ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Four "Who Watches the Watchers"

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Four "Who Watches the Watchers"
Production Order: 4
Air Order: 4
Stardate: 43173.5
Original Air Date: October 16, 1989

Picard's Log 42173.5: "Going to Mintaka 3. These anthropologists need supplies and someone to fix their generator, because hauling snacks and doing IT work is appropriate for the flagship of the Federation."

Geordi enters the bridge. He tells Picard that they've finished replicating the parts to fix the generator, but he isn't certain why the little three-person lab needs such a huge generator. Picard drops some hints, and Geordi realizes that the anthros have set up a duck blind. Basically, they're studying a group of Mintakans from a distance, but don't want to announce themselves, so their lab is camouflaged.
Troi furthers the exposition by telling Geordi that the Mintakans are "proto-Vulcan, in a Bronze-era."
Worf says the anthros at Mintaka 3 are calling, and the screen gives a hazy static-plagued view of the lab. One of the scientists, Dr Barron, says their generator will only last another three hours or so. Data puts his foot on the gas so they can get there in less than 30 minutes.
But oops, explosion.
The duck blind fizzles out, exposing the lab in a side of a mountain, and one of the scientists tumbles out the front of the lab and down the side.

Kind of hilarious: a few frames previous, Palmer actually climbs up onto the
windowsill in the background of the lab. he didn't just roll across the floor and
 tumble out of the open blind. he basically climbed into the window and then
fell out. No idea what he was thinking.

They lose the transmission.

Dramatic music! Opening credits break!

Crusher and a blue shirt beam down with Riker, Data and Geordi. They start checking out the smoking equipment and unconscious anthropologists.

A father and daughter Mintakan come up the side of the mountain, and it's really familiar.

Everybody whistle!
He teases her about being early to check a sundial, and she protests that she's being thorough because she's now the official record-keeper, and needs to be on top of it.
You go, girl. Don't let anybody give you shit about doing a good job.
Fortunately, they reach the sundial, and it's obvious that he's just flicking shit, because he says her mother would be proud of her for doing such a good job. She adjusts the sundial, but then notices that there's a blinking light up where the duck blind is... not.

They climb up the side of the mountain, and they notice the lab where a lab should not be. The dad tells the daughter - her name is Oji, apparently - to stay down while he checks it out. So he creeps up to the lab and looks in through the open window like Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched. And wouldn't you know it, he sees that blue shirt get beamed to sick bay with the female anthro.

Data walks by the window, spots the Mintakan, and instead of talking to him, tattles on him to Riker.

The Mintakan puts his hand on the window sill, gets electrocuted, and tumbles backward down the hill. Oji starts to go to her now prone and bleeding father, but Crusher's voice coming down the hill startles her back into her hiding spot. Crusher does some scans, sighs, then calls for an emergency beam-up. They disappear, much to Oji's surprise.
In the lab, Geordi completes his repairs, and the blind reappears. Oji runs up and touches it.
...shouldn't Riker, Data and Geordi have noticed her run up and touch the blind?

Picard goes down to sick bay to check on the scientists, and sees the Mintakan lying unconscious in one of the biobeds.
"WTF?" he asks Crusher.
"Don't go quoting the Prime Directive at me," she cuts him off. "He had already seen us, then he fell and would have died if we left him."
"So leave him to die!" says Picard.
"We were responsible for his injuries!" she counters.
"Fine," he huffs. "Do the memory-erasing thing on him after you fix him."
She pauses. "Okay, yeah, I'm familiar with Pulaski's memory-erasing thing. But I don't know if it'll work on Mintakans, because their brain chemistry is different."
(She's referring to Pulaski altering Sarjenka's memory of Data and the Enterprise in "Pen Pals.")

Barron, the head anthro, wakes up screaming about evacuation, and where are his other scientists? They all rush to his side, and assure him that he's fine, and Dr Warren (the female anthro) is here and being treated.
"Where's Palmer?" he demands, referring to the dude who fell out of the window. "He might be hurt!"
"It's all good," says Picard. "We'll find him."
In the meantime, no one has noticed that the Mintakan has woken up and is eavesdropping. Picard calls Worf and talks to him for a few, while the Mintakan stares at him through a fuzzy camera lens.
"Picard," says the Mintakan in wonder.

