I'm trying not to compare every disappointing TNG episode to a conceptually similar but much better TOS episode, but sometimes it is actively difficult.
J and I just watched one that could have been good—it introduces the Trill and both the concept and guest actor are really good, the false equivalence in the diplomacy plot is annoying but standard fare for TNG, there's genuinely good chemistry in Crusher's romance with Odan, unlike most of the female characters' obligatory romances—but, uh.
By the end, the episode has managed to be intensely homophobic and transphobic (towards both binary trans people and nb ones at the same time, because it's ambitious like that), and it's offered a half-assed apology that maybe their culture will be more open-minded in the future (in a way that wants to suggest a hopeful look forwards à la "Arena," but doesn't seem to realize that setting up hope for the future comes across really differently in a setting that's aspirational because it's constantly iteratively improving rather than because it's already achieved a blandly perfect utopia with just a few bad apples here and there). But the thing that was blaring alarms long before all this was something else altogether.
The basic concept is that Crusher has this genuinely charming romance with this really nice, cool, dedicated diplomat only to discover that his continuity as a person involves multiple bodily hosts over many, many years. His host body is severely damaged and Riker offers his body as host for the ambassador until his people can send a proper Trill host body, in order to solve a diplomatic crisis. Once the ambassador has completely taken over Riker, he wants to continue his romance with Crusher, but she's freaked out because she doesn't see the actual Will Riker like that at all (sidenote: Riker's human body is starting to reject the Trill symbiont and occasionally the ambassador's much milder mannerisms take on a distinctly Riker quality as this progresses, which only further validates Crusher's unease—but the episode as a whole doesn't seem to connect those dots).
So we've got this very unpleasant, very TNG flavor of "this guy is so nice and virtuous, though, it can only be short-sighted bitchiness that makes the woman he's into repeatedly turn him down until she gives in or at least acknowledges that he's fun and nice and it's all totally cool" (*cough* Galaxy's Child *cough*). But we have this extra layer of Crusher being specifically uncomfortable carrying on her romance w/ this guy because he's using Riker's body and that makes her super uncomfortable. Riker did not even slightly agree to being used this way; his offer to serve as host was purely about the diplomatic necessity. But nobody really cares about that. Even Crusher's reluctance is not really about Riker's bodily autonomy, but about her sexual aversion to him. Eventually she gives in and there's a blatant fade to black.
J and I were both really forcibly reminded of "Return to Tomorrow," which involves the bodies of Kirk, the cool-headed scientist Ann Mulhall, and Spock (among others) being used by ancient ancestral beings (a sort of prototype of the Precursor concept) who have basically been consciousnesses stored in orbs for some 500,000 years. The gentle, virtuous Sargon uses Kirk's body and his beloved wife Thalassa uses Mulhall's (while the delightfully evil Henoch uses Spock's), which all fully agreed to after taking time to consider it and talk it over with the chiefs of staff.
Thalassa is tempted to just steal Mulhall's body forever and nearly does (led astray by Henoch), but comes to her senses to the relief of Sargon, with all concerned very firm that Mulhall volunteering her body as a temporary host out of scientific curiosity did not encompass anything else. When Sargon and Thalassa decide they need to let go at last and accept death, they ask permission to use Kirk and Mulhall's bodies for a final embrace before death, and Kirk and Mulhall agree. Sargon and Thalassa kiss before ... ascending to another plane or something, and we get a final interaction hammering in the facts that a) the embrace was between Sargon and Thalassa, not Kirk and Mulhall, and it's a little weird but Mulhall is cool with it, and b) Sargon and Thalassa getting that last moment together via Kirk and Mulhall's generosity was "beautiful," unlike the grotesque violation Thalassa contemplated earlier.
This is the earlier scene:
THALASSA: This body pleases me. I intend to keep it.
MCCOY: I see. And Henoch intends to keep Spock's body, of course.
THALASSA: Henoch's plans are his own affair. I wish only to exist in peace as a living woman.
MCCOY: If you're asking my approval—
THALASSA: I require only your silence. Only you and I will know that Dr. Mulhall has not returned to her body. Isn't that worth your captain's life? Doctor, we can take what we wish. Neither you, this ship, nor worlds have the power to stop us.
MCCOY: Neither Jim nor I can trade a body we don't own. It happens to belong to a young woman.
THALASSA: Who you hardly know. Almost a stranger to you.
MCCOY: I will not peddle flesh. I'm a physician.
THALASSA: A physician? In contrast to what we are, you are a prancing, savage medicine man. You dare defy one you should be on your knees worshipping? I could destroy you with a single thought.
