• The Neutral Zone Pt. 2 August 17 - 5:20 am

I thought the main characters acted really bitchy in this episode. The episode never really addressed why?

By Chris Thomas on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 09:42 pm:

Anyone notice Denise Crosby is still listed in the operning credits here? And look very, very carefully when Troi is searching the family tree for that Earth woman. If you freeze-frame one screen it lists the first six actors to have the lead role in Doctor Who - William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison and Colin Baker - the bigger your TV screen, the more easier you can make it out. Of course, it makes a nonsense of the family tree as they are paired off as if there was offspring that came from WH&PT, JP&TB and PD&CB - unless genetic engineering has come a long way.
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Monday, April 19, 1999 - 08:35 am:

It's a cute scene, Worf expecting the door to open automatically, but in The First Duty the dorm rooms at Starfleet Academy do not open automatically, they must be manually opened and I believe in other episodes, manual doors are shown on houses and shops. So if a door refuses to open manually does Worf just kick it down??? Also did Worf think that the big latch in the middle of the door was just decorative?

Why are lights on inside the capsules? In case the frozen dead people want to read a book?

At the beginning of the show it is stated that the Captain is several hours away, so Data and Worf have the time to go over and explore the capsule, but after they have been over there for a few minutes, Picard suddenly returns. Did it take Worf and Data several hours to get ready to beam over or did Worf get confused figuring how long they really had? ("Oh, subtract the two, not multiply!")

Crusher says that people of the late 20th century feared dying. Does this mean that people of the 24th Century don't fear dying?

The year is 2364 and Crusher tells them they have been frozen for about 370 years, which means they were frozen about 1994. Offhand I can't remember hearing about any cryonics satellites being sent into orbit, around then. (Of course Khan and his supermen were still in power then, and probably controlled what information was broadcast on the news.)

If Television died off in 2040 like this episode states, what were all those reporters doing in Star Trek Generations? If there is no Television how does the news travel? Little boys on bicycles throwing newspapers at the bridges of passing spaceships?

When talking to Troi, a close up of Clare shows her wearing earrings. Was she frozen with them or did she put them on afterwards?

If no one has had contact with the Romulans for fifty-three years, seven months, and eighteen days, then what about that Romulan cruiser in the Neutral Zone during Angel One? Was that sighting filed by the same guy who mistook a Ferengi ship for the Borg in Descent I?

No one has heard from the Romulans in 53 years, etc., but Worf tells about the massacre at Khitomer by the Romulans while they were still Klingon allies. (Worf was 7 when the attack on Khitomer took place. Does this mean that in this episode Worf is 60 years old?)

What was the internal matter that kept the Romulans busy all these years? Could it have anything to do with those brow ridges they now sport?
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By Mike Konczewski on Monday, April 19, 1999 - 03:33 pm:

Those newsmen in ST:Generations could be webcasters, not TV newsmen. News is transmitted over the 24th century version of the Internet.

I always thought the internal matter was dealing with the Borg. The mysterious disapperance could have been caused by a Borg ship. It would be just like the Romulans not to mention it.
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 - 05:49 am:

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck... what would you call it?

I'm sorry, but if people are watching a news/interview type broadcast on a screen, I call that a television.
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By Mike Konczewski on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 - 05:24 pm:

I guess since you're using the Internet you must realize it works different than TV. Remember the DS9 episode when Sisko & Co. went back to the 21st century? They had internet based news reporting.

Perhaps what Data meant was that broadcast TV was dead, replaced by netertainment.

It's semantics, I know. IMO, web-based newscasting will only slightly resemble a duck.
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By Hearther on Wednesday, April 21, 1999 - 12:23 pm:

It sounds like a duck with 500+ channels.
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By Alfonso Turnage on Wednesday, April 21, 1999 - 03:38 pm:

Did anyone notice how witchy the senior staff were acting in this episode? Picard was acting strictly elitist. I mean he's shown more compassion towards space-dwelling aliens who eat energy than he did to these early 21st century humans. And did anyone else out there catch that smug way he said we have to go forward, not backward in time. Really, he almost seemed to want to kiss Zepherm Cochrane's feet in First Contact. Riker and Data and the rest of the senior staff don't seem that much better. I mean they were going on about how badly the humans were behaving when in reality many nice, good late 20th century humans would react the same way if they went forward in time. And for all the talk about not stereotyping that the senior staff typically does they don't seem to mind stereotyping in this episode. Okay, the ruthless businessman was a ruthless businessman and the country music singer was a hillbilly with good and bad characteristics, but the woman was nice and acted as can be expected. Of course, no one seperates her from the whole they just group her together with the rest. Sorry for ranting. I'm not one of these people who think this episode should have just stuck with the Borg; meeting humans from the early 21th century was a good idea. Unfortunately, I think it wasn't written as well as it could have been. By the way, there was a sci-fi/fantasy convention in the metro Detroit area a few weeks back and Marc Alaimo(the guy who plays Gul Dukat on DS9) said he was the Romulan captain. I didn't even realize that until he said it.
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By The Mighty Duck! on Thursday, April 22, 1999 - 08:39 am:

