I attributed it to the Riker is Kirk, so Riker has to be the one to maintain his composure thing....At this point, most fans were rooting for Picard to die so Riker could be captain.....
So, Q is a pervert? That would explain why TNG Enterprise has so many kids. I wouldn't be surprised if Dana went with it since her alien-half are blatant succubus's.
You know, that was my first wait-a-minute with this ep? For some reason, I was just going along with everything else, and then that, out of the blue. She did everything she could to avoid the rape gangs on her planet, with obviously less than stellar success based on the next line, of wanting a 'gentle' experience...I mean, yeah, that's just a cover for wanting to be loved for who she is, but with that blip of backstory, it also makes us realize that even her subconscious is programmed to survive any sexual experience. And ouch.
The easiest way to explain why Riker doesn’t seem affected by the drunk horny virus is that, he acts like that anyway all the time. You can’t remove the filter of someone who doesn’t have one.
I do love the hand waving of Data contracting a disease: Picard: You can't get sick, Tin Man, you've got no organs n' stuff. Data: Don't be racist, you bald git. I've got arms and legs, what more do you want? My question is, if Data was affected, why didn't the ship's computer get all horny?
Data said later he ingests semi-organic fluid that acts as a lubricant for his insides. Maybe that is what got "sick", kind of like those gel-pack things on Voyager that kept getting infected with stuff.
@@ZeoViolet Well yeah, but that doesn't explain why he'd have metabolites, or be susceptible to hormonal depressants, sedatives and euphoriants. He's not a people he's a robot.
@@AndrewD8Red Data's original backstory is not the one they eventually decided on. His original backstory was that he was built by aliens and indeed did have some biological components, so that he'd need to eat and take care of himself to some degree in order to stay functional. I don't remember why they chose to alter his backstory to being created by a human Khan Noonian Soong. But it shows that Spiner was acting on the thought that if he had biological components to him, it certainly was enough to make him susceptible to illness...or being drunk. An alternate in-universe explanation is that the virus was at least partially silicon-based (Riker and Deanna's son was killed by a silicon-based virus) and could thus infect Data as well as humans. Danged crazy adaptable virus!
if you liked tasha and read books i recommend you find and read the star trek tng book survivors number 4 in the old series. it really gets into her past and has a very touching beginning and ending involving data.
100% true story. Denise Crosby was the GOH at a con I went to. At one point I was near her autograph table and some other congoers came up and said their friend really loved her but couldn't be there and would she please talk on the phone to them. I don't know any of the conversation save for one line I heard Crosby say: "Yes, *fully* functional. I've had *blenders* that weren't as good."
My son loves Lower Decks, so he told me he's going to watch TNG from start to finish. He just made through half of "Code of Honor" before texting me a screenshot and "WTF!?", and then giving up.
I'd probably encourage him to try to be a little more patient with it and continue. Season one can be a bit of a slog at times, but there's still some decent content there, like the episode with the Binars, The Big Goodbye (Dixon Hill holodeck episode), Where No One Has Gone Before, and Conspiracy. IMO you're in a better position to appreciate episodes from later on in the series if you take the time to see how it evolved from its humble, at times cringy, beginnings. Plus, he might better understand all of the TNG jokes/references from Lower Decks.
@@kaitlyn__L "Code of Honor" is widely regarded as the worst episode of _TNG._ Given that _that_ was a Yar-focused episode, is it any wonder Denise Crosby noped out before the end of the season?
I'm glad I get to escape the rigors of daily life for a bit and reminisce about one of my favorite TV shows, like the episode where an infectious contagion is spreading and no one seems at all interested in bothering to even do the bare minimum to contain the spread of-oh...
It's definitely hard to believe that TNG survived past its first season. It's a very, VERY difficult re-watch in this day and age. The 80's were wild, man.
We have sexbots now, why wouldn’t we have them in the future. What if upon visiting the Klingons for the first time we needed a crew member to for some reason engage in the sexy times. Klingons are rough as hell and could easily kill a human, so naturally a 100% life like robot would be the best choice.
Fun fact: Jim Shimoda here became something of a meme on the comedy Star Trek recap podcast, Greatest Generation. Each episode, the hosts award the Drunk Shimoda to the character or person doing the most insane shit or having the most fun being Extra
I love that the original was about bringing everyone's true inner selves to the surface, and in TNG that meant Wesley craving power and everyone else being horny on main.
