episode #26: The Neutral Zone

THE NEUTRAL ZONE -  episode #26, 1st season / Air Date: 5/16/88
written by Maurice Hurley; Directed by James L. Conway

The final episode of the first season sets the stage for future events in the 2nd and onward: the Romulans pop up again after being scarce for the past 50-odd years (since the 'The Tomed Incident'). They were mentioned in a couple of previous episodes in this season, so that may have been a build up to this (what is strange is that there was an indication of Romulan vessels being spotted in these previous episodes - though the audience didn't see them - but here the crew state that none have been seen for many years).
Though this might have been a straightforward story about confronting Romulans, this is not the case. The secondary story (or is it the first?) involves the ship coming across an ancient space capsule from Earth. Everyone wants to ignore it, except Data - the only one with interests in Earth history, evidently (everyone else is focused on the future, not the past). Data finds 3 still-operating containers from the era of cryonics (late 20th to early 21st century); uh-oh, has Data found 3 more Khans? (Space Seed on TOS). No, not quite. They are 3 typical humans from that era, not superior specimens.
This was also an episode which typified Picard's general disinterest, snootiness and callousness about certain things during the 1st season; you would think that 3 Earthlings from over 300 years ago would at least pique his intellectual curiosity, but he even suggests that Data should have left them to die. Jeez, so much for that pacifist, enlightened mentality. The plot has Picard very focused on the problem of destroyed outposts and possible conflict with Romulans, and he also rationalizes that the 3 humans were already dead, but it's still a very narrow-minded, even ignorant attitude on his part. In fact, no one shows any interest in the revived humans; no historians on board? It would be like a town in the USA these days uncovering a live human from the Revolutionary War and ignoring him.
The 3 chrononauts (played by Peter Mark Richman, Leon Rippy & Gracie Harrison; btw, this borrows from Gene Roddenberry's TV movies Genesis II-1973 and Planet Earth-1974) are not very interesting, but Richman manages some intrigue as a formerly rich financier who eventually must accept his new reality; he has a good scene on the bridge. Rippy as a singer,  a country-western star, drawls on incessantly while the woman weeps a lot. The two Romulans we see (played by Marc Alaimo & Anthony James) manage to convey much arrogance. The whole episode plays like a set-up for future events and so nothing much happens; I found it dull when it first aired, but it's watchable nowadays. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10
TNG Trivia: Marc Alaimo, who plays the lead Romulan, is adept at arrogant characters; he became well known as a Cardassian, Gul Dukat, on the Deep Space Nine show. When we speak of set-ups, this episode also turned out to be a set-up to introduce the Borg; the destroyed outposts were victims of an unknown foe here; but, mention of how they were 'scooped away' was later regarded as an obvious reference to the Borg technique.