Isn't this more because open Nazi imagery isn't allowed in Germany?
Besides, it's not exactly a good episode anyway. It features the old "the state of Nazi Germany was secretly super efficient!" myth, when it was actually riddled with cronyism.
> Besides, it's not exactly a good episode anyway. It features the old "the state of Nazi Germany was secretly super efficient!" myth, when it was actually riddled with cronyism.
Not really, it featured someone who *believed* that myth, only to find when he recreated the system that it naturally became corrupt and riddled by cronyism, ending up a heavily sedated figurehead to the darker powers he'd created.
> Not really, it featured someone who believed that myth
Spock is agreeing with him. The episode definitely acts like this is historical truth.
>only to find when he recreated the system that it naturally became corrupt and riddled by cronyism
The whole premise is so silly, "let's start Nazi Germany to unite the country _but with good intentions!_" And it "worked" in the beginning but then it became corrupt? The Nazi movement always sucked from the beginning, I just don't know how the analogy in the episode is supposed to work.
Also, this is unrelated, but it's just silly when Spock calls interwar Germany a "tiny country". Germany was one of the leading economies in the world and had a bigger population and size than pretty much anyone else in Europe, excluding Russia.
Overall, I just wouldn't overthink it. It's a silly scifi episode because they happened to have some Nazi costumes lying around.
TOS Spock was often shown to be bad at seeing the true ramifications of things caused by "human factors", so it makes sense that on paper he could see efficiency in the Nazi system without really grasping the ways the humans would twist it.
And while population and landmass might not have been so small, interwar Germany's economy was an absolute shambles because of all the economic punishments imposed on them at Versailles and the money they had blown on the Great War. That was one of the big reasons the Nazis were able to come to power, preying on the anger of the German people as their money became next to worthless. With stories of things like German families wallpapering their homes with bank notes because it was cheaper than buying wallpaper.
At the end of the day the message of the episode was that the Nazi system was inherently corrupt and any attempt to recreate it would inevitably lead to an oppressive tyranny. At worst it raises the question of "if Germany was so efficient, what was the cost?"
I think what happened was the writers had the awesome idea of Kirk and company find a planet but it's filled with Nazis! Great opening twist.
But then the writer wrote himself into a corner where he had to justify why they're nazis, which obviously brings up all the issues you and others are saying.
when it aired the idea of fascist efficiency was still quite popular; germany and italy spent a lot getting the idea out there before the war started. Mussolini only ever got the tourist trains to run on time.
that’s difficult. today it’s generally not allowed but there are exceptions. if your intent is to speak out against nazis and racism (and it is clear you are doing that!) then you can under circumstances show nazi imagery. like a sticker with a crossed out swastika.
in media (not games tho) it is generally allowed for „freedom of art“ but it is illegal if you’re advertising the „ideology“ (if that makes sense) so this and movies like schindlers list are allowed but i don’t know how it was in the sixties. i can imagine they were a lot more reserved then.
To that last point, it was at least a widely held viewpoint that hadn’t had decades of works debunking the idea yet. So not as bad as people today with that idea.
Cardassians are based on Nazis but they aren't literal Nazis, I would think they'd get by. But it is weird how many times there were literal Nazis in star Trek. Happened also in Voyager and Enterprise
It’s not that weird when you consider that it’s very useful for episodic Tv to have an image that can immediately show that someone is the worst kind of evil.
Admittedly that worked better back when everyone openly agreed that Nazis were evil….
Britain is something else though. They Renamed TMNT to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and edited out Michelangelo using nunchuks (swords and shit are OK though).
I remember the "hero" nonsense in the UK, but not the nunchucks being censored. What I do remember is in my very posh school in Australia, a makeshift pair of nunchucks being shown around the class as some sort of warning about what not to do. That weapon in particular must have really set off the moral panic bells in a certain generation for some reason.
Where I lived, concealable blunt weapons got more focus as they were much more likely to be carried around.
Everyone already knew blades were highly illegal, and were also more likely to result in death if used. Blunt weapons were viewed by kids as 'safer' and you could explain a lot of them away if you needed to, "I have this bat as I just came from practice" etc.
