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Episode
154
The Hunted
Imagine giving someone the escape artistry of a Harry Houdini and the killing ability of everyone else. Now, imagine trying to keep that person from getting what he wants. It sounds farfetched, though maybe not as much as you think. Find out when we put The Hunted in the Mission Log.
Anyone catch the reference of hiding in the planets magnetic poles and why Riker knows this tactic? Reference to “Peak Performance”. Cool!!
just heard your podcast, glad you guys noticed it as well!!
It probably isn’t the case that someone was making a near perfect analogy to the situation and meaning that can be taken from this, and I don’t know if you guys just avoided it and talked around it on purpose, but it has a lot to do with the sexism issue and the marginalization of men. This episode could be seen as a “Hey don’t objectify men” episode, which is what the Angosans are doing. Or could be pointing out that a lot of women will use this type of argument, especially veterans (which is why they are homeless if they are not psychologically damaged), on the men in their lives to remove the man’s property and have it forcefully given to the woman. This behavior in turn causes them issues with getting jobs which in turn causes the situation to spiral worse and worse.
This can easily be taken from this and is extremely relevant to present day and to what people are trying to slander others with, down to the whole suicidal nature of the soldiers, but, again, I don’t think they were quite getting at this here especially since a lot of this is wasn’t looked at back then. I think it is more along the lines what you guys are saying… where someone took their experiences and observations of veterans and wrote a story about it.
Also… I don’t know which of you said it, but you said something to the effect of “We don’t know how to fix it” which is wrong. We do know how to fix it. What we don’t know how to fix is the people who stand in the way of it, especially since the people who stand in the way of fixing these problems are propped up by many powerful people and some major shift will have to happen before that goes away, but I’ll refrain from going deeper into the subject, because it’s not really the place and like I said, I think it is more touching on the observations of military rather than observations of sexism against men which is linked to military service as well.
I didn’t get an objectify vibe from this episode. I got a “disposable” people impression, which is what I think of Iraq/Afghanistan Vietnam etc when politicians START wars…but have no idea how to end them. I thought of our recent wars watching this episode, and “The Defector”. Wars, “fun” to start…hard to end…and clean up after…
You don’t dispose of people. You dispose of objects. Armies are people being used as objects, in particular weapons. When they say “well we voted and decided not to” that’s what you do to objects, not people, because if you were treating them as people you would recognize that they should be treated as all other people to be taken care of and not be put away in some little hole to forgotten.
I wish that were always the case. But sadly humanity is not there yet… Hopefully the Angosians are a step closer! We should not dispose or view humans as disposable but some humans do. Human trafficking, prostitution, homelessness, child soldiers/workers, elder abuse. Sad. I think human empathy toward one another will not significantly improve as a whole until we get a comprehensive global birth control program going. Regions, countries who have more births/population growth than their socities can feed, employ or educate inevitably become the disposable class for “modern” socities. Cheap manpower…Angosia 3 should have had a comprehensive deprogramming system in place before ever creating on super soldier.
Jeff McCarthy and Kevin Nealon: Separated at birth?
I was thinking the same thing! he was like a more fit Nealon
Or two parts Nealon, one part Cruise.
I can’t wait to show Prime Minister Nayrok what the Sarge taught me…
http://biffbampop.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/full-metal-jacket-pdvd_00901.jpg
crazy….
I think of Wolverine/Weapon X, Captain America/Winter Soldier gone bad when I think of the issues you brought up regarding weaponizing people. I didn’t make the leap to hard tech, like you did w/ this particular episode, that would have been “Arsenal of Freedom”. “The Hunted” seems more in line w concerns for Khan Singh or even Dr. Julian Bashir types..(who’s that?!?!) lol. This is another reason I dislike prequels like Enterprise because the use of Augments by Noonien Soongh seemed well documented so Angosias super soldier program should NOT seem so outlandish. Another ongoing issue w Trek is their use of energy dependent security detention cells. Just use old fashioned bars!! and having back up old fashioned guns would be a good idea too!! boy that fight choreography sure looked dated eh? I loved the violent fights from JJ Abrams Trek…backfist!! I thought the addled appearance of the super soldiers was funny too, and their disheveled wardrobe as well. hahaha the 80s adventure theme song a la “The A-Team” when the soldiers fast rope , out of where?!?! hahahaha. Police Academy style!! I never like it when they get actors to play others in the Trek universe (Roga Danar on first episode of Voyager as the doctor)..ugh…
geeez, Voyager did not even give the “human doctor” Jeff Mccarthy a name on the first episode?? Did anyone read the novelization? surely he must have a name!!!
