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Star Trek (2009) Review – Nerd Heaven #010

Star Trek (2009) directed by J.J. Abrams was a game changer for Star Trek, which had lain dormant since the cancellation of Enterprise. This movie brought it back to our screens. It was an exciting time. The decision to do a “soft reboot” in canon using time travel and an alternate timeline was a clever concept and brought in a new generation of fans. But what does this movie have to do with the new Star Trek Picard, which will be set back in the original prime timeline? Plenty. The inciting incident of this movie takes place in the prime timeline, and this event will have a profound effect on the life of Jean-Luc Picard. Join us as we conclude our countdown of the 10 episodes and movies you should watch before Star Trek Picard. Next week, we look at the first episode of Picard!

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of the stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 10 of the podcast. Today we finish our look at the 10 episodes and movies that you should watch before Star Trek Picard.

Today, we’re looking at JJ Abram’s Star Trek 2009 movie, because although it creates a whole new Star Trek timeline, it’s inciting incident takes place in the prime universe, and its impact will have a profound effect on Jean-Luc Picard’s life.

The IMDB description for this movie reads

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father’s legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

This movie first appeared in cinemas on the 6th of April 2009

Punch it.

I was very excited about the impending release of this movie. Star Trek was back! Ever since the cancellation of Enterprise, Star Trek had been dead. The franchise was off the air.

We didn’t know when or if we’d ever see it again.

Paramount decided to bring it back in the form of movies, and hired JJ Abrams to create the first one.

Some fans were very cautious about this movie. Claims that this movie would be more open to wider audiences, suggested it would lack the heart and soul of Star Trek.

I too was cautious, but optimistically so. I just wanted a good story. I wanted Star Trek back.

One of the first things you notice when this movie stars is the lens flare. A common trick to make CGI look more realistic is to add a little lens flare. To give the illusion that these computer-generated images were shot with a real camera. JJ wanted to go for a very realistic believable star Trek universe, so he added a lot of lens flare to his cgi. And so it didn’t look out of place, he also added a lot of lens flare to the live-action footage.

Except, in my opinion, he went way overboard. They actually had people on set with torches, (sorry, flashlights, for you American listeners) shining light into the lens of the camera. It’s a bit distracting. But, it’s his style.

The next big thing you notice is that the viewscreen is a window. And communication messages appear as translucent overlays on that window.

It could be argued that the bridge of the enterprise shouldn’t be right up the top of the saucer. It’s a vulnerable position. There’s no need for it. It’s not like they’re looking out a window.

JJ Abrams and his team were trying to provide a justification for the position of the bridge, and so, they made the viewscreen an actual window.

I wasn’t a fan of this approach and was disappointed when Star Trek Discovery followed suit.

But we get an epic space battle. Right up front, we realise this will be a much more action-packed star trek. And that was welcome. Star Trek movies had always fell a little flat on the action front. Even the borg battle in First Contact was over way too quickly.

I love the scene where someone gets blown out of the ship due to a hull breach and it suddenly goes silent, because, of course, there is no sound in the vacuum of space. Nice touch. Very atmospheric.

So this ship is the USS Kelvin. Named after JJ Abram’s father. It has been suggested, by some fans, that in-universe, this ship could be named after William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, after whom the kelvin unit of temperature is named. But to my knowledge, this isn’t canon.

The captain of the Kelvin is taken on board the Romulan ship. They ask what he knows of Ambassador Spock. I love that they call him Ambassador, linking back to the next generation.

There are some cool looking aliens on the Kelvin. Some nice creature effects on the bridge, and a midwife with funny eyes. It’s nice to see some more alien aliens on Star Trek. But the lack of any familiar races at all, kinda makes it feel a little more like Star Wars than Star Trek. It would have been nice to throw in an Andorian in the background somewhere.

We get some very emotional music during the birth scene. And there are little to no sound effects in this scene. We just hear hte music as Kirk’s mother gives birth, and the ships battle it out. This technique was sometimes used on Babylon 5, to amazing effect. I loved it there, and I love it here. Very effective. This whole sequence as George Kirk asks about his newborn son and says goodbye to his wife is fantastic.

I always give this movie a lot of credit for making me cry before the opening title even appears.

Powerful stuff.

I Love this teaser. Always have.

But one question. Where do the shuttles go? How do they escape the Narada? Do they have warp drive?

As as the title card comes up, we are treated to the new theme music. This film was scored by Michael Giacchino. He wrote quite different music, but it was great stuff.

I like the kid kirk driving sequence. I love how his communicator is a Nokia brand. Yes, this is product placement, but to me, these touches add elements of believability to the world.

The boy he passes on the street is supposed to be his older brother George. There was a deleted scene where he was leaving home because of their abusive stepfather. That scene was cut.

And yes, I like the rock music. Maybe it doesn’t fit star trek, but that’s ok. I also liked the Enterprise theme song and thought it gave the show a more contemporary feel, which was suitable since the show was set closer to present day.

Maybe it’s less suitable in the 23rd century.

Spock is wrestling with his identity as both Vulcan and human. At first, his father suggests that although he is half-human he should live his life fully Vulcan. But later tells him he should choose his own path.

Spock chooses the Vulcan way of life, and yet, he has concerns that his mother will consider this an insult against her. I like this.

Then the Vulcan leader insults his mother, referring to her as a disadvantage.

The way Spock says “Live long and prosper” speaks volumes. It carries a very different message. Nice acting by Zachery Quinto.

Kirk flirting with Uhura seems……weird. But I can understand it. He’s a young guy, she’s an attractive woman, and she’s not an officer under his command.

Kirk isn’t even in Starfleet, just a very intelligent delinquent kid.

So we get Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike. And he does a good job of It.

Pike gives that weird line about the Federation being a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada.

First of all, he’s confusing the Federation with Starfleet. The federation is a political coalition of planets. Starfleet is their “armada” if you want to call it that, although that word carries very military connotations. Starfleet both is and isn’t a military. It’s confusing, but yes, it’s focus is on peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, as well, of course, as exploration.

We see the Enterprise begin constructed on the ground in Iowa. Obviously something in this new timeline changed, causing it to be built here instead of at the San Francisco shipyards (which we assume are orbital)

This movie presents us with a very different Kirk.

In the original timeline, Kirk wasn’t a brash delinquent. He was a nerd. Constantly carrying books around. This, of course, is explainable, given he grew up without a father (he had a step father but he was a real deadbeat.)

And then we meet McCoy. I like how we finally get an explanation for Kirk’s nickname for him – Bones. Makes good sense. And it canonises that McCoy has been married but is now divorced.

The Romulans we see in this movie are not like any Romulans we’ve seen before. But these are not military officers. They’re labourers. And they’ve been through some really bad stuff, so again, I’m cool with all that.

It’s pretty cool that we get to see Kirk taking the Kobayashi maru test.

Notice he’s eating an apple, just like he is when he tells the story of this day in Star Trek 2.

Spock hits pretty low when he references Kirk’s father during the hearing.