Later it’s explained you have to enter a personal code before the controls will respond. The episode where the kid feels guilty cause he thinks he’s responsible for killing another starship full of people.
I had no idea that the Naked Time was such a serious character focused episode, I thought it was "everyone gets magically drunk and fucks around", probably because of the shirtless sulu scenes. Thank for correcting this impression and dunking on the silly TNG version!
I've said it before and firmly believe that had Roddenberry not died, Star Trek would have instead. He was doing everything possible to wreck it by the end with his whacko ideas.
Gene: "Star Trek will inspire viewers with it's optimistic future where people of different races come together and peacefully explore space!" Also Gene: "I want the Ferengi costumes to have huge codpieces to show how hung they all are"
Ah yes, what better way to launch a new show and establish it as it's own entity than by having the first normal episode be a remake of a TOS episode. That will surely stop fans compairing the two.
@@Djarra Jesus, talk about going from the frying pan to the fire! I was 1 when the show started and I never saw Code till the dvd so maybe 90's BBC2 took one look and didn't air it!
Honest to God, I would buy DVD’s of you ripping on the entirety of TNG Seasons 1 and 2, along with whatever else rustles you from across the franchise. Your commentary is just gold 😂
Nurse Chapel in TOS: Gives a heart wrenching declaration of a love to a man she knows can never love her back, causing both of them to break down in tears. Every woman in TNG: GIMME THE D!!! It's like the writers (cough GENE cough) just wanted to push their preferred pairings on the shippers. Picard and Crusher, Riker and Troi and... _Tasha and Data?!_ For the love of the Q Continuum, _why?_ To make Troi/Worf seem less absurd by comparison?
Had Tasha stuck around, and perhaps had the producers stuck with their original ideas for Data's backstory (had organic components; built by aliens; not humans), I don't have much of a problem figuring that Data and Yar could work out a real relationship between themselves.
As badly written as the episode is, I have to admire how much effort the cast put in to make it work. Denise Crosby is doing her damnedest to make Tasha Yar's "drunk" escapade sexy and funny but also sad in a "Oh, so that's what her childhood was like" sense. It almost works -- and might have if they'd re-written the scene to be more than comedy fan service. Brent Spiner is likewise doing his best to make Data's response to Yar's seduction make sense for his character. They kind of salvage it in later seasons by establishing that the incident was meaningful to Data and he carries a torch for Yar from that point forward.
If I had a nickel for every time a science fiction spin-off series decided that the best way to establish itself as just a strong an entity as its parent show was by doing a second episode in which everyone gets really horny from a weird alien pathogen, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. It was Torchwood by the way. Torchwood did this too, to the surprise of absolutely no one who knows even the slightest bit about Torchwood. Damn Torchwood season 1, so damn horny.
I thought you were going to say Stargate SG1. This doesn't happen until episode 5 of season 1, and it's a spin off of a movie instead of a show. If you expanded to just: 'an episode in which everyone gets really horny from a weird alien pathogen' you would probably have a lot of nickels.
OK, that was the one I was thinking of, with the succubus cloud. There were at least 4 or 5 other things in that season I was thinking it might’ve been, heh
See the reason this episode was so bad was because it was one of the few episodes that did not contain fan favourite Groppler Zorn. Groppler Zorn would have resolved this matter far more sensibly and efficiently with his catch phrase "It's gropplering time". Truly when watching this episode I was constantly wondering "where is Groppler Zorn?", "Why is Groppler Zorn not in this episode?". Years later re-watching the episode my son asked "Daddy where is Groppler Zorn?" and I had to sadly tell him "Sorry Groppy (We call him Groppy for short as he is of course named after Groppler Zorn) but Groppler Zorn is just not in this episode." Naturally Groppler was very sad that his name sake and favourite character, Groppler Zorn, was not in The Naked Now. Truly not including Groppler Zorn in The Naked Now was a gross misstep and this episode desperately needed more Groppler Zorn.
