Star Trek Retro Review: "Code of Honor" (TNG) | Worst Episodes Ever

[@MeganKoumori]

Crusher's ghost boyfriend watched this episode and said, "Wow, that sucked."

[@--Animal--]

Crusher's sex ghost episode was so bad that its become a bit of a fun watch.

[@meiketorkelson4437]

See a lotbof other episodes on this list, like Spocks Brain and Sub Rose, are entertainingly bad. This is just horrifically bad.

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

I just gotta say this. I really like that comment. It struck me in the gut. Lmao. Very clever.

[@top_gallant]

Nah, ghost stories are fun. She had a Oghostasm

[@shoyahaaruni]

"yes but only for no reason" gotta keep that one in my back pocket

[@SiriusMined]

Best Line in the whole episode😂

[@DrewLSsix]

I bet Beverly was thinking about him when she was with the candle....

[@AzaleaJane]

Steve's dialog paraphrasing is an art form.

[@aidenf.4900]

Calling Code of Honor the worst episode of Star Trek is the closest a subjective statement has become to being purely objective.

[@felix_forrester]

This is an episode that I leave out of formal "worst of" lists because it's unfair to make any other awful episode compete with Code of Honor. It's just uniquely **the** worst.

[@FuelDropforthewin]

Threshold is terrible, but it's terrible in a much less problematic way.

[@alexneff]

Move along home

[@MarkWiseTechno]

Profit and Lace???

[@keeperofnecronomicon]

It’s like having Shou Tucker on a list of most hated Annie characters it’s to easy.

[@kellykeegan2608]

Fruit hanging so low it's underground

[@AndrewD8Red]

Three kinds of Bad Trek: Poorly paced or badly thought out, acted and directed, etc. to the point where the only entertainment value is by laughing _at_ the episode. Meridian, Dark Frontier, These Are The Voyages. The other kind of Bad Trek is when it supports or engages in harmful tropes and prejudices. Episodes like Turnabout Intruder, Retrospect and Code Of Honour. Some of these can be well paced, well directed and well acted (like Retrospect) but are irredeemable due to the damage they perpetuate. The last kind of bad is an episode so batshit stupid and weird that it's a puzzle that it exists at all, like Move Along Home, Threshold, Sub Rosa and Spock's Brain. These episodes are, objectively, amazing.

[@kurathchibicrystalkitty5146]

That's a very good way of sorting bad episodes into categories. How about another one that's for 'boring/dull' kinds of bad? Like the TNG clip-show episode, or that Voyager one where Chakotay goes on a vision quest and something something random boxing match--wait, that one's racist, too. For a show that's supposedly out to restore peoples' faith in humanity, to say it fails in that on occasions is....an understatement.

[@glamourweaver]

One could argue the latter half of Threshold also qualifies as category #1 from a pacing and structure perspective.

[@johnchedsey1306]

Move Along Home at the very least has the characters/actors looking rather aggravated that they have to do that hopscotch & singalong chant. Both Nana Visitor and Avery Brooks look so annoyed in that scene and that alone is comedy.

[@DesertFly3]

Just watched Retrospect a few weeks ago as part of a Voyager rewatch and whoo-whee does that one have a terrible ending/message, especially since the rest of the episode was well acted and directed. Really hated the "distrust the rape victim" mentality it espoused.

[@stareyedwitch]

Steve should do a "so batshit stupid they're fun" review

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

Dear Star Trek writers, when you want your script to ask one of all the myriad profound questions regarding the human condition, please remember that "Where da white women at?" does not belong among those questions. Please do not write racist cringe...again!

[@jimballard1186]

Eh, sooner or later, all racial politics become so primitive as to be humiliating for everyone involved. It's inevitable that however sensitive a current-day episode is, someone will find something legitimately kinda racist in it.

[@--Animal--]

Don't worry, they moved on to Stargate SG1 where they brought us stories like "Every religion but Christianity is fake and made up by aliens".

[@goodpeople25]

@@jimballard1186Dear commenter, people in the past were still being racist and there were people who were in fact considered racists. Lovecraft for instance was well documented by others who knew him as heavily and irrationally racist.

[@TheGerkuman]

It's even weirder than that though. The writer wanted to write an episode about lizard aliens with an East Asian culture (and wrote it full of horrible stereotypes), and then the director decided to nix the lizards and hire black people instead. So it was already bad, but it became even worse!

[@sandrinowitschM]

​@@--Animal--man I was waiting for Jesus to finally show up and turn out to be the worst of the Goa'uld. My disappointment was immeasurable 😔

[@tayzonday]

“Code Of Honor” is to Star Trek episodes what “The Room” is to movies: a comprehensive case study of things to avoid.

[@SteveShives]

I agree, but I find The Room to be a far more enjoyable watch.

[@KariIzumi1]

The Room has better acting 😂

[@EmeralBookwise]

@@SteveShives: For all of its baffling quirks, _The Room_ is at least a fascinating look into a bizarre but genuinely wholesome world view, albeit narcotically self-centered. Whereas even by the standards of bigoted trash, _Code of Honor_ is unremarkably generic, only standing out in just how blatantly antithetical it is to the series its hijacking.