And then we get the Paul McGillion cameo. At the time this movie was in production, Paul McGillion was playing Dr. Carson Becket on Stargate Atlantis, a character with a Scottish accent. A very popular character. And there was a fan movement to get him cast as Scotty in this movie. It would have been a nice choice. But JJ Abrams had worked with Simon Pegg on Mission Impossible and was determined to cast him as Scotty. He did, however, give McGillion a little role as the officer assigning people their posts as the cadets are called into active duty because of an emergency at Vulcan.

So we learn that Spock and Uhura have a relationship. This was a very odd choice, which somehow kind of works.

And we finally get our first proper full look at the enterprise.

And she looks pretty good.

Pretty close to the original version, and again, because this is a changed timeline, I’m willing to accept the differences.

It’s a pretty decent modern re-imagining of the original.

I can’t say the brewery engineering room quite works for me, but hey, they tried something.

I don’t have an issue with Checkov being on the bridge, even though we never saw him in TOS until season 2.

First of all, yes, that alternate timeline defence, and second, Checkov could have been on the ship during season 1, we just never saw him on screen. In fact, we know that he must have been because Khan recognises him in Star Trek 2, canonising this theory.

I Love how Kirk is still flirting with every woman that passes him, even though he’s really sick. He reminds me of Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who.

So Vulcan is being attacked by a Romulan ship. The ship we first saw in the teaser. Nero’s ship. The Nerada

This ship looks really cool. It’s mean and it’s powerful.

But it’s supposed to be a mining ship. It makes no sense that it would be this powerful.

The non-canon countdown comic tries to explain this. I don’t quite buy into it.

The characters know a little too much about Romulans for the time when this movie is set. Remember, they don’t yet know that Romulans are related to the Vulcans. But they were probably pushed into closer investigation into them after the Kelvin incident.

We get some Awesome visuals as the Enterprise drops out of warp in the middle of a debris field from the attack.

It was very nice to see Star Trek with modern big-budget effects. This was a big step forward from Nemesis, the last time we’d seen Trek on the big screen.

So Nero demands pike come aboard, leaving Spock in command, and cadet Kirk is promoted to first officer. Quite unlikely, but I guess Pike sees something in Kirk.

So this movie kills a redshirt in true Star Trek tradition. Of course, he’s not wearing a red shirt because they’re in spacesuits. And he’s an aussie. But given his accent, I doubt the actor is Aussie. It’s a shame that one of the very few Australians to appear in Star Trek is such an idiot.

The battle on the drill is pretty thrilling.

And I do like Sulu’s fold-out sword.

Say what you will about this movie, it’s an effective action film.

They beam Kirk and Sulu from their freefall. They crash onto the platform.

But if they maintained the same velocity, shouldn’t that impact have killed them.

The new transporter effect is kinda cool. The way it swirls around each individual part of the body.

So Vulcan is being destroyed by creating a black hole at the centre of the planet.

So they beam up the Vulcan leadership and Spock’s family, but Spock’s mother, Amanda.

Doesn’t make it.

This shows without a shadow of a doubt that we’re in a new timeline. There are new rules. We can’t assume anyone will survive.

And they actually destroyed Vulcan.

That was bold.

I was torn about this. I didn’t want Vulcan to go, but we’d all been criticising star trek for using the almighty reset button. Finally, they were willing to make a major change in the Star Trek universe, and not backpedal it.

The scene with Uhura and Spock in the turbolift is WEIRD.

She goes in to comfort him. And ends up kissing him.

She asks him what he needs. She seems almost disappointed when he doesn’t ask for anything romantic.

Really really weird scene.

So Nero explains he is from the future, and that in his future, Romulus was destroyed. The federation did nothing. Spock failed to save their world.

I like the callback to the creatures Khan used to control people in Star Trek 2. They look ever so slightly different, but I’ve always taken them to be the same creature.

While Spock is right, he has very flimsy evidence to drive him to assume Nero is from the future.

Spock makes it clear that Nero has caused a new timeline. An alternate reality.

Spock’s choice to throw Kirk off the ship onto a planet where he’d likely die is extremely harsh and illogical. All he had to do was put him in the brig.

So this planet is supposed to be delta vega

But it’s way too close to Vulcan.

Now I’ll accept that planets don’t have uniform climate across the whole world. Earth certainly doesn’t. So I can accept that the desert planet we saw in “Where no man has gone before” could have frozen polar caps, and that’s where Kirk is.

But Delta Vega is near the rim of the universe. Nowhere near Vulcan.

I read that the writers of the movie thought fans would appreciate the callback.

But this shows a lack of understanding of fans.

No callback is preferable to a callback that blatantly breaks canon like this. They could have called this planet anything.

The alien animals we see on the planet are AWESOME.

Star Trek has needed a few good space monsters for a long time, so their inclusion was very welcome in my opinion.

And surprise surprise! We see old Spock. Played by Leonard Nimoy!

This is what really made this movie. Nimoy provided a link to the past. To old Star Trek.

This is the original Spock. Last seen on screen as Ambassador Spock in Star Trek The Next Generation.

So a star went supernova in the 24th century. Spock promised the Romulans he would help them save their planet.

But he failed. The supernova destroyed Romulus.

Spock and Nero were both pulled into the black hole and ended up in the 23rd century.

This event happened in the prime timeline. The original timeline. And this is the event that will be important when it comes to Star Trek Picard.

We get a nice little Spock/bones scene. These movies never quite reach the same levels of portraying the relationship between Kirk, Spock and bones as the original series, but little scenes like this give an inkling. There was another good scene with Bones and Spock in Star Trek Beyond.

Then we meet Scotty. Simon Pegg does a pretty good job in the role.

He’s mostly used for comic relief in this film. I’m not a huge fan of purely comic relief characters, but I was very amused by his line when he asks Spock if they have sandwiches in the future.

Scotty mentioned beaming admiral archer’s prize beagle to another planet.

This, obviously, can’t be Porthos. I can accept that maybe Archer is still alive as a very old man, but Porthos? No way. So clearly Archer’s love of beagles continues through his life.

And this is where we encounter the problem of transwarp beaming. The ability to beam long distances from one planet to another. This is a big issue in the JJ Abrams movies. It was a convenient plot device to get Kirk and Scotty back onto the Enterprise in this episode. But it’s used very badly in the next movie, Star Trek Into Darkness. I’m afraid I’m not a fan of transwarp beaming. Not at all. It makes starship virtually obsolete.

Spock knows the potential that kirk and young Spock have to do great things together.

He wants kirk to take over the Enterprise. Spock assures Kirk that he just saw his planet destroyed. He is emotionally compromised. Both of him.

Why does the Enterprise have water tubes running around that go into a big spinner choppy thing? Feels a bit too much like Galaxy Quest.

Spock’s emotional outburst is understandable, given what he’s just been through.

It’s a good thing Sulu was there to hear Pike promote Kirk to first officer. Otherwise, I doubt anyone would accept him as the new acting Captain.

So now we have a cadet in command of the ship. Giving orders to crew who all outrank him, who have more experience and seniority than him.

It’s a little absurd.

Then we have a nice emotional scene between Sarak and Spock.

