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Star Trek's Most RACIST Episode (Code of Honor)
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- It's incredible that this Next Gen episode was even made.
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The behind the scenes making of this episode is completely insane. In an interview with Denise Crosby she claimed that the studio was being so cheap they had no safety checks at all. Karole Selmon, the actress playing Yareena, ended up in the hospital from shredding her hand apart when grabbing on the neon lights on the jungle gym and it exploded. Turns out those goofy neon lights actually were extremely dangerous.
What the fuck?? That IS insane!
how does it get like fractally worse lmao, a new facet of awful every time you look like how is that even possible
@@masync183 The making of Season 1 is so wild in general. What's hilarious is despite how awful the entire season is we actually probably got the best possible versions for many of these episodes. So many of the original scripts and ideas that were cut were actually much worse. If Gene Roddenberry and a lot of people involved all actually got their way, a lot of these episodes would probably be even worse than they already are which is just amazing.
@@UndyingNephalim I’ll never get over the fact he wanted Troi to have a giant dick tbh
@@UndyingNephalim A small sample of Gene Roddenberry's many unused ideas for Season 1:
- Troi should have three breasts
- The Ferengi should have humongous dick bulges
- The Edo planet from "Justice" should have naked orgies happening in the background in every scene
People ask why Season 1 was so nuts. It's because the guy in charge was legitimately going insane.
"Your favorite characters!"
*shows the tar monster*
"your favorite characters!" obviously not tasha yar
@@doyleharken3477 oof
Hope he never has babies😶🌫️
Tar killed Yar
@@ELEKTROSKANSEN I hope the antagonist's first wife doesn't run into a tareena monster
"Yeah, sure, let's have Wesley sit at ops right now, why the fuck not?" summarizes a lot of Season 1 episodes.
They haven't even met the Traveller yet. Picard probably just wants to get into Dr. Crusher's pants.
Season 1 Data is arguably even worse than Wesley, so sticking them next to each other right up front where their inane banter won't bother anyone else on the bridge is a minor example of Picard's tactical brilliance.
He is the smartest person in the show. FYI
This episode was written by the same woman, Katharyn Powers, who wrote SG-1's godawful 'Emancipation'. And, WOULDN'T YA KNOW IT, that episode also features the main woman of the cast being kidnapped, forced into a subservient role, and then having to fight to earn back her freedom.
Yes, I entirely believe this is a good ol' case of 'The Writer's Barely Disguised Fetish' at play. The whole thing with the casting choices just kind of distracts from it in this case.
I bet she read Gor.
I'll never understand putting a fetish in an episode of some scifi show and not writing a dirty book about it and making a billion dollars.
Did the SG-1 episode also feature the woman in question being very clearly into it, though? Because that would move it from "barely disguised" to "not really disguised at all", I think
@@Bakecrusto Nah, although Carter was kidnapped (like Yar), and 'forced' (traded by her kidnapper) to be the wife of the leader (like Yar), by a race of people (like Yar, but specifically Mongols), Carter isnt doing the "Yes he's attractive, but"-lines. Shes very clearly pissed, and held against her will. Its still a terrible episode though.
@@BakecrustoThankfully no, its clear Carter wants to sock the guy at the bare minimum, or pump him full of lead at most
The guy who said Code of Honor was his favorite episode *had* to be thinking of some Klingon episode and was just confused about the title, right? Right?
He was probably an actor reading a script, but season two’s “a matter of honor” was a good episode so maybe he was thinking of that.
Just some schmuck paid to read a line. You could get him excited about a carton of milk.
By looking at the US VHS release schedule of TNG.. the first releases of TNG was on September 5, 1991 and consisted of 3 episodes of Season 1 "Encounter at Farpoint, The Naked Now and Code of Honor" each on their own tape. The next batch of episodes from Season 1 which was 4-7 and didn't release until April 1, 1992 and then followed by 8-13 on July 1, 1992. With this information from memory-alpha I must conclude that when this commercial aired, there was only 3 episodes available on home video.. and that he said that because that was in the script.. because there is no way that was his favorite episode even among those 3. They likely anticipated bad sales of the Code of Honor tape due to that episode being terrible and had him say that to boost sales of that tape.
I think so. For me honor in title equals Klingons.
Hell, might have been thinking of Heart of Glory, which wasn't great but it was still better than this!
How did I ever miss "Yar" and "Yareena"? 😆😆😆
yeah this is the first time i realized their names are similar, though to be fair, theres a lot going on in this episode
Me too, though I think in the episode the A in Yareena is pronounced with a schwa rather than a far-vowel so it’s less obvious to the ear than the eye?
I didn't notice that before either ... but now i'm going to assume Lutan wasn't interested in Tasha because she impressed him, but because her surname was similar to Yareena ... he chooses his women based on the name. The next one would have been Y, to make it even easier.
To be fair, you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today. First off, it's already been made, so why make it again? And secondly, most of the cast and crew are either very old or dead by now, so it just wouldn't be as good. I don't see any studio in their right mind backing that project honestly.
Haha. I enjoyed that.
That would be actual reasons why wouldn't work today, not because it was supposedly "problematic."
