Star Trek Episode of the Week: Code of Honor

Image: Star Trek: The Next Generation. Copyright CBS Paramount Studios.

This week’s Star Trek Episode is that first season TNG classic Code of Honor, in which the crew encounters a group of racially stereotyped African “aliens.”

Plot: The Enterprise visits Ligon II, the only source of a vaccine needed to cure a plague on a Federation planet. Negotiations break down with Ligon leader Lutan when he kidnaps Tasha Yar, who he is impressed by. Lutan decides he would like to make Yar his primary wife, and so his current main wife challenges Yar to a fight to the death. Yar wins their battle, and the two are immediately beamed to the Enterprise where the wife is revived. Lutan gets out of his marriage because his wife technically died, everybody gets married to somebody else, and they all live happily ever after. Or something.

Character Development: In this episode, Tasha Yar is shown to be both a strong warrior, capable of battling a deadly racist stereotype, and an open minded sexual being who admits to an attraction to her kidnapper.

Forehead of the Week: The Ligonians are the real stars of this episode, their lives as ridiculous stereotypes has been described as having a “1940s [view of] tribal Africa” by one disgusted TNG writer. The episode was not initially planned to be such a racist clusterfuck, but the director decided to make all of the Ligonians black, a decision for which he was fired by Roddenberry during production of the episode.

Memorable Quote: “That is from an obscure language known as French. Counting coup…” – Data, explaining why his supposedly French Captain has an English accent.