Quack! All bow before the Powerful and Mighty Duck! I am all things to all people and cannot be defined! Surrender your will to me, whether you see me on screens, padds or webs! Quack!
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By Mike Konczewski on Friday, April 23, 1999 - 11:53 am:

Well, you certainly sound like a duck....

Given that the Romulans only appeared for a tiny fraction of the episode (and one of them was Gul Dukat! he really must be in agony after so much surgery... WINK WINK), I think it would have been better named after the frozen-human plot line. Something like "Asleep in the Deep..."

What about The Chilled Cliche?

The Iced Ones Cometh

Peoplesicles

The Thaw

Chilled, Dudes

It's a pity there weren't more of those humans.
It could have been called Freeze a Crowd.

Come and knock on our tubes,
We've been waiting for you,
Where ice cubes are hers and his and his
Freeze Company, too!

"The Thaw?"
WATCH YOUR CONTINUITY, MR KAM!
There has already been a show called "The Thaw!"

I know Mr. Swinton, that is why it was a joke. (Actually if they had called this episode The Thaw it would have been Voyager that copied NextGen as this episode came first.;-)

If one of the people had been Jewish, the episode would be called...(All together now)
The Iceberg

(the audience boos and hurls rotten tomatoes at their computer screens)

BOOO!
SPLAT!

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this, but Ralph Offenhouse (the ruthless businessman) was played by the guy who played Chrissy's father on "Three's Company." So, calling the show "Freeze Company" would have been an amusing little inside joke.

This same actor, whose name I forget, also starred as a James Bond wannabe in a bad 60's spy movie called "Agent for H.A.R.M." which was featured in an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." But I digress.

In 1994, these people are put on a satellite with a, presumably, 'state of the art' commercial cryonics unit.

However, in 1996 Khan and his supermen take a deep space vessel with a far more advanced 'sleeper' system.

Does this strike anybody else as an incredible leap in technological advancement in just 2 years?

Maybe one technology was developed by a country that was more advanced; the other less so.

Note that Internet reporters are not too different than television reporters. Take Roland Burton Hedley, Jr. for instance, and his wonderful service at Yap.com. ;)

Peter Mark Richman played Offenhouse, and added "Peter" to his name for spiritual reasons. He won the Dramalogue Award for his one-man show, "4 Faces". He also played God (no, literally) in the "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" series. If you watch "Batman: The Animated Series", you may remember Richman for playing the toy tycoon that the Riddler works for in "Riddler's Reform".

This episode brings up an interesting fact. TNG technology can take a person who was frozen in presumably liquid nitrogen and safely thaw them out, then fix whatever medical problems they had. Great, so why don;t they just flash-freeze any injured person they transport back to the ship? All the transporter has to do is slow down the brownian motion of the atoms in the person being transported and when they rematerialize it will be as a frozen body, able to be stored safely until such a time as the doctor has time to get ready to fix your injury/disease and thaw you out at convenience. As a matter of fact you could even use the transporter as a flash thaw device if need be, just add brownian energy equally to the whole body so that it rematerializes at 98.6 degrees Farenheit.

This episode would have been alot better without the frozen humans from 1994 subplot!

Then it would have been 5 minutes long.

Is this the one where Wesley is in enginerring and trips and falls to his death by falling over the railing arround the warp core?

No, I think that was a dream you had last night. There are many who would sympathize. But Michael Jonas' death in "Investigations" comes close.


