Episode complete credited cast: | |||
Patrick Stewart | ... | Capt. Jean-Luc Picard | |
Jonathan Frakes | ... | Cmdr. William Riker | |
LeVar Burton | ... | Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge | |
Michael Dorn | ... | Lieutenant Worf | |
Gates McFadden | ... | Dr. Beverly Crusher | |
Marina Sirtis | ... | Counselor Deanna Troi | |
Brent Spiner | ... | Lt. Commander Data | |
Wil Wheaton | ... | Wesley Crusher (credit only) | |
Kathryn Leigh Scott | ... | Nuria | |
Ray Wise | ... | Liko | |
James Greene | ... | Dr. Barron | |
Pamela Adlon | ... | Oji (as Pamela Segall) | |
John McLiam | ... | Fento | |
![]() |
James McIntire | ... | Hali |
Lois Hall | ... | Dr. Mary Warren |
The "Enterprise" is to provide technical assistance to a 3-man anthropological field team on the planet Mintaka III, which is observing, in hiding, the Vulcanoid Bronze Age native population. When the holographic hiding place is ravaged by an explosion, the landing party and its advanced technology are observed by two natives, one of whom, Liko, gets hurt badly and is beamed up for life-saving treatment; Picard orders his short-term memory wiped out to prevent a breach of the Prime Directive, but that fails as Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi find out, after they are beamed down again, temporarily altered to resemble Mintakans, to look for missing anthropologist Palmer. The culture now revives an abandoned belief in a supernatural overseer, worships the Picard, and soon considers offering Counselor Troi as a human sacrifice. Written by KGF Vissers
The outrage of Christian extremists is the best testimony of this episode's necessity and of its continuing validity, 22 years after first airing.
Sadly, fundamentalists will always miss the point. Rather than realise the foolishness of resorting to extraordinary explanations when easy ones are unavailable (as the Mintakans briefly do, believing "Picard is a god" to be the only explanation to the feats they've witnessed); they'll claim outrage and talk of "offense".
"I'm offended" is the newest way dogmatic people have found to avoid thinking, and they'll ride it out for as long as we tolerate it. They'll make up oxymora like "militant atheism" to defend the dogma, because it's easier to throw nonsensical accusations than to actually start being rational about something.
Religious shows can be counted in dozens, atheist shows are pretty rare (there's Star Trek, Star Trek and, at a push, maybe Star Trek), yet that's already too much. Any view that contradicts the precious dogma is anathema, it must be purged from our screens!
Of course, they do look for opportunities to be offended, as often as possible. If atheism is so intolerable, so vile to them; there's an easy solution, one I personally adopt towards all religious shows: not watching.