Geekery meets disability
Last night, Nik and I watched what I sincerely hope was the worst episode of Star Trek ever made. It was the Deep Space 9 episode called Melora. Melora is an ensign from a planet with extremely low gravity. As such, her body is not adapted to function in normal gravity, and she requires a combination of a rather intriguing exo-skeletal device, and a wheelchair. The power wheelchair is reasonably sleek by 1994 standards, and terribly clunky by today's. I'm happy to forgive that, because the episode is a product of its time, and the progress of wheelchair/robotic technology in the past 14 years has been mind-boggling. The first thing in the episode that got my hackles up was the ensign's abrasive personality. She was the disabled woman who has clawed her way to where she is and won't accept help or courtesy from anyone else. She works hard at being both offensive and offended. She was the embodiment of every stereotype about ambitious disabled women. In other words, she was a total bitch. She demanded special treatment in the same sentence as insisting she wanted to be treated like any other ensign. She then got offended when Bashir called her on her behavior, which he did in a remarkably sensitive and respectful manner.
And then there was her physique. She did not look remotely like the sort of creature who would evolve in a low gravity environment. I understand that they had to work with a human actor, but she was way too solid. And her feet were all wrong. She had normal human feet. With calluses on the bottoms.
Bashir naturally stumbles across something that could be a miraculous "cure" that would enable her to function normally in Earth gravity. The cure had to do with her motor cortex, implying that her problem was not inherently physical, but mental. Nik and I were laying odds on whether she would make a noble sacrifice or the treatment would kill her.
The entire episode was offensive. Ok, the bit where she cusses out the Klingon barkeep in fluent Klingon for serving them half-dead Racht was pretty awesome. But seriously, Star Trek does its homework far better than this. I'm not entirely sure why I sat through the entire episode when it managed to offend me in the first five minutes. There was no advancement of meta-plot, so if you're watching DS9, I would advise skipping this episode.
And then there was her physique. She did not look remotely like the sort of creature who would evolve in a low gravity environment. I understand that they had to work with a human actor, but she was way too solid. And her feet were all wrong. She had normal human feet. With calluses on the bottoms.
Bashir naturally stumbles across something that could be a miraculous "cure" that would enable her to function normally in Earth gravity. The cure had to do with her motor cortex, implying that her problem was not inherently physical, but mental. Nik and I were laying odds on whether she would make a noble sacrifice or the treatment would kill her.
The entire episode was offensive. Ok, the bit where she cusses out the Klingon barkeep in fluent Klingon for serving them half-dead Racht was pretty awesome. But seriously, Star Trek does its homework far better than this. I'm not entirely sure why I sat through the entire episode when it managed to offend me in the first five minutes. There was no advancement of meta-plot, so if you're watching DS9, I would advise skipping this episode.