When Claire Raymond is awakened in this episode, she seems to be totally surprised that her husband had her frozen, as if she herself had no prior knowledge or participation in the arrangement. The episode implies that her husband, Donald was so grief-stricken by her death, that he decided to have her cryogenically frozen after her death, and that it was not a decision that the two of them came to together before she died. Unfortunately, it could not happen this way. Claire Raymond is from the 20th century, our time, and there are specific procedures today in which someone is frozen, which do not appear to have been performed on Raymond, given the evidence in this episode. People who wish to be cryogenically frozen must belong to a specific cryonics company, like the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale Arizona, for example. There are two reasons for this, and the first one is medical: Upon being pronounced dead, the body of the foundation member (who will have on them an ID bracelet or necklace to alert emergency room personnel or E.M.S. services of the patient’s wishes) must be immediately rushed to the facility so that their temperature can be lowered to below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and his/her blood replaced with a glycerol-antifreeze solution during open-heart surgery. This must be done immediately, presumably because the chances of the patient being revived in the future are greater if the procedure is performed as soon as possible after death.(At least that’s the theory on the part of those who practice this.) Not only did Claire Raymond probably die of the embolism suddenly, according to Dr. Crusher, and not only was this procedure not performed on Claire soon after death, which makes her revival in this episode that much more unlikely, but Donald Raymond would’ve had a tough time finding a cryonics company where he lived. Crusher says she died 370 years prior to this episode, which means she died in 1994. Claire later tells Troi that her sons were born in Secaucus, New Jersey, and that’s presumably where she and her family lived. I live in that area, and I can assure you, neither in 1994 nor now are there any such facilities in the area.
The second reason in legal in nature. You cannot have this procedure done on someone without their consent beforehand, and the company will not do so if the decision is made posthumously by a surviving spouse.

Of course, this is the Trek Universe...where we had ships like the Botany Bay and there was a Eugenics War.

Phil, from his NextGen Guide Vol. II; PO#3: Crusher, in a dismissive tone, refers to cryonics as "fad," but this "fad" evidently had something going for it, as there are three live 20th century humans in her sickbay!
This nit seems to imply that Crusher’s statement is somehow incorrect, that cryonics was not a fad, and/or that the fact that it had something going for it, resulting in the three people in sickbay, somehow contradicts the notion of it being a fad, as if Crusher was somehow putting down cryonics. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. A fad is a briefly popular fashion or craze. The success of it, or whether it had something going for it, has no bearing on that definition. Crusher’s choice of words was correct.

Phil, from his NextGen Guide Vol. II: PO#4: Why does Troi have to scrounge up a report on the Romulans from limited information sources when-according to "Unification," Spock has maintained a dialogue with Pardek for eighty years?
Because Spock’s relationship with Pardek is personal, not official. Because of the consequences of his involving Kirk in the peace talks without his consent in ST VI, Spock decided to build a relationship with a Romulan himself, so that any failure on his part would not bring ramifications on the Federation that an official rapport might bring. He told this to Picard in the beginning of Unification part II. Because of this, there isn’t any information on file by Spock. Officially, his presence on Romulus is nonexistent.

