TNG S1E7 "Justice" Review by AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

After relocating an entire planet of people, the crew on the Enterprise could use a respite. They happen to find a Utopian planet that would be perfect for shore leave. On the planet, everyone runs everywhere they go, and they hardly wear any clothes. And they're all fit. So fit. And they will make love at the drop of a hat. Any hat. The captain sends down a small group to set up arrangements for the leave, and includes Wesley on that team. This news causes him to smirk uncontrollably, either out of pride for gaining the captain's favor, or at the thought of a place where maybe even he could get laid. There is an incident on the planet that lends credibility to the latter. When the adults realize that it's inappropriate to have Wes around while they're discussing all the boning they're about to do, they send him off with some other teenagers. When the girl asks him if he wants to "play," he responds that there are some games that he doesn't quite know yet. Relax Wes, she doesn't like you like that. She just wants to throw a ball around. Jeez.

"Sure, we can run!"

Meanwhile on the Enterprise there is something occupying space right next to the ship. Data asks that it identify itself, and it arrives to the ship as a colorful sphere, much like the good witch in The Wizard of Oz. When it speaks, it has a booming voice that shakes the ship. So it instead decides to attach itself to Data's head in order to exchange information. Two clear messages that are received are that the being is uncomfortable with how they just decided to colonize an entire planet, and that it wants them to leave its "children" on the planet below alone.

"I got it! I got it!"

On the planet, Wesley clumsily smashes through a flower bed while trying to impress the girl by catching the ball. This is when we learn the one downside of this Garden of Eden planet. Turns out that they have rolling law enforcement zones, all rule violations in the zone are treated the same, and any violator gets the death penalty. This makes them sad, but they do it anyway because....reasons. Of course, Wesley's flower destruction was against the rules and occurred inside an enforcement zone. After a 12 second trial they whip out the lethal injection on the spot. Phasers are drawn, tensions rise, and the execution is put on hold until sundown. During talks, the people on the planet come to realize that their visitors are more advanced than they are, which begs the question: what exactly are they doing on this pre-warp planet anyway? Hello? Prime directive?

"You really think that stupid thing is God? That's hilarious!"

Picard further interferes with their culture by beaming a representative to the Enterprise and showing her their god out the window. This really pisses of the god, and he starts to get all smitey until they beam her back. All throughout this Picard just ignores Dr. Crusher's requests to know if he is going to let her son die or what.

Somehow they conclude that the god will hold them to their own standards, which means not interfering with Wesley's execution. Since the mind-meld or brain-sucking or whatever with Data, the god knows everything that Data knows, so it knows that they are bound by the rules of whatever civilization they visit. When Picard says "fuck it" and just decides to beam Wes home to safety, the god won't allow it. But then Picard gives some weak speech about how rules shouldn't be applied uniformly or something and it changes its mind. It's a weak argument, and the god gives in too easily, but hey, this thing needs to be wrapped up somehow and time is running out. To me, a much better argument would have been to appeal to the god's parenting instinct of protection. When they first met, the god tells them not to harm its children on the planet. Because of this, I think that it would understand that it is also appropriate for the crew to protect their child as well. But that clear commonality goes unmentioned.

Before they leave, they give the god an opportunity to tell them to go back and clear the planet that they just colonized, but the god goes silent. I'm not sure if this was the sign they were looking for to evacuate, or if this means that the thing just doesn't care. Picard takes it as a sign, so I guess they remove the colony? I really don't know, because it's all very ambiguous.

"Justice" has huge holes in the plot, and lacks a clever ending. But to me it will always be a fun episode to watch because of the joyful and sensual environment on the planet. Almost naked people running around and saying things like "Good health to you!" between public make-out sessions is quite entertaining, and makes this a Adequate episode of Trek.

 Published Mar 21, 2017