YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S7E8 "Force of Nature"

• Accidental Aesop: The interstellar civilization had almost collapsed just because a scientist had no alternate way to test his theory outside a "Science Council" which rejected it. Aesop: monopoly is bad. Especially in science.
• Anvilicious: It's revealed that excessive use of warp capable ships and other subspace technology is damaging the fabric of subspace itself, slowly creating an approaching environmental collapse and will only increase exponentially over years. The allegory there was heavyhanded and everyone knew it, which was a detriment to the episode. It also doesn't help that this has been all but ignored by the franchise ever since.
• Padding: Data's attempts to train Spot do not impact the plot at all and have no symbolic relevance to the episode's themes.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Serova's choice to stay on her ship while putting it on self destruct was not necessary. She could easily have set the self destruct, put the ship on autopilot to get far enough away, and then beamed back to the Enterprise before anyone knew any better. That is, unless she was Driven to Suicide by the fact that no one believed her as well as knowing she was going to be in serious legal jeopardy for disabling not only two Federation ships, but also a Ferengi ship.
• Values Resonance:
  • Despite the episode's poor overall reputation, its message about how the things we take for granted can cause devastating damage to the environment has only grown more relevant as the years have passed, with many fans seeing the episode's concept as a very worthy one that got lost among the padding and technobabble that makes up much of the story.
  • Serova's crippling ships which use the Hekaras Corridor (and later destroying her own ship and creating the subspace rift), and Data's subsequent comments about she was too confrontational and uncompromising, can resonate with people on both sides of the debate when it comes to certain green activism groups such as Extinction Rebellion. Detractors of these groups will likely agree with Data that Serova was an example of how people who undertake extreme actions can end up undermining their own cause and even alienating people who may have supported them, but supporters might see Data's comments as illustrating precisely why Serova's actions were necessary to begin with, showing that people put too much emphasis on how the message is delivered rather than what the actual message is, and often won't do anything about a problem until it's staring them right in the face.

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