• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Most COVID-19 relevant Treks?

Gaith

Vice Admiral
Admiral
Apologies if there's already a thread for this, maybe from a user I've got on ignore, but a search for "covid" and "corona" yielded nothing, so, here goes. :)

There's been lots of online chatter about revisiting the movies Contagion and Outbreak recently, which got me thinking, which Trek episodes/movies are most relevant to this pandemic? I'm not nearly the Trek scholar that others on the board are, but the two which most readily pop to my mind are VOY's "Critical Care," about triage and health care in general, and ENT's "Extinction," an almost Lovecraft-ian story of a plague-destroyed civilization.

That said, I'm sure there are others; which ones have I missed?
 
Past Tense: Are we currently on our way to the Bell riots? Four years to go....

I just saw that episode a bit ago...and not gonna lie, maybe me feel a bit worried considering some recent developments....the details are obviously wrong but in the broad strokes....
 
I'd recommend against revisiting "Extinction," the worse episode in an otherwise good season. It also doesn't seem to parallel the situation significantly. Its virus doesn't cause disease, it mutates you from your original species to the species of its creators, and just what destroyed the creators' civilization is left ambiguous.

"Observer Effect" is a much better Enterprise story concerning disease. I don't think it parallels COVID much either, especially its resolution, but it does portray people in quarantine trying to keep their spirits up and the fear they cause in others when one tries to break it.

I'd have to rewatch Voyager's Phage episodes to see how I'd rank them, but the Vidiians are a cautionary tale about not letting your desire to free yourself from disease turn you into something monstrous.
 
I'd recommend against revisiting "Extinction," the worse episode in an otherwise good season.
I haven't seen all of ENT S3, but I have seen "Carpenter Street," so I know "Exctinction" definitely isn't the worst of the lot. I mean, needing to collect all different human blood types to create the ultimate virus? What virus ever has cared about blood type?! :rolleyes:
 
"Miri" is the one that immediately springs to mind.

A virus that wipes out the adults, but mysteriously leaves the children unaffected. In its wake, society falls to pieces.
 
"Observer Effect" is a much better Enterprise story concerning disease. I don't think it parallels COVID much either, especially its resolution, but it does portray people in quarantine trying to keep their spirits up and the fear they cause in others when one tries to break it.
I don't think it needs to parallel the virus to be relevant.You are correct that it shows people helping one another through isolation, but it also has one of the few great Archer speechs: learning compassion by practicing compassion.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top