In the eighth episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0The Next Generation<\/i>, Wesley is sent with an away team to an Eden-like planet, only to discover the one aspect of their utopia that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horrifying. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
As strange as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Justice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was at times, I actually thought this was a pretty fantastic episode for the show, a fascinating chance to explore the complications of the Prime Directive. That means I had to ignore some of the silliness on Edo, like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, where do I start? Everyone runs everywhere. Their outfits are both totally absurd and frighteningly practical once you think about how often these people had sex. This culture values sensual pleasure, and yet everyone is straight. (And white. Oh my god,\u00c2\u00a0this is all so white<\/i>.) And apparently no one actually does any work? How do these people eat? Who works on their pristine lawns and shrubbery? Where does their electricity come from? Is there any sort of infrastructure here, and who runs that?<\/p>\n
While I think you could surmise that this was all provided to them by their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little distracting. At the same time, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that the worldbuilding matters all that much to the story that the writers try to tell with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Justice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d All we need to know is that this world appears very much like a utopia with one exception: a random sector of this planet is deemed the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153punishment zone,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d where any law broken there is punishable by execution. Therefore, no one on Edo ever risks breaking a law because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever be in the punishment zone. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brutally effective way to enforce the law, made clearly evident by a population that seems eager and willing to abide by such an organization. And that aspect was part of what made this such a complicated situation: the Edo people were\u00c2\u00a0very<\/i> proud of their system of law. This was not a case of them submitting to a set of rules without knowing of the implications of them. They all knew what this meant. They knew of the violent, chaotic history on their planet before the punishment zones were set up.<\/p>\n
So what happens when an outsider breaks one of their laws? On Edo, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sense of degrees; any crime gets the death penalty. This directly clashes with the kind of applicable punishment present in Federation standards, and thus, what the Edo people do is immortal to them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s injustice. But\u00c2\u00a0whose<\/i> injustice? Who is in the right here? Is it moral for the\u00c2\u00a0Enterprise<\/i> crew to pull Wesley out of Edo control?<\/p>\n
IT IS SUCH A MESSED UP CONUNDRUM. That also means that this ends up being one of the more satisfying stories that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen so far. The writers take care to respect\u00c2\u00a0both\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>sides of this problem. The Edo are not doing something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heinous or antagonistic. Could you even say that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an antagonist within this episode? Perhaps the Edo God works as one, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re meant to see this character as a remorseless evil. No, just like the Edo, it has a justified reason for acting as it does. To that being, there is a clear picture of justice. To Captain Picard, there is a clear picture of justice available to him, too. He cannot allow these people to execute one of his crewmembers, especially for the specific crime Wesley committed. But what about his commitments to the Federation? The Prime Directive makes it very clear that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to interfere with this culture and how they operate, but how can he\u00c2\u00a0also<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0contradict his own responsibilities as a Captain?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a damn good conflict to give the characters. We get to see Dr. Crusher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own anguish over the possible loss of her son; we get to see Data realize when his info-dumps are inappropriate; we get to see Riker walk around most of this episode with a giant smile on his face because SEX. And hey, as awkward as a lot of this was, I still appreciate that this show is willing to tackle sex and how other cultures view it. We even got a scene where Worf talked about Klingon sex! (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a sentence I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever type. WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE.) And at the center of this all is the morally conflicted Captain Picard, who must decide between a number of seemingly impossible solutions that might end in Wesley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, his own death, the crew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, or the loss of his career.<\/p>\n
The resolution felt a bit rushed, as I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what the ramifications will be for Edo. Will their God consider changing the absolute nature of their rules? Were the Edo people irrevocably changed because of what Picard and the others did? Was the Prime Directive broken? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know, honestly. But I still found this episode immensely entertaining, one of the better ones so far this season. MORE LIKE THIS.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Justice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the eighth episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0The Next Generation, Wesley is sent with an away team to an Eden-like planet, only to discover the one aspect of their utopia that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horrifying. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to … Continue reading
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