[@LoganBluth]

@@EmeralBookwise I don't know about "wholesome", it's pretty hardcore misogynistic what with Lisa being basically a walking stereotype of evil woman cliches: - Fickle and inconstant, falling in and out of love at the drop of a hat. - Manipulative and cruel, treating an amazing, loyal guy in Johnny like garbage, while seducing his reluctant best friend with her feminine wiles. - Utterly self-involved and heartless, not caring about any of the people she is hurting with her actions, not even giving a crap about her own mother's cancer diagnosis. Also, there's the awful way Tommy Wiseau treated the Juliette Danielle (the actress who played "Lisa") on set, nothing wholesome about that emotional abuse. However, I do love the room because it's such an enjoyable bad-watch, plus is absolutely a piece of Art with a capital A. The entire point of art is to lay one's soul bare and convey all your deepest and most honest emotions to an audience, and Tommy Wiseau 100% did that fearlessly, and with nothing held back. It's just unfortunate that he's such a terrible writer, actor, director, producer, and every other job he did on that movie. Haha

[@Karl.Zimmerman]

It's worth noting thay scriptwriter Katharyn Powers did not intend this episode to feature anti-black stereotypes. That's on the casting director, who decided the aliens were black. She intended the episode to feature anti-Asian stereotypes instead. And she was so upset she didn't get what she wanted, she repackaged it for the Stargate-SG1 episode Emancipation, which featured a pretty blond woman kidnapped to be a forced bride on a planet of Mongols, only to win her freedom with hand-to-hand combat.

[@Erinaceus87]

And, just like 'Code of Honor', it's widely considered SG-1's worst of the worst. Maybe she should've just left bad enough alone.

[@verinha0256]

Lmao what the fuck!

[@ArcaJ]

​@@Erinaceus87I think this is her kink.😘

[@Talisguy]

I was shocked to find out the writer was a woman, given how misogynistic it is. But it's possible that Gene wrote that in - the exchange about how Tasha must find being kidnapped by Lutan arousing feels very in line with Gene's worst impulses.

[@KariIzumi1]

​@@Talisguylots of women have internalized misogyny and it's quite sad to see

[@craigvdodge]

It’s never a good sign when you’re discussing a show and you have to start with “let’s set aside the offensive racial depictions for a moment…”

[@jy3n2]

Star Trek has always been progressive, but it's concerning that when you're talking about "the racist/sexist episode" you have to clarify which one.

[@francoislacombe9071]

Steve: "What do you think of this episode?" Me: "I try not to."

[@dm121984]

Good man; this episode is not worth thinking of, aside from when thinking of what to avoid and not do.

[@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299]

Tasha: ''Yes, of course it made me feel good when he...'' Also Tasha: ''Five. Five years old. But I survived. I learned how to stay alive, how to avoid the rape gangs.''

[@romulusnuma116]

I never even realised some how you made this worse

[@EmeralBookwise]

Yeah... Tasha's character was always a bit of an unfortunate mess. Not surprising the actress got fed up and decided to leave before the first season had even finished, even if it will always be a bit of a retroactive shame since the show did actually get a lot better in following seasons.

[@BlackCover95]

2:09 “I’m not racist! Some of my best friends are Ligonians!”

[@michaeldolan5792]

"The Ligonians have *transporters,* but a mere hologram makes their jaws drop?" To be fair, the whole first season of TNG is so intent on hard-selling how wicked keen the holodeck is that they have the Enterprise crew gushing in wonder over it at every opportunity..

[@BlackCover95]

Also, the Holodeck is clearly more sophisticated. Previous attempts in the Trek universe probably looked like bad AI-generated images.

[@EmeralBookwise]

Exactly. At the time the holodeck was supposed to be brand new state of the art technology. The closest we'd ever seen to it elsewhere was in a single episode of the then non-canonical Star Trek animated series, and even that only rendered static simulated environments, not real-time dynamically interactive characters.

[@kerry-j4m]

It was sooo bad even the cast complained and ragged about it. LOL. Marina Sirtis-REALLY- rags on this episode at Trek conventions and rightfully so.

[@MalachiBurke]

I felt especially bad for her character in this one. Instead of her normal, thoughtful, supportive self it felt like she was just gaslighting all her peers. Will the lameness of this episode find no boundaries?

[@simonmacomber7466]

It was sooo bad that they fired the original director _during the production_ of the episode. He's the only director to have been fired this way in a Star Trek production.

[@Xenaboy-vt3hi]

Didn't Denise Crosby list it as one of the reasons she wasn't so sure about staying with the show?

[@StormsparkPegasus]

The same writer of this hideously awful episode tried this basic script again on Stargate SG-1. "Emancipation". While it wasn't QUITE as bad as this one, it still had the same racist misogynist undertones. The only difference (and what made it not quite as bad) is the snarky humor of SG-1 was able to lampshade how ridiculous it was. What the hell was wrong with the writer? How could they possibly have thought any of this racist misogynist trash was any good? Let alone good enough to try it again! At least this writer was redeemed later on SG-1 with some pretty good episodes. But still.