Crusher rushes to sedate him, and Picard is all, "You better fucking erase that dude's memory."
She gives him some hard-core side-eye as he exists.

The Mintakan is beamed back to the surface. He wakes up and calls for Oji, who comes running.
"I thought you were dead!" says Oji. "Especially when you disappeared with that weird lady."
"I think I was!" he says. "They took me to this place, and when I woke up, I was totally healed and had no injuries. Remember, back in the day, before either of us was born, that the ancestors were superstitious, and thought gods brought the rain and stuff?"
"Yeah, it was crap," frowns Oji. "None of it was real. Just stories."
"No, I think it was real," he insists. "I totes met God!"
WELL, FUCK.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

We go to the Obs Lounge, where a meeting is taking place concerning the away team and Picard. Updates: Barron is okay, but Warren is not doing so hot, and Palmer is missing. Data says that when he scans the surface for life-forms, all he sees is Mintakan. But he says that that area is full of karst topography.
Quick - think back to your last geology class!
Naw, that's okay, Data's got you covered.
It means the area is full of sink-holes and underground rivers and caves and crap. Also, there's some compound in the surface that obstructs the scans.
"You think Palmer's in a cave?" asks Picard.
"Yep," says Data.
"He probably needs to be seen by a doctor," says Crusher. "We need to send an away team to look for him."
"But we can't break the PD again," says Troi. "We'd be influencing their culture."
"Gots an idea," announces Riker.

Riker's Log 43174.2: "Gonna do some recon work to find Palmer and see how much damage we've done vis a vis the PD. Dr Crusher altered Troi and I to look like Mintakans and also somehow implanted our comm badges so we can talk to the E, but the Mintakans can't hear them."

Wait... that last one is possible? Why are they all not implanted?
Anyway.

Troi and Riker beam down in their new disguises, and Troi talks about how sensible the Mintakans are, making for a funny moment.
"Women walk in front of their men," she says, stepping ahead of him. "It's a signal to other women."
"This guy is mine?" he guesses.
"Nope," she laughs. "If you want his services, you'll have to negotiate with me."
"What kinds of services?"
"All kinds."
"They are a sensible race," he chuckles.
They come up to a kind of meeting place, and go inside. The main part is sunk down, and they come into the upper gallery.
Oji and her dad are talking to some others.

"Naw, it sounds weird," says the dad, "but I was totes there!" He turns to an older guy. "Hey, Fento. You know all those old stories. Weren't there like, gods or something? People who controlled the weather, and disappear at will, and bring people back from the dead?"
"Yeah," says Fento. "There was a dude like that called The Overseer. He had crazy powers."
"I met him!" says the dad excitedly. "His name is The Picard."
"Shit!" whispers Troi to Riker. "The procedure didn't work!"

"I think this is crap," says a woman.
She calls the dad Liko, which is awesome, because now I can stop typing "the dad."
Liko calls her Nuria.
"No, I saw him!" says Liko. "Just like the old stories said!"
"Dude, we don't believe in that anymore. Just like we don't believe in astrology or ghosts anymore."
Troi and Riker decide to break in. "Hi, we're visitors, and we're here trading cloth. Can we join your convo?"
"Sure," says Nuria. "We like strangers."

Troi and Riker introduce themselves as... Troi and Riker (guess that's simplest), and Nuria introduces herself as well.
"That's an interesting dream," says Troi.
Holy shit, is she gaslighting Liko?
"It wasn't a dream," insists Oji. "I saw them, too. I'm his daughter."
Troi says something incomprehensible. I mean, I get where she's coming from, but...
"If you're father and daughter, you may have very well had the same dream," says Troi.
They call her bullshit for what it is.

Unfortunately, this is when some more Mintakans rush in, dragging an unconscious Palmer.
"Look what we found in a cave!"
"It's Palmer!" says Liko. "The Picard will be really happy with us!"
"Fuck," whispers Troi.
While everyone rushes to check out the weird, pale human with the smooth forehead, Riker talks to Picard.
"So, this is much worse than expected," Riker says quietly. "They think you're God."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Picard is in sick bay talking to Riker, but also a frantic Barron.
"You have to beam him up!" says Barron. "He's hurt and could die!"
"Yeah, but if he disappears in front of the Mintakans -" starts Picard.
"So what?" interrupts Barron. "We already fucked up, a little more won't hurt!"
Hmmm, kinda surprised at this anthropologist. Seems like he'd be in favor of the PD more than this.
"No," says Picard. "We all took an oath that we need to uphold, and that may include death."