And over here this gal was called "therapist." I guess she used to force people to have sex…And over here, dis guy was a mortician. Must mean he used ta impersonate characters from The Adams Family…and this guy’s bio says he was a "nitpicker." He musta been paid to select people to make hand-made sweaters and blankets and stuff…
Great Line: "Must be some kind of construction work." -Data, commenting after mentioning that Claire Raymond’s occupation was a homemaker.
Maybe he should’ve told Riker there were some single women on the capsule
I find it odd that Data had to actually convince Riker in the beginning of the episode to examine such an important 400 year-old Earth artifact so far from Earth.
Well, there was that story in the National Enquirer about the Romulan Praetor having Elvis’ love child, but that doesn’t count
Riker says in Act 1 that all they know of the Romulans is from rumor and conjecture. What is he talking about? There must be records on all the EXTENSIVE history between the Romulans and Federation/Earth, dating back all the way to the Romulan-Earth War a century before Balance of Terror(TOS), through their dealings with them in that particular episode as well, as well as The Enterprise Incident(TOS), ST V & VI, etc. Riker makes them sound like a race of Bigfoots or Loch Ness Monsters.
I wonder what the closed captioning said?
When Picard calls Data to sickbay regarding Data’s bringing the humans onboard the Enterprise, Data turns to Riker, who nods to him, but doesn’t answer Picard.
At least Picard didn’t make any racist jokes about Chinese rice pickers
Why in the world does Picard bring Worf and keep Data in sickbay when he knows how the 20th century humans will react to seeing them? (Because it makes for a cute moment when Claire Raymond wakes up, sees them, and faints.) He even keeps them there when they revive Raymond the second time as well! Compare this with Kirk quite correctly thinking ahead to have Spock cover his ears with a hat in City On the Edge of Forever(TOS), and with a band of white cloth in ST IV.
I sense a great "pain in the ass" Captain
And shouldn’t Troi have been present when the three people were awakened? The crew they’re from the 20th century, and had no knowledge of alien life or androids, yet they stick Work and Data in sickbay, and Picard doesn’t get Troi to look after them until after Offenhouse makes a nuisance of himself.
Maybe Ralph took a calendar out of his pocket and had Data read off it?
When Data tells Ralph Offenhouse the date in Act 2, he says that it is 2364, according to "your calendar," as if the Gregorian Earth Calendar is no longer in use, even though both Telek R’Mor and Chakotay refer to it casually at the end of Eye of the Needle(VOY).
Hi, is this the Best Buy appliance store on Route 3 East? My name’s Don R. What’s the biggest size freezer that you have in stock? (And there actually is such a store at that location, just so you know!)
When Claire Raymond is awakened in this episode, she seems to be totally surprised that her husband had her frozen, as if she herself had no prior knowledge or participation in the arrangement. The episode implies that her husband, Donald was so grief-stricken by her death, that he decided to have her cryogenically frozen after her death, and that it was not a decision that the two of them came to together before she died. Unfortunately, it could not happen this way. Claire Raymond is from the 20th century, our time, and there are specific procedures today in which someone is frozen, which do not appear to have been performed on Raymond, given the evidence in this episode. People who wish to be cryogenically frozen must belong to a specific cryonics company, like the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale Arizona, for example. There are two reasons for this, and the first one is medical: Upon being pronounced dead, the body of the foundation member (who will have on them an ID bracelet or necklace to alert emergency room personnel or E.M.S. services of the patient’s wishes) must be immediately rushed to the facility so that their temperature can be lowered to below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and his/her blood replaced with a glycerol-antifreeze solution during open-heart surgery. This must be done immediately, presumably because the chances of the patient being revived in the future are greater if the procedure is performed as soon as possible after death.(At least that’s the theory on the part of those who practice this.) Not only did Claire Raymond probably die of the embolism suddenly, according to Dr. Crusher, and not only was this procedure not performed on Claire soon after death, which makes her revival in this episode that much more unlikely, but Donald Raymond would’ve had a tough time finding a cryonics company where he lived. Crusher says she died 370 years prior to this episode, which means she died in 1994. Claire later tells Troi that her sons were born in Secaucus, New Jersey, and that’s presumably where she and her family lived. I live just one town east of Secaucus, in Union City, and I can assure you, neither in 1994 nor now are there any such facilities in the area.
The second reason in legal in nature. You cannot have this procedure done on someone without their consent beforehand, and the company will not do so if the decision is made posthumously by a surviving spouse.
For those cryonics patients who want to read Final Exit before going to sleep
And there are, of course, other aspects of the trio’s cryo-suspension that are at odds with today’s established cryonics procedures. For one thing, I don’t ever recall any cryonics company shooting any of their clients into orbit. For another, they don’t prop you up naked inside a coffin with a light inside of it and a glass window for your head, as in this episode. They wrap you in plastic and place you in a container, and probably without any light inside it.
But getting the director a spacesuit so he could film it was the hardest part
This is the first episode to feature a panning camera for space scenes, when the Romulan Warbid approaches the Enterprise toward the end of Act 4.
All part of the turbolift’s "Well, the show’s over" sensors
Toward the end of Act 4, Riker orders the guards to remove Offenhouse from the bridge, but even though all three of them stand right in front of the door, it doesn’t open until Picard orders them a second time to remove him.
The Romulan comm officer took a couple of film classes in college
Normally, when one ship communicates with another visually, the viewer cuts from a shot of the other ship directly to a shot of the captain of that ship. When the Enterprise communicates with the Romulans at the end of this episode, however, the shot of the Romulan ship fades quickly to black, and then to the Romulans, and in reverse order when their conversation is terminated. After this episode, however, this is no longer done.

Arrrgh! I already posted that nit about cryonics in Secaucus! Sorry!

Why in the world does Picard bring Worf and keep Data in sickbay when he knows how the 20th century humans will react to seeing them? (Because it makes for a cute moment when Claire Raymond wakes up, sees them, and faints.) He even keeps them there when they revive Raymond the second time as well! Compare this with Kirk quite correctly thinking ahead to have Spock cover his ears with a hat in City On the Edge of Forever(TOS), and with a band of white cloth in ST IV.

The difference is that Data belongs on the Enterprise. There's no reason to "hide" Data. In the 20th Century, however, nobody knows about Vulcans. The sleepers, however are in the 24th century, and Data belongs there.

What, and Worf doesn't?

My point, Scott, is that Picard should've known that these humans would react this way when seeing Worf and Data. Whether the episode is a time travel plot or whatever is beside the point. In order to keep them calm, Picard should only have had human or human-looking crew in the sickbay when they woke up.

