2.14: Stigma

[Dave]

From Trek Today
While Enterprise visits a planet where an Interspecies Medical Exchange conference is taking place, Dr. Phlox tries to obtain research on a terminal disease from the Vulcan contingency there. But he must not reveal that T'Pol has contracted this disease, because that knowledge would forever stigmatize her among her people.

'Stigma' features the first appearance of one of Dr. Phlox's three wives, Feezal, only the second Denobulan to appear on Enterprise. (November 23, 2002 - TrekToday)

Seven-day production schedule ran from Tuesday, November 12 to Wednesday, November 20, 2002.

After years of rumours, Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman announced today an upcoming Enterprise episode will feature an AIDS-like storyline.

In the episode, currently called 'Stigma', T'Pol and Dr. Phlox will reveal the Vulcan first officer has been infected with a degenerative Vulcan disease. The reason T'Pol has kept secret she is suffering from the incurable illness was to avoid being associated with mind melders, the group in Vulcan society who suffer from the disease.

''By the end of the episode,"' Berman told William Keck at USA Today, "we're left with some open story elements. What we would most likely deal with is T'Pol's desire to educate the Vulcan people and destroy this sense of prejudice held against [mind melders]. "In true Star Trek form, we're hoping the young people who watch will have some degree of enlightenment about a situation they're not all that aware of."

Jolene Blalock told the paper she was pleased to be able to play this role. "Our generation has been educated; now it's time to educate the next generation - it's dangerous out there! This is something I really believe in, so I was honored to be chosen as the ill one."

Dr. Phlox is the character that they ought to develop more, so I'm pleased about this episode.

 

[Dave]

Rick Berman in 'Star Trek Monthly #100'
It's going to be very controversial. It has to do with the stigma and, to some degree, the intolerance of the Vulcan people towards a small percentage of the population who are capable of performing mind-melds. T'Pol is involved with it and there's a major stand that she takes. It's going to be like 'The Measure of a Man' or 'The Drumhead' from 'The Next Generation'. It's coming along very nicely.

Also part of Viacom's partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to raise the public awareness about HIV and AIDS.

Viacom (parent company of the UPN channel) has announced that it will incorporate AIDS-related storylines into several television series in 2003. Apart from 'Enterprise', these will include 'Frasier' and 'Girlfriends' (according to 'Star Trek Monthly'.)

 

[skoon]

hmmm, sounds interesting...so I wonder if they do find a magical cure or whether or not T'Pol is doomed...hope the message they're trying to put out there comes across...

 

[Dave]

Jolene Blalock has told SciFi Wire more about her role in this episode:

"I had no control over who was going to play the sick character in the episode, so I was glad they went with T'Pol. It's one thing to have a story where you see a character who's sick and dealing with it, and it's another to see how a character contracts the disease. And we do show how. She contracts the disease through a mind-meld, and there's a lot of shame concerning the act," which, in the 'Star Trek' timeline, isn't yet a common practice.

Viewers, however, will not see T'Pol appear physically ill. "They wanted to keep it along the lines of the actual disease," Blalock says. "A lot of people walking around right now have AIDS or the HIV virus, and you wouldn't know it. So the decision was made not to have me look sickly. That helps eliminate the sympathy factor, and I'm really happy about that. It's not about feeling sorry for T'Pol."

 

[ozmonster]

When a parent tv company imposes political statements into a sci/fi show, artistic expression is diminished. I did not tune in to the afterschool special (i believe an american phenom) and am resentful because thats what I got.

worst enterprise episode ever.

oz

 

[skoon]

I dunno, it wasn't THAT bad, though they didn't seem to solve anything in the end. The stigma is still there.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ozmonster
When a parent tv company imposes political statements into a sci/fi show, artistic expression is diminished.

I agree with your reasoning, but is that what this really is? I'm certain that they would call it educational, rather than political. There is a very fine line to walk, but I'm not sure if it has been crossed here.

Like it or not, this kind morality play, where some latter day problem is re-invented with a different slant in a futuristic environment, has been a staple of Star Trek stories since the very start.

 

[ozmonster]

Originally posted by Dave


Like it or not, this kind morality play, where some latter day problem is re-invented with a different slant in a futuristic environment, has been a staple of Star Trek stories since the very start.

Yeah I know. It is a technique used by a lot of sci/fi shows. When its done good, it works for me. I just thought this episode was way too obviously about aids. And they way they went about drawing the parallels to the contemporary problem was juvenile, IMHO.

I guess what I'm really disappointed about was that my intellegence (what little of it there is) was insulted.

