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S1's "Code Of Honor"

Warped9

Warped9

Admiral
Admiral
I caught this one rerun on Space yeasterday after work.

Yeesh!

It's not a bad story at heart, yet it so obvious they're trying to channel a TOS style of storytelling. But the writing is just brutal. The cast were hard pressed to perform in a more natural manner with such stiff and unnatural over written dialogue. And the musical accompaniment was too much and all wrong--no subtlety whatsoever.

The internal logic of how events unfolded also beggars belief. Picard is basically a willing spectator to everything happening. t made him look extremely weak. I just couldn't buy it.

This had to be one of the nadir's of TNG's first season.
 
I don't think I've seen this ep since it's first run. And yet its awfulness is still burned into my brain.
 
Wonderful, a planet populated entirely by african-analogues and they kidnap a blonde white woman...
 
Star Trek has always had a 19th Century, Eurocentric attitude in its encounters of new worlds, but to me that's a byproduct of the "Horatio Hornblower in Space" motif. Yet it's never been as offensive as it is in "Code of Honor" with it's 1940s serial African tribal society.

We have an alien culture, made up of black actors, that uses mortal combat to solve disputes and a crew of predominantly white explorers that pontificate on how much more civilized they are than them. Moreover, it's the blond-haired woman that's "exotic" and "treasured".

"Code of Honor" might as well have been titled "White Man's Burden."

While I appreciate them trying to show a humaniod race that wasn't exclusively white, how could an episode such blatant negative connotations make it to air?

I know that Jonathan Frakes has called it a "horrible racist episode" on many occasions. He stated in a chat with startrek.com, "We tried to get the racist "Code of Honor" episode out of the loop." (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/community/chat/archive/transcript/1105.html)

More Frakes on "Code of Honor": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4w0Zj_EdT4

(go to TC 3:40)

That and it didn't help that the episode was poorly written all around, as Warped9 pointed out, with its unnatural and pretentious dialogue.
 
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Wil Wheaton did a really funny review of Code of Honor.
The thing is, Lutan isn't all that interested in letting Tasha go, because he's got Jungle Fever.

Yareena thinks Mandingo is a little out of line, so she says, "Hey! I have a great idea! Since TNG is only three episodes old, and we've only rehashed one original series episode so far, let's do it again! A show of hands: who here has seen 'Amok Time'?"

...Data says that the whole thing seems like a joke. We're not sure if he's talking about the fight, the script, or if he's looked into the future and seen the first draft of Lonely Among Us. Whatever it is, Picard agrees with him, and then they have a talk about the Prime Directive that isn't nearly as annoying as it could be, mostly because Picard says, "I'm sorry, this is becoming a speech," about two seconds after the audience begins to wonder why he's making a speech. Sadly, the writers will completely forget this important insight and abandon its resulting self-restraint for the rest of the season.

Behind the Scenes Memory: The sad truth is that I don't recall much of anything about this episode, other than how unhappy everyone was to be doing it. In fact, until I watched it for the first time in twenty-one years for this review, I'd completely forgotten that I was even in it.

I've read that the Ligonians were not explicitly described as entirely African American in the script, but were cast that way at the behest of director Russ Mayberry, who apparently went on to be so offensively racist and treated the actors so poorly that Gene fired him before the episode was completed and handed the directing responsibilities over to then – First AD Les Landau. [Citation Needed] (Ironically, Mayberry went on to direct quite a few episodes of "In the Heat of the Night," which proves either that he learned something from this experience or that he's really good at directing stories about racists.)
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...Of course, the very idea that there could exist societies that are stereotypically "savages from blackest Africa" through and through is intriguingly scientifictional. Trek is often all about "Earths gone wrong", and in this one, the European-and Asian-analogues were apparently hunted to extinction or otherwise subjugated, and different mindsets prevailed.

The message that "being savage is wrong" is of course a good and fine one. And some people will of course find it offensive when their population group is the one being used as the villains. So in theory, "Code of Honor" could have been a nice and educational study of the issue. Things like Wheaton's treatise above reveal that it obviously wasn't, but it could have been. Would we have blinked twice if the Ligonians had been clad in lizard suits?

Timo Saloniemi
 
I just watched this and found it very enjoyable. I might give season 1 another chance. I had previously thought that Conspiracy was the only really watchable episode, having remembered some very dull episodes, but this was quite good.

Maybe it was a bit racist though. Could have done without that.
 
I remember watching this ep and completely not picking up on the racist vibe. I liked the idea that they cast African-American actors for the entire race of Ligonians, as to me, it was "alternative casting" that ameliorated the past casting of just white people as aliens in the old show and older SF shows and movies. But then I had to think about how it was kind of Tarzan-movie type casting and writing, and realized how ridiculous it was. Still, there are worse eps in Season One, like Home Soil, a dreadful Devil in the Dark remake. -- RR
 
I don't understand why people think that this episode is racist? I really don't get it. Is it because the alien race are black? surely that's not racist? :confused:

If anything it's more sexist than racist?
 
Terrible, terrible, terrible episode. Just awful. It would have been awful no matter the color of the aliens - that, for me, merely added to the overall terribleness - with a terrible script, stilted dialog, ridiculous plot, absurd fight scene, and silly sets. And it showed Denise Crosby, who might not be a great actress but who is better than this, at her worst.

It's really difficult to watch. I watched it again about a year ago, but I hope to never see it again.
 
Timo said:
...Of course, the very idea that there could exist societies that are stereotypically "savages from blackest Africa" through and through is intriguingly scientifictional. Trek is often all about "Earths gone wrong", and in this one, the European-and Asian-analogues were apparently hunted to extinction or otherwise subjugated, and different mindsets prevailed.
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Actually, this could have been a very good anti-racism story.

Even today many people believe black people didn't find civilization the way whites, Middle Easterners, and Asians did because they aren't as intelligent. The real reason is that civilization came with plant and animal domestication. When the advent of farming in the Middle East some ten thousand years ago, mankind became free of having to spend all of his time trying to find food, was able to use his mind to explore the world around him, and was able to sustain larger populations of people. Farming traveled very quickly to the east and to the west, but not far north and not far south. Why? Because the same plants with the same ideal growing conditions exist in the same latitudes. Travel a bit south, and you get a poorer growing season and plants which are much harder to domesticate. Africa by and large remained a continent of hunter gatherers simply because they had the misfortunate of being born in the wrong geographical location. It had nothing to do with their intellect, which was and is the same as any European or Asian.

In the scenario you suggest, the home planet of the Ligonians could be just like Earth, only the black Ligonians live in what would be our Eurasia. Make that one change, and it's black people who first domesticate plants and animals, and thus are the first to create a modern civilization.
 
JustKate said:
Terrible, terrible, terrible episode. Just awful. It would have been awful no matter the color of the aliens - that, for me, merely added to the overall terribleness - with a terrible script, stilted dialog, ridiculous plot, absurd fight scene, and silly sets. And it showed Denise Crosby, who might not be a great actress but who is better than this, at her worst.

It's really difficult to watch. I watched it again about a year ago, but I hope to never see it again.
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Couldn't have said it better myself. Just awful. Embarrassing! Putrid! Have been re-watching TNG and skipped over this one without a second thought.
 
It's not that bad. It's not boring, which makes it much better than Encounter at Farpoint, and it's before Wesley started saving the ship every week. Admittedly it may as well have been called Planet Sambo, but...it's not boring.
 
Racism aside, it was just a horrible episode.

But as it was with so many early Season 1 and 2 episodes, so it was with this one.
 
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