Just wait. Someone will uncover a forgotten stash of 30 more S1 episodes for Chuck. His prophecy will come true, and he’ll never finish reviewing S1 episodes 😆
The funny thing is, I am not even certain he got the JJBA reference. So, just in case Chuck does look at comments - A Stand is a kind of supernatural power from the popular anime/manga series Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I can just about guarantee you've seen references to it somewhere online, perhaps without knowing it. Stands are known for having extremely unusual abilities. For example, one Stand has the ability to turn its user's body into string. Another has the ability to make an enemy's body extremely magnetic. Another can use it to manipulate their own hair. A Stand is meant to be the manifestation of a person's fighting spirit, so a Stand that causes Chuck to manifet a new S1 TNG episode into existence probably means he cannot control his Stand, and it wants to hurt him.
@@Drekal684 So it’s a Holly Kujo Situation? Will his family need to go on a 50 Day Trip to circumvent his death or is the Stand is a pain in the ass? Considering how it’s a prevalent thing over a Decade now it’s a pain in Ass. Even Hey Ya Hey Ya is more useful than it
I mean, it's helping him by hurting him... I don't know Jojo, and I avoid that Rabbit hole almost as hard as I avoid Dragonball as a rabbit hole, but I do recognize that suffering reviewers make for popular videos, and people love to see reviewers riff on trash.
@@bthsr7113 There are a few key things about JJBA to keep in mind: We’re getting the Magnaka’s Spotify List of Music, what Art he’s influenced by, and what he views as Pure and Innocent.
Years later, the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "Trusted Sources" would reveal that after the Enterprise left, Ornaran society descended into 10-to-14 years of mass panic and violence. However, they eventually recovered and have progressed to a pleasant society where all the people are friendly and even-tempered after they kicked their felicium addiction and recovered from the withdrawal, and they now devoted themselves to healthy eating and physical fitness. In real life, many recovering addicts actually do use physical action to help mitigate the effects of withdrawal. When the Cerritos arrived as part of a test trial to check in on planets Starfleet previously visited, Captain Freeman asked if they need any assistance, but the Ornarans politely decline, as they're doing well and said they had neither the need nor the desire for further dealings with the Federation. Meanwhile, the Brekkians ended getting invaded by the Breen.
Lower Decks was way too lenient. People can die from sudden withdrawal. And everyone on the planet was addicted, which means children, elderly, and the sick. The death toll from withdrawals would have been enormous. Then you'd have desperate people fighting over the last shipment of drugs.
@@KingOfMadCows What part of "10-14 years of mass panic and violencce" did you miss? Also, they seem to be chasing a runner's high now and benching to quiet the memories. So they're not in good shape, just coping through physical fitness. We also didn't see too many, so there are probably a lot in batch filled pits.
@@KingOfMadCows So you MISSED the part where they (both the OP and the characters) said they went through OVER A DECADE of planet wide panic and violence so naturally that would include a MASSIVE death toll. Hell the mural shows a very ugly picture of that period. Just because they don't spoon feed us the numbers doesn't mean it isn't VERY clear that people died as a result of them all but being forced to go cold turkey, or how they are STILL dealing with the withdrawal since they mainly workout to "Quiet the voices in their heads".
If you look really closely after Picard and Dr. Crusher leave the cargo bay at the end of the episode, you can see Denise Crosby (Yar) waving goodbye at the camera as the doors close. "Symbiosis" was her final episode of TNG as a regular as it was filmed after "Skin of Evil" but broadcast before. Crosby would not be seen again until "Yesterday's Enterprise" in Season 3. 🖖😎👍
Chuck also missed the boat by not realizing the entire drugs discussion by Tasha was her talking about herself, not a general problem. Denise Crosby stated that she did that speech with that personal angle, and also stated had they had more stuff like that for Yar to DO, SOME characterization on her character, she'd have stayed.
Yeah, it is a very dark and personal moment. Sure would be a shame if her character was senselessly offed before a heroic sacrifice turned into reborn abuse!
Fun fact about this episode, you can see Denise Crosby waving at the camera in the very last shot as that was her last day of filming on set, with advance notice that her character was going to die later in the season.
There's something darkly hilarious that Symbiosis has this anti-drug PSA stuff when there is a HIGH chance that not 20 feet away from the set, Roddenberry was probably trying to do his own bodyweight in fresh cut Columbian Chalk Dust... to say NOTHING of the other drugs in his system that would have made him a living narcotics lab.