@@ExtremeMadnessX It's funny that this is their go-to for something that couldn't get made today because everyone's too damn PC, because Brooks was acutely aware of the fine line he was walking and _constantly_ checked in with co-writer Richard Pryor and star Cleavon Little to check he was being the right kind of offensive. Meaning that their champion of un-PC humour actually had diversity consultants continually checking his work.
"I don't see why we can't get Gene Wilder. He'd be perfect for the role!"
"I keep telling you, he's 91, and he's dead."
"Granted, but..."
It'd probably be easier to get the pitch greenlit now than it was at the time tbh. The studio almost cancelled it, but realized they had a commitment to their theaters and nothing to replace it with.
I'm picturing the actress who plays Yareena getting really excited at landing a role on Star Trek, thinking she's going to follow in Nichelle Nichols's footsteps, only to then read the episode script and go, "...oh."
On the plus side, at least she didn't have to sleep with Gene Roddenberry.
Have you seen the interview with her??? She is proud of the episode! 😊
“Let’s get away from the All Black Planet, Number One and set course for the All Hot White Blondes Planet. I hope no one steps on the grass and gets sentenced to death.”
Season 1 TNG was something else. At least they got their shit together before they got to the All Asian Planet.
Now you mention it, I am kind of disappointed there wasn't one!
Ah yes the episode where we learnt that going down to a pre warp planet to bang the locals doesn't violate the prime directive but trying to save the life of a child does.
Didn’t stop them from hitting the All Irish Planet tho
The all asian planet played by all chinese american actors, the plot is that the highly addictive game got sent there and now all the people are addicted to it! (actually they had an episode that commented on that but with white people.)
@@Cdr2002 and Fighting Rapey Ghosts!
With all this misogyny and racism, this almost could've been an episode of Charmed 😅
Ain't that true.
Bad optics already when your "Aliens but Black" visitors have to beam into the cargo bay for some reason when everyone else has come through the transporter room....
They needed the wide space to roll out that silly carpet. The whole episode was a silly Looney Tunes cartoon complete with the stereotypical foreign villain of the week. One expected bugs bunny to show up and do an impression.
That's because they didn't have room. Strange zoomer
serious question, because i don't remember....did they use the transporter room in the pilot and the first episode? if not, maybe the set wasn't ready yet?
@@AndDiracisHisProphet They did have two transporter room scenes, the first when Riker beamed up to the Enterprise (stardrive section) and also when they beamed over to the alien "ship" that was firing on the planet in the pilot episode.
Think of it as a planet conquered by muslims than suddenly its culturally accurate still today
This episode's page on TV Tropes once said that, if Worf had been in this episode, he would have swiftly deflated Lutan's pretenses of honor, and then Lutan himself promptly afterwards.
Sadly, that remark has since been deleted from the page.
TV tropes simultaneously wants to appear snarky and smart and doesn’t let anyone have any actual fun
I, too, remember when that site was worth reading. Like, 12-15 years ago
@@kaitlyn__L lmao real. It’s gotten this pretentious smug aura in the past few years that I just can’t stand
@@Cdr2002 plus, actual thematic or storytelling construction analysis is thrown out of the window in favour of (checks notes) listing every plot beat, even throwaway moments, with no real analysis anymore. What happened, man
@@kaitlyn__L “what if we were just Wikipedia but annoying”
Oh my God, 'My favorite.. code of honor!' made me shoot soda out of my nose.
You have to wonder what that guys doing now.
He has completely dead eyes when he says it.
@@supremefenix974 Senator?
I wonder how he feels knowing how much this episode is hated so much by most or better yet if he's watching this CZcams episode 😅.
You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today. Sadly, Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are dead.
My favorite variation of this is "You can't make Blazing Saddles today... because it was already made in 70s".
13:48 Did ya notice that when Data tries to tell a joke Geordi tries to run out of the room WITHOUT HIS VISOR?
I remember I was watching TNG for the first time with my dad when I was 12. And before this episode played he sat me down and said “Now, this next episode is extremely racist.” Keep in mind, he’s the whitest guy I know. Born and raised in rural Missouri. And even he knew this episode was messed up.
Sometimes kids need a disclaimer before they watch something. Your dad is awesome for doing that.
You had a great father
My 1 year old son sat me down before this episode and said why is the orange man trying to deport us, isn’t it time for our first female president? Out of the mouth of babes 🥹🥹🥹😍
Considering how hated this episode was, I will never understand how the same writer was responsible for an uncomfortably similar episode of Stargate SG-1 a decade later.
An episode so bad that they skip it in Syndication reruns
Name another episode she did, that wasn't TNG or SG1. Have to look it up? Yeah, exactly. This episode is her legacy, and the racist elements everyone remember, was allegedly other people's idea. So I get why she wanted a due over, just to prove that she could do it better, which she did. Better doesn’t equal good.
@@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithmWould Code of Honour really have been better if it was an all-Asian planet instead? Because that's what the do-over did.
What happened in SG-1?