LUIGI NOVI: "Picard should only have had human or human-looking crew in the sickbay when they woke up"

Interesting that Janeway did this very thing in Voyager's "The 37's". So, who's the better captain, hmmm?

Picard, by a landslide. I don't think one nit in particular calls into question his ability as a captain.

Besides, Janeway yanked Kes' head over to one side to show the 37s that she was Ocampa.

You can't compare Shakespearean training and Excalibur to Ryan's Hope or Mrs. Columbo.

Well the last time starfleet personel woke late 20th century people found drifting in space they released a genocidal megalomaniac and his followers. Maybe Picard thought it was better to have someone from security standing close by. Offcourse he should have asked Worf to wait by the door or call some of the guys in yellow to sickbay. As for Data his appereance is so close to human that Claire really shouldn't have noticed since she has to be very disoriented after waking up after 370 years of deep sleep.

I to is wondering why the crew act with such, hostility may be to strong a word, antipathy against these people. Maybe it is because they remind them of a past the don't want to return to, only days/weeks after they participated in the ultimate starfleet sin: the complete annihalation of a centient species. Okay there may be moore of these "brain-beetles" out there, but starfleet killed all they knew about instead of trying to negotiate with them. And now these people show up and remind everybody about a time when humans engaged in terrible wars that killed millions and was generally everything the UFP try not to be.

Why didn't the crew beam this cryo-satellite aboard for examination. If the Enterprise has any archaeologists onboard they whould have been furious to have missed such an opportunity to study an 20th century artifact.

Where would they have put it?

"Mr. Data, why are my quarters sealed?"
"Captain, we need the space for the S.S. Birdseye."

Teral: Well the last time starfleet personel woke late 20th century people found drifting in space they released a genocidal megalomaniac and his followers. Maybe Picard thought it was better to have someone from security standing close by. Offcourse he should have asked Worf to wait by the door or call some of the guys in yellow to sickbay.

Luigi Novi: Precisely my point.

Teral: As for Data his appereance is so close to human that Claire really shouldn't have noticed since she has to be very disoriented after waking up after 370 years of deep sleep.

Luigi Novi: I don't think disorientation is an indefinite thing, Teral. Besides, they woke them up, meaning they wanted them totally conscious and oriented. It's not like they would remain in some permanent delerium, and whatever disorientation they did feel, Picard would not want to ADD to that confusion, he'd want to lessen it as much as possible.

Teral: Why didn't the crew beam this cryo-satellite aboard?

Luigi Novi: We don't know how large it was.

I just got the impression that the satellite could fit within a shuttlebay. Since it's a comercial satellite from the late 20th century it appear likely that it would be very minimalistic.

At the least Riker should have followed Worf suggestion and ajusted the trajectory of the satellite so it would remain safe until it could be salvaged for study.

You're absolutely right, Teral, and I totally missed that point. Since the space shuttle's cargo bay is the size of a schoolbus, it couldn't have been larger than that.

(By the way, pardon me for asking, but I'm just curious: Is Teral a male or female name?)

Neither, its a tribble name.... prrrrr....

maybe Teral can be either Male or Female, Like the name Jesse, Bobby, or Chris.

Neither. It's just a name I picked to use in various discussion boards. Since I believe the Cardassians to be the most fascinating race in Star Trek I picked one that sounds Cardassian-like.

I have however posted a few comments under my real name Michael Nissen on this board.

Maybe the senior staff is so whiny and annoyed with these 20th century humans because they actually have to deal with them. Think about it, isn't the senior staff supposed to be running the ship? They shouldn't need to counsel/discipline these people. Shouldn't the couseling department of the ship take over? Yes, Troi is the main counseller and does takes care of one of them, but there must be more than one couseller on the Enterprise. The other two 20th century humans are left completely alone. On a ship of 1500-odd people there is only 1 counseller who can only help one person at a time? Couldn't the senior staff at least get some people from Earth Sciences or Stellar Cartography or some other department doing nothing in this episode, to at least keep the 20th century guys amused and out of their hair? Have them take the 20th century guys to the holodeck and have a blast ... just keep them occupied and out of the way. Doesn't seem like too much to ask from my POV

Of course, then as was said, the frozen human sub-plot (or main plot?) dissolves and it's a 5 minute episode!

Also, I don't know if this was covered in some general nit section on this board or in the books. But, I noticed in this episode that the stars in the observation louge are all wacky. If I understand the layout correctly, when Picard sits in his chair in the Lounge, wouldn't he be facing the same way as he would be facing from his chair on the Main bridge? (or at least in the same general direction). So shouldn't the stars streak along the length of the observation lounge window instead of away from it? Unless the Main Bridge doesn't face directly forward and the viewscreen just displays a forward view to make it appear as if the bridge does face forward.