I also don't understand the point of sticking a groanworthy PSA-like conversation in the middle of an episode that makes the point fine on its own. It's like if halfway through Moby Dick, Captain Ahab turned directly to the audience and said "see, this is why you gotta let things go so your life doesn't become consumed by a vain search for revenge," and then went back to captaining the ship.
Fun fact: Merritt Butrick, who played David Marcus in Star Treks II and III, was offered a part in this episode as a way to help pay for treatment for his AIDS, as he couldn't afford health insurance. He died less than a year later. He was 29.
This is one of the few occasions where the Roddenberry philosophy of "crew is conflict free with the drama coming from the alien societies they encounter" somewhat works because the core issue is at least competently executed. That along with the combination of Crusher investigating the medical condition and Picard finding a loophole for the exploitation actually playing to the character's strengths? It makes for an outing that thankfully avoids the malady of either questionable competence or excess smugness that so plagued early TNG. I mean when the secondhand embarrassment is limited to just one anti-drug speech by Tasha? That's high marks for a season one episode.
The whole Wesley-Tasha PSA scene isn't even applicable to the situation they are dealing with here since the Onarrans were turned into addicts without their knowledge--they weren't using the drug to escape a miserable life, at least not in the way Tasha was talking about. Also, the expression on Riker's face when David Marcus gives him an electric t-twister is hilarious!
Actually, it's a lot better when you consider Tasha was indicating she was talking from personal experience. She's not talking about rich people, she's talking about HERSELF.
@@jonahfalcon1970 Yeah, but her experience is only related to the plot of the episode in that both involve drug addiction. But Tasha and Wesley were pushing a "just say no" message, when this episode's message was more "don't accept candy from strangers".
@@rofald She is only talking about what SHE is familiar with. It's important to HER. What SHE knows. She's never been around people with no problems of destitution and urban violence til Starfleet, so of COURSE her speech would be skewed. It was also an acting choice by Denise Crosby, who decided that Yar was a recovering addict.
Quote from Maurice Hurley regarding the "Just say no" speech: "I take the blame for that. I jammed that in over everyone's objections. They were screaming on the set, the actors were screaming, they were puking, they were yelling, 'We can't do this.' I said, 'No, there are kids out there. If we're going to make the message, let's make the message.' If it offends the adults or bothers some kids, then, by God, we're going to do it."
All your criticisms are quite valid, but I think what elevates this episode above them a bit is that it contains a genuine mystery, the solution of which is quite deftly revealed in the course of the episode. We unfortunately didn't get many of those in the course of the series. And Picard's resolution to the situation is first rate.
I appreciate this episode a lot. The premise is clever and the resolution leaves the viewer with a sense of justice having been delivered. For being a season one episode it's one of the very few that give a small glimpse into the greatness that was still to come, even though it got some rough parts.
I wish they had kept doing this, where even if the alien looked totally human, they had some sort of unique characteristic. later it became simpler just to show what type of teeth and claws alien's had. At least they took the time to explain a ferangi's quad brain and why they were immune to telepathy, but that was probably the last unique alien skill on star trek barring perhaps Ocompan pyrokineses
I recall a few years ago, chuck said something about an SCP that creates more episodes of TNG season one for him to review that didn't exist befor. I'm starting to believe that might be reality
This episode got a little follow up in Lower Decks, where we got to see the drug addict world after they all sobered up, I was amused and happy that things worked out for them.
One of the few PD episodes played straight - except only because Picard decided to renege on a previous agreement. If the PD applied from the beginning of the episode, the engine parts should never have been on the table.
Good news is that there's a Lower Decks episode that actually follows up on this. No, really! The drug addicts actually get better! After years of horrible withdrawl symptoms, and a lingering hatred of Starfleet who just left them to suffer, but they're getting better! The other guys were mostly wiped out by the Breen. Sorry.
Ah! Somebody commented before catching the stinger at the end of the episode. Tough break for the Brekkians, but it was a cool moment seeing the Breen come back and kick butt.
How is there yet more season 1 TNG episodes? With all of them that Chuck has reviewed I'd have thought that they'd be finished. Have they kept making more just to spite people?
