YMMV / Star Trek S2 E23 "The Omega Glory"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Captain Ronald Tracey always a power hungry immortality seeker or was he a good Starfleet Captain who lost his mind when he found that his entire crew had died, leaving him as a Sole Survivor. It wouldn't be the first time a Starship commander lost his entire crew and was driven insane by the experience.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Many international Trekkies loathe this episode because of how intensely it uses the Eagleland trope (not that there aren't a sizable number of American Trekkies who share the same view).
• Anvilicious: This episode is divisive, particularly among international fans, but it pulls no punches about how dangerous jingoism and nationalism can be.
• Awesome Music: The fight music from "Amok Time" returns. We also get a few bars of "The Star Spangled Banner" when the Yangs bring out their flag—which looks familiar....
• Ham and Cheese: William Shatner has confirmed that he hated the script, and was deliberately not giving a crap in his big speech at the end. (One wonders if it's partly because he's not American but Canadian...)
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This wouldn't be the last time a Starfleet officer is so driven to obtain a Fountain of Youth he'll be willing to violate the Prime Directive to get it.
  • A post Apocalyptic wasteland caused by a nuclear war between hyper nationalist Americans and Chinese communists? Hmmm.
• Moral Event Horizon: Tracey was already tap dancing on it, but he crossed it when he killed Galloway.
• Narm:
  • Another planet evolves the American flag and constitution, all for Kirk to make a ridiculously over-the-top patriotic speech about how America is one of the best countries in the world! Even Americans find that scene ridiculous, and did at the time. That episode, sneeringly referred to by some fans as "The United States of Star Trek", was universally decried as scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.
  • Kirk's claim that "A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive" comes off more than a little absurd considering the countless other episodes before and after in which he violates the Directive himself.
• So Bad, It's Good: There's something about that American flag. The Pledge and the Spock-like Satan illustration did not help. William Shatner's trademark delivery worked well when he said, "Look at these words... written bigger... than the rest... tall words ... proudly saying ... 'We... the Pe... ople...'
  • This episode is a veritable museum of hokey Star Trek tropes. A nonsensical virus that turns people into salt, a ship that happily is the exact same class as the Enterprise to save on sets, the aggressive Cold War messages, there ultimately being no real explanation why the planet has a culture exactly like Earth's, overacting from Shatner, and underacting from the villain of the week. It's all the more enjoyable for this reason.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Enterprise crew finding its sister ship dead in space, its crew reduced to dehydrated crystals, and its captain having gone rogue in an effort to find a Fountain of Youth? That was something with some real potential. Unfortunately, it ends up amounting to little more than a hook for the Eagleland story elements, and by the last act of the episode has been all but forgotten about.
• Values Resonance: The episode's themes about mindless jingoism and nationalism are particularly pertinent after how NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick peacefully protested against police brutality by kneeling during renditions of the national anthem only to have conservative critics claim he was "disrespecting" both the flag and anthem.
• Vindicated by History: Maybe "vindicated" is too strong of a word, but disgust towards the episode has decreased, especially in a post-9/11 world. The Eagleland analogues, the Yangs, are portrayed as savage brutes. Brutes who recite their "holy words" of freedom and democracy with no meaning in the words and even then they can't even pronounce the words right. Viewed from a certain angle, it's less of "Yay, America!" and more of "A group that was once great but has lost its way and fallen into brutality".

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