Another STAR TREK Plot

I think the people of Athens of 40 AD were a lot like American politicians and media types of the 21st century.
According to Acts 17:21, "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing." (King James version)
Nowadays, we have whole TV channels (E!, CNN, FNC, MTV, etc) devoted to nothing else!
Now, in my storyline for ST:TNG, Riker, Troi, and Data would be leading an Evaluation Away Team on an undercover visit to a planet whose technological level is roughly half-way between ours, and Picard's Federation. The job of Riker's party is to surreptitiously evaluate the social development of the planet's (single) culture. The planet has had contact with the Federation over the past couple of centuries -- off and on -- but only to a small extent. The decision whether or not to offer Federation membership to these people will depend, to a large degree, on Riker's report.
Now, all this is background. The conflict is, somehow Riker & crew are discovered, unmasked, and it falls to the Continental Administrator to decide what to do with them. Local laws may be construed as to call for the Death Penalty. It's up to the ConAdmin to decide.
Picard, on the Enterprise, becomes mostly a spectator, arguing like a defense lawyer with the ConAdmin's staff that his ship (and Federation) have only good intentions in SPYING on the planet.
The problem is, this planet's society is TOO MUCH like Earth 21C (21st-Century Earth that is). Specifically, too much like the worst side of the Media/Politics interface of 21C America. The people of the planet have solved their material needs, so their worldwide economy is mostly driven by the vampirelike spectator audience at home. This planet's culture is the logical extension of 21C-America's Survivor-E! Entertainment News-CNN-Entertainment addiction. The entire culture and political system is built on watching, "waiting for the latest tidbit on mostly anything," as The Message's version of Acts 17:21 states. It's a nightmare combination of YouTube and Entertainment Tonight. George Clooney and Charlton Heston are running the planet! Metaphorically.
So we have a bunch of interplanetary spies -- Riker and crew -- being held captive, on trial for their lives, before a global audience. And the "judge" of this "really big show" is a career politician who is AFRAID TO MAKE A MOVE until he hears the latest polls and focus-group interviews (sound like some politicians we've heard of, yes?).
At the crux, some BIG BAD THING happens -- maybe an asteroid coming in to smite the planet-- and Riker very bluntly takes over the "show trial" as a bully pulpit to make suggestions (ACTUALLY MAKING DECISIONS) that somehow avert the disaster.
Riker's decisiveness impress so much of the worldwide audience that they vote that they would like a leader who actually will lead without asking permission first. They vote to drop the whole polling-goverment thing and take a moratorium on it.
At least, that's what Picard says in the debriefing of his released crew, back on the Enterprise. Also at the debriefing, Troi notes that earlier Federation estimates of this planet's citizens are right in line with what she observed: Very influenced by new ideas, and very imitative. They seemed to seize on Riker's quick man-of-action behavior as a new planetary ideal.
Picard observes, "Well, if they can make such well-implemented decisions as yours, Will, their planet will soon be eligible for Federation membership."
Data puts in, "I would imagine that any administrator could govern more efficiently if he weren't in the habit of sharing the decisions with his subordinates first."
The briefing room goes strangely silent. Data doesn't understnad what the others, and the TV audience, do -- that Picard's Captaincy style is, exactly, one of "sharing the decisions with his subordinates first."
FADE OUT, END OF SHOW.
In case you hadn't figured out, this episode would be a sequel (without saying so) to the ST:TOS episode, "A Piece of the Action," which ended with the inhabitants of Sigma Iotia II finding the communicator left behind accidentally by McCoy. Here we see that the Iotians used it to establish a worldwide communications network, whose instant communications led them to a govermment paralyzed with indecision as at "refreshed" its latest screen with the latest poll numbers.
Also, of course this was framed to make a caustic comment on 20C-21C American media frenzy-style politics, of course.