[@ZipplyZane]

Reading the description of that episode makes me think that writer has only one plot.

[@dawoifee]

I think "Emancipation" was way better and a good Major Carter Episode to develop her as a character.

[@robertusaugustus2003]

Lol yeah, thankfully it was an early episode so it’s quickly forgotten

[@bradcsuka5054]

Yes, blame the writer for the horrifically terrible output - but WTF was up with the producers/directors who agreed to actually produce this drek?!?!

[@KyoshoLP]

I was really hoping Steve would touch on Emacipation. I remember several years ago, I was rewatching SG-1 on DVD, and thinking, "Why does this feel so familiar?" A first-season episode that is nearly entirely full of cringe moments and lines, with lots of racism and misogyny that tries to be a female empowerment story but fails miserably? Then it hit me. I looked it up, and sure enough, Kathryn Powers wrote both. How Brad Wright, Johnathan Glassner and all the other SG-1 people didn't realize the situation of what they were making, I'll never understand.

[@nymphrodellsalavin]

Too be fair, when I went to Senegal, I did meet people who believed photos stole the soul... NO I DIDN'T! I did meet people in Tennessee who believed that though 😂

[@renatocorvaro6924]

I don't let people take my picture because photographs steal souls. And I worked hard for those souls dammit, do you know the effort that goes into getting someone to sell that shit? I'm not gonna let some hack with a polaroid profit off my work!

[@andrewleah1983]

People in America still believe in God so it’s only one step away from weird superstitions.

[@NighterFilms]

@@andrewleah1983half a step

[@AzaleaJane]

You should review "Shades of Gray" but do it mostly with clips from your other review videos

[@patrickdodds7162]

*high five* THAT is inspired!

[@angusellingsen5531]

Definitely.

[@chrisbodley8958]

man he go on about all the bad clip show episodes that exists and it would be a good time. Scrubs had a few and one where they just recycled the same bits again I think it was called my deja vu.

[@johntousseau9380]

That’s a great idea lol

[@Drekal684]

So here's something "fun". Go look at the fourth episode of Stargate SG1. Look at the writer. Read the plot. Then do the same for Code of Honour. What the *hell* Katharyn Powers? Based on your writing credits, you can do better than this why did you tell the same damn terrible story twice?!

[@BlackCover95]

11:59 You forgot that weird part where Lutan pauses the fight to let Yareena have her weapon back. It contradicts the “no interruptions” rule, and it makes no sense for Lutan to do anything in Yareena’s favor.

[@supergirlvideoclips894]

If Tasha Yar was in DS9, she would have been an epic complex character like Kira. Instead she was wasted in the clown show that was early season 1 of TNG. No wonder she left. But I feel if she stayed, she would have become great character when the show got good and maybe even give competition to Kira in terms of complex characterization.

[@andrewklang809]

If Denise Crosby had stayed, they would have written Troi out of the show. Marina Sirtis has said that she heard it straight from Majel Barrett herself. Seriously, that was the plan for fixing what was wrong with Season 1. Get rid of one of the female characters, then chase another female cast member off the show too.

[@KariIzumi1]

​@@andrewklang809the whole atmosphere BTS of TNG was so ridiculously misogynistic that it makes the series hard to watch in retrospect. Denise Crosby made the right choice either way because she'd been told that they were focused on their three white male pets and she was gonna have to suck it up. Given how McFadden was treated even after her return to TNG and how Sirtis fought all seven seasons for Troi to be taken seriously, I don't think TIIC would've done much better by Crosby. Last I heard, she (and Anthony Montgomery too!) were kicking ass on General Hospital, so that's cool.

[@briang9581]

Somebody watched Amok Time and said, "Do that but with chicks!"

[@sheepwshotguns42]

no spoiler warning necessary on this one.

[@djkittycat]

Katharyn Powers who wrote this episode also wrote a similar episode for SG-1 which is racist against Asian people. It was called "Emancipation"

[@vorlonesque1830]

I didn't know that but I weirdly in my head always associated the two episodes together as being bad in similar ways (wrt racism)...never occurred to me there was a link between the two.

[@tookitogo]

Wait, a _woman_ wrote this racist drivel?!? 🤯 Somehow that makes it _even worse_ than it already was…

[@LUPART]

Holy shit. How on earth does she get work on these shows, with writing like that. It's like the KKK made amateur home-made cinema for their summer picnic or something.

[@EmeralBookwise]

The casting was black and the costuming was middle-eastern, but given the explicit dialogue regarding the "cultural" gift, it's clear the writer intended the Lagonians to be Asian inspired as well.

[@X2Magneto]

The real nightmare is if you've committed to a full rewatch of the series. This one is preceded by the Naked Now, another 'winner.' Together they are episodes 2 and 3 of the entire run. I swear it was a miracle that TNG got to where it got.

[@VegetaLF7]

Especially given the stinkers the rest of Season 1 was littered with. That TNG recovered from this and grew to the point where it's hailed as one of the greatest entries in the franchise is a testament to how great the rest of the show is, because they damn near killed with with these first few episodes.

