Star Trek Blows An Excellent Storytelling Opportunity With the Orions
By switching up Orion culture, franchise loses narrative and social commentary options
As developed throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Ferengi became one of the greatest opportunities for social commentary in the franchise.
They were portrayed as relentlessly greedy and capitalist as well as deeply misogynistic in their treatment of women.
And this is how we knew Ferengi pretty consistently through most of DS9’s seven seasons, until the reforms introduced only at the very end of the series.
But the way they were portrayed, realistically no one really have thought that Star Trek ever endorsed or promoted greed and misogyny as positive qualities for the future.
Rather, Deep Space Nine used the Ferengi as a foil for our Federation heroes and even — occasionally — as a mirror of sorts.
Such was the case with the episode, “Heart of Stone,” in which Nog, challenges assumptions by Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) — and, by extension, we the viewers — when the young Ferengi asks to join Starfleet.
This episode — and, in particular, that electric scene between Brooks and the late, great actor Aron Eisenberg in the role of Nog — ends up revealing so much about human nature and the human condition.
Which, of course, is the ultimate purpose of Star Trek.
Eisenberg would later say of that episode:
“[Avery Brooks] is awesome. He has got such presence - there is a power behind his eyes. How can I explain it? He gives to you when he looks in your eyes. He doesn't just look at your eyes but he looks in your eyes and feeds you. That was a scene we had rehearsed but, as soon as we shot it, he unexpectedly grabbed my shoulders and said, 'Tell me, Nog, what is it?' And it was awesome because it forced me to come up to that level. I didn't back down. I blurted out, 'Because I don't want to be like my father'. He is so professional. That was my favorite scene! It finally gave me, as an actor, something to really think about and deal with. It was emotional and we really got to see the heart of Nog. Also, as an actor I really had to come from a place and not just be on the surface. I was very well prepared when I did it. I didn't have any problems with the lines and I was very proud of myself.”
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Star Trek once had a brilliant opportunity to use the green-skinned Orions — and their famous slave women — in a similar way.
The franchise could have developed Orions and their culture in such a way as to provide vast storytelling potential to talk about such issues as gender equality and gender roles, and even basic rights.
The potential for this was hinted at in the non-canon, “Lolani,” an episode of the fan-produced web series Star Trek Continues, which carried on the adventures of the original series.
It tells the story of a desperate Orion woman, the eponymous Lolani (Fiona Vroom), trying to seek asylum aboard the Enterprise from her slave owner, played somewhat unexpectedly in a green-skinned appearance of a different sort by Incredible Hulk co-star Lou Ferrigno.
Unfortunately, a Starfleet commodore isn't so keen to provoke the Orions by protecting Lolani, with another brilliant legacy sci-fi appearance by Buck Rogers in the 25th Century co-star Erin Gray.
The results are tragic and you can watch the full episode here:
However, rather than use the obvious flaws and failings of Orion culture as fodder for deeper storytelling as DS9 did with the Ferengi, the creative team on Star Trek: Enterprise endeavored to “fix” its problematic elements with the episode, “Bound.”
We learn, whoops, that the “enslaved” Orion women were just pretending, and were in fact, controlling the men with their pheromones.
Although no doubt well-intentioned, the twist introduced by “Bound” simply foreclosed so many opportunities to use the Orions as a new, and truly profound, foil for the Federation.
And, in the end, the future portrayal of the Orions would suffer, the end result of which would be the recently released fourth season episode of the animated series, Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Something Borrowed, Something Green.”
D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells) is called away from her duty aboard the USS Cerritos to return to Orion for a wedding.
Tendi brings crew mates Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) along.
Unfortunately, all we get for the trip is a predictable variation on the worn “Reverse Culture Shock,” or “Re-entry Shock,” trope.
Tendi who is a serious, nerdy officer on the Cerritos was a bit of a celebrity pirate badass back home.
But c'mon, really, who didn't see that coming for the character?
It's too late to reset the Orions as truly effective and innovative storytelling device. But they ought to be a cautionary tale for Star Trek’s creative teams of what can go wrong when developing the next alien species and culture.
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