James Cromwell “Nayrok”
Skynet is coming…damn, pretty sobering. Just like the end of Battlestar Galactica made you think “uh-oh, the Cylons are eventually coming….” the inevitability of autonomous weapons…bummer
Jeff Mccarthy’s VOY 1st episode killing as Human Doctor had an unused name of Dr Fitzgerald or Bist per Trek Wiki. Lol
Interesting discussion as always on the podcast – one thing I wanted to either push back on or see if anyone else had a comment (looking at the veterans in the room – thank you good people btw) – it was said in the recording that we “program soldiers to learn how to kill, this is a conditioned thing, you can’t just pull somebody off the street and say here go do this job, it’s a learning process, it’s conditioning, it’s programming” – I wonder if that is actually the case (and please hear me this is not meant to be disparaging any veterans or current members of any legitimate military) – I simply wonder if as humans we are innately capable of killing (just watch the news tonight) and the training that soldiers receive is less about programming the aversion to killing out of them but training them to be skilled and efficient soldiers, and ultimately as safe as possible (to themselves and their fellow soldiers). Yes there is certainly going to be training to the effect of ‘this is a job, just do the job, etc…’ to where the enemy is going to be dehumanized to a certain extent but again, I think that is generally the condition under which any killing occurs and military training is more about the art and skill of being a soldier (mental and physical) vs simply let’s program you to kill.
I think this is not true. As a soldier for 20 years, non combat arms though, medical is very chill…I have been exposed to many combat arms types as patients and a few friends. I think even the combat types are still very human and chill when the time is appropriate. When a stressful situation comes up, I think they are “programmed” or “trained” to fight, resist, escape and kill if necessary but not capriciously. This is because imo we were all civilians first and those years count. Also, we are not in a state of endless war….I think if we had a society like “Soldier” w Kurt Russell, it would be very different. We get downtime to play games, swim, chill and that’s a huge outlet. If Earth got invaded by Aliens and humanity was at war 24/7, a la Skynet vs humans, yes, I think after a few years humanity would lose itself and start killing for the slightest of threats…but not so currently..
I wonder if and to what degree “First Blood” inspired this episode. The story and theme are pretty similar.
I enjoyed the commentary on this episode and was surprised that it was mentioned back to a taste of armageddon from TOS and it just shows how advanced TOS originally was.
The theme is excellent, but it is all in exposition. Again. The action scenes really had nothing to do with the theme. Instead you get a lot of ‘where is this guy’? And, because TNG has such great tech, it is all mostly unbelievable. Everyone is familiar with the profound ground this genre can cover – from First Blood to American Sniper to the Hurt Locker. There, you get great dramatic stories how the human spirit is affected by war, and how we fail our soldiers so often.
Here, you get a lot exposition. But at least you get that, and by bringing a bit more to the story than it perhaps deserves, it does make a good episode.
As a society, we consider war to be a necessary evil yet most of us are unwilling to dirty our hands with the consequences.
We make weapons that remain in the world once the war is over. We divert money from programs that build and improve. We create soldiers that return to find they can no longer occupy the places they left. Our campaign begets enemies we never intentionally sought and razes blood-soaked lands we will never see.
War isn’t just expensive. It isn’t just grotesque. And we cannot wave it off as a natural disfigurement of the human condition. It’s an all-consuming rot that we could not hope to contain once we accept its poison seed.
Now there’s a Star Trek message.
Indeed – and well said.