Who Watches the Watchers?

[Willieck]

I have mixed feelings about this one. The story is quite good and obviously pre-empts "Insurrection". However the production is stagy and most of all, the character of Liko bothers me. Compared with the other characters in the story he is to coin a phrase "as thick as a brick" so how come he is a position of some authority? Also the acting of Ray Wise who played Liko is so wooden. I have seen better performances in school plays by infants of six.

 

[Praxius]

I have mixed feelings about this one. The story is quite good and obviously pre-empts "Insurrection". However the production is stagy and most of all, the character of Liko bothers me. Compared with the other characters in the story he is to coin a phrase "as thick as a brick" so how come he is a position of some authority? Also the acting of Ray Wise who played Liko is so wooden. I have seen better performances in school plays by infants of six.

In regards to the bolded section, just look at those in our various nation's political systems and how dim witted, small minded and thick they can be.

Many of these type of people get into power by knowing how to act on other's fears and ignorance, as though their intentions are to protect.

Then again, he seemed to be a wise and decent person, but when faced with something akin to Gods, that could probably change anybody's frame of mind (including those who once never believed in them)..... and not knowing what these "Gods" want or don't, it's easy to become erratic and make some dumb mistakes.

I'm no longer religious, but I can't say how I'd react if something "Supernatural" occurred right in front of me.... since I have no personal basis of reference.

 

[TV's Frank]

Agree with Praxius, his words make sense!

 

[Praxius]

Agree with Praxius, his words make sense!

You will Comply..... Resistance is Futile!

But back on track a bit.... I can't remember the name, but the female Picard brought up to the Enterprise took what seemed to be hours to convince they were not gods.... while Picard convinced Liko in just a couple of minutes..... although it had to take Picard having an arrow impale him before he believed.

Which, while diplomatically made sense on Picard's part since he didn't want to ruin a society any further by them believing he's a God, I would have scared the sh*t out of him, and threaten to shove a lightening bolt up his arse if he shot an arrow at me.

God is Angry

 

[Shatnertage]

He reminded me of Phil Hartman.

 

[Alrik]

But back on track a bit.... I can't remember the name, but the female Picard brought up to the Enterprise took what seemed to be hours to convince they were not gods.... while Picard convinced Liko in just a couple of minutes..... although it had to take Picard having an arrow impale him before he believed.

Close. Nuria understood that Picard & Co were not 'Gods' per se, but because they were able to save Liko, thought they were much more powerful than they really were. It took to the death of Warren right in front of her to get the point across that there was a limit to their power/ability. When it came to Liko, Picard was probably already pretty spent from trying to get the point across to Nuria, so he just decided it would be easier to take the arrow.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm no longer religious, but I can't say how I'd react if something "Supernatural" occurred right in front of me.... since I have no personal basis of reference.

You mean we have to die and be revived by aliens in order to discuss the merits of this episode?

 

[Praxius]

I'm no longer religious, but I can't say how I'd react if something "Supernatural" occurred right in front of me.... since I have no personal basis of reference.

You mean we have to die and be revived by aliens in order to discuss the merits of this episode?

No... speaking hypothetically anybody can say anything.... but to be sure how I would react.... I don't know.

In today's world and understanding and what I know now, chances are, something crazy happening in from of me could be explained or understood by me as being alien, future technology, etc..... but at the same time, while I don't follow any common religious beliefs, I do believe there's some form of afterlife and that there are things in our world that can not be easily explained (Even with today's understanding and tech)

Since I never had an experience like what occurred on this episode, I can not say for sure how I would react..... I can only assume I'd act rationally, but then again, how do I truly know until it happens?

It's like being in the military, being trained for months or years on combat and thinking I'll deal with a real battle as I was trained...... but as shown many times in many wars through many experiences, the moment the bullets and shells start flying, those who thought they could handle it could easily shat their pants and cower in the corner, while those who thought they couldn't handle it, end up going rambo on the enemy.