@@ExtremeMadnessX It was their second episode and it was *baaaaad*. It's where the Carter reproductive organ speech came from, which they would parody not once, not twice, but three times in later season episodes. Major props to Amanda Tapping.. she was trying not to say anything for fear of being fired but she begged them for more creative input to avoid ever saying something that cringe inducing again and the writers gave her veto powers. Tapping is awesome.
Captain Picard is an archaeologist, yet he gets the wrong century for a Chinese dynasty...that upsets me more than the racism somehow...
modern ones do it ALL the time.
I'm a little surprised Picard didn't command Mr Data to never make him look stupid in front of foreign dignitaries ever again.
I’m sorry to get on your ass but when people say “that makes me more upset than the racism” in reaction to something like this I just think of the Community “you can excuse racism?!” Bit. I get you’re joking but it’s a weird joke to make and always makes me kind of uncomfortable as a person of color
And the Enterprise is just randomly carrying around a 1000+ year old Chinese relic and giving it out to aliens?
@@thunderphoenix440 They probably used a replicator, thinking they'd never know. 😀
Groppler Zorn regrets this episode. You might say he Groppler Mourns it.
I'll show myself out.
Absolutely no element of the episode works on any level. It's almost impressive in its badness. The actors look confused; the plot is nonsensical; the costuming is atrocious; the shot selection is as boring as ever... wow. Just wow.
like much of season 1, it's not a good episode, but the "racism" claim is ludicrous. They gave the same treatment to "backwards" white aliens in other episodes.
You forgot to say the dialogue is dumb
@@adrianmizen5070 White alien cultures in other episodes aren't always backwards savages, compared to the ONE AND ONLY TIME there was an all black planet that SPECIFICALLY draws upon African stereotypes for designs, accents and vibe. Context is fucking key.
Those poison spikey oven mitts are kinda cool though
Say what you will but I think kicking out your own red carpet is awesome.
Today on Star Trek: "Where da white women at" but played straight, "All women actually want to be owned like an object without being asked for consent", and "Women are too weak to hold and use regular-sized objects, so they need to have everything in mini-scale, and that is such an obvious truth, a literal robot uses that to deduct that a weapon was made for a woman". Good times.
Did you watch it?
@@gordonlumbert9861 Are you that guy from the video, who says Code of Honor is his favorite episode?
how dare that robot notice that women have less muscle mass due to less muscle creating hormones. how very dare they. doesnt he know reality is bigoted.
Don't forget the "awww look, they think their civilized! Isn't it droll?" Ending.
Yeah that about sums it up
You can tell that the guy who said that 'Code of HonoUr' was his favourite episode has never seen that episode in his life ever.
Either that, or he _had_ seen it -- at his Aryan Nations camp.
Hope they paid that guy extra for having to debase himself like that😅
Reminds me of the old country buffet meat carver.
Regarding Michael Dorn not being in the episode. I was just at a Covention this weekend, and attended a Star Trek Panel for Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden, and this episode came up (Spiner made a joke about it). Anyway Dorn acknowledged not being in it, and it sounded like he wasn't even aware of the episode being made until it aired, and his reaction upon seeing it was "Oh God, we're gonna get cancelled."
My sister isn't a Trekkie but loves to make fun of Picard supposedly being French given just how aggressively British Patrick Stewart is. She wasn't aware for years that he was even supposed to be French because there was no real indication outside of his name.
I read a fan theory that During World War 3, France was devastated with nuclear weapons, Britain survived due to not being in the EU and France was repopulated with many British and Irish people. India and China were almost wiped out too which is why we don't see many Asians in Star Trek. Obviously this isn't canon and I thought it was silly at first but it made more sense the more I thought about it.
@@jpaulc441 While I question Britain being protected from nuclear fallout, and also think that millions of asian people would evacuate/move out before the nukes hit thus influencing future human genetics, I 100% believe Britain would colonize everything and anything as soon as it can.
he surrendered a lot
@@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois yeah it would just waft over the channel lol.
@@jpaulc441 Trek is weird, man!
All of the times I've seen this episode taken apart, never once did I notice 'Yarena.' That is truly hilarious.
It's bizarre how the costuming in this episode looks like the 60s show...in the late 80s. Though I think what Will Wheaton was getting at is that if they hadn't baffling decided to cast all Black actors, the episode wouldn't really be remembered for anything outside of just being generically bad. Doesn't mean it's a good thing, but I guess if you going to fail anyway you may as well go out in a Blazing Inferno of failure.
I was thinking that too, how "1960s" it looks. The music is even reminiscent of the 60s show.
If you can't make a good impression, I guess you can at least make a lasting one.
fetish, cocaine, or classic american racism.
my bet is the coke.
Early TNG was very much getting the gang back together, and making a a new spin on the old show rather than really making a new show. A bunch of folks behind the scenes had worked on the original series. In some BTS interviews Gene Roddenberry even bragged about how great it was to be back with his old buds "like they hadn't missed a beat." And, yeah. In some ways it absolutely shows that they hadn't missed a beat and it was pretty much exactly the stuff they would have been doing for TOS season 4.
Picard's weird speech about how these people are so unevolved in Code of Honor could be about the people making the show as much as about the Ligonians.