[@KariIzumi1]

​@@VegetaLF7in fairness to TNG season 1,I'd say this and the Naked Now were the two worst episodes and while most of season 1 was pretty bad, nothing was quite as stinky as those two

[@sunspot42]

I swear we were hate watching it. They were clearly blowing a ton of money on the show and I think people were assuming it would find its legs and get better. Also, there was no competition. The first half of season one is astoundingly bad. It’s not until episodes 12 and 13 - The Long Goodbye and Datalore - that they finally churn out material that isn’t embarrassing. Right at the end of the season we get a string of decent episodes like Heart of Glory, Symbiosis, The Arsenal of Freedom and Skin Of Evil which - while far from perfect - demonstrated the show didn’t have to stink like hot garbage. I feel like the only really good episode that first year is Conspiracy, though.

[@ShardtheWolf]

When I watched TNG for the first time a few years ago, I got to this episode and had to pause it to see if the show gets any better online. I was relieved to see so many people going "Oh man, that episode sucks, just a heads up there are a few more, but then the show gets better". It was a bad enough episode, it almost convinced me to not watch TNG past it.

[@MachineWashableKatie]

At least in the naked now they let us know data can fuck

[@egrudasill1]

When I was a kid getting all my friends into ST;TNG, this episode was so cringe. Didn't help that I am also Black. To be fair, there was a lot of TV like that at the time. And, yes, that was a back handed way of saying there is a lot of racism baked into the cake.

[@KariIzumi1]

I've been so pleasantly surprised that current Trek has not been Like That™ Lower Decks in particular has been extremely good about meaningful representation and people learning to do better as we see Mariner make a better effort over the seasons to cut out her microaggressions towards Tendi. Hell, even in the SNW crossover, where Tendi wasn't even there to deal with that nonsense, Boimler takes care to emphasize that Orions aren't all pirates and thieves. It's been a great thing for me as a Black woman to see this go around.

[@patrickdodds7162]

As much as UNironically love TNG season one, THIS episode is obviously the one exception. I don't know what they were thinking when they made this episode. Ugh. *shudders*

[@jaredholloway6333]

I first saw this episode when I was young (12-13), and at the time I liked it. …Liked seeing a Black civilization depicted (similar to Wakanda). But as I got older and learned more about depictions of MY people on tv and in film, especially stereotypes around Black men like myself, I could see problems all around. The biggest for me starts early, when all of these strong Black men fall over themselves at the first sight of a blonde-haired, blue eyed White woman. Then in the midst of superior numbers and technology, they kidnap her in a deceptive fashion…..it was like “Birth of a Nation” (1915) all over again. The Black “brute” who stops at nothing to get a White woman……….it is Extremely demeaning and disrespectful to me now.

[@SiriusMined]

Steve: it's the worst thing ever Me: oh, it's not that good 😂

[@KariIzumi1]

He's not wrong tho

[@mix-up9003]

Despite agreeing on every negative points as how bad the episode was, I still love it for making Tasha have the chance to play a badass in it.

[@supergirlvideoclips894]

She deserved better. Could have been the Kira of TNG

[@patrickdodds7162]

"It's such a waste." -- Tasha Year ("Code of Honor")

[@jackabug2475]

I think autocowrong got you there, Patrick...

[@queenannsrevenge100]

Oh, I was waiting for this one 😂 I was half expecting the subtitle to be Star Trek: FFS

[@darlalathan6143]

Star Trek: Facial Feminization Surgery?? LOL!

[@daveryder9617]

I wonder...have any of the black guest star actors recorded any comments about this? I mean, I'm sure it was just a paycheck, but all this time later they must have some thoughts.

[@danielpasilis4046]

The part that blows my mind is about this episode is that the cast included LaVar Burton!...Seriously you would have thought that a someone who got his big break in Roots would have been like..."Uhhh guys...maybe...we should polish this a bit more"

[@johnhall3570]

You can’t polish a turd! 😂

[@antney7745]

Polish it with a sandblaster, perhaps.

[@keeperofnecronomicon]

He was a minor character in season one. So even if he said anything they wouldn’t have listened.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

I always kind of of wondered about that bit of cognitive dissonance!

[@renatocorvaro6924]

From interviews I think *most* of the cast voiced objections to this episode and just sort of begrudgingly went along with it because they felt they didn't have a choice, but... I dunno, I truly have no idea how much control actors actually have over scripts.

[@vincentgood2234]

In my youth, we had a video cassette bearing The Naked Now and Code of Honor. Little kid me thought that Poison Spiky Gauntlet was the only vaguely tolerable thing about the second half of that tape.

[@joeyskunk]

The episode thesis is "what if TNG met a white man's stereotype version of a Lakota culture". In Lakota culture, the women own the home. In Lakota culture, counting coupe is part of what the warrior do. All this was warped (no pun intended) version of Native American culture (Lakota). The noble savage trope. This is a racist episode.

[@debbiebannister32]

Thanks!

[@debbiebannister32]

you are very welcome

[@andrewklang809]

Wait...Lutan's wife is named "Yar-ina"?

