Jonathan Frakes Wants A Racist Episode Of Star Trek: The Next Generation Removed From Streaming
"Star Trek: The Next Generation" infamously got off to a rough start. The cast was great and the premise of the show was first-rate, but thanks to a lot of drama behind the scenes — Gene Roddenberry's personal lawyer reportedly rewrote scripts after they had been approved — a lot of the stories suffered. Sometimes a script began with a good idea, but was rewritten into oblivion, emerging as bland, confusing, bad, or, in the case of "Code of Honor," chock full of unfortunate racial stereotypes.
"Code of Honor" (October 12, 1987) follows the Enterprise-D to the planet of Ligon II, where the inhabitants, audiences are told, abide by a strict [insert episode title]. In an unwise creative choice, the Ligonians were dressed to resemble, essentially, "African tribesmen" stereotypes straight out of a 1940s theatrical serial. The Ligonian king Lutan (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson) would kidnap Lieutenant Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) and force her to fight his wife Yareena (Karole Selmon) in a duel to the death. In addition to the stereotypes, there is a lot of sexist language in "Code of Honor" wherein Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) plays along with Lutan's misogyny. It's one of the low points of the series.
The cast even felt that way at the time. In a 2012 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stewart noted that the series didn't get good until its second season, and cited "Code of Honor" as evidence. Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker on "Next Generation" has remained negative about the episode as well, telling Trek Nation in 2007 that he wanted to see the episode struck from reruns and from home video. In 2023, Frakes repeated that sentiment with TrekMovie, finding it surprising that the episode hadn't been removed from rotation already.
Code of Honor
According to Larry Nemecek's indispensable sourcebook "The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion," the original conception for the episode was to feature a species of reptiles whose code of honor was modeled after that of samurai. According to well-communicated production notes, it was the episode's first director, a man named Russ Mayberry, who cast Black actors as the Ligonians and wanted to dress them in their unusual outfits. Word on the street was Gene Roddenberry fired Mayberry during production. Actor Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on "The Next Generation," heard that the director treated the Black actors poorly. Yikes.
Jonathan Frakes, meanwhile, still feels that "Code of Honor" should be removed from rotation. It was racist in 1987, he feels, and it's racist now. When Frakes was told by his interviewer that "Code of Honor" was still readily available on Paramount+, Hulu, and several other streaming platforms, he was a little shocked. Frakes said to TrekMovie:
"It is now. But I was told or I was under the impression that it had rubbed so many people the wrong way that it was pulled. I think they should take it out of the rotation. I think it is a great time to make that kind of — as small as it is — to make that kind of a statement would be fabulous."
The interviewer, Anthony Pascale, suggested that the episode remain, but with the type of disclaimer that now often accompanies 1940s Warner Bros. cartoons with racist imagery or screenings of "Gone with the Wind." Frakes halfway agreed.
Disclaimer
Jonathan Frakes felt that a disclaimer might work, provided it explained what the episode was trying — but failed — to do. Perhaps an interview or a brief documentary explaining how the episode fell apart so badly. Frakes said:
"[Y]ou make a good point. Maybe it should be included with an appropriate statement of reason. A proof of concept. This is not who we are. This is not what we stand for. It's an embarrassment to the franchise and Gene [Roddenberry] would want us to do this. Something like that."
Back in 2008, Wil Wheaton re-watched "Code of Honor" for the Huffington Post, and was prepared to be utterly repelled. While Wheaton did find the episode distasteful, he felt it wasn't the most offensive episode of early "Next Generation." Notably, Wheaton cites an episode called "Angel One" (January 25, 1988) as being more offensive for its outward sexism. He noticed that the script for "Code of Honor" is not outwardly racist in itself, but became that way when someone cast the episode the way they did. Wheaton said:
"'Code of Honor' is not an especially good episode, but it's not as overtly racist as I recalled. I mean, it's certainly not as racist as 'Angel One' is sexist, and if the Ligonians hadn't been arbitrarily determined to be entirely African American, it wouldn't have even been an issue (although someone definitely owes the Sung dynasty an apology)."
Sadly, Jessie Lawrence Ferguson, who died in 2019, never went on the record to discuss "Code of Honor," although Karole Selmon spoke at length about the episode for the video interview series "Trek Untold." She very much recalls the "friction" on the set between Russ Mayberry and the Black actors.
She did, however, admire that the script put Ligonian women in power. Thank goodness for that much.