Unnatural Selection

Get to know Dr. Katherine Pulaski! When a mysterious illness starts making people very old very quickly, Dr. Pulaski wants to know why. Also, she wants to save a group of super children, genetically created in a lab. But what happens when she is stricken by the aging disease? And why is she on the Enterprise anyway? Answers to these questions and more when we put Unnatural Selection in the Mission Log. I’ve never liked how this episode suggests aging and death can be “cured” by the transporter, but then just disregards the premise going forward. It was nice to see Pulaski featured. I almost started to like her. Well, they allowed the transporter to do some pretty miraculous things before. Seems like the writers would pull back for a while every time they do it, though. agreed, the transporter saves are such a cop out in my opinion for the writers and weak storylines. This episode was terrible because really, Pulaski/Muldaur was already fairly old, and just a terrible re-do TOS episode, “The Dying Years” I think…I was not a fan of episodes like “The Big Goodbye”, “The Naked Now” which seemed like re-hashing TOS plot devices….sigh… The second point is about Pulaski herself. I’m one of those that hate(d) Pulaski and it was because of the point you made in the podcast…she is just a retread of McCoy (and frankly this episode just hammered that in by making her ALSO mistrust transporters) and though I realize I’m in the minority I HATE McCoy (or rather I hated McCoy until the movies). TV McCoy was not just irascible and cranky…he was flat out irrational, ignorant, and borderline racist (when it came to Spock). I cringed every time he opened his mouth during TOS and frankly couldn’t tolerate him before the movies (and even then I didn’t much care for his character until toward the end of Wrath of Khan onward). So it isn’t that she is a woman…I hate irrational, ignorant, borderline racists (in this case with Data) regardless of gender and it isn’t JUST because she replace Crusher (though I’m disappointed that they replaced Crusher with McCoy 2.0). I know that it may be just me, but I feel justified in disliking Pulaski because I disliked the character she was based on. Wait wait wait wait… a bunch of scientists go off and genetically engineer some human beings to not only have telepathy and telekinesis and a lethal immune system, but to hyper-accelerate from childhood to adulthood without passing through adolescence, and NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING? The worst thing Pulaski comes up with is something about the “mistakes” these scientists have made? I know I’m jumping the timeline by bringing it up, but we know that genetic augmentation is forbidden in the Federation, and I’m certain it’s at least hinted at in previous episodes. But the focus of the story remains on solving the aging disease – where was Picard’s righteous anger here over using human beings, children , as test subjects? I try to remain pretty neutral on Pulaski but whenever she interacts with Data, I can’t help mentally labeling her with certain expletives. Okay, maybe the argument over whether Data is fully sentient hasn’t been fully addressed by the show (though I’ve never doubted his equality), but still. What does it really cost her to show Data the respect and dignity he requests? She is annoyingly McCoy-esque in her close-mindedness. Honestly, she comes off as a bully. And you might say, “well, if Data isn’t really ‘alive’ like she believes then she doesn’t need to be nice to him.” That logic is pretty twisted. I don’t go home and hassle my microwave. Personally, if Pulaski wasn’t so mean to Data, her obstinate, brusque nature would be endearing rather than alienating.