[@Pehrgryn]

How did I not see this before now?!

[@simonashtear2739]

That Lutan dude has a type. :D

[@ZuluRomeo]

His favourite cheese is Jarlsberg

[@lexxstrum]

Ok, as you spell out the episode, something occurs to me: if the WOMEN pick the mates, then how did Lutan pick Tasha AT ALL? If the woman pick the people they're with, and only death negates the union, then there's no way a guy can just pick some chick and take her.

[@davidreed3359]

"A template for season 2 of Picard." Gloriously accurate.

[@danielland3767]

That was savage 🤣

[@dhpbear2]

Save for the racism part, you perfectly described TOS' "The Alternative Factor'! :)

[@TheDarthEddie]

"I can handle rewatching this mess. It can't be as bad as I remember." Me an hour later (*scrubbing myself in the shower and wailing that THE EVIL WON'T COME OFF*)

[@pjdolont9012]

Steve, you and I don't always see eye to eye but something tells me we are on the same page with this one.

[@Zoroasterisk]

I bet Rick Berman loved this one

[@Xizor15]

A funny thing about the writer of this episode, Katharyn Powers, is that she went on to write an early episode for Stargate SG-1's first season, "Emancipation." It's an equally horrible episode that is ALSO extremely sexist, racist (this time toward Eastern Asians), and considered the worst episode of the entire 10-season series. It's truly impressive how she managed to accomplish double jeopardy with two completely divorced and beloved sci fi franchises.

[@benjiskyler7836]

"Code of Honor" - The Racist Episode "The Last Outpost" - The Other Racist Episode "Up the Long Ladder" - The *OTHER* Other Racist Episode

[@flyingfoamtv2169]

whats racist about the other two?

[@patrickdodds7162]

"Sub Rosa" the other, other, other, OTHER racist episode. (Oh, TNG...)

[@ninjabluefyre3815]

I don't actually mind Up the Long Ladder. I love the space Irish, they actually have personality.

[@DesertFly3]

​@@flyingfoamtv2169Up the Long Ladder is old Irish stereotypes (like oooold). I'm not sure about The Last Outpost either.

[@ChissHansen]

​The last outpost portrayed the Ferenghi as antisemitic caricatures, and Up the long ladder had an even more blatant and offensive portrayal of the Irish as drunken, horny hillbillies in space.

[@patrickdodds7162]

Trivia: apparently Picard took on a Ligonian in some sort of martial arts match as a cadet in Starfleet Academy as mentioned by Boothby in "The First Duty". Such an excellent episode couldn't escape "Code of Honor"'s ickiness.

[@CassieVulpine]

Oh boy, the Space Hoteps!

[@flapjacklouie]

Ok that’s funny! 😅

[@KariIzumi1]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@madbradfreeman]

Steve, I can only say, I admire your restraint.

[@guaposneeze]

No talk about how the combat ring was horrifically dangerous to try to do stunts in because it was made of horrifyingly fragile glass fluorescent lights? Seriously, as bad as the episode is, I think the production perspective is worth focusing on here, perhaps more than any of the "bad" episodes. Like, as far as I know, nothing in the script specified "this is a planet of black people." That was a production decision. So a lot of people made bad decisions and contributed to how this turned out, and following some of the logic and who did what is perhaps more interesting than just pointing at the result. Also, I used to know a guy who was friends with the writer.

[@renaigh]

so this is the episode that introduced Conservatives to Trek.

[@OnwardToMail]

Yeah this episode breaks pretty much everything Star Trek stands for. The really weird thing is this is still when Gene Rodenberry himself was still very much involved with the show. You'd think he'd put a stop to all the racism and stereotyping, but no he let it all happen.

[@Talisguy]

He did apparently fire the director, and the director was the one who made the decision to cast all Black actors as the Ligonians. It's a bad script even without the racism, but it sounds like the racism was (mostly) added during the shooting stage, so I'd guess that Roddenberry only noticed how racist it was when it was too late to go back and fix it. There are plenty of episodes where he doesn't have that excuse, though, so maybe he wouldn't have ordered reshoots even if he'd caught it earlier.

[@Moviefan2k4]

@@Talisguy Generally speaking, people want to hold Gene up as some kind of super-virtuous paragon...but in truth, he was anything but. He was a habitual smoker and drinker, did cocaine on numerous occasions, and routinely cheated on his wife even before they were officially married (including an affair with Nichelle Nichols, and also one of his secretaries). He was a devout humanist, rejecting religion as "a replacement for a malfunctioning brain", and yet he somehow believed that in the distant future, humanity would magically abandon all our controversial differences. But it hasn't happened yet, and as long as life on Earth continues, I doubt it ever will.

[@versebuchanan512]

"Captain, should we also beam out and revive that other guy who accidentally died in the audience?" "Nah fuck it. Let's leave." "Lol aye sir."

