As you watch the episodes and/or films, consider which Star Trek episode, in your opinion, would have caused the most self-reflection for the audience watching it at the time it was produced. Rank the episodes you watch in numerical order where 1 is the episode that best answers the question prompt.
1. “Turnabout Intruder.” Star Trek: The Original Series
2. “Darmok.” Star Trek: The Next Generation
3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
4. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
5. "The Icarus Factor." Star Trek: The Next Generation
As someone who is fascinated by linguistics and culture, "Darmok" is one of my favorite episodes. I have to say, however, that "Turnabout Intruder" is probably the most thought- (and anger-) provoking episodes of Star Trek. Having aired in the late 1960s during the height of the second wave of feminism, and with Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique having been published six years earlier, issues of gender equality and women's desire for equal "power" would have been in the forefront of everyone's mind. This episode of Trek routinely angers modern viewers, in my experience, but I have to look at it as a parody. The over-the-top portrayal of a power-hungry woman who feels that her only path to what she seeks is to inhabit the body of a man (combined with the implied insanity) feels very satirical. 1960s audiences would at least have had to think about why this depiction creates such visceral reactions (as I assume it must have when it was released).
We listed a few examples of aliens used to defamiliarize race relations in the United States in the 1960s. What are some other examples? If you are a non-U.S. student, are there episodes that you can see as representing a social conflict in your country’s history?
I had to do a little digging on the Internet to help organize my thoughts on this one. There are a lot of interesting lists and roundups of episodes/movies that deal with race and tolerance. Unfortunately, the lessons Trek was trying to teach in the 1960s are still relevant today. One example that stands out to me is the "North Star" episode of Enterprise (a post-apartheid South Africa allegory, without Nelson Mandela's example of forgiveness and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission). The home of the oppressor-turned-oppressed Skagarans is called "Skag Town" and there's a revelation that one "human" character is actually 1/4 Skagaran. The latter reminds me of things like the "one-drop rule" of determining someone's race. There are quite a few other instances in which Star Trek deals with the legacy of racial and cultural conflict. The most poignant one, to me, is the "Duet" episode of DS9, in which Major Kira confronts her resentment of the Cardassians and, eventually, finds compassion for a file clerk who is struggling with his inability to stop the atrocities committed by the Cardassians at Gallitep. When the character, Marritza, is slain by an angry Bajoran on the Promenade, the killer exclaims that Marritza's being a Cardassian is reason enough to destroy him. Kira, softly and with deep realization, says, "No. It's not." It's a very moving ending to a powerful episode.
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