In the twenty-first episode of the second season of Star Trek, NO WAY. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of Nazism, cultural appropriation, genocide, racism, nonconsensual drugging, and anti-Semitism.
I do not like this episode at all.
I’m kind of shocked that anyone would find this an appropriate thing to base an episode around, and was continually shocked at how far the writers took this premise. How the hell do you take something that is so significant to Jewish history and identity and give it to aliens on other planets? Who thought that plastering this episode with swastikas, Sieg Heil salutes, and mentions of the “Final Solution” was even remotely appropriate? Just… what? What?
I wish that there was some sort of satisfying or understandable reasoning for this provided within the text itself, but to make matters even worse, this episode makes virtually no sense to me at all. I’m still confused as to how Gill was ever able to replicate Nazi Germany on another planet, I don’t get how the whole drugging thing works, I don’t get how Melakon was able to take power and further the Nazi society WHEN HE WAS AN ALIEN WHO HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED IT BECAUSE HE’S NOT HUMAN, and I don’t comprehend how there’s a deliberately happy ending to all of this when this society has been so horrifically damaged. What did I just watch? Why did I just have to watch this???
I have so many problems with this.
- Didn’t this episode establish that the subcutaneous transponders were to be used as homing beacons so that if Kirk and Spock could not use their communicators, they could still be reached? So why don’t they use them as they were intended? Why couldn’t they have been beamed back to the Enterprise to regroup? I DON’T GET IT. (Which is not to say that I want there to be a world where Spock does not use Kirk as a stepping stool. THAT SCENE WAS GREAT.)
- The specificity of the use of Nazi regalia and policies is one of my biggest issues here. If we accept the (admittedly ludicrous) assertion that Gill tried to give the Ekosians order by mimicking an existing facist regime, why the fuck would he use precise Nazi imagery and beliefs? Why not just steal the certain elements he wanted and create something new? That’s not to suggest that there wouldn’t be issues with that, but at the very least, the appropriation of the Holocaust and the suffering those people (mostly Jewish people!) went through wouldn’t feel so disrespected and forgotten. Because while “Patterns of Force” is frighteningly specific when it comes to representing Nazi Germany, I did notice that not one character ever mentioned Jewish people. At all. And I think that’s pretty gross, y’all.
- HOW DID MALAKON KNOW ANY OF THIS? If he used Gill to be his patsy and his Führer stand-in, then that means that Gill was largely unconscious for most of the time. If this is the case, then HOW. DID. HE. BUILD. AND. MAINTAIN. A. NAZI. SOCIETY. Perhaps Gill set it all up? But then… how? How did Malakon know what the Final Solution was and know that it was a policy of genocidal violence? How did he know about the salutes and the armbands and the swastika and the SS logo and literally everything here? Why wouldn’t he just make himself the Führer? Why use Gill? WOULDN’T THAT BE A HUGE RISK?
- I am not being very forgiving about this episode, I admit that. I have no knowledge of the reaction to it and if this seemed like an edgy and thoughtful episode at the time it aired. I’m aware that scholarship around Nazi Germany has changed a lot in the past 40+ years since “Patterns of Force” aired. But outright stating that Nazi Germany was one of the most “efficient” governments in history??? Not only is that horrifically offensive, it’s not true at all. There is tons of evidence that it was a terrible mess, bloated and inefficient as all hell!
- NO.
- NO.
- The reveal that Eneg was actually a Zeon (oh my god, you are using a word that’s one letter from “Zion” but you can’t say “Jewish” at any point? why is this episode) was jarring and confusing for all the wrong reasons. How? When? Why?
- I know that Star Trek is a big fan of happy endings, but this is perhaps the most egregious use of a happy ending. Malakon, through Gill, spent years brainwashing the Ekosians into believing horrifically racist things about the Zeons, and then, with one vague and confusing broadcast, they’re all okay? How the hell are the Zeons supposed to de-program the anti-Zeonist hatred that the Ekosians are convinced is a scientific reality? How are they going to be fine? This is easily the most disgusting contradiction of the Prime Directive, and the crew of the Enterprise does not seem at all concerned that they’re leaving these planets in a state of chaos and disarray. PERHAPS THEY NEED A LITTLE BIT OF HELP. Daras and Eneg might be able to convince some of the Ekosians, but they’re actually Zeons, and how is the public going to deal with that?
- This is a mess.
I don’t even know if you could have done this episode well, y’all. It just seems like such an absurd notion! I know that we’re expected to discard our sense of disbelief while watching this show, but this is asking too much of most people. We cannot divorce the historical context of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in a way that makes “Patterns of Force” anything less than offensive and callous. It means something definite to so many people, and when you invoke those horrors so deliberately and undeniably as the show does here, it feels gross when you don’t follow through on that.
No, thank you, y’all.
The video for “Patterns of Force” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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