Who Watches the Watchers

Boy, does the Federation screw up this time!!! A group of scientists are observing a bronze age civilization on Mintaka III. As per the Prime Directive, the scientists are hiding behind fake rock in the hills-- shielded from view by the Mintakans. However, their holoscreen malfunctions and the Mintakans SEE them! Sadly, when Picard tries to undo this harm, he accidentally ends up creating a new cult that worships HIM as their god!! So, in trying to undo the damage, they just make things worse!! Should Picard just give up once and for all or is there some way he can possible fix this huge mess?

This is a pretty intriguing show and shows just how much damage can be done unintentionally. Additionally, seeing Picard, the god, trying to dig his way out of this mess was rather entertaining.

Up until the end of this season and beginning of the next, this episode stood out to me as the best of TNG. It does a great job of examining the Prime Directive and has a great performance from Patrick Stewart.

It gets me right in the feels. My favorite episode after The Inner Light.

This is a super episode of Star Trek, a true classic.

What is so great about this episode? The answer is simple. This episode illustrates one of the great flaws of human beings, namely the insanely extreme actions they will take to force others to believe whatever nonsense they themselves decide to believe.

This massive flaw in human being is at the root of endless billions of instances of humans mistreating other humans. Happens every day, in endless ways.

This understanding is not some religious or atheist lesson. People behave this way about endless issues, not just whether god exists or not. People mistreat others for not accepting socialism or communism or democracy or fascism or any number of political systems (all of which are bogus). People mistreat others for not accepting certain kinds of medical treatments. Hell, people kill each other for supporting "the wrong" sports team!

So yeah, the lesson this episode takes on is far more general than religion. The lesson is intellectual independence... or lack thereof. Shall we deal with other humans by intimidation and force, or should humans simply have conversations with each other, and let each draw their own provisional inferences, and update them as they accumulate more and more experience.

Great idea. Great story. Great writing. Great episode.

Futuristic anthropologists get to observe a culture in development by means of a camouflaged station. As anyone who took Anthropology one can tell you any contact with any culture will contribute to the development of same. It's the reason for the prime directive, leave relatively primitive cultures alone to develop.

Star Fleet's prime directive goes awry here when the station camouflage is down and a father and daughter from a cousin race to the Vulcans. One is beamed up to the Enterprise at Dr. Crusher's orders because her prime directive involves saving lives. The patient under sedation sees enough to convince him he's up among the gods of which Captain Picard is Jupiter.

Not wanting these people to develop some kind of religion around worship of the Picard Deity is Patrick Stewart's problem. He takes a potentially dangerous solution to solve it and to save Marina Sirtis's life when she is held hostage by the natives.

An anthropologist's episode if there ever was one.