Strange New Worlds solved Star Trek’s trial episode problem

Star Trek isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you say “legal procedural,” but maybe it should be, given the franchise’s love affair with space courts.

“The measure of a man” – the early one Next generation episode widely regarded as one of Trek’s best hours ever made, if not the best – probably Trek’s love affair with legal drama. But let’s not forget that The next generation began the series premiere and ended the series finale with Q notably putting Captain Picard on trial for the fate of all mankind.

And the very existence of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — which airs its own first courtroom episode this week, “Ad Astra per Aspera” — owes itself to Star Trek’s first-ever pilot episode, “The Menagerie,” which introduced Captain Pike and First Officer Number One.

So it’s only fitting that “Ad Astra per Aspera,” the pilot episode of a show that only exists because of Star Trek’s terminal love affair with the pilot episode, is perhaps the most perfect Star Trek Trial Episode.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 episode 2.]

The pilot episode of Star Trek is a trope as worn as a dog-eared paperback and as comfortable as an old sweater. Why dance around the sci-fi metaphor you made up when you can just turn the captain into a litigator and have them state out loud the point you’re trying to make, as if Atticus Finch and Flash Gordon were caught in an accident involving carrier?

It doesn’t even have to be about a big metaphor. It could just be Starfleet administrative investigations or good old baffling alien justice systems, as seen in episodes like the Original series“Council-Martial;” TNG‘s “The First Duty,” “The Drumhead,” “A Matter of Perspective,” and “Rules of Engagement;” Deep Space Nine‘s “Tribunal”, Company‘s “Judgment,” and Lower decks“Veritas,” a parody of the whole idea of ​​the crew accidentally getting into trouble facing the death penalty of an aliens court for something they had no idea was illegal.

But just as often, the trial is about much more than a court-martial in space or Starfleet breaking some hitherto unknown alien law; and just as often the show’s crew takes the place of actual legal advice. As in “The Measure of a Man,” in which the captain must defend the personality of a subordinate; or “Dax”, where the commander must defend a subordinate’s personality; or “Death Wish”, where the captain must defend a Q’s right to die; or “Sins of the Father”, where the captain becomes a lawyer in a Klingon court; or “Distant Origin”, in which the first officer becomes the advocate at the Scopes Monkey Trial, but for space dinosaurs; or “Devil’s Due”, where the captain demands formal arbitration to free an entire planet from contracting with the actual devil.

The beauty of these episodes is the way Star Trek captures the heart of the franchise – empathy, discovery, the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism – and place the subtext where the text is. The characters may be debating philosophy, but at its best, it’s a philosophy that is immensely incisive for our earthly lives. “The Measure of a Man” may be a bit baffled by it, but it’s not wrong to have a character bald say that legally stipulating that someone who appears to be a person “not a person” is the first stone on the paved path to slavery.

The problem with these episodes is that when they’re not, say, some of television’s greatest episodes ever, the seams in the formula show. You begin to notice their patterns: Some outsider’s personality is questioned and can only be defended by leaving them sitting powerless and silent on a witness stand, while the episode focuses all cameras on the top officer who logs the show seen can offer. .

It’s most notable in episodes like “Dax,” which is really just “The Measure of a Man,” but instead of Captain Picard arguing for Data’s personality at Starfleet, it’s Commander Sisko arguing for his understanding of Trill- officer Jadzia Dax’s personality for… one of the most revered buildings of Trill culture. Or like “Sins of the Father,” where circumstances demand that Jean Luc Picard, a human captain, must become a lawyer in a Klingon trial involving Worf’s family and the succession of the Empire’s leaders.

Now I love watching Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks just as happy to bring down the house as anyone else, but it begs the question: When will the accused aliens get to talk? Why is our center always a heroic member of the establishment, rather than the actual aggrieved party? Where is the pilot episode that establishes the personality of a minority beyond any doubt without shift the focus from the minority to the beneficent heroism of the majority?

you could be participation Next generation‘s “The Outcast”, a vanishingly rare exception where the entire plot takes the form of a show trial at the last minute, but the alien accused/metaphor for queer identity is actually allowed to make the big bold speech that wholeheartedly advocates queer identity personality in the barbaric year 1992.

But from this week you could also say Strange New World’S “Ad Astra Per Aspera”, credited to writer Valerie Weiss. Because during the trial of secretly Illyrian first officer Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), Weiss was wise enough to keep Captain Pike out of court.

Photo: Michael Gibson/Paramount Plus

At the end of the first season, Starfleet Internal Affairs revealed Una’s secret – that she was posing as a human to become a Starfleet officer – sending her straight to court-martial with an option for banishment. As unpacked in Season 1, Una is actually an Illyrian, a species that has incorporated genetic enhancement into its space exploration and cultural practices, and she keeps those enhancements within her own genetic code.

However, the Federation forbids genetic enhancement and has long refused to accept Illyrians into its ranks unless they abandon their traditions. This restriction is due to the organization’s human founders, who brought with them a cultural taboo against genetic engineering that dates back to the Eugenics Wars, an Earth nuclear conflict that nearly sent Earth back to the Dark Ages.

“Ad Astra” is so deliberately a pilot episode that it even makes fun of the captain’s propensity for big speeches. But in fact, as the episode takes pains to point out, Pike can not testify in the trial because he helped Una go into hiding. If he takes the stand, he would only be asked under oath to incriminate himself and destroy his career and the lives of his crew.

That leaves the episode lacking a lawyer, the shrewd orator with a personal stake in the outcome who can banter with the accuser, the accused and the judge alike. “Ad Astra” boldly goes where Star Trek has so rarely gone before: it finds a lawyer who isn’t on the bridge crew. It finds a lawyer who is an Illyrian, just like the suspect.

Yeti Badaki (American gods) guests in a powerful turn as Neera, a childhood friend of Una who is just like happens to become an Illyrian civil rights lawyer, turning an ordinary court-martial into a test balloon for Illyrian rights in the Federation. In franchise terms, the outcome is predetermined. Una’s rank remains intact, as do the Federation’s strict anti-genetic tampering laws. Those elements are locked into the foundation of the Star Trek canon.

But between the two Illyrian characters and the two actresses who embody them, they deliver one of the best Star Trek trials of all time. When Una takes a backseat to her lawyer in the show’s most dramatic moments, it’s up to Neera alone to deliver eloquence born of the same experiences, same culture, same plight. While Neera demands that Starfleet look her people in the eye when they say anti-Illyrian laws are rooted in security rather than age-old prejudice, Una has her moment of holding onto the fear of keeping one’s identity a secret from a young age. and the promise of acceptance and integration that depended so much on the mere idea of ​​Starfleet that she chose to deny who she was to be a part of it.

The simple, split truth of Star Trek pilot episodes is that they are a fabrication and reign. And you have to be careful with reservations, otherwise they will, surprisingly, come across as contrived; or worse, have a subtextual meaning (this maybe-not-a-person should be quiet and let a person argue for it) that waters down your text (this maybe-not-a-person is a person, period).

The Star Trek pilot episode wasn’t exactly broken, but “Ad Astra ad Aspera” fixed it anyway. “The Measure of a Man” finally has a successor worthy of the name.