Cogenitor
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 30 April 2003
- ON
- UPN
- STARDATE
- None given
- DIRECTED BY
- LeVar Burton
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 048
WRITTEN BYWritten by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
First contact with the friendly, advanced Vissians goes well, until Tucker takes a personal interest in a member of their species with a very different status.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
Enterprise makes friendly first contact with the Vissians, an advanced species with three sexes. Tucker befriends a Vissian couple and meets their cogenitor, a rare third sex needed for reproduction. Cogenitors are treated as non-persons: they are not taught to read and are assigned to couples by the state. When Phlox tells him cogenitors are as intelligent as other Vissians, Tucker secretly teaches this one to read, introduces it to human culture including the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the cogenitor takes the name Charles. Charles then asks Archer for asylum. Archer, mindful of a valuable new relationship, refuses and returns it to the Vissians. Later the Vissian captain reports that the cogenitor has taken its own life, and the couple's child cannot be conceived. Archer tells Tucker his well-meaning interference has cost a life, and severely reprimands him.
- 01Tucker's holodeck options include “Dixon Hill and the Black Orchid” and “The Bride of Chaotica”, nods to Picard's and Tom Paris's holonovels.
- 02Andreas Katsulas, Tomalak in The Next Generation, plays the Vissian captain.
- 03Directed by LeVar Burton, who also directed “First Flight” two episodes later.