“The Best of Both Worlds”
Shelby joins the crew to examine the disappearance of the Federation colony New Providence, apparently caused by the Borg. A Borg cube appears and they demand that Picard personally surrender to them. Thanks to Shelby’s quick-witted strategy, the Enterprise breaks away and hides in a nebula where Geordi modifies the deflector to serve as a weapon. When the Borg attack again, they abduct and assimilate Picard who now acts as their speaker, Locutus. Riker assumes command, while a team led by Shelby beams aboard the Borg ship. They can do some damage, but don’t manage to retrieve Picard. Back on the Enterprise, Riker orders Geordi’s weapon to be fired - without any noticeable effect. Thanks to Locutus the Borg have all of Picard’s knowledge about Federation technology and strategy. The Enterprise is not able to follow the Borg cube which has resumed a course straight to Earth. A fleet of 40 Federation ships is going to engage them at Wolf 359. When the Enterprise arrives at the battle site, the whole fleet is lost. The Enterprise catches up with the cube again, and thanks to Riker’s unusual and unexpected maneuvers Picard can be freed, while the cube approaches Earth. Data is trying to get in contact with the Borg through Picard’s implants. He finally gets a hint by Picard himself who says “sleep”, just when Riker is about to give the command to ram the Borg ship. With a “sleep” command, Data disables the cube which destroys itself by a power feedback. summary by Ex-Astris-Scientia
Ehem… Not quite sure what to say. With my favourite nitpicker - Andreas - it can be dangerous. Oh well, it’s all for the greater good anyway. 
So, the first thing that comes to my mind here is - I loved the suspense. Between the two parts of the episode everything looked honestly hopeless. For the first time in Star Trek, I was truly wondering how the heck they’re gonna get out of this.
And yes, Data’s role in the whole scheme was just too precious. What would we do without an android, huh? LOL!
Also, the dangerous concept of the Borg gaining all the knowledge about Starfleet defense is cool. Although I don’t see it being exploited later in the series, really. I mean, particularly Voyager. I must say I liked TNG Borg much better. What Voyager did with them was colorless. Well, it was green but… Until I saw the Borg Queen (and I liked her a lot), I had always preferred TNG’s version of them. The more mysterious, the better.
August 31st, 2006 at 4:52 pm
LOL - and what’s so dangerous about talking a bit about Trek, my dear, even if I pick a few nits?
But it probably is a good thing that we are only talking about TNG here, not Voyager. I think once you start reviewing the Voyager Borg episodes I should keep my mouth shut. Not that I don’t agree that they got the better (and more interesting) treatment in TNG, but steaming and fuming in a place like this might not be a good idea.
BoBW was a pretty cool episode. The suspense was well done, as you said, and I found Shelby quite interesting (got me thinking how many things might have turned out with a different “Number One” on the Enterprise).
Only two things I disliked slightly:
1 - Earth’s defenses looked rather sad. But the “only ship in the sector” phenomenon is a time-honored staple of Trek, so I guess there is no way around it showing up in TNG, too.
2 - Yeah, sure, let’s use the deflector, why not? If TNG overdid any technological gimmick this must be it. But a big part of my resentment is hindsight, and at the time of BoBW it wasn’t half as overdone as it became later, so not a major problem here IMO.
September 2nd, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Hey, you picking the nits is good for the greater cause! I can forget something and rely on you to remind me - this is truly a co-operational effort, right? And whoever is going to read it can rest assured he won’t be spared a thing!
Oh right, Shelby. Ayup, I’m with you on this. I’m not a very big fan of Riker myself. Could be nice to see her as Number One.
As for “the only ship” I believe it has been discussed on Trekcreative back in the old days. Me, I’m perfectly okay with it. There’s no knowing exactly how many ships the Federation has in general. It’s the flag ship we see all the time simply because we are watching the documentary of the flag ship’s voyages. I tend to assume that other starships have similarly rich adventures, though their missions might be slightly less prominent.
Technological babble? LOL! Gimme more! Do you remember Immersion?
Have you forgotten I simply adore it?!
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:01 am
And for someone who adores technobabble you chose a very interesting end for your “Immersion” story.
Oh, and just for the record: I have nothing against technobabble - as long as it does not overshadow the efforts of the characters or becomes central to the story. We may not agree on what the people of the future should (or would) be like, but I think we can both agree that any good TV show, Trek or otherwise, should be about the people and not their technology.
The more the resolution of an episode hinges on a technobabble-ish “deus ex machina”, the less I am thrilled by it, because it often takes something away from the human drama.
An additional problem of any TV show is that you can’t just introduce something into an ongoing story and then conveniantly forget about it a few episodes later, at least if you want to keep up some continuity and believeability. Perhaps it’s the curse of a series with a complex canon that’s written by a multitude of authors, but the more technobabble, the easier it becomes for later stories to solve a problem with technology and not human ingenuity. And the latter is what I believe Star Trek should be about, regardless of how optimistic, pessimistic, or realistic one thinks this future is.
December 6th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight