‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Retro Recap: ‘Code of Honor’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

The other day when we settled in to discuss the wondrous series that is Star Trek: The Next Generation, we talked a little bit about how sometimes, it’s okay for a sequel series to borrow from the source material. For ‘The Naked Now’ served as a follow-up to a classic TOS episode, which brought about some fierce criticisms of this new series, but it was indeed necessary for that continuation episode to exist. Because it helped to teach the writers what this universe is all about, and it did help the characters grow. But what makes this decision relevant to today’s discussion, is the sheer fact that there is a flip side when it comes to borrowing from the past in that, sometimes it is ill advised. Especially when it results in a story that quite frankly is out of touch with modern times.
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Case and point, ‘Code of Honor’. Which is a story that also feels like a classic Original Series episode. For it is grounded heavily in the notion of taking the time to truly understand other cultures. Since the crew of the Enterprise spend time with a race of people known as the Ligonians, who believe in honor above all else and are willing to go the extra mile to prove how brave and bold they are, by doing the unthinkable. For example, their leader Lutan, kidnaps Lieutenant Yar, in order to show his people how he fears no one. But while it is nice to see Captain Picard use understanding over swift retribution to resolve this little conundrum, what makes this episode of concern, is the sheer fact that it brings a lot of outdated concepts to the table storytelling wise, the kind that make you cringe.  
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Such as the fact that women are viewed as property by the people of this planet. Which is a woefully outdated concept to plop into any story, one so old that it might not have worked even in a TOS episode. But that’s what we find here, and this is a plot point that is actually gets progressively worse as the episode continues along, thanks to the fact that the women of this world only live for the love of their man and they will straight up fight another woman to the death in order to keep claim of him and that is just awful. Because it is grounded in misogyny and it is not progressive in the slightest and truly, once Yar and Yareena start to duke it out, all you can do is sit back and hope for this fight to end quickly because it is uncomfortable to watch and it is also supremely counterintuitive to what Star Trek stands for.
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But while that segment is rough to sit through as is, there are bigger problems to be found within the framework of this particular tale, specifically how this story is racially insensitive overall. Because every single inhabitant of Ligon II is written to be stereotypical African warriors. Complete with a stereotypical accent and every other awful trope that you can think of in regard to how black people were portrayed in film and television long ago. Plus, it doesn’t help that African-American actors portray these characters and well, this is just bad and insulting and insensitive and it’s really hard to sit through an episode of a show as brilliant as this one, and see this kind of wanton racism and disregard for equality and that really does ruin any good will that this story attempts to put forth by way of its message of understanding.

If anything, it’s actually quite surprising that these ideas even made it to the production line with Gene Roddenberry having some control over this new iteration of the series, but what matters more is that the cast acknowledge the fact that this was a mistake of an episode and that the show worked hard to make up for this embarrassment. Because the director of this tale, was fired from TNG and never directed another episode of the series again and truly, the show handles equality and understanding the right way as the years go on. But still, this is indeed a glaring misstep by a normally progressive franchise, and this is a story that will stay with you, long after it has come to end, for all the wrong reasons. Until next time.

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