"Can you get Palmer away from the Mintakans so we can beam him up?" Picard asks Riker.
"Maybe?" says Riker.
"I think Palmer is a servant of the Picard," says Liko. "The Picard has a lot of servants, just like the overseer, right Fento?"
Fento agrees.
They speculate why Palmer was in the caves, and guess that maybe he fucked up and was hiding from the Picard.
"We should tie him up!" says Liko.
"That's a bitch move," says Riker. "Tying up a stranger? To please some god that probably doesn't exist?"
"Maybe he does exist," says Nuria. "Evidence sure points that way."
Aww, say it ain't so, Nuria! You were so sensible.
"The Picard was looking for Palmer," says Liko. "He'll be pleased we caught him, and kept him safe. Then he'll grant us favors, like quiet winters, and bringing people back from the dead."
He and Oji share a smile, because of course they want their wife/mother back, and who better to raise the dead that Jean-Luc Picard?
Troi runs into the upstairs gallery and shouts down, "Hey! I found another one like Palmer! Going into the caves!"
She leads everybody out. Only Fento is left behind to tie up Palmer, and Riker stays behind on the pretext of showing Fento how to tie a better knot.
Oji breaks away to check the sundial, ever the good little record-keeper.
I have no idea how Troi knows where to lead these people, but she's marching them off into Picard-knows-where.
Riker ties up Fento, gagging him. "Sorry, dude. Palmer needs to leave."

Riker grabs Palmer in a fireman's carry, and is heading out of the meeting place when Oji comes back from sundial duty.
"What are you doing?" she shouts to Riker.
"Fuck!" he says, and tells Data to lock onto him to beam them both to sick bay, but only on his signal. Then he runs as fast as he can away from the settlement.
Oji, in the meantime, screams to the others that Riker is making off with Palmer. Troi makes a "well, shit" face. Most of the others go running toward the meeting place, but Nuria assigns a Mintakan dude to keep Troi from running away.
One guy, who is clearly the Usain Bolt of the Mintakan race, runs after Riker. Dude has a bow that's obviously crazy technical, but they've covered quite a bit of it in animal furs and things, so it looks Bronze-age.
Riker dumps Palmer in this tiny crevice thing, then climbs in after him, and comms for a beam-up. They disappear just before Bow Dude comes up on their hiding place.

Also, I think that's graffiti that the film crew tried to cover, Lol.

When Riker hits sick bay, he asks Data if Troi beamed up, but Data tells him that Troi is in the middle of a group of Mintakans.
"Shiiiiiit," says Riker.
Downstairs, Fento is untied, and the others demand to know why Riker and Troi kidnapped Palmer.
"We set him free," she explains. "We don't believe in this overseer thing."
They're pretty sure that Riker and Palmer are still in the area, so they send out search parties.
"The Picard will be angry with us," says Liko. He turns to Fento. "Aren't there stories about the overseer getting angry and fucking up all the shit?"
"Yeah, but they're just stories!" protests Fento.
Man, I like Fento. Even when he's kind of agreeing with Liko that "it could be" or "yes, there was a story like that," he's still insisting that these were stories and nothing more. Shit, dude was even tied up in all this crap, and he's still insisting!
Liko, though. I dunno about him. I liked him initially, but in the course of a few hours, he's gone from perfectly reasonable, to religious zealot.
And then he says this shit:
"The Picard will be angry that Riker and Troi kidnapped Palmer. Maybe if we punish her in his name, he'll know that he should just be angry with Troi, and not us."
Tying people up and punishing others. WTF, Liko?

Of course, Troi's internal comm is still open, so they can hear everything on the bridge.
Nuria, ever the voice of reason, steps forward.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Liko? You're gonna torture her?"
"Well, yeah. If it keeps the Picard off our backs," he replies.
"Yeah, no," she answers. "We'll keep her as a hostage, but we're waiting until the search party comes back with news of Riker and Palmer. If it's bad news, then we can torture her."
I thought this race was supposed to be sensible.
smh.