In some situations, nobody can easily determine how they'll react to something until they're actually faced with it..... be that seeing something like a God, being tossed into a war, having your first child, or facing a loved one dying in the hospital......

 

[Forbin]

I'm no longer religious, but I can't say how I'd react if something "Supernatural" occurred right in front of me.... since I have no personal basis of reference.

You mean we have to die and be revived by aliens in order to discuss the merits of this episode?

Luckily, that actually happened to me.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

However the production is stagy and most of all, the character of Liko bothers me. Compared with the other characters in the story he is to coin a phrase "as thick as a brick" so how come he is a position of some authority?

Well, to be fair, like all other episodes depicting primitive cultures, they were depicted far more civilized than I would expect them to be, especially for a small village, and I'd say the trouble was with the rest, not with Liko. But then, I might be underestimating primitive cultures, but they didn't scream "primitive" to me in any way. But I didn't like Liko's character too much either.

I have a feeling that on many occasions Star Trek blew up all the opportunities to depict a primitive culture similar to one of Earth's ancient cultures well. “Who Watches the Watchers” wasn't as good as it could have been, “Pen Pals” sucked, “Homeward” and ENT “Civilzation” were a bit disappointing.

 

[DS9 Gal AZ]

I really liked this episode, in particular I like Nuria and the understanding Picard developed with her. This episode re-ran on one of my local stations recently. I loved the moment when Picard brought her to the Enterprise and gave her that whole comparison of her looking god-like to her own ancestors the same way he looked god-like to her. Then she was staring out the window and said "Perhaps one day my people will travel among the stars as well," and Picard was looking at her and said quietly "Of that I have absolutely no doubt." Something about that scene I just really enjoyed. I do the Liko guy was rather hammy but the chic who played Nuria was good.

 

[Forbin]

Well, to be fair, like all other episodes depicting primitive cultures, they were depicted far more civilized than I would expect them to be, especially for a small village, and I'd say the trouble was with the rest, not with Liko. But then, I might be underestimating primitive cultures, but they didn't scream "primitive" to me in any way. But I didn't like Liko's character too much either.

I have a feeling that on many occasions Star Trek blew up all the opportunities to depict a primitive culture similar to one of Earth's ancient cultures well. “Who Watches the Watchers” wasn't as good as it could have been, “Pen Pals” sucked, “Homeward” and ENT “Civilzation” were a bit disappointing.

What follows is probably a gross overgeneralization, or it may be right on the nose, but I think It's hard to get different and imaginative civilizations from writers whose life experience never took them outside Los Angeles. While writers in the 60s may have come from diverse backgrounds, had struggling immigrant parents who told them of strange foreign lands, or themselves been to strange foreign lands while the whole world was at war around them, I imagine TV writers in the 80s & 90s went from college to a closed room with a word processor.

"Write what you know."

But ya gotta, ya know, know stuff first.

 

[DevilEyes]

I thought that Liko shooting an arrow at Picard was just stupid, and his reasoning was illogical...

Think about it - there were two possibilities, from his point of view:

1) Picard is not an omnipotent being, and can't control life and death.
2) Picard is an omnipotent being with the power over life and death, but for some reason or other, he is determined to convince Liko and the other Mintakans that he is not.

What does Liko do? Shoot an arrow... to prove that Picard is indeed a godlike being... right?

1) If Picard is a mortal, not an omnipotent godlike being - he'll get wounded, possibly die.
2) If Picard is indeed an omnipotent godlike being... he could easily make it seem that he is wounded and dying, in order to fool the Mintakans.

So, basically, there was no point in shooting him and it didn't prove anything - if he didn't believe Picard before when he told them he wasn't a god, there was no reason to change his mind. The only thing he could end up doing was killing or seriously hurting a man.

 

[Anwar]

Picard was just THAT willing to set the record straight?

 

[DevilEyes]

Or that set on keeping up the lie...