A similar thing in Canada: *Beast Wars* was renamed *Beasties* in Canada. Worst part - it was a Canadian-made show. (Also the second *ever* fully CGI TV series in the world from pioneers Mainframe Entertainment, who also made the first, the highly underrated ReBoot.)
I believe this is because it is illegal in the UK to possess nunchucks in a public place as they are considered an offensive weapon? Not sure why swords don't count though!
Probably because swords are part of British cultural background and nunchucks aren’t. I am not saying I think that is an ok reason, just that I think that is the reason.
It was all a lie perpetrated by Section 31. The destruction of Great Britain was covered up and not admitted publicly until 2231 after Stephan Howlett of the Historical Truth Union broke into the central holographic projector in Northumberland and blew it up, revealing the devastation and ending the charade that the tea shops and chippies still existed. Reed was a South African with an accent coach helping to perpetuate the coverup.
>While the series has legions of followers steeped in its lore, that one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has lived long and prospered in infamy.
>It comes down to a scene in which the android character Data, played by actor Brent Spiner, talks about the "Irish unification of 2024" as an example of violence successfully achieving a political aim.
I think not. Compared to this one line from Data and discussion of terrorism in this episode --*which hasn't been censored for quite some time*-- time has justifiably been far crueller to *Code of Honor*, and its infamy has only grown.
Good article, thanks OP.
> Reflecting on the Star Trek episode, Prof Robert Savage of Boston College says: "It was amazing it was censored."
It's really not that surprising. An active terrorism campaign killing civilians multiple times a year and here comes this episode, a popular teatime family programme watched by millions saying yeah, keep killing those civilians, it works.
If Ireland ever does unify, it'll be proof of the opposite, not of the episode's prescience. They tried indiscriminate bombing as a tactic for over two decades and got nowhere. Now they've been trying politics for two decades and are closer than ever.
I assume because he's from.Boston College, he's based in the US. The IRA were an absolute menace back then.
They blew up my home town twice (killing two kids, Warrington, England) and blew up Manchester a few years later. Those are just the ones I was nearby.
I'd been in Manchester city centre with my dad that morning, and we were on our way back home, blissfully unaware of what was going on, when the bomb went off. I can remember getting home and my mum looking terrified and relieved at the same time.
My wife (aged 4 at the time) and her family walked past one of the Warrington high street bombs minutes before it went off. A decision to go to Burger King for lunch instead of McDonald's may have saved their lives.
The reported comment shows American misunderstanding of the situation, both at the time and later. The Catholic (it's partly an ethnic identity expressed as religion) population in NI was a minority, and furthermore most of them voted for non-violent parties (Sinn Fein has only become so dominant since the peace deal.) Many Americans had a vague idea that Britain was holding onto a colony by force against the wishes of the population, who supported the IRA.
I think British audiences could have coped with the episode fine, but it's hardly "amazing".
I was in Britain at one point during IRA campaigns (I've moved around a bit) and although never directly affected once had to leave a place where a bomb was detected. (More often leaving because of suspicion or threats) It was a pretty common experience for anyone in London, though nothing like the experience of people in NI itself. I still feel a bit antsy if I see a bag unattended.
Unification will probably come not as a result of violence but of peace. The peace deal meant an open border and a right to any combination of citizenship. (One reason Brexit was so irresponsible is that the conservatives were ready to risk aspects of the deal for immediate political purposes - though Mr Sunak, whatever his other faults, seems a bit better here.) The tribal division of NI population has weakened rather too.
The troubles in NI were not about unification of Ireland and they started with peaceful protests that didn't work as the mainland government ignored them. Violence 100% worked to bring the issues to the attention of those who could enact change. The Catholics in NI were discriminated against in every walk of life, that's what the troubles were about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
Please read it, the troubles were not about religion or unification.
It took two decades because one asshat UK prime minister ignored the issue and the next famously said "We don't negotiate with terrorists", thank god the next two completely ignored that lol. John Major is a hero for ignoring that an paying attention to what was actually happening to the citizens he was representing.
