episode #08: Justice

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JUSTICE episode #8, first season / Air Date: 11/9/87
written by Worley Thorne, Ralph Wills; Directed by James L. Conway


Here is the soft porn episode of season #1: on this planet, the all-blond natives run around barely clothed and make love "at the drop of a hat." Cut to: Yar, looking dreamily into space. But wait! All is not copacetic - not for Wesley, at least. If a visitor breaks some strange minor rule, one of the blond enforcers takes out a needle and prepares to... execute the law.    So long, Wesley...    Whoops, not so fast, Riker saves the kid with some Starfleet martial arts moves.    But wait! Due to the Prime Directive (remember that?), Picard may be forced to leave Wesley on the planet...    

I will say, Beverly Crusher is not her usual cold self here and Picard finally shows professional curiosity about mysterious other-dimensional lifeforms, but it's mostly silly because all that the blond natives had to do was mention this pesky 'death' law beforehand. Yar even questions this out-loud - "Who tells visitors about this?" The 2 main Edos (the name of the natives) get blank looks - E-Duh!  This is glossed over because I think the writers just weren't able to adjust this gaff for purposes of the plot. All we get near the end is that ignorance of the law is no excuse; yeah, that makes sense if you're a native, but not if you're from off-planet and the rules are not provided (Yar read the rules and this specific was not in them).
There is also some kind of huge satellite in orbit which functions like a god to the populace of the planet. As with some previous episodes and some future ones in the first season, this one has a goofy, trying-to-be-New Age tone to it but ends up saying nothing (except that, perhaps, a god may just be higher technology? how profound - not; see The Apple on TOS). This has one of the more anti-climactic conclusions to what should have been a tense situation. Brenda Bakke guest stars as the main hottie. BoG's Score: 5 out of 10