Revisiting Haven...

[AntonyF]

I've started to watch season one again.

Or as they'd say on Reddit:

So I've started to watch season one again.

This show will forever be my childhood comfort blanket but still... still to this day I pull out new meaning from episodes and scenes and all sorts. And most of it positive, not negative. However, I decided to tackle Haven in this thread.

I love the the bulk of it: Lwaxana, the mystery, etc. But the arranged marriage is starting to prickle.

Firstly, that the Federation allows arranged marriages. It seems deeply regressive. Betazed is allowed to be a member?

But then also the reaction. Troi is going to marry a human, but the human parents seem fine with this. Despite many episodes already saying how humanity has evolved.

And Picard is also not concerned at all. She's half human. Yet the moment she says she's giving up her career to go be his wife... Picard's like "okay bye".

I'm not criticising TNG because it is now approaching 40 years ago.. and progress in women's rights has evolved in the last 40 years, as it did in the 40 years before that. And in even in season one TNG has positive female portrayals. I'm not going to pull TNG over the coals.

But in the effort for people to throw themselves on the pyre of Code of Honor which still I don't think is terrible... we perhaps miss the other elephants in the room if are going to pick at these threads. Haven has some rather grim story elements.

Overall still a good episode, good mystery, Lwaxana is excellent... but with hindsight it would be a bit nicer if they were more objectionable to Troi being treated as marriage cattle.

 

[NCC-73515]

The Vulcans, founding members, arrange their kids' weddings
But I guess if Troi hadn't wanted to, no one could've forced her.

 

[Q'OrnamentalDeqor]

I've started to watch season one again.

Or as they'd say on Reddit:

So I've started to watch season one again.

LOL

This show will forever be my childhood comfort blanket but still... still to this day I pull out new meaning from episodes and scenes and all sorts. And most of it positive, not negative.

Not negative? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! You're supposed to loathe TNG1 and pretend only seasons 3-7 count!

However, I decided to tackle Haven in this thread.

Ah, the best mixed bag one out there...

I love the the bulk of it: Lwaxana, the mystery, etc.

The Tarellian subplot, IMHO, is shoehorned way too much, just in favor of:

But the arranged marriage

And that three-way triangle isn't the most compelling part of the story (IMHO, YMMV.)

is starting to prickle.

In our real world, numerous countries still practice the custom of arranged marriage. A few countries are claimed to be returning to the custom, according to some news outlet sources.

Firstly, that the Federation allows arranged marriages. It seems deeply regressive. Betazed is allowed to be a member?

Now there's a point about the Prime Directive that this episode could have explored, instead of just the Deanna/Wyatt/Bill* luuurve triangle there that didn't even get to Jerry Springer levels. Yeah, Lwaxana's introduction is easily the character who got the best in this episode...

* per spoken dialogue in the script, they really mean "Will", but it's either "early in the show's run", "using 'will' will cause a lot of line flubs requiring retakes, or "they don't want to confuse the audience given the permutations that Will will have... heck and hey cool, even my spellchecker just vomited over "Will will" there (twice, now), so there's that as well... maybe Data's head would melt in a logic loop paradox, or Lore... what's his phone number and I'll call him? ​

But then also the reaction. Troi is going to marry a human, but the human parents seem fine with this. Despite many episodes already saying how humanity has evolved.

This is where I wish this was "Farpoint" where Troi stands up and states decidedly regally up-nosedly how her father was "a Starfleet Officer"*. Heck, why wasn't this explored more as it's loosely hinted at via their "petty bickering" about doing the marriage in the n00d and all, which Data seemed most intrigued by and excitedly asks to hear more of... Tasha might get the credit for that... or extra credit... Actually, indirectly it might be as Lwaxana seems rightfully annoyed as we can only guess how much was compromised on with Lwaxana's parents, but it's all guesswork-induced inference. Tracy Torme might have come up with a cracking good story in later seasons to fill in some of these gaps had he stuck around...

* Sheesh, no wonder Azetbur throw a wobbly about "homo sapiens-only club" in TUC, since one could get the impression that the script likely meant to use "human" but that got fudged in rewrites or something and was left unaddressed. But it technically remains inconclusive, unless I'm forgetting a script that did reference her father's human origin directly.​

​

And Picard is also not concerned at all. She's half human. Yet the moment she says she's giving up her career to go be his wife... Picard's like "okay bye".

Prime Directive?

I'm not criticising TNG because it is now approaching 40 years ago.. and progress in women's rights has evolved in the last 40 years, as it did in the 40 years before that. And in even in season one TNG has positive female portrayals. I'm not going to pull TNG over the coals.

