Another example of an entire continuum of cringes rather than a single cringey moment in Classic Trek comes with the idea of parallel development. For a budget-conscious show like Trek, it was a great idea to imagine worlds out there that evolved so similarly to our own that the differences are minimal. Sliders got a whole series out of a similar concept. At first, it looked like Classic Trek could pull it off, as well. Despite its other flaws (we could have included 'Blah, blah, blah!' on this list), Miri is not a bad episode, despite being set on a world not too different from ours. But then the show's producers went a bit overboard with it all, and by the time second season rolls around, it feels like every planet out there is the same as our Earth - and if it isn't, then by god, there's a representative of the Federation who will, to borrow a phrase, make it so. The most egregious examples of this are Bread and Circuses and The Omega Glory - and in the category of worlds made into our own on purpose, Patterns of Force. (We mentioned A Piece of the Action, which also fits this latter category, earlier.) In Bread and Circuses, the Enterprise finds an Earth on which Rome never fell. In one of Spock's stupidest statements ever, he says the parallel between the two worlds is so complete that the dominant language is...English. Fascinating, Spock. Not Latin or Greek, then? Sigh. The Omega Glory treats us to a world where the Yangs (actually, the Yanks) lost the battle against the Kangs (the Communists, naturally), and the holy word of the Yangs happens to be (gasp!) the Pledge of Allegiance, and their holy document is (double gasp!) the Constitution. Written in English. Word-for-word the same as ours. The premise is so face-palmingly bad that it's a wonder the episode was ever made, And then there's Patterns of Force, otherwise known as the Nazi episode, in which a Federation cultural observer remodels a culture on the Nazi model because it was so efficient. But let that phrase sink in: the Nazi episode. Of Star Trek. When the premise of an entire episode is enough to make even a die-hard fan skip it, the phrase "cringeworthy moment" loses all meaning, somehow, doesn't it?
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
