Jammer's Review
Star Trek: The Next Generation
"The Outcast"
Air date: 3/16/1992
Written by Jeri Taylor
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
The Enterprise comes to the assistance of the Genai, a race that has no gender, to help retrieve the crew of a shuttle that went missing in a mysterious void of "null space." Riker teams up with one of the Genai, named Soren (Melinda Culea), and in the process of their investigation Riker learns more about Soren and the Genai society.
It turns out that the Genai once had male and female sexes but have since "evolved" into asexual beings — their current-day reproduction involves a baby being grown in a husk or something — but occasionally there are some Genai who identify with one gender or the other. Such identifications are forbidden and those individuals are subject to a psychotherapy "treatment" that eradicates those "abnormal" feelings.
"The Outcast" is a Star Trek message episode, plain and simple — an allegory that is born of good intentions about tolerance and acceptance. Every once in a while, Trek will decide to tackle an issue head-on (in this case, acceptance of gays) and go all-out preaching a message; "The Outcast" is such an episode.
But there's a fundamental flaw in the conception of "The Outcast," which is that it's so obviously an allegory about the discriminatory issues facing gays, and yet, in the 24th century, there apparently is no such thing as homosexuality. Riker and Soren have lengthy conversations about sexuality and human sex roles (and these discussions touch upon only the most conventional of sexual and gender roles, ignoring the rest), but there isn't so much as a word that homosexuality exists — or ever existed in human history. The writers dance around the subject completely, as if afraid to offend their audience. Maybe if this episode had aired in 1967 as part of TOS, I could forgive the tap dance. But airing in 1992, this strikes me as gutless. (Might it have been more of a challenging choice, for example, to have Soren be played by a man instead of a woman?)
Also, since Riker is presumably, from all past evidence, 100 percent heterosexual, how exactly would sex even work between him and the genderless Soren? I suppose the message here is that romantic love can transcend sexuality, but the episode sort of glosses over this issue while at the same time purporting that Riker can fall in love with Soren in a matter of days, a TV cliche I never find convincing.
It certainly doesn't help that Soren here is performed by Melinda Culea in dull, relentless monotone — no doubt to make her seem more androgynous. As a person, Soren just isn't compelling; she's a mouthpiece for the message and nothing more. Once Soren is outed by the Genai authorities, she makes a lengthy, impassioned public speech that is preachy and didactic to the extreme, laying out the allegory for the audience in about as heavy-handed a manner as is possible. It fell completely flat for me, especially given the implied hypocrisy of arguing, allegorically, for an idea the TNG universe itself doesn't even acknowledge as existing.
One thing I liked from a character level was Riker and Worf teaming up to break Soren out of the "treatment" facility. Watching Riker get uncharacteristically riled up over an injustice — and his willingness to even break the Prime Directive — is interesting. And I liked Worf signing on to this as a matter of personal friendship. Similarly, Picard's warning to Riker about putting his career in jeopardy is simultaneously accompanied by Picard turning a blind eye to what Riker then does — also interesting. But they're all too late, and Riker finds that Soren has been psychologically "cured" of her "condition." It would be a tragedy if Soren were a character I cared about instead of a placeholder in an allegory. Good intentions here. Not much else.
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24 comments on this review
But I disagree that Soren is unsympathetic, or that falling in love in three days is unrealistic--at least on TNG. Characters would have to be on multiple episodes to extend that time limit, and that would get difficult to execute. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of keeping the series uncluttered with potential lovers all over the place.
I really liked Soren's character--her cute little questions about sexuality were adorable. I was very sad when all that was taken from her.
I know many people find the portrayal of Riker in this episode completely unbelievable, but I loved it. Probably the romantic in me, but I loved seeing him willing to "risk all" for his "girl"friend.
Glad you're back, Jammer!
Who's right? Who's wrong?
Let's chalk it up to multiple translations.
This episode affected me profoundly as a teenager and I still love it to this day. 3.5 stars.
I always felt that the easiest allegory for Trek to have done would've been an extradition/Prime Directive epsiode surrounding an alien race's stigmatization and percecution of homosexual behaviour. Hell, if they didn't want to offend anyone they could even make the circumstances of the story even worse than 1992 America.
2 stars for good intentions is about right.
At 31, however, I can 100% understand and even logically agree with your assessment, Jammer. But the 13 year old in me will always remember and cherish this ep.
You make a good point, Jammer, about the good intentions foiled by hypocritical execution. Especially sad given that, in all the time since this episode aired, Trek hasn't had a straight-up gay character (or, at least, cast-member character). Way to have it both ways, guys.