Hurray new ST review! And I agree, while this episode is undeniably season 1, I always rather liked it. Picard's solution felt genuinely smart and fair.
one thing to make this episode even better i think would have been if the they had intentionally infected the other planet causing this in the first place, making it a move of one group trying to enslave another through drug addiction, reminds me of the drug soldiers from the first episode Q showed them
No, I think I prefer the more organic way it happened. Rather than just turning the one side into completely evil from the jump, they slowly allowed an evil to become the norm. More realistic, imo
I didn't get into it, but we don't even know the details of what's going on on their planet either. They claim it's the only thing their world produces, yet for all we know, these two represent the equivalent of Nestle exploiting a poor country, and there are people back home trying to push for reforms. It could be that this business failing will allow the self-sufficient minority to emerge as the dominant political power on their world.
I always hated this episode because it was yet another Picard defends the Prime Directive episode but you're right, this is the Prime Directive as it was meant to be, a means to stop the Federation in its arrogance conquering the galaxy because it was so certain in its moral superiority that it could run things better.
some interesting context: this episode aired around the same time purdue pharma first began direct-marketing oxycontin to medical facilities, doctors, and pain patients as safe, effective, and not at all addictive.
The Prime Directive is a great idea. It avoids one of the biggest problematic tropes of sci-fi of this sort - Colonialist attitudes. The Age of Exploration in the real world that space operas like Star Trek often draw inspiration from typically involved a lot of Europeans showing up to a place that was already populated with their own advanced civilizations, going "We discovered this place!", then killing everyone and destroying said civilizations to enforce their own. So the two-pronged approach of the Prime Directive is meant to directly counter that. First, civilizations that have not developed sufficiently on their own are not to be contacted so they can develop at their own pace in their own way. Second, we are not to get involved in the internal politics of other nations (which is more of a commentary on interventionist foreign policy but also applies to colonialism in, again, leaving other cultures alone to develop by themselves and not enforcing your own culture on them). The issue is - as Charles has brought up many times - is that it's not treated that way. It's used as an artificial barrier to a very obvious solution to the week's problem to artificially create problems that pad out the episode. In short, it's lazy writing that does not address the original intent of the Prime Directive within Starfleet and turns it into a dogma akin to a religion because it's the only way to wring dramatic tension out of some of these crappy scripts.
I thought this episode had real potential because it deal with a regressed society. They were an advance space faring society with interplanetary trade but that's all gone now. It's a lot like how Earth was in a post-Burn era. One gets help from Starfleet and the other doesn't.
So that now leaves four episodes left from this season--Too Short a Season, Home Soil, Coming of Age, and We'll Always Have Paris. Also, SOMEBODY on the writing team had to have had it in for Riker this season. Just look at all the shit he went through this season. Hell, just look at all that he went through during the last six or so episodes (including Arsenal of Freedom, Skin of Evil, and Conspiracy).
I worry that I might just be restating a condensed version of Chuck's position but, with respect to the whole Prime Directive discussion, the issue, as I see it, is that a lot of the noninterference principle which undergirds it boils down to "What if that baby you save is the next Hitler?" Yes, that is _technically_ possible. Good decisions can produce bad outcomes. But the idea that one should never interfere in the affairs of others because of the mere possibility of a poor outcome is self-paralysing nonsense, especially when the consequences of sitting back and doing nothing are downright catastrophic. At least when _The City of the Edge of Forever_ posed this sort of question it showed, clearly and without a doubt, that allowing Edith Keeler to live would produce a worse future. Most TNG-era Prime Directive discussions don't have that though. It's all just raw, paranoid speculation that stopping an asteroid from hitting a pre-warp species will result in... something. And that is simply an unsound way for an individual or society to proceed in the course of its existence. Indeed, if you extend their reasoning to any other circumstance, you see just how ludicrous it is. "Should I go buy groceries? No - if I go outside I might be incinerated in a nuclear blast!". When the question "Should we interfere?" is asked in this episode though it feels far more reasonable and relevant because there are no outside forces acting upon these societies and there is nothing about their situations which is not in their own control. The choice isn't whether or not to watch them be destroyed but to see if they destroy themselves or, perhaps, if they can vault forward out of the stagnation they've sunken into. Interfering deprives them of the chance at self-determination, just as failing to interfere to stop a global cataclysm would.
I thought you were joking about season 1 episodes suddenly inserting themselves into reality. I thought I'd seen all of TNG, and I didn't remember this existed.
I thought that the prime directive was simply not contacting and giving advanced tech to pre-warp worlds. These guys knew about the Federation for centuries. Merely saying, "looks like you guys don't need this drug anymore" is not disrupting a primitive culture. Unless the prime directive is an NDA for business models, I don't see what it has to do with anything in the episode, other than Picard's final conclusion to do nothing. And if the prime directive is not to interfere, then they shouldn't be making contact with anyone, and merely observe from a distance, like a nature program.
Feels more inspired by heroin. Opium has a legitimate medical use - not as a cure but as a painkiller - but it's also incredibly addictive. The opioid crisis has been directly encouraged (and massively profited) by wealthy pharmaceutical companies who paid doctors to prescribe their opioid medications even when not strictly necessary. Chuck looks at the Brekkians and sees rail-blowing Hollywood executives, I see the Sackler family. The story of crack cocaine is another atrocity altogether.
Ok, so you found a new meme to exploit, nice. I thought this one was a good episode, for season 1 at least. It wasn't quite there, but it was enjoyable, and Picards solution was rather elegant. To bad when it comes to the Season 1 episodes that are left, it's all downhill from here
Oh no! One of the TNG episodes that pissed me off the most. To force an ENTIRE PLANET to go through super withdrawal and then bugger off without sending a million federation doctors and envoys to oversee what would surely result in economic and societal collapse and mass murder whilst people fight for the last remaining supply of the drug, before they buy ships and weapons from the ferengis and commit genocide on the dealers planet was the best ( or worst ) example of why the prime directive is inherently immoral and evil. No consideration they caused untold suffering to billions because the worst doctor in star fleet felt like it was the right thing to do. IF she cared she could have worked on limiting the suffering with their superior than everyone else science but nope Goodbye. Enjoy your mass death and inevitable war. At least I give credit to lower decks for addressing it. I clearly wasn't the only one. Now I will watch the video and see if you agree lol. Damn I hate this episode SO MUCH
Better than the norm of bad ideas poorly executed. I swear, the Star Trek name was the only thing keeping TNG from cancelation until the latter half of season two or even season three.
Good news: There's only 4 season one episodes left
Bad news: There're season one episodes left
Can't wait for "Coming of Age".
Who doesn't love a Wesley centric episode?
I was wondering how there could still be Season 1 episodes left to review. I was thinking, "Surely Chuck's covered them all already?"
i physically winced.
Just wait. Someone will uncover a forgotten stash of 30 more S1 episodes for Chuck. His prophecy will come true, and he’ll never finish reviewing S1 episodes 😆
@@ravenwilder4099 I had the same thought. It's like we make no progress. Next time, there will be 5 season one episodes left.
Chuck's Stand activates and brings another S1 TNG episode into existence to torture him
The funny thing is, I am not even certain he got the JJBA reference. So, just in case Chuck does look at comments -
A Stand is a kind of supernatural power from the popular anime/manga series Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I can just about guarantee you've seen references to it somewhere online, perhaps without knowing it.
Stands are known for having extremely unusual abilities. For example, one Stand has the ability to turn its user's body into string. Another has the ability to make an enemy's body extremely magnetic. Another can use it to manipulate their own hair.
A Stand is meant to be the manifestation of a person's fighting spirit, so a Stand that causes Chuck to manifet a new S1 TNG episode into existence probably means he cannot control his Stand, and it wants to hurt him.
@@Drekal684 So it’s a Holly Kujo Situation? Will his family need to go on a 50 Day Trip to circumvent his death or is the Stand is a pain in the ass?
Considering how it’s a prevalent thing over a Decade now it’s a pain in Ass.
Even Hey Ya Hey Ya is more useful than it
@@keiththompson9435 Stand name: Here I Go Again.
Got that Whitesnake reference in there
I mean, it's helping him by hurting him... I don't know Jojo, and I avoid that Rabbit hole almost as hard as I avoid Dragonball as a rabbit hole, but I do recognize that suffering reviewers make for popular videos, and people love to see reviewers riff on trash.
@@bthsr7113 There are a few key things about JJBA to keep in mind: We’re getting the Magnaka’s Spotify List of Music, what Art he’s influenced by, and what he views as Pure and Innocent.
I don’t know what others say, but I love your Prime Directive rants
Same here.
It's a complex topic and some authors really don't handle it well.
It's a canon plot point for a fictional story. That being the case, I'm not bothered by it.
