“Justice”
Teleplay by Worley Thorne
Story by Ralph Willis and Worley Thorne
Directed by James L. Conway
Season 1, Episode 8
Original air date: November 9, 1987
Star date: 41255.6
Mission summary
After settling some colonists in the Strnad solar system, the Enterprise comes across a Eden-like M-class planet called Edo in the adjoining star system. A small away team has been down to make contact, and the locals are party animals. LaForge describes the Edo as “wild in some ways, actually puritanical in others. Neat as pins, ultra-lawful, and make love at the drop of a hat.” While Riker’s already got his bag packed, Picard thinks there must be some negatives. He allows a small party–including Wesley Crusher, for some reason–to beam down to test the place’s suitability for shore leave, but warns that they should “just hope it’s not too good to be true.”
Right on cue, the sensors start to go crazy–it’s reading that something else is in orbit around Edo, but no one can see it. Oh well. Nothing worth getting in the way of hot sex, right?
Riker, Worf, Troi, Yar, and The Boy beam down to the surface and are warmly–ahem–greeted by the locals. The Edo are scantily clad, attractive white people who run around everywhere for maximum bounce potential.1 The whole city is essentially a pleasure palace, which doesn’t bother the grown-ups (except Worf, slightly) but Wesley feels extremely awkward. Luckily some spawn his age take him away to “play ball”… if that’s what the kids are calling it these days.
Picard, meanwhile, has found the invisible ship off the starboard bow: it’s an intimidating all-powerful, pan-dimensional energy being (APPDEB) and god-alien, and it’s not happy about the Enterprise‘s presence near its “children.” The APPDEB demands to know why the Enterprise is planting its seed all over the quadrant, but Picard’s attempts to explain are awkward for everyone. Then the APPDEB, in the form of a ball that looks like Ghostwriter, merges with Data. This is completely unessential to anything that happens later.
Back on the planet, our heroes are getting a sense of the planet’s dark side, and not in the sexy, dungeons-and-rayguns way. The tour guides, Rivan and Liator, explain that the planet has only one punishment–death–for any crime. The city is divided into “punishment zones,” any one of which is active at a given time. Of course, no one thought to mention this to the tourists, so by the time the crew finds Wesley he’s already toast. Chasing a ball (not, to my disappointment, a “ball”), he crashed into a miniature greenhouse in an active zone. The “mediators” who enforce the laws show up, take his confession (the repercussions of which he does not know), and attempt to inject some kind of poison before the crew stops them.2
Picard beams down to treat with the Edo about Wesley, who make it clear that death is non-negotiable. (Woo-hoo!) They accuse Picard and Starfleet of failing to respect their laws and customs, but promise that Wesley will be safe from harm until sundown, for maximum dramatic tension and hand-wringing. Picard must tell Dr. Crusher what has happened to her son, and decide whether or not to violate the Prime Directive and rescue Wesley. He asks Rivan to accompany him to the ship and points out the floating half-invisible APPDEB outside a viewing port, but she drops to her knees and prays for forgiveness. She recognizes it as their god, and the APPDEB flips out about his “child” being on the space ship. Picard beams Rivan down immediately before the entity destroys the Enterprise. The related lesson? If Picard chooses to rescue Wesley, he has the added threat of destruction from the god-alien-ship in orbit.
In any case, Dr. Crusher is getting all wild-eyed, so Picard beams down with her to confront the Edo. They bring out Wesley, who tries to sacrifice himself for the ship but Picard refuses on the grounds that it’s time for some arrogant moralizing on the subject of the episode’s title:
LIATOR: Our laws have been violated. What of justice?
TASHA: What of justice to Wesley? Does he deserve to die?
PICARD: I’m truly sorry, Liator, but I must have justice for my people, too.
But when they try to beam out, the signal does not work. Oh, snap.
MEDIATOR: God has prevented your escape.
CRUSHER: Then your god is unfair. My son had no warning that his act was criminal.
MEDIATOR 2: We cannot allow ignorance of the law to become a defense.
PICARD: I don’t know how to communicate this, or even if it is possible, but the question of justice has concerned me greatly of lately. And I say to any creature who may be listening, there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.
RIKER: When has justice ever been as simple as a rulebook?
This seems to persuade the god-alien, and the crew then successfully beams up. Somewhat guiltily, Picard tells the god-alien that he’ll take the colonists off the world in the Strnad system if it prefers that, pending a signal.
The god-alien ship vanishes. What this means, no one knows.
1 This is the most unrealistic part of the episode. I mean, ow.
2 I may never forgive them for this.
Analysis
What I think sets “Justice” apart from, say, “The Apple,” is unearned pretension. “The Apple” is terrible but it has no aspirations to greatness; “Justice” thinks it’s writing a Greek tragedy.
Fully acknowledging that I may be giving credit where it’s undue, I assume the Edo people are so-named to evoke ukiyo-e/ related art and the Edo period. For those of you who didn’t obsessively read Shogun when you were 13 (as I assume the authors did) and will allow me to distill 300 years of rich cultural history into a paragraph in a Star Trek review, the “Edo period” of Japan’s history is notable for two things: an extremely strict social order and caste/class system imposed by the Tokugawa government, and [possibly NSFW warning] a kind of free* love hedonism best known through widespread imagery in woodblock prints. I think the tableaux of couples making out on the lawns are a direct reference to this kind of imagery, though for the life of me I cannot figure out why it’s here. Are the authors trying to make a point about the unexpected contrast between open sexuality and totalitarian governments, or did they just read a really titillating National Geographic feature? Do I want to know?
