symbiosis (star trek the next generation)

Symbiosis (episode)

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After the Enterprise -D rescues a freighter crew and the ship's important cargo, Captain Picard faces a difficult dilemma: uphold the Prime Directive, or save an entire civilization from exploitation?

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Cast and characters
• 3.3 Special and visual effects
• 3.4 Continuity
• 3.5 Reception
• 3.6 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest stars
• 4.4 Co-star
• 4.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.6 Stand-ins
• 4.7 References
• 4.8 External links

Summary [ ]

The Enterprise -D attempts to tractor the Sanction

The USS Enterprise -D is investigating unusual solar flares and magnetic activity in the Delos system . While taking a look at the enormous solar eruptions, the crew receive a distress signal from the Ornaran freighter Sanction orbiting the fourth planet of the system. The bridge crew , Captain Picard and Commander Riker in particular, are perplexed by the apparent incompetence of the freighter's crew.

Act One [ ]

The Enterprise reaches the freighter and Picard tries to discern the problem from the freighter's captain, but he is unable to describe it without being vague. Data determines the problem for him by connecting to his computer – their electromagnetic coil is misaligned. Picard offers to beam a new one over to them, but the captain admits he doesn't know how to install it, despite being captain of the freighter for over seven years . An attempt to pull the Sanction to safety with the tractor beam also proves fruitless, as the electromagnetic radiation from the system's sun makes a lock-on impossible.

Riker and Picard, while speaking to T'Jon over the com

Worf warns the rest of the bridge crew that the Sanction is entering the planet's atmosphere, and will not last long. Instead of risking beaming their crew over, due to the solar interference, Yar attempts to beam them to the Enterprise by interconnecting their transporter system with theirs, though quickly gets irritated by the freighter crew's lackadaisical attitude and inability to follow simple instructions. On the first attempt, the cargo of the freighter is beamed over instead.

Act Two [ ]

Riker and Yar momentarily stare at the cargo in disbelief, wondering why the crew would value it over their own lives. With little time to lose, Yar clears the cargo to cargo bay 11 and attempts to beam again. She is able to beam four onto the Enterprise -D in the nick of time. Two are left behind on the Sanction , however, and Yar does not have enough time to make another attempt to lock on to their life signs before the freighter is incinerated re-entering the planet's atmosphere.

Fighting with electricity

When the crewmembers, two Ornarans and two Brekkians , arrive, they are very anxious to see the cargo. Even though two of those aboard the freighter have been lost, the primary concern of all four is the cargo. The Ornarans, named T'Jon and Romas , claim that they have paid for the cargo, therefore it belongs to them. The Brekkians, Sobi and Langor , argue that since the payment was lost on the destroyed freighter, the cargo still belongs to them. Sobi and T'Jon begin to fight, using their natural electric charges , until Yar breaks it up by shooting at them with a phaser set on stun.

The four are taken to the observation lounge , where T'Jon and Romas reveal that the cargo is felicium , medicine that their planet needs to combat a plague on their planet. Furthermore, Langor and Sobi note that the medicine is very expensive to cultivate and harvest, and they cannot give the medicine when payment has not been delivered. Then, T'Jon reveals that Romas and himself are carrying the plague, and Captain Picard now realizes that the "plague" they have may infect the entire ship. He puts the ship on med alert and calls Doctor Beverly Crusher to report to the observation lounge immediately.

Act Three [ ]

As the Ornarans suffer from their lack of medicine in sickbay , the Brekkians continue to refuse them the cargo. Doctor Crusher reveals that she cannot find a cause of the signs of infection . The Ornarans entreat Picard to give them the felicium, and Picard offers to talk to the Brekkians, asking them to give enough for the Ornarans' needs. The Brekkians agree to "two doses for immediate use."

Drugs, but not medicine

In the cargo bay, Langor removes the casing and measures out two doses. It is revealed that Brekkian society is entirely dependent on the trade of felicium with the Ornarans; they have no other industry, nor do they need it. The Ornarans provide all the goods they need in return. They have focused on increasing the potency of the felicium since there is no cure.

Dr. Crusher goes to sickbay and observes T'Jon administer the drug to Romas and then himself, both instantly feeling better, free of any sickness and both exhibiting the same euphoric daze. Crusher keeps her silence, but clearly does not like what she sees. Entering Picard's ready room , Crusher furiously informs the captain that the " medicine " is really a narcotic , which means there is no "plague", and T'Jon, Romas, and the entire population of their planet, are all drug addicts - the illness they believe afflicts them is simply the symptoms of withdrawal if deprived of the drug for too long.

Act Four [ ]

Data and Riker research the history of the drug which confirms the contraction of the Ornaran plague, though there is not much detail. Dr. Crusher interjects, convinced that the plague has already been cured, but now the Ornarans have become dependent on the addictive nature of the medicine. To Crusher's frustration, though, Picard says he cannot intervene in their societies, despite Crusher's belief she can develop a non-addictive version of the drug that would help wean the Ornarans of their dependency. Then, the Enterprise -D receives a signal from Ornara . Someone named Margan wants to contact T'Jon, so Picard, Riker and Crusher go to the guest quarters, as Picard does not want to grant access to the bridge to T'Jon and Romas.

Meanwhile, at the science station at the back of the bridge, Wesley Crusher wonders aloud how – and why – people let themselves become addicted to drugs. Initially, the inquiry is directed at Data. However, Yar jumps in and answers for him: drugs have their draw for people in desperate circumstances. Alluding to her own possible use of drugs on Turkana IV , where she was born and grew up an orphan, Tasha explains that drugs often seem to solve problems… which is enough for the common addict, even though nothing has improved in the real sense. When Wesley fails to comprehend all of this, Tasha assures him it's just as well.

Riker held hostage by T'Jon

In the guest quarters for T'Jon and Romas, Margan desperately pleads that the Ornarans on the Enterprise -D must get the felicium to Ornara. T'Jon attempts to explain the current situation, but Margan stops him and terminates the transmission. T'Jon, frustrated, then attacks Riker and demands that the Enterprise -D send the felicium to the planet. Picard does not believe he will kill, and refuses. T'Jon releases Riker.

Act Five [ ]

Langor comes to the Ornarans' guest quarters and asks to talk to Picard. He and Crusher go to the Brekkians' quarters where they offer to "give" the drug to the Ornarans. Picard and Crusher swiftly realize that the Brekkians know full well that there is no longer any plague, because it once afflicted their planet, and they managed to cure it using the felicium, but realized its addictive nature in time to avoid becoming dependent on it. But they have purposely kept this from the Ornarans, exploiting them by keeping them desiring it indefinitely. The last thing Sobi and Langor want is for the Ornarans to break the cycle, which they will do if deprived of the drug any longer. But Picard admits that the Prime Directive prevents him from telling T'Jon and Romas the truth, and requires him to let the Brekkians give them the drug, much to Crusher's visible frustration.

In the cargo bay, the Ornarans prepare to leave with the coils they need to repair their ships. Picard arrives with the Brekkians. He informs them they can leave with the medicine, however, he refuses to repair the Ornarans' freighters, again citing the Prime Directive of non-interference for both decisions. Without the ability to repair their ships, the Ornarans will therefore not be able to obtain the drug anymore and will finally break the cycle of addiction, but not before suffering severe withdrawal pains and believing themselves to be dying. After beaming Sobi, Langor, T'Jon and Romas down to Ornara with their cargo, Picard orders helmsman La Forge to put some distance from the Delos system and the Enterprise -D heads for the Opperline system , a place never before explored.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Are we losing our professional detachment, Doctor? "

" … Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy… and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous. " " It's hard to be philosophical when faced with suffering. " " Believe me Beverly, there was only one decision. " " I just hope it was the right one. " " And we may never know. "

" Freighter, we're going to lock on the tractor beam and pull you out of orbit. " " Hey, that… that's great. "

" Captain, my console seems to be overloading. "

" Drugs… make you feel good. "

" Behave yourselves, gentlemen. "

" You're feeling better? " " Yes, thank you. I'm fine now. "

" I guess I don't understand. " " Wesley, I hope you never do. "

" Destination, sir? " " I don't care. Let's just get some distance between us and this system. " " Course 970, Mark 318, Speed: Warp Three. " " Where will that take us, Mr. La Forge? " " The Opperline system . " " An interesting choice. Why? " " Curiosity. We've never been there. "

" Wesley, on my home world, there was so much poverty and violence that for some people, the only escape was through drugs. " " How can a chemical substance provide an escape? " " It doesn't. But it makes you think it does. "

"Captain, we are beaming over a replacement coil. " "Great… and that'll fix us up? " "Yes, once it's installed. " " Right. " (pause) " And how do we do that? "

" What is the matter with these people? "

" Captain, how long have you been in command of this freighter? " " Seven years, with 26 trips to Brekka. " " And you don't know how to align a controller coil? " " It's never come up. "

" Captain, I hope you realize what you've done to us. " " Of that you can be sure. Good luck. "

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• Final draft script: 16 February 1988
• Revised final draft script, and two pages of research notes from de Forest Research : 17 February 1988 [1]
• One-page memo of script notes from Gene Roddenberry : 18 February 1988
• A filming day: 22 February 1988 ( Energized! Taking The Next Generation to the Next Level , TNG Season 1 Blu-ray special features)
• Premiere airdate: 18 April 1988

Cast and characters [ ]

Crosby seen waving "goodbye"

• This marks Denise Crosby 's last appearance as a full cast member. Although Natasha Yar appears in the following episode, " Skin Of Evil ", this episode was filmed following that. In the scene with Crusher and Picard leaving the cargo bay at the end of the episode, Crosby can be seen waving goodbye in the extreme background. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (1st ed., p. 56))
• Gates McFadden talked about this episode, as a socially relevant TNG installment, in the documentary 50 Years of Star Trek .
• Merritt Butrick and Judson Scott , who had appeared in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (as David Marcus and Joachim respectively), are in this episode as well. However, this is Butrick's final Star Trek role before his death from AIDS in 1989. Judson Scott later appeared in VOY : " Message in a Bottle " as the Romulan Commander Rekar .
• Richard Lineback ( Romas ) later appeared as Selin Peers in DS9 : " Dax " and as Kessick in ENT : " The Xindi ".
• Margan actor Kenneth Tigar later played Dammar in VOY : " Displaced ".

Special and visual effects [ ]

A camera report for "Symbiosis"

• The visual effect of the fluctuating force field around the Enterprise -D while near the star Delos was created by using a bowling ball which was trickled with salt. The salt bumping off the bowling ball was used and squeezed during the digital compostion and turned upside down to give this effect. ("The Making of a Legend", TNG Season 1 DVD special feature)
• The felicium grains shown in the episode were actually red lentils .

Continuity [ ]

• This is the first time that we see a system interlock used with an alien transporter system showing that it is possible to interlock two different types of transporter beams. The only previous time that we see a Federation transporter working in conjunction with an alien beam is when the USS Enterprise intercepted an alien transporter beam and redirected it to their transporter pad in TOS : " Assignment: Earth ".
• This is one of only five TNG episodes (and the only season one episode) that doesn't have a stardate. The others are " First Contact ", " Tapestry ", " Liaisons ", and " Sub Rosa ".
• The planet was revisited 17 years later by the USS Cerritos as part of Project Swing By in the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode " Trusted Sources ". Upon learning of Picard's actions, Captain Carol Freeman strongly disapproved and her concerns were justified that while the planet was grateful for Picard freeing them from their exploitation, the fact that he subjected them to a mass arduous withdrawal period without any warning, preparation, or any Federation assistance permanently cooled relations with the interplanetary organization.

Reception [ ]

• "Symbiosis" featured a reviled 'just say no' discussion on drugs between Wesley and Tasha. ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , page 166)
• Behind-the-scenes footage and bloopers from this episode appeared on a 1988 episode of the LeVar Burton -hosted show Reading Rainbow , "The Bionic Bunny Show." The episode presents behind-the-scenes footage including the makeup process and the filming and editing of a brief sequence on the bridge beginning with La Forge's statement "Solar flares are increasing in magnitude, Captain," featuring editing at The Post Group with Robert Legato , Fred Raimondi and Rich Thorne . This marked the first time outtakes from TNG were officially circulated.
• A mission report for this episode by Patrick Daniel O'Neill was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 6 , p. 58–60.
• Director Win Phelps remembers, " There were many continuity problems. Down on the set, we began to notice discrepancies. Some sequences just didn't really work. The actors would say "My motivation is totally wrong here", because a previous scene would be contradictory. They were trying to act scenes that they had never read before, or where substantially different from what they had read. That didn't happen every scene, but it did happen. " About Denise Crosby's final scene he recalls, " As Patrick and Gates leave the hold where the drugs were kept, we had Denise wave goodbye to the camera. She was about 40 yards in the background, where nobody would notice. It was Denise's last scene on her last day. " ( The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 19 , pp. 28-29)

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 11 , catalog number VHR 2440, 8 April 1991
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 1.7, catalog number VHR 4648, 7 September 1998
• As part of the TNG Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TNG Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge
• Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar
• Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
• Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

Guest stars [ ]

• Judson Scott as Sobi
• Merritt Butrick as T'Jon
• Richard Lineback as Romas

Co-star [ ]

• Kimberly Farr as Langor

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• James G. Becker as Youngblood
• Susan Duchow as operations division officer
• David Eum as Wright
• Shana Ann Golden as command division officer
• Dan Kelpine as operations division officer
• Tim McCormack as Bennett
• Lorine Mendell as Diana Giddings
• Burt Nacke as operations division technician
• Kenneth Tigar as Margan
• Command division officer
• Female command division officer
• Female USS Enterprise -D computer voice
• Female engineer (voice)
• Female operations division officer
• Female Vulcan engineer
• Male operations division officer
• Operations division officer
• Seven operations division crewmembers
• Three command division crewmembers
• Transporter ensign
• Two civilians
• Two science division crewmembers

Stand-ins [ ]

• James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Darrell Burris – stand-in for LeVar Burton
• Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Susan Duchow – stand-in for Denise Crosby
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton

References [ ]

