It’s been decades since I saw that episode, but the message the teenage me took away from it was that racial prejudice based on skin color is just as ludicrous as prejudice based on which side of your face is black.
In that ep, was one of the two “races” more obviously oppressive or evil than the other? I honestly don’t recall.
No, IIRC it was a tough cop vs. a rebellious zealot, both hating on each other for their opposite coloring. Neither seemed like Mr. Wonderful.
Agreed as to the criticisms above of “The Paradise Syndrome,” “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” “Spock’s Brain,” “The Enemy Within,” etc.
Also dumb to varying degrees, IMHO: “The Alternative Factor,” “Who Mourns for Adonais,” “The Apple,” “Catspaw,” “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” “Return to Tomorrow,” “By Any Other Name,” “The Omega Glory,” “And the Children Shall Lead,” “Spectre of the Gun,” “Wink of an Eye” and “The Cloud Minders.”
I still appreciate the show for its retro charm, for the friendship of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, for the often-great dialogue, for its courage in tackling serious issues of its day, and for what we see of the Federation and Starfleet in those early days of the franchise, but for many episodes it’s just not as good as it used to seem.
To answer your question, no, which means you have just restated the problem. As an allegory for racism and its absurdity (with lessons to in turn be ported over to the real world by viewers), it presents us with a society in which there is no clear oppressor, no one clearly oppressed, just racists being racists on #bothsides. Take a step back and apply that to the real world and you get a view of racism whereby white people and black people are each equally responsible for ending racism: they must each treat each other civilly. Which in turn completely ignores the reality of how racism has manifested in our society: not merely as a problem born of individuals treating each other poorly based on skin color, but of actual systemic inequities that cannot be so easily resolved by everyone treating everyone with mutual respect on an individual level.
It’s a false equivalence between racial bigotry and racism. It presents a narrative whereby as long as white people are “civil” they cannot possibly be contributing to or benefiting from racism. It’s bunk.
Right, gotcha.
ETA, but ISTM that that, and having a white man kiss a black woman, may have been about as far as they could push the envelope at the time.
I kind of wonder if it’s even possible for there to be two demographics in a society, who hate each other, without one of them ending up as oppressor and the other as oppressed. I suspect not.
Yeah.
It was a 45 minute episode. I am not sure how nuanced and deep you expect them to get.
The episode simply illustrated the idiocy of hating someone solely based on a trivial cosmetic feature. That’s really all racism is based on in our world.
We can extrapolate from there.
(I’m pretty sure @ASL_v2.0 will not see this having blocked me in the past)
I don’t think that that’s entirely accurate.
As per the Memory Alpha Wiki on the episode:
This indicates that Bele’s people were the ruling class, and Lokai’s people were the oppressed class.
In which case, it’s even worse.
Which was the message you were supposed to get. There’s a scene where Spock remarks that he can see no difference between the two, and one of them says something like, “Can’t you see? He’s black on a different side than I am.” It’s a bad episode, and it’s aged poorly not because of it’s message but because it’s so ham fisted.
If they’re both oppressed by a third demographic, sure.
[Moderating]
We have a rule against talking about who is on our ignore lists, outside of the Pit. I don’t think we have an explicit rule against talking about who has ignored us, so this isn’t an official Warning… but it’s still personalizing the discussion a lot more than is appropriate, so consider this a very stern Mod Note to Stop That Right Now.
During the 1991 Crown Heights riots in NYC, the SNL Weekend Update guy (Dennis Miller?) said that the mayor had ordered a marathon screening of that episode in order to ease tensions.
Catspaw was the Halloween episode. Specifically aired to coincide with the spookiness of that holiday.
I’ve always been annoyed at the one where intruders aboard ship moved so fast they were invisible. Such an idiotic comic book premise should never have been recorded.
I’m not a fan of “Not the sun up in the sky–the Son of God!” Okay, so we’re speaking English on this planet, are we?
Not just that.
The investigation of the murders leads Kirk &co to actually think Scotty could be the murderer because “a woman caused the explosion that nearly killed him”. Aside from the misogyny, that says they really don’t think much of Scotty, that they actually believe he could willingly murder women because he got a bimp on the head. As I said once before:
And the fact that Kirk takes Scotty to Argelius to get him laid.
SCOTT: You mean to tell me all these women, that all this is
KIRK: Yes, yes, yes. The Argelians think very highly of their pleasure.
Yes, Argelius is a whorehouse planet. Of course, that fits in with the Jack the Ripper theme.
And really, when you get to the end of the investigation, Scotty actually DID the murders. The show glosses over that. Yes yes, alien possession you say. I wonder if the Argeliuns believed that.
I think what is being missed is that Lokai is an extremist. He steals…he’s unconcerned with nearly destroying the Enterprise. I think some of what Bele says about him is true.
I think its an interesting ep if taken at face value. First their powers are astounding. Seems the kind of thing they picked up after 50,000 years. I think it would be more interesting if it were revealed after 50,000 years they arn’t even humanoids anymore. They’re Theseus 's Ship.
They’re androids after 50,000 years who only know chase and be chased. And now having beamed down to their nuclear-wiped out planet, they will play that game forever.
You’re right about the crazy misogyny re: a female causing the accident…BUT Riker would chastise you for your primitive moralizing over the planets sexual society…and Picard would just leave you frozen if he ran across your cryogenic chamber!!
Oh, to be certain, both characters are horrible people. But, the origin of their conflict was laid out in the episode, as Bele’s people enslaving and oppressing Lokai’s people.
BELE: You insane, you filthy little plotter of ruin. You vicious subverter of every decent thought. Oh, you’re coming back to pay for your crimes!
Only Frank Gorshin can say lines like that.
Also unmentioned is that they had to pad out the episode with weird close-ups of the red alert signal and an interminable chase through the hallways.