Intended as a low-budget ‘bottle show’ to save money before the season finale, ‘Duet’ devotes most of its runtime to two characters steeped in conversation with each other. But this dense story and its tug-of-war between justice and vengeance have come to be regarded as one of the finest hours of Star Trek. The episode’s writers drew inspiration from the play ‘The Man in the Glass Booth,’ which in turn was inspired by the kidnapping and trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1961. That same court case would compel Hannah Arendt, a philosopher, political theorist and Holocaust survivor, to coin the term “the banality of evil” to grapple with the wide-scale complicity of the German people in the Holocaust atrocities. 

Cole and Lily delve into the post-WWII historical context that inspired Duet, including the Nuremberg Trials and the establishment of the state of Israel. Following the timeline through to contemporary crises of occupation and oppression, the episode also considers Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel’s writings on inherited violence and “cycles of rage.” But there is room for hope, too: we end with Hannah Arendt’s playbook for tackling hatred and fascism--which, as it turns out, hinges on more people simply talking to each other. 

🍷 Wine pairing: 'Serpico' Cabernet Sauvignon from Mitolo
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