Mintaka III is home to a pre-Warp civilization whose evolution closely parallels that of Vulcan. It is also home to an anthropological field team, studying the Mintakans. The base, which is holographically camouflaged to look like part of a mountain, is having trouble with its reactor. Enterprise rushes to the site to perform repairs. But it arrives too late, and the reactor blows, exposing the base to a Liko (Ray Wise), a Mintakan man, and his young daughter.
Liko is injured by the base's equipment and falls down the mountain, where he lays dying. Dr. Crusher requests emergency beam-up to save him... and opens a major new can of worms. Liko regains consciousness just long enough to see a room of wonders. When he is returned to his people, he tells them that all of their ancestors' superstitions were true, and that they are being watched from above by a god known as "The Picard."
If that's all there was to it, Liko would probably just be dismissed as a crank by the other Mintakans. Then Palmer, the missing member of the field team, is brought into the village - and the results may well push the Mintakans back into a superstition-filled Dark Age!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Picard's faith in the Prime Directive is resilient. When first confronted with Dr. Crusher's actions, he demands to know why she didn't just let Liko die. He resists Dr. Barron's suggestion at intervening as a deity, and tries to find a way to limit the cultural contamination by reasoning with the Mintakans' leader, Nuria (Kathryn Leigh Scott). Patrick Stewart is splendid throughout, and gets some excellent scenes, particularly near the end.
Riker: Comes up with the plan to rescue Palmer and investigate the extent of the contamination. He does fairly well at acting as a voice of reason against Liko. His quiet persuasiveness may well have worked to marginalize Liko's claims, if not for Palmer's discovery.
Troi: Does some quick thinking to distract the Mintakans while Riker rescues Palmer. After that, she is basically thrust into the "damsel-in-distress" role, but she still maintains her composure. She even provides vital help to Data in isolating Nuria from the other Mintakans. Though it admittedly isn't saying much, this is one of Troi's better episodes, and Marina Sirtis is on good form here.
Dr. Crusher: The interactions between Picard and Crusher at the beginning of this episode recall their conflicts in Symbiosis. Dr. Crusher sees Liko is hurt, and her sense of morality and duty as a doctor insists that she help him. Picard considers the Prime DIrective to be of greater value than one individual's life. Given that Picard spends an entire episode papering over the damage done by Dr. Crusher's humanism, this encounter seems to firmly support Picard's side of the argument.
THOUGHTS
Who Watches the Watchers is another Season Three episode that legitimately tries to do something interesting. So far, that's one area in which Season Three is standing above the first two seasons: Not all of the episodes work, but all of them are genuinely trying. No Outrageous Okanas here.
I'm afraid that, despite good intentions, this episode ends up being a "near miss" for me. The scenes involving Picard and Nuria are interesting and well-acted by seasoned professionals Patrick Stewart and Kathryn Leigh Scott. I also enjoyed Picard's confrontation with Liko. But, like a lot of these "Prime Directive" episodes, I just never fully bought into the scenario.
I could not for an instant believe the central premise, as stated by Dr. Barron, that a tiny incident in one small village represents irretrievable cultural contamination of an entire planet. Even if this one village decides to believe absolutely in "The Picard" - and the obligatory wise old man seems to have his doubts, at least - it is far from inevitable that one small village's beliefs will become a religion that will sweep the planet.
I commend this season in that, so far, it's had no episodes that seem to be there only to pad out the episode order. But while Who Watches the Watchers isn't bad, it isn't particularly good. It's acceptable time filler with a few good scenes and performances, but it falls decidedly short of its own ambitions.
Overall Rating: 5/10
Previous Episode: The Survivors
Next Episode: The Bonding
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