Who Watches the Watchers by: Richard Manning and Hans Beimler and directed by: Robert Wiemer

 

“Who Watches the Watchers” is written by: Richard Manning and Hans Beimler and is directed by: Robert Wiemer.  It was produced under production code 152, was the 4^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 52^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on October 16, 1989.

 

It’s very possible that when Star Trek: The Next Generation is all said and done, “Who Watches the Watchers” might just be the definitive Prime Directive focused episode.  Sure, it’s an episode that writers Richard Manning and Hans Beimler don’t exhaustively examine the idea, the premise of Starfleet having a hidden base observing a population and planet secretly feels like it goes against the idea of the Prime Directive because it could cause problems like this, but it also could be intentional in the script and I’m just misreading the setup of the episode.  It’s an idea just asking for trouble, and sure enough the inciting incident is the cloaking device shielding the base from the Mintakan’s malfunctions and a Mintakan sees it, approaches, and is shocked because of the malfunction.  Crusher has to save him, but that involves bringing him to the Enterprise and everything spirals from there: Picard is seen as a god overseeing the overseers because an attempted memory wipe doesn’t work and the religion essentially spirals.  Much of the conflict of the episode actually comes from the crew of the Enterprise struggling to undo the damage as it spirals further and further out of control: there is a fantastic moment where Crusher insists on healing Liko because it won’t actually make the situation worse and Starfleet is responsible for his injuries.  That responsibility aspect of Starfleet is what is really at the heart of the episode, Manning and Beimler are very clear that it is the crew’s duty to undo the damage that they have done to this society and not be the gods that the Prime Directive is partially in place to stop humanity becoming.

 

The universe of Star Trek is fascinating on the subject of gods, several episodes of the original series include aliens that are godlike, and yet Christian imagery at points is present in episodes like “Bread and Circuses” that suggest Christianity is correct and a faith that would recur throughout the galaxy independently.  Much of this is likely due to the conservative Christianity that dominated the culture in the United States during the 1960s, Gene Roddenberry was an atheist and more importantly a humanist but was raised a Southern Baptist, though there is also some evidence he believed a form of Deism at points in his life.  “Who Watches the Watchers” is perhaps the most explicitly atheistic the franchise has gotten in terms of examining the intersection between religion and science.  The episode is very much interested in keeping them separate, Picard being the biggest advocate of talking to the Mintakins and attempting to put their technology into language they would understand.  It leads to the best scene in the episode where Patrick Stewart delivers a monologue about how their people started in caves, graduated to huts.

 

This is a speech given opposite the Mintakan leader Nuria, played by Kathryn Leigh Scott, who has the perfect timing in not being able to accept that Picard isn’t a god.  Nuria wants Picard to bring back the dead, something that if he could he likely would do due to the dead being those killed by a flood months earlier.  Both major guest players are two excellent character actors: Scott as leader and Ray Wise as Liko, the injured Mintakin who starts the religious fervor.  It’s also built up because the initial attempt is to send Riker and Troi down to the planet to spread essentially heresy and blasphemy for this forming religion.  Gaslighting is the word of the day and there’s just something fantastic about how Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis both play off each other to try and get these people just to forget what Liko saw, the very much idea of seeing a hallucination in an injured state and shock causing the injuries to seem worse than what they are.

 

Overall, “Who Watches the Watchers” is an episode that works so well because it stays as humanist as Gene Roddenberry could at his very best be.  Yes, it has a setup that is particularly messy and the Prime Directive as an idea struggles in general to really work with what has been laid out at this point, but the character drama and humanity at the core of the entire casts performance and the fact that this is not an episode with a villain, everything is concluded peacefully and with understanding exemplifies a lot of what makes Star Trek work so well.  8/10.