After I got done with the last post, I went and watched a few episodes of the animated series, and you know, if I hadn’t known that they were trek cartoons, I’d never have guessed it. Of course, the visual effects probably give it away, but what can I say. I had a really hard time limiting myself to just two Next Generation episodes. Yeah I know, I’ve said that each time, but TNG really starts to get into my favorite trek, and what was difficult with the original series becomes nearly impossible for Next Gen. My fiancé suggested that, after this blog cycle is complete, I go back and write posts about particular episodes. That’s exactly what I was planning on doing. But I want to finish this first.
When Next Gen came out, a lot of fans weren’t sure how to take it. To many, it seemed like the creators of TNG were trying to ape the original series, and doing a bad job of it. That was one of the reasons Spock appeared in Reunification, to bridge the gap between the two camps of trek fans, old series fans and TNG. For me, young as I am, it’s hard to imagine those two groups being at odds, but these were early days in 1987 when “Encounter at Farpoint” first came on television.
I remember my first real exposure to star trek, and it was to TNG. I was eleven. I’d come home from a three-day camp for blind and other disabled kids near Waco Texas, and my mother had taken me to Wal-Mart. While there, she asked me if I wanted anything; it was our tradition at that time that, money being sufficient, I got one tape of my choosing (yes, younger fans, I listened to cassette tapes and I was 13 before I had a CD player). I wanted the recording of Woodstock 94. Well it wasn’t available, so instead she came back with what she told me was something she thought I might like. She said it was a book on tape. Well, I’d never owned a book on tape before. I’d borrowed from the Library of Congress’s Library Service for the Blind, and so of course I knew they existed. But actually have one? Never did. The book was the three-hour-long abridged novelization of the recently released Star Trek: Generations. It was read by John Delancy.
Now I knew my mother and father occasionally watched star trek, and I’d caught snippets of the odd episode here and there. I’d heard of some ship that was called, Enterprise, but I didn’t know anything about it. But I took the book home and began listening … and I was hooked. My mother jokingly claims to have been regretting that purchase for almost twenty years. Well, Generations is a hard first introduction, because I didn’t understand why the book took place in two different timelines, and the Nexus was really hard to grasp. So I went back and read the novelizations of the first six movies, watched some TNG, and I understood. The rest is, well, history. History that culminates in, among other things, this blog.
When it came to selecting episodes of TNG to talk about here, it was agonizingly hard, because TNG has so many standout episodes. “Best of Both Worlds 1 and 2,” “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” “Relics,” “The Inner Light,” so hard to choose and so many reasons to include any one or any two of those. One episode, though, was without any doubt going to be included. No, it’s not “Reunification.” Good guess though, because I am attached to Spock. What is it then?
“The Measure of a Man”
Story by Melinda Snodgrass
Picard requests Starfleet Judge Advocate General for the twenty-third sector, Captain Philippa Louvois, to hold a hearing to determine Data's legal status. Louvois agrees; however, as her office is understaffed at the moment, she drafts Commander Riker to represent Maddox's interests, and the position that Data is the property of Starfleet -- and without the broad array of human rights accorded in the United Federation of Planets-- and Picard, to serve to represent Data's interests, that Data is a sentient being, with the choice to resign from Starfleet and to refuse to undergo Maddox's procedures. Riker, forced to prosecute against Data to prevent a summary ruling against him (to ensure the issue is accorded due process of law) enters the same argument Maddox had made years before, where Maddox was the sole dissenting vote as to Data's petition to attend Starfleet Academy and pursue a Starfleet commission.
Picard initially finds Riker's prosecution difficult to challenge. However, during a recess, Picard talks to Guinan, who suggests that regardless of whether Data is a machine or not, Maddox's goal is tantamount to sanctioning slavery; Picard uses this to defuse Riker's arguments when the court reconvenes. The discussion of Data's sentience turns to metaphysical matters. Picard points out that Data meets two of the three criteria that Maddox uses to define "sentient life". Data is intelligent and self-aware, but Picard asks anyone in the court to show a means of measuring "consciousness". With no one able to answer this, Louvois acknowledges that neither she nor anyone else can measure this in Data (nor in any other person present) and, as such, Data, as a matter of law, is a sentient being. She therefore rules that "Data has the right to choose." Upon the court's ruling, Data formally refuses to undergo the procedure.
Best thing I learned out of this episode? How to play poker, of course. Well, ok not quite. But I did learn most of what I know about poker from the various card games scattered throughout the series. That’s neither here nor there though, so we’ll just, as they say in Vegas, let it ride. This episode does hold special significance for me, though. I’ve had the pleasure of introducing several people over the years to star trek with various results. In any case, no matter what series they end up liking, or even if they ultimately decide it’s not for them, I always start here, in TNG’s 35th episode. Mostly I use this one as a starter because it doesn’t rely on any implied knowledge the viewer may have about the characters’ backgrounds. It also uses things most people know, like lawyers and court rooms, so there’s an air of familiarity with it. One person said it was like Law and Order in the twenty-fourth century, and I can see that. It’s not very sci-fi heavy, even if the protagonist is an android. So here I always begin.
