TNG Episode 1.4: Code of Honor

In which the cause of race relations is set back... actually, nobody cares that much because it's an extremely silly episode, but it doesn't help any.

Memory Alpha says: A mission of mercy is jeopardized when a planetary ruler decides he wants an Enterprise officer as his wife. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

I think it's probably true that any actor who has had an at all interesting career has been involved in some absolute stinkers - whether because they seemed good initially and only later turned to shit, because they did it as a favour to someone they liked or loved, or because they just needed to get paid. The proper spirit is demonstrated by Michael Caine, who, when asked whether he had seen the absolutely ridiculous Jaws: the Revenge said no, but he had seen the house in France it paid for, and that was lovely. (The best part of Jaws: the Revenge: Caine's character, a light plane pilot, has to ditch into the sea where the vengeful shark is swimming around and attacking a boat holding the other characters. At this point we're supposed to think the shark eats him when it has a go at the plane. Shortly afterwards, though, he swims up to the boat and they pull him on board and ask him how he escaped. Caine: 'It wasn't easy.' No more is said about it, and in the next shot in the same sequence his clothes are dry.)

'Code of Honor' is one of those stinkers. Because the fierce and obstinate alien characters were all cast as black actors, and they abduct a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman, it comes out incredibly racist and backward and weird. This casting, which was not specified by the script (it does mention two guards as black, I don't know why), was a whim of the episode's director, and got him fired when Gene Roddenberry got wind of what he was doing. However, that didn't happen until too late for a do-over, so the episode just had to be completed as it was. With that little bit of context/perspective out of the way, let's have a look at 'Code of Honor' and hope that it at least helped to pay for a bit of a house in France.