Also, Picard's reaction to the thawing of the humans seems rather out-of-character and even downright cruel. True, Picard should have been informed before they were actually thawed. But, he repremands Data, claiming "These people were already dead. What worse could have happened to them?".

Uhhh ... OK then, I guess when Tasha was struck down by Armus, Picard was in favor of just chucking the body into refuse. "Bah she's dead. Don't waste the transporter energy to beam her up. She's dead, what worse can happen to her?" Yeah right. Amazing how quickly Picard's value for life drops when it becomes inconvienent!

I'm amazed this nit isn't in the books or on this board already: by the time of TNG, they've found a cure for death!!!

I'm astounded no one mentions this when speaking of cryonics. You die, they freeze you, so in the future when they cure what killed you, you'll be revived. Uh, run that by me again?

Okay, so we'll be able to cure cancer someday. Wave a metal wand with blinking lights and the tumor vanishes. I'll give you that. But so what? They're still *dead* you know!

And yes, they really were dead. They weren't frozen while still alive. Crusher said they were frozen after they died. I'm betting they didn't have heart attacks and get frozen within six minutes, so their brain cells would all be quite dead from oxygen deprivation if nothing else.

So if Crusher can cure their disease and then *bring them back to life*, why can't they do the same with everyone else who dies? Is there some rule that they must stay frozen for centuries first? A crewman dies, just bring him back to life. What's the big deal?

For this episode to work, Crusher must be able to not just cure disease or illness but restore life to dead tissue! How come we never see it again?

And more importantly, how come no one else noticed this glaring nit?

::So shouldn't the stars streak along the length of the observation lounge window instead of away from it? Unless the Main Bridge doesn't face directly forward and the viewscreen just displays a forward view to make it appear as if the bridge does face forward.::

The Observation Lounge is located directly behind the main bridge. It faces straight back. The Main Bridge faces straight forward. The stars are correct.

::I'm astounded no one mentions this when speaking of cryonics. You die, they freeze you, so in the future when they cure what killed you, you'll be revived. Uh, run that by me again?::

Well…I got the impression that the "Frozen Friends" (for all you Far Side fans) were only "Mostly Dead" (for all you Princess Bride fans). We've seen 24th century medicine bring back people from the dead before (ie Who Watches the Watchers, Tapestry) so I suppose that if the injuries aren't severe enough and the technology exists to repair the damage, people can be brought back to life. I'd assume that most of the deaths in the 24th century come from "really bad" injuries.

After the Romulan warbird decloaks inside Federation territory, Picard point out to the Romulan commander that "SOME people may interpret this as an act of war" (emphasis mine). The treaty establishing the Romulan Neutral Zone clearly states that ANY entry into the RNZ itself is an act of war, no room for interpretation.

But the Romulans know that the Feds would never start a war. Even the Commander in "Face of the Enemy" says that the Federation will try to avoid confrontation at all costs. (At least I think she said it, might have been Troi)

Anyway, the Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Tzenkethe, Tholians, Gorn, and a million other species with weird names keep crossing over into Federation space. Every time this happens one of the characters says that "according to such-and-such a treaty, this is an act of war." And yet there is never a declaration of war.

This is why they keep coming in. No fear of retaliation. The Feds need to come in and kick some Romulan posteriors back to Romulus!

See ya later
TUE

I think Picard was just being vaguely threatening without the intention of any overt acts of violence.

I don't have the original NextGen Guide, so I don't know if this is in there, but:

When Sonny gets his drink from the replicator (a marguerita? sp?), he says that it's just about the best one he's ever had. Someone ought to tell him that those are made of synthehol, so whatever he had before probably was non-alcoholic.

What were these frozen people doing hundreds of lightyears from Earth, anyway? Nobody even asks that in the episode, and I wonder why the other nitpickers didn't notice it.
And when they find yet another 20th century space probe, they should have reacted:
"Uh-oh, remember the last several times we ran across ancient abandoned space probes? We'd better call a red alert!"
These people have survived hundreds of years, they could survive a little longer. They didn't need to be revived right away. They could have been taken to the nearest starbase and revived there. Then we can just skip to the next episode.
None of the kids on board wanted to talk to these people? Or weren't they allowed?

GREAT LINE: "We are back." Romulan commander near the end of the show.

(Insert suspenseful music)

In a salute to "Charlie X", Sonny Clemonds, spanks Crusher on the derrier. Funny thing is, she didn't seem to mind it. She was probably thinking, "I wish Jean-Luc would do that to me."