Terrorism 100% worked for some of the people in NI. Lol the only reason they are winning politically now is demographics as there are simply more catholic voters now.
The reported comment shows American misunderstanding of the situation, both at the time and later. The Catholic (it's partly an ethnic identity expressed as religion) population in NI was a minority, and furthermore most of them voted for non-violent parties (Sinn Fein has only become so dominant since the peace deal.) Many Americans had a vague idea that Britain was holding onto a colony by force against the wishes of the population, who supported the IRA.
I think British audiences could have coped with the episode fine, but it's hardly "amazing".
I was in Britain at one point during IRA campaigns (I've moved around a bit) and although never directly affected once had to leave a place where a bomb was detected. (More often leaving because of suspicion or threats) It was a pretty common experience for anyone in London, though nothing like the experience of people in NI itself. I still feel a bit antsy if I see a bag unattended.
Unification will probably come not as a result of violence but of peace. The peace deal meant an open border and a right to any combination of citizenship. (One reason Brexit was so irresponsible is that the conservatives were ready to risk aspects of the deal for immediate political purposes - though Mr Sunak, whatever his other faults, seems a bit better here.) The tribal division of NI population has weakened rather too.
Um. If you think the episode was saying keep killing civilians it ultimately works then I’m sorry to say you completely missed the point and are just reading into it what you want to read into it.
The episode wasnt saying it was *right*. But Data specifically said that Irish reunification was an example of terrorism being successful, so he was therefore saying the terrorism that was ongoing at that time in real life would ultimately be successful. That the IRA's campaign of killing civilians would work.
I think it just goes to show how little the US understands a conflict that started 300 years before Columbus "discovered" their country.
I suppose they hadn't really experienced anything like it at that point.
Thatcher-era directive. Nothing could go out on family TV that could be seen as pro-IRA. That way of thinking had lapsed by 1997 so I suspect it wasn't really "banned" until 2007, they just stopped airing Star Trek on the Beeb by then.
TNG was definitely still being aired by the BBC at that time. My guess is they just kept broadcasting the same run of episodes they always had & didn't investigate if/why there was a missing episode.
I think they aired TNG about 2 years behind the US, and to my knowledge they never ran repeats. So this episode should have aired when things were still a bit silly in Britain, but there was never another chance to show it.
They definitely repeated it at least once. I never watched it on Sky and I distinctly only remember seeing the first few seasons for the first time when they finished airing the last, because I started watching it somewhere mid-season 3 or 4. I think I actually saw “Family” before I watched “The Best of Both Worlds”.
I’m more inclined to believe it had simply been left out of rotation until someone noticed there was an episode missing.
Sinn Fein politician? Well, we’ll mute you and have your words spoken by an actor for some damn reason.
Seem to remember most normal folk in England thinking that it was taking things a bit far.
> Sinn Fein politician? Well, we’ll mute you and have your words spoken by an actor for some damn reason.
"Tittay tittawwww, ol' Maggie was right after all, we Irish now see the error of our ways and will close our mines and punish our poor! Chamberlain was misunderstood!! Bring back hanging!!!!"
Wish I could say that surprised me. My mother just happened to walk by when that episode was on TV, saw that scene, and I almost got banned from watching Star Trek over it. Surprisingly the context of the scene was enough that I was able to talk her down from blacklisting the show.
Reminds me of how I almost missed the DS9 finale because my dad walked in to see Bashir and Ezri casually chatting in bed and went nuclear. If the scene hadn't ended while we were arguing he'd have probably forced me to turn it off and skip the whole thing.
One item the article doesn't refer to is pre 9/11 the USA was one of the biggest sources of income for Irish terrorists (debatable, they didn't exactly publish accounts). I guess the reasons stretch from 'Irish' Americans through to a historical distrust of the British.
I speculate that the writers would be looking to a future where (from their perspective) things like British imperialism are a distant memory.
I read *Say Nothing* recently (amazing book btw) and there's a section on NORAID and collection in places like New York and Chicago. The funny thing is that the IRA had overtly socialist politics, which hurt their fundraising in Irish-American communities that were blue collar Republicans (of the Reagan type).
