I Am Watching ‘Deep Space 9’ & Something has Slowly Developed into A Complaint & Un-Able to Understand- The Challenges of 2-Genetically Engineered Friends of Dr. Bashir.
I was born into & will die with Learning Challenges (in- language processing & short & long term memories), have earned degree in SLD, many certifications, including VE & ESE, from the most respected higher educational school in Fl., whatever that is worth, & facilitated learning in Elementary schools’-high schools’-adult education school’s ESE & Etc. classrooms. So I understand that challenges can be extremely hard identify-prove & everywhere, I think everyone has a challenge, to some degree.
Yet I cannot understand the challenges that genetic engineered friends of Dr. Bashir character Lauren (played by Hillary Shepard) & Patrick (played by Michael Keenan).
The only thing that comes close to challenges I see in-
Lauren having is higher attraction drive to men, than the average person
&
Patrick having is he is easily manipulated-to easy to go along with others, especially by Jack.
Lauren thing seems like UPN censored away the writers from going to a real challenge & forced them to her being just higher attraction drive to men, than the average person, which is not a challenge.
&
Patrick thing is not even close to being a challenge at all, maybe, lack confidence or whatever, but not a challenge, while Lauren is also not a challenge, I can understand that if the writers were not censored away from her being sex addiction, then that would been a challenge.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 37 minutes ago
DS9 was not a UPN show - it was syndicated.
The residents of the Institute are a bit of a minefield, not least because the show didn’t do much to sketch out exactly what challenges they were living with. We’re unfortunately left to assume that they would be at risk of harming themselves or others were they living on their own.
I do think Lauren was portrayed as having delusions more than any kind of “sex addiction,” and you could make the case that Patrick may not be able to safely care for himself.
But a lot has happened in the deinstitutionalization movement since those episodes were produced, so it’s pretty tough to justify way they were treated. It is, however, a decent mirror to the way society was at that time.