Another good episode. Another good Geordi episode. Excellent all around
The Enterprise answers a distress signal from the Neutral Zone. It probably shouldn't, but they're the good guys and can't just ignore someone in distress. As they arrive the ship crashes into a planet that can support life, but barely. It's dark and stormy, making transportation tricky. They only have short windows of time to get people out of there. Another excellent set. The thrust of the show hinges on this set looking believable. It doesn't look like a welcoming atmosphere. The terrain is questionable but there's not much time to step gingerly since they have to be ready to leave. They find a badly injured Romulan and are ready to go when Geordi slips and falls into a chasm.
More of Geordi's awesomeness and expertise on display. It shows he's not just skilled with ship engines, but also mineralogy and geology, melting silver to make himself some spikes for climbing out of the deepest part of the cave. What I like about this style of writing is that it doesn't make any obvious statements about the education of the character that only slow the story down. You can see the versatility and well-roundedness of the character as the action unfolds. Geordi is quite possibly a skilled survivalist. How many of the other characters would've been able to do this, realistically?
He doesn't have much time to rest though since he finds another Romulan, or the Romulan finds him rather. This is the first time we have dealings with the Romulans since the last episode of the first season, The Neutral Zone. It proceeds as though that episode never really took place and I'm glad. It was weak and flawed. This is more of a redo on the whole concept. In this episode there's no pretense that the Federation and Romulans haven't had contact in several decades. Instead, it's assumed that the cease fire has been quietly abided by on both sides for all these years without much need for communication. The Romulans represent a closed society that thinks of most others as enemies to either be conquered or to defend themselves against. This is a much better situation for a standoff than in that first season episode, The Neutral Zone.
And a much better Romulan commander to go along with the story. Andreas Katsulas was a great character actor and this is his first of several appearances as Commander Tomalak. He is obviously wants his men back and agrees to meet with the Enterprise to retrieve the man they brought back on board. Of course, the Enterprise has to hang around to find Geordi which is also breaking the treaty, so the sense of urgency in the matter is palpable. You also have to worry about the fact that the Romulans are deceitful by nature. The injured Romulan claims to be alone and Tomalak claims that it was only a one-man ship. It was just a wonderfully written and detailed script.
It doesn't help matters that the Romulan that they brought back to the ship is dying and needs a ribosome transfusion. The writers use a classic soap opera maneuver and situate things to where Worf is the only match for such a transfusion and many of the characters try to persuade Worf to comply. Not just because it's the right thing to do but because this could
obviously cause this incident to escalate once the Romulan commander
arrives. Worf refuses several times over no matter who talks to him to try and persuade him. Picard even decides not to formally order him to do it making his character own the decision to let the Romulan die. It really cements the hatred between Klingons and Romulans and
helps to establish the length of time they've been blood enemies. More so than
anything else up to this point and opens a lot of doors to a lot of stories that were hinted at when speaking of the Khitomer attack where Worf's father was killed.
But you can't feel too uncomfortable about Worf's coldness to the situation. The Romulan states that he would rather die before he accepts help from the Klingon anyway. Good stuff. And then things do escalate when Tomalak arrives. Jumping to the conclusion that they killed his man, he powers up and gets ready to attack the Enterprise.
Meanwhile, Geordi is slowly wearing down the resolve of the Romulan centurion on the planet. At first Bochra claims Geordi as his prisoner because that's the nature of the Romulans. But they can't go anywhere and they can't survive for long because of the inhospitable atmosphere. Geordi's visor stops working and the Romulan is resigned to give up. We see the differences between the good guys and bad guys at this point and they're pretty standard - the Romulan knows that his government would leave him there rather do anything risky to find him. Geordi knows the Enterprise has never stopped looking for him and has to convince him to work out a way to reach them. More of Geordi's mastery at mechanics is on display when they combine the tricorder and Geordi's visor to allow the Enterprise to detect their presence by the neutrino beam. They have to trust each other, Bochra guiding Geordi along so he can talk Bochra through the process since he can't see to do it himself.
Once they see that there are two life forms available to transport there's a great hold-your-breath moment where Picard has to use his diplomatic wizardry to convince Tomalak, who is ignoring him, not to fire while he lowers his shields to transport a second man of the Romulan's along with his own. They're beamed directly to the bridge to talk to Tomalak and explain things. Picard makes note in an offhand way that Tomalak lied about the number of men, but they agree to call it all a simple mistake in order to keep the peace, though not without a little posturing to show that the tensions are still unmistakably there.
No complaints about this episode. The enemies have to work together to solve a problem but it doesn't mean we're all friends now by any means. Complexity! This was the sort of thing that was missing from the first two seasons. Excellent episode. Four stars.
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