Trek On: THE NEUTRAL ZONE

Title: The Neutral Zone

Airdate: 5/16/1988

Plot Summary

The Enterprise awaiting Captain Picard’s return runs across an ancient satellite which houses three cryonically frozen people from the late 20th century. They become an annoyance as Picard returns with news that the Romulans have returned after being very reclusive for decades. Many outposts have been removed from the planets they were on, as if a giant hand just ripped them off the surface and the federation suspects the Romulans have a new weapon.

Make It So

Picard has no patience for the 20th century people, though he is forced to admit that Offenhouse is correct in his assessment of the Romulans.

Number 1

Riker doesn’t like the past people either. He says there’s nothing much to redeem them. Riker is very ready to start shooting at Romulans.

Fully Functional

Data is the one who brings the people on the Enterprise to everyone else’s chagrin. He also isn’t quite on-board with the aggressive stance with the Romulans.

Today Is A Good Day To Die

Worf doesn’t know how old door handles work. He also is a slightly put off by Claire’s fainting at the sight of him. Worf also mentions that Romulans are without honor, something he would repeat quite a bit over the course of the shows. He also mentions that they killed his parents on Khitomer.

Phase Inducers

Geordi pilots the ship and wonders if the Romulans aren’t hostile, what are their intentions? Good question.

Counselor Cleavage

Troi does a good job briefing Picard on the Romulans, how they act and how he should deal with them. She also helps Clare find her relatives. Or descendants as it were.

Dancing Doctor

Crusher is able to revive all three of the popsicle people. She also is less than amused when Sonny gives her a little pat on the butt.

Shut Up, Wesley

No Wesley again.

Canon Maker

The Romulans are back. They have been recluses in their Empire for the last 50 years. There has been a lot of discussion on the Klingon changes from the original series to the movies, but very little notice on how Romulans went from just pointy eyebrows to full forehead prosthetics, albeit a lot more subdued than the Klingons. Vulcans continued to look like Spock but Romulans has some ridges over their eyes. In TOS they were just basically Vulcans but emotional and power hungry.

Canon Breaker

Given how much Picard is into archeology, I find it ridiculous that discovering living people from 400 years ago would just be irritating to him.

These three seem to be little different than 1990s Americans would’ve been. Wonder how the eugenics wars and Khan’s supermen fit into the mix.

A Little Bloody Nose

No one dies but outposts are completely destroyed.

Technobabble

We get to see the Romulan Warbird for the first time since the original series. The design is awesome, it’s a great looking ship. Green with double wings, it’s a menacing sight and really screams “Romulan.”

Please Repeat You Communication

“We… are back.” – The Romulan commander’s ominous declaration that really turned out to be a nothing burger over  the course of TNG and DS9.

Library Computer

At one point Sonny asks Data what’s on the “boob tube.” Data realizes he taking about television and explains that particular form of entertainment didn’t last beyond the 2040s. I recall vividly in 1988 how crazy that idea was. Television was the entertainment medium, with only VHS just starting to slightly eat into its lock on the household. Even that, people used VHS to record television programs, the other half was renting or buying movies. It seemed unfathomable to me that TV would disappear.

Yet here it is, 2026 and I don’t think I’ve watched a broadcast or cable show in over 5 years. I watch a screen, sure. But either I download digital copies for my plex server (by completely 100% legal means, I assure you. Really.) or I watch streaming. The only thing I watch on broadcast TV is NFL football and they are already working on migrating to streaming services like Amazon and Netflix. 2040s seem right on schedule and another prize is given to Star Trek for predicting future tech.

I Know That Guy:

Mark Alaimo makes his first appearance as one of the Romulans. He will go on to appear as a cardassian in season 4, and an 1800s card shark in Time’s Arrow later on. Of course he will go on to be Gul Dukat in DS9, one of the finest villains Trek ever produced. (It’s not actually his first Trek appearance, he was one of the anticans in Lonely Among Us, buried under latex and a really shitty episode. So I’m calling that one a mulligan.)

Anthony James plays the other Romulan. He worked from 1963 to 1992. He did a lot of guest roles but his first role was a part in In The Heat Of Night, and his last role was the saloon keeper in Unforgiven. Talk about entering and exiting the industry with a bang.

Gracie Harrison plays Claire. She started acting in 1986 and was out by 1994. This was probably her most memorable role.

Leon Rippy plays the ever cheerful Sonny Clemons. He was well known as a general go-to good ole boy kind of character though he also did a lot of government/military types as well, including 1994’s Stargate.

Peter Mark Richman plays Ralph Offenhouse. He was the dictionary definition of “that guy” having guested in a ton of tv shows and small parts in several movies throughout the 70s and 80s. By the 90s he was doing voice guest episodes of animated series like Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman.

What It Means To Be Human – Review

This is a weird episode that definitely was screwed over by the writer’s strike. We have two competing stories that have zero thematic reason to be in the same episode. First you have the Romulan threat. This would also hint of the Borg coming later on. It’s handled seriously and the appearance of the warbird is excellent. What a great design. It was by the same guy who designed the Enterprise refit for motion picture. So no wonder.

But then you have this side story of 20th century people finding themselves in the 24th century. Now that could be an interesting story but we don’t get that. Instead we get the writers crapping all over the moden times. The crew practically sneer around them. It’s really mean spirited. Oh, those 20th century people, they were just the worst, weren’t they? Well fuck off. We created Star Trek, for one. Yeah, the 20th century has a few world wars and some other shit to answer for, but bring back someone from the dark ages and see how far you get with those savages. Hell, even someone from present day Nigeria.

Seriously, the ability to look down on western civilization and dismiss it as “we are shit” is really insulting.

Not to mention the idea that the crew wouldn’t be fascinated by these people from the past, Picard in particular. Sure Offenhouse was a dick but Sonny was harmless and Clare deserved a bit more sympathy. At least Troi was helpful to her.

All in all, it sums up the entire 1st season, a great couple of ideas executed with all the impact of a wet fart. I’ll up the rating slightly for the introduction of the warbird.

So we get to the end. As we did with TOS, I’ll add up the ratings. As before for scoring, I’m taking the number of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-star episodes, totaling them up, and multiplying by their score to give a weighted total. If they get a half score, I round down. So a 2.5 would be considered a 2-star episode for this.

There were no 5 star episodes, I can safely say this is probably the only season of Trek, including DS9 and Voyager, to accomplish that. Well… we’ll see with Voyager.

We had some real stinkers this season but it wasn’t all bad. Certainly episodes like 11001001 were pretty darn good, as well as Home Soil and Symbiosis. The Big Goodbye did a pretty good job of setting up future holodeck stories. Even as much as Wesley infuriated me at the beginning of the season, he was not bad at all in Coming Of Age.

Conspiracy wasn’t great but you can’t say it wasn’t memorable. Where No One Has Gone Before and The Arsenal Of Freedom both had good set ups and concepts but had issues with execution. We get some nice Worf back story with Heart Of Glory, done in by a non-compelling story.

Of course, there was so much bad, with Code of Honor, Lonely Among Us, and The Naked Now really standing out. The rest were just there, nothing to really make you believe this would be such a great show.

This will be a great show but I think with the start of this era of Trek, you almost have to give this season a mulligan. Season 2 will be better but still a schizophrenic mix of season 3 quality and season 1 crap.

Season 1 was just bad for the most part, I’d put Season 3 of TOS ahead of it. But they would stick with it and make the proper changes.