Thanks to this contryversy the grew had to scrap the next episode so they could add Zorn, but since they scaraped the next the episode they had to write and make the next episode in a week. This is why Code of Zorn was so bad they had to make it in a week so they could add Zorn in the episode
So...I thought that Sex scene was terrible as it was but hearing Yarr talking about her past before it made me cringe so hard that if cringed harder I'd be flying out of my skin
So... is Riker just Space Mitch Von Malibu? Because... that's not wrong... "Replicator, make me some Space Burgers and A&W Cream Soda! My Space Save!!"
I want to bring up that the research vessel was called the Tsiolkovsky and according to its dedication plaque, it was built in the USSR implying that the Soviet Union still existed in the 24th century.
i just burst out laughing at the part when the will wheaton quote showed up with the picture of him looking uncomfortable wearing that clown shirt. this is one of many examples why your trek reviews are top tier! keep it up 😎
The biggest problem with this story is that it's the SECOND episode in the series. The actors barely know or understand their characters and they're asked to act wildly out of character. If this episode was made mid-season, I think it would have been much more enjoyable, maybe ever offer some interesting insight in the cast with their inhibitions gone.
As I recall there was a writer's strike so they had to use recycled scripts? And this was originally one of the ones from the cancelled TOS Phase Two thing? Which explains a bit why it is like it is.
second made not second aired. i wish it was the second aired because my first episode was the second aired which was the really boring episode where tasha is kidnapped.
Tasha's backstory always confused me. Having a Mad Max planet exclusively to give her a dark and gritty backstory just seemed super out of place with Roddenberry's constantly sermonizing to us about how totally awesome and evolved humanity is in his future. It was kinda jarring to hear so much about rape gangs from an otherwise pretty antiseptic family show. Also, is "The Naked Now" basically a dubious consent fanfic?
It came off as a young teen trying to write a gritty back story. Because everyone knows the only good reason for multiple men to group together in a lawless land is to overpower an isolated, terrified woman. Literally no other good reasons. Theft? Better off done alone, who needs helpers? But taking off a 115lb person's clothing, basically impossible without 5 other guys.
Later on they try to square this by saying it's a planet that left the Federation then fell apart. Either that or they were a pre-Federation space colony. Can't remember.
The part of humanity that belongs to the Federation is super evolved, yes. But remember, the universe is full of weird backwater colonies. Remember that Enterprise episodes with the colonists who don't want any help from 'dem fancy Earthers?
It's a weird one, basically Tasha blurted out stuff a couple of times and we got to see the place after she died. Although apparently the original intent was to have her be more traumatised and more of loose cannon because of having to grow up like that. Which they basically recycled into Ro, which led to the whole Bajoran arc (Kira also talks about avoided being raped as a child). In the original series bible Tasha had the most in-depth character biography! I think this is possibly why writers were put off writing for her so they wrote for Worf who's bio was one sentence. The other thing is Crusher also came from a failed colony, albeit one where people died of plague. Her grandmother (yes that one) treated the sick and raised Beverly after her parents died of it. This is in one S1 episode and sort of alluded to in the one with the ghost.
I love your Star Trek videos. I particularly enjoyed the bit of Riker butt dialing everything on the Enterprise. I hope we see more in the future, especially for TOS and TNG.
DC Fontana is such a massively underrated talent in the realm of science fiction. That she only wrote 1 Trek book is LUDICROUS for how much she did for that entire franchise. I seriously can never pin down who the early TNG seasons were FOR: you have these incredibly sexualized, often violent episodes, but the overall tone is like they're condescending to a child.
I think the best thing to come out of this episode was a video I saw at a con in like 1988 or so, where someone had patched together matching clips from BOTH episodes so a Next Gen character would "answer" a TOS one, etc.--ending with a bit where Crusher being like "I've GOT it!" cuts directly to the Enterprise exploding. XD To top it off, this was at the end of the at the time NEW Next Gen blooper reel...and said bloopers were introduced to us by Nurse Chapel/Lwaxana Troi herself, Majel Barrett. :) (Also an actual blooper from that episode I remember: When Wesley is trying to push the other ship into the collapsing star thingy, Wil Wheaton goes: "Reverse the field generator...screw up your line..." while continuing to hit the buttons. Lol.)
"How did Gene Roddenberry create Star Trek?" I presume the same way George Lucas created Star Wars - by surrounding himself with much more talented people, then taking all their credit.