Whatever they were trying to do, what they got was an incomprehensible, inconceivable mess. It doesn’t work on any possible level. The Edo society is ludicrous. If ignorance is no barrier to punishment, then what’s the point? Law, justice, and punishment systems are based on a) everyone knowing all the rules; and b) people understanding the consequences of breaking those rules. If people do not understand the consequences, then how exactly is this an effective method of enforcement? I’m especially baffled by the fact that the Mediators intend to execute Wesley on sight. If you want to make an example of him, shouldn’t you string him up before the whole town with a big sign on his chest that says “I WALKED ON THE GRASS”? I really don’t think this kind of authoritarianism works when you quietly and invisibly execute the accused and send out next-day press releases.**
Ultimately, there’s no argument whatsoever that this could possibly be the right thing to do. Everything surrounding Wesley’s crime and punishment is a charade, and the people on Edo don’t even make an effort to defend the act as just. Their argument is simply capital punishment —> ??? —> law and order. Picard makes a forceful argument for why this kind of “justice” is, by definition, not, and they respond with… nothing. Liator responds with the vague “Our precepts have been handed down from long ago. The tranquillity you see in our lives has been made possible by our laws.” Without an ounce of wisdom or sense to their decrees, finding any moral ambiguity to this situation is impossible.
Finally… the god-alien. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to provide an answer for “so why DON’T they just take Wesley?” The solution that Picard winds up going with is to do what’s right and let god sort it out–and that could work if they didn’t actually illustrate that with a scene in which god validates their point of view. Subtlety, ladies and gentlemen! At least the booming god voice was a better actor than Gates McFadden, who spent the whole episode looking like she had seen a mouse in the kitchen.
The only bright spot in this dark, dark mess is Picard’s convictions coming through at the end. I resented that they actually showed him thinking about it (really? You have to laboriously tease this out, aloud?), but it’s noteworthy he acknowledges that as far as letting your crewmembers die for stupid reasons, “the Prime Directive never intended that.” I also really like the exchange that he has with Data, in which Data asks him to evaluate one life over a thousand lives, and Picard answers: “I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that.” That, and not the stupid Edo on their stupid Yoshiwara planet, is the best example of how human judgment influenced by subjective factors is the only way to mete out anything resembling justice.
Torie’s Rating: Impulse Power (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: Remarkably, Wesley’s sweater is the most attractive piece of clothing on this planet.
Best Line: PICARD: Why has everything become a “something” or a “whatever”?
Trivia/Other Notes: From Memory Alpha: “Writer John D.F. Black used his pseudynom ‘Ralph Willis’ in the credits, because the televised episode bears little resemblance to his original first draft script. In Black’s treatment, the colony of Llarof installed ‘punishment zones’ to fight anarchy, however the zones are now enforced to abide the law, but for only those who are deemed not immune to them. An Enterprise security guard, protecting two children while on shore leave, happens upon a crime scene, and is shot dead by a policeman, who is also killed by his partner on the spot, for misinterpreting his duty. In his first draft, Picard decides not to help the rebels who fight against this system. Finally, it turns out the rebels install a similarly totalitarian regime when they gain power. In the second draft, the rebel leader, called Reneg is put on trial and executed for treason. Picard muses on the topic of people having their right to decide their own justice without interference.”
Previous episode: Season 1, Episode 7 – “Lonely Among Us.”
Next episode: Season 1, Episode 9 – “The Battle.”
WHOOHOO! You used my term, and as a tag even!
There was room here for some decent writing, at least as far as character interaction goes. Picard sent Jack Crusher on an away mission and he was killed. Now he’s sent Wesley on a mission and there is a good chance he’s going to die. There should have been a lot of tension between Picard and Beverley as well as a lot of guilt on Picard’s side. Alas, we got none of that. It would have been the only bright spot in this piece of dreck anyway, but it would have been something.
No
lovesnark for the line, “We’re from Starfleet. We don’t lie.” It’s so utterly naive, sums up Roddenberry’s vision of the Federation so well, and is so badly written. It’s like the whole episode in a nutshell.The place was called Llarof in the original draft? Dylan Thomas has much to answer for.
Finally, I’m starting to see 80s fashion in a very different light. Back in the day it seemed like such an improvement over what had come before, but it’s truly godawful isn’t it?
Wow, I’d totally forgotten that Data got possessed briefly by the God Energy thing. That really was a meaningless event, wasn’t it?
My favorite thing about this episode is that now that Wesley got away with it, teenagers all over the planet are probably going to be stepping on the grass. Woo, chaos!
Anyway, the whole episode hinges on something that doesn’t make any sense (Picard sending Wesley on the away team).
I’m also really sad that every time Enterprise (in any show) finds a pleasure planet, things go wrong. Just once, I’d like to have seen them have a sexy good time in a beautiful climate without having lives threatened.
@DemetriosX #1
“We’re from Starfleet. We don’t lie.”
Well, to be fair, this is coming from Adorably Naive Wesley. Speaking of, his level of discomfort with the sexual goings-on is really just exceptional, I mean I thought this was supposed to be The Free-Lovin’ Open-Hearted Future and he’s still this uptight? Seems kind of weird — I know they were trying to make him seem all Lawful Good Paragon Boy and whatnot, but through my more mature eyes it really just reinforces the impression that he was kind of a shut-in. An adult writer should realize, before writing Sir Galahad, that there was probably something wrong with the dude.
And in fairness to Gates McFadden, she was probably just doing it so that Wesley’s wooden delivery seemed like a hereditary disorder preventing natural expression, rather than an actor doing the best he could with completely implausible lines… it’s, um, character development, yeah!
#2, Toryx: “Wow, I’d totally forgotten that Data got possessed briefly by the God Energy thing. That really was a meaningless event, wasn’t it?”