Years later, the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "Trusted Sources" would reveal that after the Enterprise left, Ornaran society descended into 10-to-14 years of mass panic and violence. However, they eventually recovered and have progressed to a pleasant society where all the people are friendly and even-tempered after they kicked their felicium addiction and recovered from the withdrawal, and they now devoted themselves to healthy eating and physical fitness. In real life, many recovering addicts actually do use physical action to help mitigate the effects of withdrawal. When the Cerritos arrived as part of a test trial to check in on planets Starfleet previously visited, Captain Freeman asked if they need any assistance, but the Ornarans politely decline, as they're doing well and said they had neither the need nor the desire for further dealings with the Federation. Meanwhile, the Brekkians ended getting invaded by the Breen.
Lower Decks was way too lenient. People can die from sudden withdrawal. And everyone on the planet was addicted, which means children, elderly, and the sick. The death toll from withdrawals would have been enormous. Then you'd have desperate people fighting over the last shipment of drugs.
@@KingOfMadCows Which would probably be why they want absolutely *nothing* to do with the Federation.
@@KingOfMadCows What part of "10-14 years of mass panic and violencce" did you miss?
Also, they seem to be chasing a runner's high now and benching to quiet the memories. So they're not in good shape, just coping through physical fitness. We also didn't see too many, so there are probably a lot in batch filled pits.
@@KingOfMadCows So you MISSED the part where they (both the OP and the characters) said they went through OVER A DECADE of planet wide panic and violence so naturally that would include a MASSIVE death toll. Hell the mural shows a very ugly picture of that period. Just because they don't spoon feed us the numbers doesn't mean it isn't VERY clear that people died as a result of them all but being forced to go cold turkey, or how they are STILL dealing with the withdrawal since they mainly workout to "Quiet the voices in their heads".
If you look really closely after Picard and Dr. Crusher leave the cargo bay at the end of the episode, you can see Denise Crosby (Yar) waving goodbye at the camera as the doors close. "Symbiosis" was her final episode of TNG as a regular as it was filmed after "Skin of Evil" but broadcast before. Crosby would not be seen again until "Yesterday's Enterprise" in Season 3. 🖖😎👍
Chuck also missed the boat by not realizing the entire drugs discussion by Tasha was her talking about herself, not a general problem. Denise Crosby stated that she did that speech with that personal angle, and also stated had they had more stuff like that for Yar to DO, SOME characterization on her character, she'd have stayed.
Yeah, it is a very dark and personal moment. Sure would be a shame if her character was senselessly offed before a heroic sacrifice turned into reborn abuse!
Fun fact about this episode, you can see Denise Crosby waving at the camera in the very last shot as that was her last day of filming on set, with advance notice that her character was going to die later in the season.
This episode was filmed after Skin of Evil, so Denise Crosby didn't even realize she was supposed to come back for it.
There's something darkly hilarious that Symbiosis has this anti-drug PSA stuff when there is a HIGH chance that not 20 feet away from the set, Roddenberry was probably trying to do his own bodyweight in fresh cut Columbian Chalk Dust... to say NOTHING of the other drugs in his system that would have made him a living narcotics lab.
I love seeing all the euphemisms for the words we can't see last. I'm partial to calling Fast Flour.
I also don't understand the point of sticking a groanworthy PSA-like conversation in the middle of an episode that makes the point fine on its own. It's like if halfway through Moby Dick, Captain Ahab turned directly to the audience and said "see, this is why you gotta let things go so your life doesn't become consumed by a vain search for revenge," and then went back to captaining the ship.
@@EebstertheGreat You can be bonk bonk on the head unsubtle and people will still miss the point.
Fun fact: Merritt Butrick, who played David Marcus in Star Treks II and III, was offered a part in this episode as a way to help pay for treatment for his AIDS, as he couldn't afford health insurance. He died less than a year later. He was 29.
I would not label that a "Fun Fact" I would say it is kinda tragic.
Is that why he was killed off in Star Trek 3?
@@DisFantasyno, he was still alive when they filmed his death scene.
@@joelcroteau9925 Had he been diagnosed?
@@DisFantasy not sure. This episode has its own Wikipedia page, as does Merritt Butrick. Perhaps one of their sources says.
I’ve been watching Chuck’s videos since he started and I genuinely can’t believe there’s still season 1 TNG episodes left
Same here. I have fond memories of watching Chuck on Blip. And here I am thinking, "Still?! TNG still has Season 1 episodes?"
This is one of the few occasions where the Roddenberry philosophy of "crew is conflict free with the drama coming from the alien societies they encounter" somewhat works because the core issue is at least competently executed. That along with the combination of Crusher investigating the medical condition and Picard finding a loophole for the exploitation actually playing to the character's strengths?