Several thousand years ago ; 2164 ; 2357 ; ability ; agreement ; " all hands "; " a matter of life and death "; amount ; answer ; anxiety ; area ; associate ; atmosphere ; bacteria ; barrel ; billion ; biobed ; biofilter ; board game ; Brekka ; Brekkian ; Brekkian ancestors ; bridge ; brute ; business ; captain : cargo ; Cargo Bay 11 ; century ; chance ; chemical substance ; choice ; civilization ; close range ; compassion ; computer ; computer analysis ; comrade ; conference lounge ; console ; contact ; contagion ; corona ; course ; cultivation ; culture ; cure ; curiosity ; customer ; danger ; deal ; death ; decaying orbit ; deflector shield ; degree ; Deimos ; Delos sun ; Delos system ; Delos system moon ; design ; desktop monitor ; destination ; detachment ; device ; disease ; distance ; distillation ; distress signal ; doctor ; dosage ; dose ; download ; drug ; drug addict ; drug addiction ; Earth ; effect ; electrical system ; electrical charge ; electrocution ; electromagnetic ; electromagnetic coil (aka magnetic coil , control coil ); Emergency Manual Override station ; Enterprise history ; escapism ; event ; evolution ; exchange ; exploitation ; facility ; Federation ; Federation scout ship ( scout ship ); felicium ; fool ; freighter ; Galaxy -class ; Galaxy class decks ; generation ; gift ; goods ; guest ; guest quarters ; hailing frequency ; hand ; health ; history ; homeostasis ; hope ; hospitality ; hostage ; hour ; hull ; hull integrity ; hull temperature ; humanoid ; impulse ; individual ; industry ; infection ; information ; inhabitant ; " instinct ; investment ; irony ; Langor's grandfather ; lie ; lifeform ; long range shuttle ; magnetic field ; magnetism ; magnification ; main engineering ; main thruster ; main viewer ; malfunction ; Mars ; med alert ; medical emergency ; medical scan ; medical tricorder ; medicine ; merchandise ; Milky Way Galaxy ; milliliter ; million ; minute ; mission ; mister ; model ; monitor ; murder ; narcotic ; neural scan ; number one ; observation lounge ; online ; Opperline system ; Ornara ; Ornaran ; Ornaran freighter ; Ornaran plague ; overload ; ownership ; PADD ; pain ; painting ; passenger ; path ; " pay a call "; payment ; percent ; person ; phenomenon ; philosophy ; photosphere ; physical reaction ; physiology ; plague ; potency ; poverty ; power ; price ; Prime Directive ; problem ; product ; production ; prominence ; property ; purification (chemistry) ; puzzle ; quadrant ; question ; ready room ; reason ; reasoning ; record ; refining ; relationship ; remorse ; result ; room ; rule ; Sanction ; Sanction casualties ; science station ; second ; section ; sensor ; shipment ; ship's store ; shuttle ; sickbay ; sickness ; signal ; size ; skant ; society ; solar flare ; solar interference ; solution ; space travel ; spare part ; specification ; speed ; standard orbit ; star ; status report ; substance ; suffering ; sun flare ; sunspot ; survival ; symbiotic relationship ; symptom ; system interlock ; tale ; team ; technology ; temperature ; theme ; thousand ; threat ; three-dimensional chess ; time ; tool ; tractor beam ; trade ; trade agreement ; trading ; transmission ; transporter ; transporter coordinates ; transporter lock ; transporter pad / transporter platform ; transporter room ; transporter signal ; trap ; treatment ; turbolift ; Turkana IV ; type 1 phaser ; United Federation of Planets ; unnamed plants ; utility uniform ; value ; view ; viewscreen ; violence ; virus ; visitor ; VISOR ; Vulcan ; warp core ; weapon ; withdrawal ; word ; world ; x-ray ; year ; yellow alert

External links [ ]

• " Symbiosis " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Symbiosis " at Wikipedia
• " Symbiosis " at the Internet Movie Database
• " Symbiosis " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• "Symbiosis" script  at Star Trek Minutiae
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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Star Trek: The Next Generation – Symbiosis (Review)

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation , and also next year’s release of  Star Trek: Into Darkness , I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

After Arsenal of Freedom , I was wary of Symbiosis . Star Trek has always liked exploring socially and morally relevant ideas through the vehicle of science-fiction. I can understand the appeal of it – science-fiction allows us to divorce basic arguments for all manner of clouding context and to address them in the purest or terms. I think Star Trek is at its most powerful exploring these themes (as The Next Generation would do in episodes like The Outcast ), but there’s a risk involved. Nobody wants to be lectured about a simplistic moral principle for forty-minutes, and nobody wants to see a complex issue boiled down past all recognition.

So it’s pretty nice that Symbiosis works quite well. The show is a bit bumpy in places, but it does a lot of things well enough that it’s an entertaining watch. Indeed, it feels like the kind of episode we should have seen a lot earlier in the year.

Star gazing…

As a show produced during the eighties, it seemed inevitable that The Next Generation would have to tackle drug use at one point or another. Nancy Reagan was pushing the “just say no” campaign at the time, and it seemed that any television show looking to explore social issue would have to handle the notion of narcotics at one point or another. Handling that sort of social problem – particularly one affecting young kids – is very hard for a show to do. It’s very easy to patronise the audience or to simplify the issue.

There is one point in Symbiosis where the show seems a little on the nose in a “knowing is half the battle” sort of way. Wesley, our teenage character and occasional failed audience stand-in, discovers that the plot of the show is centred around the abuse of narcotics. “Data,” he remarks, “I can understand how this could happen to the Ornarans. What I can’t understand is why anyone would voluntarily become dependent on a chemical.” Just in case we weren’t sure that this space-age mystery had some modern relevance, Data assures his colleague, “Voluntary addiction to drugs is a recurrent theme in many cultures.”

Current affairs…

Luckily enough, Wesley never utters the words “tell me more” , but the cringeworthy exposition continues. Yar provides a vehicle for the writers to provide essential information. The fact that Yar was the survivor of a failed colony was never really developed enough, although nothing really was at this point in the show. Still, given what little development we had consisted of “rape gangs” , that might not be a bad thing. Seriously, Yar’s colony had been discussed twice, and we know little more than that – which perhaps reflects some of the problems in the writers’ room.

Still, at least here we discover that the failed colony also had drug problems. Denise Crosby remains one of the weakest members of the ensemble, and pairing her with Will Wheaton to provide an earnest discussion about the nature of drug addiction seems unfair to both actors. Patrick Stewart, the best member of the ensemble, would struggle with dialogue this clunky, so Crosby and Wheaton don’t stand a chance. That said, the conversation is brief enough that it doesn’t sink the episode, even if it dents an instalment that is otherwise quite strong.

They’re in a bit of a fix…

Part of the reason that the rest of Symbiosis works so well is because it avoids too many moments like this. Indeed, the show is cleverly structured as a sort of a mystery. Drugs aren’t revealed as the central plot point until about half-way through the episode. Instead, it begins with a wonderful hook, as the Enterprise tries to rescue a freighter that is in dire need of assistance, although things immediately become intriguing.

Like the introduction to Minos in Arsenal of Freedom , the opening here works because the Enterprise seems a little out of its element. Trying to save the freighter, Picard and the crew are confronted by an entirely clueless crew. “We have lost, I don’t know, something,” T’Jon communicates to his rescuers. “I am no longer able to maintain this orbit, nor am I able to use the main thrusters. It’s all, you know, dead, I guess. It’s all shut down?” Picard gets so frustrated by the lack of useful information coming from the ship that he commands, “Data, can you tap into their computer and clarify the situation?” It also prompts the first Picard face palm that I’ve noticed.

Admit it, you’ve been waiting all month for one of these.

The sequence is a bit heavy-handed, but it’s no less effective for it. It’s only a tiny bit more subtle than having T’Jon complain about the munchies or waffle about existential philosophy, but it’s so different to what we usually see on the show that it can’t help but seem effective. There’s something very disconcerting about the comfort with which T’Jon faces his potentially inevitable death. When the Enterprise fails, he tells them, “I understand. Thanks for trying.”

The show moves rapidly from there, and it gives us something approaching a real mystery to solve. The clues seem obvious in hindsight, but I wonder if I grapsed the concept any quicker than Beverly the first time I watched it. Curiously, this time around, I found myself wondering if the Ornarans at least suspected they were addicted to a narcotic (rather than using a treatment). They seem quite cagey on the issue.

Oh no! Rejects from the Space Eighties!

In the early part of the episode, they’d allay a lot of suspicion if they immediately described their “cargo” as “medicine” , rather than dancing around the words. They seem to want to avoid explaining anything to Picard, which doesn’t make sense if they believe it’s a treatment for a plague. Indeed, you would imagine that explaining that the cargo is medicine would help the Enterprise to understand why they beamed it over immediately, before even themselves.

Symbiosis also gives us one of our more interesting explorations of alien sociology so far in the series. Even before we know that it is a drug, the relationship between the Ornarans and the Brekkians seems somehow surreal and more complex than they would like Picard to believe. “Fascinating,” Data observes. “Your society is dedicated exclusively to the production of a single product.” Picard clarifies, “A product for which you have no use, but which the Ornarans can’t live without.” It might not seem the most practical arrangement, but it’s a far more nuanced portrayal of a diplomatic relationship than we’ve seen before. (Well, if you discount the commentary on Klingon-Federation politics in Heart of Glory .)

Difficulties are flaring up…

The history of both cultures suggests a lot more development than most aliens have received so far. Indeed, the Ferengi have appeared a couple of times, and we have little more than idle gossip about how incredibly crap they are as an alien species. The gradual revelation about the nature of the relationship between the Brekkians and the Ornarans feels earned in that respect, and there’s a sense that the aliens existed before the Enterprise arrived, which grants weight to the episode’s conclusion, as we can believe that both societies continue to exist even after the Enterprise goes on its way.

One of the hallmarks of good writing is a willingness to allow characters to lie – and to trust the audience to pick up that what these people are saying is not true, a distortion or interpretation of the facts to suit their own agenda. There’s a nice moment towards the end of the episode as the Brekkians claim to have been touched by the suffering of the Ornarans and agree to donate them the shipment. While Picard explicitly calls them on it, it’s a nice moment because it is immediately clear to the audience that they’re lying through their teeth and their change of heart is not genuine.

Dealing with a workplace Crush(er)…

Picard figures it out as quickly as we do. “They know that the Ornarans no longer have the plague. They know that felicium is no longer a medicine. So, of course, they are willing to give this shipment because they don’t want to take the chance that the Ornarans will lose their addiction. They don’t want to lose their only customers.” The fact that Symbiosis feels the need to steer clear of the shallow exposition-laden dialogue that Star Trek occasionally takes for granted is a good thing.

It’s also the best and most thorough exploration of the Prime Directive to date. Episodes like Code of Honour and Justice used the rule in a rather clumsy way that made the Federation look like morons who allowed themselves to be bullied by anybody with a crazy belief system in the name of “tolerance.” Sure, the characters weren’t happy about it, but it was still quite a bit silly – after all, vowing not to interfere was a bit different than allowing another culture to execute a member of your crew for some silly and arbitrary reason.

Also: Space Yuppies!

Here, things are handled with a bit more nuance. There are no stakes for Picard or the Enterprise, which means the argument might as well be purely theoretical – and it works much better that way. It also helps that it makes it clear that the Prime Directive can frequently benefit the least deserving of people. After Picard has figured out the scheme, Langor drops any pretence of being concerned about the Ornarans and gets right to exploiting the rules tying Picard’s hands. “If you can’t interfere, then you are going to allow the Ornarans to have the Felicium?”

Justice and Code of Honour portrayed it as inherently virtuous to adhere to the Prime Directive, while feeling free to condemn the cultures in question – which is a strange way of adhering to the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. There was no hesitance from Picard to look down on Ligonian customs even as he was mandated to observe them, showing up to condescend Lutan. The Prime Directive implies some sort of moral relativism, but  The Next Generation has been reluctant to concede that foreign cultures are worthy of respect – mostly they are worthy of lectures or pity or grudging tolerance. It seems like, based on earlier adventures, the Prime Directive said more about the Federation’s virtue than an acceptance of alien cultures.

A hands-on approach…

Symbiosis allows Picard to put his money where his mouth is. The system is exploitation, and it is revealed as such. However, Picard’s unwavering faith in the Prime Directive means that he has to accept that this is a situation where he doesn’t hold absolute moral authority. “This situation has existed for a very long time,” he tells Beverly. “These two societies are intertwined in a symbiotic relationship.” Crusher is having none of this, “With one society profiting at the expense of the other.” Picard, to be fair to him, points out how relative that value is. “That’s how you see it.”

“You can’t let them have the Felicium,” Cursher implores at one point, and it’s very easy to understand where she’s coming from. In fact,  Symbiosis isn’t really ambiguous on this point. It would be very hard to find an audience that wouldn’t consider the relationship is  “exploitative” , at best. However, such judgements are relative, and applying the Prime Directive means that you have to accept that relativism. “Why?” Picard counters, “Because it offends against our sensibilities? It is not our mission to impose Federation or Earth values on any others in the galaxy.”

Staying on point…

It’s funny. The show’s bible explicitly states that the series doesn’t exist to export American and European values, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen Picard have the courage to philosophically defend the position, instead of simply adhering to the rule. It’s not something that’s easy to agree with, but I respect it precisely because it isn’t easy. Indeed, the clever application of the Prime Directive at the end of the episode works precisely because it’s not easy and convenient. Unlike so many early Next Generation episodes, the ending doesn’t leave every character happy, and it doesn’t even assure an ending that is necessarily happy. It simply represents the greatest contribution Picard can make to this troubled relationship.

Indeed, the episode explicitly points out that this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that magically makes everything better for everybody in the system. “When the Felicium runs out,” Beverly advises Picard, “the people of Ornara will suffer horrible withdrawal pains.” Picard acknowledges as much, while maintaining a slight hint of hopefulness. “No doubt, but they will pass.” It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not necessarily the most noble possible. As Beverly argues, “That seems so cruel. We could have made their burden easier.”

I’m just disappointed we never got a Space Wire spin-off featuring these characters.