DUMB MOMENT: I have to agree with Phil that the dumb moment comes when Picard ORDERS security to get Offenhouse off the Bridge...and what do they do? They stand there and gawk at the de-cloaking Bird of Prey! I love Phil's joke too: "You have to obey the Captain's orders unless something really cool materializes on the viewscreen"

This is the last episode to feature Dr. Crusher...until season 3.

Sonny was complaining about the Atlanta Braves still being a losing team. Excuse me, but if I remember correctly, they were a top flight team for a good deal of the 1990's, winning pennants and a World Series or two. (Too bad he missed the 2000 Yankees-Mets Subway Series. Game One of that series was one of the best baseball games ever played, IMO.)
Peter Mark Richman acted in the 1960's without the name "Peter." He was in the final episode of the original "Outer Limits", entitled "The Probe". He was one of a group of people who encounter an oversize microbe on an alien probe in the middle of the ocean. BTW, the oversize microbe from that ep became the Horta from the Classic Trek ep "Devil In The Dark."

Turn: I'm amazed this nit isn't in the books or on this board already: by the time of TNG, they've found a cure for death!!!
Luigi Novi: They didn’t find a cure for death. They’ve simply found ways to cure or repair CERTAIN conditions, like heart trouble, embolisms, etc.

Turn: I'm astounded no one mentions this when speaking of cryonics. You die, they freeze you, so in the future when they cure what killed you, you'll be revived. Uh, run that by me again?
Luigi Novi: But they can’t necessarily find a cure for EVERY SINGLE cause of death. If someone chops your head off, you lose all your blood and electrical activity in your body, or if you’re left to decompose, no amount of futurism is going to "find the cure" for it.

Turn: Okay, so we'll be able to cure cancer someday. Wave a metal wand with blinking lights and the tumor vanishes. I'll give you that. But so what? They're still *dead* you know! And yes, they really were dead. They weren't frozen while still alive. Crusher said they were frozen after they died.
Luigi Novi: Except that we bring people back from clinical death all the time today. All these guys did was freeze the patients after they had been dead for a short time.

Turn: I'm betting they didn't have heart attacks and get frozen within six minutes, so their brain cells would all be quite dead from oxygen deprivation if nothing else.
Luigi Novi: Well, whether the procedure I described above in my 5.7.01 post would work in the time table used by cryonics experts is questionable.

Turn: So if Crusher can cure their disease and then *bring them back to life*, why can't they do the same with everyone else who dies? Is there some rule that they must stay frozen for centuries first? A crewman dies, just bring him back to life. What's the big deal?
Luigi Novi: As aforementioned, some circumstances of death do not allow for this. Personally, my biggest problem with the use of cryonics in this episode is that the writers didn’t really research how its practioners use it, and ended up having the patients standing up inside a transparent lighted chamber, had one of them frozen posthumously, which isn’t possible, and had her come from a city where there were no such cryonics facilities.

I also agree that Trek in general has opened big cans of worms with some of its "You were dead"-"I got better" premises, most notably the uses of the transporter in episodes like Lonely Among Us(TNG), Unnatural Selection(TNG), and Seven’s use of nanoprobe to reverse death hours after the fact in Mortal Coil(VOY).

Seven’s use of nanoprobe to reverse death hours after the fact in Mortal Coil(VOY).

I'd argue that this one falls under Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."). We don't know how Borg nanoprobes work, maybe they can, in fact, do what is advertised.

Who said they couldn't? I was merely making a point about how some techno-premises introduced solely to help along the plot of one episode would have far-reaching, and perhaps sometimes uncomfortable implications—the point that Turin was making—but which are never addressed by the creators, not that these premises are implausible, an entirely separate point.

Another are the exoscopic sensor and microtransporter from Field of Fire(DS9). What’s to stop Garak or some other assassin from beaming in a tiny amount of poison into Sisko's or some diplomat’s food, or a bomb under their pillow? And who the hell would want to live on a station where Ezri or someone else could see them in their quarters from anywhere else on the station?

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Quote:

Sonny was complaining about the Atlanta Braves still being a losing team. Excuse me, but if I remember correctly, they were a top flight team for a good deal of the 1990's, winning pennants and a World Series or two.

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There was even a book about it, "From Worst to First."

