New uniforms, new credit sequence and Doctor Crusher returned to us but was Season 3 of The Next Generation really as good as we remember? Some of that enthusiasm may have have been generated by relief that the series had not been cancelled but the 1990's also heralded an era of considerably more stability behind the scenes. Senior Trekker will continue to score every episode with a 5.
At the time, The Hunted was considered very much as an allegory of the Vietnam War, or rather the reintegration of Vietnam veterans into a society that is embarrassed by their physical and psychological scars. It was made a little over a decade after the end of that war and the memories would have been fresh for a lot of people who were affected by it. Nowadays, not so much has changed. The USA is still ambivalent about the survivors of its foreign conflicts and so the main theme of this episode still has resonance today.
It wasn't until Deep Space Nine that Star Trek examined the effect of such colonial wars upon the conquered country. I have visited Laos, the unfortunate recipient of more US ordnance than was dropped in the whole of WW2. Up until 2010 archaeological sites still had to be visited through carefully marked out pathways to avoid the danger of tourists stepping on uncleared mines. That Star Trek later became able to encompass such atrocities is a great testament to the Roddenberry principal = "tell your story under the guise of Science Fiction and you will get it out there for people to hear".
Apparently, the rather ambivalent stand off at the end of the story came about because the budget didn't allow for the planned destructive shoot-out. Personally, I think that the economy worked in its favour, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to complete the story. Several of the guest actors, including the now celebrated James Cromwell, returned to Star Trek over the years (both in and out of prosthetics) after this appearance, so they must have been equally pleased with the result.
At the time, The Hunted was considered very much as an allegory of the Vietnam War, or rather the reintegration of Vietnam veterans into a society that is embarrassed by their physical and psychological scars. It was made a little over a decade after the end of that war and the memories would have been fresh for a lot of people who were affected by it. Nowadays, not so much has changed. The USA is still ambivalent about the survivors of its foreign conflicts and so the main theme of this episode still has resonance today.
It wasn't until Deep Space Nine that Star Trek examined the effect of such colonial wars upon the conquered country. I have visited Laos, the unfortunate recipient of more US ordnance than was dropped in the whole of WW2. Up until 2010 archaeological sites still had to be visited through carefully marked out pathways to avoid the danger of tourists stepping on uncleared mines. That Star Trek later became able to encompass such atrocities is a great testament to the Roddenberry principal = "tell your story under the guise of Science Fiction and you will get it out there for people to hear".
Apparently, the rather ambivalent stand off at the end of the story came about because the budget didn't allow for the planned destructive shoot-out. Personally, I think that the economy worked in its favour, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to complete the story. Several of the guest actors, including the now celebrated James Cromwell, returned to Star Trek over the years (both in and out of prosthetics) after this appearance, so they must have been equally pleased with the result.