Tasha's drug speech

[Qonundrum]

"Drugs...make you feel good."

So does listening to Ghostbusters, if the one lyric was telling the truth:

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Now imagine if they went back to the 35mm film neg and scanned it all in at 4K and recomposited...

Also forgot how many 80s celebrities wanted the exposure too, pun not initially intended...

 

[AntonyF]

How many people have actually been convinced not to do drugs by heavy-handed, on-the-nose PSAs?

As with anything in life, it may not be a magic bullet but it's one point in raising awareness particularly in young, impressionable, people.

Also the other thing I didn't mention in my comment above is that there's no victim-blaming there with Tasha. This is an era where AIDS was something seen as gay people 'deserving', and drug abuse I don't think was much better. Reagan said "Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is." So basically if you do drugs, you're not American.

 

[Qonundrum]

Well this certainly put me on the right path in life...well, except for all the weed.

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Not quite the standard of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", but it's almost as cheesy as the 70s cola song where all the kids and adults sung it in unison. Of course, if they all belched the lyrics instead then it might be a little more cheesy, but that's cartoonish.

 

[Lady Mondegreen]

I find Tasha's speech kind of annoying and heavy-handed but not the worst variety of anti-drug messaging, certainly. The kind of PSA we got shown in school when I was a kid were so over-the-top and clearly exaggerated that I feel like if anything they had the opposite of the intended effect -- I as a kid at least was skeptical of everything I had to say because I could tell they weren't being straight with us.

(I didn't drink or smoke weed in high school, but that's mostly because I and my few friends were all deeply uncool nerds who didn't get invited to parties and didn't know anyone to buy from...)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I've been slightly buzzed, from accidentally downing a triple dose of cough syrup (I was half asleep at the time, and grabbed the wrong spoon).

I found the sensations extremely unpleasant.

I've also never understood why anybody, after spending a non-trivial amount of money on a concert ticket, would then deliberately dull their own senses before attending.

 

[Lady Mondegreen]

I've been slightly buzzed, from accidentally downing a triple dose of cough syrup (I was half asleep at the time, and grabbed the wrong spoon).

I found the sensations extremely unpleasant.

I've also never understood why anybody, after spending a non-trivial amount of money on a concert ticket, would then deliberately dull their own senses before attending.

I don't understand getting blackout drunk at a concert either but at least for me (and I think for many other people) being somewhat drunk doesn't appreciably dull my senses (or, at least, not my sense of hearing or my understanding of the music), lowers my natural level of discomfort in a crowd, and just generally improves my mood. Though I usually don't drink at concerts just because of the extortionate prices at most venues.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As for the Ornarans and Brekkians, I said this in the Lower Decks forum and I'll repeat it here...

Spoiler

When the Cerritos vists Brekka, the planet is abandoned and overrun with Breen soldiers. I bet Ornara tipped the Breen off that Brekka might be useful as a target, once they found out what the Brekkians had been doing...Ornara wanted revenge, pure and simple.

 

[fireproof78]

I've been slightly buzzed, from accidentally downing a triple dose of cough syrup (I was half asleep at the time, and grabbed the wrong spoon).

I found the sensations extremely unpleasant.

I've also never understood why anybody, after spending a non-trivial amount of money on a concert ticket, would then deliberately dull their own senses before attending.

The money is my thing. I had only mild times while using drugs and I don't feel the need to spend money on it for something I don't consider enjoyable.

 

[Set Harth]

I can sing the entire "We're Not Candy" song. The one with the singing pills.

 

[Qonundrum]

I find Tasha's speech kind of annoying and heavy-handed but not the worst variety of anti-drug messaging, certainly. The kind of PSA we got shown in school when I was a kid were so over-the-top and clearly exaggerated that I feel like if anything they had the opposite of the intended effect -- I as a kid at least was skeptical of everything I had to say because I could tell they weren't being straight with us.

Good points, and it is a bit heavy-handed.

Like or dislike the episode and for whatever reasons and IMHO there's a mixed bag of a story containing the dialogue snippet with much more potential than what it does say, there is one redeeming scene from an episode of TOS that also says "drugs are bad":

KIRK: There's only one kind of woman--​

MUDD: Or man, for that matter.​

KIRK: You either believe in yourself, or you don't​

(Suggesting that people who don't, or want external validating, are more inclined to take drugs? It's from "Mudd's Women", revolving around a drug that supposedly makes women more beautiful and has the character Eve, in as much as the mid-60s could actually say before the show's censors said "too far" (note the pilots, including "The Omega Glory"), discussing partners of depth, vs sex objects. )

Here's more of the scene:

