Remember in Code Of Honor when Tasha is captured, and her life (and potentially millions of others) is in danger? And Picard and Troy go to visit her while she's a prisoner?
What does Troy ask Tasha, who is a Federation officer and obviously understands what is at stake? And does she ask it in front of Captain Picard?
She asks how hot she thinks her captor is. What the hell does whether or not he's attractive have to do with anything? He could be aesthetically disgusting, he could respond perfectly to Tasha's standards of beauty. But it didn't matter at all. She was there as a Star Fleet officer and millions of lives were at stake. What importance did physical appearance have in the whole affair??? It's like saying "You know, as a woman you are not trustworthy if you think you are prey to an attractive and charming man. We need to know precisely how wet you get for him. It is of the utmost importance."
I definitely agree, the scene seems irrelevant, and it is from any practical standpoint. I do think there's an idea in there, but the execution if clearly poor.
The scene is very human-centric and relying on that assumption (meaning that if the Ligonians were to be reptilian or whatever, then other changes would have to be made - good luck on that.)
But I wonder if the scene is trying to do a "let's showcase Troi's abilities moment" in her figuring out Tasha's mindset, her empathy psi ability figuring out Tasha might have a hint of attraction. If that's the case, it doesn't quite succeed either, because it doesn't feel relevant to the script's more important elements, or is trying too hard to make the script more complex and edgy by Yar now having an internal conflict on top of everything else. But it just doesn't ring through on screen.
I couldn't find the video clip, so I looked up the transcript:
TASHA: Captain. Deanna.
PICARD: Did you have any idea, Lieutenant, that Lutan was suddenly going to announce that he wanted you for his First One?
TASHA: No, sir.
So far, it should just be a standard plot development.
PICARD: Tell me what you know about this?
TASHA: Nothing, sir.
It's bad enough that Picard is repeating himself on this already, as the total time used as filler is about three seconds. Seems out of character for him, he's a captain and not a day care center guardian.
TROI: But it was a thrill. Lutan is such, such a basic male image and having him say he wants you.
TASHA: Yes, of course it made me feel good when he--
That
should be the conflict, and as it's too soon in the series, and definitely does not mesh with (a) her surviving some directly related horrifying experiences in the past, and (b) is an odd juxtaposition against a subconscious desire for gentleness as we were told in "The Naked Now" (albeit as unconvincingly as she's going at it with a robot.)
So for that reason alone, the scene already fails. No continuity. True, word processors were still new and lacked all of the panache that today's advanced script editing software has (e.g. "Final Draft", et al.) I think that's what the episode was
trying to go for, but it's kludged in too abruptly and inconsistently. 3 episodes in and it already forgets the previous 2.
But it gets even more befuddling:
Troi, I'm your friend and you tricked me.
TROI: Only so you'd think about it, completely and clearly.
Another scene, where it's supposed to be a good Troi moment, doesn't quite work - at least this time it's due to the situation and not Troi saying "Captain he's hiding the obvious".
In another episode, even the one with
Devinoni Ral, might make more sense to get someone out of their puppydog eyes routine. Shame Guinan didn't ask Troi that same question with Ral!
PICARD: We're all being manipulated, Lieutenant, myself most of all.
TROI: How simple all this would be without the Prime Directive.
PICARD: That thought had passed through my mind, Counsellor.
The crux of the episode, everyone being manipulated. To the point that Picard launches a volley of torpedoes just above and across the atmosphere as a fear tactic, massively breaking the prime directive (his "code of honor") in the process. Now compare to how Lutan doesn't break his at the end. The episode was trying way too hard with these ideas, on top of being an inconsistent mess in what should have been a great outing for Yar.
Let's also remember that we are talking about a character who spent her childhood and adolescence running away from the infamous "rape gangs". Topics such as non-consensual sexuality could be triggering for her. Doing it in that context, especially considering that it has practically no relevance to the situation, is incredibly bad taste on the part of the authors.
Or it shows she overcame those trigger sensations? While it can be possible; it not always is. Not sure on how it is in the 24th century, but here's an interesting bit of info:
"The military does have a waiver process for certain mental health conditions. This means that if you have a history of one of these conditions but can demonstrate that you’ve been stable and symptom-free for a certain period, you might still be eligible to serve." (
https://neurolaunch.com/can-you-join-the-military-with-mental-illness/)
I want to believe the goal was to show Yar overcoming a horrific childhood. Again, the story clearly fumbles, as had a lot of early season 1, but the idea
seems to be there.
Everyone's different But given how many issues season 1 had with inconsistent characterizations, it's more likely that the writers completely forgot about most characters' traits. Look at how poorly "Justice" treats just about everyone as another extreme example.
