on Star Trek. I see it being an entirely different set of episodes. You can get another still set of episodes if you specify the controversy or even specify the groups that make episodes controversial.
I thought you were going to talk about the inclusion of footage from the January 6 riots at the Capitol, which irked quite a few right wing commentators, when I saw Strange New Worlds on this list.
I saw a lot more about that (and inclusion of riots in Ukraine to stand in as riots on the alien world - there's a visible Ukrainian flag on one of the alien monitors) than I did about April being black. I don't actually remember seeing anyone referencing his race, even on a web forum where people discussing Discovery would say things like 'Did they run out of straight white guys in the future or what?'
Ernie 's play while in bed Eric s beside him
Picard and his trauma with his mother also lead to him joining Starfleet, cause that is what his mother wanted.
Which make the episode with Q important. If Picard didn't get stabbed in the heart, then he would be just a Lower Decker with NO ambition, drifting from job to job.
Picard really wanted to be an archeologist. His mother ruined his choice. But at least he can fund archeological groups in retirement.
I am not alone in this. A lot of this is an interesting look at ourselves over time. Let's see how Discovery figures into a list like this in 10 years or less.
What's the show/movie shown at 1:37?
I think we should leave "Code of Honor", Stargate had the same episode with the same writer, so no one will miss it.
Voyager’s Death Wish and its discussion of euthanasia also comes to mind.
An episode I can't believe is not controversial is the episode where the Ferengi are first encountered. Their depiction looks like it is straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
0:56 imagine being a racist Star Trek fan. Do they not get what this series stands for?
Correct me if I';m wrong, but wasn't the original captain going to be called Robert Winter? Then he became Robert April. Then Christopher Pike.
Trouble with the High ground is that it ends all smiles with the Enterprise going off into the sunset. It should have ended with a scene showing bad things still happening on the planet, and that nothing had been resolved. Would have been a downer, so that's probably why they didn't do it. But it would have been more to the point. I recall Brent Spiner in an interview in Tv zone 'it's not worth the fuss. It's not that good an episode anyway'. And that Gates McFadden was totally unaware of the ban till they told her about it.
I recall the Daily Mail trying to make Haven a controversial episode. With one of those right side of the front page showbiz stories about 'British actress Marina Sirtis in steamy scene in her nightie.' Then I watched the episode. Should have learned long ago not to trust the Daily Mail.....
But none of these ever bothered me. Not Even the High ground. Because none of them were real! There's real life issue far more important to get worked up about.
😂 nicely played with #2 being tuvix.
The lower decks episode is one of the best homages/call backs to it...
He was murderrrrered!
whoa.Janeway didn't **** around.
Tuvix wanted two people to die so he could live. He's a live action Peanut Hamper
@@JohnnyWednesday Anyalomost anyw one wouldn't want to die to save others speciually when tehy were alrady basically dead
@@0011peace - Speak for yourself. Some of us have empathy and have no choice but to put others before ourselves. That's who we are even if it means death.
@@JohnnyWednesday
Most people wiil not give tier life for stranger. And, no one gives tier life for someone who is already deaf, Ruvpok and Nelix were effectively dead. But, it isn't the first or lat time JAnewqay did this nor the last. Cmanging time to save a crew memeber who had died. OFten causing other cre memebrs or todie,
Re Up the long ladder. You might want to check on who complained. At the time I read Irish Americans complained and the Irish Embassy was like oh yeah we recognize the play you lifted the characters from.
Calling the majotity of people racists for noticing an error in continuity (like this Robert April issue) has me wondering how you would react if it was done the other way round. I can only imagine the fallout if that was the case but go ahead and be small minded if you like 🙄. I guess everything is "racist", these days and if you call out this fact, you're even more of a "racist" 🙄
whats with the NX01 on the table with the tea set
It's the NX01 refit. I edited this video and I like to hide it as well as some other things in each of my videos. This choice of clip is my favourite as it mirrors the flashback scene where we see young Picard playing with the ship.
If I had a nickel for every time there was really racist season 1, episode 4 of a TV show with "Star" in the name, I'd only have two nickels. But it's weird that it happened twice!
(The other episode being Stargate SG-1 "Emancipation")
You mention Fridging, yet Yvette rather than Icheb is your key example?
Why all this supposed uproar saying Janeway murdered Tuvix to bring back Tuvok and Neelix.
No one seems to be saying that by letting Tuvix live, she would be murdering Tuvok and Neelix.
The choice, kill two to save one or kill one to save two. Can you make that decision?
Beata (the late Karen Montgomery) in Angel One kind of reminds me a little of Nina Hartley.
Remember: in TOS, the budget was so low that any time they could use recycled sets/costumes, they would. So: we get the nazi episode, the western episode, the gangster episode, and lots of toga episodes.
Not sure how it fits in to this discussion, but a recent episode of Death Battle uses "Code of Honor" as an insult during the fight since one of the combatants was originally voiced by John deLancie.
I wonder if there’s enough for a list of episodes the producers were worried would be controversial, and the audience took in stride. An example would be Dax kissing another woman.
I think you could find ten episodes where producers and audiences had opposite reactions! It wouldn't even have to be controversial ones. It could be episodes producers thought would be meaningful but audiences thought were silly, etc.