The best part of Symbiosis is the fact that Picard finally allows the Prime Directive to make sense as a practical guideline, even in the most dire of situations:

Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilisation, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.

It seems to be something that the show has been trying to do since its earliest episodes, and it’s a bit disappointing that it took so very long to get that basic bit of the show’s lore figured out. Still, Stewart and McFadden are great, and they seem to relish the meaty philosophical debate they are given.

Yar out, eh?

The episode ends with the hope that this is the correct course of action, while acknowledging that it’s impossible to know – a rare moment of moral uncertainty at this point in the show.  The Next Generation ‘s first season often traded in Picard’s moral fortitude, and the idea that the Enterprise crew were always inherently correct in what they decided to do. It’ part of what made a few of the early shows so awkward, as the Enterprise seemed more interest in touring with moral superiority than exploring strange new worlds. A happy ending is normally all but assured, but here Picard expressly confesses, “We may never know.”

All this is pretty great, but I also like the fact that Symbiosis reinforces the idea that the Enterprise is on a mission of discovery. Too many earlier episodes instead suggested that the crew really knew everything that they needed to know, and could effectively lord it over aliens like the Ferengi, the Anticans or the Selay. Here, we get a sense of genuine curiosity from Picard and his crew, as he puts the ship in a reasonable amount of risk to see unusual solar activity.

There is absolutely nothing Freudian in this image.

“We will be pushing the shields to the limit, but we are getting a splendid view of this phenomenon,” he assures the crew, and it’s great to see that this post- Star Trek universe is still filled with wonders and mysteries and the crew are still dedicated to exploring and probing. In fact, at the end of the episode, the only bit of comfort that Picard seems able to draw is the fact that the ship is venturing into the unknown, to see what the universe can offer.

Asked where he wants to go, Picard responds, “I don’t care. Let’s just get some distance between us and this system.” It’s a rather cold statement from a character who is normally better able to mask his discomfort and unease. Geordi sets a course for the Opraline System, prompting Riker to inquire why the navigator picked that particular destination. In a moment that reaffirms the enthusiastic thirst for knowledge of Star Trek , Geordi simply responds. “Curiosity. We’ve never been there.”

They can quite quite touchy when pushed…

Maybe my opinion is slightly coloured by the fact that I’ve been wading through a first season that has generally been fairly mediocre, but I actually enjoyed Symbiosis quite a bit. Like the other strong episodes in the season, it is held back from greatness by a certain stilted quality. Here it’s the awful scene where Yar explains drugs to Wesley, the kind of thing that feels like it came from a public service announcement. It’s a short scene, but it’s so painfully forced in an otherwise intriguing episode that it causes a great deal of damage.

In light of Yar’s impending departure (this was the last episode Denise Crosby filmed), it is worth noting that Yar gets perhaps her best moment of the season here, as she breaks up a physical altercation between the Oncarans and the Brekkians with a phaser blast. “Behave yourselves, gentlemen,” she coyly advises them, in a moment of confidence that the character rarely gets. (And, based on what we’ve seen, even more rarely deserves.) In a weird aside, you can also see Denise Crosby waving goodbye at the end of the episode as Picard leaves the shuttlebay. It’s a strange moment, but it’s quirky enough that I don’t mind too much. (It’s also in the background, so you have to look for it.)

Let’s get the hell out of here.

Symbiosis isn’t perfect. But it is better than the vast majority of the episodes so far, and that’s something. I suppose. The rest of the first year would show signs of improvement, but would also be hampered by outside factors. Symbiosis is perhaps the strongest indication of the evolution in The Next Generation , and a sign of things to come. The Next Generation would get a bit better at doing these sorts of morality plays, but Symbiosis is a good enough attempt in a year that is otherwise full of misfires.

Read our reviews of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation :

• Supplemental: The Lost Era – The Buried Age by Christopher L. Bennett
• Supplemental: Star Trek – The Next Generation (DC Comics, 1988)
• Supplemental: The Sky’s the Limit – Meet with Triumph and Disaster & Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann
• Supplemental: Star Trek – The Naked Time
• Code of Honour
• The Last Outpost
• Supplemental: Star Trek – The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane
• Lonely Among Us
• Supplemental: Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1989) #59-61 – Children of Chaos/Mother of Madness/Brothers in Darkness
• Hide & Q
• The Big Goodbye
• Too Short a Season
• When the Bough Breaks
• Supplemental: Star Trek – The Devil in the Dark
• Coming of Age
• Heart of Glory
• Arsenal of Freedom
• Supplemental: Survivors by Jean Lorrah
• We’ll Always Have Paris
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1989) Annual #3 – The Broken Moon
• Supplemental: Deep Space Nine – The Lives of Dax: Sins of the Mother (Audrid) by S.D. Perry
• Supplemental: Operation Assimilation
• Supplemental: The Lost Era – Serpents Among the Ruins by David R. George III

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom , arts , Beverly Crusher , Data , Denise Crosby , Earth , Federation , Orbit , patrick stewart , Photosphere , picard , Prime Directive , star trek , Star Trek Next Generation , star trek: the original series , Sun , Symbiosis , Television , Wesley , Wesley Crusher , Will Wheaton |

6 Responses

One thing that’s interesting about this episode is that it features two actors from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”–the late Merritt Butrick and Judson Scott.

Good spot. I believe one of them passed away shortly after the episode, due to AIDs.

Yeah, that was Merrit Butrick.

“The Next Generation‘s first season often traded in Picard’s moral fortitude, and the idea that the Enterprise crew were always inherently correct in what they decided to do. It’ part of what made a few of the early shows so awkward, as the Enterprise seemed more interest in touring with moral superiority than exploring strange new worlds. “Many earlier episodes instead suggested that the crew really knew everything that they needed to know, and could effectively lord it over aliens like the Ferengi, the Anticans or the Selay.”

I’ll have to disagree on this point, this “perfect crew lording it over all alien cultures” made the show awkward, it made the show toxic. That perfection theme completely jackknifes with the theme that this crew is extreme incompetent and inept. Either of themes is about as enjoyable as a canker sore, but they combine together to making something truly wretched, to make the first 2 seasons of TNG the absolute worst in the franchise. ENT season 1-2 comes close to being worse, but they were at least able to balance out by not being so smug, and self-aware enough to have some of the crew point out when Archer is being a damn fool, or a terrible leader. In many ways, the TNG crew come off as villains, Riker in the Neutral Zone takes one look at a 21th century housewife, and immediately announces her irredeemable and wonders aloud how humanity managed to survive the century. I mean really? You’re going to treat a housewife as the scum of all humanity? Jesus. Even the Nazi’s weren’t this full of themselves. And what’s worse is that smugness is coming from the inept crew that is constantly causing incidents due to their incompetence, and is constantly being shown up by an insufferable teenager. And despite Picard’s pathetic attempt to dismiss Starfleet as not a military, and insist that they are explorers, they never do seem all that interested in exploring, more often they seem to only do it because that’s their job. Roddenberry really was the George Lucas of this series…

It’s somewhat ironic that it would not be until years after Roddenberry had passed away that we got to see a true Roddenberry-idealized individual in the form of Kes on Voyager. Kes did not start out as perfect, she was young and naïve, but one of her earlier ambitions and achievements was to see the sun on her planet. When she was on Voyager, she was eager to explore new things, and she was always willing to learn more about other cultures and ideas, becoming a student of both Tuvik and Vulcan mental power and the Doctor over Federation medicine. She was lacking in the arrogance and smugness, and instead had a warmth to her that really puts her in stark contrast to the TNG we see here. I think that’s the key ingredient that Roddenberry missed when it comes to utopian individuals, the willingness to learn and respect from others.

That’s a very good point about Kes, actually. I was very fond of the character and sad to see her go. While I’d never wish anybody out of a job, I can’t help but wonder what Voyager might have been like if they’d decided to go with their first choice of cast member to cull to make room in the budget for Seven of Nine. Seven and Kes would likely have been a fun combination.

Bad episode. Bad philosophy. Pickard won’t tell an entire planet that they’re being lied to, purposely addicted, and scammed because “It is not our mission to impose Federation or Earth values on any others in the galaxy”. However, he will answer their distress call and save a few of their lives by beaming them aboard the Enterprise before their ship explodes. Derp.

If the Prime Directive is to not interfere, then Pickard should have let them die on their ship. But noOoo it’s cool to impose the Earth value of “all life is sacred” when they’re going to die, but not when they’re being unwittingly tortured. Makes total sense. *fart noise*

Would Pickard save some dying slaves and then return them to their abusive slave owners? Well, that’s basically what he did in this episode. The Prime Directive should be called the “Moral Relative Directive”. Have a nice day, and say no to moral relativism. It ruins fantasy AND real life. Yay!

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Star Trek: The Next Generation

“Symbiosis”

Air date: 4/18/1988 Teleplay by Robert Lewin and Richard Manning & Hans Beimler Story by Robert Lewin Directed by Win Phelps

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The Enterprise crew rescues the occupants of a disabled ship in a decaying orbit and Picard subsequently finds himself in the middle of a dispute between the representatives from two societies — the Brekka and the Ornara — who are involved in a business transaction regarding some valuable cargo. The Brekka's payment for the cargo went down with the ship, so the Ornara refuse delivery, and we have a problem.

The problem becomes a moral quagmire when the cargo is revealed to be medicine desperately needed by the Brekka, and the situation is further compounded when Crusher determines the medicine is actually an addictive narcotic the Brekka don't actually need in order to survive. The Ornara benefit greatly from the Brekka's dependency on the drug, which has permitted the Ornarans to advance their society while the Brekka have been treading water for the past 200 years. Crusher desperately wants to free the Brekka of their drug addiction, but Picard notes that this would be a blatant violation of the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive can make for an interesting debate, and it's nice to see Crusher's distaste over the situation even as Picard defends it as a necessary tenet. But again, a key problem with "Symbiosis" is that it oversimplifies the story to a point that we're forced to wonder how, after 200 years, an entire society can uniformly be addicted to a drug with no knowledge that they're being exploited by their "symbiotic" partners in drug-dealing/addiction. They're hopelessly incompetent ship-runners, which makes you wonder how they even survive.

Simply put, "Symbiosis" — even though it tries to be about something real — is ultimately too heavy-handed and simplistic to work. There's a point in the story where one Ornaran actually makes an evil grin when Picard confronts her with the fact that he's on to their exploitative behavior. This betrays the story as unintended parody more than parable.

Previous episode: The Arsenal of Freedom Next episode: Skin of Evil

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Comment Section

70 comments on this post.

I just watched the Symbiosis. It's the kind of prime directive episodes which just don't seem to be well thought through. I meen, if the prime directive would really claim all kind of information and trade with less developed civilizations wrong, then it would basically mean abandoning all kind of trade and exchange. Not to mention Wesley Crusher beeing more annoying than ever when discussing drugs. However, I think you mixed up the alians. The Brekkians were the bad guys and the Ornarans the unaware drug junkies.

In "Symbiosis", it makes no sense that the Ornarans would simply start pumping their newborn children with felicium before giving them a medical exam to determine if they really do have a plague. If the Brekkians were able to conclude that they had recovered from the plague when they did, why not the more advanced (by the script's own reckoning) Ornarans? The Ornarans as presented here seem far too stupid to be the race that provides all of the resources (other than the felicium) for both systems that dialogue claims they are. The disconnect is high fail.

Talk about trying too hard and fail miserably. With a plot full of logical holes, the overall 'message' of the ep is too obvious to be taken seriously. I think it'd have been more interesting if it was about Tasha experiencing a relapse or something, instead of dropping a single suggestive line about her past. But we all know now her character was actually on her way out of the series.

Nice Afterschool Special, there... Yar's performance is great, but... until season 5, TNG would rarely be so one-dimensional and excessively preachy. The baddies are indeed nasty pieces of work and I like the ideas, but the execution is simplistic. Still, the use of solar flares to knock out electronic equipment is a nice bit of realism... 2 of 4

I agree with Jammer's rating (2 stars). I think the general story had promise, but too many logical plot holes to be a 4 star outing. The previous posters mentioned some of the more obvious problems, such as injecting newborns with felicium before determining do they have the disease. Also, the Brekkan's total lack of preparedness in case the trade with Onarrans ever goes south (war, ship problems, etc.) where they can't even take care of themselves (foodstuffs, clothes, etc.). Remember we are talking about an entire PLANET. They must build their homes and recreation facilities, right? Surely there's a construction industry on Brekka! But the Brekkan woman clearly said "We have no other industries" - not even service industry? The episode over-simplified the issues. That may have been intentional by the writer, but it's detracting in this case. I did enjoy the humor when the Enterprise tried to save the Onarran ship but was flabbergasted at the Onarran's incompetence (Picard's increduluous look when the Onarran captain said he had been captain for 7 years was a nice touch).

There are two outright terrible scenes in this episode which move into so-bad-it's-good territory: 1) the scene where the Brekka holds Riker hostage in stasis with his energy beam. The look on Frakes' face is one of the funniest things in the show's history. It's made even better by the utter lack of necessity for the sequence at all. Nothing necessitated a hostage situation in this episode; and even a hostage situation was required, giving the Brekkians & Ornarans poorly F/X'd electro-powers is totally unnecessary. I get that they were trying to be imaginative and use sci-fi tropes, but it just looks ridiculous. Riker's eyes! Hee. 2) The Tasha/Wesley scene discussing drugs is, of course, infamous and for good reason. I think both characters can be used well (Yesterday's Enterprise and The First Duty are both stunning episodes, for example), but Tasha and Wesley are the characters the show struggled the most with in season one, and they are both at their worst here -- Wesley's dopey inability to comprehend human behaviour because he's so gosh darn naive, Tasha's casual discussion of a lifetime of trauma delivered unconvincingly by Crosby. In addition to all the obvious reasons this sequence fails, it is deeply inappropriate in THIS episode for Wesley to start asking why anyone would become addicted to a chemical when the episode is about people being tricked into addiction under the premise that it is medicinal. Wesley does mention that he gets why the Brekkians started taking the drug, so he gets that what he's saying is irrelevant to this situation -- so, um, why say it? It's like hearing about someone being murdered, and then wondering allowed why anyone would commit suicide. Anyway, these two scenes are unfortunately the most interesting thing about the episode. I don't mind the premise behind it -- the idea of using medicinal needs to addict people to a substance is relevant. (Addictive drugs are often presented as some kind of solution to some problem or another first and foremost.) And if the episode were not so insistent upon the drug behaviour, down to pothead-like behaviour of the Brekkians, it could also serve as a loose allegory for various systems of exploitation between two classes. Still, there's no real subtlety here and the episode falls apart. What I do like is the Picard vs. Crusher conflict here -- Picard's duty is to abstract principles, Crusher's is to humanistic values of protecting people from pain. It's the first time these two are in opposition in any real way, and it's a good dynamic (though Stewart is the stronger actor and delivers his side with more conviction). The compromise Picard makes -- in which he removes his 'interference' entirely in order to prevent the Enterprise crew from *helping* the exploitation continue -- is a smart one as well as one that hints at the vagaries of the way the Prime Directive is interpreted (and the way people often just interpret it however they want -- but are still guided by it as a principle). On that level, the episode is far better than the other Prime Directive episodes this year (Justice, Angel One), though it's not hard to be.... Somewhere in the 1.5 - 2 star range.

