Why a memoir about domestic abuse contains a chapter summarizing an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation

Slate

Carmen Maria Machado devoted a chapter of her new experimental memoir, In the Dream House, to Star Trek: TNG because she saw parallels between her abuse and the classic episode “Chain of Command, Pt. II,” where Capt. Picard is taken prisoner by an enemy alien race. “It feels like a weird comparison to make because it’s literally an episode about physical torture," says Machado. "I was not physically tortured,” she adds. “But on the other hand, it’s this sense that there’s something else happening underneath ...I kept thinking, this feels so on the nose. Like, as I’m working on this memoir, this episode just happens to be in the queue.”