[McCoy writhes in pain]
THALASSA: Stop! [The pain ends] Sargon was right. The temptations within a living body are too great. [To McCoy] Forgive me.
SARGON [revealed to be not yet dead but haunting the ship's computers]: I am pleased, my beloved. It is good you have found the truth yourself.
This is the final scene of the episode as aired:
SARGON: We now know we cannot permit ourselves to exist in your world, my children. Thalassa and I must now also depart into oblivion.
KIRK: Is there any way we can help you, Sargon?
SARGON: Yes, my son. You can allow Thalassa and me to share your bodies again. A last moment together.
[Mulhall nods agreement and Kirk agrees as well, and Sargon and Thalassa take over one last time]
THALASSA: Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved. Promise we'll be together.
SARGON: I promise, beloved.
THALASSA: Together forever.
SARGON: Forever, beloved. Forever.
[They kiss, then die(?) and depart, with Kirk and Mulhall back in control and fine.]
KIRK, a little cautiously: Well, I'm sure that Sargon appreciated your co-operation, Dr. Mulhall.
MULHALL: Yes. I was happy to cooperate, captain.
CHAPEL, firmly: It was beautiful.
There's a cut scene that followed this that was actually preserved, and while as incredibly gay as usual (even with some extra crumbs for those of us with f/f vision), it doesn't deny the deliberate emphasis on Kirk and especially Mulhall's consent.
After the previous scene, Spock is baffled by the whole thing and Chapel pretty obviously wants to be the one to get through to him after being the person who safekept his consciousness, but Mulhall firmly but graciously intervenes:
MULHALL (smiling and going over to Chapel): Come along, fellow alien. [Her expression is wry, but not really judgmental, and while Chapel looks longingly at Spock, Mulhall gently wraps her hand around her elbow and tugs her away] If he doesn't understand, I doubt we can explain it.
[Chapel relents, her yearning gaze at Spock dissolving into a warm returning smile at Mulhall; she heads away with Mulhall right behind her, while McCoy, wlw ally, is slightly smiling to himself at this; Kirk couldn't care less and rushes up to Spock in a sort of leap/run I can't possibly describe. McCoy quietly withdraws and Kirk shifts even closer to Spock, grinning up at him and looking him directly in the eye.]
SPOCK: Captain, I really do not understand.
KIRK: Sargon did, Spock. Together ... [his voice softens and he licks his lip] forever. [His voice gentles and drops even further] I hope someday, with someone [his gaze drops from Spock's to...??? and he somehow sounds even more intensely earnest], you'll find out what that is.
SPOCK [brows slightly drawn together and his face turned a little away as he thinks about this, but he's clearly his usual self once more]: Sargon was enormously advanced, captain. I shall... [He lifts his brows and looks Kirk right in the eyes] consider it.
Setting that aside, there's an emphatic insistence that Mulhall is 100% super duper cool with it for science and the beauty of Sargon and Thalassa's love, and not into Kirk at all but totally consenting. Mulhall/Thalassa and Kirk/Sargon are sort of mind melded and emerge from hosting their seniors with a deep understanding of Thalassa and Sargon respectively, but don't seem to actually experience what Thalassa and Sargon do for themselves, and Mulhall volunteers herself in the full understanding of what the relationship between Sargon and Thalassa is.
Anyway, "Return to Tomorrow" was written in 1967 and, despite being simplified and modified by the usual meddlers (Roddenberry, NBC, my nemesis John Meredyth Lucas), Mulhall's dignity and consent survive intact to the version aired early in 1968.
It feels rather mean-spirited to point out as well, but honestly, I think the female guest actor who plays Odan in the homophobic/transphobic final scene actually does a better job than Jonathan Frakes. I have no grievance at all with Frakes as an actor in general; after watching TMP and seeing the rough draft of Riker in Decker (who just comes across as a petty, self-absorbed asshole every time), I respect Frakes all the more for making Riker into the joy of a character he is. But he's never not himself enough that I fully believe he's Odan and it makes the question of Riker's autonomy feel even more pressing than it already did.
(Actresses delivering more compelling and believable performances of characters established by male actors than other male actors in the role do is ... kind of a thing in ST, I feel? For instance, I don't think any dudes who have played Kirk since Shatner have captured his fundamental character as well as Sandra Smith in "Turnabout Intruder." Pine was genuinely superb casting for Kirk and just hampered by everything else about AOS, and Wesley is baffling casting with mediocre writing, but neither holds a candle to Smith's Kirk IMO.)