@@charleshetrick3152 Because they couldn't get a word in edgewise. Gene was notoriously tyrannical in the TNG writer's room, throwing out pages and pages of scripts and rewriting them himself (or giving them to his lawyer, who wasn't part of the WGA, meaning most of the Season 1 and 2 rewrites were illegal under Hollywood union law). He was drunk on his own ego and slowly losing control of his mental faculties; there are multiple horror stories of veteran Star Trek writers quitting TNG in tears because Gene was utterly impossible to work for. The instant he became too sick to work and had to be replaced as showrunner, the show suddenly got a million times better. It's crass to say, I know, but Star Trek really needed to lose Gene Roddenberry in order to become good again.
@@jbwarner8626 I mean that's the man who vetoed drama between members of the crew and insisted for the Federation to be perfect to the point he made the main characters obnoxious.
I think Data having the ability to have sex makes sense when looked at from the standpoint of, "Fitting in, being able to form connections he chooses to form", stuff like that. He could probably easily go his entire existence without needing it, but I guess if he did DESIRE to have a physical relationship with someone, Singh wanted Data to have the option to.
The first time I watched this episode I couldn't figure out why anyone would ever take an ice cold shower. Then I saw the scene where Denise Crosby wore that midriff-baring outfit and I was like, OK now I get it.
It's been nine months since this review first got posted and the line "I learned to survive and avoid the RAP GANGS" still makes me go "WHAT!" on rewatch.
I love how they talk about Data being extremely near to a human and about ten episodes later we see Lore disassembled into mannequin parts, y'know something that's very close to human physiology.
You could make the point that with everyone being so wooden and unpleasant in season 1, Data is the person closest to a human being on the Enterprise at this point.
But they also have a few episodes pointing out how Data is basically just a human but better in every way. Imagine if you could take off a broken arm, get a loaner for a few days, and then get it back good as new. Technically speaking we do literally take people apart and occasionally even put them back together. Sometimes with robot parts
I also love in this episode how you can clearly see one of the "dead" men breathing. It's the one with Geordie... you have it around 9:07 You can clearly see his chest moving...
Ahhh, poor Tasha Yar. They did you dirty. Great review! I uh, I remember this episode when I see it come up but it seems to quickly flee my memory the second I don’t have to watch it.
There's a really interesting note in Yarrs choosing to go to Data as well, because it's an interesting character note for her to want to go to a robot for sex if she's escaped rape in the past. If something goes wrong, she might assume there's a way to end the process like one would with a computer--this is a being that she might, either consciously or unconsciously, control completely if she needs to. It's also tragic for Data to be used in that way, if that were to be the intention, because it's another example of people treating him as less than a person.
Or maybe it's because Data is the most trustworthy person on the Enterprise. He respects people's boundaries. Wouldn't hurt anyone because his ethics wouldn't allow it. She simply trusted him enough to share her bed with him - I'd say that's a high praise from someone who's escaped rape as you mentioned.
@@Mia199603 i think she also knows that data is someone who if asked to be gentle will be gentle- like, even a kind person might change gears in the act, without intending to do harm, but data will not lose himself that way
@@thomasstone3480 great point, I mentioned Data respected boundaries but you're right that just because a human is passionate doesn't mean they're rapey or something like that, and passion is of course unavailable to Data. I kinda had a mental shortcut there "respects boundaries=doesn't lose control" and didn't think about it deep enough but it was unfair to humans so thanks for adding this
11:47 It probably wasn't that weird to him, I presume that's most people's reaction to spending that much time around "Shut up" Wesley Crusher. No wonder Picard wanted to let him die for crushing those plants.
i really hated how picard and beverly treats wesley in the episode data lore. they both say shut up wesley for no good reason. it felt like the cliche of making adults out of character stupid to make sure the story happens.
You mentioned Groppler Zorn, meaning that now Groppler Zorn has been mentioned in more Allison pregler videos (2) than star trek episodes (1) twice as many, in fact. incredible.
Tasha intentionally oiled her hair and combed it back to look like Data's hair as if she were trying to specifically attract him. Picard makes that noise when it is insinuated that Beverly touched him physically in a rather intimate way.
It was years after I saw the episode that I realized how weird it is that Data felt a special connection with Yar over what she viewed as a terrible and embarrassing mistake.
