Declare Your Independence With These Classic Episodes

Today is the 4th of July, America’s birthday. Now Star Trek represents a future where divisions based on nation states have disappeared in favor of a unified government where all of human kind is united in peace and harmony.

But with the exception of one particularly notable Frenchman, all of Starfleet’s future captains seem to hail from America, so we thought it would be important to help ‘Murrica blow out a few space candles this year. So with that, here are our five top episodes to help you declare your independence.

5. Take Me Out To the Holosuite (DS9)

Not only does this episode feature “America’s pastime” in the form of the Niners/Logicians baseball game, but it introduces us to the Federation national anthem.

4. The Savage Curtain (TOS)

What better way to celebrate America than watching its finest citizen help teach Kirk the true nature of good and evil?

3. The High Ground (TNG)

Years before having “the high ground” meant that Obi-Wan Kenobi could slice Anakin Skywalker to pieces, Star Trek was exploring the issue of moral high ground – is a space terrorist no different than George Washington?

2. The Omega Glory (TOS)

Oh goodness you knew it had to be on this list. On one of those alternate Earths that they only did in TOS, Kirk recites the preamble to the Constitution in all possible Shatnerian glory.

1. Loud As A Whisper (TNG)

How could anything possibly out ‘Murrica the Omega Glory? Well what edges this episode out in front is that it’s the only episode that actually includes the US Declaration of Independence. While Data is zipping through records, we see an Okudagram of the document.

Well there you have it! Hope you have a happy Independence Day wherever you may be. If you can’t see any real fireworks today, enjoy this Star Trek-themed display after an Oakland Athletics game.

31 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

*Tongue in cheek*

Come now, come now, Are you lot not following the example a tad? ;-) *I jest of course*

I’m with the 48% :(

Haha thanks for the meme. Although now it seems as if you now have a “Treason Day” of your own… :P

You will come around I’m sure even in the colonies not everyone wanted to be apart from England. Just going to have to get used to having your country in a state you can control again and not have it controlled from some entity that you have no vote to control. Plus it may be a good thing you guys Brexited as the EU is going for a power grab right now. http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/686177/EU-superstate-Brussels-bureaucrat-European-federal-government-Brexit

Ha ha! With my country bravely declaring independence, I guess we’re joining our USA brothers and sisters who showed us the way!

Well, we could all revitalize the American-English-Canada-New Zealand-Australian alliance, and be one big nation. Some laws and governance will have to change, tho…

You’re right. Only a third of the colonies wanted to leave England. The rest either didn’t care or left for Canada. Wow. Now that I think about it, that’s pretty much the break down of political activism in the US: a third pro-Republican, another pro-Democrat and the last third don’t care either way.

Happy 4th of July folks

I will forever love and defend “Omega Glory”! Cloud William, Ron Tracy (the great Morgan Woodward – – and imo, the greatest villain Trek ever had) Shatner and Woodward doing most of their stunts. The cool Kirk Fu moments with Kirk and the savage in the cell. “Freedom?!”….”You will not speak it. It is a Yang worship word”….”Pity you can’t teach me that”. …” I have tried, Captain,”….The “E-Pleb-Nista”, The “I-ee-plegli-ian”. Kirk’s great speech at the end. What’s not to love?!

Happy 4th.

Dodger game. Dodgers!
Happy 4th, everyone…

Go Giants!

I’m the color commentator for the SF Giants

Anyway happy 4th , Phil

Go Giants! :) Been a fan since I could know what Baseball was. Whole family 49ers, Giants, and Sharks fans.

It’s an even year, James… so you know what that means, Giants will most likely be the 2016 World Series Champions

Small world. I used to watch you at SGHS. No idea you are a Trekker. I don’t feel so nerdy now :)

Saw the NASA logo and I was afraid you were going to recommend TNG’s The Royale…!!

Noble Willingham was a fantastic actor, did a great job as “Texas” in that particular episode

Bill Shatner’s Canadian, so I always wondered how it felt for him to have to be all gung-ho America in “The Omega Glory.” Of course, that was probably easier for him than it was for two Jewish men to have to wear Nazi uniforms in “Patterns of Force”…

Corylea,

Re:Nazi uniforms

And not just that but Nazi SS uniforms — the worst of the worst.

And only twenty-two years after WWII, when the horror of it was a lot fresher in people’s minds than it is now.

Corylea,

Re:horror

And yet waned enough that HOGAN’S HEROES made it to air three years prior and was still airing at the time.

Corylea,

Which reminds me, didn’t he play an US military officer in JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG?

A lot of people seem to excoriate Shatner for his reading of the preamble to the US Constitution in THE OMEGA GLORY, but the only off note I recall from first seeing it in its original network airing to this day is the way he said “tranquility”. I wrote it off as just Shatner’s way to stress the import of the line, but these days I think it’s just his Canadian accent sneaking through.

Is a space terrorist no different than George Washington?

I don’t know, did Washington ever plot to bomb cafes or transports full of civilians? Of course history is written by the victors; it’s also written by the historians. Research it.

Vanguard July 4, 2016 12:23 pm

I don’t know that Washington ever used “terror” tactics. He used guerilla warfare tactics, but that’s quite a bit different than killing innocent civilians for the purpose of scaring the populace into a desired national posture.

Cygnus-X1

Re: Washington’s use of terror

Hmmm…it’s tricky path around the lines crossed in the American Revolution. I think Washington, having been a retired military man himself, tried to fight the conflicts he helmed in an organized military fashion. But he knew full well the situation his armies were in in terms of funds and resources compared to that of the King’s forces so he could ill afford to ignore a$$ists from those not following his military playbook rules. For example, in The South, The Swamp Fox definitely employed guerrilla warfare tactics.

Civilians may have not been targeted outright in military plans but there’s no mistaking that American colonial civilians were engaging in supporting which ever side they favored and thus making themselves targets for reprisals. Both sides’ regarded civilians giving aid to their opponents as “treasonous” and I doubt many stayed their hands from engagement merely because an army was ensconced in tents on some civilian’s farm with the owner’s permission or not.

I’m speculating in the following, but I suspect where the terrorist line was definitely crossed for the American Revolutionaries is Washington and many of his soldiers were veterans of King George’s French and Indian War and I would be surprised to discover that when those Revolutionaries sought reprisals against Indian tribes for giving aid to the Redcoats that they bothered with discerning who non-combatant Indian members of those tribes were in exacting that vengeance.

Man there’s a lot of cheese just dripping from Shatner in that Omega Glory speech. I love the guy but holy spit he is a terrible actor.

That episode is pretty jingoistic to begin with. Try being a Canadian and deliver that speech. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I think the cheese was in the WRITING, and Shatner did what he could with it. You can blame Roddenberry for the cheese, since he wrote that episode.

The writing was pretty bad. It’s about as heavy handed as you can get. I give Shatner props for his great delivery of something so ham fisted.

All good points.

It always leaves me nonplussed when I see “The Omega Glory” mentioned as a stand-out TOS episode.

Not that “The Savage Curtain” is any better. Probably worse, actually.

But I do like all of the other episodes listed here, even “Loud As a Whisper.”

I never thought I’d say this, but Season 1 of TNG has really grown on me over time, on the whole. “Code of Honor” and maybe a few others are still awful. But, I’ve realized that Season 1 was just paced and edited in a different style than Seasons 3 onward. Season 1 is more deliberately paced, but many of the episodes are rich thematically. Even the somewhat ridiculous “Skin of Evil” develops a meaningful theme for the audience to think about, if you can get past the appearance of the tar monster, the TOS-style planetary set, the at-times annoying Deanna Troi, and the arbitrary killing off of Tasha.