Meeting in the Obs Lounge with Picard, Riker, and Barron.
"Do you think they'll actually hurt Troi?" Picard asks Barron.
"Normally, I'd say no," reasons Barron. "But we rekindled their faith in a god, and they're looking for guidance from said god. Without that guidance, they may actually do it. Look, we've already violated the PD. You should really just go down there. Tell them what to do."
A tired, frustrated Picard Maneuver.
"Fuck that," says Riker. "You cannot be serious."
"Agreed!" says Picard. "They stopped believing in this shit generations ago. Why would I encourage it again?"
"Because without guidance, they'll just run amok, and start holy wars and shit. Inquisitions. You don't want that, do you?"
Barron has a point.
"I'm not going down there and imposing commandments on those people, like I am some god," growls Picard.
Picard has a point.
I have a point: if Picard imposes this crap on the Mintakans, and millennia from now, they venture out into the stars, what the hell is the Federation going to say to them?
"Oh, hey. Funny story. Remember when you guys found God again? That was us. Isn't that hilarious?"
And then the Mintakans declare war on the Federation for being douche-bags.
A very angry Picard Maneuver, and he asks about the group's leader.
"Nuria is reasonable," says Riker. "And they trust her judgment. You could possibly convince her that you're not a god, and she could persuade the others."
"How will you do it?" asks Barron skeptically.
"She thinks I'm magic," says Picard. "So I'm gonna beam her up and show her what's behind the curtain."

Data calls Troi.
"Hey. I see five Mintakans around you. Is Nuria one?"
Unable to just talk to herself, Troi is stuck clamping her mouth shut and making "Mmm-hmm" and "un-uh" noises. Riker has to explain what they mean to Data, and when they figure out which one is Nuria, Picard tells him to lock on her, wait until she's alone, then beam her to the transporter room.
Picard relieves the transporter chief, then when Nuria is alone, he beams her up.
Thank Picard she wasn't taking a crap or something. Can you imagine?
Nuria is very surprised to find herself someplace completely different, and looks at Picard in shock.
"Don't be afraid," he says.
Okay, you already sound like God, dude.
"I'm Jean-Luc Picard."
She genuflects. He looks hella awkward.

Dramatic music! Commercial Break!

"Get up, for fucks sake," he says, embarrassed.
He forces her to look at him, then makes her touch his hands, explaining that he has a pulse, and is just as simple a living being as she is. She still isn't buying it, wanting to avert her eyes and drop to her knees.
"Let's go see a thing," he says, and he takes her to the Obs Lounge to look at Mintaka 3.
She's amazed. "This is my home?"
"From far up, yes," he says.
"How come we don't fall?" she asks.
He doesn't answer, probably because finding out God is a hoax and learning about the lack of gravity in space is too much for one afternoon. She tells him that his powers are amazing. Which is kind of funny, because she said the same thing about the doors opening at their approach.
He decides that she still isn't getting it, so he takes another tack.
"Okay, you guys live in huts, right? Did you always live in huts?"
"Nooo," says Nuria. "We found really old tools that point to our ancestors living in caves."
"So how come you don't live in caves anymore?" he asks.
"Huts are better," she shrugs. "They're drier, not so cold and dark."
"A hypothetical," he suggests. "Let's say you run into one of your cave-dwelling ancestors. How you look to her?"
It takes a few turns, but he eventually convinces Nuria that she would appear to have magical powers in the eyes of this ancestor.
"I'm no longer afraid of you," she says confidently.
"Good. My people also used to live in caves. Then they built huts, and after a really long time, built ships like this one. We're very similar."
She looks out the window. "Maybe someday my people will travel above the skies."
"Bet they will," he says quietly.

Downstairs, a thunderstorm is forming.
"It's not the season for this kind of storm," remarks Liko. "Picard is very angry because we let Palmer escape."
Crap, that's easy. All you need is something that's not 100% ordinary, and then tie a claim to it that no one can prove either way. Bam. Instant human sacrifice.
"Maybe there will be another flood," he says, working himself up. "My wife died in last year's floods. Maybe we'll all die in this one because the Picard is pissed off."
He runs off to find Nuria. Fento follows, but it's clear that he still thinks a bunch of this is garbage, because when he passes Troi, he pats her on the shoulder reassuringly.

