`Trek's' AIDS episode not so bold

The Boston Herald, February 5, 2003

by John Ruch

The mission of tonight's episode of the ``Star Trek'' spinoff series ``Enterprise'': to boldly go where nearly everybody has gone before.

``Stigma,'' airing at 8 tonight on WSBK (Ch. 38), follows the grand entertainment industry tradition of speaking out bravely on hot social issues 20 years too late. (And puffing itself with a self-congratulatory publicity blitz.)

In this case, it's the HIV/AIDS crisis and related homophobia, which prove too much for a series that remains the most boring, white-bread and charisma-free ``Trek'' of them all.

It turns out that Vulcan sexpot T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) has an incurable disease contracted from engaging in the famous telepathic mind-meld. Vulcan society stigmatizes mind-melds, and the minority who engage in them, and refuses to treat the disease. (Fear not, horndogs: The only visible symptom on T'Pol, she of the pointy ears and curvy everything else, is slight bags under the eyes.)

Paramount claims this is a brilliant analogy in the ``Trek'' tradition, but that misses the point. Why not have it be about gay people and AIDS directly? The original ``Trek'' handled race by showing people of various races. It handled war by showing war.

It's easy to overstate the franchise's social progressiveness and thus to ask too much of it. But this shadow play is truly disgusting due to the long-standing refusal by producer Rick Berman (co-writer of the episode) to put a regular gay character into any ``Trek'' product, despite fan petitions.

``Stigma'' suggests AIDS is fundamentally a minority (i.e., gay) problem. In fact, it is at its worst as a plague afflicting the heterosexual majority in Africa. There's now an HIV-positive Muppet on TV over there, by the way, if you're interested in real bravery.

Worse still, the show makes very clear that T'Pol is not actually a member of the minority - ``Trek'' allows no permanent gays even by analogy. (A minority Vulcan doctor appears briefly and seems unlikely to return.) Instead, her disease was forced upon her in a mind-rape.

T'Pol says she won't condone prejudice, refusing to escape social stigma by revealing that she isn't herself a melder/lesbian. But, of course, the show itself condones prejudice by revealing to us that she isn't.

Truly brave dramas make audiences question themselves. The only question here is whether you'd give an AIDS cure to a straight woman raped by a minority.

The show is arguably progressive in terms of recontextualizing the beloved Spock character who, thanks to our knowledge of the future, we know to be a melder. (He even dallied with Kirk, and once with a living boulder.) But then, in Spock's time, melding is clearly no longer stigmatized, so what difference does it make?

The concluding homily: Maybe this incident will encourage others to speak out.

Or just to scratch their heads.