Gene actually got the original costume designer from TOS back for TNG. At least for the first season which might explain much of the costume choices…
"Producer Maurice Hurley"
well that explains everything
"Needs more David Hasselhoff"
and the ber man
Hurley is wacka doodle.😂😂😂
Hurley was definitly one more problem next to Roddenberry and his crazy ideas for the "improved" Star Trek ...
As SF Debris once so eloquently put it, Maurice only did two good things for TNG: create the Borg, and leave
Even if they'd managed to put together a dozen or so cheap lizard costumes for all the guest stars or not cast them as all the same race, this would be a really lousy episode, just so, so dumb.
Has anyone ever said Code of Honor was their favorite episode?
Except for that one guy.
And that was clearly just the ad guys picking out a random episode that they were releasing to have the actor say.
@@TacticusPrime It sounds good. At least better than "One One Zero Zero One Zero Zero One".
@@ripley_hicks_newt_86 at least that episode had a neat alien idea
It's my favorite (I'm racist btw)
Code of Honor!
PragerU ✋🏻😫
PreglerU 👈🏻😎
Weird how Worf is completely absent.
I’d call out if I were Michael Dorn too 😂
Worf had to sit this one out, because the misuse of the concept of "honor" would have made his head explode.
Or, perhaps it's NOT weird! Maybe someone had the good sense to just leave him out of the script entirely as a way of preemptively reducing the risk of pissing him off, or maybe Dorn refused to be in the episode, forcing them to re-write the script without him being in it.
I'd call out if I were anybody. Then again I have common sense.
@@Joe-jc5ol It would probably be best to be on another ship until at least Season Three, when Dr. Pulaski left and Admiral Roddenberry got kicked upstairs.
What's weird is that they went on to make the "Irish people in space" episode much later in the series.
And then they had poor Colm Meaney just sit off to side and take it.
I am so happy he ended up in DS9 where he didn't have to deal with this shit.
@@thunderphoenix440 You can even see on Colm Meaney’s face that he hated being in that episode. I like to imagine he was simply thinking of his paycheck in O’Brien’s only scene of that episode.
Trek never really grasped the idea that Ireland is a place with its own culture, language and history, rather than a collection of fun affectations and gimmicks invented to entertain Americans. Colm Meaney deserves all the credit, and more, for standing up to that nonsense on DS9.
in that episode they were literally Irish people whose ancestors had traveled from Earth centuries before
Just found this channel and I LOVE your sense of humor so much I'm now going to watch every Star Trek video you've made in a row!
Thanks!!
@@AllisonPregler Alright, finished. What a ride!!
I’m not sure if this episode is more racist or misogynistic tbh, I remember watching all of TNG a while back and being really confused about how Yar all of a sudden gets so into the leader. Especially when her home planet was such a shit hole where she had to escape from rape gangs, but here she’s like “well ok this guy did kidnap me but he’s sooooo handsome!” And Troi kind of trying to convince her she should be into it? Like what is Troi’s motive for saying that?!
"Is it more racist or misogynist?"
Yes.
The lesson is, women dig bad boys even when they say they don't. At least Tasha is being honest about her feelings.
@@adrianmizen5070 oh. uh. oh. oh boy.
her motive is "men writers and producers had her do that"
It’s kind of an ouroboros, because a lot of the misogyny stems from the racism of the “primitivism” of the aliens. But then as you say there’s Yar’s reaction which seems totally disconnected from the cartoon-culture’s deliberately misogynist values, plus Data’s remark about the weapons being Obviously For Women…
Don't lie Allison. You know if you had to fight to the death with weird impractical weapons you'd totally wear a shiny moisture-proof jumpsuit like Yareena.
I think it matches up with her fashion sense, and I mean that affectionately
As a little kid the only scene I remember from the debut of this episode was the killer oven mitt fight.
It's amazing how Star Trek: The Next Generation managed ro survive season 1.
Two was not much better, remember Dr. Pularski?
@@DasKame That is true. However, Season 2 had their proper uniforms.
@@wstine79 No it didn't, that wasn't until season 3... Also I think people hate on Dr. Pulaski too much. She didn't get a great introduction but by the end of the season I was far more invested in her character growth and story than I ever was with anything to do with Beverly Crusher, even though she was in far better seasons overall.
The miracle of network television
Which just makes me more upset that a lot of networks refuse to give shows time to find themselves.
Imagine if TNG was cancelled after season 1, or Babylon 5? Or Firefl- oh wait...
Did you just sum up the TNG pilot without mentioning Groppler Zorn? How dare you.
You left out the truly amazing bit of trivia, that the writer later reused the exact same plot for an episode of Stargate SG-1 (S01E04 - Emancipation).
Other than Uhura, TOS had two significant black characters (until the movies). One was a computer prodigy famous across the entire Federation. The other was a very competent doctor who took McCoy's place in an episode and got to slap the $#!+ out of Spock on camera.
Yes, 60s Trek was indeed more enlightened than season 1 TNG.
Dr M'Benga! Now a regular and quite deep character on Strange New Worlds.
but they treated her like crap irl they meaning moreso studio but also.... no writing, no time in captn chair etc
There was also a starbase Commodore that sat head of the Marshal Court board.
An antagonistic lieutenant featured in G7 that really disliked Spock.