Well, I suppose it was an indicator of how absurdly easy it apparently was to take over Data’s brain. Everyone had a crack at it at some point, even an ordinary human being. Shouldn’t they have installed Avast or Windows Defender on him?
By my count this is the third instance in the first season of the basic plot, “Lookit the silly savages,” with a side helping of, “Where’s your God now, silly savages? Nyaaah!”
And, no, I would not like to have seen successful “pleasure planet” episodes. Not once did TNG ever handle sex in a convincing way. Watching a TNG character in any implied sexual situation was like reading Arthur Clarke trying to write about sex (or, indeed, any human emotion); you feel like gargling with borax afterward just to get rid of the nasty taste. There are a lot of ways to make scantily clad guys look sexy but…what’s seen here isn’t among them.
In particular I could never buy Cmdr. Riker as a smooth-talking ladies’ man. I know that Futurama’s Zapp Brannigan is supposed to be modeled after James Kirk but he actually reminds me more of Riker, knowing some of the words of seduction but never the music.
@3 DeepThought: It’s pretty apparent through most of the first season that the writers had never actually met a teenage boy. Absolutely nothing that comes out of Wesley’s mouth sounds like anything ever said by an actual person. Part of that seems to be the writer’s resentment of the character, part seems to be Roddenberry’s ham-fisted rewrites, and part is the general low quality of the writing. It’s not like young Wil Wheaton was a bad actor. He was really impressive in Stand By Me.
As for his discomfort here, I’ll give it to him. About half the time, he’s presented as a rather shy, socially awkward kid, so I can see where he might be a little verklempt about it. Particularly when you consider that he’s there with a bunch of adults who are his mother’s peers. He might have reacted differently if he’d been there with other kids his age.
Looking at the pictures here, something else occurs to me. Take a look at the five male figures who aren’t Wesley. Think about the men in “Angel One”. Think about grown-up Wesley in the Q episode where Riker gets powers. Basically anywhere the people are supposed to be really good-looking. Somebody in the casting department was either deeply, deeply in denial about his sexuality or was working the casting couch for all it was worth. No wonder the cute girl is so excited to see the socially awkward über-dork.
@ 1 DemetriosX
That’s a totally fascinating parallel that hadn’t occurred to me and that, alas, they never bothered to do anything with. Part of the failure is Gates McFadden. She is able to convey none of the complexity of emotion I would expect a mother to be going through, and her interactions with Picard are flat and weird. It’s also clear fairly early on that they are not going to let Wesley die, so the question of the episode is more of how are they going to pull it off rather than will they.
@ 2 Toryx
Data states that their USB connection is how the god-alien learns about the Prime Directive, but you really didn’t need Data for that.
What fun would a pleasure planet where nothing goes wrong be? 50 minutes of scantily clad waitstaff bringing fruity drinks to the beach?
@ 3 DeepThought
I think the awkwardness of teenage boys (or girls) will persist through time and space.
@ 4 etomlins
The alien doesn’t take over Data, it just transfers some information in a mutual exchange. It’s not like Data takes over the ship–that happens later.
But yeah, the show never realistically talked about sex. This world is heavily sanitized, so when Riker starts quizzing Worf on sex you just feel icky and start to panic, kind of like realizing your parents’ favorite movie is Eyes Wide Shut.
@ 5 DemetriosX
His awkwardness is the only genuine thing about the episode. The constant “Uhhhh uhhhh ummmmm nnrrrrrrggghhh” was miles more realistic than the sex planet where no one seems to even get to second base.
@6 Torie: That’s a totally fascinating parallel that hadn’t occurred to me
It never occurred to the writers either. You could have created a terrific episode on something like that. Wesley’s first away mission, Beverley gets all mothery, Wesley gets cut off from everybody else and the sensors can’t find him, Picard wrestles with his guilt as the audience can see but Beverley can’t, lots of tension and we get to see Wesley using his brains to survive and find a way to make contact with Enterprise. Awesome story. Obviously he isn’t going to die, since he’s a headliner, but you get your tension from how he does it. It’s like a Columbo episode. You know who did it, you watch to find out how and how he figures it out.
@2 Toryx: Anyway, the whole episode hinges on something that doesn’t make any sense (Picard sending Wesley on the away team).
Actually, it’s not totally unbelievable. They’re considering the place for shore leave and the first away team has declared it safe. You’ve got this teenager who’s sort of in the command structure. Why not use him to see if there’s something for kids and families?
“We’re from Starfleet, we don’t lie” marked an important point in my viewing of the series when it first aired. It was the first time I actually said “NO, FUCK YOU!” out loud to the show, even after some of the things they pulled earlier.
What’s especially comical about the line, aside from its delivery, is that it’s pretend officer Wesley speaking it as though he spoke for Starfleet. It’s like a temp worker holding forth on the lofty principles of whatever company brought him in for three weeks of mail-sorting.
I’d hoped Wil Wheaton’s old AOLTV review of this episode would have said more. Actually Wheaton rated the episode rather highly mostly because he thinks it develops Picard better.
Hey all, just wanted to drop in and apologize for the site issues this morning. One minor update wrecked everything. We should be back up and running but if you run into any issues let me know.
Ahh another epsiode that sucks so badly it makes me feel good as a writer.
Yeah they were horribly when it came to sex. It reminds me of all those PG rated SF shows where to show decadence you’d have a character watching a hula dancer.
This episode also turned the Prime Directive into the Convient Suggesttion. If we don’t like your culture we can ignore it. (At least when Kirk violated it he was trying to help out the people and not just himself.)
