Hard hitting and serious bottle episode (nothing but previously used sets.) It's designed for soap-boxing, no doubt. I'll try not to step up on mine too often.
It begins with more tensions between the Federation and the Romulans. A Klingon serving on board the Enterprise is a suspect in an engineering explosion that happens at the same time that Romulans have been found to have gained information about the Enterprise's engines. J'Dan is the only suspect of what appears to be sabotage and after being interrogated we see Worf's prejudices concerning Klingons that conspire with Romulans reaffirmed. He asks Worf for help and Worf can't wait to see him die a slow traitor's death at the hands of the Klingon High Counsel.
So, they bring on a retired Admiral, Norah Satie and her assistants - Sabin Genestra who is Betazoid and a secretary called Nellen Tore. They are there to aid in the inquiry and they qualify the character of Satie by crediting her for uncovering the alien conspiracy from the first season episode, Conspiracy. I, of course, would've have rather they never mentioned that one again, but hey, it reinforces her presence as a bigwig. And I loved Jean Simmons. From Guys and Dolls to North and South, she was a wonderful actress. They go to engineering and since there is no other explanation than intentional tampering, she wants to get started right away. Later on Worf finds a very damning piece of evidence that connects J'Dan to the passing of information to the Romulans. It was a method of communication via biological tags which was later used in Star Trek Enterprise and this method could be easily hidden behind J'Dan's medical condition that required weekly injections. J'Dan admits that he's a spy but is adamant about the fact that he had nothing to do with the explosion in engineering. Sabin confirms that he's being truthful, so Admiral Satie concludes that he must have been working with someone else on board and begins to examine everyone on the ship very closely.
At first she's open with Picard and admits that she would rather be in charge than be equal to him and there's a lot of mutual, respectful banter between them. But then her presence and the presence of her assistants becomes awkward as they begin to seriously investigate everyone, even Worf who was totally on board with helping out at first. The reason Sabin gives is because of Mogh's alleged alliance with Romulans at Khitomer which makes Worf very angry indeed. Then after tireless searching they find a young medical tech who J'Dan had had interactions with during his time on board named Simon Tarses. Sabin senses guilt and that he may be hiding something and they think they've got the J'Dan's collaborator but Picard won't let them lock up the kid based on Betazoid intuition alone. Then, they're able to determine that there was no foul play in the dilithium chamber, but that the explosion was caused by a faulty part that had been installed during their last stop at a Starbase. That should've ended the entire thing.
Then the Admiral's presence goes from awkward to obsessive. Even in the face of proof that the explosion was an accident she still pursues Tarses vehemently. She opens another inquiry, public this time for all to see, and accuses him of working with the Klingon to cause the explosion, even to the point of making blatantly false claims based on lies. She does that only to defame his character by spotlighting the reasons for his guilty conscious - that he'd lied on his Starfleet application about his heritage, claiming that his grandfather was a Vulcan when, in fact, he was a Romulan. That makes it appear as though he's guilty since J'Dan was a Romulan spy. Of course, Picard is outraged and likens these proceedings to a Drumhead trial from which the episode gets its name and explains the historical significance. It refers to a 19th century military tribunal of sorts where the officer in command would sit on a drumhead and basically declare the offending party to be guilty under the disguise of a proper trial when the defendant actually has no chance of proving his innocence. It is a witch hunt, essentially. Anyway, Picard will not see this young officer's life ruined so casually and threatens to go over Satie's head to have these proceedings stopped if necessary. But she's one step ahead and has already obtained approval from Starfleet as well as the imminent arrival of Admiral Thomas Henry to observe the rest of the inquiries. She then subpoenas Picard to testify at one of the hearings, dropping all pretenses of being his equal in this investigation.
Picard tries once more to reason with her privately and when that doesn't work, he uses a quote from her own father, a renowned judge, to display the obvious erosion of civil rights that are taking place before everyone's eyes. She loses all decor at this point and begins ranting at him about her ability to bring down many people of power. Admiral Henry is appalled and just leaves and even Sabin is embarrassed and calls a recess. Henry calls off the hearings in the end and there's a lot of dialogue in these spots about how things like this are
always couched in good intention and that people like Satie who spread
fear in the name of righteousness are the real bad guys in life. It's
not a stretch for me to conclude that they're alluding to honorable
institutions of worship and people that adhere to conservative
principles in their lives based on all episodes up to this point and of
course that's annoying, but it's not really the worst part of it. This episode is supposed to be a reflection of the way people were looking for Communists in the 50's and 60's. The quote they made for Satie's father reads, "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured,
the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all
irrevocably." If you can't see that this is exactly what is happening now by those who preach tolerance the most (liberals, socialists, communists) then you're utterly blind. The point to take away is that witch hunts don't work. They didn't work when genuinely good people thought they were doing the right thing in Salem but creating only a bad witness to Christ. In the case of the Communist scare, it even had the opposite effect, causing only sympathy and a willingness to allow them to infiltrate our culture via entertainment and institutions of higher learning which has slowly lead to the problems we're having now which have been featuring more witch hunts only from the other side aimed at Christians, conservatism, and a president that doesn't fall in lock step with the socialist movement of the country.
As disturbing as it is to watch an episode like this fully aware of the political stance of Star Trek and knowing that it is completely opposite to my own, I'm still giving it four stars because it is a genuinely good episode with a lot of good points made in the process. It also adds another building block to the Kligon-Romulan feud, albeit a small one.
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