I really liked the actor who played Commordore Stone in Court Marshall. Wish he could have come back.
You're right, even if the episode wasn't racist as all hell it would still be sexist as all hell, and the plot doesn't make any sense. The only kernel of a good idea was setting up a conflict that most shows would resolve by having the heroes run in guns blazing, and instead going, "no, if we swallow our pride we can solve this diplomatically and get everything we wanted." But they didn't even commit to that idea so it just comes across as them being too spineless to do anything.
As fellow Star Trek reviewer SFDebris put it, the first two seasons of TNG were TOS episodes twenty years too late. Boy oh boy, does this episode prove that point right.
In fact, several were just recycled scripts from the abandoned Phase II series in the 70s (another of which was recycled and stretched out to make The Motion Picture; Riker and Troi are literally rewrites of the Decker and Ilia characters from tMP).
@@lordofuzkulak8308 AFAIK most of those direct adaptations were in season 2, once a lot of the TOS writers had quit season 1. When they were The Gang Back Together they mostly wrote new ones, even though treading familiar ground. But yeah, those character lifts were deliberately to make porting scripts easier. And I’m sure some of the S1 scripts were adapted.
Good thing that Gene Roddenberry was kicked upstairs by Season Three, and was basically out of the loop for day-to-day operations.
@@All2Meme Completely agree. If I remember right, that also happened with the movies right after TMP.
@@All2Meme yeah, especially when you consider what we got with the Ferengi in early TNG was _toned down_ from what he had in mind for them!
I know this is only the third episode of the entire series, but considering that later episodes reveal that Picard not only had an interest, but also seriously pursued a career as an archeologist before entering the Academy, him getting the timeframe wrong on the porcelain horse just makes him look more like a fool than the episode alone does.
boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
It is actually a fucking miracle TNG got seven seasons. There is a world out there where they never got their shit together, and it got canned after two.
Edit: Okay, holy fuck, I am _floored_ by the reveal at the end that this episode being shit is the reason Harry Kim exists as we know him.
The irony most people don't realize is what saved Star Trek was pushing Roddenberry out the door.
@@BlazingOwnager”I wrote out this entire scene where Tasha has sex with Data due to being high in space virus particles.”
“Okay grandpa, time to go to the home now.”
@@Crazy56USame guy who wanted the Ferengi to have huge genitalia. Man, Gene really liked having sexist alien races.
@@Crazy56U “Do the Ferengi still have their codpieces big enough to scratch their noses on? Because I only gave up the four tits on Betazoids to make sure the Ferengi got the codpieces.”
The rest of the TV landscape in 1987-88 wasn't much better.
All I can say is, that people like me, who watched the orginal series in syndication as children, were incredibly excited when TNG started its orginal run. We never thought there would be another weekly series - just more movies, every two or three years, with a cast that got older and older. And more and more out of shape, in some cases (ahem...). To be honest, I was so happy about getting a new Star Trek series on television, I almost didn't care about the actual stories/content of the episodes. It only started to really become apparent for me how bad the first and - to a lesser extent - second season were, when the daily reruns started, that didn't have breaks between the seasons. Just like you could REALLY feel the budget cuts and increasingly bad writing of the respective third season when you watched the original series in daily syndication.
With that said, "Code Of Honor" felt kind of weird and increasingly uncomfortable, the longer it went, even back then. Especially the idea that Tasha Yar secretly enjoys all of this because she has the "primal" hots for the "sexy virile savage" stereotype. That combination of "ooh, _jungle fever_ " and "women who want equal rights just haven't been _you-know-what_ right by a _real man_ yet..." was just too blatant. Even back in 1987, that stuff was just so icky. Even to somebody rather naive like me, a country boy who hadn't thought and read about racism and sexism in pop culture a lot yet (or at all), at that point in time. And I knew nothing about what weirdness went on behind the scenes or the people involved in it (Maurice Hurley, Russ Mayberry, etc.).
The episode felt like it was written by that disgusting uncle in your family. The one whom nobody wants at the family functions, but he gets invited anyway, because you don't want to have to explain to grandma why he isn't there. The one who thinks Hitler "had some good ideas, but bad advisors". The one who gets drunk and tries to make his teenage nieces sit on is lap... _That_ uncle.
-
Here's a "fun"(?) fact: Russ Mayberry, the director who got fired for being largely responsible for this racist mess going off the rails, also directed the episode of "Thunder In Paradise" in which Hulk Hogan helps Jeff Altman "win" the Civil War for the Confederate side, in an "reenactment"...
Yup! Because _of course_ he did!
What’s even more upsetting is that it was written by a woman! A commenter suggested it was her barely-disguised-fetish; which I guess would at least be marginally less upsetting than being a secret tradwife conservative or something.
Russ Mayberry being friends with both Maurice Hurley and Hulk Hogan makes wayy too much sense
1:45 The aliens were supposed to be lizard people who were very Samurai-like in the initial concept, and that was ditched for this, which may have gotten the director fired by Roddenberry himself, because even Gene could see how racist all of this was going to come off.
(And then Allison says everything I wrote.)
You know, Wesley COULD just recreate the bridge on the Holodeck.