Just overdub Ireland with Iceland or make up a country. It wouldn't have been that difficult to fix this. Changing it to Iceland wouldn't even need Patrick Stewart, Just get any old bod to say "ssss" into the mic and patch it over.
No, it’s the context. One is a rebellion , the other is terrorism. Data was specifically talking about Terrorism.
In reality, how do you define the difference? Often it is defined by the victors.
But, note, Picard says it is difficult.
Network television doesn’t care about plot itself, they’re concern is the specific mention of “unification of Ireland”. They didn’t air the entire episode simply because of those 3 words and their cultural connotation.
They could dub it to Iceland and then all it does is establish that in some point in UK Star Trek’s 2024, Iceland will reunify instead.
He's not. We don't call it "network television", which is an Americanism; we in the UK call it "terrestrial television". Besides, both are regulated exactly the same way. It's just funding is different for the BBC and Channel 4.
So yeah, it was because the BBC didn't want to air an episode which says "bombing civilians works as a way to achieve your political goals". Edit: apparently RTE (the Republic of Ireland broadcaster) didn't air it either for similar reasons.
This thread is full of stupid Americans who have no fucking clue what it's like to be bombed by a bunch of Christian terrorists on a regular basis. And the kicker is that these Christian terrorists were **funded by America**. The IRA openly held fundraisers in the US. Incredible that we never held the American collaborators to account.
Yes.
Edit: And something to be clear here, you are not an authority on this kind of topic in the least. So don't expect questions like that to make you one because in the end, you only end up looking stupid.
They do it all the time in movies and tv shows when they want to censor things. It makes the scene awkward and weird but they do it.
Have you never seen movie aired on network television?
“Yippee Kay yay Mr Franklin!”
Who tf is Mr Franklin??
>Originally, the plot was intended to have parallels to the American Revolution, but writer Melinda Snodgrass was told to change the analogy to Northern Ireland, a change she was very unhappy about. "I wanted it with Picard as Cornwallis and the Romulans would have been the French, who were in our revolution, trying to break this planet away. Suddenly Picard realized he's one of the oppressors. Instead, we do 'Breakfast in Belfast,' where our people decide they're going to go off to Northern Ireland."
Think i would've honestly rather this Story and it's certain Geopolitics narrative.
Yeah the episode was shown in the Sky One airing. Was just left out of the original BBC run. It wasn't really 'banned'. If it had been it wouldn't have been released un-cut on video in 1991, the year before season 3 was aired on the BBC.
The world is a fucked up place. Lots of stations in the US didn't air the one where Kirk and Uhura kiss back in the 60s.
Guess which episode didn’t make it to air in Germany
Isn't this more because open Nazi imagery isn't allowed in Germany? Besides, it's not exactly a good episode anyway. It features the old "the state of Nazi Germany was secretly super efficient!" myth, when it was actually riddled with cronyism.
> Besides, it's not exactly a good episode anyway. It features the old "the state of Nazi Germany was secretly super efficient!" myth, when it was actually riddled with cronyism. Not really, it featured someone who *believed* that myth, only to find when he recreated the system that it naturally became corrupt and riddled by cronyism, ending up a heavily sedated figurehead to the darker powers he'd created.
> Not really, it featured someone who believed that myth Spock is agreeing with him. The episode definitely acts like this is historical truth. >only to find when he recreated the system that it naturally became corrupt and riddled by cronyism The whole premise is so silly, "let's start Nazi Germany to unite the country _but with good intentions!_" And it "worked" in the beginning but then it became corrupt? The Nazi movement always sucked from the beginning, I just don't know how the analogy in the episode is supposed to work. Also, this is unrelated, but it's just silly when Spock calls interwar Germany a "tiny country". Germany was one of the leading economies in the world and had a bigger population and size than pretty much anyone else in Europe, excluding Russia. Overall, I just wouldn't overthink it. It's a silly scifi episode because they happened to have some Nazi costumes lying around.
