The Drumhead

Writing 9/10 Acting 9/10 Directing 10/10

It really is an episode that shows us that no matter what a trial by jury and within the bounds of the law need to be upheld.

One of the first eps that frakes directed and he doesn't disappoint. Again Sir Patrick delivering one of his monologues in the way only a Shakespearean actor can deliver it.

You won't see the modern day ST writers pulling episodes like this out.

Oscar nominee Jean Simmons is outstanding in this emotionally and politically charged episode. She plays "Nora Satie," a retired admiral who heads a Star Fleet investigative team that must determine whether or not treasonous activities have been done by members of the Enterprise, including Capt. Picard.

The episode is marvelously paced, never losing any of the tension, with outstanding performances from not only Simmons and Stewart but other featured players, including Spencer Garrett as novice crewman first class "Simon Tarses".

This particular installment of the series shows how science fiction can make commentary on the machinations of the government and how we all can fall victim to the paranoia that develops when mistrust is placed above faith.

The Drumhead might be my favorite TNG episode. It certainly is my favorite episode that isn't regularly mentioned as a top 5 episode, such as The Inner light, or the good Borg, Q or Time Travel episodes.

The drumhead has the type of villain which really gets under my skin more than others due to the type's continued effectiveness and presence throughout history.

This episode's villain is so camouflaged that she uses one of the typically good characters, in Worf, as an ally in her corruption. And Worf follows along willingly, only seeing his errors at the end of the episode.

It's a phenomenon we can find often in people who get so swept up in an opportunity to create order and justice of some sort, that they end up resembling the very type of evil they're trying to fight due to their own tribal arrogance and exaggerated fear of the other. Often such villains gain power and test the norms slowly one step at a time until before many realize it, there's a completely new evil norm out of a promise for a miracle cure to a problem where a solution hasn't been demonstrated as much as asserted as a problem.

And just like Worf, the individuals who seem to get swept up in such mistaken causes are typically the people who seem unable to spot irony, hypocrisy or enjoy a joke or construct a joke because they're so serious and desperate for vengeance. Their good qualities get obscured by their lesser illogical desires to get their way in solving some issue regardless of the costs.

Sounds familiar? Like many TNG-episodes, this one isn't driving its point home very subtly, but does a good job at it nevertheless. One of the main factors has got to be Patrick Stewart's magnificent acting, especially in his interrogation scene. This guy is in a class of his own.

Yes, the whole way the villain collapses in a fit of rage in the end and lets her real ideas and purposes be seen clearly is not very realistic and obviously designed to bring the plot to an end in the last 5 minutes of the episode. Like so many other TNG episodes, the writers seemed to want to squeeze too much into the 45-minute time-slot and then they'd have to rush the ending.

What surprised me most were countless lines of dialog that have a very eerie quality with regards to our current political climate and especially the shift in politics in the US since 9/11. Considering the air-date (1991), this only confirms how true Picard's statement about how quickly people are willing to blindly trade their liberties for "security" really is.

8/10

I'm pretty much going to assume every admiral we see on this show is out of their dagum mind.