[@astrocohorsclub]

Fun fact about pointing out how dangerous the Ligonian weapons are: When Tasha arrives on the Enterprise with Yareena's body she says: "It's too late, she's getting cold." The writers must have put that in to point out again how poisonous those weapons are, but what Tasha says is physical impossible for two reasons: First, a dead body gets cold because it does not produce warmth anymore and the warmth the body had is radiated into the air. It's just a physical phenomenon, it does not depend on the reason of death or how poisonous something is. Second, to feel that a body (or anything) is getting colder, there has to be a difference of at least 2 ° Celsius to before. The loss of temperature through thermal radiation depends on the temperature of the air surrounding a body, but it takes way more than a few seconds to loose 2 ° C.

[@BlackCover95]

Maybe Ligonian physiology just works that way? 🤷‍♂️

[@jackabug2475]

The best review ever of the worst episode ever.

[@insilencea4599]

Wait, they named the woman Tasha Yar fought Yarina? Yar-ina?!

[@mbessey]

I thought "Steve must have added that, that can't possibly be real!", but then I looked it up, and yes. They literally named her Yar-ina.

[@Deadxman616]

Remember this is when gene was in full control

[@pwnranger3496]

I'm not sure how much responsibility falls on Gene Roddenberry for this, but between this episode, the independent feminists who unavoidably swoon for Riker, and the planet with all the orgies until Wesley steps on plant and gets sentenced to death, it's not surprising he was forced out for season 2. He was clearly out of touch, with everything

[@Moviefan2k4]

Gene wasn't forced out - he stepped away because of his health. He had cerebrovascular disease and encephalopathy, as a result of his longstanding recreational use of several drugs, including alcohol and cocaine. By 1989 he was in a wheelchair, and by October of 1991 his right arm was paralyzed. He died of a heart attack on October 24th, which would have been during TNG's fourth season. He was also an habitual smoker himself, in spite of his belief that characters in Star Trek shouldn't have any addictions.

[@tjzambonischwartz]

Million dollar idea: Steve and Stuffy audio riff tracks for Shades of Grey and Sub Rosa.

[@JRMcCarroll]

I don't remember for sure, but I think this is also one of the episodes in which Data makes a math error. He's describing the tubing they use on the arena, and clearly seems to believe that two rectangles with the same perimeter will have the same area. Unless that mistake was from a different episode. It's been a while.

[@CCJJ160Channels]

Hey! It wasn’t that ba- . . . 🤣 sorry, sorry. I couldn’t get thru that entire sentence without laughing.

[@tony2763]

Picard was a bad series... but at least it wasn't Code of Honor bad.

[@KariIzumi1]

I mean....yeah, it wasn't THAT bad but IMO that just makes the blunders of the latter show worse. There's no excusing the blatant racism in this episode, but in the general sense, there was no set formula for Trek, so a lot of experimenting was going on in the early seasons and _that_ aspect I can forgive. But to still do the same plodding, go nowhere stories forty years out?! Hell no.

[@patrickdodds7162]

Sounds like "Move Along Home" will be spared from being Shive'd...for now.

[@SteveShives]

"Move Along Home" has nothing to fear from me.

[@patrickdodds7162]

@@SteveShives That goes for me too. "Move Along Home" > "In the Pale Moonlight" (with ZERO irony)

[@PACABear]

I've always felt that Move Along Home is unfairly maligned.

[@iagmusicandflying]

@@patrickdodds7162Man, I think "Move Along Home" gets a worse rep than it deserves, but this is a bridge too far!

[@patrickdodds7162]

@@PACABear Likewise actually.

[@davidhaasz9699]

You forgot to mention the shoddy set design. That red cyclorama sky is just... cheep.

[@johnhall3570]

Ah, yes - the Planet Hell soundstage…

[@ajkandy]

The whole production design of this episode (and tbh lots of S1 episodes) feels like a 60s TOS throwback - particularly the idea that futuristic clothes must be made of shiny metallic fabric 😅

[@JesmondBeeBee]

By the time I reached the climbing frame fight scene when watching this I was jealous of the lucky bastard in the spectators who got killed.

[@CarbideSix]

It would be VERY interesting if the Cerritos was tasked to revisit this planet.

[@KariIzumi1]

Somehow, I don't think Mike McMahan or either of its two Black leads would touch that mess with a twenty and a half foot pole 😂 Lower Decks is known which things to loving roast, which to celebrate, which to drag through the mud and which we're not even worth the time or effort to acknowledge. This one is absolutely in that last category.

[@BlackCover95]

@@KariIzumi1 Roasting the Planet of the Racist Stereotypes would be on brand for _Lower Decks_ . Though even they would have to make it clear that they’re criticizing the writers, rather than the people themselves. If there was any show that could revisit Ligon II , it’d be LD, but even they couldn’t play it straight.

[@sinisterintelligence3568]

Steve's comedic synopsis of this episode makes me both laugh and CRINGE all at the same time-cringe on how more terrible this episode thx to Steve's comedic interpretation.

[@nestoralvarez5256]

I somehow missed this episode as a kid and as I was catching up on Paramount+ and first saw the Ligonians I was like “oh no…oh please no.”

[@autodidactic]

my spouse and i have been watching your channel for years, and have especially been looking forward to your take in particular on this specific, hideous episode. red letter day! thanks, steve.

