10 Star Trek Episodes That Just Didn't Work
2. Code Of Honour - The Next Generation
"A racist piece of sh*t" is how Jonathan Frakes describes this early episode of The Next Generation, and there's little question as to why. Although Denise Crosby is given plenty to do with Tasha Yar here, the context is so staggeringly misjudged that the episode has never fared well with any reviewers.
Yar is kidnapped by Lutan, leader of the Ligonian people. The Ligonians are a tribal civilisation, which happens to have developed a vaccine that Starfleet badly needs access to. Thanks to the Prime Directive though, Captain Picard cannot simply beam Yar and the vaccine away and she is forced to engage in a fight to the death with Yareena, Lutan's wife, using a poisoned claw and... um... halogen bulbs?
The choice to depict the entire Ligonian race as Black, then to effectively make Lutan a warlord-chieftain who runs unchecked in his power, was a deviation from the original script. Kathryn Powers and Michael Baron had written the race as a Reptilian species who followed a Samurai way of life. Only Lutan's bodyguards were written to be African-American.
Director Russ Mayberry was fired midway through production, with Les Landau finishing the episode out. Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn and Levar Burton all later stated how embarrassed they had been by the episode.