My first post on this site! Anyway, It looks like I'm in the minority here. Overall I enjoyed the episode and though the two scenes mentioned above were cringe worthy, they were classic TNG cringe worthy in the best TNG way. I'm often distracted by the inappropriate to the situation looks on Rikers face but those eyes wide open in the hostage scene were at least comically entertaining. Beyond all of that I really enjoyed the Picard/Crusher moral duel and the ultimate resolution that Picard decided on. For me this wasn't a great episode but enjoyable for its attributes. 2.5 stars for me.

I agree, that although the drugs chat was a bit forced, it was a tidy example of discussion and application of the prime directive and a neat solution by Picard. Perhaps the story was a tad lacking but not truly awful... 2.5 at least.

I found this episode really fun and well-paced. I objected to the preachy, cloying morality tale aspect deeply (this is the one aspect of Star Trek that I truly despise) but by the time that element reared its head, I realised that the episode was nearly over and I'd enjoyed the rescue sequence and subsequent conflict so much that I hadn't noticed the time. A couple of commentators have questioned the logic of the Ornarans giving the 'medicine' to newborn babies. I guess they are not aware that, for many drugs, babies of dependent mothers are born with the same dependency. Even if they weren't in this specific case then they would still likely become addicted due to breastfeeding. I'm assuming the Ornarans are mammals, here, of course. Also I don't think the Ornarans are required to be stupid to not have 'figured out' that they don't have the plague. They are drug addicts and there would be no benefit to them (as far as they can see) in making this discovery. The drug makes them happy. They have a socially accepted reason for taking it. They can afford to keep buying it from the Brekkan - their resources could be better spent, no doubt, but that's not how they see it. The Brekkan, in contrast, perhaps had to recover from the addiction because devoting their resources to producing the drug for themselves really was crippling their society and so it had to be addressed.

One of the saddest things about this episode is seeing Merritt Buttrick (at age 28!), both with the memory of how he looked in STII/III and with his death from AIDS coming only a year later. As ever, this is a well-meaning episode that doesn't really work, and feels a bit too much like a "very special episode of TNG" (albeit not as bad as "The Outcast").

Good catch on the relative closeness of this episodes release to Buttrick's death, Josh. It's too bad Merritt couldn't hold on a few more years for the much better medications that came out and of course for the endless revenue stream he would have found with his place in star trek lore. In re-watching old trek episodes, one of my favorite things is seeing who the guest stars will be. I was too young to recognize a lot of them the first time through, and, of course, we didn't have imdb to quickly find out exactly who everyone was. In any case, it was great seeing both of the "sons" from Wrath of Khan in this episode.

"As ever, this is a well-meaning episode that doesn't really work, and feels a bit too much like a "very special episode of TNG" (albeit not as bad as "The Outcast")." The problem with "The Outcast" is that the moral question which the story allegorises is blatantly hypocritical out of universe (the producers refused to add a gay or transgender character). I don't see that being the case here -- I agree there are some execution issues (the evil grins and lack of subtle characterisation in general), but there isn't anything wrong with the premise at all. It's obviously an allegory for the Drug Industry, pumping up the effects of real "medical" drugs which inhibit symptoms while creating dependency (we've all heard about the refusal of the FDA to approve new drugs which actually might cure diseases, rather than perpetually treat them and continue to collect payment for the manufacturers). We tend to draw a very distinct line between addictive narcotics which provide euphoric highs at cost to one's health and livelihood, and prescription drugs which minimise preventable maladies for a similar cost. One is the individual's fault, the other a necessary evil in society. By conflating the two ideas, this episode correctly blurs that line. Picard's speech at the end should have been required reading at the Academy. Just fantastic. I'd probably give it 3 stars. The later half of S1 is better than I remembered. I'm actually enjoying much of it.

Why were they portrayed as incompetent regarding starship operations? They never seemed to pay that off in the story. The backstory was that they were technologically advanced enough for space travel. Seems like something got cut out of the episode.

Elliott, I don't normally agree with your posts but in this case I think we're among the very few who legitimately enjoy this one. This one is hamfisted, yeah, but I think it pretty much works on all of its cylinders. There's nice tension at the beginning and the slowburn of the true nature of the plague was surprisingly compelling (I still recalled the twist from decades ago, but still enjoyed the plot workings). Picard has a nice speech and I think his "solution" is a reasonable and cathartic one. I'm going 3 stars with this. Pretty decent. It's actually the fifth "winner" episode in a row (2-1/2 stars or higher - hey the bar is pretty low after all) and the seventh out of the last eight that wasn't embarrassing. Elliott, you're right that the second half of S1 is much stronger than the first. The first 13 episodes contain about 7 or 8 bottom-of-the-barrel shows, but the last 12 (starting from "10011001") are a lot more solid (with a few exceptions). I don't know much about how much in advance shows are written before they're produced, but it looks a lot like the producers saw how terrible the show was and were actively smoothing out the air bubbles.

As Season 1 goes, I actually liked this one. Is some the acting a bit cheesy, yes, and is the plot line that entire society has unwittingly become drug addicts for 200 years a bit tough to swallow, sure. But I like that it put Crusher and Picard at odds over how to interpret the Prime Directive. This is exactly what the PD is all about, and I loved the end which was unexpected, where Picard refuses to help the Ornarans with new engine components. He knows full well that this move will in the long run help the Ornarans, and he's not violating the PD. I also love his line to that Brekkian snob when he says "oh, you didn't think so when it worked to your advantage." Great stuff, an easy 3 stars for me.

Ahh, TNG's Just Say No episode. So in the 24th century, Romulan Ale is in but any other drug is still out. Suspiciously like the USA of our time, although that is changing as I write this. Something tells me this hypocrisy will be long buried by the 24th century, however drugs - including alcohol - are viewed by then.

Diamond Dave

A fairly heavy-handed morality tale on the perils of drug dependency. But unusually when confronted with Prime Directive questions it wrestles with an insoluble problem and can only provide a morally ambiguous outcome - and that is worthy of note in a series where issues have up to now been wrapped up tidily in seconds at the end of the episode. In does suffer from having the rescue drag on too long, and then seemingly interminable "our medicine" "no, our medicine" arguments, and of course the extraordinary Wesley/Yar drugs discussion scene that seems like it's jumped in from a school educational film. But that doesn't detract too far - 2.5 stars.

FlyingSquirrel

It's been a long time since I've seen the episode, but from the review and from what I do remember, this, for me, represents one of the cases where the Prime Directive just starts to seem stupid and counterproductive. For starters, it's not as if the Ornarans are a completely isolated society - they have space travel, and they clearly know that other species exist besides themselves and the Brekkians. Maybe their quality of life is below the level of most Federation worlds, but why does that preclude Starfleet from offering them a cure from drug addiction? That's like saying it's wrong for groups like Doctors Without Borders to go to an impoverished society to provide medical care that the residents couldn't otherwise get because it "interferes" with their civilization's development. And even if you assume that the Ornarans would be better off in the long run if they devised a cure themselves, why does the Prime Directive prevent Picard or anyone else from at least *telling* them that the Brekkians are scamming them? The Brekkians are essentially committing a crime here. If the Brekkians were planning to nuke an Ornaran city, would it be "interference" to warn the Ornarans to evacuate?

Carl said: " Also I don't think the Ornarans are required to be stupid to not have 'figured out' that they don't have the plague. They are drug addicts and there would be no benefit to them (as far as they can see) in making this discovery. The drug makes them happy. They have a socially accepted reason for taking it. They can afford to keep buying it from the Brekkan - their resources could be better spent, no doubt, but that's not how they see it. The Brekkan, in contrast, perhaps had to recover from the addiction because devoting their resources to producing the drug for themselves really was crippling their society and so it had to be addressed. " Some of this might be logical, but it's all negated because it can all be applied to the Brekkians too, yet they still overcame the addiction.

I'd give this episode ZERO stars and consider it as a contender for worst episode of the series, it's boring, annoying, badly written, badly cast, with not 1 but 2 actors from The Wrath of Khan you can't help but watch this episode remembering the film that was great, which would be fine if this episode was great, it's not, it's obvious, people take drugs, didn't need Star Trek to tell me that!

A very amusing bit of watchable trivia -- this was actually the last episode that Denise Crosby filmed ("Skin of Evil", where Tasha dies, was filmed before this one). So, her very last moment on a Trek set was near the end of this episode, during the scene in the cargo bay. As Picard and Crusher are leaving the cargo bay and the door is closing behind them, you can see Tasha jumping up and down in the far background and "waving goodbye". Very funny -- check it out.

DutchGamer1982

Bad episode, bad morale story. The prime directive does NOT work this way. -one shall not contact civilizations pre-warp (exeption, if they actively use impulsedrive to contact other worlds and succeeded in doing so) -every civilization has the right to make it's own laws, order, and rule over it's own property how it sees fit. *when it is a warp-capable civilization, it IS allowed to criticize other cultures and laws, and stimulate chance from whiithin. However one may not supply outside weapons or technology to force this chance. Exception General : the prime directive excist to PRESERVE the development of races and cultures, logically it IS allowed to take actions that help towards this goal, it never is ment to taken so litterly it actually contradicts it's own prime reason for existance. In this regard it was totally legal to inform the junkies of their addiction, as it would not be information above their own technological level of understanding, and beneficial to their own development. it would also be allowed to offer them the means to break the addiction. However it would be THEIR chooice if they believe this, and if they want any help. if they not want any or not believe the intell, than you would be bound by the prime directive to do nothing more. If enterprise really wanted to play the hardline prime directive (not as inteneded) they should have beamed the two dealers, the two addicts and the drugs back into the sun, as without them interfearing, none of it all would have made it to planet crack. In a further reasoning.. enterprise did allow for the drug to be delivered by resqueing those people and their cargo, if they really would not want to interfere they would have beamed them all back into the sun to be killed and destroyed, just how they found them. Now as for the morale-story : the people aboard the ship acted as idiots, every vieuwer noted those two were crack adics 5 seconds into the story, it took far to long for the crew to notice, it is not believable the elite of the 2200 space navy is that dumb, blind and guilllable. ilikewise the "let them rot and just lets just move away to a better neighbourhood far away from the junkies" attitude does not set a good morale play from that end of the equation. overal felt more like a very dumb and scientifficicly unsound "drugs are bad mkay" add..

Yes, the episode is heavy-handed and oversimplified but I think it does provide a good example of the Prime Directive in action. Thought it was an interesting episode that Picard's character came through well. It was good to see how the disagreement between him and Crusher played out and the end action of not helping the Onarans with their coil provided another take on the PD which worked out well. I'd rate it 2.5/4 stars - an interesting premise with decent examination of the PD although oversimplified.

This is actually one of my favorite episodes of season one. I enjoy the stand off between Crusher and Picard. Crusher wanting to help the Onarans there and then and do what's best for the "sick" people while Picard won't let her interfere. I found myself inclined to agree with Crusher for most of the episode only to be persuaded by Picard by the end. Sure, the episode isn't perfect and it's a bit overdone in places but the final resolution works really well. By not helping and causing short-term suffering they will create a positive over the long term is an interesting end to the story which works much better than any alternative (e.g. telling the Onarans the truth or letting the trade continue). The use of the engine parts was unpredictable and provided a nice solution to the problem. For all of its faults, the overall story works well and we get to see a genuine and well played out stand off between Crusher and Picard. Personally I'd give it 3/4. I'd happily take this over any of the inane Q episodes or slow and boring Klingon episodes.

Execution was shaky, but it's one of the better "Prime Directive" episodes in concept. They actually come up with a great way to solve the situation without technically breaking the rules. Usually they just make a big moralizing speech about why the rules aren't as important as The Right Thing and then flout the rules completely, or something else comes up to save them, or they use a trick to fool the less-advanced aliens. But "We can't intervene to stop you - but we won't intervene to help you either" was a good way to handle it. TB's first 2 paragraphs summed it up very well.

So: The Ornorans loaded their wobbly freighter with goods to barter for the drug, and flew to Brekka . There, Brekkans loaded the drug onto the freighter but somehow forgot to offload the Ornaran goods. Then the Brekkans climbed aboard the deathtrap ship themselves for a ride to Ornora. We're not given even a throwaway line to explain any of this. I remain confused also by how the two cultures are portrayed. The Ornorans have spacefaring technology but are dumb as Pacleds about maintaining their ships. They also wear clothes that look rustic and threadbare. What's the message: Are they stupid? Drugged to the point of incompetence? Impoverished by the predatory Brekkans? None of these options make a lot of sense. Meanwhile the Brekkans are wearing the latest in metallic fashions - presumably manufactured in Ornoran factories. And for all their apparent riches and leisure time, they've been content to remain technologically behind the Ornorans they look down on - and are okay with completely dependent on them and their crumbling ships? I am going to stop thinking too much - and just get back to enjoying the bizarre face of Electric Riker. I could look at that all day.

