Justice

So many upset reviewers here. I never knew until now that nerdish incels could be such drama queens. Perhaps if you put on your Spock ears and keep repeating to yourself, "it's only a TV show" you might feel better. I realize that seeing so many scantily dressed actors in this episode made you want to do odd things when you're alone later, but try to contain yourself until then. This episode wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't the worst either as some would have you think. It brought to mind the young, blonde eloi race featured in The Time Machine. Maybe Gene Roddenberry got the idea for the edo from that book/film.

That's what happens if you make contact to species which haven't mastered warp engine technology or any kind of modern technology as it seems...

If you didn't know this already, Gene Roddenberry was kinda sleazy. TOS is filled with scantily clad women and dodgy scenarios. Justice isn't even the first "sexy" TNG episode but it's probably the most explicit one. Thankfully, seeing a planet full of fit, blonde haired people making out is absolutely hilarious. The outdoor scenes were already cracking me up but i lost it when they entered the one building they have.

Aside from being funny, this episode also offers a solid moral dilemma - with a twist! This is Star Trek at its, well, maybe not finest but it's pretty good. The concepts of justice and civilisation, the Prime Directive, the needs of the many - it's got it all. Justice serves as a template for later, more respectable episodes dealing with these things.

This also has Wesley's infamous line: "I'm with Starfleet and we don't lie". Unintentionally hilarious is the best kind of hilarious.

The Enterprise arrives at the seemingly perfect world of Edo, a world where its resident wear as little as possible and run everywhere for some reason. While the away team try to contain Riker's frothing loins, Wesley falls foul of their stringent laws which places him under plenty of death.

Another episode that feels needlessly sexualised thanks to Roddenberry, the episode is little more than people wearing costumes so ridiculous that I felt sorry for them while trying to say something about the relationship between the law and justice. But it's impossible to take seriously and undermines its own story-telling by being simply ludicrous.

I will be the first to say that some science fiction has a penchant of being kind of sexy. Flash Gordon has scantily clad ladies, as had the original Trek which was devised during the era of sexual liberation. Also, Barbarella anyone? There is of course more of this to be found in the comic book realm of science fiction. And since TNG builds upon TOS, having some of that tongue-in-cheek sexyness is certainly warranted.

However in this episode of TNG it is just completely over the top. The away team (including a minor) transports to what I can only describe as a planetary swingers club. The dubbed-in moaning background noises in some scenes is just plain ridiculous. The rerefences to sexual encounters that have happened or are about to happen are so overt they lose all charm.

The other (or main?) message of the episode is about the prime directive, but is is pretty much botched. It could have been good, Picard being in a predicament needing to choose between the life of the one versus the life of the many, weighed against the importance of the directive. But since it was all storied in such a stupid way, I find it an opportunity missed. Bad and lazy writing, really.