She kinda forced herself onto the one person she knew would never, _ever_ put up any sort of violence against her under any circumstances. Failing that, you have to remember the virus removed inhibitions, just like drunkenness. She wants Data but would never dream of even admitting it to herself? Strip away all inhibitions and she jumpes his screws at the first chance she gets. (And why would she want him? Once again, the one person she knows that would never, EVER, no matter how drunk he got, hurt her. It is related to her terrible background with the rape gangs and the trauma she never got rid of. To make love with someone without the risk of knowing pain.) As for Data, she introduced him to something he realized was special, should only really be done with someone you feel is special, and she told him details about herself she probably would never have dreamed of telling anyone else so casually. She chose him to (figuratively speaking) bare herself to, and he cherished that idea for the rest of his life.
At least it's not "Code of Honor." EDIT: The episode featured, I mean. Just in case y'all think we've reached the depths of how Tasha's sexuality is written, wait and see how she reacts to getting kidnapped and forced to fight a guy's wife to be his new bride!
Since this episode was such a banger the writer (who was a woman mind you), redid the episode on Stargate SG1. It's called "emancipation" and it's just as horrifying.
@@xiamei704 I remember the episode script being a problem, but it's pretty much universally agreed that "Code of Honor" is as awful as it is thanks to the director deciding to portray the aliens as 1940s African people. The director got fired by Gene for how awful a job he did. And when late-career Gene Roddenberry thinks you're doing a bad job, you need to rethink your artist decisions.
Yeah that frozen scene kind of reminds me a lot of when MacCready from John Carpenter's The Thing when they found the Norwegian camp all destroyed. And the one guy to keep the Thing from getting to him offed himself and of course he's now frozen. In a grotesque way.
Conspiracy time: I think Wesley was meant to be cast much younger like Dawn from BTVS was. I don't buy that a older teen would make a voice synthesizer of the captain, Irrc there where scenes in the pilot and other early episodes where Wesley didn't act his age.
I never thought about it, but there is something amusing about an episode called "the naked time" that is balanced around people showering in their clothes.
My goodness. You were right about Roddenhorny. It's a minor miracle the show was able to get back on track after this, the second episode. It was beyond shameful, not only from a moral view, but from a writer's view as well. While it does not have the absurd spectacle of a show that was Sub Rosa, it was worse than bad. It does the entire setting an extreme discredit. It looks like all the old stories about Roddenhorny and the casting couch may have been true- much to the detriment of his memory. Thank you for calling out this horrid piece of waste- it's sad the actors and D.C. Fontana actually had to deal with this.
From reading various Trek things over the years, one of the conclusions I've come to is that Gene Roddenberry needed someone to tell him when to give it a rest on the horny stuff. Like, he did have other stuff going on up there, really! It's just, when he's the person in charge, nobody tells him to focus more on the other stuff. A really good example is the novelization of Star Trek The Motion Picture, which goes into a lot of interesting scifi stuff that the series as a whole never really does, but also opens with a line about how Kirk is named James after his mom's first 'love teacher' and has a whole bit making sure you know everyone got a boner the first time Ilia walked onto the bridge because Deltan pheromones or whatever. The point he'd have written that, and TNG season 1 are the times that he has the most control over Star Trek, and it shows that nobody is really there to tell him 'like, maybe don't do that.' And because of all the times his precious baby has been taken from him, by the time TNG did roll around, he wanted that complete control, and until his health really started to decline, nobody was going to take it from him. Dude probably needed to be seeing like, multiple therapists.
There's also the fact that when createing the Ferengi, he went into extensive detail on their junk and codpieces until the other writers reminded him that kids were gonna watch the show alongside their parents
The things I like about this channel: Baywatching Star Trekking Scott Bakula Movie nights And the fact that this is better than almost every channel on cable. I mean seriously I have 200 channels and I only watch 1. Keep up the great work!
These are honestly the best Star Trek episode reviews on RU-vid! So many of them are so stilted and oriented towards super fans. Your reviews are funny and informative and take approach these episodes from a comedic yet informed position. One that the majority of Trek watchers would have. PLEASE make many many MANY more of these! Also the Dutch Angles! THE DUTCH ANGLES!!!