I didn't mind this episode. While I agree with the criticisms, and the fact that it was definitely heavy handed, I also agree with many of the commenters that it was nice to have a strong prime directive episode. The first season has a lot of scenarios where they quote the prime directive, but the viewer questions whether it really applies. One thing that bugged me about this episode, more than anything else was: Picard was initially willing to just hand over some ship coils to help them repair their ship. So this shows that he is willing to trade resources as long as it's not advanced tech and it doesn't screw up the status quo of their society. So then why did Picard not ask the Onarans what the payment was supposed to be for the cargo? If it was something that could have been easily replicated on the Enterprise then Picard could have payed the tab for this shipment, resolving the dispute, and restoring the status quo. The enterprise can replicate a lot of materials and resources that would be considered valuable on other worlds. That's one of the reasons why Federation technology is kept under lock and key. Even if it turns out they couldn't replicate whatever the payment was supposed to be, why not ask at least? It could have easily been covered with some throw away dialogue. *Sigh* In the end they had a satisfactory solution. But up until that point I couldn't stop thinking about this one issue.

Sarjenka's Little Brother

This is a decent episode if you just turn off your brain and let it flow over you. That's what I did last night. And except for the stunningly awkward Wesley/Tasha drugs chit-chat on the bridge, I was mildly entertained. However, the more you think about the episode (and read the reviews noting plot holes on here), the more it just falls apart. I think "Symbiosis" is best watched under the influence of a few bong hits (which I did not do) or some general post-Christmas, brain-tired malaise, which I did do. As for Merritt Buttrick, that was very sad. In hindsight, you could see the effects of HIV on him already. I didn't pick up on it at the time. Like someone else said, if he had just a few more years in him, he might have made it to the era of effective antivirals. Poor guy may not have even been aware of his medical condition at the time.

Prince of Space

My favorite part is at the end of the anti-drug scene between Wesley and Tasha, when Tasha says, “And in conclusion, always remember to floss.” Wesley looks her dead in the eye and replies, “We always floss. We’re Starfleet.” Powerful stuff. Giving me shivers even now.

I think this is the only episode where Tasha speaks at length and doesn't talk about her evading rape gangs. She never says if they ever caught her, but I suspect you would to get captured a time or two. I know it is wrong, but catching Tasha at least once would be kinda sweet. This is yet another episode where the Prime Directive makes no sense. If you can't warp to the other side of the galaxy, you are just a backwoods rube of a civilization. The city where I grew up, didn't have public transportation to the Southside, so I never went there. Was I less of a person because I didn't have a vehicle capable of making it to the Southside of town? I would be denied the use of city resources because I wasn't worldly enough to reach the South or points beyond? I would be denied legal advice or new technology because I wasn't smart enough or rich enough to build or buy a vehicle capable of reaching the outer rim area of my city? These two worlds seemed to have a high level of technology, other than the fact the knew nothing about how to repair their ships or owning space capable ships at all. For that they are treated like 5th graders who can't be told about the ways of the universe. I'm sure they would have an incentive to develop warp capability if they knew about places like Risa, or Dabbo girls on DS9. The Prime Directive is far too rigid . I can see if a civilization still lives in caves, or don't even have the internet. But to not clue them in that they are being played and taken advantage of just because they don't know how to build or add a turbocharger on their ships, is very cruel.

The first few minutes were fun, listening to the freighter captain being a total idiot, whacked out of his mind on drugs. When asked how much time before the ship explodes, Worf should have said "4:20". The Public Service Announcement about Drugs. Are. Bad. to Wesley was AWFUL. What ridiculous lame writing. Do they really need to beat viewers over the head with a sledgehammer with that point? Nice concept, but terrible writing, terrible acting, and it became all SO BORING!

This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? Fade to black

Cesar Gonzalez

The beginnung was fun. The conversation between Picard and the freight captain was something else. Really entertaining. Poor, Picard. Lol. He couldn't get over the stupidity of the caotain. The way he delivered the line, "yes. I Think that's best," was gold.

Really, Dr. Lazarus? rape fantasies? It is with regard to Tasha that I want to speak up for this episode because for the first act she is suddenly competent, rather than being a helpless bridge bunny, and that was long overdue. Still too little, too late.

Fluffysheap

This is an episode that is weirdly both dated and ahead of its time. The "don't do drugs" speech is so incredibly 80s, but at the same time, the stuff the episode is actually an allegory for - painkiller addiction and fair trade between wealthy and developing nations - were not significant issues yet at the time the episode was made. It's a good test case if you want to talk about the death of the author, at least! I hope The Orville decides to remake this episode. One of their mistakes is redoing good Star Trek episodes that are hard to improve on, instead of bad ones that could easily be upgraded.

Just Say No to this episode.

The best part of this episode was the clever way that Picard used non interference to interfere with the horrible relationship between the two planets. Otehrwise ho hum 6.5/10

Nobody's mentioned this episode's great opening scenes. We open with the crew all hyped up and happily exploring a sun and various solar anomaly, complete with neat "solar flare" special effects. We then get a fairly good rescue sequence, as Picard tries to save a doomed ship. No flashy FX, no strained attempts to drum up drama; just Picard standing and speaking to a static-filled screen whilst dropping some beautifully banal, methodical dialogue. The episode also ends on a great scene, Picard and the crew randomly picking a segment of the universe to boldly explore. These bookends really convey a sense of science and exploration as a giddy, fun impulse. Another thing: I believe no episode in TNG is more packed with extras and darting about background characters. The bridge and Enterprise is far more busy than usual in this episode, crewman and women always zipping about in droves. I like this, as it really conveys the idea that this is a huge vessel. I've noticed that the comments on this site, particularly for TOS and s1 of TNG, get less harsh as time goes on; people seem to become more forgiving and/or begin to find several dated aspects to be kind of charming and retro. The new HD transfers of TOS and TNG may also be an influence; this episode, with the twin planets, and sunlight glinting off the Enterprise's hull, looks great. Beyond this, I thought the core storyline of this episode was good, at least in theory. The idea of a simbiotic/parasitic relationship between a planet of addicts and drug dealers is a great concept, and still relevant (such parasitic relationships apply to goods/products/trade-deals far outside the realm of narcotics). But as Jammer mentions, several sanctimonious, on-the-nose speeches tarnish the episode badly. In a comment above, Elliot praises Picard's elevator speech. It always rubbed me the wrong way. It's wonderfully acted and staged, and I tend to defend the Prime Directive's non-interference policies in some other episodes, but here it's surely wrong (?). You have a planet of drug dealers essentially going into a community, lying to a group of people, getting them addicted, and then exploiting them for profit. Surely one has a moral duty to stop this, and explain to the victims what's going on. To me it just seems like one of Trek's more stark and clear dilemmas, and something that demands swift action. On the flip side, what I always like about these early PD episodes (there've been at least 3 so far in season 1), is how Picard "always finds a way". He kowtows to the PD, but manages to find a loophole in which (what I believe to be) the moral is never-less arrived upon. It's a kind of intellectual game of chess, and Picard shines as a character when he's asked to navigate these dilemmas.

VelvetVoice

Yes this episode can be cloying and I’d like to smack the Brekkans. But that aside, has anyone ever noticed that drug thing is a plasma injector conduit in other episodes?

Eh. It was ok. Well cast, on the guest star front, as the Brekkians couldn't have looked or acted more obnoxiously snooty and fake, and the Onarans couldn't have seemed more pathetic and desperate. The episode isn't so much about drug addiction as it is about the Prime Directive and making hard choices - not doing the easy thing or seeking instant gratification. The scene where Yar explains drug addiction to a clueless Wes was awful. More fuel added to the Picard/Crusher mutual attraction thing, though knowing this is going nowhere, it just makes me sigh.

Watching Star Trek TNG for the first time starting with season 1 episode 1, and I found this episode ridiculous and terrible enough that I had to do an internet search to confirm that I had just watched something so poorly written and thought-out. None of the premise or explanation of this episode is rational or believable: - A planet which has figured out space travel hasn't figured out how to examine and understand chemical compounds and has no conception of what drugs are? - An entire planet is addicted to a drug and nobody on it has even been separated from the drug long enough to realize that withdrawals pass? Nobody on this planet ever gets lost in the wilderness, doesn't have the funds to acquire the drug, or any of many other scenarios where they'd inevitably get over the withdrawal period? How do newborns come to be addicted to the drug? Nobody ever just wilfully refuses to take it either out of protest or with a goal to suicide, or some other motivation? - Picard and his crew violate the "prime direction" worse than speaking simple truth to these people all the time. And Picard violated the prime directive worse than telling the 'drug addicts' the truth when he saved them from their decaying ship - that interventionist action ensured that the entire planet would continue to be drugged, while if Picard hadn't done that they would have been forced to go through withdrawal with no alternative. Picard obviously violated the "prime directive" to save Wesley Crusher... but he wouldn't save an entire planet filled with teenagers of Wesley Crusher's age, and of children and babies younger than him? - Picard gives utmost hypocritical speeches on the prime directive and how critical it is in an episode where he violates it multiple times, including wilfully and knowingly by giving the inhabitants of the drug-using planet the coils they need to fix their cargo ships. Picard later reverses that decision, but not for the sake of the prime directive, but because he wanted to cut their supply of the drug - and he openly acknowledges that he's flip-flopping and being selective in where he applies the prime directive by responding to the drug seller's "that's absurd!" comment by saying, "you did not think so when it worked in your favour". There is just 1 minutes and 50 seconds between Picard selectively applying the prime directive as a tool for ulterior motives and openly acknowledging that he's doing so, and him giving Dr Crusher a lecture on the prime directive's importance in the elevator. This is stupid. - The planet that makes and sells the drugs to the other is 100% filled with evil persons who eagerly exploit the other planet's people and feel no compassion or sense of humanity towards them? Not one of the people on that planet cared to send a message to tell the other planet that they're just addicted? An entire planet's population has no compassion, doesn't regard other people are equal to themselves? How could that planet then care for each other? They couldn't, they would inevitably rationalize betrayal of each other just as they do the people on the other planet. These are just some select major issues with the episode, while I think I could point out a dozen more. This whole episode's premise and execution was completely stupid, and it shouldn't have been done. The episode also is entirely ignorant of the topic of drug use and portrays out-dated (were they ever in-date?) tropes of people who use drugs, and is like watching a very old film that features extreme racial prejudices that were normal at the time, but which reeks of ignorance when watched today. I would not be surprised to find out that this episode was sponsored by the US government or some other third party - though, the DEA seems a very likely possibility.

I just got out of rehab for heroin and they had the TNG box set there, everyone loved this episode lol

Words matter and so do numbers. The Yark speech to Wesley was maybe 2 1/2 minutes long. The problem with the exchange was not so much the dialogue as is the fact the dialogue was being exchanged between what were the show's two weakest characters at that point (and hardly the two best actors). The Prime Directive, earlier in the season (I am thinking of "Justice" in particular) seemed to be used as a way of hamstringing the crew, for the sake of contriving drama (really? Not allowing Wesley to be executed, when the Edo basically told the Enterprise it could beam away with Wesley in tow and the world would go on, was interference with a developing world's beliefs? It was, as Picard said in a later episode, imposing a set of commandments on the Edo? Please). Here the Prime Directive was used with a nod toward reality and sanity. The Ornarans asked for help to install the coil. The show never told us what the exact contours of the Prime Directive were, but providing the installation help didn't seem an infraction. Later discovery of additional facts caused Picard to realize that "non-interference" as a principle was best-served by doing nothing and letting the parties stew in their own juices. The execution may have been wanting, but the premise here was sound enough

I’d suggest to the people who don’t like this episode because it “incorrectly “ portrays the Prime Directive, or because Picard selectively applies it, or because “The Prime Directive is stupid” the following: The Prime Directive had never, prior to this episode’s airdate, NEVER been described in the show in the amount of detail necessary to make your arguments valid, or invalid. As of the airing of this episode, to the extent the PD has been defined at all, it has been defined for expository purposes, I.e., by Kirk in Bread and Circuses. Who Watchers the Watchers and the episode First Contact finally gave us more detail. But those episodes of course cam after the this one. Also, in reality, a corollary to “Just Say No” was that, if you did not say no, too bad f o you, you are weak and you should be incarcerated. This episode did not blindly parrot Nancy Reagan; taken as a whole the episode was somewhat sympathetic to the Ornarans, definitely vis a vis the Brekkians. The episode, to me, was more of an indictment of the untrammeled capitalist mentality that allowed the symbiotic relationship to flourish In the first place. I realIze my comments go against Official Interpretive Orthodoxy. So maybe I should be stoned No pun intended

Jeffrey Jakucyk

Tara Tue, Jul 18, 2017, 5:20pm (UTC -5) "So: The Ornorans loaded their wobbly freighter with goods to barter for the drug, and flew to Brekka . There, Brekkans loaded the drug onto the freighter but somehow forgot to offload the Ornaran goods. Then the Brekkans climbed aboard the deathtrap ship themselves for a ride to Ornora. We're not given even a throwaway line to explain any of this." "I remain confused also by how the two cultures are portrayed. The Ornorans have spacefaring technology but are dumb as Pacleds about maintaining their ships. They also wear clothes that look rustic and threadbare. What's the message: Are they stupid? Drugged to the point of incompetence? Impoverished by the predatory Brekkans? None of these options make a lot of sense. Meanwhile the Brekkans are wearing the latest in metallic fashions - presumably manufactured in Ornoran factories. And for all their apparent riches and leisure time, they've been content to remain technologically behind the Ornorans they look down on - and are okay with completely dependent on them and their crumbling ships?" Amen to that! I didn't even think of the logistics of this particular journey and why the Brekkians were even on the Ornaran ship in the first place. I was also confused about why the Ornarans were so incoherent and incompetent in the beginning, and never really thought it might be because they were high. If that was the case though, how would they have the wherewithal to sustain a manufacturing base, not to mention space travel? None of that was paid off in the episode. What really got me is that the Brekkians have no industry other than felicium production; the Ornarans provide everything they need. Ok, whatever. It would make more sense if they were transporting just the raw plant and not the finished product, since the Ornarans have all the industrial capabilities, but then they couldn't take the drug on the ship. Anyway, I guess they're trying to convey that the Ornarans have to give the Brekkians every last little bit of their industrial production to pay for the felicium, leaving them nothing but threadbare clothes and broken-down ships. Except they only had one functional ship left. Are we to believe that the Ornarans were able to transport ALL the Brekkian's goods in that one ratty ship that only ever made three or four journeys per year? This really is sloppy. It might work if they didn't dumb down the Ornarans so much. Make this just one run out of dozens per year with different ships. It can still be critical to a large percentage of the population. Or maybe a previous shipment was lost, tainted, or whatever. The Ornarans should be more like the Malon from Voyager. Sour, dirty, doing what they have to do, but still basically competent, if not single-minded and ruthless. I guess that wouldn't play into the "drugs are bad" message.

