S01 The Neutral Zone..HUH?!

[Hober Mallow]

So are we to believe that people from the 22nd century are interesting, but those from our era are basically space trash?

Racial bigotry, gender discrimination, and homophobia have all been wiped out in the 24th century, but temporal prejudice is rampant.

First season TNG's humanistic outlook was often established at the expense of ridiculing Earth's past and this episode took it to an insulting level. The 20th century humans are just there to point out what savages we all were and what angels we'll all become.

Riker even compared us to the Ferengi in "The Last Outpost."

Since the writer's strike forces plans made at the end of the 1st season to not be followed through in the 2nd season, there's not way to know for sure. However, the destroyed outposts are certainly setup for the Borg, as Maurice Hurley has said in interviews that the plan was for the Romulans to reappear as something is decimating their empire.

Only originally the "Borg" were going to be an insectoid race.

 

[Myasishchev]

I thought the three sleepers were actually compelling characters. The musician developed a nice rapport with Data, fun as all hell in a "Way to Eden" sort of way. The homemaker was the one who let the feeling of loss show, and was depicted as tracing back her descendants' fates in a very realistic manner. And the broker wasn't merely obnoxious (thus creating the contrast where the heroes would look good despite also looking strange), but an attempt was made to give him some worth as well, in the Romulan part of the plot.

Too bad that the mixing of the broker and the Romulans fell so flat. He didn't contribute the hoped-for shrewdness or insight; if anything, his observations were less useful than Troi's.

I never felt the Romulan "plot" needed more room, though. It wasn't a plot, it was merely a setting. There was no story there, only the promise of one the next season. There was nothing for our heroes to do regarding the Romulans, except fly to meet them and chat with them; that was done with the minimum of fuss, as a mood-setting piece only.

Timo Saloniemi

To each his own, I guess. I don't really think it's a really bad episode, just a faltering one. I still say that the Romulan setting didn't need to be there. Sleepers awakening into the future is a story that needs the full hour, it's not Data's interaction with Holopiscopo here.

And like people here have mentioned, discussing the 1980s as a time that "it's a wonder we survived" is kind of silly, especially in retrospect, when it turned out the Soviet Union was more full of crap than it was full of missiles. I'll concede that this wasn't in retrospect, but I can't remember if the Cold War is even mentioned, let alone given special emphasis. That's the only really globally disturbing thing about the 1980s I can think of (although it'd been pretty scary if the country singer had talked Data into getting a mullet), which in most other respects was perhaps the most pleasant decade since human history began, with few major wars (maybe only one, and you've gotta count Afghanistan to get there), an increasing standard of living for most peoples, and stirrings of democracy all over the globe.

 

[Timo]

It's probably not OUR 1980s they are talking about, but theirs. After all, it gave rise to their 1990s, which did involve abortive armageddon.

OTOH, our 1980s had Ronald Reagan... I wonder if theirs did?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

They probably remember the late 20th century as the Sanctuary Districts, the Eugenics Wars and all that eventually leading to WW3. So they probably don't have a high opinion of the humans from back then.

 

[BolianAuthor]

That doesn't prevent the same points from being used for disliking the episode, though.

Yes, I guess I preferred the first season for that very reason: it dared try science fiction. It dared show people acting according to alien customs and mores, even when it was in many ways stuck to the eighties visually and stylistically. It dared leave out the part where one of the heroes would be the voice of the audience, quoting contemporary truths and beliefs.

"The Neutral Zone" is wonderful in that very respect: there indeed is a contrast between the 1990s people and the 2360s ones, not just a different set of costumes. And it's difficult to see how such a "contrast" episode could ever have been written without alienating the audience from the heroes. Still doesn't mean it shouldn't have been written, IMHO. It's just about the first time the future feels like the future in Star Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

That's a passionate defense, and I can actually agree with many of the points. At the same time, while a moniless economy is ultimately buyable (ha), humans no longer fearing or caring about death is nonsensical outside of a cult mindset. Humans treating less advanced humans like garbage is, however, quite believable--unfortunately, the episode doesn't sufficiently play up the irony that Data, a robot, is the only person who actually thinks these poor people, thrust into a world they never made, are better off alive at all.

There was this issue of Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan featuring awakened sleepers who were treated like crap by the future (indeed, pretty much the same indifference and contempt shown by the E-D crew). It was handled a lot better, maybe because Spider Jerusalem (and the author) actually cared about their plight. Regardless of their circumstance or their foibles or their archaic ways, unfrozen cavemen lawyers are still people, and should be treated as such if a story is to be written about them.