Ben Cross probably plays a more believable Sarak here than James Frain does in discovery.

So Nero is now planning to destroy Earth the same way he destroyed Vulcan.

This movie is the first time we really see normal Starfleet hand phasers firing bolts instead of beams. Discovery continued this trend.

Now, when The Defiant first appeared in DS9, firing bolts out of its cluster phasers, I loved it. It was so much meaner and tougher than normal phasers.

But now that everything is bursts, I miss the beams, because they feel more star-trek-ey.

So they find Ambassador Spock’s ship from the future.

The computer voice is played, for one last time, by Majel Barret.

Although, to be honest, it really doesn’t sound like her to me.

But anyway.

For once, it actually makes sense why there are no ships protecting earth.

They all went to Vulcan and were destroyed by the Narada, leaving Earth defenceless.

So they save Earth, and a black hole forms around the Nerada.

Kirk tries to do the Starfleet thing, offering compassion to one’s enemy.

Even Spock wants him to blow Nero away.

When Nero refuses Kirk’s help, they gladly pummel it with phasers, destroying the ship.

Except now the Enterprise is stuck in the gravitational pull of the black hole.

Nice that Scotty threw in his life “I’m giving it all she’s got, captain”

The solution, of course, is to eject the warp core.

Which looks nothing like a warp core. In fact, it’s a whole lot of separate…..things.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense. The enterprise is now without its warp core. It should have virtually no power,

But now it can power out of the black hole.

Apparently the destruction of the core did something technobabble-ish to disrupt the gravity or something.

We get a nice little scene where Spock and Spock meet.

Old Spock wanted Kirk and young Spock to find the friendship he knew that could have. A friendship that would define them both.

Spock tells his younger counterpart to forget logic and do what feels right.

This is kind of the culmination of his character journey, his increasing embracing of his human side was seen in both star trek 6 and tng unification.

It’s a nice book-end to this character.

So, Kirk, the cadet who has not yet even graduated the academy, who hasn’t even made ensign yet, is named captain and given command of the Enterprise.

This is completely illogical and ridiculous. It’s the thing that bugs me about this movie the most.

But anyway.

So now the crew of the enterprise are all together, on the ship, as they should be, with Kirk in the captain’s chair and Spock at his side. The glimmers of a potential friendship kindled between them.

We’re going to leave the Kelvin universe here and return to the prime timeline, because the event of this movie that really matters, is the destruction of Romulus by the singularity.

This event had a huge impact on the prime timeline, and on Captain Picard in particular.

The countdown to Picard comic book gives us some details on this.

At the time of recording, I’ve read the first instalment.

Well, that was star trek 2009

I still enjoy this movie.

It’s a very different kind of star trek, but it showed us a modern, high energy take on the franchise.

Next week, can you believe it? I’m very excited to announce that will be talking about the first episode of Star Trek Picard.

We’re almost there, people

And that’s very exciting.

See you next week on Nerd Heaven.

Until then, live long and prosper.

I’m Adam David Collings

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Star Trek Nemesis Review / Discussion (Nerd Heaven #009)

We last saw Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew in the 2003 movie Star Trek Nemesis. Not many people liked this movie. In fact, it has the reputation for being the movie that killed Star Trek. So, can we find anything positive to say about it after all these years? And what impact does it have on the upcoming Star Trek Picard show?

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Star Trek Voyager “The Gift” Review (Nerd Heaven #008)

While we met Seven on Nine in Scorpion, we don’t really get a glimpse of the character she’ll become until “The Gift”. Join us as we get to know her a little bit.

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Star Trek Voyager “Scorpion” Review (Nerd Heaven #007)

Today we turn our attention to Star Trek Voyager as Janeway and crew as they face their greatest challenge yet – The Borg. This is my personal favourite Voyager episode and it introduces the character of Seven of Nine who will be re-appearing in Star Trek Picard.

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Star Trek First Contact (Nerd Heaven Podcast #006)

Star Trek First Contact is my favourite Star Trek Movie. Let’s geek out over it!

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collins, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 6 of the podcast, and we’re continuing our look at the 10 episodes and movies you should check out before watching Star Trek Picard, which goes live late January.

Today, we’re looking at Star Trek First Contact.

The IMDB description for this movie reads

The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth’s first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed.

And this movie first appeared in cinemas on the 13th of November 1996, which was in the UK, prior to the american release on the 22nd of November. Here in Australia, we didn’t get it until the 28th.

Let’s do it.

This is my favourite Star Trek movie. It came out during the year of the 30th anniversary of Star Trek. What an awesome year that was. We got Trials and Tribble-ations, which was amazing. We get this movie, which was amazing, and we got Flashback over on voyager, which was really good.

There are some nice 30th anniversary tidbits in this movie that link it to other Star Trek shows. We’ll cover them as we get to them.

Let’s start by saying that the music in this movie is incredible. Jerry Goldsmith composed a hauntingly beautiful theme for First Contact.

I always sit through the opening credits just to listen to it. Plus, the names slowly coming into focus looks pretty cool.

Nice little callback at the start, seeing Picard in his TNG uniform for the flashback to Best of Both Worlds.

That pull back shot gives us a sense of the vastness of the Borg ship.

And as Picard wakes from his nightmare, we get our first glimpse of the new TNG movie-era uniforms. This is my favourite Star Trek uniform. It looks so cool. I really want one.

Picard is still having nightmare about his assimilation. I image, after going through something like that, the nightmare would never stop. Of course it’s implied that the nightmare is caused by the proximity of the Borg ship.

You gotta wonder what made the Borg decide to send another shop to assimilate Earth at this moment. Clearly, they still think one cube is enough.

And then we get another first. Our first glimpse at the new USS Enterprise, NCC 1701-E.

The last Enterprise was destroyed in the previous movie, Star Trek Generations.

The Enterprise E looks fantastic. Sleeker, meaner than the D. Of course, I also loved the D. But this new Enterprise was made for the big screen, and it fills it beautifully.

Gorgeous image of a nebula behind the ship, too.

Do you think Starfleet’s reluctance to let Picard anywhere near the Borg is more related to his previous assimilation, or his handling of the Hugh situation? Either way, it’s a foolish decision. No one knows the Borg better than Picard.

The voice effect used for the Borg collective in this movie is creepier than in the TV show.

I love the bridge of the Enterprise E. Those little screens for Picard, Riker, and Troi, the little corner desks for Data and Hawke. Fantastic production design.

And that Borg cube. So much more detailed than the model used on the TV show.

And here’s a first connection to other Star Trek. The Defiant from Deep Space Nine has joined the fight against the Borg. Obviously. This ship was designed to fight the Borg. It was likely one of the weapons shelby was working on prior to Best of both Worlds. Remember, those new weapons that weren’t ready yet.

The Defiant gives us the perfect opportunity to bring Worf into the story, who was a series regular on Deep Space Nine at this time.

I love the holographic viewscreen on the Enterprise E. I wish they’d continued to use that effect in subsequent movies.

