A heavy barrel falls on Worf and damages his spinal chord, resulting in paralysis from the neck down. He wants to die because being paralyzed and being a burden brings him great mental agony. He asks Riker to kill him. Crusher can’t reconcile her own feelings with those of Worf and his values as a klingon and wants to force him to live as a cripple.
Other doctor (forgot the name) shows up later who proposes a risky procedure to artificially grow a spinal column and replace it completely, but which may end up killing Worf. Crusher once again bitches about how Worf could live a happy, fulfilling life as a quadriplegic (by her stupid humie standards), but is overruled and ordered to assist. The procedure is a close call, but ultimately successful.
Crusher then has the fucking audacity to call the other doctor dangerous.
Basically I wanted her to take a long walk out an open airlock then have Picard reverse course and later apologize to Geordi for causing an in-flight human ingestion. She is not fit to be a physician if she can’t reconcile her views with another culture for the benefit of her patient. Great episode overall, but as always, I wish there had been some fallout later.
Agreed. It was one of those Star Trek episodes that tried to make a point (in this case a point about disabilities not being stigmas) and doing it so badly that they make the opposite point instead. And it’s not the only one at all.
Even worse is that there have been several episodes with that message. Many of the Geordi-focused episodes, and the woman who couldn’t live in normal gravity in DS9.
The barrel incident really made me fucking hate Crusher.
Ok I admit I’m unfamiliar but intrigued.
Big spoiler.
A heavy barrel falls on Worf and damages his spinal chord, resulting in paralysis from the neck down. He wants to die because being paralyzed and being a burden brings him great mental agony. He asks Riker to kill him. Crusher can’t reconcile her own feelings with those of Worf and his values as a klingon and wants to force him to live as a cripple.
Other doctor (forgot the name) shows up later who proposes a risky procedure to artificially grow a spinal column and replace it completely, but which may end up killing Worf. Crusher once again bitches about how Worf could live a happy, fulfilling life as a quadriplegic (by her stupid humie standards), but is overruled and ordered to assist. The procedure is a close call, but ultimately successful.
Crusher then has the fucking audacity to call the other doctor dangerous.
Basically I wanted her to take a long walk out an open airlock then have Picard reverse course and later apologize to Geordi for causing an in-flight human ingestion. She is not fit to be a physician if she can’t reconcile her views with another culture for the benefit of her patient. Great episode overall, but as always, I wish there had been some fallout later.
Agreed. It was one of those Star Trek episodes that tried to make a point (in this case a point about disabilities not being stigmas) and doing it so badly that they make the opposite point instead. And it’s not the only one at all.
Even worse is that there have been several episodes with that message. Many of the Geordi-focused episodes, and the woman who couldn’t live in normal gravity in DS9.
It’s in the aptly-named episode Ethics.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ethics_(episode)