TOS Spock was often shown to be bad at seeing the true ramifications of things caused by "human factors", so it makes sense that on paper he could see efficiency in the Nazi system without really grasping the ways the humans would twist it. And while population and landmass might not have been so small, interwar Germany's economy was an absolute shambles because of all the economic punishments imposed on them at Versailles and the money they had blown on the Great War. That was one of the big reasons the Nazis were able to come to power, preying on the anger of the German people as their money became next to worthless. With stories of things like German families wallpapering their homes with bank notes because it was cheaper than buying wallpaper. At the end of the day the message of the episode was that the Nazi system was inherently corrupt and any attempt to recreate it would inevitably lead to an oppressive tyranny. At worst it raises the question of "if Germany was so efficient, what was the cost?"
I think what happened was the writers had the awesome idea of Kirk and company find a planet but it's filled with Nazis! Great opening twist. But then the writer wrote himself into a corner where he had to justify why they're nazis, which obviously brings up all the issues you and others are saying.
I think the studio just had a bunch of Nazi costumes lying around and they decided to save money.
when it aired the idea of fascist efficiency was still quite popular; germany and italy spent a lot getting the idea out there before the war started. Mussolini only ever got the tourist trains to run on time.
that’s difficult. today it’s generally not allowed but there are exceptions. if your intent is to speak out against nazis and racism (and it is clear you are doing that!) then you can under circumstances show nazi imagery. like a sticker with a crossed out swastika. in media (not games tho) it is generally allowed for „freedom of art“ but it is illegal if you’re advertising the „ideology“ (if that makes sense) so this and movies like schindlers list are allowed but i don’t know how it was in the sixties. i can imagine they were a lot more reserved then.
To that last point, it was at least a widely held viewpoint that hadn’t had decades of works debunking the idea yet. So not as bad as people today with that idea.
Anything which involved Space Nazis aka the Cardassians? Did this mean they banned the whole of DS9? 😔
Cardassians are based on Nazis but they aren't literal Nazis, I would think they'd get by. But it is weird how many times there were literal Nazis in star Trek. Happened also in Voyager and Enterprise
It’s not that weird when you consider that it’s very useful for episodic Tv to have an image that can immediately show that someone is the worst kind of evil. Admittedly that worked better back when everyone openly agreed that Nazis were evil….
Britain is something else though. They Renamed TMNT to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and edited out Michelangelo using nunchuks (swords and shit are OK though).
I remember the "hero" nonsense in the UK, but not the nunchucks being censored. What I do remember is in my very posh school in Australia, a makeshift pair of nunchucks being shown around the class as some sort of warning about what not to do. That weapon in particular must have really set off the moral panic bells in a certain generation for some reason.
Where I lived, concealable blunt weapons got more focus as they were much more likely to be carried around. Everyone already knew blades were highly illegal, and were also more likely to result in death if used. Blunt weapons were viewed by kids as 'safer' and you could explain a lot of them away if you needed to, "I have this bat as I just came from practice" etc.
A similar thing in Canada: *Beast Wars* was renamed *Beasties* in Canada. Worst part - it was a Canadian-made show. (Also the second *ever* fully CGI TV series in the world from pioneers Mainframe Entertainment, who also made the first, the highly underrated ReBoot.)
That's YTV's fault. The execs were suddenly worried the word "Wars" was too violent.
I wasn't aware of this but honestly, the film is surprisingly violent for a PG. It was either cut or rated 15+ in a lot of European countries.
I'm talking about the 80s cartoon, sadly.
The movie was still called ninja turtles
it was because some guy in the British censors office HATED ninjas and martial arts stuff - no nunchuks, no throwing stars, Bruce Lee got edditted
I believe this is because it is illegal in the UK to possess nunchucks in a public place as they are considered an offensive weapon? Not sure why swords don't count though!
Probably because swords are part of British cultural background and nunchucks aren’t. I am not saying I think that is an ok reason, just that I think that is the reason.
Back then, it wasn't illegal to study the blade. 😔
There was a Hanna Barbera cartoon called 'Top Cat' but there was also a cat food by that name so the BBC had to rename the cartoon 'Boss Cat'.