It makes for an outing that thankfully avoids the malady of either questionable competence or excess smugness that so plagued early TNG. I mean when the secondhand embarrassment is limited to just one anti-drug speech by Tasha? That's high marks for a season one episode.
The whole Wesley-Tasha PSA scene isn't even applicable to the situation they are dealing with here since the Onarrans were turned into addicts without their knowledge--they weren't using the drug to escape a miserable life, at least not in the way Tasha was talking about.
Also, the expression on Riker's face when David Marcus gives him an electric t-twister is hilarious!
Actually, it's a lot better when you consider Tasha was indicating she was talking from personal experience. She's not talking about rich people, she's talking about HERSELF.
@@jonahfalcon1970 Yeah, but her experience is only related to the plot of the episode in that both involve drug addiction. But Tasha and Wesley were pushing a "just say no" message, when this episode's message was more "don't accept candy from strangers".
@@rofald She is only talking about what SHE is familiar with. It's important to HER. What SHE knows. She's never been around people with no problems of destitution and urban violence til Starfleet, so of COURSE her speech would be skewed.
It was also an acting choice by Denise Crosby, who decided that Yar was a recovering addict.
Season one will never end. It will always stay "almost done".
Ah yes, I remember this episode. And while Lower Decks didn't bite hard enough, they were very right to call it out.
Edit: Maybe I got a bit too angry
I do agree this is one of the rare cases where the Prime Directive discussion actually…not totally ridiculous.
Quote from Maurice Hurley regarding the "Just say no" speech:
"I take the blame for that. I jammed that in over everyone's objections. They were screaming on the set, the actors were screaming, they were puking, they were yelling, 'We can't do this.' I said, 'No, there are kids out there. If we're going to make the message, let's make the message.' If it offends the adults or bothers some kids, then, by God, we're going to do it."
Wait wait wait. The planets from that one Lower Decks story came from THIS episode of TNG?
Yep. Years and years of civil war fueled by society wide withdrawals, followed by chasing a runner's high and trying to quiet the voices/memories.
Are you shocked that LD referenced a previous episode of Trek instead of just making up something new?
@@bthsr7113 Did we ever get closure on what happened with the other planet? Or were they all just killed off/enslaved by the Breen?
@@somerandomschmuck2547 I would bet that the Brekkian economy collapsed because of the cutoff leaving them even More vulnerable to the Breen.
@@andrewklang809Kind of the point of LD’s internal continuity.
All your criticisms are quite valid, but I think what elevates this episode above them a bit is that it contains a genuine mystery, the solution of which is quite deftly revealed in the course of the episode. We unfortunately didn't get many of those in the course of the series. And Picard's resolution to the situation is first rate.
I appreciate this episode a lot. The premise is clever and the resolution leaves the viewer with a sense of justice having been delivered.
For being a season one episode it's one of the very few that give a small glimpse into the greatness that was still to come, even though it got some rough parts.
Nice to see the Prime Directive being used for actual GOOD for once. Pity it's Season 1 TNG.
Wow - I literally just read a breakdown of this episode yesterday after having not thought of it in probably years - and here's Chuck reviewing it!
I wish they had kept doing this, where even if the alien looked totally human, they had some sort of unique characteristic.
later it became simpler just to show what type of teeth and claws alien's had.
At least they took the time to explain a ferangi's quad brain and why they were immune to telepathy, but that was probably the last unique alien skill on star trek barring perhaps Ocompan pyrokineses
You killed my son, you Klingon bastards!
Bizarely a Wrath of Khan re-union episode.
5/10, high praise for season 1
I recall a few years ago, chuck said something about an SCP that creates more episodes of TNG season one for him to review that didn't exist befor.
I'm starting to believe that might be reality
This episode got a little follow up in Lower Decks, where we got to see the drug addict world after they all sobered up, I was amused and happy that things worked out for them.
At work so can’t watch this yet. I love how lower decks tackled the fallout from this episode.
The thumbnail choice for this was just perfect, no notes.
One of the few PD episodes played straight - except only because Picard decided to renege on a previous agreement. If the PD applied from the beginning of the episode, the engine parts should never have been on the table.
Good news is that there's a Lower Decks episode that actually follows up on this. No, really! The drug addicts actually get better! After years of horrible withdrawl symptoms, and a lingering hatred of Starfleet who just left them to suffer, but they're getting better!
The other guys were mostly wiped out by the Breen. Sorry.
Ah! Somebody commented before catching the stinger at the end of the episode.
