How 'Pen Pals' sucks - let me count the ways...
- Thread starter DostoyevskyClone
- Start date
The Prime Directive, as generally depicted in TNG, was used to exclude the 'have nots' from the help of the 'haves'. IOW, if you didn't have warp technology (or some resource important to the Federation) and your planet faced catastrophe, you were out of luck. But, if you had warp capability and were a member of the Federation (or at least somehow of interest to the Federation) you had all its resources at your disposal in times of need.
Saving this civilization from destruction should have been no more a violation of the PD than introducing yourself to a culture with, or on the verge of, interstellar space flight. We know the Federation commonly does this.
If the Federation were serious about the PD each world would isolate itself from others, in order to minimize cross cultural contamination. Yet Starfleet and the Federation has, as one of its basic functions, a mandate to 'seek out new worlds, and new civilizations'. But I guess your civilization is only interesting if you have technology or resources the Federation can take advantage of. It seems that in TNG, helping a 'backwards' world just for the sake of its future is too much like working without a paycheck.
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One way I like to think of it is: "If a civilization doesn't know about aliens and doesn't have space flight, don't tell them."
Any hint as to the truth would contaminate the culture and keep them from developing as they normally would have. But once they figure out interstellar travel, they'd find out anyway, so drop by and say hi and offer them membership.
Any hint as to the truth would contaminate the culture and keep them from developing as they normally would have. But once they figure out interstellar travel, they'd find out anyway, so drop by and say hi and offer them membership.
This just seems so arbitrary. If they find us, we're glad to interact with them and affect their future. If they can't find us, we pretend they don't exist. (That is, unless they have resources we find of value, in which case we contact them and interact with them anyway.)
Oh, you could preserve their culture. Just form a blockade around their system and destroy any ships that wander out into the cosmos. Eventually they'll give up trying, and get around to minding their own business again. But then, preventing them from discovering the larger galactic community is interfering too, so you really just can't win.
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The spirit of the PD, as I always saw it, was "Don't be an imperialist neocolonial dickhead."
Preventing widescale death and destruction only falls under that category if you use it as an excuse to make them swear allegiance and replace their rightful government with a puppet government of your own.
Preventing widescale death and destruction only falls under that category if you use it as an excuse to make them swear allegiance and replace their rightful government with a puppet government of your own.
Not even close. 5 worse eps off the top of my head:
Up the Long Ladder
Shades of Grey
Sub Rosa
Night Terrors
Code of Honor
I think I could name five more if I really thought about it.
Up the Long Ladder
Shades of Grey
Sub Rosa
Night Terrors
Code of Honor
I think I could name five more if I really thought about it.
My five (in no paticular order).
Up the Long Ladder
Sub Rosa
Too Short a Season
Masks
Shades of FUCKING Gray.
(that one IS number one!)
Up the Long Ladder
Sub Rosa
Too Short a Season
Masks
Shades of FUCKING Gray.
(that one IS number one!)
Why? I think its agreed that Data was to become more human as the series progressed...that was the goal. In future episodes, he sided with sentient robots over his crewmates! His experience in Measure of a Man obviously affected him deeply. If anything, Pen Pals and other episodes show just how strong his positronic brain was in influencing his sense of justice and right and wrong. Even in ST:Insurrection, the conflict with the mission caused him to go "crazy".
RAMA
I think that the Prime Directive was open to debate here, since its interpretation had clearly changed since the time of TOS. It was actually the Enterprise's mission to try to save a primitive planet from a natural disaster in "The Paradise Syndrome".
I thought Pen Pals was pretty cute. Not my favorite, but definitely NOT one of the worst.
To comment on some of the "worst" episodes mentioned here, I happen to like all the Lwaxana Troi episodes.
AND I liked Justice (it's just so hilariously awkward!)
Also, I kinda liked Masks and Genesis.
I've yet to see Shades of Grey. From what I've been hearing, I'm not particularly looking forward to watching it when I get to that point in the series (watching it all from beginning to end in sequence).
To comment on some of the "worst" episodes mentioned here, I happen to like all the Lwaxana Troi episodes.
AND I liked Justice (it's just so hilariously awkward!)Also, I kinda liked Masks and Genesis.
I've yet to see Shades of Grey. From what I've been hearing, I'm not particularly looking forward to watching it when I get to that point in the series (watching it all from beginning to end in sequence).
I like the Prime Directive conference in "Pen Pals," but the rest of the episode is pretty much Data acting way out of character. I also hate the look of Sarjenka, so that brings it down a few notches as well. In the future, I will watch only the PD scene and nothing else from this episode.
Perhaps that's what made this series great...there was something for everyone, and we all liked it enough to stick around when it did something that wasn't our cup of tea.
RAMA, you realize you responded to a 6-month old post?
Splatter said:
One of the five worst? Not by a long shot in my opinion. I can think of five from the first season alone that are worse than this one. While it wasn't that great, it also wasn't nearly bad enough to be in the five worst list.
Just my two cents.
Really? I can't think of any, Pen Pals is one of the lame S2 episodes which were numerous, S1 was the most Treklike of the TNG
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