Now we come to the issues. That’s another reason I always start with this episode. The issue is both very clear to the new viewer and very complex. Often times, I’ve observed something of a startled reaction from people who were expecting run-of-the-mill sci fi, who instead found themselves provoked into fascinated thought and wound up discussing the issue of Data’s sentience with me. And what an issue. Voyager’s seventh-season episode, “Author, Author,” explores what is essentially the same question applied to a hologram, but “The Measure of a Man” both does a better job at it and was the first episode to tackle the question of Human Rights (as we call the concept today) being applied to artificial constructs.
Of all the deep and abiding questions that that show raises, one interesting one never comes up at all. If we agree that Data is a sentient life form and is protected by the rights we accord to sentient beings, when did he become so? When, in programming a machine, do you pass the threshold and find yourself operating on a sentient entity? Think that’s an irrelevant question for today? Well, consider all the work we’re currently doing in robotics and artificial intelligence. Our sci-fi is bursting with the implications of intelligent, manmade machines. Everything from Data to C3PO to Azamoth’s three universal laws of robotics. In any case, what seems clear is that the human imagination can conceive of machines that can think and act for themselves. TNG’s “The Measure of a Man” asks the question, how ought we to regard them? As property? Or as sentient, reasoning beings whose rights ought to be respected? So in today’s push to make smarter, more intuitive computer interfaces, when will we pass that critical point where our machines will, ethically, need to be given equal status with us. I’m imagining the Supreme Court’s ruling on that day, and if someone doesn’t watch this episode on that day, they sure ought to.
In addition, the deep metaphysical questions that crop up aren’t something that you normally see on television, and the show does a great job of both not getting too bogged down in philosophical abstractions, as philosophers themselves too frequently do, and of not skimming over the questions it raises by giving them short shrift. Picard is right when he demonstrates that there is, within the scope of that judicial hearing, no way to prove Data’s consciousness or even Picard’s own. Even the judge, who is at first inclined to sympathize with the cyberneticist Maddox, is moved, and if you listen to the opening of her ruling, you would almost think she was fighting back tears. By the end, even Maddox himself, our antagonist, has come to respect Data, seemingly as a sentient being with the same due consideration he himself would expect.
Picard’s finest move in that hearing was to paint a picture of the future as it could be if Data is allowed to be dismantled without any thought given to his status. One android, he says, is a marvel, a wonder even, but thousands? Now you’re talking about a race, and history will judge humanity, he argues, by how we treat that race. A hard point to argue, and one that really put pressure on the presiding judge. I’ve never been a judge, but I can’t imagine that decision weighted easily on her. The most touching scene comes at the end. Riker has to prosecute, not because he wants to or because anyone else wants to see him prosecute his comrade and friend, but because due process must be observed. Both sides must have a fair and equal hearing, and Riker knows that if he just breezes through, the penalty will be a summary judgment against Data. Yet at the end, Riker’s rather depressed. He’s beating himself up not because he lost, but because he almost won. Now there’s a man who was never gladder to lose an argument, I’d say.
The episode “The Measure of a Man” is frequently rated in the top three of most top ten favorites lists of Next Gen episodes and with good reason. Data is a very popular character, and that always helps. But I think that the questions this episode raises and the way it goes about dealing with them have more to do with why fans keep coming back to this one. The next episode I want to tackle isn’t as well known, but its questions are no less hard-hitting.
“Half a Life”
Story by Ted Roberts and Peter Alan
The U.S.S. Enterprise takes aboard Deanna Troi’s eccentric mother Lwaxana and Dr. Timicin of Kaelon II. Timicin has been brought aboard to conduct an experiment which he hopes will save his threatened home planet. The lives of the people of Kaelon II are in jeopardy as the sun their planet orbits is in a state of near-collapse. The Federation has enlisted the Enterprise to take Timicin to a sun in a similar state of decay to conduct experiments which may yield a method for saving the Kaelon system from destruction.
Upon arrival at their destination, the crew assists Timicin in modifying a photon torpedo to be fired into the proxy sun in the hopes that it will repair the damaged star and prove that the technique can be safely applied to the Kaelon sun. The torpedo is fired and, although the experiment seems initially to rectify the damage, the effect is short-lived and the experiment is declared a failure. The Enterprise returns to Kaelon II and Timicin is crushed. After some questioning by Lwaxana, Timicin reveals that his experiment's failure is not the only fact troubling him. Indeed, Timicin is about to turn 60, and on Kaelon II, everyone who reaches the age of 60 kills him or herself in what is known to their people as "the Resolution," a means of ridding their culture of the need to care for the elderly. Lwaxana is outraged by this fact, and when Picard makes it clear that he will not interfere in the planet's internal affairs, Lwaxana tries to beam herself down to the planet to halt the process. When she is thwarted, she goes into hysterics until Deanna comforts her.
