The Enterprise crew beams down to a planet of mostly-naked supermodels who run and bounce around all day. They also execute people for stepping on the wrong kinds of plants. Weird.
So in this episode, we get what I assume is Gene Roddenberry's ideal version of society. That is to say, a society made of people as bizarrely sex-focused as he is. It's really weird, and kinda uncomfortable.
If there's any real depth to be found here, it's in the way that this story examines the Prime Directive. Picard essentially chooses to ignore it, stating that the Directive wasn't created for situations like this. Considering how absolutely the Prime Directive is applied, both in the past and future of Star Trek, I wonder if this was a misstep with the writing or if this was meant to be a special case. After all, merely taking Wesley away from the planet is likely not something that will "interfere with the development" of the Edo. Hell, the Edo are the ones who first suggest just beaming Wesley away. In any case, I really did appreciate Picard standing up to the Prime Directive, choosing common sense and moral good over blind legalism.
There's also a subplot about the Edo and their "god"—who they actually refer to as "God." If it's actually meant as any kind of societal commentary, it didn't work. I'm not sure why, but something about the way it was handled makes me feel a bit insulted, like someone angrily trying to force an opinion on you when you don't even know what that opinion is or what they're trying to say.
All in all, this is just a weird episode. It's got a few bright spots, but mostly just bizarre ones.
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