Ignorantia legis non excusat
Translation: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” John Selden gives the justification; “Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because ’tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.” So I can see why it’s brought up, someone was making a reference to that, but then nothing is done with it.
I still like “The Apple”. :P
THere were too many
scantily dresseddiaper-clad males in this episode. I do appreciate fanservice, but wonder how the ladies like half-dressed men and/ or women on the screen. And on magazine covers.I also like to think that a jealous Edoan intentionally set Wesley up to violate the Punishment Zone.
@4 etomlins- Zapp is a parody mostly of Kirk, clothed as Magnus: Robot Fighter. Although Zapp probably thinks he is modeled after Kirk….
Re: the Prime Directive:
Surely this is just a concept they haven’t fleshed out enough yet. In later seasons, it determines whether they can even talk to the natives as outlander-aliens at all. Here, where they’re allowed to beam down right in front of the Edo, it surely doesn’t apply in full force.
In re: ignorance of the law
I can totally appreciate that the logic is sound — for people within a culture. But surely there’s an obvious distinguishing factor here between the Edo and Wesley Crusher: Wesley’s a space alien who arrived on the planet not half an hour ago.
The “threat” to the legitimacy of the Edo legal system, as a result, makes no sense. There’s no way anybody native to the planet could use the excuse that they weren’t aware of the laws, because none of them are space aliens.
It’s yet another reason the episode just plain doesn’t work, which would’ve been obvious to the writers if they’d thought about it for more than two minutes. Far, far more interesting to have the Feddies inadvertently be the cause of someone within the society doing something he knew to be illegal.
This could very, very easily be made an interesting episode: if instead it’s Wesley who throws the ball too hard, and one of his little Edo buddies who does (perhaps even to try to keep Wesley’s throw from breaking the glass, though it’s not necessary). THEN you would have moral complexity. Now the Federation has to worry about whether or not to impose their own values on the Edo; now the Federation has to wring its hands, knowing it is responsible but unable to act; now you have Edo justice threatened by the outsiders — because it changes the way the Edo behave, instead of being a question of will the mighty consent to place their own necks on the chopping block of arbitrary justice.
#12: “I do appreciate fanservice, but wonder how the ladies like half-dressed men and/ or women on the screen.”
I’m not a lady, but I do like half-dressed men just fine under many circumstances, but not these. Partly it’s the ridiculous clothing, partly it’s the tapioca-pudding blandness of these uniformly blonde and depilated Ken dolls…eh, mainly it’s the clothing, truth to tell.
*sighs* I’m going to rant a little. This show was supposed to be about “new life and new civilizations”, right? Something we should be excited to come across and be eager to learn about and perhaps learn from? Yet so far TNG’s gone out of its way to give us “new civilizations” that are obviously meant to be ridiculous, meant to point fingers at and nothing better. We’ve been given a tribe of H. Rider Haggard-style savages with a hypocritical “code of honor”, a bizarre race of capering and pathologically dishonest simians obsessed with “profit”, and now a bubble-headed planet of hedonistic Eloi with the most idiotic system of criminal justice in existence. Nor would it wouldn’t get any better for a while; we’ve got “Angel One”, “Symbiosis”, and the execrable “The Neutral Zone” to anticipate.
The “Edo” (ugh, why that name) and their weird punitive methods don’t even make sense on their own terms. So…there’s some randomly decided patch of dirt that only a select few “Mediators” with plenary powers know is the “Punishment Zone”. Apparently, so long as within that Zone, it’s a capital crime to, say, break a cucumber frame as Wesley does. So you have to afraid all the time, always, of falling into a cucumber frame? Well, fortunately, even though the Zone is supposedly known only to the Mediators, there’s always a “white wall or fence” around it so everyone knows to stay away. So…what’s the point of the random, supposedly unknown choice of the Zone if, in fact, everyone seems to know where it is anyway? The people who are with Wesley when he breaks the cucumber frame obviously know that it’s that particular cucumber frame that bears the Fudd flag because they try to warn him before it’s too late and they know exactly what’s about to happen the instant he breaks it. Hence, from all that we see, the ostensibly random and unknowable choice of Punishment Zones can mean something only to people who aren’t from that planet in the first place. Everyone else seems to know that this particular cucumber frame is poison but presumably all the others are OK. Who, exactly, is this silly law meant for again? Whom is it supposed to deter?
Let it be noted also that the punishment for breaking a cucumber frame within the Zone (I’m just reminding myself of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games again and again) isn’t merely death, but instant death from a syringeful of nembutal or whatnot. Any delay in administration of the poison is apparently also verboten since the Mediator who is unfortunately prevented from putting Wesley down makes a show of blaming Riker, Worf and the others for “frightening him” by interfering. Instant death that’s meant to come unawares, administered only to people who had no idea they’d done anything wrong, which (as outlined above) seems to exclude anyone who actually lives there regularly…what, again, is the deterrent power of this law supposed to be?
So the Edo’s laws are moronic on their face. No denying that. Yet Picard and Enterprise also have nothing to be proud of. There’s never any sense at all that Wesley’s going to have to take one for the team. Picard makes a show of wringing his hands but there’s never any question that Enterprise is going to leave Wesley to face the Edo’s curious notion of justice. It’s merely a question of how they’re going to do it with Nomad orbiting nearby to prevent Enterprise from doing anything. Merely mentioning the Prime Directive (as I’ve said earlier, one of the main purposes of the first season seems to be to mention the Prime Directive as many times as possible whether or not it makes any sense) isn’t enough to establish a moral crisis. Picard beamed down his away team in full view of the Edo; they never hide their technological capabilities and indeed the Edo seem fully aware of them anyway; indeed, the Edo offer Picard the perfect out. Bust Wesley out of jail and they’ll just have to write him off as an escaped criminal. It’s clear from context that it’s not the first time a wanton cucumber-frame-breaker has jumped bail; the concept is known to them.