This set is amazing, y'all.

Picard takes Nuria to his ready room, where she checks out a model ship.
"Can I ask a favor for my people?"
He smiles, and says that she is a good leader.
"Six people died in a flood last year," she says. "Four of them were kids. Can you bring them back to life?"
"That's not a thing I can do," he replies.
"Why not? You brought Liko back from the dead. Did they offend you? Did I? Should I have killed Troi for you?"
"Shit," says Picard. "You still think I'm God?"

Downstairs, Oji reports to Liko that Nuria is still missing. The search party comes back and says that Riker and Palmer are still gone as well.
"We have to punish Troi," says Liko.
"That's fucked up," says Fento reasonably. "Nuria wouldn't be down with that."
"Yeah, well, she's not here!" shouts Liko.
He holds out his hand to a hunter. The hunter hands him his bow.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Warren is dying. Crusher calls Picard, who must have been nearby, because a moment later, he and Nuria enter sick bay. Barron holds Warren's hand and tells her that he's there, and she convulses and dies. Barron is upset. He and Crusher walk away in the direction of Crusher's office. Maybe they're gonna do paperwork, or call her next of kin? It's a weird moment, but it's covered up by the fact that this is all just a demonstration for Picard to prove his point to Nuria, so we're focused on them, and not the exit stage left of Crusher and Barron.
Fortunately, Picard's demo works.
"You couldn't save her?" asks Nuria, checking out Warren.
"Naw," says Picard sadly. "We do awesome stuff with technology. We can cure disease, fix injuries, and extend life. But when it comes to death, we're in the same boat as you guys."
"You guys are advanced, but you're not gods," says Nuria definitively. "I have to tell my people this."
Picard is too polite to say "fucking finally."

Downstairs, another Mintakan holds Troi while Liko prepares to shoot her.
She tries to reason with him.
"I have to do what the Picard wants," he insists, though he doesn't seem certain.
Damn, dude. Look how quickly Liko decided that he had a direct line to God. I mean, shit.
But Troi decides to play up his uncertainty. "Yeah, that's the problem with believing in a god," she says. "You have to try to figure out what he wants."
Oji, realizing this has gone far enough, also backs Troi.
Frustrated, Liko decides to pray out loud. "Picard, tell me if I should kill this woman!"
And look who strolls around the corner, just in time.

Liko starts to genuflect and avert his eyes, but Picard is all, "Get up. I'm just a guy with advanced technology."
"It's true," says Nuria. "I've seen his people. They die, just like we do. And they can't prevent it."
"But you brought me back to life!" Liko insists.
"You weren't dead, numbnuts," replies Nuria.
"Bring my wife back from the dead!" says Liko suddenly. "Bring her back with your awesome godpowers!"
"I can't" says Picard.
And Liko starts in with that crazy, "have I made you angry?" line of questioning.
"Dude, it's not possible!" shouts Picard, who is sick of this shit. "I don't have that power, because I'm not a god!"
And Liko, who still seems kind of reasonable, but is talking crazy, turns and backs up so he can get a good shot in with that stupid bow.
"I'm gonna prove that you're a god by shooting you! You'll be just fine!"
Nuria dives in front of Picard. "Noooooo!"
He pushes her out of the way. "Fine! Shoot me! I'm a mortal dude. I'll totes die. But if that's what it takes to convince you, then I guess I'm dying today."
Death by Prime Directive Complication. Weirdest death certificate ever.
A couple things happen: Nuria screams at Liko not to do the thing, Oji screams at him not to do the thing, and pushes on him, and Liko does the thing.
BAM. Right in the ol' fake ticker.

Nuria shows Liko that Picard is bleeding. She makes her best Mintakan Horror Film Face. Liko whimpers like a naughty little boy who has been caught shooting an extraterrestrial with a technical bow.

Picard's Log, supplemental: "So Crusher fixed me up, and I'm beaming down one more time so we can take apart the duck blind."

"Truth time," Picard tells the Mintakans. He comms Geordi to turn off the duck blind holo.