Picard can still hear the Borg in his head. Surprising, since he no longer has any implants. But given how hard it was for the doctor to remove all of Seven’s implants in Voyager, let’s assume maybe there’s still a little something in there.

He gets some inside information on a weak spot that allows them to destroy the cube. This seems a little problematic. Remember, Borg cubes are extremely redundant. They shouldn’t have weak spots like that that cause the whole thing to blow up. I mean, this isn’t the blooming death star.

But, they need to keep the story moving. The Borg need an excuse to time travel into the past.

This, of course, makes absolutely no sense.

First, if the Borg simple go back in time and assimilate species when they were vulnerable, why not just do that to begin with.

But there’s a bigger problem. What do the Borg gain by assimilating a broken earth that is still recovering from world war 3? Their technology is useless. Biologically, humans are that different to many other species. It makes zero sense for the Borg to want to assimilate 21st century earth.

So, the very premise here is filled with plot holes.

But, I forgive them, because this movie is awesome.

What do you want from me?

So the Borg and the Enterprise arrive on my 85th birthday. And you better believe, when I turn 85, I’ll be making a pilgrimage to Montana, USA to meet the Vulcans.

But I digress.

Interestingly, 2063 is also the 100th anniversary of Star Trek.

First Contact presents us with a very different Zephram Cochrane that we are used to, from his appearance in the original series.

He’s not the amazing historical figure that starfleet puts on a pedestal. One of the first things we hear him say is “I sure as hell am not going up there sober.”

Surprise surprise, Cochrane was human. This is a theme through the whole movie. We have a tendency to venerate great men and women from history, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but, these people were human just like us, with the same flaws and emotions. They burped and broke wind just like we do.

James Cromwell and Alfre Goodard are both great as Cochrane and lily. Woodward is especially awesome as lily.

The enterprise destroys the Borg sphere. Again, it all seems too easy. I remember thinking, the first time I saw this, they had 2 Borg ships, and they’re both destroyed. We’re not even 30 minutes into this movie. So much for a movie about the Borg.

Of course, seeing the enterprise slowly get turned into a Borg ship ended up being much more compelling. So, it’s all good.

I love time travel stories, especially if they are internally consistent.

We’d never seen the TNG crew interact with present day. This was as close as we’d get. This was kind of TNG’s Star Trek 4.

I also like the new engineering set for the Enterprise E, with that massive warp core.

The idea of tunring a left-over nuclear missile into Earth’s first warp-speed ship is symbolic. And kinda cool.

The sickbay on the Enterprise E looks very much like the Voyager sickbay. This was probably just a cost-saving choice to re-use an existing set, but in my mind, back in the day, it was a deliberate creative choice, to make the two newer ships, Enterprise E and Voyager, look alike.

And now we get our next link to other Star Trek. And this is brilliantly done. Crusher needs a diversion to get every away from sickbay before the Borg break in, so, of course, they activate the Enterprise EMH, brilliantly played by Robert Picardo from Voyager. I love this scene. I always have. Obviously the enterprise sickbay would have an EMH. They simply don’t use it because they have a medical staff.

If you count Zephram Cochrane as a TOS reference, then this movie has now included cameos of ships and characters from all the other Star Trek shows that existed at the time.

Troi’s character doesn’t get a lot to do in this movie. In the previous movie, she had some fantastic scenes where she actually got to be a counselor. Here, she’s mainly relegated to comic relief. Still, Marina Sirtis does a good job of it.

The emotion chip is put to good use in this story.

And despite Data initially being quite annoying (deliberately so) I thought it was used effectively back in Generations as well. It was very thematic in that movie.

And it plays an important part in First Contact as well. It’s interesting to know that data can de-activate the chip. Don’t you wish you could simply turn off your emotions sometimes. It would be handy.

And now we get our first proper look at the Borg in their new big-screen, bigger budget glory. They look fantastic. So much detail. The chalky skin that looks like makeup is replaced with slimy pasty skin that looks a lot more realistic. The costumes are more detailed. And the Borg represent many different species. There are Klingon Borg, Cardassian Borg, Bolian Borg. If you look closely, you’ll notice all sorts of species.

The Borg visual effects for things like their personal force field have also been updated.

This is the first time we see the use of assimilation tubules.

The assimilation process has always been a bit of a mystery. But here we see the injection of nano-probes (not specifically mentioned in this movie, but explored later in voyager).

There’s a chilling moment when an assimilated crew member asks Picard for help.

Picard shoots him dead.

They don’t have the resources or the ability to surgically disconnect and restore each assimilated crew member right now, and Picard knows from personal experience, that it’s better to die than be a Borg drone.

Riker and Troi explain the Roddenberry philosophy to Cochrane. Tomorrow morning, earth will make first contact with aliens after his successful warp test. Within a few decades, war, poverty,disease are all erased. This makes First Contact a very Star Trek show, again cementing it’s place as a 30th anniversary celebration movie.

Picard meets Lily. I really like the friendship that develops between them.

Picard manages to convince her that he really is from the future.

I have to say I really like that when the window opens, and they see earth, they’re over Australia.

Yeah!

And we meet the Borg queen for the first time. The visual effect of her coming down from the ceiling is fantastic.

The Borg queen is a really interesting concept.

In a way, she contradicts what the Borg have been established to be.

She refers to herself as I. Saying I am the Borg.

Here’s the way I’ve always thought of her.

She is the central hub of the Borg.

Up until now, we’ve always assumed the Borg collective was a peer-to-peer network, but now it seems they are a client-server network. The queen is the server. You could say that the collective consciousness is her consciousness.

This is not really what was previously established, but it’s interesting.

I think that the Borg work better without the queen.

But I think they felt a movie must have a villain that audiences can relate to. And I do admit that the Borg queen fits this bill very well. Alice Krige plays her brilliantly.

There’s a lot about the queen that doesn’t make sense. She was on the Borg cube that was destroyed in best of both worlds. The same biological organism. But that ship was destroyed. And after she dies here, we’ll see her again in Voyager.

Her explanation for this is “You’ve become small. You humans think in this three-dimensional terms”, which is a total cop-out. This is writer slang for “I don’t have an explanation for this that makes sense.”

Picard gives Lily the ridiculous line about there being no money in the 24th century. Everyone works to better themselves and the rest of humanity.

Which is total nonsense, of course. A system like that cannot work.

The biggest issue I see is the unwanted jobs. Who cleans the toilets? Sure, in the Star Trek world, I would work hard writing books or exploring space, all in an effort to better myself and humanity. But who does the menial jobs that nobody wants? What motivates people to take that on? And we know that people do these menial jobs, it’s not all just robots, because Rom works waste extraction, literally wading in sewage, on deep space nine.

Anyway.

The holodeck scene is FANTASTIC.

It ties us all the way back to TNG season 1, where Picard used to play Dixon Hill on the holodeck. But Dixon Hill never looked this good, with massive sets, heaps of extras and exciting action set pieces.

I love it.

The idea to use a holographic tommy gun to kill the Borg is very clever. Bullets are not something they’ll have adapted to.

We see first hand just how much hurt and pain Picard still has buried, as he continues to pump the Borg full of bullets, long after it’s dead.

