I just finished "Masterpiece Society" and disagreed with Picard at the end. His actions in the episode, more or less, were fine, but his whining at the end bothered me.
PICARD: If we ever needed reminding of the importance of the Prime Directive, it is now.
RIKER: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. They're human.
PICARD: Doesn't it? Our very presence may have damaged, even destroyed, their way of life. Whether or not we agree with that way of life or whether they're human or not is irrelevant, Number One. We are responsible.
RIKER: We had to respond to the threat from the core fragment didn't we?
PICARD: Of course we did. But in the end we may have proved just as dangerous to that colony as any core fragment could ever have been.
First, if a society is put in danger just from interacting with the crew, the society wasn't that great to begin with. Second, if they hadn't intervened, as Riker suggested, the core fragment could have killed them all. Third, I was left feeling that Picard didn't necessarily think the Prime Directive was the more moral choice, it really felt to me like he would rather have been able to shrug his shoulders, say, "Prime Directive, what are you going to do" and moved on. I think it was a way to try to assuage his guilt.
Especially frustrating was that the episode was basically a mixture of previous episodes. You had the world coming to an end plotline that to this point, had been used before, such as in "Pen Pals" (another time when he was on the verge of being wrong) and more recently "A Matter of Time" 4 episodes prior. In "A Matter of Time" it's another Earth colony, the only difference is they aren't trying to protect a "perfect" society. However, further eroding Picard's point is that both groups agreed to help from the
Enterprise. Everything they did, they did with the leader of the colony's agreement, eventually.
Picard seems to argue that if they went back in time and replayed the events, he'd just leave them there to die. Otherwise, once he contacted them and started interacting, it was too late to do anything. He could have denied Hannah's petition for asylum, but at that point, the damage was done. If she and the 30+ others stayed, their society would still have been altered.
Another similar instance was "First Contact" where Picard ultimately agreed to leave and keep the knowledge of aliens a secret from the world. Like "Masterpiece Society" a scientist who had worked with the
Enterprise crew requested and was granted asylum. Who's to argue that taking Mirasta Yale from Malcor was the right decision? What if she stayed and her work helped ease her people into accepting alien races? What if she contributed to creating a post-scarcity society for them, improving the lives of all Malcorians? Was taking her away from her planet the best thing for her society? It's not a 1:1, but it's still in the same ballpark.
The episode does have many problems (it really feels like a Season 1 or 2 plot told in season 5 in many ways), I think an easy fix would be to change the ending. I can understand with the recent death of Gene Rodenberry at the point having to be subtle, but that aside, this would have been the best place to litigate why Rodenberry's ideas of "perfect" humans without conflict isn't all that ideal, and why the TNG crew had to come across as more human and have a little conflict every once in a while.
Picard could still get philosophical, "Who are we, Number One, to determine the best course of evolution for these people?"
"With all due respect, Sir, we aren't the ones to make that call. But 30 of them said a perfect world free of conflict and full of perfect people was not worth what they had to give up for that 'perfection'. Who are we to turn a blind eye to them?"
"I suppose so, Will. I just hope we made the right decision."
"Right for whom, Sir? Those who would stifle freedom and subjugate members of their society just to perpetuate their way of life? Seems to me, we made the right decision by those who asked for the freedom to make their own decisions."
"Sometimes the right choices feel like the wrong ones."
"We can agree one that, Captain. After all, aren't you the one who constantly tells me a Captain has to make the tough calls?"
"Maybe it would be easier if the Picard line had been genetically pruned and cultivated instead of the grapes my father harvested. Then again, if that were the case, I doubt I'd be here now having this conversation with you."
"Then maybe it'd be me sitting in that chair."
"Oh, but it's not, Number One, though maybe someday, it will be."
"You can bet on that, Captain."
Fucking YES!!! 