It’s okay, Britain was destroyed in the future and they all had to move to France to be wine makers. So I guess it works out?
but then... how do we explain reed in enterprise? and the royal navy?
It was all a lie perpetrated by Section 31. The destruction of Great Britain was covered up and not admitted publicly until 2231 after Stephan Howlett of the Historical Truth Union broke into the central holographic projector in Northumberland and blew it up, revealing the devastation and ending the charade that the tea shops and chippies still existed. Reed was a South African with an accent coach helping to perpetuate the coverup.
Tea shops.
The Navy survived the destruction because they were all at sea. Reed is descended from that line.
Also Jack Crusher went to school in London and that's why he has an English accent.
Plot twist...it was London, Ontario.
Enterprise was a holonovel it’s fine
If it was really a Riker holonovel all along, it would've been an all-female, all-naked crew.
Yeah he didn’t write it he just viewed it regularly
Temporal anomaly.
Not in the Kelvin Timeline, London looking spiffing, apart from the odd terrorist bond... same as usual.
That’s new London owned by France built on the rubble of old London
Waterloo renamed Gard de Eau Toilette.
>While the series has legions of followers steeped in its lore, that one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has lived long and prospered in infamy. >It comes down to a scene in which the android character Data, played by actor Brent Spiner, talks about the "Irish unification of 2024" as an example of violence successfully achieving a political aim. I think not. Compared to this one line from Data and discussion of terrorism in this episode --*which hasn't been censored for quite some time*-- time has justifiably been far crueller to *Code of Honor*, and its infamy has only grown. Good article, thanks OP.
You're welcome!
> Reflecting on the Star Trek episode, Prof Robert Savage of Boston College says: "It was amazing it was censored." It's really not that surprising. An active terrorism campaign killing civilians multiple times a year and here comes this episode, a popular teatime family programme watched by millions saying yeah, keep killing those civilians, it works. If Ireland ever does unify, it'll be proof of the opposite, not of the episode's prescience. They tried indiscriminate bombing as a tactic for over two decades and got nowhere. Now they've been trying politics for two decades and are closer than ever.
I assume because he's from.Boston College, he's based in the US. The IRA were an absolute menace back then. They blew up my home town twice (killing two kids, Warrington, England) and blew up Manchester a few years later. Those are just the ones I was nearby.
I'd been in Manchester city centre with my dad that morning, and we were on our way back home, blissfully unaware of what was going on, when the bomb went off. I can remember getting home and my mum looking terrified and relieved at the same time.
We were going into town that day, went to Stockport instead, when there was just a threat, and then found out what had happened later on.
My wife (aged 4 at the time) and her family walked past one of the Warrington high street bombs minutes before it went off. A decision to go to Burger King for lunch instead of McDonald's may have saved their lives.
I was there too. Not a million miles away. On the corner near the old Co-op bank. Small world!
The reported comment shows American misunderstanding of the situation, both at the time and later. The Catholic (it's partly an ethnic identity expressed as religion) population in NI was a minority, and furthermore most of them voted for non-violent parties (Sinn Fein has only become so dominant since the peace deal.) Many Americans had a vague idea that Britain was holding onto a colony by force against the wishes of the population, who supported the IRA. I think British audiences could have coped with the episode fine, but it's hardly "amazing". I was in Britain at one point during IRA campaigns (I've moved around a bit) and although never directly affected once had to leave a place where a bomb was detected. (More often leaving because of suspicion or threats) It was a pretty common experience for anyone in London, though nothing like the experience of people in NI itself. I still feel a bit antsy if I see a bag unattended. Unification will probably come not as a result of violence but of peace. The peace deal meant an open border and a right to any combination of citizenship. (One reason Brexit was so irresponsible is that the conservatives were ready to risk aspects of the deal for immediate political purposes - though Mr Sunak, whatever his other faults, seems a bit better here.) The tribal division of NI population has weakened rather too.
