The Masterpiece Society

[Deja Q]

Can someone explain why this episode of Star Trek TNG is so great?

Picard is whining over interfering with a society because of imminent danger to it and how their presence could be catastrophic, yet if they didn't help they would be destroyed. That's the biiiiiiiiig moral dilemma - and, apparently according to the Bible of Berman, it is better to die than to be forced to adjust your life after a massive event changes it irrevocably. :crazy:

Yet in "Deja Q", it is more than clear Picard is more than willing to fry his precious ship into a big sausage patty just to save the planet's inhabitants. And that's at the very start of the episode.

While Picard and co did not beam down to that planet in Deja Q, they freely talked with the inhabitants. Picard did violate the Prime Directive on this one, though to his credit it's something Kirk would do as well.

Indeed, would you prefer dying with what you have? Or life on with a significant change in your life and livelihood?

Season 3 also features one of my faves: "The Ensigns of Command". It is a direct contradiction to "The Masterpiece Society" as a big-ass change threatens to destroy that human colony, and it is up to Data to convince the colonists that abandoning their way of life and living elsewhere is the better thing to do.

Where am I wrong?