Star Trek: 10 Times You Asked 'WHAT Were They Thinking?!'
These are the Star Trek times that make your eyebrows dance and your mind start to melt
For a franchise that's been around for nearly sixty years, there are always going to be those episodes, moments, and messages in Star Trek that push the boundaries a little. This list is less concerned with those little edgings and the larger, bonkers ideas that truly warped our minds.
It's always good to try new things and to test the limits of established norms. One could argue that it's part of the duties that SciFi must accept. Trek, in particular, is the perfect kind of format for that: change what's known to explore what's possible.
Perhaps this entire summary is this writer's way of bracing the reader for what's about to come. There have been times in this franchise where the only logical thing to do was to stand up, walk to the television, switch it over to a gardening channel, and walk outside. There are flowers, and people, and birds out there. Things are alright. Things are ok. One doesn't have to watch what they just saw again. Take a deep breath - it's going to be ok.
Ok, back inside. Another episode. What's that? It's a Kes episode?! Oh no...
10. The Perfect Mate
Star Trek has several examples of problematic storylines being excused by the characters concerned ‘being ok with it’. Enter The Perfect Mate, an episode dealing with human trafficking and forced marriage, swept lightly away by Kamala ‘being cool with it’.
Famke Jannsen is brilliant in this episode as Kamala, the prize that’s prematurely awakened by some greedy Ferengi. She is literally engineered to be perfect for whomever she is gifted to. So, first, we have the idea of any free will being scrapped - she was designed for this, she didn’t choose this.
Yet, the episode then goes to lengths to have her categorically state she is happy with her life and that it gives her meaning. It was a poor attempt to show her having fun, despite knowing her eventual fate. Having half of the male main cast develop feelings for her didn’t do much to help and Picard ‘giving her away’ leaves a sour taste in the mouth by the episode’s close.
There may have been a message buried deep in this outing, but by execution and by tone, it is lost. The Perfect Mate makes for imperfect viewing.