Up the Long Ladder
The Enterprise encounters two struggling Earth colonies, one of clones.
"Up the Long Ladder," the 44th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the 18th of its second season, aired on May 22, 1989. In the 24th-century setting, the Enterprise-D crew encounters two unknown Earth colonies in crisis. The episode sparked controversy when Commander Riker killed his own clone and defended the act, which pro-life groups interpreted as a harshly toned pro-abortion argument. This backlash led to the episode being shown infrequently in reruns.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Season
- 2
- Episode
- 18
- Production
- 144
- Air date
- 22 May 1989
- Writer
- Melinda M. Snodgrass
- Director
- Winrich Kolbe
- Photographer
- Edward R. Brown
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The Enterprise receives an automated distress call from a human colony on Bringloid V, threatened by solar flares. The colony was founded by the crew of the SS Mariposa, a freighter launched from Earth centuries earlier. As the Enterprise approaches, Worf collapses on the bridge; in sick bay, he admits to a Klingon childhood illness equivalent to measles, and Dr. Pulaski agrees to keep it private. In gratitude, Worf offers her a Klingon tea ceremony, warning the tea is deadly to humans. Pulaski takes an antidote and drinks with him. The Bringloidi colony, led by Danilo Odell and his daughter Brenna, follows a pre-industrial agrarian philosophy. Odell tells Picard of another colony planted by the Mariposa. Pulaski discovers all inhabitants are clones. Granger explains that their ship crashed, leaving only five survivors; to maintain a gene pool, they turned exclusively to cloning. After nearly three centuries, replicative fading—accumulated genetic flaws—threatens to make further clones nonviable.
Production
The episode was written by Melinda M. Snodgrass. She intended the story as a commentary on immigration, opposing xenophobic attitudes about race, language, and religion, and believing that cultural diversity makes America vibrant. However, the episode was perceived as a commentary on abortion, with Riker coldly murdering his clone and justifying it based on bodily autonomy, a common pro-choice argument. Pro-life groups criticized the plotline as promoting abortion to an extreme degree, since the clone was not attached to or dependent on Riker. The episode was originally titled "Send in the Clones." The final title comes from an Irish anti-Protestant rhyme.
Reception
Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a grade C, praising the Worf and Pulaski scenes but calling the rest a "crap heap" and criticizing the "Space Irish" as a cultural cliché. Keith R. A. DeCandido of Tor.com criticized the Irish stereotypes and called the clones boring, giving it 4 out of 10. James Hunt of Den of Geek found the Irish characters "painfully stereotypical" but the episode funny, noting it was strange to see such a poorly developed episode late in the series. Jamahl Epsicokhan of Jammer's Reviews gave it 1.5 out of 4, calling it "a colossal mess." In 2014, Ars Technica picked it as one of the worst TNG episodes, calling it an "utterly forgettable story about cloning and totalitarianism" and singling out Riker's lecherous smirking as the worst part, though the Worf-Pulaski subplot was praised. In 2017, Io9 noted it as one of the weirdest TNG adventures. Freelance writer Rob Bricken cited it as his personal choice for worst episode of the series, arguing it is racist, sexist, and terrible sci-fi.
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