It’s all come back to the forefront for him, like it was yesterday.

And the carelessness when he says “this drone was ensign lynch.”

I understand. In his mind, this is not ensign lynch. This is a drone.

But still. This scene is really powerful.

Nice little cameo from Reg Barclay. It doesn’t make a heap of sense that so many people from the enterprise d wind up on the enterprise e. Not just the senior staff, but people like Nurse Ogawa and Barclay. But, it’s nice to see them so whatever.

Cochrane is finding it very difficult to live up to the celebrity everyone keeps telling him he’ll have.

His discomfort make sense. Who could live up to that kind of hero worship.

But at the same time, given his importance in their world, I understand the hero worship.

This is the first time we see the new space suits, which will come back again in Voyager.

The battle on the hull near the deflector dish is fantastic. Slow, but awesome. It’s pretty unique.

But Worf’s line “Assimilate this” is cheesy and feels like it’s out of a really bad action movie parody.

Also, why is his voice distorted? He sounds like a robot.

Data’s assimilation is interesting. Usually, they add cybernetic implants into biological beings. But here, they’re adding biological elements to a cybernetic being. They do like the mixture.

There’s a whole lot of manipulation going on here.

The queen reactivates his emotion chip, which makes him a LOT easier to manipulate.

Cochrane is a far cry from the historical figure they all talk about, but, as he gets older, he will become more like that figure.

There’s some fantastic drama between Picard and Worf on the bridge.

Worf accuses Picard of allowing his personal experiences with the Borg to influence his judgement.

And of course that’s influencing his judgement. How could it not?

The scene between Picard and Lily in the conference room is amazing and powerful.

Alfre Woodard and Patrick Stewart are incredible. This scene gives me so many chills.

And there’s lots of thematic stuff in here too.

Lily helps Picard realise that he’s being motivated by revenge and hate.

And so he changes his plan.

When they’re preparing the evacuate the enterprise, Picard says “see you on Gravette island.”

I’ve tried googling this, to see if it’s a real place.

I came up empty.

But I have a head canon about this. I imagine that Gravette is an island that remains unpopulated through most of human history. And that Starfleet has standing orders that any crew who get stranded in earth’s past are to set themselves up there and stay out of history’s way.

I think that would make a good TV show actually. Gravette Island, about a Starfleet crew making a new life on present day Earth. Of course, something would have to entice them out of hiding to interact with the rest of the world, or there’d be no story

But I’m getting quite off topic now.

I love how Zephram Cochrane can’t take off without his music.

The Pheonix looks great. The perfect mix of old-fashioned real world space program, and the star trek future.

I remember geeking out that the bussard collectors at the front of the nacelles resembled those on the original series enterprise.

Does Picard really mean it when he offers to become Gorg again, in order to free Data?

I have to think that he does.

But, how could he possibly be willing to go through that again.

That’s self-sacrifice. That’s friendship.

But to willingly go into that living hell?

It like how the Phoenix takes a few minutes to accelerate up to warp 1.

The climactic battle in engineering has some awesome visual effects, included the death of the queen.

The Borg shouldn’t really explode when the queen dies, but it kinda works for the movie.

The flight of the phoenix, and the landing of the alien ship are full of the sense of wonder that Star Trek is sometimes known for.

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat in the cinema, thinking “please be the Vulcans. Please be the Vulcans.”

It had to be.

I read that the design of the Vulcan ship was based on real-world descriptions of UFOs.

The implied idea being that Vulcans had previously visited earth discreetly.

So there you have it. My favourite Star Trek movie.

It’s got some little flaws, but there’s so much good stuff they’re easy to forgive.

Do you think we’ll see the Borg Queen again in Star Trek Picard? Will they acknowledge her?

It’ll be interesting to find out.

Next time, we delve into the origin of another character that is returning for Picard. Seven of Nine.

I’ll see you for my favourite episode of Star Trek Voyager.

Scorpion.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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Star Trek The Next Generation “All Good Things”

All Good Things is the finale episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. It is noteworthy because in it, Picard jumps forward through time into the future, around the time that the new Star Trek Picard will be set.

Join me as I geek out over the 10 episodes and movies you should watch before Star Trek Picard.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd.

This is episode 5 of the podcast, and we’re now halfway through my list of 10 episodes and movies that you should check out before watching Star Trek: Picard.

Today, we’re looking at the finale episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. All Good Things.

The IMDB description for this episode reads

Capt. Picard finds himself shifting continually into the past, future and present and must use that to discover a threat to humanity’s existence.

And this episode first aired on the 23 May 1994

Make it so.

My first encounter with this episode was actually seeing the VHS for sale at a shop. It was a special numbered limited edition that came with a little book that covered the history of the show and that was the first I even knew the show was ending, so I bought that and I watched it, and then I watched most of the rest of season 7 on TV. It’s just how it goes down here.

So this episode begins with Worf and Deanna Troi finishing up a date on the holodeck. This relationship is something that they’d been building slowly over the course of season 7.

Personally, I was never quite able to buy into the idea of Worf and Troi as a couple. Worf and Dax seemed a much more natural pairing to me. But, it added some interesting drama to this episode, as we’ll see.

And just before the credits roll, Picard arrives, as close as we’ve seen him to panic, explaining that somehow, he’s moving back and forth through time.

Having a big grand 2-hour finale was a pretty rare thing in 1994. A lot of shows started off with a movie-length pilot, but most shows didn’t end with such a big bang. Star Trek the Next Generation had a planned end, because they wanted to start making movies with the TNG cast. This set a precedent that both Deep Space Nine and Voyager would follow.

So as Picard tells Troi about his time-travelling, he jumps forward as we get our first glimpse at the future. This is the year 2395. Star Trek: Picard will be set 4 years later in 2399. So we’re near the end of the 24th century. Picard is retired from Starfleet, having served as an ambassador. He’s now living on the Picard Estate tending the vineyard.

This is a very similar life situation that we’ll find him in the new show. But in Picard, he’d been an admiral before retirement and we get the impression there was a lot more tension to his departure from Starfleet. Either way, he’s ended up in the same situation.

It’s important to note here that what we’re seeing in this episode is an alternate future. We know things will proceed differently in the real future, that is Star Trek: Picard. The characters say this themselves in the show. And, the Enterprise D was destroyed in Star Trek Generations, so it won’t still be around at this point to have a third nacelle installed.

And we learn that Picard has irrumodic syndrome, a form of dementia. A lot of the drama in this episode comes from Picard trying to convince his crewmates that he’s not crazy. In the future, it’s because of his irrumodic syndrome. In the past, it’s because he can’t risk telling them the truth of what’s going on for fear of affecting the timeline. In the present, they come to believe him quickly, because Crusher is able to measure the fact that he’s accumulating days worth of memories in mere moments.

Crusher also finds a defect in Picard’s brain, in the present, that could lead to a condition like irrumodic syndrome. So it’s a very real possibility for his future. I wonder, what will they do with that in Picard? Will they acknowledge it? We’ve seen in the trailers, times when Picard is talking to Data when he clearly can’t be there for real. Are these dreams? My guess is that Picard is hallucinating Data because he’s developing irrumodic syndrome. What do you think?