That bears emphasis. Saving Wesley would not interfere with these idiots’ cultural development in any way at all–hell, they’re expecting it! The only source of tension left is the interference of one of the dullest and most hackneyed concepts in science fiction, the “multi-dimensional” “evolved” beings that are supposed to pop into existence when Vernor Vinge’s version of the Rapture occurs, and as it turns out, one weak speech is enough to fix that. And even after it’s well established that the only obstruction to beaming Wesley out is from
a floating plot devicethe fake God in orbit nearby, everyone’s still going on and on about the Prime Directive as if it applied to this situation in any way!I loathe this episode with a passion, not just because it’s focused on Wesley Crusher. So are other, much better episodes. It’s the pretension to treating with deep issues not backed up by the slightest trace of reflection or insight. There isn’t even any real tension; as Torie points out in #6, it’s plain from the start that Wesley’s not going to be abandoned to his fate, which makes all of Picard’s interminable woolgathering and soul-searching look like so much worthless padding.
Rubbish, absolute rubbish.
One final irony: Wesley “we never lie” Crusher would eventually try to tell one of the biggest whoppers ever.
@1 DemetriosX
I would have loved if they’d addressed Jack Crusher somehow in this episode, but it was a completely wasted opportunity. I was especially annoyed that Picard wanted to tell Dr. Crusher himself, but she ended up learning about Wesley from some Away Team report. Although, that does failure of communication does sound like something that happens in corporate America fairly often.
It makes sense that a naive boy like Wesley, who idolizes Starfleet and is training to be an officer, would say something like “Starfleet doesn’t lie.” It’s a kind of idealism that a lot of officers seem to have, and indeed, until DS9, for the most part Starfleet doesn’t lie. Of course, in that series we learn they’ve been lying–and doing much worse–all this time, but I still think that to properly serve in Starfleet you do have to believe that in general its intentions are good and that the uniform stands for something, even if the institution as a whole doesn’t deserve or uphold the principles you value.
However, I thought this was an interesting remark, given Picard’s later lecture to Wesley: “The first duty of a Starfleet officer is to the truth.” Wes forgot that somewhere along the way, and that’s one of the most human traits he’ll ever display.
@3 DeepThought
Hard to believe, I know, but I was probably not much better around girls at Wesley’s age, let alone college.
@6 Torie
This world is heavily sanitized, so when Riker starts quizzing Worf on sex you just feel icky and start to panic
Ha ha ha! I hope Riker remembers that conversation seven years later when Worf starts dating his ex.
BTW, you commented on Wesley’s sweater, but nary a mention of his fabulous two-tone pants! No wonder that Edo girl was all over him–she just wanted to get him out of those awful clothes.
@8 S. Hutson Blount
And of course I can hear you saying that perfectly. Didn’t you say exactly that about one of my stories at CW? :P
@10 Torie
You should have blamed the site issues on this episode. Oh well.
Before I give my rating, a little background. In my freshman year of college, I happened across a flyer for a group that met regularly to discuss “Moral and Philosophical Issues in Star Trek.” That was hard for a Trekkie to resist, and I’d discovered that the university’s science fiction club wasn’t a good fit for me at the time, so I went to the meeting. One of the episodes we discussed early on was “Justice.” This was the first time I’d ever met a group of people who treated Star Trek as more than just light entertainment; it was kind of a training ground for this re-watch and the community at The Viewscreen, actually, because I realized you could analyze the show on a much deeper level.
Anyway, for all of this episode’s many flaws, I do appreciate Picard’s struggle with his principles and his duty, and his friendship and personal interest in Wesley. Yes, the Prime Directive really shouldn’t apply here, and it’s a weakness that it’s mostly an issue only because God is watching and judging (Hmmm…), but what works for me is the thoughtful way that Picard works it out for himself. I was particularly struck by his lines, “I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that” and “Life itself is an exercise in exceptions.” Whether we buy it or not, Picard does believe he has to make an important, moral decision with personal and professional ramifications beyond this one encounter–and he handles it about as well as he can. It’s a flimsy conundrum, but it’s one of the first glimmers of the kinds of issues this show can engage with, and will tackle much more successfully later. The plot is wasted and recycled, the writing is often terrible, but that core conflict is an important one. I also felt that the actors are starting to find their characters, and the team is interacting better, though they have a ways to go.
That said, I still can’t quite believe that all this nakedness was actually okay on television, and their “healthy sexuality” is really quite creepy. Some other issues and concerns for me, which haven’t been mentioned yet:
Data contacted the Edo God on his own, without an order from the Captain. Is that cool?
Why can Geordi’s VISOR see things that the Enterprise sensors can’t?
I thought it was funny that as soon as the Away Team realized how the Edo law worked, they all assumed Wesley was going to end up on the wrong side of it.
Picard mentions that humanity can now “detect the seeds of criminal behavior.” Okay. You’ve detected them. Now what?
Finally, I enjoyed Picard’s wistfulness at the end of the episode: “I was hoping we might learn more about it.” Every now and then, I do believe that these people are seeking out new life and enjoy exploration for the sake of it.
I was leaning toward a slightly higher rating until I read all of your comments and thought about the episode some more, but I’ll still give it a Warp 2.
I’m curious, on what basis does an interstellar federation with a directive of non-interference make abrupt contact with a new race? How can they know what effect their appearance on Edo will have on the inhabitants? Particularly, as in this case, knowing the society is ultra-lawful and reactionary. Is not beaming into the midst of their society a form of “interference?”
