Star Trek The Next Generation: Every Season One Episode Ranked From Worst To Best
23. Justice
Mind the flower beds there will you? Oh you stepped in? Death, so.
There, that's the episode summed up nicely. The original idea for the episode however seems to have been very different. The punishment zones that exist in the episode were established to fight anarchy, but were only applicable to those deemed not immune to them - immediately painting the idea of a totalitarian state with segregation throughout.
Frankly that idea above is more interesting than the dullness that is on show in the televised episode, one that was so different from the script that the writer asked to be credited with a pseudonym. The God of the Edo would reappear several seasons later as the Lysian Central Command in Conundrum, a nicer fate for that fantastic model than being consigned to this episode.
Justice does however mark a significant step for Picard. Rather than letting Wesley be condemned to death, he breaks the Prime Directive and gives the order for the away team to be beamed away, following this with an impassioned speech about laws never being meant to be absolute. This would of course change later in the show when he would come to regard the Prime Directive as so important that he would leave the Klingons to their own civil war rather than break it.
This marks one of several teething problems that the first season went through.