"The hell is that?" demands Nuria, staring at the exposed lab.
"A place where we can watch you without you knowing," he explains, and which doesn't sound creepy at all.
Fento is fascinated. "Why would you want to watch us?"
He's smiling in a way that makes me wonder if Fento... likes to be watched.

"We used to be like you," Picard explains. "We feel that, when we study you guys, we learn about us. But now we have to take it down, and go away."
"But why were you hiding?" asks Fento.
And Liko, who seems to have learned his lesson four-fold, answers, "They would end up affecting us, just like they affected me."
Picard nods and gives them the quick and dirty on the Prime Directive.
"You didn't mean to reveal yourselves to us," guesses Oji.
"Nope," says Picard.
"But you can teach us stuff!" says Oji.
"Naw," says Picard. "Prime Directive. We can't interfere with your development."
"It's cool," says Nuria. "You at least taught us that we can do anything, even go to the stars."
She gives him a tapestry that they made, and they clasp hands. "Please remember our people."
"Always," he says.

So this episode is pretty good.
Some things that I liked especially were the duck blind, what can go seriously wrong with the Prime Directive, and the struggles of being the doctor on a starship.
I found the idea of the duck blind intriguing for several reasons. It gives us a glimpse into what the Federation does when studying a pre-warp people. Anthropologists today will study cultures less advanced than their own, but they'll often just walk right in, introduce themselves, and live there with the people. There's no PD, so they're free to just share, share, share and interfere. (Interestingly, I watched this documentary about ornithologists working in the Amazon, interacting with all of these indigenous tribes while trying to find out what made this one bird poisonous. When they returned at a later date, a tribe approached them and said, "The bird eats poisonous bugs! Come see our research!" Some of the scientists go out to the village, where the tribesmen have collected said bugs in a box, pinned them down, and labeled them. Copied straight from the scientists. Very anti-PD.) Here, where the scientists are operating under the Federation's rules, they've had to get clever when practicing non-interference. Notice though, how quickly Barron is to dump the Prime Directive in favor of saving Palmer. It makes me think that anthropologists are willing to live with the PD, but will go around it if it gets them what they want. Overall, they end up with a non-tainted version of the events of a people, which seems far more valuable than just walking in and living with the people in question.
We've seen plenty of examples of where the Prime Directive can go sideways, but each time it does, it's resolved differently. The example that most quickly comes to mind is the TOS episode "The Apple." Different show, different captain, different outcomes. In The Apple, an away team discovers the Vaalians, and rather than walk away, decides to engage them. Here, it is known that pre-warp people exist on the planet and a wish to study them leads to doing so under disguise. In TOS, once contact is made, the away team begins telling the Vaalians that their way of life is not great, and by the end of the episode, Kirk is convincing the Vaalians that what they want is to engage in human-like behaviors. (Yes, the Prime Directive is mentioned, and summarily ignored.) In TNG, the duck blind is accidentally discovered, Crusher breaks the PD to save a Mintakan, and in treating him, the Mintakans' atheist ways are discarded to make Picard their God. Picard ends by attempting to repair the damage they did, and preserving their culture as best he can while still sort of salvaging what's left of the PD. Kirk decides that the Vaalians are doing things all wrong, and kind of declares himself the hero. Picard insists that he is not God, and attempts to put things back  to right.
There are a few times when we've touched on a certain subject but haven't spent a lot of time actually exploring it - that of the Hippocratic oath versus the Prime Directive. It must be tough to be a doctor on a starship at times, attempting to treat people for illnesses you've never encountered, performing surgeries on the fly, and never knowing what might be out there when you hit terra firma on some unexplored planet. But even though times appear to have changed, the first rule about being a doctor (do no harm) appears to be the same. Interestingly, there is a decent comparison here between The Apple and Who watches the Watchers? in terms of the doctors involved. In The Apple, McCoy declares that the Vaalians are not living any kind of life like they should, and Spock reminds him that he's assigning human traits to non-humans - who knows what they want? But McCoy, seeing that Vaal has basically enslaved these people, encourages their being set free. He is more concerned with their well-being than preserving the Prime Directive. In Watchers, Crusher also eschews the PD for her Hippocratic Oath, arguing with Picard that they helped bring about Liko's injuries, and that she felt a responsibility to fix them before sending him off again. It seems that when the going gets tough, the doctors go "fuck it," and put their patients first. It makes me wonder how medicine is taught in Starfleet. I mean, I don't think you can be a CMO unless you're an officer (both Pulaski and Crusher reached Commander by this point, and McCoy eventually hit Admiral), and most of the medical assistants appear to be civilians, but the anthropologists did not appear to be Starfleet at all, yet Picard reminds Barron that they all took the PD oath. It seems that if you want to work with the Federation, you take the oath no matter what, and it supersedes any others. Speaking of Pulaski, we saw her thoughts on this subject as well, in season two's "Pen Pals." She argues against the Prime Directive, in favor of doing something to help Sarjenka's people. That would be her Hippocratic Oath showing. Later, Picard forces her hand, and she willingly alters Sarjenka's memories in order to preserve the Prime Directive. (Interestingly referenced in this episode.)
The subject of Hippocratic Oath versus Prime Directive is a fascinating one - do you help one person and possibly sabotage an entire people? Do you save a culture by sacrificing one of their number? Is it compassion vs preservation? Spock's assertion that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" are generally overwritten by one's internal Hippocrates, who calls a doctor to "save 'em all." I'm hoping we see this subject come up again in the future.
The last sort of unintentional topic this episode brings up (for me, at least) is one of faith: what do fans of faith think of these episodes? It's no secret that Gene Rod was atheist, and pretty much made the Federation atheist as well. Every now and again, an episode will crop up in which a character tells someone else that there is no such things as gods, or that humans have outgrown gods as a species, and no longer have need of such a thing. And while there are more atheists now that there have been in the past, we remain a species that depends on faith. And so I wonder what those Star Trek fans think of episodes like these. Do they write them off? Use them to examine their own beliefs? It is too simple to say that there are no fans of faith, because it isn't true, just as it is untrue to say that there are no scientists of faith. Science and faith are not exclusive things, and while I'm sure Star Trek probably did receive some hate mail over the years from people of faith who felt insulted by a program like this, I'm really more curious about the fans who continue to watch, knowing that the show takes a slightly different view on the matter than they perhaps do. (There is an article on this in Star Trek Magazine, issue 41, called "Faith in the 24th Century" which seems to be frustratingly unavailable online.)