That would, in fact, be really good training for him and a lot of other younger people on the ship to learn about the ins and outs of where they live!
Someone needs to do a wellness check on the guy who claims that 'Code of Honour' is his fav TNG ep.
Ah yes, the episode where the Enterprise visits the planet Wakandumb.
Also, that one stick guy in the middle at 18:07 is really into it. Poor guy was probably excited to be an extra on the show and ended up being in the worst episode.
Wakandumb Forever!
I swear half of Picard's scenes in this episode is Stewert's genuine reaction to how bad the writing is.
We all know this was just old TV that made this happen, but my mind couldn’t help conjuring a version where a bunch of tiny awful decisions made this episode. Like it started with cutting the prosthetic budget form that episode. Then there just happened to be a historical piece about the Zulu filming in the next studio over, so they just grabbed all the cast from that. Then some costume designer was hungover and just did a quick sketch based on Price of Persia that ended up getting picked for this episode. They cut it all together and were just like “Oh sh*tb*lls. Well, deadline is tomorrow.”
Budgets and deadlines definitely must have played a role in the quality of this episode, though. The proposed reptilian species would have cost a ton more to design, instead of hiring a couple black guys with nice pecs. Deadlines were also extremely tight, and rewrites routinely had to be slapped together in no time. That's worth keeping in mind, especially when they were producing 26 episodes a year.
None of that excuses this episode for developing an alien society of black people that's characterized as impulsive, womanizing, greedy, and unwilling to improve themselves. But the people who toiled over this episode were clearly operating on no treaty, no vaccine, and no Lieutenant Yar.
That guy who said Code of Honor was his favorite episode, invented fan trolling.
THe 5G vaccine joke at the end of the Yar vs Yareena convo had me in stitches.
The biggest question I have is why they keep beaming Lutan up into the cargo bay
For the red carpet schtick
because it was at the back of the saucer section
IIRC, the in episode explanation was the Lutan transporter tech wasn't as good as Starfleets, but because the Lutons insisted on beaming up using it, they decided to use the cargo bay to give them extra space to beam up to.
@@VladamireD your brain did a great job coming up with a plausible reason, extrapolated from “they’re using their own transporter”, but that’s not actually explained in the episode. Especially since they go to the cargo bay before that one bit dialogue comes up at all!
You're Star Trek reviews are *amazing*. I wouldn't be mad if you did them full time, once you're finished with Baywatch.
(Please, more Baywatching, though, for real.)
I'm a diehard contrarian and even I'd never dream to argue code of honor is not laughably racist.
This episode is so bad Yar turned into Piper.
Oh my goodness...
You dare think the episode is bad? Misogyny!
I had assumed it was Stephanie, which, y'know, same voice
Currently watching through every Star Trek episode and I wish you had a video on every single one. More plz!!
I was hoping you'd reference the TNG season 1 tape ad. It's always what comes to mind when I think of Code of Honor.
Well well, it looks like another Star Trek episode I never saw because I was busy getting my little Hollywood feet on the ground, but now, thanks to CZcams and this talented common-tater, I can reflect on the past thirty five years, and get one person’s interpretation of these weird ST episodes! *It’s no Shore Leave, that’s for sure.*
I forgot about this episode. When you said "the most racist episode" I initially thought of the one with the space-Irish people. Colm Meaney/Miles O'Brien must have HATED that one!
I'm pretty sure he did. The DS9 episode "If Wishes Were Horses" was supposed to feature a leprechaun, but he told them he wouldn't do the episode if they did and so they replaced the leprechaun with Rumpelstiltskin. Glad Colm Meaney wasn't on Voyager, as they did TWO obnoxious Irish-themed episodes "Fair Haven" and "Spirit Folk".
I love the Holodeck training program is just the Holodeck but with a gym mat on the ground. Powered only by the limits of your imagination!
Certainly a low point for the series that is only rivalled in its racism by "Tattoo."
Aka the character study of Chakotay that established how Native Americans used to be cavemen who had to be uplifted by Space White Men.
Tattoo VS Code of Honour VS Up The Long Ladder fight
Well, we had already found out in Trek that Greek gods were ancient dudes.
But the best/worst part of all the Chokotay stuff is that the Native American consultant hired by the show was literally a fraud.
@@JCIce007 and what happens when an actual Native American guy writes an episode, in TAS, is that Kukulkan/Quetzacoatl is real (because he felt ancient European pantheons shouldn’t have all the fun) and just inspired the locals when he visited Earth.
Versus “Tattoo” which invented a whole new god-race to Intervene With Destiny :/ (and failed to do lip service with “unlike others they honoured the land” and “but conquerers killed then” lines that ultimately just fed even more into “noble savage” tropes)
@@kaitlyn__L and then Chakotay the Indigenous character was apologising to the white space aliens for colonialism.
@@drawingsticks5333 so painful. And the worst part is 13 year old progressive-minded me didn’t see that until my chickasaw pal painstakingly explained it to me (good for him though, and we’re still pals)
God, that Spongebob commenter hit home for me. I get that kind of stuff all the time. Great video, by the way.
Thanks Leon!!
