By 
Title: Justice
Airdate: 11/9/1987
Plot Summary
The Enterprise visits Rubicon III, a planet with simple people are are very friendly and very sensual. Dr. Crusher recommends shore leave for the crew as they in dire need of rest after a particular grueling mission. An away team goes down to scout the planet, including Wesley to see if it will be reasonable for the kids to visit. While down there, the Enterprise becomes aware of a ship that is both in and out of their reality.
The ship makes contact with the crew through Data and by making large proclamations that shake the ship. It appears the Edo, the inhabitants of Rubicon III regard the ship as god. They have very strict albeit arbitrary laws. In today’s case, it’s to not disturb new flowers. Wesley, unaware of this, accidentally falls into a flower bed. It turns out all laws broken, no matter how small, get the death penalty.
Picard can simply take Wesley and break the prime directive. Even if he would, the entity ship seems to be more powerful and can stop them. Picard must do what he can to save Wesley and not anger the entity.
Make It So
Picard gets to give a patented Picard speech. It’s not his greatest but then the entire situation is ridiculous.
Number 1
Riker is pretty damn down to whatever on this planet.
Fully Functional
Data spends a lot of time on the floor being taken over by a bubble. He also has a realization about himself that he babbles, when he doesn’t quite catch on to how distraught Beverly is over Wesley’s impending execution.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf gets the best line when he gets an enthusiastic hug by a scantily clad Edo woman. He simply says, “Nice planet.”
Phase Inducers
Geordi mostly sits at the helm though at one point he goes to a window in the conference lounge to take a better look at the god-ship with his VISOR. Of all the things that they dropped from the first season, I have no idea why this was one of them. It’s a really good idea.
Counselor Cleavage
She helps comfort the Edo woman on the ship when she’s clearly shaking with fear at seeing God so close up. She’s also a bit uncomfortable with the male Edo being very forward with her.
Dancing Doctor
Crusher is pretty damn upset and I suppose rightly so. This episode sucks (more on that later) but her worry as a mother really works. McFadden’s acting is not the problem here.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar doesn’t do a great job in finding out about the laws here. She thought she knew but neglected to maybe ask about punishments! Also Yar is NOT uncomfortable with the male Edo and her thighs are practically vibrating with the thought of getting some.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley nearly gets executed for basically violating a Keep Off The Grass ordinance. If they had killed him, this show would’ve been WAY different moving forward. Alas, the Game Of Thrones killing of characters was way in the future.
Canon Maker
We get a little bit more fleshed out about the Prime Directive and how restrained the federation and starfleet have to be when dealing with other civilization’s laws.
Canon Breaker
But really, they shouldn’t be here in the first place. Prime directive is very clear (at least it will be) that it’s only for warp capable civilizations.
When Data goes down, they take him to sickbay. This leads to something that always bothered me, Crusher treating Data. That’s like a vet working on a robodog. I don’t doubt that she’s very smart and capable but Data’s needs are so completely different than biological lifeforms, I don’t know what she would be able to do. Now to the show’s credit, they say that both Geordi and Crusher are both qualified, so they lean into it. But I still don’t buy it.
A Little Bloody Nose
Wesley almost died.
Technobabble
Nothing really stood out.
I Know That Guy:
A lot of “who?” in this episode, most don’t have any real credits. This episode may have killed careers.
Brenda Bakke has the most credits, you may remember her from Hot Shots! Part Deux.
Jay Louden played the male Edo. He didn’t do much else.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Holy crap, things are getting worse. Gotta trudge on with this first season. I know that Gene Roddenberry was a huge atheist and the writer’s in general were against the death penalty. I don’t know if they were trying to take a jab at christians and crime and punishment but this is crazy. The death penalty for any crime? Even accidents? No society can work that way.
Hell I’m basically an atheist myself but turning the religious into this psychotic mess is just lazy fucking writing. If you wanted to make me have the opposite reaction and be sympathetic to Christians, the mission accomplished.
Or is it all about the death penalty? Well except in probably crazy psycho savage tribes in history, the death penalty in most British common law countries has always been to fit the crime, usually very heavy crimes like murder. Yeah, I know they hung horse thieves and all but still, no one just blanket death penalty for every single crime. No one died for jaywalking. Unless they got run over for being stupid.
Then the sexual content of this is just really ew when they are talking about sending children down there. Ewwww. I have no idea if any of my theories are what they were trying to get across but even as a story without any cultural critiques, it still sucks.
Probably one of the worst episodes of the series.
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