Tasha's drug speech
- Thread starter Mr. Laser Beam
- Start date
"Special Episodes" used to be common with sitcoms of the 80s and 90s. They would address heavy issues like drug abuse and kidnapping. I think this was Star Trek's attempt at that.
Night Court did it the best.
Even Arthur handled things like September 11th (albeit allegorically, with the kids' school catching on fire) cancer (Mrs. McGrady, the lunch lady) and yes, drug addiction (all the kids eating energy bars with suspiciously addictive side effects).
I think the 70s were the first to do them as well, or something that would evolve to what would be common in the 80s and 90s.The sitcoms having Norman Lear's involvement often went this route, managing to meld comedy with drama. Some better than others...
First, when you said Arthur, the first time I looked, I thought you were referring to the Dudley Moore film (of which I've only seen bits and pieces), rather than the cartoon series.
Second, that reminds me of the night, decades ago, when I baked a batch of my mother's famous shortbreads, and brought them to a weekly Risk game I was involved in at the time. Nothing but flour, butter, sugar, and salt (and precisely zero chance that the flour was contaminated with ergot), but the other guys were scarfing them down at such a rate that the resulting sugar rush convinced them that the cookies were laced.
This has lived in my brain, rent free, since I was in high school. Not for the message, but as a song I sing to my own dogs so they can pass it down to other kids
I almost expected Tasha to pop up again at the end of the episode to deliver this week’s moral of the week, ala Masters of the Universe. “In today’s episode, we learned about the dangers of drugs. Drugs are bad. Don’t take them or you might doom your entire civilisation. See you next week, folks!” (To be fair, in this episode she did indeed wave us goodbye.)
In retrospect, Denise Crosby was a somewhat questionable choice of individual to deliver certain lines regarding the allure of narcotics. Charming and attractive? Were they (i.e., the showrunners) trying to dissuade or persuade? We should have gotten a wiry skeezoid guy in a shabby black trench coat, even if he would have been anachronistic as all hell.
They could also call 911, Doc.
Which ranks right up there with late-70s SuperFriends where they turn to the camera and vomit exposition incessantly. But even "Symbiosis" knew the show wasn't aimed at just 7-year-olds, hence it not going that far down that bunny hole. TBH, it's an above-average story because it didn't, combined with using some real science (e.g. solar flares mucking about with the ship's controls, something sci-fi didn't always encroach despite always arriving at a planet where, given the planets are titled by numbers meaning it's the planet that's the x closest to the sun, they often go to planets that are closer to the star and all stars generate whippytime solar flare thrills, so the potential for trouble is there.)
But that's, and here comes one of my left-field digressions, the thing with season 1 TNG: One week, they're aiming it at all audiences and being surprisingly level. The next week, it's more or less aimed at high schoolers. Then the next week, it's aimed mostly at 8-year-olds, jarring everyone in the room. The next week, it's whiplash as it's brazenly covering NC17 stuff having forgotten all about the previous three weeks (Hi, "Justice" and others, wheeeeeeeeeeee!
), and so on. On initial viewing, nobody knew what to expect. But the show was finding its feet. Come season 5 and the formula is more than found, they still catered to just the 7's ("Hero Worship"), only it took a few more weeks since none of them would care that Riker was all pissy over his slinky and firm sexpot interest of the week going to die just because she had compassion and wanting to try to save someone else's life and he's not even a necrophiliac. Where I'm going with this at this point, I no longer know, except at least TNG gave a true sense of exploring the unknown. Season 5 just reminded us almost every episode that Riker's got a sex drive. How entertaining to watch, okey dokey then... hmmm, season 5 was a bit varied as well. Just more stale and definitely more predictable by showcasing Riker's hormones. Also, bad news regarding the beard: https://www.sciencealert.com/is-a-l...-more-testosterone-not-so-fast-says-new-study
I wonder if any teachers ever showed this episode to their health classes?
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