EVE: You don't want wives, you want this! (handful of pills is shown) This is what you want, Mister Childress. I hope you remember it and dream about it, because you can't have it! It's not real! (takes the pills) Is this the kind of wife you want, Ben? Not someone to help you, not a wife to cook and sew and cry and need, but this kind. Selfish, vain, useless. Is this what you really want? All right, then. Here it is!!​

KIRK: Quite a woman, eh, Childress?​

CHILDRESS: A fake, pumped up by a drug.​

KIRK: By herself. She took no drug.​

EVE: I swallowed it--​

KIRK: Coloured gelatin.​

MUDD: Yes, they took away my drug and substituted that.​

EVE: But that can't be!​

KIRK: There's only one kind of woman.​

MUDD: Or man, for that matter.​

KIRK: You either believe in yourself, or you don't.​

The story is ratcheting up there in the heavyhanded aspect as well. But not as much, nor in the same way. Why women couldn't be miners was never explored, but considering the network censors of the time, the show could not go so far and suggest that. By 1969 and the show a few episodes away from its finale, despite some censor limitations remaining, we still got to see Vanna in "The Cloud Minders" as a miner.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Why women couldn't be miners was never explored, but considering the network censors of the time, the show could not go so far and suggest that. By 1969 and the show a few episodes away from its finale, despite some censor limitations remaining, we still got to see Vanna in "The Cloud Minders" as a miner.

FWIW, I found Vanna to be a more attractive (and certainly more interesting) character than Droxine. And assuming things worked out between Eve and Ben, she almost certainly would have ended up learning how to run the machinery. (I used to know a woman who ran a container crane in an intermodal yard; for a while, she was docenting at the same museum where I spend my Saturdays docenting.) She certainly seemed like she had more brains than her companions put together.

Seems ironic that Mudd would be the one to utter the line, "Or man, for that matter."

 

[Qonundrum]

FWIW, I found Vanna to be a more attractive (and certainly more interesting) character than Droxine. And assuming things worked out between Eve and Ben, she almost certainly would have ended up learning how to run the machinery. (I used to know a woman who ran a container crane in an intermodal yard; for a while, she was docenting at the same museum where I spend my Saturdays docenting.) She certainly seemed like she had more brains than her companions put together.

Nice!

Seems ironic that Mudd would be the one to utter the line, "Or man, for that matter."

This was Mudd's first episode. "I, Mudd" effectively reduces him to a cartoon character. I think Mudd was being a little self-defensive as well? I had to find a video clip to confirm if I remembered Mudd's inflection correctly:

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"Or man, for that matter!" definitely had an inflection other than what I was believing. It definitely has that "after school special" vibe, as I was expecting him to be more sullen over being captured by Kirk. But it's interesting that he would say it in the way he had - beauty does start from within, with self-confidence that radiates outward?

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Why women couldn't be miners was never explored, but considering the network censors of the time, the show could not go so far and suggest that. By 1969 and the show a few episodes away from its finale, despite some censor limitations remaining, we still got to see Vanna in "The Cloud Minders" as a miner.

It could be that, but honestly it seems just as likely that they could have had female miners in the earlier episode if they'd been willing to put the effort in, but it didn't serve the story they wanted to tell so they didn't.

Certainly viable in-universe explanations are lacking.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I remember this:

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I suppose Eve's dialogue worked better because it wasn't a lecture from someone with secondhand (witness) knowledge to a curious teenager, but someone who had firsthand experience with substances having had enough and explaining herself to somebody who was directly affected by what she was doing.

 

[Qonundrum]

I remember this:

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Oh my word, that's proof that it could be worse than Trek! Now if only they'd show that at nightclubs...

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And "Mudd's Women" wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did without Fred Steiner's score.

 

[Qonundrum]

And "Mudd's Women" wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did without Fred Steiner's score.

It is a fantastic score, accentuating the scene's effect and when most effective.

I love how the music is not overdone, letting plenty of time for the actors to breathe life into the scenes between cues.

Indeed, the "you believe yourself or you don't" would be far worse if it was slathered with a backing sting or other musical chord.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Indeed, the "you believe yourself or you don't" would be far worse if it was slathered with a backing sting or other musical chord.

Quite. Not even the end of the "Risk is our business" cue from "Return to Tomorrow" (is that original to George Duning's score for that episode?) could have enhanced that part of the scene. Steiner knew when to be aggressive (Eve describing a "trophy bride") and when to let the dialogue stand alone.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Speaking of over-the-top PSAs I wonder if they still make those "Red Asphalt" driver's ed films.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Once, when I submitted myself to 8 hours of voluntary incarceration (i.e., traffic school), our tormentor chose to show us an old Disney Drivers Ed film, featuring Goofy as the mild-mannered "Mr. Walker" (who, when he gets behind the wheel, undergoes a "Jeckyll & Hyde" transformation into "Mr. Wheeler").