Also AIDS is no longer thought of as a homosexual disease. Nor is finding a cure a low priority because its a gay disease. Maybe this episode would have done better in the 80s.

oz

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ozmonster
I guess what I'm really disappointed about was that my intellegence (what little of it there is) was insulted.

Well, I haven't seen it yet, so maybe I'll agree with you when I have. Anyone else feel that it doesn't work?

 

[Dru]

Well what bugged me was the "Mind melds are bad. Only bad, bad, bad Vulcans do them." Thing. I mean if only a tiny amount of Vulans and do mind melds and they're thought of as sooo bad then how come in every version of Star Trek there has been and Every Vulcan we've seen can do them and do do them all the time with out getting Vulcan AIDS?

I mean Spock did it, His dad did it. Tovok did it, umm the other Vulcan on Voyger did it too. And nothing bad ever happen to any of them.

 

[Dave]

Was she infected by the Vulcan in 'Fusion' who forced a min-meld on her? (One of the Vulcans who allowed their emotions to run wild.) Only, that is the only mind-meld we have seen from T'Pol.

I guess that in the future they just find a cure for the disease.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ozmonster
Also AIDS is no longer thought of as a homosexual disease. Nor is finding a cure a low priority because its a gay disease. Maybe this episode would have done better in the 80s.

This is David Gerrold's view too: http://www.sunspot.net/features/bal-to.trek05feb05,0,1509580.story?

"While I'm delighted that Star Trek is finally doing a show about AIDS, they should have done it in 1987, when it could have had a much greater impact."

There are comments form Berman and Braga too.

 

[Mariel]

Originally posted by Dave
Was she infected by the Vulcan in 'Fusion' who forced a min-meld on her?

Yes, that's the one.
This episode was not one of the best and the AIDS theme was very obvious. I aplaud them for doing an episode like this but it should have been done years ago. There has to be one or 2 bad episodes and I guess this was one of them
:blpaw:

 

[Dave]

Just saw this, I really liked this one, but I'm much too lazy to do a plot summary these days, so here is what Michelle Erica Green posted courtesy of TrekToday:

As Enterprise orbits a planet hosting an interspecies medical exchange, Phlox tells T'Pol that he wants to ask the Vulcan doctors whether they have made any progress in treating Pa'an Syndrome. T'Pol tells him that it's too risky, but Phlox says that she could die without assistance and promises to make inquiries without revealing her infection. Before he goes planetside, he welcomes aboard one of his wives, Feezal, who has arrived to help set up a new neutron microscope. On the surface, he explains to the team of Vulcan doctors that Denobulans suffer from a disease similar to Pa'an Syndrome and requests data from them. The scientists promise to consider his request.

After Phlox's return, a Vulcan ship docks unexpectedly, requesting a meeting with T'Pol and Phlox. The Vulcan doctors ask T'Pol whether she knows of Pa'an Syndrome, which degrades synaptic pathways and endocrine system functions and is transmitted via mind-meld from a small number of Vulcans who carry a mutation. They demand to know whether T'Pol had anything to do with Phlox's request for assistance and hand her a list of 'melders,' asking if she knows any of them. T'Pol refuses to answer questions about whether or not she condones the behavior of Vulcans who mind-meld. When they return to the surface, the doctors scan the residue from when T'Pol touched the list of names and discover that she has Pa'an Syndrome.

Initially, Archer is furious that neither T'Pol nor Phlox informed him of her condition -- he learns of it from the Vulcans -- but when he discovers that she could lose her commission because of the disease, he wants to help. T'Pol explains that the touching of minds is considered unnatural, and seen as threat, for only a small minority of Vulcans are capable of initiating such contact, and in her case the contact was not voluntary. Determined to help her, Archer visits the doctors and witnesses their obduracy for himself. When he returns to the ship, he learns that T'Pol has received a secret message from one of the doctors offering to help. At a secret meeting, Dr. Yuris hands over his research and admits that he is part of the hidden group of melders, while she in turn tells him how she became infected.

Dr. Oratt, one of the senior Vulcan doctors, wants to take T'Pol back to Vulcan immediately to turn her over to the High Command, but Archer reads their own protocols and insists that she is entitled to a hearing. He and Phlox both believe that she should explain that her infection is the result of coercion, but she believes that to do so would be to condone their prejudices against all others with the disease. Archer accedes to her wish for silence at the hearing, even though he finds the Vulcans intolerant and prejudiced. But Dr. Yuris does not; he tells the others that she was infected via a forced meld and admits that he is one of the melders capable of spreading Pa'an Syndrome.