Tough break for the Brekkians, but it was a cool moment seeing the Breen come back and kick butt.
@@arlibrarian And if either world had to go.... The brekkians definitely deserved it more.
How is there yet more season 1 TNG episodes? With all of them that Chuck has reviewed I'd have thought that they'd be finished. Have they kept making more just to spite people?
Another banger. I like what you said about the application of the good ol' PD. Also the LDS bumper at the end was a nice touch.
Alternate history: 200 years ago, Captain Archer comes across the Ornarans and accidentally introduces them to heroin
Hurray new ST review!
And I agree, while this episode is undeniably season 1, I always rather liked it. Picard's solution felt genuinely smart and fair.
one thing to make this episode even better i think would have been if the they had intentionally infected the other planet causing this in the first place, making it a move of one group trying to enslave another through drug addiction, reminds me of the drug soldiers from the first episode Q showed them
No, I think I prefer the more organic way it happened. Rather than just turning the one side into completely evil from the jump, they slowly allowed an evil to become the norm. More realistic, imo
I didn't get into it, but we don't even know the details of what's going on on their planet either. They claim it's the only thing their world produces, yet for all we know, these two represent the equivalent of Nestle exploiting a poor country, and there are people back home trying to push for reforms. It could be that this business failing will allow the self-sufficient minority to emerge as the dominant political power on their world.
I always hated this episode because it was yet another Picard defends the Prime Directive episode but you're right, this is the Prime Directive as it was meant to be, a means to stop the Federation in its arrogance conquering the galaxy because it was so certain in its moral superiority that it could run things better.
11:56 I see a failed chicken farmer also makes an appaerance.
7:31 Amen and bravo!
12:00 It’s Mr Koepeknie! (fans of the Barney Miller episode “Warewolf” will understand…)
some interesting context: this episode aired around the same time purdue pharma first began direct-marketing oxycontin to medical facilities, doctors, and pain patients as safe, effective, and not at all addictive.
The Prime Directive is a great idea. It avoids one of the biggest problematic tropes of sci-fi of this sort - Colonialist attitudes. The Age of Exploration in the real world that space operas like Star Trek often draw inspiration from typically involved a lot of Europeans showing up to a place that was already populated with their own advanced civilizations, going "We discovered this place!", then killing everyone and destroying said civilizations to enforce their own.
So the two-pronged approach of the Prime Directive is meant to directly counter that. First, civilizations that have not developed sufficiently on their own are not to be contacted so they can develop at their own pace in their own way. Second, we are not to get involved in the internal politics of other nations (which is more of a commentary on interventionist foreign policy but also applies to colonialism in, again, leaving other cultures alone to develop by themselves and not enforcing your own culture on them).
The issue is - as Charles has brought up many times - is that it's not treated that way. It's used as an artificial barrier to a very obvious solution to the week's problem to artificially create problems that pad out the episode. In short, it's lazy writing that does not address the original intent of the Prime Directive within Starfleet and turns it into a dogma akin to a religion because it's the only way to wring dramatic tension out of some of these crappy scripts.
I thought this episode had real potential because it deal with a regressed society. They were an advance space faring society with interplanetary trade but that's all gone now. It's a lot like how Earth was in a post-Burn era. One gets help from Starfleet and the other doesn't.
The one time the Prime directive was used reasonably and navigated well...and the only time afaik xD
There are a couple TOS episodes too, but that's mostly showing why some exceptions exist for it.
As far as season 1 goes thiz was great
Symbiosis is an episode that has a message about drug use
I Don’t know what but dammit they have a message!
It's, "let the damn Junkies suffer cold turkey on their own. They made their own choices."
So that now leaves four episodes left from this season--Too Short a Season, Home Soil, Coming of Age, and We'll Always Have Paris.
Also, SOMEBODY on the writing team had to have had it in for Riker this season. Just look at all the shit he went through this season. Hell, just look at all that he went through during the last six or so episodes (including Arsenal of Freedom, Skin of Evil, and Conspiracy).
I worry that I might just be restating a condensed version of Chuck's position but, with respect to the whole Prime Directive discussion, the issue, as I see it, is that a lot of the noninterference principle which undergirds it boils down to "What if that baby you save is the next Hitler?" Yes, that is _technically_ possible. Good decisions can produce bad outcomes. But the idea that one should never interfere in the affairs of others because of the mere possibility of a poor outcome is self-paralysing nonsense, especially when the consequences of sitting back and doing nothing are downright catastrophic.
