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TNG · SEASON 11×25

The Neutral Zone

NOMADIC PICK · FOR COMPLETISTSA rushed finale with big consequences.
FIRST SHOWN (US)
16 May 1988
ON
First-run syndication
STARDATE
41986.0
DIRECTED BY
James L. Conway
PRODUCTION NO.
126

WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Maurice Hurley; story by Deborah McIntyre & Mona Glee

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

While Picard is away, the Enterprise finds 20th-century humans frozen in an old space capsule and wakes them to a future they never imagined, just as trouble stirs on the Romulan border.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

Waiting for Picard to return from an emergency conference, the Enterprise comes across a drifting capsule holding cryogenically frozen humans from the late 20th century. Data brings three of them aboard, and Dr Crusher revives them and cures the illnesses that killed them: homemaker Clare Raymond, financier Ralph Offenhouse and musician L.Q. “Sonny” Clemonds. Each struggles with the 24th century in a different way. Clare misses the family she left behind, Sonny looks for a good time, and Offenhouse frets about his fortune and keeps demanding to see whoever is in charge. Picard has more pressing concerns. Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone have fallen silent, raising the prospect of war with the Romulans, unseen for decades. A Romulan warbird duly appears, but its commanders reveal that their own outposts have also been wiped out by an unknown force. The two sides agree to share information for now, and the three revived travellers prepare to start new lives.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01The first appearance of the Romulans in The Next Generation, and the debut of the Romulan warbird, Andrew Probert's final design for the franchise.
  2. 02Because of the writers' strike, Maurice Hurley wrote the script in a day and a half. Plans for a two-parter that would have introduced the Borg were dropped.
  3. 03Marc Alaimo, here playing the Romulan Tebok, later became Gul Dukat in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
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