Meanwhile, Feezal teaches Tucker to use the neutron microscope and becomes increasingly sexually aggressive with him, to the point that he feels compelled to confess to Phlox. To his astonishment, Phlox recommends that Tucker let Feezal give him a rose petal bath and is highly amused that Tucker can't overcome his inhibitions about fooling around with another man's wife, even when that other man has two other wives and comes from a culture with entirely different morals.

Archer learns that Dr. Yuris has been suspended, but they believed his testimony that T'Pol was forced to meld and chose not to recall her to Vulcan. She says that she will contact the High Command anyway, for Yuris should not be dismissed without a fight. She hopes the incident will encourage others to speak out.

Just a question: Did they mention the name of the planet they were orbiting which was hosting the medical conference? If they did I missed it, I didn't video it, and I can't find an on-line reference.

In the thread for 'Catwalk' I said:

Originally posted by Dave
T'Pol lied about an old Vulcan ship. More and more, I dislike what they are doing with T'Pol. She is becoming much too human. Spock was half-human, but was much less human than T'Pol.

Actually, I guess they could explain this by the Pa'an syndrome. She lied on several occassions this week, but then Dr. Yuris does too.

Archer makes his usual pro-human speech, flipping back the Vulcan charges of irrationality and narrow-mindedness upon them, but now he has good reason to do so.

Originally posted by ozmonster
I just thought this episode was way too obviously about aids. And they way they went about drawing the parallels to the contemporary problem was juvenile.

Not sure I agree, if I hadn't known beforehand I think that it would have only become apparent near the end. Obviously, I did know, so I can't say for sure.

Originally posted by ozmonster
Also AIDS is no longer thought of as a homosexual disease. Nor is finding a cure a low priority because its a gay disease. Maybe this episode would have done better in the 80s.

I have to agree there. They should have done the David Gerrold TNG story back in the '80's.

 

[Brit Chick]

OK - I see the parallel they are going for here and thats fine - we all got the idea that contracting this disease is the vulcan equivalent of HIV, and in this scenario only bad people do the bad thing to get it - the vulcan sub culture.

I spose if we look back to the attitude to HIV and AIDS in the early and mid 80s that was how it was put across - only certain 'bad' people could be infected.

However nowadays we are more enlightened, but for the purpose of this story we have to think in the attitudes of the 80's

The thing I didn't get tho - why was it that the vulcan Doctors gave it so little priority - it was definately a case of the only people that get the disease are bad so why bother to help them. Was that the attitude of the medical profession to HIV/AIDS in the 80's - don't think so - its been a priority to find a cure and/or ways to halt the disease from the outset - so I didn't really find it believable to that the Vulcan Docs were so offhand and with their own prejudices found the whole thing so distasteful.

Although, I have to remember we are dealing with our human take on things not the fictional Vulcan take, so I guess their Docs can be as arsey as they like about it!

I loved the interplay with Trip and Feezal - she was rockin for him wasn't she - Trip is so gentlemanly and bashful about the whole thing with Phlox it had me laughing out loud. Can you imagine if it had been Malcolm she made a play for - he'd have turned himself inside out with embarrassment !!

 

[imported_polymath]

OK, I don't want to upset anyone, but you guys are making us all sound just like the stereotype of SF nerds - you really need to get out in the real world just a bit more!

AIDS/HIV is *still* seen by the majority of the population as a "gay" disease, and while there is a lot of publicity about searches for a cure, the resources going into this are still pathetic, compared to what would be spent on an equivalent disease that could not be stigmatised. The lack of appropriate resourcing is born out by the fact that well into the 3rd decade of HIV there is no cure and the only treatment is for many as bad as the disease, is for most only a stopgap, and is too expensive to be available to 90% of the sufferers.

There are more researchers engaged in research into slimming & sex drugs and new methods of cosmetic surgery than in AIDS research, which shows that the medical profession has exactly the prejudice commented on by this episode.

ST has always been willing to take on difficult subjects, and full marks to them for tackling this subject which is serious but not fashionable.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by polymath
you really need to get out in the real world just a bit more!

AIDS/HIV is *still* seen by the majority of the population as a "gay" disease, and while there is a lot of publicity about searches for a cure, the resources going into this are still pathetic, compared to what would be spent on an equivalent disease that could not be stigmatised.

Sorry, but whatever the "majority of the population" think, actually doesn't interest me. In the "real world" a large proportion of Africa is dying of this disease. But that is the reason that the resources going into it are still pathetic, nothing to do with gays. If it were a bigger killer in the 'first world', which it may soon be, then that would be reversed.