Episode #95: The Drumhead
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Episode #95: The Drumhead
THE DRUMHEAD episode #21 of 4th season / Air Date: 4/29/91
Directed by Jonathan Frakes; written by Jeri Taylor
The Drumhead trials that Picard mentions here refer to the instant military trials of the 19th century; officers would turn over a drum and conduct an immediate trial out in the field. Picard says that those who were placed on trial in such situations were always doomed. 500 years later, the specter of such summary judgment and witch hunts (ref. also the McCarthy trials of the 1950s) raises its ugly head yet again, on the Enterprise. In the plot, a Klingon exchange officer is caught in some espionage, sending top secret Federation information to the Romulans; there was also apparent sabotage in the Enterprise's engine room. Though the Klingon traitor is obviously guilty of spying, the sabotage seems to have been perpetrated by someone else. This opens the door to a possible... conspiracy.
Picard greatly admires Satie and especially her deceased father, a famous judge, but Picard is the first to realize that things begin to take a wrong turn. The supposed sabotage turns out to be just an accident due to faulty machinery (possibly during the refit after the Borg incident in Family), yet this disclosure slows Satie not at all; she proceeds to interrogate a young officer, Tarses, who has hidden his ancestry but is otherwise innocent. Satie also makes the hearing public; she even lies about the accident during the 'hearing' to try and trick Tarses - evidently any means are justified by the ends in her narrow view.
It was startling for me to see Jean Simmons here, watching her until her meltdown near the end; I remembered her from old films like Spartacus and seeing her as the much older, more stern yet ultimately fanatical figure here is unforgettable. There was at least one other fine trial episode, the 2nd season's The Measure of a Man, but I feel this one outdoes it for sheer dramatics, especially Satie's final scene: Picard brings up her father (perhaps on purpose) and she wigs out -
"How dare you! You - who consort with Romulans, invoke my father's name to support your traitorous arguments? It is an offense to everything I hold dear! And to hear those words used to subvert the United Federation of Planets! My father was a great man! His name stands for integrity and principle! You dirty his name when you speak it. He loved the Federation! But you, Captain, corrupt it! You undermine our very way of life! I will expose you for what you are! I've brought down bigger men than you, Picard!!"
What motivates people like Satie? She herself suggests it in one scene - she has no friends, no real personal home and hasn't seen a member of her family in years. All she has is her mission, her goal to expose, to ferret out, to preserve the ideals of the Federation. If there were no enemies, no plots or conspiracies, she would have no life. What is really chilling is Picard's description of her at the end; according to him, she is the worst kind of villain; with hostile Klingons or Romulans, you know where you stand; with people pretending to be heroes, it's a lot worse. It was also interesting that writer Taylor made a point of bringing up a couple of earlier episodes, such as the Borg incident, as Satie and her assistant try to incriminate Picard; this developed a nice continuity for the show. Worf / actor Dorn also had a great scene and line at the end: "I believed her... I helped her... I did not see what she was." BoG's Score: 8 out of 10
TNG Trivia: this episode also mentions a conspiracy that Satie helped expose 3 or 4 years earlier; this probably refers to the episode Conspiracy, but there was no mention of Satie in that earlier episode.
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