Then Picard flashes back to the past, to season 1. We see a scene that occurs just before the pilot episode. The past sequences in this episode give a wonderful sense of nostalgia.

Star Trek: The Next Generation changed a great deal over its seven years. The uniforms changed, the tone and feel of the show changed. The sets changed. But most of all, I changed during that time.

When the show first started, I was a kid. When it ended I was well into my teens. Finishing up school and preparing to go to university. There was a lot I’d forgotten about the early days of the show. I’d almost forgotten that the character of Tasha Yar had ever existed. But this episode brought it all back. We even get to see a beardless Riker through the use of some old footage on the viewscreen. Very cleverly done.

Each time Picard shifts, he retains more knowledge of his experiences. He becomes completely away of all three time periods.

I like how Geordi is willing to just go with Picard to visit Data. He doesn’t entirely believe Picard, but he’s a friend, so he’s willing to accompany him.

The exterior shot of Data’s house in Cambridge is cool. I love the mix of the old and the new, well, futuristic.

I also love his tea lady. It’s great when he asks for Tea, Earl grey hot. And she says “Of course it’s ‘ot. What do you want in it?”

Interesting note, Data says that she makes him laugh, which suggests to me that in this timeline, just like in ours, Data eventually installed the emotion chip.

At this point in his life, Data has fully integrated his emotions into his being. And that’s kind of how he comes across.

It’s great to see O’Brien back appearing in the red uniform just as he did in the pilot episode, Encounter at Farpoint. Of course, at that point, the character didn’t have a name. He was just the conn officer.

Picard calls for a red alert in the shuttle bay, because he keeps seeing visions of people, which we’ll learn are from Q’s fantasy based on the post-atomic horror.

The crew all look stunned and refuse to move.

This is actually kind of believable. When I did training to be a fire warden at work, I learned a little about people’s behaviour. Their natural inclination in a situation like this is to wait and see what everyone else does. The captain is acting very oddly, so I’ll just stay still and look uncomfortable.

But Yar’s training kicks in. The captain ordered a red alert. It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand his reasoning. He’s the captain so his orders are to be obeyed. She makes the others move, which is kind of what a fire warden needs to do when the evacuation alarm goes off.

I appreciate the trouble they went to in order to modify the sets to look as they did in season 1. The wall of the conference room is different in later seasons. There are also some panels on the bridge that change.

Picard’s slip up when he gives Worf an order that should be given to the security chief is a nice touch.

In both the past and the present, Romulans are entering the neutral zone to investigate an anomaly, which of course is a dangerous situation.

I also really like how Data’s dialogue and performance are different between the time periods. It shows just how much Data has changed over the years.

Crusher is really struggling with Picard’s irrumodic syndrome. She’s convinced it will happen just as Picard has seen in the future. He’s not as worried. The future is not set in stone, he says.

I like that this episode lets us really see the human side of Crusher. I don’t think the show always did her justice.

It’s a nice little reminder that Crusher has very deep feelings for Picard, as was recently revealed in the episode attached.

Interesting little tidbit. Future Geordi has the blue ocular implants like we’ll see him get later in the TNG movies.

I love that Crusher is now captain of a medical ship. The USS Pasteur is a cool looking vessel. And the future Starfleet uniforms also look really cool. We know that they’re choosing not to use these uniforms in Picard, which is a shame. Especially since DS9 and Voyager both consistently used these uniforms whenever they portrayed this time period. Still, people like to put their own marks on things. I do like that they’ve taken some inspiration from this uniform, such as the rank pips on the chest.

I like that Picard and Crusher married in the future, but it always disappointed me that they were divorced. Whenever I hear about a divorce, it always makes me sad. Even a fictional one. I just, I can’t comprehend divorce. I can’t fathom it. I guess that shows how lucky I’ve been with my marriage.

The fact that Crusher kept the name Picard shows that she still cares for him. I guess there could be other more practical reasons she kept it, but the way she interacts with him also shows how much she cares. So, I’m left wondering…what went wrong?

I hope they acknowledge the relationship between Picard and Crusher in the new show.

The nostalgia kicks into high gear when Picard finds himself standing in the 21st-century courthouse and Q appears in his ridiculous judge outfit.

I remember thinking how awesome it was that they were tying this story directly back into the first episode.

So Q makes the argument that Picard and his crew have squandered the last seven years. In Picard’s mind, they have expanded their understanding of the universe, but from Q’s point of view it has been a very limited amount of progress, compared to what they still have to achieve, and from a Q point of view, I can understand that.

Here’s an interesting question. Why are the Q so interested in the human race. The crew of the Enterprise and Picard in particular? Why are they not judging the Klingons, or the Vulcans, or the Pakled, or the Ferengi?

My theory is that they see something special in the human race. A potential for greatness.

And in their own, rather inappropriate way, I think they’re trying to encourage us to reach that potential.

And then Q drops a bombshell. The destruction of the human race will be Picard’s fault. He will cause their extinction.

Can’t you just feel Picard’s frustration when the anomaly fails to appear in the future. It just confirms to everyone else that all of this is in his mind.

Of course, it makes perfect sense why the anomaly isn’t here, once we know what is causing it, but it doesn’t help Picard’s credibility.

Given the evidence, it’s actually extremely loyal of Picard’s friends to still be doing this with him. As Crusher says, “If it were anyone else but you, we wouldn’t even be here.”

At this point, Picard starts taking advantage of his time-shifting, using knowledge he gains in the future to help him in the present and the past.

The anomaly is having strange effects on the crew of the Enterprise. Their bodies are reverting to previous states. This is causing old injuries to be healed, but it’s not so good for Nurse Ogawa who loses her baby. This phenomenon is a key to what’s going on with the destruction of humanity.

The anomaly is fascinating. The earlier in history, the larger it is. When Q takes Picard back to prehistoric times, the anomaly fills the entire Alpha Quadrant.

It prevents life from arising on earth.

Q Goes out of his way to give Picard hints to help him figure this all out. There’s no malevolence on his part. He wants Picard to succeed and save his people.

So the anomaly prevents humanity from coming into existence, and Picard is responsible for the anomaly.

He still doesn’t understand how he caused it though.

We learn that Troi died at some point in the past. Worf and Troi never got together. Worf saw Riker as the reason. This has caused a rift between these two friends.

The scene where Riker discusses this with Crusher, Geordi and Data is really good.

When Picard sees the three tachyon pulses, from three different time periods, all converging, he realises what caused the anomaly. They caused it with the pulses. In effect, they created the anomaly they were looking for, but because it travels back through time, it didn’t exist in the future.

Unfortunately, now that he knows, he has the challenge of trying to convince his shipmates, who are by now convinced he is crazy.

How frustrating it must be to have the answer, but struggle to articulate it. And worse, people won’t listen to you, to give you a chance to explain yourself.

Luckily, Data catches on and allows him to speak.