After Lwaxana and Timicin end up spending an evening together, he tries to explain the custom of the Resolution to her, stating that they should never expect to be repaid for the care they show their children, and a fixed age had to be selected because just randomly choosing a time to die would be heartless. However, she still considers the custom barbaric, and refuses to accept their tradition, citing an example in Betazed history of a woman who went against the tradition of wearing a ridiculous wig and changed their civilization for the better. When Timicin's analysis of the failed test turns up some promising options, he suddenly realizes that no one else has the knowledge to carry on his work to save his world, and requests asylum on the Enterprise.
B'Tardat, the Science Minister on Kaelon II, is outraged, and sends up two warships to ensure that the Enterprise does not leave the system with Timicin on board. As Picard orders the bridge crew to analyze the offensive capabilities of the Kaelonian ships, Timicin realizes that his situation is not as simple as he had hoped, for the planet below will not accept any further reports from him. Indeed, he's informed that even if he finds a solution they will not accept it. The final straw comes when his daughter Dara beams on board to insist that he return. She cannot bear the thought, she says, of him being laid to rest anywhere but next to her mother and, although she loves him, she is ashamed of him. Timicin realizes that he is not the man to forge a cultural revolution, and agrees to return to Kaelon II. Lwaxana, despite her disagreement, realizes that Timicin's decision is his to make and, as it is the custom for loved ones to be present at the Resolution, beams down with him to be at his side as he dies.
My seventy-four-year-old Shakespeare professor opens our discussion of King Lear with these words, “I always liked King Lear, but until I was an old man, I didn’t really understand Lear, the man.” When I watched “Half a Life” again here a couple of weeks ago, I told my fiancé, “you know, remind me to watch this again when I’m 60 myself.” She smiled and said that I didn’t have to be aging to understand this show, and I thought of that professor and I thought, maybe not, but how might my perspective change, or not change, when I have aged.
The social security program is currently set to deplete its money reserves by about the year 2040. By then, I’ll be 57 years old, still several years away from being able to take advantage of it. Today we hear all the time about pensions being cut, retirement plans evaporating, Medicare and Medicade being overrunn by the healthcare needs of America’s senior citizens, a population that is projected to swell drastically over the next two decades as the millions of baby boomers born during the post-World War II population explosion enter old age. I don’t know how many people in their 50’s and 60’s I’ve met who aren’t looking forward to a peaceful retirement, or to any kind of retirement. “I can’t afford to retire,” is something I’ve heard more than once.
The working situation of America’s senior citizens is only one facet of things. I can’t overlook the multitude of nursing homes, both state-funded and privately held, of retirement homes and retirement communities, that have cropped up across this country over the last few decades. Now, I know that America is different economically and sociologically from the country that saw grandparents moving in with their children in their old age on a regular basis. It’s not the norm anymore to see people taking on eldercare. I know that economics has made it hard for people to care for themselves, let alone their parents. And yet I am left feeling like we could do a much better job as private individuals of caring for our aging parents than we do as a country. America institutionalizes its senior citizens who are no longer able to care for themselves, and even the terms, “senior,” and “senior citizen,” have a sterile, sanitized feel to them. Old age is not something we do well in this country. Nobody wants to be, “old,” or to be thought of as, “old.” We fear old age, because inevitably, old age is the last stage of death, which many in our ultramodern nation fear most of all. The fear of death is natural, but the fear of aging? Now I’m not so sure. There are cultures where a person of many years is considered to possess great wisdom, and the elderly are among the most respected and venerated, because they have lived so long and attained great age and the insights that presumably go with it. “Romanticism,” some say. Well fine. Some cultures romanticize old age; ours fears it and tries to avoid it.
“Half a Life” is a very pointed commentary on our treatment of the elderly. I don’t doubt that some of the concerns I mentioned above were running through the storywriters’ minds. What does it say about a society that institutes a practice like the Resolution? And look at the word. For whom is it actually a resolution? The people who commit suicide? That’s what Kaelonian society teaches. In actuality, it’s a neat and tidy resolution for the young folks who don’t want to be bothered to care for their parents as they grow old, and even Timicin gives in to the cultural practice. Lwaxana’s reaction is the perfect foil to Timicin’s capitulation. Being about Timicin’s own age, she is outraged, disgusted and revolted by a society that would institute a practice like this. What’s most shameful to us as a culture is Timicin’s moment with his daughter who transports aboard to tell her father how ashamed she is that he won’t go through with it. And at last, for the sake of his children, Timicin does. And how many younger Americans have pressured their parents into nursing homes, “for your own good?” Just a question.
I know we can do better by our elderly, and “Half a Life” encourages us to do just that. It’s an episode with its focus on an issue which, like many of star trek’s finest issue-oriented episodes, is highly relevant and pressing in our own day. It’s not an episode with a happy end, and in that way it reflects life, in which there are sometimes sad, sometimes bitter, and sometimes just puzzling or ambiguous answers. Either way it serves one of star trek’s foundational purposes, to comment on our own times. In that way, TNG continued and expanded upon the original series’ best episodes. And now it’s on to Deep Space Nine.
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