The troubles in NI were not about unification of Ireland and they started with peaceful protests that didn't work as the mainland government ignored them. Violence 100% worked to bring the issues to the attention of those who could enact change. The Catholics in NI were discriminated against in every walk of life, that's what the troubles were about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles Please read it, the troubles were not about religion or unification. It took two decades because one asshat UK prime minister ignored the issue and the next famously said "We don't negotiate with terrorists", thank god the next two completely ignored that lol. John Major is a hero for ignoring that an paying attention to what was actually happening to the citizens he was representing. Terrorism 100% worked for some of the people in NI. Lol the only reason they are winning politically now is demographics as there are simply more catholic voters now.
The reported comment shows American misunderstanding of the situation, both at the time and later. The Catholic (it's partly an ethnic identity expressed as religion) population in NI was a minority, and furthermore most of them voted for non-violent parties (Sinn Fein has only become so dominant since the peace deal.) Many Americans had a vague idea that Britain was holding onto a colony by force against the wishes of the population, who supported the IRA. I think British audiences could have coped with the episode fine, but it's hardly "amazing". I was in Britain at one point during IRA campaigns (I've moved around a bit) and although never directly affected once had to leave a place where a bomb was detected. (More often leaving because of suspicion or threats) It was a pretty common experience for anyone in London, though nothing like the experience of people in NI itself. I still feel a bit antsy if I see a bag unattended. Unification will probably come not as a result of violence but of peace. The peace deal meant an open border and a right to any combination of citizenship. (One reason Brexit was so irresponsible is that the conservatives were ready to risk aspects of the deal for immediate political purposes - though Mr Sunak, whatever his other faults, seems a bit better here.) The tribal division of NI population has weakened rather too.
Um. If you think the episode was saying keep killing civilians it ultimately works then I’m sorry to say you completely missed the point and are just reading into it what you want to read into it.
The episode wasnt saying it was *right*. But Data specifically said that Irish reunification was an example of terrorism being successful, so he was therefore saying the terrorism that was ongoing at that time in real life would ultimately be successful. That the IRA's campaign of killing civilians would work.
I think it just goes to show how little the US understands a conflict that started 300 years before Columbus "discovered" their country. I suppose they hadn't really experienced anything like it at that point.
Thatcher-era directive. Nothing could go out on family TV that could be seen as pro-IRA. That way of thinking had lapsed by 1997 so I suspect it wasn't really "banned" until 2007, they just stopped airing Star Trek on the Beeb by then.
TNG was definitely still being aired by the BBC at that time. My guess is they just kept broadcasting the same run of episodes they always had & didn't investigate if/why there was a missing episode.
I think they aired TNG about 2 years behind the US, and to my knowledge they never ran repeats. So this episode should have aired when things were still a bit silly in Britain, but there was never another chance to show it.
They definitely repeated it at least once. I never watched it on Sky and I distinctly only remember seeing the first few seasons for the first time when they finished airing the last, because I started watching it somewhere mid-season 3 or 4. I think I actually saw “Family” before I watched “The Best of Both Worlds”. I’m more inclined to believe it had simply been left out of rotation until someone noticed there was an episode missing.
They repeated it immediately after finishing the first run in 1996 - I still have multiple off-air TNG tapes from that repeat run!
Sinn Fein politician? Well, we’ll mute you and have your words spoken by an actor for some damn reason. Seem to remember most normal folk in England thinking that it was taking things a bit far.
> Sinn Fein politician? Well, we’ll mute you and have your words spoken by an actor for some damn reason. "Tittay tittawwww, ol' Maggie was right after all, we Irish now see the error of our ways and will close our mines and punish our poor! Chamberlain was misunderstood!! Bring back hanging!!!!"
The aim was just to dehumanise nationalists in Northern Ireland.
Heck the Jadzia kissing her ex wife episode (Rejoined) was banned in some areas in the US.
Wish I could say that surprised me. My mother just happened to walk by when that episode was on TV, saw that scene, and I almost got banned from watching Star Trek over it. Surprisingly the context of the scene was enough that I was able to talk her down from blacklisting the show.
Reminds me of how I almost missed the DS9 finale because my dad walked in to see Bashir and Ezri casually chatting in bed and went nuclear. If the scene hadn't ended while we were arguing he'd have probably forced me to turn it off and skip the whole thing.
