Rob and Grant discuss the ups and downs of Season Two of TNG. There were a couple of great episodes, but the general rating was very low. We cover the best and worst episodes, and characters – and we respond to some comments that people have posted during the podcasts.
Say Cheese! Or don’t, whatever, let’s just take this photo
Ups and Downs of IMDB ratings vs The Rewatch over Season 2
MP3 can be downloaded here.
Star Trek: The Rewatch 
Ther IS room for the protection of natural selection in the Prime Dorective:
Imagine if an advanced space-faring race visited Earth 66 million years ago and set their tractor beams to full power in order to save the planet’s giant lizard population from an asteroid collision.
The graph looks like my three year old son drew it… Ironically, the potential same likely employ for some of the episodes of season 2! – also, how high is the stool that Levar Burton is stood on in the photo above… ☺
Great podcast guys, look forward to it every week. Very much looking forward to season 3… Hopefully, more fun will be made of some of Worf’s back chats… My personal favourites usually contain “if you weren’t my (enter rank) I’d kill you were you stand..” he probably should have been medically retired and placed in a cage by now.. All the best.. Andy
Thanks for the shout-out guys! Can’t wait for season 3!
It would probably depend on how you (or a starship Captain and crew) would choose to interpret the Prime Directive. Does it mean no interference of any kind, even if you can ensure that interference would be unnoticed and would save lives? If you consider that humans (and all creatures) and everything they make can be construed as technically a part of “nature,” then wouldn’t those creatures be participating in natural selection? They’ve evolved to the point where they have the ability to save a planet from an asteroid, and they are choosing to use that ability. Yes, stopping the asteroid would have likely radically altered the history of this planet, but how do you or I know which choice was the “correct” one? Is there a correct choice? If there was an isolated civilization of people living on a volcanic island today, and scientists knew the volcano was about to go and kill thousands of people, should those scientist attempt to help those people? If they could stop the volcano, should they?
Of course, the real question that arises when dealing with these issues is how to deal with man-made disasters. For example, worldwide we know that in the Sudan (and other parts of the world), there is constant, horrific genocide occurring. Yet many countries and organizations capable of stopping it do nothing (at least nothing significant) out of a desire to respect the sovereignty of another nation. But should we intervene? We might save lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people; but on the other hand, much of the issues in that part of the world arose from European nations “intervening.” It’s a challenging issue with no clear solution, which is what makes the show and the idea of the Prime Directive so great!
God, I love Star Trek – try to have a discussion like this in the Star Wars universe!
I’d argue that once a being becomes sentient it is on a level that is separate from nature. At the very least, the sentient species should be held accountable for its actions toward the environment it has so much power and awareness over.
That, to me, is the key of the Prime Directive:
Each species must have the unaided opportunity to make that jump from nature to sentience, from sentience to cooperation, from cooperation to space.
I know, right! “Well, you see, the lightsaber represents … coolness … and Han Solo represents … also coolness …”
That’s a very interesting argument and I like that breakdown in different levels of advanced evolution. But at what point does it change from “aid” to “mutual contact of equals?” The Vulcans determined that humans were “ready” based on an arbitrary technological achievement; but humans hadn’t discovered advanced races on their own, and from a mentality/cultural stand-point, were they really ready for first contact? What if a species was extremely peaceful, already had a “Prime Directive” but applied to different cultures on their planet, and were clearly mentally/culturally prepared for first contact, but had only advanced technologically to, say, airplanes?
I do agree with giving a species the opportunity, and I’m with you on separating sentient species from nature. But at the end of the day, if the opportunity is afforded you to save the lives of sentient creatures, I would take it, even if it is a natural event. But as you point out, you never know the repercussions; I might be saving the dinosaurs at the expense of humanity. And that’s one of the reasons the Prime Directive is awesome; it gives solid guidelines while allowing for interpretation for each person entrusted with enacting it.
Ooh, I like the ratings plot: great idea! The peaks and troughs are well correlated with IMDB even if their (averaged) baseline is higher.