Being season one, some scripts were definitely bringing up issues but not having any preferred direction and ended up stumbling over themselves. "Angel One" comes to mind and what if they wanted to spare the sweeps week Prime Directive discussion for (shudders) "Justice"?.

But in the effort for people to throw themselves on the pyre of Code of Honor which still I don't think is terrible... we perhaps miss the other elephants in the room if are going to pick at these threads. Haven has some rather grim story elements.

Which made the basis for another allegory, already taken to an interesting if not tangential place for what little was given before they chucked it aside for the Deanna/Wyatt/Bill luuuuuuuuurve triangle. Throw in Picard who's probably mulling quietly about having to get a new counselor in, so it's now a four-way... back then, if they did the sort of nod and fourth wall-wink faff, they'd even shove in a lyric from ♪ Hip to be Square ♫ to top it all off with.

Overall still a good episode, good mystery, Lwaxana is excellent... but with hindsight it would be a bit nicer if they were more objectionable to Troi being treated as marriage cattle.

Picard was definitely trying to be diplomatic with a hands-off approach, from what I remember of this episode. But don't some say that season 1 is replete with characters acting haughty if not condescending as if they're better than the rest of the universe already*? ("Lonely Among Us" and "The Neutral Zone" have a couple of sweet moments, among others...) I do like how they don't go in either direction. It is what it is. The best we might be in DS9, with Sisko yelling at Worf over rather a different situation that oddly fits in under the same umbrella. Granted, imagining Picard yell at Deanna about how they're not on a Betazed ship and how she can't have her ritual in his galactic limousine might be amusing, but then again it might not.

* for which, such incidents would be ironic as humanity by this time period is supposed to be "enlightened" (amazing how much happened between TOS and TNG's ~80-year span for humans to become otherwise perfected?)​

 

[Mojochi]

It might be best to consider this less a forced marriage & more a culturally traditional arrangement. Neither of them ended up wanting to go through with it & ultimately neither are made to. Not all arranged marriages are legally binding and mandatory human trafficking. Some could be belief based practices, rooted in the cultural interpretation of what a marriage is.

It's just an important & a specific enough situation to them, that families are all involved in working it out, in many cases, for the benefit, and with the interest, consent, and participation of the two parties, because it makes the prospect of matrimonial endeavors a simpler one, and because their idea of what a marriage is, is such that they don't consider it an aquiecence of free will or agency. It's also not (necessarily) indicative of a gender disparity. It's just a means by which the institution is employed within communities to facilitate what is considered an important function of that culture, that's too critical to leave open to chance.

It's a practice that can be done ethically is my point, and in a system like the UFP, that respects cultural variance, it would surely find a place. As for this particular situation, while Lwaxana can be seemingly overbearing about things like this, Deanna seems to have been willing at one point, and that may have changed now, but her will in the matter doesn't appear to be bypassed.

 

[Starflight]

The marriage in "Haven" is easy to stomach IMO, there's no indication at all that Troi is being forced into anything. It seems like more of a weird aristocratic thing that both Wyatt and Troi could just negate at any time if they wanted; it's mostly a rather operatic, heightened reality way to set up Wyatt's revelation of "oh, I actually have a different soulmate who I've been dreaming of since childhood".

"Amok Time" and "The Perfect Mate" both uspet me far more - to this day, I have no idea why we're meant to demonise T'Pring for taking what appears to be the only way out of a forced marriage, especially given she's not the one who set up the dopey desert death arena system, nor did she force anyone to take part.

 

[Mojochi]

The marriage in "Haven" is easy to stomach IMO, there's no indication at all that Troi is being forced into anything. It seems like more of a weird aristocratic thing that both Wyatt and Troi could just negate at any time if they wanted; it's mostly a rather operatic, heightened reality way to set up Wyatt's revelation of "oh, I actually have a different soulmate who I've been dreaming of since childhood".

"Amok Time" and "The Perfect Mate" both uspet me far more - to this day, I have no idea why we're meant to demonise T'Pring for taking what appears to be the only way out of a forced marriage, especially given she's not the one who set up the dopey desert death arena system, nor did she force anyone to take part.

I think we're meant to be bothered by The Perfect Mate. Even they are, & ultimately it's a bloody mess anyhow, that doesn't go according to the stupid tradition at all, the "husband" DGAF, Picard screws up whatever bonding crap was supposed to have taken place, the guy trafficking her is played out as something of a pervy joke, in the end, which sort of makes me glad he got f*cked up, in what was basically a shakedown by criminals treating him like he's a peer.

And in a weird way, after all that, Kamala is choosing to martyr herself for the best interest of peace for her people. So, her agency is actually accounted for, in an ass-backwards kind of way lol

Amok Time OTOH... Yeah, well that's just awful, top to bottom, with a fair amount of stupidity sprinkled in, for good measure