“We sent some guys down and after walking around for 10 minutes they think it would be all right to send more guys down.”
I realize TNG will try to address this with some intelligence later on, but here it just makes no sense.
A thought concerning the sex (implied) on display: obviously the limitations of television prevent anything frank from being shown but TOS, at an earlier and even stricter time, arguably featured few scenes with more of an erotic charge than TNG managed, especially when it was trying to be sexy, e.g. with all that Risa stuff.
There’s a kind of…smirky, puerile tone to NuTrek sex a lot of the time. It’s not just the enforced bowdlerization, it’s the tone.
I find it interesting that so many of you are talking about the shocking amount of nakedness. I look at the episode and note that there is a greatly increased presence of naked people – mostly-naked men. The mostly-naked women? Fairly standard on television, or on Trek. There were women more (apparently) naked than this on TOS.
But the mostly-naked men, that’s new. And I just find it interesting that the presence of men who aren’t wearing clothes makes the episode all nakedified, when the usual level of skin-baring for women is there.
I’m not saying it’s intentional, or that people are being sexist, merely that it’s illustrative of the expectations that our society gives us.
This is yet another episode that makes me glad I stopped watching with the bouncy bouncy Ferengi. You’ve covered all the reasons why above, in the OP and comments, with which I agree wholeheartedly. It’s appalling, bad TV as well as bad Trek, and is very revealing of what the production staff thought an Eden might look like: as Aryan as possible. Not just all white, but all blond/e. Unfortunate Implications. Seriously, it looks like the background for the propaganda films about the Hitler Youth.
The “smirkiness” amy have a lot to do with the essential premise of these early episodes—the human race has outgrown all of its foibles, is now in a state of perfection and harmony, and can venture around the universe teaching lessons to obviously inferior races in the form of morality plays. The Original Series was never this full of itself—you had Kirk getting all obsessive, then coming to his senses humbled, admitting he was a soldier not a diplomat, hard lessons still to be learned, etc.
This general tenor of smug superiority will continue along until, oh, “Too Short A Season” or around then, when we’ll start to get a sense the human race isn’t so brilliant after all and still has a few humbling lessons to learn, still has sweat and body odor, still has a few asses to be handed on occasion. Then the series in general improves.
Fully acknowledging that I may be giving credit where it’s undue, I assume the Edo people are so-named to evoke ukiyo-e/ related art and the Edo period.
That’s a bit of a stretch. It’s not even pronounced the same, and you have to really squint to see any similarity. It’s possible someone once read an article on the Yoshiwara & all they took away was “Edo = sex”, but without further evidence I’m going to call it a coincidence. There are only so many short, easily pronounced names you can come up with, after all.
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etomlins @14: As I read the episode, the white fence doesn’t mark the punishment zone, it marks a forbidden area. The fence is always there, and it’s always illegal to cross it, but this only results in execution when it happens to be in an active zone (which apparently flash on & off pretty quickly, since that one times out between the time Wesley breaks the frame and the time Riker et al prevent his execution, so their crime goes unpunished). Wesley’s playmates warn him because they can see he’s about to accidentally break a law, but they don’t know it’s in an active zone until they see the mediators running up.
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I don’t find the Edo’s intransigence particularly unbelievable. If you have a system that mandates capital punishment for accidental minor property damage – and don’t get me wrong, it’s a ridiculous system – then it makes sense that you’re going to be hard-line about denying exceptions. It’s obviously not fair to execute Wesley, but the fact is it it’s never fair to execute someone for accidentally stumbling into a greenhouse. The only way anyone’s going to go along with this system is if it’s drummed into them that the law is absolute and without exception. (Also, the Edo don’t strike me as particularly bright. They have a fixed idea of what the rules are, and they’re not good at thinking creatively about what to do in exceptional circumstances. This also explains why they don’t think of warning the away team about how easy it is to get yourself sentenced to death.)
The biggest problem with the Edo is that their system is shown as working perfectly, which just isn’t credible unless they’re way more alien psychologically than they appear. If it worked at all, it seems like you’d get a law-abiding society of ultra-cautious nervous wrecks, not easygoing free-love joggers.
I agree the Prime Directive isn’t really relevant here. The Edo keep saying that letting Wesley go would overturn their system of law, but it’s difficult to believe there’s any practical danger of that. The real issue is one of sovereignty & jurisdiction – the Enterprise crew are guests in a foreign country, one of them commits a crime under local law, and because they don’t like the consequences they use their technological advantage to demand extraterritoriality.
Ultimately, I don’t think this episode is all that bad until the end. If you can overlook the ludicrous Edo society, the orbiting plot device, and the fact that they consistently misanalyse the nature of the issue at stake (OK, rather a lot to overlook…) Picard’s dilemma is moderately compelling. But they don’t come up with any solution to it. The episode runs out of time, Picard & Riker offer some platitudes about the nature of justice, and the Edo god decides to let them go.