Fun Facts:

- The title for this episode is a direct translation from a Latin phrase first used in Rome in the first and second centuries.
- This episode was filmed at Vasquez Rocks in California, a popular shooting locale for the Star Trek franchise. The temps at Vasquez Rocks during the shoot often hit 100* or more, and because things like perfume or deodorant were attractants for local snakes, scorpions, and bees, none could be used. Heavy costumes, heavy make-up, heavy wigs. Pretty sure I'd just die.

- That crazy technical bow with the fur and thongs was a Martin Dyna-Bo.

- The actor who plays Barron will appear in DS9.
- The actor who plays Liko will appear in Voyager.
- This is the final time that Pulaski will be mentioned by name on TNG. In the last episode of Voyager, she'll be paged at Starfleet Medical over the intercom, but no more from this show.
- This is the first time we see Crusher's longer lab coat.
- The Mintakan tapestry will appear in Picard's quarters throughout the rest of the series, and in every TNG film, barring Insurrection.
- The planet used here is also used as Betazed.
- When Picard and Nuria view Mintaka 3 in the Obs Lounge, the planet is rotating in the opposite direction than it should be. (In orbit, the planet rotates to the left. In the Lounge it is shown rotating to the right.)
- This is the first episode where Riker is shown going undercover on an alien world. He'll do it three more times.
- This is the second time that Picard has taken an alien female to the Observation Lounge to view her planet, the first time being "Justice." He'll do it a third time in one of the films.
- This is the first time we see a duck blind being used to study a civilization without their knowledge. It'll be used again in a film.
- Because the duck blind was not in a holodeck, the rocks should not have been solid matter, only an image of rocks. Oji should not have been able to touch them.



Red deaths: 0
To date: 0

Gold deaths: 0

Blue deaths: 0
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Riker Moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Picard Moments: 0
To date: 3

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 2

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 0
To date: 7

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 0
To date: 2

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 1
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date: 1
Picard Maneuvers: 2
To date: 10

Midnight