In "Code of Honor", the Enterprise is tasked with visiting a planet that has developed a cure for a deadly disease that is currently behind an epidemic killing scores of people on Federation planets. Picard is in charge of diplomacy and trade negotiations for the cure. The Ligonians are a more primitive race with customs foreign to Federation mores. Men are dominant over women, yet women are the only ones allowed to own land. Their mates rule over said land and properties.
The crew negotiates with Lutan, a powerful Ligonian who is impressed with Yar's physical prowess. He kidnaps Yar via transporter and declares her as his potential wife. Yar must battle Lutan's current mate Yareena to the death so she can be "his first".
Picard doesn't intervene since the disease's cure means too much to the Federation and they have no way of replicating it. He allows the fight to occur which Yar wins. They transport Yareena back to the Enterprise and reverse the effects of the poison she took. She survives and Lutan is stripped of his title by Yareena. The crew take the antidote and leave Ligon II.
I hope that this episode isn't intentionally racist. I don't think the writers meant anything by making this primitive race as an all-black race but it is extremely problematic. Star Trek has typically been pretty progressive with their takes on race and gender and sexual orientation but this episode is far from it. Even if we put aside the uncomfortable racial relations here and pretend that that's all fine (which it obviously isn't), this episode would still be a flop.
The writer of this is female and I guess she wanted to show off Yar as a strong female character capable of handling things as the ship's security officer but it comes off looking so much worse. Kidnapping women and then comparing it to Native American tribalism is cringeworthy. Allowing this race of people to get away with it because of the Prime Directive also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in this context.
The fight scene during this is also just plain awful and boring if we place it in a vacuum away from the actual plot.
I really can't think of one redeeming quality to this episode. I didn't even talk about how much it angered me seeing Wes wander around the bridge. It's all just bad!
The crew negotiates with Lutan, a powerful Ligonian who is impressed with Yar's physical prowess. He kidnaps Yar via transporter and declares her as his potential wife. Yar must battle Lutan's current mate Yareena to the death so she can be "his first".
Picard doesn't intervene since the disease's cure means too much to the Federation and they have no way of replicating it. He allows the fight to occur which Yar wins. They transport Yareena back to the Enterprise and reverse the effects of the poison she took. She survives and Lutan is stripped of his title by Yareena. The crew take the antidote and leave Ligon II.
I hope that this episode isn't intentionally racist. I don't think the writers meant anything by making this primitive race as an all-black race but it is extremely problematic. Star Trek has typically been pretty progressive with their takes on race and gender and sexual orientation but this episode is far from it. Even if we put aside the uncomfortable racial relations here and pretend that that's all fine (which it obviously isn't), this episode would still be a flop.
The writer of this is female and I guess she wanted to show off Yar as a strong female character capable of handling things as the ship's security officer but it comes off looking so much worse. Kidnapping women and then comparing it to Native American tribalism is cringeworthy. Allowing this race of people to get away with it because of the Prime Directive also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in this context.
The fight scene during this is also just plain awful and boring if we place it in a vacuum away from the actual plot.
I really can't think of one redeeming quality to this episode. I didn't even talk about how much it angered me seeing Wes wander around the bridge. It's all just bad!