#21, Ngogam: OK, your explanation of the probable significance of the white fence is a sensible one. It does fit with at least some of the dialogue after Wesley breaks the cucumber frame. (Gotta love how Wesley’s first and second concern is with assuring all the shocked faces that *he’s* all right, never mind the glass he broke and the plants he trampled. If I were strolling around a nursery and accidentally tripped over and broke a potted plant I’d spare at least a little thought to the merchandise I’d just ruined.) I still get the idea from the scene, though, that the Edoans knew a Mediator was about to pop up. They’re *too* shocked right away, without a hint of the sort of reassurance I’d expect: “Oh…*probably* you’ll be OK, one in a million chance it’s *this* patch they’re monitoring–oh damn–”
I hate this episode more than it deserves, maybe. I want to give it at least a little credit, as Wheaton did, for expanding on Picard’s character and the way he thinks. But this episode…man. It’s nearly all the things in TNG that inspired reflexive disgust, all rolled into one quivering mass: Wesley getting special treatment, nauseating sexual innuendo, yet another alien civilization that’s patently written stupidly to make the enlightened Federation look good, bargain-basement Teilhardism, and saving a bad script with a Patrick Stewart peroration (and a pathetic one at that.) Is this episode really worse than, say, “Code of Honor”? Maybe not but, heaven help me, insulting and wretched as that was, “Justice” gets on my last nerve in a way that the more conventionally awful “Code of Honor” does not
I think I’d have liked it better if the Edo guys were wearing *less*. Guys in Speedos I can dig. But guys in strap-on diapers…
It’s sad that Wesley’s colossal screwup in “The First Duty” occurred the way it did. Yes, it was his most human moment. As part of a normal character development it might have gone a long way to redeeming the kid. Instead it felt like a last-minute axe job. Wesley was plainly being shown the door and, just to make sure, the show kicked him a couple times on his way out by making him into a liar and, by “Journey’s End”, a burned-out loser.
I’m aware that later episodes made the Prime Directive into more of a scientific observation rule, more about not contaminating a sample that a statement of relativism, however that’s not where the Prime Directive started and that returned time and time again to the concept that all cultures are equally valid and the Prime Directive as an expression of that idea. (And like The Doctor, that sentence sort of got away from me.)
During TOS the PD was always about not imposing your views on the locals, not keeping the local in the dark and uncontaminated. In TNG, particularly in early episodes when Gene still had a strong hand in scripting and show running, the PD was again more about your can’t come in and say that their culture is wrong,or bad, or evil, because such distinctions are meaningless and all are equally valid and acceptable. “Justice” is the shows trying to have it both ways. The crew is here and they are forced to accept that this culture has a severe code for criminal justice and there is hand-wringing and stern expressions over what to do. But, when it comes right down to push comes to shove they are willing to push the natives’ belief system into the mud to save heir own, and compound it by extolling how ‘unjust’ (only by their own cultural standard) the natives are until the Feddies are granted their due exception.
Bah!
If you’re going to have a cultural relativism philosophy then put on your adult clothes and accept the consequences of that system. That when you find a culture that always murders female first born infants in favor of males, well that’s just their way and it is equally valid, it is more than just ‘pie with a fork.’ (Bonus points if anyone gets that reference.)
As I’m sure is quite clear, I am not a relativist, and I think the PD can be damn stupid.
The name Edo here might have had a simpler source in The EDO Corporation which anyone who knows aviation would read as EDO Floats. (Floats to make your land based plane a sea plane.) The name didn’t have to tie into some cult or religious view, it only had to sound different. Even if the writer just happened to make it up – without knowing about the company – I’m sure Roddenberry recognized the name but let it go for some reason.
I think Edo may have been meant to evoke Eden (yeah, brother) a little. Sort of a phonetic distraction to make us think the place was nicer than it turned out to be.
There may be some more context to this episode, if my memory is right. I think it was about this time that some American kid in Singapore had been sentenced to be caned for graffiti or something. There was a lot of debate concerning excessive punishment vs. an orderly society. That may have been floating around when this episode was written.
@19 Caitie, regarding the nakedness: I’m not entirely sure it’s the fact that the men are mostly naked that’s driving the comments. Sure TOS had the occasional skimpy costume for women, but it rarely involved more than one or two characters. Here we have a whole planet of them. The women actually all that underdressed and they probably could have gotten away with a little more, but not much. OTOH, it is/was possible to put a man in a lot less while still meeting the TV standards of the day. So when we have a bunch of men in strap-on diapers and skorts, there’s just more skin in general. A question of degree. (The design of those costumes may have something to do with it, too. Seriously, if the men’s outfits were made of leather instead of cloth, it would look like a Christopher St. Day parade.)
Bob @23 makes some good points about the Prime Directive. We’ll come to it later, but the PD episodes that always bothered me the most were the ones where some pre-space society was about to be wiped out by their sun flaring or an ecosystem-killing asteroid impact or some other thing they’re not at fault for and Starfleet just shrugs and says, “Too bad.” There’s absolutely no reason Enterprise can’t give that big rock a little shove, without the people on the planet ever finding out about it. (And bonus points for me; I know all about “pie with a fork”.)
Off the top of my head, I’d say roughly half of the PD dilemmas portrayed in TOS were cautionary tales of direct cultural contamination (John Gill introducing fascism, “Return of the Archons,” Ron Tracy and Exeter, or the Ionians getting their hands on “The Book”). The other rough half were Kirk somehow dodging the PD with some rationalization or handwaving that it didn’t apply (“Private Little War,” “Plato’s Stepchildren,” “The Apple,” “For the World is Hollow…”).*
So I guess I disagree that “during TOS the PD was always about not imposing your views on the locals, not keeping the local in the dark and uncontaminated.” I’d say it was pretty much the opposite, with lots of imposition of (Kirk’s) views.
* “Bread and Circuses” is an oddity, since contact evidently occurred to no apparent effect and no one seemed to care… with the added weirdness that private ship captains can apparently muck around and meddle however they want, unbounded by the PD.