At least when _The City of the Edge of Forever_ posed this sort of question it showed, clearly and without a doubt, that allowing Edith Keeler to live would produce a worse future. Most TNG-era Prime Directive discussions don't have that though. It's all just raw, paranoid speculation that stopping an asteroid from hitting a pre-warp species will result in... something. And that is simply an unsound way for an individual or society to proceed in the course of its existence. Indeed, if you extend their reasoning to any other circumstance, you see just how ludicrous it is. "Should I go buy groceries? No - if I go outside I might be incinerated in a nuclear blast!".
When the question "Should we interfere?" is asked in this episode though it feels far more reasonable and relevant because there are no outside forces acting upon these societies and there is nothing about their situations which is not in their own control. The choice isn't whether or not to watch them be destroyed but to see if they destroy themselves or, perhaps, if they can vault forward out of the stagnation they've sunken into. Interfering deprives them of the chance at self-determination, just as failing to interfere to stop a global cataclysm would.
I hope you do the sequel episode of lower decks next
I thought you were joking about season 1 episodes suddenly inserting themselves into reality. I thought I'd seen all of TNG, and I didn't remember this existed.
I thought that the prime directive was simply not contacting and giving advanced tech to pre-warp worlds. These guys knew about the Federation for centuries.
Merely saying, "looks like you guys don't need this drug anymore" is not disrupting a primitive culture.
Unless the prime directive is an NDA for business models, I don't see what it has to do with anything in the episode, other than Picard's final conclusion to do nothing.
And if the prime directive is not to interfere, then they shouldn't be making contact with anyone, and merely observe from a distance, like a nature program.
Wesley, drugs are bad, m'kay.
I’m absolutely sure I’m alone in this…but I think this is the best episode of season one.
So this is how you get SFDebris to support the prime directive: use it to oppose drug prohibition
Oh yeah, this episode. It's an episode I didn't particularly care for, but it's better than Code of Honor.
Static Klingon? .... Well, that'll be fine.
I call this episode "Crack Heads In Space".
Feels more inspired by heroin. Opium has a legitimate medical use - not as a cure but as a painkiller - but it's also incredibly addictive. The opioid crisis has been directly encouraged (and massively profited) by wealthy pharmaceutical companies who paid doctors to prescribe their opioid medications even when not strictly necessary. Chuck looks at the Brekkians and sees rail-blowing Hollywood executives, I see the Sackler family.
The story of crack cocaine is another atrocity altogether.
10:50 to be fair, the same case could be made against any pub.
Ok, so you found a new meme to exploit, nice. I thought this one was a good episode, for season 1 at least. It wasn't quite there, but it was enjoyable, and Picards solution was rather elegant. To bad when it comes to the Season 1 episodes that are left, it's all downhill from here
Seems that Tasha speaks from her own personal experience .
Oh no! One of the TNG episodes that pissed me off the most.
To force an ENTIRE PLANET to go through super withdrawal and then bugger off without sending a million federation doctors and envoys to oversee what would surely result in economic and societal collapse and mass murder whilst people fight for the last remaining supply of the drug, before they buy ships and weapons from the ferengis and commit genocide on the dealers planet was the best ( or worst ) example of why the prime directive is inherently immoral and evil.
No consideration they caused untold suffering to billions because the worst doctor in star fleet felt like it was the right thing to do.
IF she cared she could have worked on limiting the suffering with their superior than everyone else science but nope
Goodbye.
Enjoy your mass death and inevitable war.
At least I give credit to lower decks for addressing it.
I clearly wasn't the only one.
Now I will watch the video and see if you agree lol.
Damn I hate this episode SO MUCH
i thought you were joking about endless s1 TNG!?
This episode is a lost cause, Chucky, don't waste your time on it. It's so damaged beyond repair. Life has shattered it's tropes and its dreams.
This is the only Season 1 episode I like.
This episode would've been an 8 or 9 in a season like 4 or 5.
Carter Vista
A season 1 TNG PD episode that follows the PD properly? I don't even know who you are anymore season 1 of TNG.
Oh this one I feel sorry for you
Jeffry Parks
Celestine Route
Probably the best season 1 episode. And it is just barely watchable.
A good idea, poorly executed. Or, as Season One TNG goes: 9 out of 10.
Better than the norm of bad ideas poorly executed. I swear, the Star Trek name was the only thing keeping TNG from cancelation until the latter half of season two or even season three.
one of the most forgettable episodes of TNG