I cringed when I saw the title. I can't wait to take psychic damage alongside you when I finally nerve up and hit play... I still can't believe this episode actually exists.
Edit: I keep having to pause because I forgot how uncomfortable this episode was, it's been over 15 years since I last saw it and the memories had blissfully faded.
It’s a miracle the series survived its first season.
It survived because of good will from TOS. And it might have been as bad for the same reason.
@@danielyeshe Yeah gene rodenberry it only started to get better after he wasn't working on TNG anymore.
@@danielyeshe Didn't fan backlash that they were trying to do 'new Trek without the original cast' almost kill the show before it even started, though? I'm legit asking, that's the story I heard.
@@danielgehring7437 I'm not sure. It was just a theory I heard. Early TNG was trying to tell TOS stories. This didn't work in the 80s. Had it been its own thing it would, most likely, have done something else. SFdebris talks about this in his reviews.
@@danielgehring7437I truly don’t think it did, but I do recall someone saying a few nutty fans tried to do a boycott before it aired.
There wasn’t a whole lotta competition for sci fi on TV back then, so that helped its odds.
I knew there was a reason I felt compelled to watch a bunch of your Trek reviews!
Imagine being the poor actors who had to play the Lagonians. Like "cool I get to be an alien on star Trek...oh."
Me: oh, code of honor, that's a Worf episode, right?
The only thing that could have made that fight scene even more epic, is if they somehow reused the fight music from the TOS episode AMOK TIME!
Denise Crosby left because her character got very little to do on the show, and I can understand it, but I do wish she had stayed. I mean, Geordi too got precious little to do in S1 and it was ages until we got a dedicated episode for him, and Worf and Beverly too were underused in that season, but imagine what could have it been like to have a TNG where Tasha stayed on and became an interesting character! Ironically, the one episode where we learn a lot about her happened seasons later when the Enterprise visits her homeworld and we meet her sister.
This seems like a specific kind of jank that peaked in the late 80s/early 90s where TV creators were more willing to actually have more actors of color on screen and depict more cultures that were distinctly non-EuroAmerican, but they didn't have writers/directors who were people of color or any sort of sensitivity/authenticity viewers to point out that they were fucking up.
literally nobody complained about any supposed "racism" in this episode at the time it was made. Including the African-ancestry people involved in the show. (a lot of people complained about the episode's stupid plot, but that's another matter) The problem is judging 1987 by 2024's screwed-up standards.
@@adrianmizen5070 literally all the actors and writers and producers did at the time, in the middle of shooting
@adrianmizen5070 The director was fired midway through filming the episode because it was perceived as racist.
I think the idea of French language being obsolete has to do with Gene's idea that in the future all humans would speak Esperanto. Apparently he wanted TOS to be broadcasted in Esperanto with English subtitles, and William Shatner was cast because he speaks Esperanto and even starred in a movie recorded entirely in that language. The idea was nixed by the network's executives.
Maybe not the entire series, but it would've been kinda cool if Esperanto was the lingua franca of the Star Trek universe.
I remember some friends of mine headcanoning there was a Starfleet conlang as a backup for when the translators go down, kinda cool that Gene wanted it to be Esperanto.
I always liked the Esperanto signage just hanging around casually in Red Dwarf. (Even though it is kind of a dated 50s sci-fi view of a “universal language” now.)
@@LittleMissLounge No one knows what the hell "Esperanto" is.
The concept of French being a dead language would finally come to fruition in Futurama.
Shatner does not speak Esperanto. He read Esperanto in a script for a film.
I just learned the first director that was fired also directed the 1979 film "Unidentified Flying Oddball".
I say this episode is worse, but the fact I did hesitate for a second probably shows the quality of this director's other work.
Until this good moment, in the sixty-*hack*th year of my age, I had neither seen nor heard of this episode.
I long for thar unknowing state of grace to return.
Kind of a pointless comment, but I just love the squeaky hammer sound effect for the carpet. Beautiful. 😊
Star trek also had space irish. To be fair picard from the future so future france has a long history.
Space Native Americans...
bUt HoW iS iT rAcIsT???????
I wrote it exactly like that in the script lol
@@AllisonPregler Careful Aliison, that person might be coming for your job.
Yeah, is there any examples of the episode being racist?
No.
LOL at the people who didn't watch the video and are replying to this in earnest
I didn't know TNG that well, so I watched this episode blind as an adult. My jaw dropped multiple times.
I remember watching this as a kid thinking: "This is going to get better...... right?"
The battle between Yar and Yarina is the funniest thing I've seen all week, I love their dainty feeeeeemale poisoned oven mitts
I remember being horrified by this episode when it first aired. A true stinker.
You know, on a lark I rewatched all your Star Trek vids last week and was wondering when you might drop another.
And then this appears.
You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today....oh never mind.
yes you could lol, it'd be even easier. oh wait never mind.
You could try, but the "Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today!" crowd would swarm it with death threats because the anti-racism would be too 'woke'. Fulfilling their own complaint.
"Ok where is Yar going to fight?"
"the arena"
"Ok who is Yar going to fight?"
"The arena"
"Did you say she's fighting Yareena?"