[@1dbanner]

In concept, it was to be TNG's "Amok Time." In execution, it was their "Way to Eden."

[@MattMcIrvin]

Back in the 90s on Usenet, this episode wasn't the worst-ranked by fan consensus--that was "Shades of Gray", the clip episode that Season 2 had instead of a proper finale. But I think even then "Code of Honor" was near the bottom. "Shades of Gray" almost isn't even an episode, so maybe it doesn't count.

[@KariIzumi1]

Been a Trekkie since '01 myself and yeah, this one's always duked it out between that one and the ghostfucker one as the worst of TNG. The consensus towards CoH winning out over those two in recent years is due to: 1) more racial sensitivity (although people HAD to know this was bad even in 87?!) 2) more younger fans who grew up with cable and/or streaming who have no psychological trauma with clip shows and this going "Oh yeah, that makes sense" when told about the strike at the time 3) many of said younger fans finding Trek through Tumblr and never being poisoned by more conservative leaning Trek communities like TrekBBS or Sufficient Velocity to truly hate the bad but not offensively so episodes (which I'd say Sub Rosa is) 4) Less reverence for TNG in general, so new fans don't have the warm and fuzzies so they're not quite as linient towards the early seasons just because "it gave us the other shows!"

[@Kefka.]

IMDB has "Shades of Gray" at the bottom as well by a large margin, last I checked 3.3 which is well below "Code of Honor" at 5.1. Which made it the 3rd worst rated episode of TNG. "Sub Rosa" which averaged 4.8 (again last time I checked on IMDB) being number 2 on the worst rated list.

[@timothytikker1147]

One of my gripes about this episode is that, near the beginning, Tasha Yar demonstrates the martial art Aikido, But in the big fight at the end, her fighting style is the antithesis of Aikido!

[@jy3n2]

Federation Combatives integrate martial arts from across the Alpha Quadrant, including several that would normally be contradictory.

[@Donnagata1409]

@@jy3n2 Coup de vitesse, which borrows shamelessly from Aikido to marsellaise Savate (also Brazilian capoeira) That's the best martial art. Don't tell me you haven't read David Weber????? The first book had a cover with a woman and a sentient cat. I had to read it! Then I liked and read some more...

[@MasculineMiner]

weird that you discussed this just now, I just rewatched it. its hard to articulate how bad it is.

[@DeadDancers]

As always, your retelling of the episode is a joy to experience 😂

[@danshaw1096]

100% agree. TNG is my favorite in the franchise and I have notable blind spots that keeps me from being objective when looking back on it and even I don't doubt that this is the single worst episode Star Trek ever made

[@piltdownfilms]

I really hope you do "A Night in Sickbay" for Enterprise.

[@KariIzumi1]

That and "These Are the Voyages" are low hanging fruit for a series that has plenty of contenders, but the one I rarely hear anyone discuss these days? "Precious Cargo." Maybe people aren't as hard on it because it's a Tucker episode and his stans were as militant as the fandom of any given K-Pop boy group, but dear Lord was that one just peak cringe. ANISB was saved by John Billingsley's acting and the crew giving Archer shit for his petulance, but this one? Nope. The princess may as well have been replaced by a cardboard cutout and voiced by AI and that wouldve given a better performance. The premise of enemies to lovers (for lack of a better term) is well worn and people already got that from him and T'Pol, an idea TIIC nearly dropped in favor of putting her with Archer but I've heard rumors that Bakula himself shut that one down. It's worth pointing out that Brannon Braga, the guy who still stands by other slop he's put his name on including ANISB and Threshold, is on record for saying he wanted to skip a week rather than put this one to air. Which says everything.

[@jy3n2]

There's so many good bad episodes in that series. Like, people justly give early Disco flak for the war crimes, but Enterprise straight up has individual episodes about Archer committing torture, piracy, forced organ donation, brainwashing of prisoners, genocide, sex trafficking, and probably a few things I'm forgetting.

[@Insightfill]

10:34 "You can excuse the racism?" Shirley, Community. Jk. Yeah, in any discussion of this ep, you've got to set that aside for a bit because it hides the other flaws.

[@UkyoSensuke]

I wholeheartedly agree it's the worst episode of Star Trek. It's not even a decent episode ruined by rancid racism. It's just a failure on every level, and the only TNG episode I skip on a re-watch.

[@frederickjohnson7307]

Did you noticed that they were beamed to the cargo bay and not the transporter room also the crew wasn't dressed in their ceremonial attire when meeting delegates.

[@DonKeyhoetee]

Some blame for Stewart's lack of enthusiasm has to go to the fact that he didn't think it would go past the first season.

[@derranthefunnyguy]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that hated that episode, I love TNG, but the first few seasons had some stinkers of episodes.

[@KariIzumi1]

I mean this with all love cuz I respect the energy but....are you new to Trek? Cuz people were bashing this episode when I was new to Trek in 2001 :p This is as close to a universally held opinion as I've seen exist in this fandom.