Unfortunately, at this point, there’s a whopping big plot hole.

You see, it makes no sense for them to see the initial formation of the anomaly when they return to the Devron system.

The anomaly existing reversed in time. It grows as it travels back through time.

And, if it exists now, then it should retroactively be at the earlier point when they were on the Pasteur.

It doesn’t work.

It’s a difficult hole to plug, and I can’t think of how they could have written it differently off the top of my head.

Don’t get me wrong, this is an awesome episode, but this plot hole does bother me. It’s bothered me for 26 years.

Anyway, we’ll put that aside.

The climactic scene where the three versions of the Enterprise enter the anomaly and collapse it with a static warp shell is fantastic.

Q was ordered by the continuum to put Picard though this, but helping him out was Q’s own idea.

Through all of this, Q has shown Picard a new level of exploration. He expanded his mind to think outside of the normal constraints of space and time, considering options he’d normally never consider.

See why I have that theory about the Q seeing potential in humanity and wanting to push them along a bit to see how far they can go.

Q’s final words to Picard almost suggest a promise from the writers, that there are amazing things to come, where Picard will be further stretched.

The movies never really paid off on this promise. I understand why. They had to stand alone for a wider audience.

But I wonder if they’ll come back to this idea in Star Trek: Picard?

I won’t hold my breath, but it could be interesting.

The episode rounds out with a touching scene as the whole senior crew get together as a family. Picard joins them for their poker game, for the first time.

And the Enterprise sails off into the unknown.

This really was a fantastic episode. It worked on multiple levels.

It was a great character piece. It had a really interesting sci-fi concept. And, it not only called back to the past but closed off the present and hinted at the promise of the future as well.

You might say it was the perfect finale episode for The Next Generation.

It doesn’t have the sense of finality and closure that you might expect in a finale, but this isn’t really the end of the story. They were jumping straight into movies after this.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the world of Star Trek Picard differs from the future portrayed in this episode, as well as the similarities it may have.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look back at All Good Things.

Next time, we’re looking at the movie Star Trek First Contact, which continues the development of the Borg, and adds a whole lot of new lore to the star trek universe.

I’ll see you then.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

If you like this, share the love by

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Star Trek The Next Generation “Descent” (Nerd Heaven #004)

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Star Trek The Next Generation “I Borg” (Nerd Heaven #003)

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Star Trek The Next Generation “Family” (Nerd Heaven #002)

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Star Trek The Next Generation “The Best of Both Worlds” (Nerd Heaven #001)

My Star Trek The Next Generation “Best of Both Worlds” reivew.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, The author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I…am a nerd.

In this podcast, we’re gonna geek out together over works of science fiction and fantasy. TV shows, movies and books.

Star Trek Picard is coming out on the 24th of January next year.

Today is the first of our looks at the Star Trek episodes and movies that you should watch before Picard.

And today’s episode is Best of Both Worlds.

The IMDB description for this episode is

Responding to a distress call on one of the Federation’s outer-most colonies, the Enterprise arrives…only to find a big hole in the ground where the town used to be, and discovers the Borg are behind the attack.

Part 1 of this episode first aired on the 18th of June 1990.

Part first aired on the 4th of September, 1990.

So let’s launch right into the episode.

The episode starts out like any other. An away team is beaming down to investigate a distress call. It could be caused by any alien of the week. But as they appear in what should be the centre of town, and see before them, a massive hole in the surface of the planet, we know, this isn’t just any episode. This is something significant.

That visual of what’s left is fantastic, and they a great job of integrating the live actors into the scene.

The tone and stakes are made clear right after the credits, when Admiral Hanson says, “Hell, we are not ready. We’ve known they were coming for over a year. We’ve thrown every resource we have into this, but still…”

The second season episode, Q Who, did a great job of establishing just how unbeatable the Borg are. In that story, we encountered them in the delta quadrant. The enterprise survived because Q was able to snap them back home. But now, they’ve come to us. This isn’t the depths of unexplored space. They’re heading for our backyard.

So we get the introduction of Commander Shelby. Now, I don’t know how much I’d like her as a person if I really knew her, but I can say I definitely like her as a character. She brings a whole lot of interesting conflict into the show and forces Riker to take a close look at himself.

It’s tempting to think of Best of Both Worlds as a Picard story because it has such a major life-changing effect on him, and that’s true. That’s why I chose this as an episode to watch in the lead-up to Picard’s new show. But in a truer sense, this is a Riker episode. Riker is the protagonist. Of Best of Both Worlds.

Shelby is a good officer. The traits that make her so frustrating, that make her clash with Riker so much, are also the traits that were needed to cut through all the drama and make some progress, trying to develop a defence against the Borg.

This is the third time Riker has turned down an offer to captain his own ship. I can understand that. After all, this is the Enterprise.

Plus, there’s something comforting about a stable job. Staying where you’re comfortable. In the 20 years since I left university, I’ve only had 3 jobs. Of course, nobody has been offering me the captain’s chair of a starship!

Shelby does make some genuine mistakes. Her first is beaming down ahead of schedule without permission. I wonder if part of that is the great latitude that Admiral Hanson has been giving her. She is clearly surprised that Riker is so upset by her actions. She thought he’d be cool with it.

I love this episode for the character stuff with Riker and Shelby just as much as I do for all the Borg stuff. I like exciting sci-fi action plots with big stakes, and I like powerfully emotional character-driven stories. But my favourite types of episodes are those that combine both. That’s one of the things I loved so much about Babylon 5.

I love how the dread slowly building through this episode.

First of all, there’s the mystery. We think it’s the Borg. Then the confirmation. Then our first encounter with them. Each step raises the tension and clarifies the stakes.

Picard doesn’t want to lose Riker. He’s a fine first officer. But as a friend, he wants what is best for Riker.

Interestingly, this kind of reflected Michael Piller’s own journey. He was considering leaving the show. He wrote episode 1 without knowing what would happen in episode 2, or if he would even be there to write it. It was Gene Roddenberry who convinced him to stay.

Sometimes when a writer draws from their own life experiences like this, they can create something that rings especially true. I know I’ve found that with my own writing.

Riker and Shelby argue about whether to keep working on their defences or get some rest. I’m never quite sure whose side I’m on. Because they’re both right.

As Shelby says, the borg are coming. They HAVE to get a workable defence. At times like this, maybe sleep isn’t the highest priority. The clock is ticking and every second counts.

But Riker is also right. They can’t function on no sleep. I know for me, if I’m stuck on a problem in my work as a programmer, pushing on into the night is completely pointless. But if I call it a night and try again in the morning, the answer often presents itself surprisingly quickly. It’s uncanny.

That actually happened to me last night. I’d been working on a problem all day, and I just couldn’t find a solution. This morning, I thought ‘hmm. I’ll just try this’. And that lead me to the solution. It happens.

The music in this episode is great. A lot of the music in the early seasons of TNG sound very dated to me, but this episode is the first one that I remember having a truly epic musical score

Also, the show looks absolutely beautiful in high definition.

I know all the episodes look good in their remastered form, but I was especially noticing it here. Not sure why.

