Xeen's Corner | NX-01 | Le premier capitaine .... Stigma featurette

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Dialog from UPN Featurette:
Enterprise Stigma

Narrator:
In this special episode of Enterprise, which airs February 5th, T'Pol has a big secret: She's contracted a disease that, if revealed, could jeopardize her future.

T'Pol: "It's too great a risk. I'd be taken off Enterprise."
Phlox: "I think I can question them without revealing that you're infected."
T'Pol: "It's too great a risk."
Phlox: "I'm afraid we have no choice. Without further treatment, you could very possibly die."

Narrator:
Anguish (?) that could easily be applied to people who suffer from HIV and AIDS today.

Jolene Blalock:
I think it's a very appropriate title, Stigma, because the disease has a stigma. People, you know, many kind, and loving, and good-hearted, and great-intentioned people, uh, they want to turn their head to it.

Narrator:
T'Pol was previously forced to engage in the intimate act of a Vulcan mind-meld, a practice which telepathically links two Vulcans, who then share each other's consciousness.

Jolene Blalock:
Even more than the disease itself having a stigma, the act of having contracted it has a stigma; and that is what we address in this episode.

Brannon Braga:
We thought it would be an interesting idea if, um, Vulcans who are able to perform mind melds are a minority, and a stigmatized one at that, because it's considered such a strange and intimate act that mainstream Vulcan society does not accept; and that there's a terrible disease that can be transferred through mind melds.

Strom: "Pa'nar syndrome is a disease that's unique to an undesirable segment of our population. Thankfully, there are very few of them."
Archer: "And because you find them undesirable, they're not entitled to medical care?"
Strom: "We don't condone the intimate acts that these people engage in. They defy everything our society stands for."

Narrator:
Which shows that, even in space, ignorance is not bliss.

Scott Bakula:
My character is astounded that this exists in their culture, and that these doctors are not willing to spread any information about it, because they really want... they want it to go away; they want to ignore it.

Narrator:
And, in the adventurous spirit of all Star Trek series, Enterprise found a compelling manner to bring the fight against AIDS
into the future...

Rick Berman:
In the true fashion of science fiction, and more specifically in the tradition of Star Trek, we decided to create the premise with metaphors. We dealt with an alien situation, something that would turn the whole idea, the whole initiative, on its ear to
be looked at in a different way.

Jolene Blalock:
Basically, we go through how to deal with this; how do we deal with living with; how do we deal with treating it, and how
do we deal with people out there who choose to be ignorant to it. I think that's pretty wise. I think it's an angle that not many people would take on it.

T'Pol: "Maybe this incident will encourage others to speak out."

transcription et photos courtesy of trekks