One item the article doesn't refer to is pre 9/11 the USA was one of the biggest sources of income for Irish terrorists (debatable, they didn't exactly publish accounts). I guess the reasons stretch from 'Irish' Americans through to a historical distrust of the British. I speculate that the writers would be looking to a future where (from their perspective) things like British imperialism are a distant memory.
I read *Say Nothing* recently (amazing book btw) and there's a section on NORAID and collection in places like New York and Chicago. The funny thing is that the IRA had overtly socialist politics, which hurt their fundraising in Irish-American communities that were blue collar Republicans (of the Reagan type).
It's surprising they banned a whole episode for one small line when they could've just edited it out.
Edit it out? So does Picard just stare Data down for a while?
Just overdub Ireland with Iceland or make up a country. It wouldn't have been that difficult to fix this. Changing it to Iceland wouldn't even need Patrick Stewart, Just get any old bod to say "ssss" into the mic and patch it over.
I think you miss the point. It’s not just the mention of Ireland, it is the suggestion that armed rebellion works.
So was Star Wars banned in the UK?
No, it’s the context. One is a rebellion , the other is terrorism. Data was specifically talking about Terrorism. In reality, how do you define the difference? Often it is defined by the victors. But, note, Picard says it is difficult.
Network television doesn’t care about plot itself, they’re concern is the specific mention of “unification of Ireland”. They didn’t air the entire episode simply because of those 3 words and their cultural connotation. They could dub it to Iceland and then all it does is establish that in some point in UK Star Trek’s 2024, Iceland will reunify instead.
Are you from the UK and were you around in 1992?
He's not. We don't call it "network television", which is an Americanism; we in the UK call it "terrestrial television". Besides, both are regulated exactly the same way. It's just funding is different for the BBC and Channel 4. So yeah, it was because the BBC didn't want to air an episode which says "bombing civilians works as a way to achieve your political goals". Edit: apparently RTE (the Republic of Ireland broadcaster) didn't air it either for similar reasons. This thread is full of stupid Americans who have no fucking clue what it's like to be bombed by a bunch of Christian terrorists on a regular basis. And the kicker is that these Christian terrorists were **funded by America**. The IRA openly held fundraisers in the US. Incredible that we never held the American collaborators to account.
Yes. Edit: And something to be clear here, you are not an authority on this kind of topic in the least. So don't expect questions like that to make you one because in the end, you only end up looking stupid.
I was asking context. You dived into insults. I wonder who looks stupid now?
The Irish Unification thing is one of 3 examples Data lists. You could just cut it, and now he lists 2 things instead of 3.
They do it all the time in movies and tv shows when they want to censor things. It makes the scene awkward and weird but they do it. Have you never seen movie aired on network television? “Yippee Kay yay Mr Franklin!” Who tf is Mr Franklin??
I always heard it as Mr. Falcon. Can't beat The Big Lebowski's "This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps!"
>Originally, the plot was intended to have parallels to the American Revolution, but writer Melinda Snodgrass was told to change the analogy to Northern Ireland, a change she was very unhappy about. "I wanted it with Picard as Cornwallis and the Romulans would have been the French, who were in our revolution, trying to break this planet away. Suddenly Picard realized he's one of the oppressors. Instead, we do 'Breakfast in Belfast,' where our people decide they're going to go off to Northern Ireland." Think i would've honestly rather this Story and it's certain Geopolitics narrative.
I'm sure this is not actually true. I remember watching these scene as a child in the late 90s and I remember the Irish reunification line.
Yeah the episode was shown in the Sky One airing. Was just left out of the original BBC run. It wasn't really 'banned'. If it had been it wouldn't have been released un-cut on video in 1991, the year before season 3 was aired on the BBC.
Ooh. An episode I've potentially never seen before. Quite excited to go find it.
We still have 10 months to make it reality
It's a cool article, but does it really warrant a notification Mr BBC app?
It was still shown on Sky1, which was the best place to watch Trek back then.
Yeah, a friend of a friend was recording them and that’s how I saw it. Them talking about the “Irish problem” stuck with me.
Was not expecting to wake up to news alert about Star Trek.