My memory of "The Neutral Zone" is that it did not care very much about its characters' plight. They weren't even characters, really. Just cardboard cutouts for the writer to knock down. Stock broker: "I need my money!" Country singer: "I need my drugs!" I forget what if anything the soccer mom contributed other than being frightened by Worf.

Further, the episode suffers badly from narrative bifurcation. Demolition men and the Romulans have nothing to do with one another, and at the end of the episode, still had nothing to do with one another. Both stories suffered badly from being confined to the same episode without rhyme or reason, other than the writer's strike.

And personally, I think it's too bad the stock broker didn't put Picard in a depressurization chamber. That would've kicked this turkey up a notch.

I think we're all being a bit hard on the Enterprise crew here...

It's not that they didn't care about the plight of the old folks, but you all are kinda glossing over the fact that when this was happening, the Enterprise crew was busy trying to find out what was up with the Romulans, and the mood on the ship was tense, and the ship was probably on a state of heightened alert. I mean, someone made the comparison to an old sailing ship coming into NY harbor, and being shrugged off... that's not really fair, because of the circumstances... it'd be more apt to offer this...

What if a USN aircraft carrier was about to encounter a Soviet ship, after a long period of not seeing one? WE have nuke ability on our ships, but we don't know what they can do with theirs yet. The mood is tense, and everyone is on alert. Just then, some old Civil War ironclad comes floating up to the surface, between the two ships.

Yes, we'd care about it, and be interested by it, but at this moment, who gives a frak? The crew is busy with the Soviets, and whether they'll live to the end of the day. Right now, that takes priority. When things are calm again, then they'll investigate the old ironclad. But right now is not the time and place. It was a potential combat situation, and the crew was in the right.

 

[Myasishchev]

I can grok that, and it does make sense of why our heroes were a bit testy toward them. However...

I'll echo SFDebris' review here--on a ship with a 1000+ people, surely they could've found some people to constantly mind these wayward cro-magnons during the difficult transition. Someone from the counselor's office (I mean, I forget, but Troi isn't the only one, is she?). Failing that, the E-no-bloody-phoneme had a historical officer; why wouldn't the E-D, with its nearly trebled crew? Even failing that, grab some blueshirt from Exogeology or Astrobiology or Prefix Sciences or whatever, whose talents are a bit unnecessary during a political crisis.

Failing that, stick 'em in a holodeck. That'll keep them out of your hair for months.

 

[Timo]

Actually, it seems that one major aspect of the brave new Homo federalicus is his ability to suffer in solitude, and his unwillingness to intrude in another's suffering. Our heroes, including the Counselor and the CMO, typically left recently orphaned or displaced young people alone in the quarters offered for them for great lengths of time. Solitude also seemed to be their approach to child care more often than not. Surely they wouldn't suddenly start nannying around these primitives, since it would merely prove that they were no better than the primitives!

I gather there was personnel aplenty to deal with the three stoogcicles. It just wasn't a consideration at the time...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Also, last time a Historical Officer encountered people a Starship Enterprise found frozen in space it didn't end so well...

 

[BolianAuthor]

Well, I can totally agree with the option of assigning them to a holodeck for a while, and maybe program some kind of historical recap, to kind of get them adjusted in the meantime. That's actually a good idea. But I stand by my position that the crew acted the right way.

Picard summed it up best, when he pointed out that the old stock-investor guy was comparing the Federation's Flagship to a cruise liner. Yes, the Enterprise isn't a military ship, but it's also not a Carnival Cruise liner, either... its mission at the time was one of grave importance to the UFP, and its security, and COULD have become a combat scenario, at any given time, which, I would also point out, would involve ships using weapons that could create devastation on a scale totally beyond anything the old folks could imagine.

 

[nx1701g]

Also, last time a Historical Officer encountered people a Starship Enterprise found frozen in space it didn't end so well...

Haha Good point.

 

[Myasishchev]

Well, I can totally agree with the option of assigning them to a holodeck for a while, and maybe program some kind of historical recap, to kind of get them adjusted in the meantime.

Er, yes. A historical recap. That's what I meant, of course.

Actually, if Trek had ever wanted to really flesh out their universe's backstory in one fell swoop (which they didn't), unfrozen caveman stockbrokers would be a good way to go about it. I reckon the unfrozen country singer would've found the porn within a few hours, however.