I work on...assorted things, and look forward to seeing what Cohost becomes.


Real Life in Star Trek, The Offspring: The outside world in Star Trek

For this episode, we talk about parenting, civil rights, and why the Federation would care so much about studying a new android.

This episode feels ahead of its time in the worst ways of the franchise, predicting the bleakness of the modern shows where we find out that people do have huge problems - like how various parts of the population don't have the right to parent their own children, because the Federation wants to "study" them - but the writers contrive a way to sidestep the issue, so that we now know that "utopia" has horrible policies but nobody cares enough to actually fight those policies except maybe (eventually) to the extent that it affects someone they care about.


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in reply to @jcolag's post:

I remember feeling the need to avoid thinking about this episode too closely because its implications were just... so wild. But the trend of using normally-clueless admirals as mild antagonists meant we got many more implications like this all the way through TNG and DS9.

The Riker bit is the bit I remember though; as soon as he walked into Ten Forward I felt this sense of dread as though I knew he'd be involved in some icky event without even knowing what it was. Even though he was ultimately 'fine' in this one, it weirded me out that the show had somehow conditioned me into expecting one of its leads to be a bit gross...

Yeah, the sexual politics of the show is at best hilariously dated and at worst setting an unhealthy example. Not only Riker, but most of the male cast has their "locker room talk" and a need to hit on any woman that happens by. But when the woman shows any interest, they panic and run away, to the extent that they treat Lwaxana Troi like a horror movie monster for the sin of wanting a healthy sex life in middle age.

And absolutely on the political side. This feels like the episode that should have radicalized the crew. They fought tooth-and-nail in The Measure of a Man to force the Federation to recognize android rights, and while they mention that episode a couple of times, they really don't seem to care until it's too late. And it's not just terrible, but something that the "comfort food" nature of the show gives everyone a pass for not realizing how worryingly close that is to how we (as a society) treat people.