"The Neutral Zone"

[The Old Mixer]

So I was just finishing up my Season One DVD set, and was reminded of something that had always bothered me about the season finale. Now I know that the entire purpose of having three "typical" 20th-century humans aboard is to hit us over the head again and again about our failings as a society...but it still strikes me as uncharacteristic of the Ent-D crew and Starfleet types in general that everyone but Data is so apathetic to the cryogenically-preserved humans. Riker doesn't even consider checking out the satellite, and Picard chastises both Data and Dr. Crusher for their part in bringing the people aboard and restoring them to life. (Picard considers them to have technically been dead, and perhaps they were...but I imagine he'd have more interest and compassion for an AOTW in a similar situation, providing the Prime Directive didn't come into play.) No historical curiosity? Not the least bit of wonder at getting to interact with a human of that era--an era very close to the ones that Picard and Riker enjoy recreating on the holodeck so much? Had Kirk been so ready to look down his nose at such opportunities, he might have saved himself a lot of trouble....

Is it just me, or did this aspect of the episode bother anyone else?

 

[Anwar]

At first it did, but then I realized that the TNG crew acted pretty much like we would. We think of ourselves as superior to past humans of centuries ago, so it makes sense that 24th century humans would look down on 20th century humans, especially considering that they were the ones who went through WWI, WWII, the Eugenics Wars and helped set things up for WWIII that nearly destroyed all of humanity.

Also, they did have pretty big things to worry about in the form of a potential Romulan invasion.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I have to think that if we somehow found people who were preserved and revivable from the 1600's, it would not only be of great general interest, but there are plenty of people who would have great interest in interacting with them and studying them. The Ent crew are supposed to be explorers. Where's that historian from "The Big Goodbye"? Yeah, I get Picard's point at the end about not going in the wrong direction...but there is scientific opportunity to be taken in various fields that everyone in the episode pretty much shrugs off. Scratch that--to shrug it off, they'd have to address it in the first place. Not to mention basic human compassion. Granted, their opinion of atomic-age humans may not be very high, but to act as if just leaving rescuable humans to die in space is the sensible thing to do...? Had Picard quoted the Prime Directive as applying in this situation, I might be able to wrap my head around it...but he doesn't even show enough interest to bother going there.

Perhaps TOS admired 20th-century humanity too much...but in that series, they sent the Ent back to that era to study humanity on the brink.

Of course, you can excuse Picard & co. for being so blase when they can just walk into the holodeck and tell it to create a 20th-century environment complete with humans who would be native to the setting, and it does so flawlessly (the ship's computer displaying a far more casual familiarity with the subtleties of human behavior than Data can hope to achieve). Why get ones hands messy dealing with the real thing...?

I find it amusing that in his scene on the bridge, the stockbroker manages to successfully substitute for Troi in reading the Romulans. I'm not sure if this attests to his strengths or Troi's weaknesses....

It's by and far early TNG's most obvious swipe at 20th-century humanity. They should have spared us the Ferengi and just given us the stockbroker in the first place.

 

[Anwar]

Heh, you know that in the TNG Novels the stockbroker became the first Fed ambassador to Ferenginar, right?

Anyways, yeah the broker being able to read the Romulans better than Troi and exactly the same way Picard did (Picard realized the truth at the same time) was meant to show that he was just as worthy of consideration as anyone else on the ship.

This episode was probably the result of the writers' strike back then. Originally this episode wasn't supposed to have 20th century humans in it at all and was supposed to be the introduction to the Borg, who would've been the masters of the insect parasite race that infiltrated Starfleet in the previous episode. They would've been attracted by the beacon sent out by Remmick.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I did not know about the stockbroker's role in the novels--makes sense.

Had the writers' strike already begun when they were making this episode? I know it delayed Season 2 by a couple of months.

 

[Anwar]

Yep, it had just begun when this episode was being made, they were going to do some sort of Borg arc but it got shafted by the strike.

 

[tomalak301]

The Old Mixer said:
So I was just finishing up my Season One DVD set, and was reminded of something that had always bothered me about the season finale. Now I know that the entire purpose of having three "typical" 20th-century humans aboard is to hit us over the head again and again about our failings as a society...but it still strikes me as uncharacteristic of the Ent-D crew and Starfleet types in general that everyone but Data is so apathetic to the cryogenically-preserved humans. Riker doesn't even consider checking out the satellite, and Picard chastises both Data and Dr. Crusher for their part in bringing the people aboard and restoring them to life. (Picard considers them to have technically been dead, and perhaps they were...but I imagine he'd have more interest and compassion for an AOTW in a similar situation, providing the Prime Directive didn't come into play.) No historical curiosity? Not the least bit of wonder at getting to interact with a human of that era--an era very close to the ones that Picard and Riker enjoy recreating on the holodeck so much? Had Kirk been so ready to look down his nose at such opportunities, he might have saved himself a lot of trouble....

Is it just me, or did this aspect of the episode bother anyone else?

I took it to mean they didn't have time to deal with the cryogenically frozen humans because they had to deal with the Romulans, who we already know was a threat from earlier in the season. I think if the Romulans weren't part of the finale, we would have seen a little more apathy and wonder towards them.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^You mean "sympathy"? There was loads of apathy, that's my problem.

Nah, from the way it was portrayed, I got the impression that Picard and Riker, at least, wouldn't have touched these unwashed savages on a good day. They showed no basic interest in exploring the vessel ("It's just a derelict"), taking the people aboard, or reviving them ("They were already dead"). Had it just been that they were too busy, they would have expressed some interest mixed with regret. To their credit, Data exhibited the sort of curiosity I would like to have seen more of; Troi did her part to help the people when called upon to do so; and Dr. Crusher, bless her soul, felt so strongly that reviving them was the sensible thing to do that she took the initiative of doing it without even informing the Captain!

 

[tomalak301]

^Yeah. Wrong verbage.

Still though, if you were the captain and facing a threat that you were ordered to deal with, would you want to focus on a group of people who shouldn't have been rescued in the first place? Yeah, what Riker and Picard did kind of rubbed me the wrong way as well, but I can understand why even if I disagree with it.

 

[Timo]

I don't quite see what was so exciting about that "ship". The Trek universe must be littered with 20th century artifacts of similarly uninteresting construction and purpose. And the people inside those chambers were no different from the other corpses left over from the 20th century as such: the crude freezing process did not particularly protect them from anything, from the sounds of it. Crusher could probably have done the same reviving to any cavader left in the vacuum of space for the past few centuries.

If Federation scientists were interested in interviewing people of the past, they could do it elsewhere, with other corpses. But they probably wouldn't feel the need to, given that there are extensive records of that sort from the 20th century onwards already. Obsessing about the sort of minor details that these corpses could give is at least as odd and out of place as the false interest this "Berlinghof Rasmussen" guy showed towards the exact dimensions of Picard's Ready Room when pretending to be a historian.

Granted, today's archaeologists may still show some interest in 1700s artifacts for the oddest reasons, but not every dump from that era is of scientific value.

Timo Saloniemi