One thing I did not see mentioned which made the moral dilemma all the more interesting in this episode: this "symbiosis" made the Brekkians just as dependent on the Ornarans as the other way around. Their society has become so accustomed to the Ornarans providing everything for them that, by their own admission, it does not produce absolutely anything but the drug. If Picard and crew helped the Ornarans to (relatively) quickly overcome their addiction, it would have doomed the Brekkians as a whole; surely not all Brekkians would have deserved such a fate. What makes Picard's decision smart here in my view is that it does not turn the situation on its head, but lets both races know that present arrangements cannot continue in the long-term: the Ornarans can no longer maintain their vessels, thus the drug trade WILL eventually stop - but it gives a chance for both races to prepare and, hopefully, arrive at a better solution.

As clunky as the Tasha/Wesley scene was, it was not as much ripped from a school anti-drug film as it may seem, at least not where I lived. I was a teen and it was eye poppingly informative. All the anti drug stuff I had seen pretty much went direct for the pure hell of heroin or whatever addiction. What was NEVER presented was that it might just FEEL GOOD. So, as goofy as Wesley’s aww-shucks thing was, for many of us in the real world, it was reality. I’m assuming the powers that be, at least where I lived, never explained the “positivess” that drug use had because it would seem like promoting it or something. I don’t know though, because you would see someone smoking weed or something without the extreme consequences of worst case heroine abuse or whatever, and it’s a pretty quick leap that you were being lied to, so I question this rationale. Anyway, they could have played this scene better. It would go a long ways if Wesley had just nodded in befuddledment, rather than the aw-shucks thing they went with.

Jillyenator

I loved the solar flare opening with the crew enjoying themselves, and the hysterical dialogue between Picard and the absolutely stoned Onaran captain. I felt Picard's frustration after dealing with these two planets' problems. There was no real win here, plus he and Crusher ebded at loggerheads. It's going to be difficult for both worlds going forward, although the solution with the coils was novel. At the end, Picard's weary realization that he didn't care where they went, as long as he could put this one behind them, was palpable. Stewart's line reading was great. His voice actually cracked a little as he repeated, "I don't care." Good stuff. Back to the opening scene. Was this the first instance where we see a Picard face palm? Those never get old.

I did not relaise the connection untile the very end. One of "Enterpise" best episodes is "Dear Doctor". So many hndread years ago Phlox already faced a simililar situation and Archer took basically the same desicion even without the primary directive. I just wonder, why did not Data manage to retreive this information from the Archives? That would have helped Picard and Crusher. This was not as well plyed as "Dear Doctor". The story was not so clear until the surprising resolution. Until then I was as upset as Dr. Crusher. First then I realised the connection. I would say the plot was one of the better and the acting standard TNG.

I doubt this is an original opinion but I"ll write it anyways - the Prime Directive annoys the hell out of me because we see endless instances of it being ignored until the plot demands it. It's cool to beam drug dealers and addicts onto the ship but preventing an entire population being unwittingly held hostage by drug dependence in the guise of a plague is peachy-fine? I get where it makes sense with regards to populations who lack the technological advancement to discern the Federation from gods but the way the Prime Directive is invoked almost always elicits an eyeroll from me because it's clear that it only matters to the writers when the plot demands.

Bob (a different one)

"the Prime Directive is invoked almost always elicits an eyeroll from me because it's clear that it only matters to the writers when the plot demands" Yep, it's the plot driven inconsistency that bothers me the most. There is an interesting moral dilemma it this episode, but the setup is too implausible. Problems: 1) The drug addicted planet isn't plausible because the populace seems to have devolved to the point that they have the intelligence of Pakleds. I suppose this was done to explain why they were incapable of figuring out what was really going on with the "medicine" but it makes their society seem unrealistic. 2) The drug dealing planet isn't plausible either, because if they are smart enough to run this scam for this long they are smart enough to realize that they can't depend on their customers for transportation. 3) The scale is way off. An entire planet is being supported by what can be carried on three cargo ships? With a little tweaking (ahem) the plot could have worked. What if the drug addicted planet knew the "medicine" was nothing more than dope, and just didn't care? Or, at least, weren't willing to go through the pain of withdrawals. Change from two dimensional drug pushers to three dimensional characters who are dealers but who also have some shreds of guilt over being enablers; deep down they are still doing what they do for selfish reasons, but they rationalize it as doing it to "help" their poor neighbors. Picard's dilemma would still be the same: do the right thing for planet B and there will be unknown and potentially disastrous consequences for planet A. Except now you don't have an easy situation where it feels like the villains are simply getting their just deserts and the addicts aren't simply blameless victims. As it ends now it feels like a cheat. Picard will be able to stick to the letter of the PD, and still give Crusher what she wants; the drug addicted planet will overcome its addiction. The good guys win! The problem is that it's going to cause the exact same problems that Picard was worried about: there will undoubtable be dire consequences for the drug dealing planet; their entire way of life will be destroyed. (Question: Was the entire populace in on the conspiracy?) Heck, there could even be war between the two planets. Who cares? Picard just orders the Enterprise to haul ass out of there and doesn't look back. If that is an acceptable outcome, then why did Picard "interfere" in the first place by saving the crew of the cargo ship? The only difference is a matter of scale. Wouldn't a better ending be one in which the Federation agrees to help both planets? Help planet B kick its habit, and agree to send economic advisors and trade negotiators to planet A to help them overcome the upheaval to their economy? At best, you save a lot of lives and gain two new allies. At worst, you have a situation that is still better than the one Picard ultimately left them with.

Well said Different Bob. Honestly, there's just something about the Prime Directive that sort of romanticizes the idea of a society pulling itself up by its bootstraps while ignoring the very real suffering that must take place. Imagine a Federation type organization was monitoring earth during WW2 or the Bubonic plague. Untold suffering allowed to go on for centuries without intervention because of this absurd idea that a civilization cannot take a shortcut. Better to let children suffer from parasites that eat out the back of their eyeballs than to maybe disrupt a society built around backwards beliefs and woefully inept medical capabilities.

Agreed with last two posters. There are problems here that could have been fixed. Buttrick’s stoned Captain thing was pretty surreal and funny but the Ornarans aren’t high, so why did they not do something? The Prime Directive is problematic as ever, but at least it had the unusual angle of two other parties. But, what if Beverly or Picard just told the Brekka they were just druggies? It wouldn’t matter, they would be “yeah fine whatever.” It’s naive to think they don’t know. They may even be perfectly happy with the situation. And technically, Bevs doesn’t 100% know that they don’t legit medically need the drug. Still, all in all, it was a pretty good episode for season one. That a hand full of people represent a planet was always a limitation of the show simply because that’s all you can do on a weekly show with 20+ episodes a year.

Nauseating hypocrisy from Picard. He was very keen for Q to “interfere“ to prevent Starfleet and Earth being assimilated by the Borg - but when begged by Dr. Crusher to give the Ornarans something that could break them of their addiction, he preaches the Prime Directive, which he construes as forbidding interference, at her. Apparently the PD does not apply when a member of Starfleet is in danger of getting the chop for committing a crime on an alien planet - far from letting the Edosians execute Wesley, Picard‘s adherence to the rule of non-interference that he praises so highly in Symbiosis is allowed to be put on one side. The PD is clearly absolutely binding for Picard - except when it’s not convenient. Millions of strangers can suffer for his inviolable moral principle, the PD - but stuff the PD if it endangers people he cares about. Then it magically (that being the apposite word) ceases to be inviolable. And, as magically, becomes inviolable again when he wants it to be. Bare-faced callousness, though ugly, is at least preferable to callousness masquerading as moral high-mindedness and principle. His hypocrisy would be nowhere near as offensive if he did not set himself up as morally superior to us 20th-century barbarians. The self-righteous self-congratulation of characters in TNG is one of its more unattractive features. If the members of Starfleet are such moral paragons, why do they lack the wisdom to reject our hypocrisies, instead of copying them ? Picard 0 - Dr. Crusher 1 It’s no wonder he was in a hurry to leave that system - he probably had an uneasy conscience. To Picard’s credit, he does lose some of his tendency to self-righteous posturing in the course of the series. I think Jammer was right - 2 seems a fair mark for the episode.

Frake's Nightmare

Fab - Picard saying go on just keep electrocuting him...can't help wondering if Riker was just thinking 'lower...lower...lower...'

Awful, boringly preachy episode. Poorly paced, badly staged, ridiculously obvious and clunky dialogue. The scene where Tasha explains drugs and addiction to a wide-eyed Wesley sums up the bottomless pit of just how bad this is. As for the opening scenes where Picard tries to debate with the Ornarans what their problem is, instead of taking immediate action to rescue them... unbelievable! You know, I used to think the upcoming Skin Of Evil was the worst episode, but now I’ll reserve judgment - it will have to go a long way to beat Symbiosis. 0.5 stars, if that.

@petulant I agree, 100% @Prince of Space Uh? I just watched this on Netflix and there was no reference to flossing. If there had been, I’d have at least got a good laugh. @William B Yes, the look on “electrified Riker’s” face was indeed “so bad it’s almost good “!

I have seen this episode at least five times over the years, and until reading someone else's comment here, I've NEVER thought about the massive plot hole that is both the drug and the payment for said drug being on the same ship. Like... what? Why? So the Onarrans loaded the payment onto the ship... flew to Brekkia... picked up the drugs... AND two Brekkians for some reason... and then flew back to Onarra with both the drugs and the payment on board... for what reason exactly? I can't come up with any reasonable explanation for why that scenario played out the way it did. It's not that big of a deal, clearly - I mean I never even picked up on it until someone else pointed it out - but it's the sort of thing that, once you realize it, it's just mind boggling. Other than that this episode is alright, definitely one of the better S1 outings. I appreciate how delightfully evil the Brekkians are portrayed, and how much they seem to enjoy being bastards - especially the woman, she's just so smarmy. 2.5/4, maybe even 3.

Sorry to double comment, but I just had another thought: Yes, Tasha's conversation with The Boy is heavy handed and wooden, and yes, Wesley's "aw-shucks-gee-wiz" naïveté frankly, well, sickens me, BUT... That doesn't make anything Tasha says untrue, and honestly the point she makes is fairly progressive for 1988. Her point is, "drugs are bad because it's easy to get stuck in a cycle of addiction and dependence," which, after eight years of Nancy telling the whole nation to "Just Say No" comes across as a much more nuanced approach to discussing addiction than the writers might have otherwise taken. I mean it's taken us as a society the last thirty years to just begin to come to that understanding and base treatment around rehabilitation rather than punishment. So, I think the episode deserves credit for that. The moral of this story is less "don't do drugs" and more "it's morally reprehensible to exploit other people's ignorance for your own gain." That's hardly a hot take of course, but, it's less "after school special" than it could have been.

Many episodes play much differently (i.e. worse) since the onset of the pandemic, notably "The Naked Now" and this one. PICARD: Do you think we are in danger from this plague? CRUSHER: Again, I need more time. Okay, so you don't know yet whether their disease is contagious, and yet you didn't quarantine them or take any steps to prevent the spread of this disease? HELLO! I actually agree with the principle of the Prime Directive. Unfortunately, it's very hard to dramatize and isn't applied consistently throughout the series. Isn't the simple act of saving the four people on the freighter interference in itself? One interpretation of the Prime Directive would be that Picard shouldn't have answered the distress call in the first place, in which case we would have no episode. I'm also confused as to why Picard originally plans to give them the coils, only to later change his mind. Does that violate the PD or not? He seems awfully confident that not giving them the coils will eventually free them of the drug, but if the Brekkians are smart at all (which, admittedly, they may not be), they would offer to fix the Ornarans' ships in order to preserve their business. The felicium must flow!

"I'm also confused as to why Picard originally plans to give them the coils, only to later change his mind. Does that violate the PD or not? " When it comes to spacefaring races, it appears the PD is less rigid than with prewarp cultures. It is permissible to render emergency or other aid (helping a crippled ship with repairs, rendering emergency aid etc...) provided doing so does no explicitly influence for fundamentally change their culture. So fixing their ship was fine as long as it was just the equivalent of a roadside tire change - not fine when Picard realized it would be fundamentally altering the course of their culture by perpetuating this drug addiction that otherwise was going to end once supply of the drug was cut off. To use another example, helping defend Gowron's flagship from pirates would probably have been fine, but not against other Klingons in a civil war like in Redemption. It's admittedly really murky but there is some kind of logic to it if you look hard enough and ignore some episodes.

I don't know if they always were firm on that policy but as far as I understand it, it means that the Federation is invisible to pre-warp civilizations and otherwise follows a policy of non-interference. Jason outlined quite nicely how that works.

This ep is a good concept with the execution of an after-school special, which it feels like, especially in Ensign "Shut Up Wesley" Crusher's chat with everybody's favorite soon-to-be-killed blonde.

Everyone gives S1 a bad rep - but this episode was very good.

"You must give us back our cargo!" Picard: "it's not my decision." "We need some now! NOW.! I don't care if it's your decision. Get us some! Our people need it! And if you don't give it to us you will be a party to the murder, not only of us, but also of an entire civilization!!" That escalated quickly! Lmao

Maq: So many hndread years ago Phlox already faced a simililar situation and Archer took basically the same desicion even without the primary directive. I just wonder, why did not Data manage to retreive this information from the Archives? You're teasing, right? Or you somehow forgot that this show was made 14 years before Enterprise? Whoever explained the huge plot hole about the Brekkians AND the Ornarans AND the drugs AND the payment all on the same ship at the same time, bravo! I never thought of that and you're right, it's a mess. Added to the mess that was the rest of the episode.