Shelby’s second big mistake, of course, was going to Picard behind Riker’s back with her plan, bypassing the chain of command.

I get her perspective. She has a plan she really believes in. Riker might be playing it too safe. She doesn’t want to plan dismissed because he thinks it’s too risky. As she says, “I’d like the captain to make that determination.”

But Riker clearly said he takes all alternatives to the captain. She didn’t need to go behind his back.

And then we get the scene where they have it out in the turbo lift. It’s awesome stuff.

In an era where writers were virtually banned from having conflict between the characters, this story really broke free and let loose. Sure, it’s tame by today’s standards, but at the time, and under the rules the show was being run with, it was huge.

The episode slows down a little here, as the enterprise hides from the borg in the nebula. That isn’t a bad thing. It gives us space to really live in the tension and acknowledge just how much worse this situation is than anything our heroes have ever faced before.

Picard has a great conversation with Guinan. I love Guinan, and I’ve always enjoyed her relationship with Picard.

I wonder if we’ll see her return in Picard. They’d probably have to use some de-ageing technology, since the character doesn’t age, like the human actor who portrays her.

So the borg kidnap Picard and then set a course for Earth.

Could things possibly get any worse.

The interior of the Borg ship looks great. They took the design from Q Who, which was already good, but made the ship look bigger and creepier.

The struggle to adjust to being captain begin immediately for Riker, as he has to be corrected by Troi in front of the entire bridge when he insists on leading the away team himself.

And so Picard is assimilated.

This is the very first assimilation we’d ever seen. In fact, the first suggestion of the idea of assimilation.

How chilling that must have been for the characters.

Being killed by your enemy is one thing, but for them to make you one of them? That’s the fear that drives our current fascination with zombies.

And now we come to that epic incredible cliffhanger. Where Picard appears on the viewscreen as Locutus, speaking for the Borg.

And Riker orders Worf to fire.

And this is where my experience differs from most.

You see, I didn’t see this episode on TV. Around the time this episode was airing in Australia (which would have been a year after America) there was weird stuff going on with the TV stations in my state, Tasmania. Essentially, the TV station in the south of the state had the rights to show Star Trek, and the station in the north of the state, where I am, didn’t.

So we actually missed a few seasons of the show.

I actually saw Best of Both worlds on VHS. I was at our local video rental place. It was called Wills and was later bought by Blockbuster when they moved into Australia. I saw they had an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. I was missing the show so gladly hired it. It was both episodes together, edited together into a movie. And I was blown away by the epic nature of it. This wasn’t just any Star Trek episode. This was so much more intense. So much more exciting.

So I never had that horrible wait they everyone describes as they waited to see if Picard would die. To find out if Earth would be enslaved by the Borg.

I just watched it all back to back.

So, the plan doesn’t work. Picard knew about it, so now the borg know about it. Picard’s assimilation actually gave the writers the perfect way to resolve the cliffhanger, which they hadn’t planned ahead of time.

Hanson essentially declares Picard dead. It seems callous and premature, but I understand his reasoning. They have to take out that borg ship. They can’t keep thinking of Locutus as Picard. Riker already understands this. He gave the command to fire, after all.

The shot of the tear falling from Picard’s eye as they complete the assimilation process speaks volumes.

Even though he doesn’t appear in the episode, it’s nice to hear mention of Barclay’s name. I like little touches like that. I’ve never noticed it before.

Riker and Shelby managed to sort out a lot of the conflict between them.

And then the battle of Wolf 359 takes place off-screen. That makes sense, both for budgetary reasons, and also because this story follows our heroes on the enterprise.

It might have been nice to see some of the battle, but this way, we got to see it in deep space nine’s pilot – Emissary.

Part of me actually wants to see an extended cut of best of both worlds that incorporates some of the footage from Emissary. I wonder how seamlessly it could be edited in.

We get another Guinan conversation. This time she has some wisdom for Riker.

I notice that since Riker received his promotion to Captain by Admiral Hanson, he’s the fourth pip on his collar.

That symbolically shows that they really don’t expect to get Picard back.

They also don’t think there’s any way to get out of this situation alive.

His first job as captain is to save Earth from an unstoppable enemy.

Pretty tough gig for his first day as captain.

The shot we get of the Enterprise flying through the wreckage of all the ships destroyed at Wolf 359 is powerful and is probably more effective than showing the battle would have been, anyway.

Riker manages to distract the Borg long enough to rescue Picard.

Amusingly, the borg aren’t really bothered by this. Locutus can continue to speak for them from the Enterprise as easily as he could from the cube.

This is more than just wanting to save their friend. There are tactical reasons to try to access the knowledge that Locutus has of the Borg.

Earth sends three fighters to intercept the cube, which dispatches them immediately.

This is, to my knowledge, the only time we have ever seen Starfleet using fighters, until the Discovery season 2 finale.

It’s not clear to me how exactly Picard was able to reach out to Data, and it’s never really explained. My best guess is that it was something to do with Data’s attempts to hack into the collective. Maybe he weakened some firewalls or something.

The idea of implant a command into the collective through Picard is pretty cool.

And the choice of ‘sleep’ as a command to tell all the drones to regenerate was very clever.

I wonder if Riker’s plan to destroy the cube by colliding the enterprise with it would have worked. Given the destructive nature of a warp core breach, I suspect so.

As Scotty said in The Motion Picture, when that much matter and anti-matter comes together, oh yes, we will indeed.

What a relief we all felt, what triumph, as explosions began to break out along the hull of the borg cube.

In typical TNG fashion, things go back to normal at the end. Shelby is off to rebuild the fleet. Picard has his job back, and Riker is likely to remain on the enterprise.

But if it hadn’t happened this way. After watching this episode, I went outside and started to make-believe another option. I imagined an entire season with Riker in command as captain of the enterprise, only to finally bring back Picard at the end of that season. I guess even as a kid, I like the idea of actually making bold changes on a tv show, rather than always putting the reset button.

Except….not everything is back to normal for Picard.

As we linger on his face at the end of the episode, it is clear that he has been changed.

His life has been impacted in a very significant way.

He will never be the same again.

And credit to the writers, in an age where continuity was rare, they continued to run with that.

I expect that his assimilation by the borg will continue to haunt Picard as he embarks on his new adventure next year.

Best of Both Worlds showed us Star Trek The Next Generation on a scale we’d never seen before.

It was epic, exciting and deeply emotional.

There’s a reason many people consider this one of the best.

It’s been fun revisiting this with you.

Thanks for geeking out with me.

If you like Star Trek, you’ll probably like my Jewel of The Stars series of books.

It’s about a cruise ship in space full of eager tourists. When Earth is invaded and falls to an alien armada, they can’t return home, so they flee into unexplored space. They might be the last free remnant of humans in the galaxy.

If you’d like to sample the series, you can find episode one on Wattpad. I’m adding one new chapter each week. Or, you can read the whole book for just 99 cents. Find it at all the major ebook retailers by going to books2read.com/jewel.

Next week, we’ll look at the episode that directly follows best of both worlds. I’ll see you then for Family.

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