Practically Perfect In Every Way?

Episode Title: Justice
First Aired: November 9th, 1987

Summary
The Enterprise visits a seemingly-perfect planet to determine if it would be a good place for shore leave--something the crew hasn't had yet and wants very badly. To evaluate the planet for the children, Picard sends Wesley as part of the away team. The Edo are beautiful and seemingly have a perfect society--until it is uncovered that the punishment for any crime is death when Wesley disturbs some legally-protected flowers. Meanwhile, the Edo's "god" warns those aboard the Enterprise not to meddle with its "children," a command that becomes hard to follow when Wesley faces a death sentence. Eventually, Picard and his crew persuade the god--though not its people--that, in Picard's words, "there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute." The god allows the crew to beam back to the Enterprise with Wesley and continue peacefully on their way.


"Playing" Fast and Loose

From the start of the episode, the overt sexuality of the Edo is heavily emphasized. The initial away team reports it at the start of the episode, and the larger away team sees it first-hand in the rather interesting hugs of greeting they receive. What I really appreciate about this culture is how it's handled. Both men and women are equally sexually open (though, of course, heaven forbid anyone be anything but straight--oh, 80s). They easily could have over-sexualized the women but chose not to. I'm also glad that the children kept things innocent since, as awkward as watching the Edo greet the away team was, things could have been a whole new kind of uncomfortable to watch if the children behaved the same.

I also greatly appreciate the Edo's overarching rule of "no one does anything uncomfortable to them." Another easy shock value ploy would have been to make the Edo pressuring in their sexuality, out of cultural ignorance most likely, but again they chose not to do this.

Beautiful Dreamers

Throughout the episode, the crew of the Enterprise remark how beautiful the Edo are. I couldn't help but notice that all of the Edo are blonde and white. You could argue that it's just how their species is, of course, but you would be confusing the rules of the show universe with the agency of the writers. I refuse to believe that they had an open casting call and just so happened to get only blonde white people showing up--more likely, that's who they asked for. Obviously diverse casting is still an issue today, but it was still a shock to see an all-blonde all-white "perfect race" type of deal in something created as recently as 1987.

TMI, Worf

One result of this episode is now we all know that Klingons have rough sex--something I'm not sure we actually needed to know.