NONI says: That doesn't make anything Tasha says untrue, and honestly the point she makes is fairly progressive for 1988. Her point is, "drugs are bad because it's easy to get stuck in a cycle of addiction and dependence," Yeah, it was cheesy, but the point was good: that drugs are often the result of other problems and suffering and it doesn't mean that everyone who went through those things and looked for drugs as a way out is a bad person, and that most of humanity doesn't grasp this any more only because we're so much better off that people don't usually end up in that situation. And the ending of the conversation never gets enough credit. Basically... Wesley: I still don't think I get it. Yar: And I hope you never will.

It is also a rare time where Tasha is well used. No other member of the main cast could have delivered that message without it being way out character.

I like this episode. I think when it first came out, when I was in my young teens, I didn't get all of the intended message with some subtle shows. This one clearly shows the harmful effects of drugs, and I personally like the conversation between Wesley and Tasha on the subject. I don't understand why people are so jaded that a frank discussion like that is seen as "cringey" Of course Wesley would not have been exposed to harmful and addictive substances! I think if I would change anything, I might replace Tasha with his Mom, but still, a respected motherly figure kindly explained some things to the boy-what's wrong with that? Especially since Tasha's upbringing means that she understands the powerful draw of such bad substances

I understand the frustration other commenters have had, over the years, with the everybody-on-one-ship issue, but I think I always assumed that the Brekkians had so concentrated their entire economy on producing felicium that they had no ships of their own. The drug dealer doesn't deliver; he hangs out on the corner, and the junkie has to come to him. I'm guessing that the ship arrives at the Brekkian homeworld loaded with everything the Brekkians need to support their life and a fairly comfortable lifestyle: food, clothing, household appliances, fuel to produce energy to run the appliances, devices for communication and entertainment, medicines for real diseases, etc., mostly things the Onarrans couldn't afford to keep for their own use because they were giving it all to the Brekkians (hence the crew's threadbare clothing in contrast to the Brekkians' stylish outfits). I'm guessing that the container of felicium is beamed aboard along with a couple of Brekkians whose job is to verify that the agreed-upon goods are in the cargo holds, then the goods and the Brekkian officials are beamed to Brekka. It's true that this series of events has the Brekkians allow the felicium to be beamed up before the the payment for it is beamed down, but I can see how that might have developed as their custom. Somebody has to be the first to hand over their part of the bargain, and this relationship has been running smoothly for so long that the Brekkians are willing to trust that the Onarrans will not risk the collapse of the trade agreement by reneging on their part of the deal. But this time, something goes wrong with the ship in between the arrival of the felicium and the departure of the goods that were supposed to pay for it. An unprecedented trade dispute ensues. This scenario would suggest that they are closer to Brekka than to Onarra when the mishap occurs, close enough to have transported the Brekkians and the felicium aboard. Perhaps the goods are headed to the opposite side of the planet from where they beamed up the felicium, so there was going to be some time between the two? Or perhaps the Brekkians bring the felicium aboard, but the goods are not to be beamed down until everything has been counted to make sure it's all there as agreed? Am I missing anything that would make that explanation unworkable?

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Den of Geek

Revisiting Star Trek TNG: Symbiosis

James' weekly TNG look-back comes to a thinly veiled social allegory feat. sweaty aliens. Here's his review of Symbiosis...

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This review contains spoilers.

1.22 Symbiosis

Discovering a ship trapped in a star’s magnetic field, the Enterprise attempts to rescue the crew from certain destruction and is surprised to discover that they appear to value their cargo more than their life. Managing to save four of the six crewmen – and a barrel of the ship’s cargo – the Enterprise now finds itself mediating an ownership dispute between the two factions within the rescued freighter crew.

Naturally, when faced with such confusion, there’s only one option, and that’s to give everyone a timeout and wait for a solution to present itself. After a brief friendly chat, everyone catches up on the backstory: the two factions represent the Ornarans and the Brekkans, a pair of civilisations found on opposing planets. Each claims ownership of the contents of the barrel, which turns out to be “Felicium” – the only cure for a deadly plague wracking the Ornaran civilisation. The Brekkans are the only people who can make it, and they sell it to the Ornarans.

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However, because the transaction was not properly completed (on account of one half of it exploding in a sun) the Brekkans want to hang onto their drugs. Understandably, the Onarans aren’t quite so keen. Picard, belatedly realising that he’s exposed his entire crew to danger once again, sends the Ornarans to sickbay where they start sweating – the most instantly-recognisable symptom of TV illnesses. (For reference, sweating = generic ill, sneezing = allergies, coughing = lung cancer). But what’s this? Crusher can find no source for the so-called “plague”, even though it affects everyone on the Brekkan homeworld.

To help relieve the symptoms, the Ornarans agree to let the Brekkans chase the Felicium dragon, explaining that their entire economy is based on manufacture of the drug. The Ornarans, in return, give them everything else. Yes, that’s right, everything else. Cars. Computers. Houses. Biscuit tins. Silica Gel. Wallpaper. Blu-tack. Submarines. Clothes horses. Both double and single glazing. HDMI cables. Those cardboard sleeves that fit around plastic DVD cases for no apparent reason. Everything. As a result, they can barely even fly their own ships, and ask Picard to give them the replacement parts their aging freighters need.

But after watching the Ornarans take the drug, Crusher immediately realises the truth: the Brekkans aren’t ill. They’re addicts. Their “plague” is merely a manifestation of their withdrawal symptoms. She explains it to Picard, and he declares that although he disagrees with what the Brekkans are dong, they can’t help the Ornarans, citing the Prime Directive for about the fifteenth time this series (in later series it transpires that the Prime Directive only applies to uncontacted pre-warp cultures, which suggests Picard has been misinterpreting it throughout season one. That’s probably why he finds his job so hard to do.)

Reluctantly, he must let the Brekkans and the Ornarans leave. However, he has a last-second brainwave and denies the Brekkans the parts they need to fix their ships, once again citing the Prime Directive (what? They ASKED for help! Oh, whatever, forget it.) With the trading unable to resume, the Ornarans will go through withdrawal and eventually realise that there is no plague and that they’ve all been had. With this issue solved, Picard transports the four men back to Ornara and gives  Dr. Crusher a speech that amounts to little more than “Well, we’ve fixed that problem forever with no further issues left to resolve. We’d better leave immediately.” And they do.

TNG WTF: Leaving aside Picard’s complete misunderstanding of Starfleet’s top rule and the misunderstanding of its application (If he can’t interfere even to the point of pointing out to the Ornarans that they’re a planet full of crackheads, why did he interfere by saving their lives in the first place?!) this episode has massive WTF issues. Not least the idea that NO-ONE on Onara has actually tried to discover another cure for their symptoms, or even establish a cause. What? Really? Come on…

TNG LOL: Wesley Crusher gets a good laugh from this episode out of the line “Captain, my console seems to be overloading.” It’s nice that he gets a warning, most of the time the things just explode right in people’s faces.

Also, Tasha Yar’s speech to Wesley about how drugs are bad, mmmkay is about as subtle and well-written as a 1980s anti-drugs infomercial. “Tasha, is it true that if I eat some cocaines I’ll become immediately addicted?” “Yes, Wesley, that is exactly the case. Also everyone you know will die as a result.”

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Mistakes & Minutiae:  This episode contains Tasha Yar’s famous “goodbye” to the fans. It was the last episode Denise Crosby shot (filmed after Skin of Evil in which – SPOILER ALERT – she dies). If you’ve never seen it before, watch the cargo bay doors as Crusher and Picard leave about 42 minutes in.

Time Until Meeting: 17:50. Now that everyone has turned on one another, there’s only one way to solve the problem: third party arbitration.

Captain’s Log: This is one of those episodes which exemplify all that is awful about Star Trek in general. I’m not talking about season one’s dubious production values (which, to be fair, are considerably more even than they were when the series began) but about the episode’s very fabric.

It begins with a thinly-veiled social allegory, which is then simplified to the point of irrelevance. This idea is then made the centre of a society that can only function if you don’t try and actually think about it in any practical sense. They then apply one-dimensional morality onto a set of two-dimensional characters, and in the end Picard, embodying the voice of 1980s US Socialism, gives everyone a stern talking to and declares the situation resolved.

So, by the end of the episode, the Enterprise has basically brought down the economy of both planets, inflicted untold withdrawal-based carnage on the Ornarans, fostered much badwill between the two cultures and then buggered off before anyone on either planet thinks to ask them to help clean up the mess they just created. Morally, the Enterprise has done the right thing in freeing the Ornarans – but they’ve done so in a massively unhelpful way. One can only imagine how many Ornarans lost their lives as the result of what the Enterprise did, whether they were unwilling or unable to face withdrawal. Remember, this was an entire planet of people so dumb they never checked to see if there was another cure available. Or even a disease to cure. Sheesh.

Watch or Skip? Bleuurgh. Skippable, if I’m honest.

Read James’ look-back at the previous episode, Arsenal of Freedom, here .

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Star Trek: DS9s 2 Forgotten Dax Hosts Explained

• Jadzia Dax became two Dax hosts, 7th and 9th, briefly stolen by Verad in season
• Confusing memories and cover-ups follow.
• Joran Dax, a violent musician, was a forgotten Dax host known only in season
• A memory block prevented his return.
• Whorfin Dax was a production design gag referencing a character from another film, never confirmed as a Dax host.

Even the most die-hard Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fan may struggle to remember the progression of Dax hosts, but there are two that get forgotten for two very different reasons. Ezri (Nicole de Boer) and Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) are the two most notable Trill aliens in the Star Trek timeline, and were the eighth and ninth hosts of the Dax symbiont, respectively. However, in the early days of Star Trek: DS9 , official Trill records stated that Jadzia was the seventh Dax host , succeeding the late Curzon Dax.

However, Jadzia technically became both the seventh and ninth Dax host when the symbiont was briefly stolen by Verad (John Glover) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 4, "Invasive Procedures". The progression of Dax Trill hosts in DS9 got even more confusing a year later, when a major cover-up was exposed by Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Sidddig) in DS9 season 3, episode 4, "Equilibrium". "Equilibrium" revealed two forgotten Dax hosts, one that would return later in DS9 , and another that was never mentioned again.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Cast & Character Guide

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had the biggest cast of characters of any Trek show, meaning that Captain Sisko had numerous allies in the Dominion War.

Star Trek: DS9s Two Forgotten Dax Hosts Explained

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, episode 4, "Equilibrium" it was revealed that Joran Belar (Jeff Magnus McBride) was the forgotten Dax host . A musician with a violent temper, Joran proved to be an unsuitable host, and a doctor from the Trill Symbiont Commission recommended that the Dax symbiont be removed. This would have killed Joran, so he murdered the doctor, but was eventually caught and separated from the Dax symbiont. The symbiont was given a memory block prior to being joined with Curzon, so that future Dax hosts wouldn't retain Joran's memories.

"Equilibrium" was conceived as a vehicle for illusionist and magician Jeff Magnus McBride, whose routine with various masks is used in Dax's dream sequences.

A few years after Curzon's death, Jadzia began to remember aspects of Joran's life, including his musical abilities. While trying to find out more information about Joran Belar, Bashir and Sisko call up a record of the previous Dax hosts. One of the names at the bottom of the screen is Whorfin Dax, whose name appears underneath Lela Dax. Later in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, in the episode "Facets", Lela Dax is confirmed as the symbiont's first host , with no mention being made of Whorfin Dax. However, there's a good reason why Whorfin Dax was never mentioned again.

Why Joran Dax Returned To Star Trek: DS9 And Whorfin Dax Didnt

The main reason that Whorfin Dax was never mentioned again was likely because it was an in-joke on the part of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's production designers. The name Whorfin Dax was derived from John Lithgow's villainous Lord John Whorfin in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension . It was therefore designed as a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Buckaroo Banzai Easter egg, rather than a confirmed Dax host, which is why there's no Whorfin Dax, although there is Worf and Dax from DS9 season 5 onward.

An S.S Buckaroo Banzai, commanded by a Captain John Whorfin, was another production design gag in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Up the Long Ladder".

Joran Dax later returned in the body of Commander Sisko during Dax's zhian'tara ritual in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, episode 25, "Facets". Years later, following the death of Jadzia Dax, her successor, Ezri, summoned the memories of Joran to catch a murderer aboard the station in DS9 season 7, episode 13, "Field of Fire". Joran Dax was a good character to bring back because he added an edge to the characters of Jadzia and Ezri, that forced them to confront the darkness within themselves in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, Ren Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Cast Terry Farrell, Cirroc Lofton, Rene Auberjonois, Nicole de Boer, Michael Dorn, Andrew Robinson, Nana Visitor, Avery Brooks, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig

Release Date January 3, 1993

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

Network CBS

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, Ronald D. Moore

Showrunner Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller

Rating TV-PG

Where To Watch Paramount+

We Finally Know When 'Star Trek: Prodigy' Season 2 Will Hit Netflix

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The Big Picture

• Star Trek: Prodigy's second season premieres on Netflix on July 1, 2024.
• The story continues as the group embarks on a mission to find Voyager's Chakotay in the Delta Quadrant with the guidance of Admiral Janeway.
• The show's creators hint at a potential seven-season run, promising more adventures and excitement for fans of the series.

It's been a long year for fans of Star Trek: Prodigy , but the animated series' long-awaited next season is finally in sight. Netflix will reportedly release the second season of the kid-aimed Star Trek series on July 1. TrekCore.com reports that the release date can be seen on Netflix's app.

The second season of the series, which follows a ragtag group of alien teenagers in the galaxy's Delta Quadrant as they try to use an experimental Starfleet ship, the USS Protostar , to escape an evil dictator, didn't seem like a sure thing at one point. Last year, the series was canceled and deleted from its original streamer, Paramount+, even though its second season was nearly complete. Fan outrage ensued over the well-received show's cancelation, and a letter-writing campaign was launched ; Prodigy was eventually picked up by Netflix , who are currently streaming the show's first season. Fans have been waiting for the next season's release ever since, although it was released in France several months ago.