[@ATADSP]

God, this episode and others like it from mostly season 1 and a few episodes of season 2 are why it took me 6 months to rewatch the first two seasons of TNG and a week to watch season 3. Code of Honor is the first episode I agree with being labeled the worst from this set of retro reviews. I'm pretty sure the director of this episode got fired for it. It's my least favorite episode of TNG despite there being about eight other episodes that are similarly bad.

[@creepyunicornwithlazers3594]

Did you have to rewatch this episode for this? Respect.

[@joseph_b319]

Ive been binging TGN and could not even get halfway through to the intro.

[@happyninja42]

Honestly the Ligonian's outfits made me think Coming to America.

[@DarthCalculus]

An episode so bad he didn't even bring up sub rosa as a joke

[@nsv674]

Yes, this is the worst Star Trek episode. But it's tied for first place. Turnabout Intruder is not only deeply sexist, but it also features a disgusting portrayal of mental illness. I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a trip around the Sun and go back in time and prevent these two episodes from ever being made.

[@Bazookatone1]

The racist stuff is of course terrible, but the bit that made me cringe was when data and geordi are describing the weapons as "small and light, as if designed for women" or similar. And I was like "Im pretty sure women can manage to pick up regular sized swords, theyre not hobbits or pixies."

[@simonmacomber7466]

"Code of Honor" is the only episode of Star Trek in which the original director (Russ Mayberry) was fired _during the episodes production_ and replaced (by Les Landau.) When you said "everyone... wishes the could take this back," you should have mentioned that the _only_ person involved that wasn't ashamed of this episode was Russ Mayberry himself.

[@christophergaus3996]

I wonder how this would have been recieved if they were costumed like the Kazon

[@Vipre-]

I wonder how it'd have been if filmed as originally pitched by the writers, with reptilian aliens.

[@fluorotoluene]

When this first aired, I spent at least 30 minutes hoping it was about to get interesting and subvert the racist tropes. But - nope. So very, very nope.

[@MilivojSegedinac]

On netflix this episode was "auto play" trailer for TNG for years. Had to work hard convince my friend who didn't watch the show to give it a chance cuz of it

[@delancyj67]

Wikipedia lists the writer as a woman, Katharyn Powers, born in 1943. That might explain the "I ain't complete till I get a White woman and betray my own people" vibe to the whole episode.

[@cyberius7042]

I hadn't thought of how similar the problematic pacing of Picard Season 2 was to Code of Honor, but that is pretty spot-on.

[@glamourweaver]

Oh interesting - I just assumed with having done Spock’s Brain you were prioritizing what the fanbase views at the worst episodes, and so Move Along Home was a lock for DS9 (I agree Meridian is a worse episode)

[@philiponeill6903]

Oh gods...I had nearly wiped "Code of Honor" from my mind. Now it's back, and I'd forgotten how absolutely woeful it was! :D

[@halfsourlizard9319]

This tbh ... Oof, just ... oof.

[@Caveman_420]

When I was young, that episode always made me uncomfortable, but there’s a few of them like that I’m Native American, and there was the episode in the originals series The Paradise Syndrome where Native Americans were picked up from earth, thousands of years ago, and they were still superstitious and on educated, after all that time, and for some reason that episode doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable..

[@maxiemaxwell550]

Can somebody help the blind guy out? Why is Steve's shirt ironic? What is written on it?

[@talon262]

Steve's wearing his "All I need to know about life, I learned from Star Trek" shirt.

[@thevioletta100]

I heard somewhere that the original script for this had the Ligonians as some sort of reptilian species and then someone high up (possibly Roddenberry) specifically changed it to this. That feels even worse.

[@ersatz_cats]

Not enough is made of the fact that, even if you strip away the racism (and acting, and pacing, etc), it's still the worst episode of Star Trek ever. The core premise is "The Federation rolls up on an indigenous culture and weaponizes legal mumbo jumbo to extract resources it wants." The episode is thinly justified forced regime change, from the POV of the regime changers.

[@tonyfelder1206]

Actually this is TNG's 3rd episode-after The Naked Now, the one where everyone was drunk and in some cases horny from the same virus from a TOS episode. As far as Code of Honor goes, I got a headache by the time the fight scene and thought this series is not going to work. I know Michael Dorn was so happy he wasn't apart of this 😊.

[@AdamTheC]

Very well put. I listened to the podcast Black Alert which did an excellent episode on "Code of Honour" and I got to hear a black perspective on how bad that episode was, and went beyond not just the casting and depiction of the Ligonians. It also pointed out how it indulges stereotypes of East Asian cultures, how Yar's kidnapping is a fairly common racist fantasy, and even how the wigs given to black actresses for this episode were terrible. I find it a little less astounding given Star Trek's own history with indulging racial stereotypes, but at the same time it's amazing that this aired on television in the late 80s. (Though one of the guests on that Black Alert episode argued persuasively that because it was some 20 years out from the Civil Rights Act, people were less cautious figuring that they had "solved racism".) It says something about the episode's problems that they didn't even get into how it utterly failed at even the nuts-and-bolts of dramatic television, which you cover here. It's really quite astounding that "Code of Honor" fails in every possible respect as both Star Trek and as a dramatic television.