I must also point out that the makeup job on Melinda Culea was really good. Check out how hot she is on "The A-Team" & "Family Ties" and you'll see how good the makeup was at changing her appearance.
Makeup on the Genai: not androgynous enough. It was too easy to tell male actors from female making Riker's attraction to Soren too understandable.
The story didn't work as a homosexual allegory because the desire of Soren was to become normal...as nature intended not abnormal (the male/female division of the genders is apparently the norm throughout the Federation if not the galaxy so far as we've seen of the Trek universe which begs the question as to how the Genai can hold on to their ideas of physical superiority in the face of so much overwhelming evidence)She/he was already abnormal. So her/his struggle to be free was a sympathetic one and her/his subsequent reconditioning tragic.
The story makes far more sense when any consideration of homosexuality is removed from it.
Riker's totally unbelievable actions at the end of the episode was ridiculous! Not only is it impossible to believe that he could fall so head over heels in love in so short a time, but that he could do so with such an unattractive lump as Soren after making love to some of the most beautiful women in the galaxy! On top of that, he breaks the prime directive in the most blatant fashion, even to crashing a legal proceeding! Compounding that, Picard says nothing of his trangression! Anybody else doing such a thing would be brought up on charges but would forever lose any possibility of commanding a ship of his own. How could Starfleet ever trust an officer like that for such an important responsibility?
So far as hipocracy or tap dancing by the writers is concerned, Trek is primarily a family show so who needs it to be cluttered up with such sordid subjects as homosexuality? Ugh.
I think that is awfully short-sighted, pviateur. Trek may have become homogenized/sanitized in the Berman years, but once upon a time, Trek was a show that actually pushed people to think about the world they lived in by presenting stories of peoples "out there"
Was the first televised interracial kiss ever sordid and family show un-friendly?
Family shows doesn't have to equal unchallenging or safe. Kids like to think too.
The spelling error says enough about this comment. Ugh, indeed.
Imagine that gay people are in families, too.
However, the "psychotectic treatment" program is indistinguishable from today's "reparative therapy", with two exceptions. 1. The former actually does convert the person. 2. Perhaps the converted person will be happy. The so-called "reparative therapy" (ex-gay hate yourself to heterosexuality) con doesn't convert people, only their behavior. It doesn't lead to happiness, only denial. It's also not done for the good of society; it's merely a business.
While there is research that suggests that homosexuals are sexual hybrids to some degree (brain studies find that gay people use reasoning strategies of both sexes to some degree, finger-length patterns of 80% of gay men match heterosexual women's, etc.) homosexual men are still more man than woman and lesbians are still more woman than man. The perfectly neutral androgyne is rare indeed. Jamie Lee Curtis is a potential case. I say potential because she chose to behave/dress/act in a feminine manner. Biologically, however, she is XY.
Recent research has also contradicted earlier research and supported the existence of bisexuality.
One other problem with this episode is that it doesn't clearly distinguish between orientation and behavior. That's quite lazy, given that it's a critical matter in today's politics to realize that virgins have just as much of a sexual orientation as prostitutes and porn stars have — that sexual orientation isn't about "acts" as much as it's about desire.
I think it's tremendously shameful that Star Trek has committed genocide on the gay people of the future by refusing to give them space. This episode certainly does not qualify.
Trek message episodes are rarely subtle (He''s black on the left, and white on the right!), so this one kind of fits into that dynamic, but it doesn't make it any easier to watch. I can totally understand anyone growing up LGBT connecting with the message here, however the writers skip around the issue as it actually applies to the audience. As an adult tho it's groan worthy how ham fisted it all is handled.
Found it funny that after 5 years of basically trying to out-Kirk Kirk, Riker has a sit down with Deanna to explain he's seeing other people.
Speaking of Action Man -
Alien Judge - "These proceedings are closed!"
RiKirk - "I just opened them!"
It is boring both to watch and to listen to. Beyond the guest actress's monotone, the conversations were unusually long; the technobabble was particularly uninspired; the scenes were static and slow; and, during one scene (the one where Riker talks with Troi in her quarters), there was even this strange slow zoom that I don't recall seeing in any other TNG episode. It felt like a soap opera in its production values. This could have been much more passionate, but it ended up being very insipid.
I agree with Jammer's "Good intentions. Not much else."
Yeah, right...
Making the Soren character a youth subjected to this corrective therapy and Wesley trying to prevent it would have made this theme more daring and plausible.
Funny how the episode completely ignored the Little Green Man in the room, as Nathan alluded to earlier: "The only way they seem to manifest themselves is in attraction to male aliens." That is, the J'naii authorities couldn't stand that Soren wanted to tug on Riker's... beard... but seemingly had no problem with the fact that he's a *different species*!
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