Actually, a book just came out that answers some of these questions (which is, actually, why I'm on this site today). It's the second half of "The Eugenics Wars: the Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh", by Greg Cox. It's really, really good. The author does a really good job of weaving the story with actual history. One incident (which I'm assuming didn't happen, but I don't actually remember) was a nerve gas attack on the UN in Switzerland. Claire is a tourist who is caught in the attack.
Which answers, maybe, the question of her getting so quickly to a cryogenic facility. And, actually, the legal angle. She and her husband were in Switzerland, so presumably he had access to someone who would freeze her. Of course, all things considered, he did it awfully quickly considering the shock he must have been in - especially in the book, since he wasn't with her.
Then again, according to the book, she was really, really dead. Not Mostly Dead, not almost dead. Really, really dead.
The book also explains the cryogenic dilemma. A private company was being set up to freeze people and send them into space. Which almost sounds familiar to me. The Botany Bay technology, on the other hand, was provided by Seven, in the event he had to take care of Khan or his brethren. So, yes, it was a big leap in technology, because 'we' didn't make the leap.

And I just loved 'Freeze Company' and the theme song.

Yes, a much maligned sitcom from the 2370's starring John Ritter the 47th.

Thanks Mei.

Thanks, CC, for detailing my nit.
A lot of people complain about the "Wild Card", and how it could give a World Series win to a second-place team. Of course, if it were not for the Wild Card, us New Yorkers wouldn't have had their first Subway Series in over 40 years.

No problem, Adam. (Though I thought you were from Jersey).

The Bravos are also the number one team right now, with a winning percentage of about .640, I believe.

And if not for the Wild Card, there would be 3 teams playing for the spot in the fall classic. It just doesn't work out with an odd number of teams.

My mistake--they're at .658

World Series, anyone?

Back on-topic...

This was an..interesting episode. Definitely different from what we'd been introduced to so far.

I think that Adam, like me, is one of those New Jerseyans who, because he lives so close to, commutes to, goes to school to, or works in New York, identifies strongly with New York, and considers it as part of his home "area," and considers themselves, by extension, "New Yorkers." Or at least "New Yorker-area-ers."

When telling Picard about cryonics, before the frozen people wake up, Crusher appears to be speaking with a British accent.

Like many here, I couldn't help but notice how insensitively the crew treated the Thawed Out Three. Just sticking them in a lounge when they had no idea how any of the technology around them worked or how to get around the ship was especially bad. I think, however, the crew's attitude can partly be explained by being in a tense situation along the Neutral Zone.

Two nits I hadn't noticed on this board:

-- Where was the 20th century historian from "The Big Goodbye"? He would have had a field day with the three of them and kept them occupied for weeks. (Perhaps Picard realized the absurdity of having one on board.)

-- Picard summons Troi to the Guest Lounge, then leaves the three there before she arrives. He runs into Troi in the corridor and tells her about Claire. But when Troi goes to talk to Claire (apparently immediately afterward), they are in her guest quarters, not the lounge.

I know it was unrealistic for Offenhouse to be on the bridge when Picard confronted the Romulans, but I've always thought it was so cool, his line that the Romulans were clueless about the attacks. (In all the Voyager shows about the Borg, I don't once remember seeing them scoop cities off planets.)

No, but we DID see that in The Best of Both Worlds part 1.

In BOBW, we saw what it looked like after a Borg scoop, but I don't think we ever got to see it as it happened.

Ok, I thought you meant that we had never seen other evidence of Borg scooping. Sorry 'bout that, Chief! I also thought you were using Voyager as your only reference source (not a terrific idea).

One of the shots of the cryo-vessel is flipped....the "04" on the hull is on BACKWARDS

Synopsis: The newly revived humans, however, prove to be a challenge to put up with: a stockbroker demands access to his money...
Luigi Novi: Offenhouse is a financier, but was never specified to be a stockbroker in particular. (Pick, pick, pick! )

Offenhouse: And that's not all...I have a sneaking suspicion about who's really buried in Grant's Tomb...
In Act 4, in the last scene in which the three 20th century citizens appear together, Offenhouse tells Claire and Sonny that he has spent his entire career being able to tell when the other guy's mouth is dry. He confidently says that there is something going on, something serious, and that the tension level on the ship has increased. Really, Sherlock? Ya think maybe Captain Picard's statement to you earlier that they are in the middle of a "very serious, and potentially dangerous situation," had anything to do with it?
Has your ability "to tell when the other guy's mouth is dry" and that "something serious is going on" required someone to come out and tell you that something serious is going on?

Darnit. Put the friggin' heading in the wrong place. Hate it when that happens.

Is it how you meant it to look now Luigi?

Thanks, Butch! You even put the two paragraphs together. Much appreciated.

You're welcome. Now since this board is up to 100k, it's time for Pt. 2.