I think it does a good job of showing the Star Trek approach to science fiction.

You have a human on the planet interacting with an unusual alien. There is some action, but the primary problem of the episode is not solved by violence. The audience is taken along with Picard in the process of figuring out communication with the alien captain.

Its main weakness is that you don’t get much ship-based stuff in this particular episode. There is a little, but…