For those who are new to my episode reviews, you can find the post where I establish my point criteria here.
Overview – The Enterprise arrives at Ligon II to negotiate a treaty
with the Ligonians. They hope to obtain a rare vaccine that is only found on
this planet. After meeting with Lutan, the leader of this proud people, he
becomes enamoured with Picard’s chief of security, Tasha Yar. Lutan abducts
Yar, and makes known his intentions to marry Yar, which draws the ire of his
current wife Yareena. She challenges Yar to a fight to the death.
Score: 1/10 – Ah, “Code of Honor”, likely one of the
worst episodes of all of Star Trek. It is one of the few episodes where almost
every person involved in it, including the cast, felt it was anywhere from
embarrassing to sub-par to, as Johnathan Frakes so delicately put it, “a racist
piece of s@#*”. The story is fairly straight forward in itself, but the way it
was pulled off just does not sit well. The Ligonians were cast by entirely
black actors and were made to heavily resemble the stereotypical African
tribesmen. There is also a heavy dose of sexism as the women of Ligon II are treated
like objects by some of the men, especially Lutan. Add to that a script that is
clunky and characters that are so brand new (depending on where you were in the
world, this was either the first or second episode to be released after
“Encounter at Farpoint”) that the actors were largely still trying to find
themselves, and you have a very awkward episode. There are some elements of the
episode that were not bad (the fight sequence between Yareena and Yar was
fairly intense at times) and the score is very well done, but the weaknesses of
the episode were largely responsible for the collective bad taste left behind
after viewing.
Relevance – 1 point. Very little that is established here is actually relevant later on in the series. Data’s attempts to understand humor is brought up multiple times before and since, so his continuation of that here does not seem to be very relevant. Having said that, there is one point for relevance that I can give this episode. Wesley mans a bridge console for the first time, as he is asked by Picard to man Ops for a while, and at the end of the episode the good captain suggests that young Wesley will have other opportunities in the future.
Continuity - 1 point. Character continuity takes a
hit. Yar accuses Troi of tricking her into admitting that she has some base
attraction towards Lutan. First of all, I really find the whole sequence to be
forced, and Yar describes Troi as her friend. To be honest, there is little
that has been established to suggest that the two are friends. Colleagues and
crewmates, yes, but friends? Not so much. I think that line could have been
better written. I also found it hard to believe that Yar needed to know she had
a base physical attraction. I am surprised that she found herself attracted to
Lutan at all, as his sexist attitude would completely turn off a woman of Yar’s
mettle. I found the story continuity a bit lacking. They talk about this
vaccine that will save millions of lives with more people becoming infected as
the episode progresses. So why is the Enterprise only receiving reports on the
number of people contracting the Anchilles fever? Surely if the plague is as
serious as it is portrayed to be they would be receiving casualty reports that
include deaths. Sorry, there are too many plot holes to keep the point here.
Universe continuity, on the other hand, does appear to be intact here, so not
a total waste.
Character Development – 1 point. This is one of the very few
Yar-centered episodes, and yet her character does not move along or progress
here. She is the same at the end as she was at the beginning. In the previous
episode “The Naked Now” we learn far more about her and see so many different
sides of her. In this episode, she is a good little soldier who wins a fight
while being the object of lust by a tribal lord. However, I do give a point for
Wesley’s development. This ties in with the section on Relevance, but the fact
that he is allowed to man a bridge station is a big step forward for him and
his relationship with Picard, so that should be noted.
Social Commentary – 0 points. I keep scratching my head here
and I really cannot think of anything truly meaningful here. Maybe this is my
bias against the episode talking, but what do we really learn? To fake a death
to trick a misogynistic culture? Admit when you are attracted to a misogynistic
tyrant? No, there is really nothing here about societal commentary that I can
identify in this episode. If anything, this episode serves as a reminder that
we must be diligent in not allowing crude, sexist, and racial stereotypes to be
shown.
Cool Stuff – 0 points. Nothing stands out as “cool”
in this episode. When I look at the parts that weren’t bad or offensive, such
as the battle between Yar and Yareena, I must admit that not being bad isn’t
enough to be considered as excellent or cool. So no points for this section
either.
Rank – Crewman (4 points). The first season of any show is bound to
have some missteps as writers, actors, and producers are all trying to find
their footing. Here is a big one for TNG. I will say that there is a historical
reason to watch this episode, though. Garrett Wang, who would go on to play
Ensign Harry Kim in Star Trek: Voyager, has said that this was the first
episode of TNG that he ever saw. He hated it so much that he chose not to watch
any others. A few years later he thought he would give the show another chance
and found it on TV. It was this episode again, so he wrote off the entire show.
When he went to audition for Voyager, he had no real connection to Star Trek,
even though he was a big sci-fi fan. It was after getting cast that he started
to watch TNG and DS9 and became a fan of the shows. He has admitted that if he
had been such a fan before the audition, he likely would have been really
nervous and would have blown the audition. So, I guess that redeems “Code of
Honor” to an extent. Right?
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