"... yes"
Underrated comment
At the start of watching this episode, I was shocked that TNG survived season 1. Then as I kept watching I just got more and more curious how much further a hole they were going to dig with this. I do feel sorry for the actor in the commercial. He was obviously just reciting the lines he was given and now, it might be his only acting performance that was watched by anyone in the last 30 years.
The episode with the pre-industrial Irish colony was worse. I'm not kidding - watch it and tell me I'm wrong.
I was supposed to watch it today, how is it going to top this absolutely horrible racist mess?!
It’s bad but not quite as bad as this one!
@@mattparsons433 just watched the racist Irish episode it IS that bad
@@drawingsticks5333 oh dear, wasn’t it in season 2? You would have thought they’d have learned by then. I remember the bit where they suggested to get the Irish women to sleep with as many of the male clones as possible, that was just…weird
@@mattparsons433 There is absolutely nothing good about it. Like not even one silly fight in sparkly clothes. It's just abject misery that gets and worse until you wonder what you are doing with your life.
It's worse than you remember and not only because they literally call the Irish stereotypes "livestock"
They tried to blame everything on the director. But the fact that these very same writers were responsible for the similarly themed and equally reprehensible Emancipation on SG-1 a decade later (only this time on a planet full of Asian steppe people) suggests "African tribal stereotype" was in fact exactly what they were going for. It was a team effort Admiral.
Yeah Pregler on Trek is back, so happy.
When I found out (I think it was last year) that one of my favorite episodes was racist, I was very surprised.
If anyone wonders why Code of Honor is one of my favorite episodes.
1. Ignorance causes the problem and solves the problem.
The Federation team could have known that stealing something (or someone) of value was considered honorable here. If they had taken the time to check the relevant data, they could have prepared something to "steal".
Their opponent's plan actually worked. He could have obtained the knowledge of the resurrection option. He was only too willing to make the effort.
2. The Federation stuck to its rules despite the pressure.
3. The opponent was deposed according to normal local rules. He was neither deposed by the Federation nor did the Federation force its views on the locals.
If the Federation had never come to the planet, he could have been deposed just like that.
In contrast to other episodes (e.g. where Worf took revenge according to Klingon law), the differences in the local culture were fully accepted and preserved.
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The only thing that bothers me about the episode is the dead person in the audience. see how dangerous the poison is and then forget the guy.
You must be an extremely boring person if Code of Honor was one of your favorite episodes.
@@kingofthegundam7974 tastes are different. but boring is new.
Oh lord, the constant dutch tilts you added intensifies the personality of this episode tenfold. Thank you Allison 😂
Seeing the early episodes of the first series, one was left with the impression that the show is a disaster. Expectations were low that the second series would get a green light, without a major cast change, or a massive overhaul of the entire Star Trek set-up. This episode wasn't simply bad, it was a potential Serial Killer.
The weird thing is, that wasn't really a question at the time. The show was a massive hit from the start despite being in first-run syndication, and that goodwill apparently lasted long enough for the show to start actually getting good. Maybe audiences in 1987 were just way easier to please, I dunno.
@@EvanCWaters I agree with all you say. From my perspective, I wasn't a regular viewer of TOS, although my mates were huge fans. Let me put it this way; I was "coerced" into watching TNG. We rented the Vids when they came out and we all eagerly gathered together around my state of the art CRT. The reactions were mixed to say the least. My girlfriend and I had not much to say, but a few of the lads left for the pub to drown their sorrows. The tolerance of the die hards remained high and they stuck with it.
The series did improve greatly as it developed. Your summation was spot on. Cheers.
Netflix in at least the UK had this episode as the autoplay video for TNG. I still don't know why.
Netflix catering to old colonist ideals? IDK
Oh that's weird, it has the courtroom scene from the pilot for us (also UK).
@@Frogface91 Hopefully they changed it because at least that kinda represents TNG as a show.
I turned off all that stuff (disabling auto-play, previews, and trailers in the account settings is a favour _everyone_ owes themselves), but still recall DS9 being represented by that 30sec from the pilot where Odo avoids a mace and Sisko shoots the wall. On a loop. A very odd choice to represent the show, not problematic but certainly not gripping.
@@kaitlyn__L I just presumed it was always the pilot because Voyager has the scene where they beam to the surface of the Ocampan planet. Very odd to deliberately select a really infamous episode which wasn't even the opener.
Kathryn Powers also wrote an incredibly racist episode of Stargate SG-1 with virtually the same plot, but swap Mongols for Black people
The fact that TNG managed to run for seven seasons after these early episodes is nothing short of a miracle, and perhaps proof that a divine being exists (whether or not they need a starship is another matter altogether).
maybee it's Q?
Lieutenant Yar... Lutan and Yar...eena. Sorry to the parasites of episode 25 - this is the REAL conspiracy.
17:26 Awww, you didn't mention how someone spilled delicious strawberry jam on that guy when the glove (gauntlet?) hit him.
I’m sure they learnt their lesson from this, and didn’t go on to make an even sillier racist episode about the _actual_ Irish in season two, that almost made Colm Meaney walk out in disgust, to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!
Ironically this was the episode who got me into watching TNG again after ten years