1.25 The Neutral Zone

Rating: 2.5

The destruction of a number of outposts in the neutral zone brings the Enterprise face to face with the Romulans. At the same time, four 20^th century Earth humans, frozen through cryogenics, are discovered and thawed.

Comments

Marc Alaimo, who played Gul Ducat on DS9, plays one of the Romulans.

Some fans of TOS were not happy with the changes made to the Romulans in NextGen. They are not as aggressive, and they wear flashy uniforms with big shoulder pads, like they are trying to make a fashion statement.

This is a relatively dead last episode of the first season. There is an attempt to introduce the Romulans and make that what keeps people’s interest until next season, but nothing happens – they just talk to the Romulans.

Nits

Why is Picard scolding Data for beaming the frozen people over? Didn’t Riker, his superior officer, approve the beaming? Data was just following Riker’s order. Shouldn’t Picard be scolding Riker?

Memorable Moments

•    The Romulan ship is strikingly beautiful.