If Liko was going to believe Picard, he could have just taken his word for it straight away, rather than accusing him of lying.

 

[Anwar]

I would think that as near-fanatical Liko was on believing in the Watchers, he'd be more likely to think Picard wasn't a God when he saw him bleed. Guys like him tend to see the infallibility of their God, not the fallibility. As soon as he saw that he could bleed and all that it would've opened his mind to other possibilities than just "Oh, he's faking it" since it snapped him out of the religious fervor.

 

[Forbin]

Behold the god who bleeds!!

 

[DevilEyes]

Yeah, I guess Liko was just thick as a brick, as Willieck said. Because a being that was actually omnipotent would find it easy to bleed - or make it look so - if he wanted to!

 

[Starbreaker]

There aren't exactly that many level headed planetary rulers in Star Trek (or Stargate for that matter.) Gotta have an enormous amount of conflict a lot of times. It's still one of my favorite episodes, though.

 

[Praxius]

However the production is stagy and most of all, the character of Liko bothers me. Compared with the other characters in the story he is to coin a phrase "as thick as a brick" so how come he is a position of some authority?

Well, to be fair, like all other episodes depicting primitive cultures, they were depicted far more civilized than I would expect them to be, especially for a small village, and I'd say the trouble was with the rest, not with Liko. But then, I might be underestimating primitive cultures, but they didn't scream "primitive" to me in any way. But I didn't like Liko's character too much either.

I have a feeling that on many occasions Star Trek blew up all the opportunities to depict a primitive culture similar to one of Earth's ancient cultures well. “Who Watches the Watchers” wasn't as good as it could have been, “Pen Pals” sucked, “Homeward” and ENT “Civilzation” were a bit disappointing.

Considering this civilization wasn't supposed to be related to humans in the first place, but Vulcans who were generally more intelligent and evolved faster then humans, to think of them as absolute God fearing witch burners and people who stone people burried in the ground wouldn't make much sense...... Vulcans grew to live through logic and reasoning, it was logical to assume these distant relatives of theirs would be a bit more reasonable then your average humans of the same era of technological understanding.

But they did portray the "God Fearing" attitudes found in Humanity's past with how they interpreted Picard and his crew's abilities.

Besides, most of our own past and how we treated things unknown probably couldn't be aired on TV without some form of parental warning, since we'd just gut, burn, drown, rape, pillage, oppress, cut off hands, brand, slaughter everything we didn't agree with or clearly understood.

If you can't figure it out, kill it..... which I guess might be one of the reasons why they used Vulcan related people instead.

I thought that Liko shooting an arrow at Picard was just stupid, and his reasoning was illogical...

Think about it - there were two possibilities, from his point of view:

1) Picard is not an omnipotent being, and can't control life and death.
2) Picard is an omnipotent being with the power over life and death, but for some reason or other, he is determined to convince Liko and the other Mintakans that he is not.

What does Liko do? Shoot an arrow... to prove that Picard is indeed a godlike being... right?

I see it more like the story of Jesus returning from death and those doubting him sticking their fingers in the holes in his hand (grody)

Or perhaps someone telling you your loved one has died..... you sometimes can not believe something until you have some sort of physical evidence and he was not only willing to risk being struck down by Picard for attacking a god, but also willing to risk Picard's life in order to know the real truth..... he didn't have what the female had on the ship.... time and further physical evidence to gain some level of understanding..... he was under a lot of pressure, he feared floods and storms would soon come and kill more of his loved ones and possibly saw this all as a test in his faith..... and religious faith usually comes with illogical reasoning at times.

Yeah, I guess Liko was just thick as a brick, as Willieck said. Because a being that was actually omnipotent would find it easy to bleed - or make it look so - if he wanted to!

If he wanted to?..... if he was indeed a God, then why would God fake his own injury in order to cause his creations to no longer believe in him? I figured Gods and religious icons need believers in order to exist in the first place.