Humanity's Limited Worldview in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Host"
by Brady Patrick White
I came upon a quote from the director of the TNG episode "The Host," and it stirred something in me. For those who don't know, this episode introduces the Trill, a symbiotic species that, only a small portion of the people, get a symbiont (a worm-like being) attached to them. In the episode, we meed the Trill Odan. The species gets explored more in Deep Space Nine, but “The Host” is the first look we get of them.
The unique thing about the Trill is that the symbiont carries the memories and personalities of all of the hosts they have been attached to. The host Trill typically has the dominant personality, but they still show characteristics and knowledge of the previous hosts. The Trill host can be a woman, a man, anything in between and outside of that binary. Throughout the course of “The Host,” we see this take place. Odan begins the episode joined (the term used for a Trill combined with a symbiont) with a male host. The crux of this episode is that of a love story. It follows Doctor Beverly Crusher falling in love with Odan. Through the passage of the story, the host body of Odan dies, and Doctor Crusher has to save the symbiont.
The symbiont, whose true name is Odan (it is later established that the symbionts carry their own name, and the joined hosts use their first name and the symbionts name as their surname) cannot stay outside of a body for too long, so Riker joins with Odan. Even though Riker Odan is still Odan and has the memories and experiences of Odan, Doctor Crusher finds it hard to love Odan in Riker’s body. After mulling it over, she rediscovers that she truly loves Odan, so she reunites with him.
Eventually, they learn that the joining of a Trill symbiont and a human, which had never been done before, was causing harm to Riker’s body, so the episode’s final act sees Odan leaving Riker and joining a woman Trill named Kareel. The episode ends with Kareel Odan professing her love to Beverly. Beverly tells Karleel Odan,
“Perhaps it is a Human failing, but we are not accustomed to these kinds of changes. I can't keep up. How long will you have this host? What would the next one be? I can't live with that kind of uncertainty. Perhaps, someday, our ability to love won't be so limited."
(“The Host”)
At this time, the year 2367, Star Trek supposedly exists in a Utopia, and yet humanity is still limited by their shortcomings and lack of innovation and thinking out of the box. This is the main point Q, an omnipotent being, is trying to show to Picard all throughout the show. Humanity’s thinking is limited. It is held back, and because of that, they cannot expand their horizons and consider options that have never been explored.
It all goes back to the point of this entire post. The quote from the director of “The Host” that made me a bit incensed. From Captain's’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, Marvin Rush states,
"I felt that it was more about the nature of love, why we love and what prevents us from loving. To me the best analogy is if your beloved turned into a cockroach, could you love a cockroach? It's the same person, if the person is the personality and core within, but can you get past the outside? We as Humans are affected by the whole package, including the outside shell, and Gates in her last scene talks about maybe someday our ability to love won't be so limited. She says mankind may one day be able to deal with this, But I can't. To me that is about the nature of love and I think it's an interesting, worthy discussion. Rather than deal with the fact it was because of any homosexual bent per se, it's just that in our culture and our society people who are heterosexual who want the companionship of a male because they are female, wouldn't be able to deal with that opposite situation" (221).
I reject this notion. On one hand, this explanation feels very in-line with what “Encounter At Farpoint” establishes, and what “All Good Things…” concludes on. Humanity’s refusal to consider options they never would have. That makes sense, but this feels very sentiment, with regard to the Trill, feels very transphobic, which is something I’ve been hinting towards throughout this. This quote is from 1995, which was a very different landscape from today’s world. Even then, transgender people existed. Some of the first books, if not the first books that were burned by the Nazis were on transgenderism.
On the surface, this idea that “In our culture and our society people who are heterosexual who want the companionship of a male because they are female, wouldn’t be able to deal with that opposite situation,” feels bullshit when put into a universe 300+ years into the future. It may have some bearing in the early 90s when the episode was released, but to lack any bit of foresight is ignorant at best. To think that we, as a society, would still struggle with the idea of transitioning far into the future, and one of a utopia, is ridiculous.
I am not entirely against what Crusher said, even though she would probably die before Kareel switched hosts. There is a level of uncertainty, but if this episode is about love, does that mean that Crusher doesn’t love Odan?
As I mentioned earlier, this episode was created at a very different time. To illustrate the time, same-sex marriage wouldn’t be legalized until 13 years after this episode premiered, and that would only be on a state level. It would be 21 years from the episode’s premier until it was federally legal. The idea that this episode could be construed as transphobic didn’t really exist at the time, even though trans people have existed for decades before this show.
Star Trek is a universe where humanity prospers. There is peace amongst ourselves, and our every want and need are taken care of. It is a utopia, after all. Which is why this narrow-mindedness is disappointing. The first homosexual character in the Star Trek franchise didn’t happen until J.J. Abrams rebooted the universe with the Kelvin Timeline films, specifically with Star Trek Beyond (2016) where Hikaru Sulu, played by John Cho and was originally played by George Takei, was in a same-sex relationship. The first same-sex relationship in a TV series wouldn’t happen until a year after that in Star Trek: Discovery with Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber.
The first time we see transgender representation is with the human Adira, who is non-binary, and Gray Tal, a transgender Trill in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. Spoilers for Discovery, the crew eventually end up in the 32nd century, where they meet Adira and Gray Tal. Beverly Crusher was right that eventually humanity’s ability to love stopped being so limited.
My main point with regard to Star Trek will always be that the franchise is meant to criticize the modern day by setting the future against it. We do this by looking at a utopia and inherently compare it to our world. The shows and movies are juxtaposed with reality. I reject the premise that humanity can be so ignorant to something that would obviously come up, not to mention the fact that we SHOULD completely normalize transgender people and same-sex relationships, especially by 2300. They have and deserve the right to exist.