What Do We Know About 'Star Trek: Prodigy' Season 2?

In "Supernova", the two-part finale of Prodigy 's first season, the USS Protostar was destroyed, as was the cadets' mentor, a holographic avatar of legendary Starfleet commander Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ). However, the group escaped their foes, saved Starfleet, and made it to Federation territory. There, they met the real Janeway, who took them on as warrant-officers-in-training aboard a new Protostar-class ship. Janeway wants them on a mission to return to the Delta Quadrant to find her Voyager first officer Chakotay ( Robert Beltran ), who was lost in the region aboard the Protostar in the first place. The series will presumably also deal with the fate of Gwyn ( Ella Purnell ), who departed the group in the first-season finale to try and bring peace to her people, the Vau N'Akat. A clip of the second-season premiere was also released last year, which reveals that a familiar Star Trek voice will have a part to play in the series. In it, the Prodigy cadets meet the holographic Doctor ( Robert Picardo ), who was Janeway's chief medical officer on the original Voyager .

Will there be more Prodigy after its second season? Only time can tell, but in an interview with Collider , Prodigy writers and executive producers Dan and Kevin Hageman said "We wrote this thing to go seven seasons at least."

Watch on Netflix

Season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy will debut on Netflix July 1, 2024 . Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Star Trek: Prodigy

A group of enslaved teenagers steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy.

Screen Rant

Battlestar galactica's ron moore borrowed a big idea from star trek: ds9.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Cast & Character Guide

Guy ritchie’s young sherlock series makes another upcoming sherlock holmes project even more exciting, elle fanning’s 91% rt true crime show is a great watch after under the bridge on hulu.

• Moore's experiences on DS9 influenced the darker tone of Battlestar Galactica, with similar storylines and character inspirations.
• Connections between the two shows include shared actors, music mysteries, and thematic similarities in character development.
• DS9's influence on Battlestar Galactica writers helped shape the morally ambiguous and darker themes of the rebooted series.

Ronald D. Moore's 2004 Battlestar Galactica reboot borrowed a story idea from his first season as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's supervising producer. When Star Trek: The Next Generation ended in 1994, Ronald D. Moore joined the DS9 team as a writer and supervising producer. Together with Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and the rest of the DS9 team, Moore was instrumental in shaping the Dominion War arc between seasons 3 and 7. Years later, when Ronald D. Moore rebooted Battlestar Galactica , it was clear that Moore's experiences on DS9 influenced his darker take on Glen A. Larson's space opera .

Arguably, Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica reboot owes more to his time on Star Trek than the original vision of creator Glen A. Larson. Multiple Star Trek actors appeared in Battlestar Galactica , including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Nana Visitor, and Star Trek: The Next Generation 's Michelle Forbes. The idea of the Humanoid Cylons resurrecting themselves was very similar to how multiple incarnations of Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs) and other Vorta would appear in DS9 . More directly, one episode of DS9 season 3 went on to play a major role in Battlestar Galactica 's final season.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had the biggest cast of characters of any Trek show, meaning that Captain Sisko had numerous allies in the Dominion War.

Ronald D Moore’s Battlestar Galactica Borrowed A Story Idea From DS9

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, episode 4, "Equilibrium", Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) is suddenly able to play a mysterious piece of music, despite never showing any musical ability . Neither of the previous Dax Trill hosts were musical either, creating a mystery as to how Jadzia is suddenly able to remember ther particular song. Eventually, it's discovered that she's remembering Joran Dax (Jeff Magnus McBride), whose existence was suppressed due to a scandal within the Trill Symbiosis Commision that ended in murder.

While "Equilibrium" is credited to René Echevarria and Christopher Teague, Ronald D. Moore is credited with the idea of centering the story on Dax and the Trills.

Ronald D. Moore expanded the core premise of "Equilibrium" when revealing the Final Five Cylons in Battlestar Galactica 's shocking season 3 finale. Each of the Final Five, who believed themselves to be human, began remembering a piece of music, "All Along the Watchtower". Moore built on this idea further in BSG season 4, episode 17, "Someone to Watch Over Me", in which Starbuck (Kara Thrace) also tried to crack the mystery of a half-remembered piece of music that ultimately contained the coordinates to bring the Colonial Fleet home to Earth in the finale.

Battlestar Galactica’s Other Links To DS9 Explained

In a talk at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 2016, Ronald D. Moore confirmed that Star Trek: DS9 's Kira influenced Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica . Wanting to create another " kick-ass " heroine in Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), Moore took inspiration from Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) by swapping the letter I for the letter A. Nana Visitor later appeared in Battlestar Galactica in season 4, episode 6, "Faith", as a cancer patient who forms a friendship with President Roslin (Mary McDonnell). Nana Visitor's casting was suggested by Battlestar Galactica writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, who had also previously worked on DS9 .

David Weddle cameoed as a bar patron in the DS9 -influenced Battlestar Galactica episode "Someone to Watch Over Me".

Prior to joining Ronald D. Moore's writing team on Battlestar Galactica , David Weddle and Bradley Thompson worked on twelve episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Some of the highlights of Weddle & Thompson's work include the "Inquisition", and "Extreme Measures", two of the best Doctor Bashir episodes of DS9. Both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes, featuring Starfleet's morally bankrupt intelligence agency Section 31, were clearly good training for writing the darker, more morally ambiguous science fiction that Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica reboot would be praised for.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Battlestar Galactica

The 2004 science fiction TV series Battlestar Galactica is a reimagining of the 1978 series of the same title. Created by Glen A. Larson, the original Battlestar Galactica features a fictional human civilization living in a distant star system called the Twelve Colonies. They are in constant battle against a cybernetic race called the Cylons, who want to exterminate the human race. A massive attack was launched, and only those who made it onboard the Battlestar Galactica and its fleet survived. They navigate space in search of the mythical 13th colony called Earth. Battlestar Galactica is under the command of President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) and Colonial Fleet Officer, Admiral William Adama (Edward James Olmos).

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

• The Inventory

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 Warps to Netflix Next Month

After a long road, getting from there (paramount+) to here (netflix), the new season of the star trek animated series will begin streaming from july 1..

What an absurd journey Star Trek: Prodigy has been on. The promising Trek animated series suffered an unjust and abrupt removal from Paramount+ last summer, leaving its second season in the lurch, until Netflix announced it would pick up the series ... and only for that sophomore season 2 to accidentally show up on international streaming services earlier this year. But now, at last, it looks like Prodigy is preparing to head out of drydock the right way.

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Trekcore reports that Netflix has begun promoting the second season of Prodigy in the user interface of its streaming apps with a July 1 release date, after the debut season of the kids series—which follows a young cast of alien teens who come across an abandoned experimental Starfleet vessel, the Protostar , and use to travel the stars in the hopes of becoming Starfleet Academy students—hit the streamer on Christmas Day last year. No further details about the rollout of the season have been confirmed yet.

There’s hope that more seasons could come if Prodigy does well for Netflix—Netflix becoming the saving grace for a popular animated series after it was unceremoniously dumped by its original platform, where have we heard that one before? So however it rolls out, Trek fans interested in Prodigy ’s future should be ready to get streaming from next month—and help show that Star Trek shows can live long and prosper beyond the constrains of Paramount’s attempts to make its in-house services the definitive “home” of the franchise .

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

Sparking STEM dreams: From 'Star Trek' to Neil deGrasse Tyson, minorities find inspiration

Ronald Gamble still remembers sitting up with his mother in the 1960s to watch the exploits of Captain James T. Kirk, Spock and Lt. Uhura on TV's groundbreaking "Star Trek."

“She was a big Trekkie,” Gamble, a theoretical astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said of his mom and a show with barrier-busting messages of unity and mission-driven science.

Uhura — who even once helmed the conn on the animated version of Star Trek — may have been one of the first major visualizations depicting Black people working and solving problems in the future, but she’s not alone.

In the decades since "Star Trek," a number of figures — both real and fictional — have inspired Black people to join science and engineering work fields.

One of the most prominent real-life figures, Black or white, in astrophysicsis is Neil deGrasse Tyson, the 65-year-old astrophysicist and author who appears across media talking on everything from black holes to the possibility of life on other planets.

Tyson, who one day may talk about the rings of Saturn and the next give a shout out to hip-hop, remains a staple on science shows, cable news and in movies.

One of his mentors, prominent author and astronomer Carl Sagan, once chided Hollywood directors for movies like the first "Star Wars," taking them to task over their early failure to depict alien life of all kinds, with no Blacks and other minorities in its fictional universes.

Nearly 30 years later, a plethora of books, movies and videogames depict Black explorers and Black warriors tackling galactic-sized issues in movies like " Black Panther," "Captain Marvel," the Star Wars sequels and blockbusters like the zombie-packed "I Am Legend" and the sci-fi mind-twister, "Tenet."

One of the defining trends depicting Black representation in the science and technology-themed fields of art, literature and movies is Afrofuturism, the cultural movement that combines the Black experience with science and pop culture.

Author Octavia Butler, whose work "Kindred," about a protagonist time traveling to the days of slavery, was adopted for a movie recently, is frequently cited as an influence. Gamble, an established oil painter, graphic designer and consultant, points out that part of making science and STEM-related fields accessible is making them relatable the way Star Trek and other pop culture figures do.

In recent years, groups like Black in Astro, Gamble’s Cosmic Pathfinders Program or podcasts like the Dr. Raven the Science Maven have raised the consciousness of those interested in learning the trappings of space and science.

"The plan is to remove the barriers," Gamble said.

J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or [email protected]. X, formerly known as Twitter: @JDGallop.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation

Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before. Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before. Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before.

• Gene Roddenberry
• Patrick Stewart
• Brent Spiner
• Jonathan Frakes
• 321 User reviews
• 162 Critic reviews
• 39 wins & 61 nominations total

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• Trivia Almost everyone in the cast became life-long friends. At LeVar Burton 's 1992 wedding, Brent Spiner served as best man, and Sir Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes , and Michael Dorn all served as ushers. Man of the People (1992) (#6.3) aired on that day.
• Goofs It is claimed that Data can't use contractions (Can't, Isn't, Don't, etc) yet there are several instances throughout the series where he does. One of the first such examples is heard in Encounter at Farpoint (1987) , where Data uses the word "Can't" while the Enterprise is being chased by Q's "ship".

[repeated line]

Capt. Picard : Engage!

• Crazy credits The model of the Enterprise used in the opening credits is so detailed, a tiny figure can be seen walking past a window just before the vessel jumps to warp speed.
• Alternate versions The first and last episodes were originally broadcast as two-hour TV movies, and were later re-edited into two one-hour episodes each. Both edits involved removing some scenes from each episode.
• Connections Edited into Reading Rainbow: The Bionic Bunny Show (1988)

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‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Season 2 Confirms July 2024 Netflix Return

Picture: Paramount+

The rescued season of Star Trek: Prodigy has finally confirmed its Netflix release date. The next batch of episodes has been confirmed to be arriving on Netflix on July 1st, 2024. 

In case you missed the news last year , Netflix acquired the rights to Star Trek: Prodigy away from Paramount+. It carried the first season from Christmas Day in 2023, with the confirmed second season skipping Paramount+ to be exclusive to Netflix.

Netflix didn’t quite acquire the global rights to the show, with many local distributors continuing to carry it. According to Unogs , 23 regions of Netflix carry Star Trek: Prodigy , including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil, Argentina, France, Israel, Singapore, most European regions, and select Asian territories.

Following season 1 being added to Netflix late last year, it featured in the Netflix Kids top 10s in a handful of countries , including the US, UK, and Australia, but its best-performing countries were Germany and Austria.

Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 – Picture: France TV / Paramount+ / Netflix

The wait for season 2 has been a long time coming. Last summer, we were told that the finished season wouldn’t be coming to Paramount+, but after the rescue, the release of season 2 was pushed to 2024. The wait was made even worse by the fact that the show had already aired in some countries. In France, for example, the series has been available since February 2024 .

Season 2 kicks off with Dal, Rock Tak, Zero, Jankom Pog, and Murf continuing their training to join Starfleet Academy and are called aboard a new ship for a mission under the command of Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

The new season has 20 episodes in total, with multiple two-part episodes, including the season opener and season finale, plus two split episodes in the middle. It’s unclear whether Netflix intends to split the new season in half.

The Star Trek: Prodigy voice cast includes Kate Mulgrew, Brett Gray, Ella Purnell, Rylee Alazraqui, Angus Imrie, Jason Mantzoukas, Dee Bradley Baker, John Noble and Jimmi Simpson.

The episodes for this season are as follows:

• Directed by: Ben Hibon
• Written by: Kevin & Dan Hageman
• Directed by: Andrew L. Schmidt & Patrick Krebs
• Written by: Aaron J. Waltke
• Directed by: Sung Shin
• Written by: Erin McNamara
• Written by: Keith Sweet II
• Directed by: Ruolin Li & Andrew L. Schmidt
• Written by: Jennifer Muro
• Directed by: Sung Shin & Sean Bishop
• Directed by: Sean Bishop
• Written by: Diandra Pendleton-Thompson
• Written by: Alex Hanson & Aaron J. Waltke
• Directed by: Ruolin Li
• Written by: Erin McNamara, Jennifer Muro, Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, Keith Sweet II & Aaron J. Waltke
• Written by: Alex Hanson
• Written by: Kevin & Dan Hageman & Aaron J. Waltke

Netflix has yet to officially unveil the new season, but we’ll update this post once we have more information.

Let’s round out this article with some new first looks for the upcoming season:

Picture: France TV / Paramount+ / Netflix

Are you looking forward to the new season of Star Trek: Prodigy hitting Netflix? Let us know in the comments down below.

Founder of What's on Netflix, Kasey has been tracking the comings and goings of the Netflix library for over a decade. Covering everything from new movies, series and games from around the world, Kasey is in charge of covering breaking news, covering all the new additions now available on Netflix and what's coming next.

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