As long as the Prime Directive is a topic of discussion, I must point to two well-reasoned attacks on the doctrine, at least as it came to be applied. There is SFDebris’s video analysis:
http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/prime-directive-analysis-5638650
And there is Eric Burns’s written polemic at Websnark:
http://www.websnark.com/archives/2005/12/what_do_i_do_wh.html
Burns’s critique in particular cites episodes we will be encountering very soon here. In his view the Prime Directive came to be an ethically suspect mixture of crude social Darwinism, half-baked fatalism, and bizarre notions about evolution, all of which would eventually combine in the form of the unspeakable Enterprise episode “Dear Doctor” in which the Prime Directive is in fact invented specifically to justify an act of genocide.
@ 12 sps49
Yeah, I agree with DeepThought, that doesn’t make sense when you’re talking about space aliens. In any case, many legal systems include some form of mens rea, which is obviously not present in Wesley’s scenario.
@ 16 Eugene
The “seeds of criminal behavior” thing also stuck out at me. I’m assuming this society, due to a stated lack of poverty and equal opportunities for everyone, doesn’t have a lot of crime to begin with. I think he’s saying that the kinds of crimes that would persist across economic lines are those mostly the result of mental illness, and thus are treated appropriately?
I did laugh out loud when the crew was informed of the punishments and they all looked at each other and shouted “WESLEY!”
@ 17 Lemnoc
That’s how you know this is early TNG (I mean, that and Beardless Riker). It become codified later that they were not allowed to interact with pre-spacefaring societies at all, let alone muck about in their gardens.
@ 19 Cait
I don’t think people are shocked at the nakedness quotient, just at how unattractive it managed to be. Then again, all I could think of was the fact that these people are supposed to run everywhere and none of them wear bras. There goes my suspension of disbelief, right there.
Just to be a little more specific about my comment waaay up @ 2:
When I say I would have liked to see a pleasure planet episode that didn’t involve a life or death situation, I don’t mean that I want a soft porn episode where we get to watch the crew having lots of sex. I’m saying I’d like to see the crew actually have fun for a change without things getting all grim and stressed out.
I think it’d be interesting to see who hung out with who away from the ship and what they’d do together. Kind of like a better written version of the beginning of Star Trek V.
But then, I’ve always had this thing where I’m more interested in character than plot, which is one of the reasons I’m not a writer.
@19 CaitieCat
It wasn’t just the nakedness, but the fact that couples were going at it (as much as they could in syndication) in the background. Really wasn’t expecting that!
@25 DemetriosX
I think Edo may have been meant to evoke Eden
I only picked up on that this time, when Yar called it an Eden. It was a forehead slapping moment, especially considering all the Eden references in the original series. But I think there’s something to Torie’s comparison as well, unless that’s affording the writers too much credit.
@29 Toryx
But then, I’ve always had this thing where I’m more interested in character than plot, which is one of the reasons I’m not a writer.
I prefer character over plot too, in the fiction I read and write. It’s one of the things I appreciate about young adult books: they are far more focused on characterization than your average science fiction or fantasy novel.
You really have to wonder what the hell they were thinking when the cooked up this abomination. I felt physically sick with embarassment for everyone involved. I’d rewatch Spock’s Brain and the The Way to Eden a half-dozen times each before I could sit through this piece of crap.
I think the weirdest element for me was the skimpy outfits made of toilet paper being paraded around the screen, contrasted with how unnatural and stilted the ‘make-out’ sessions were, and the horrendous reactions from the Enterprise crew…you could just feel how weirded out everyone was by what they were being asked to do.
This has to be close to the lowest point for the whole TNG series.
I’m surprised that no one else has mentioned all the horribly obvious blonde wigs many of the women seem to be wearing. Those are about as embarrassing as the outfits. Ihaven’t seen a “wig problem” ( to quote an original series blooper reel ) this bad since “A Private Little War”, where apparently, it doesn’t matter what side of planet Neural you come from, your hair always looks like a wig.
I once made the statement that “The Mark of Gideon” was the most improbable premise ever presented by Star Trek. I still believe that’s true for logistical reasons (food, sleep, restroom facilities), but this episode really tests my claim.
It’s ridiculous that a justice system would come about that executed people for any degree of infraction. It’s ridiculous that such a penalty would extend beyond intentional crimes to include even accidents as capital offenses. But most of all it’s ridiculous to think that the big machine in the sky that enforces this system would shrug its proverbial shoulders and let a condemned prisoner escape because of a couple flowery sentences by Jean-Luc Picard.
I remember enjoying this episode a little more when I was 13, but I think it had nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with half naked people running around and going at it all over the place.
“I remember enjoying this episode a little more when I was 13, but I think it had nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with half naked people running around and going at it all over the place.”
Funny, I had the opposite reaction. Of course, I was 24 when this aired but I was still a horndog. However, this episode was trying SO hard to be sexy that it had the opposite effect on me. I mean, look at that picture above of the two guys playing instruments; I’m gay, and while they totally have terrific physiques, those stappy diaper things really kill it for me.
It’s like watching overproduced porn where the “actors” are trying so hard to fake that they are really into what they’re doing…it’s just not erotic. In fact, it’s anti-erotic.
Oh, and those terrible blonde wigs on the women didn’t help either. An awful episode all around.
@34
Oh I didn’t mean that it was necessarily arousing so much as just eye-opening. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing you saw on MacGyver or The Wonder Years. Of course these days kids see much more shocking stuff just about everywhere, but 1987 was a much different time.
I just have to say that, upon re-watch, I absolutely love this episode for the five minutes of intense laughter my husband and I had when the away team landed on the planet. We had to hit pause because neither one of us could even pay attention we were laughing so hard. The episode is awful, but not the awful of other episodes that just makes you cringe. This is so worth watching again for the comic relief.
“We’re from Starfleet. We don’t lie.”
Corbomite.