Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, just after our little visit to the Enterprise D last time, we
are back aboard, it's Star Trek the Next Generation again, but
it's the famous series 3 Cliffhanger, the best of both worlds, and
we're going to follow up by watching the best of both worlds, part
two.
This 1st screened on the 18th of June 1990, and part 2 was the
24th of September, 1990.
So sort of over the summer break, I guess.
Not in the UK.
It wasn't all right.
That was a long...
Yeah.
Okay.
These are both written by Michael Pillar.
Part 2 was written by Michael Piller to his own surprise and
consternation eventually, and they were both directed by Cliff
Bowl.
What did you think?
I came away from watching it this time.
Well, unfortunately, like TV's moved on a lot since 1990, right?
So in terms of execution, yeah, there were some issues and we will
talk about that as we go through it, but I still got that bubbling
feeling of excitement as I was watching episode one, I still
thought the character journeys of Picard and Riker, Shelby, fuck
man, Shelby, were riveting to watch.
There's a scene in part 2 with Gynon that absolutely wowed me.
This is iconic for a reason.
It's very, very good indeed.
For me, what struck me was the scale of it.
There's a thing about a Star Trek show, like a classic Star Trek
show like Star Trek and this and Strange New World, where the
premise is we're on board a ship and we're seeking out new life
and new civilisations, that the scale of it's a little bit small.
It's just a ship with a few 100 people going on adventures every
week and you don't get a sense of the wider universe.
And here, I think even before the Borg turn up and kind of change
history forever.
There is a sense of a bigger picture, a sense of what's happening
in Starfleet, what it's like to work for Starfleet, what it's like
to have a career in Starfleet, which we do occasionally get in
Star Trek the Next Generation, particularly.
But here, even though just about everything's just happening on
the standing sets, and everyone is just standing around talking
even before the big events of the two-parter kind of kick into
gear, we are getting a sense of a larger world.
And I like that.
It did give it a sense of scale.
Feels important, doesn't it?
It feels like something big is happening.
And let's be honest, in terms of the history books.
This is the thumbnail in TNG, right?
This is the event that informs a lot of what's coming.
Obviously family, emissary in DS9, Cisco losing his wife.
Iborg later on in this season.
First contact and certainly Picard series three.
I mean, the impact of the best of both worlds stretches years and
years into the future.
And with Deep Space 9, partly because Deep Space 9 is kind of
reinventing itself, but also because it settles on doing sort of
large geopolitical things, that's not the right word for the
galaxy, but whatever.
Large geopolitical things, large events, huge historic events.
This is the 1st huge historic event that happens in Star Trek the
Next Generation, something that is referred to over and over again
in more episodes than the ones that you mentioned.
In redemption, the reason that we don't have enough ships in
redemption part 2 is because of the Battle of Wolf 359.
In parallels, we see a version of the Enterprise where Picard was
assimilated by the Borg and killed, and Rikers in charge, and the
Borg have taken the galaxy over.
You know, there's all of this stuff.
It haunts Star Trek. the pivot around which Star Trek, the Next
Generation, revolves, and Picard Series 3, inevitably ends with
the Borg, because what else could it do?
Like, this is hugely, hugely important.
But it was 35 years ago.
And it is very staid and very slow.
It is and very light on action.
Kind of light on emotion as well.
Yeah, light on emotion and light on tension as well.
And I think we do need to talk about Ron Jones.
We've both admitted on the podcast to owning the soundtrack CD for
this 2 part story.
I played the track, gentlemen, we have engaged the Borg.
I played that track over and over again.
I love this soundtrack.
Yeah, well, every, every musical queue is incredibly familiar, and
you can see that Ron Jones is scoring scenes in which the
characters are just kind of strolling through their everyday lives
kind of being a feeling.
Even the action as well.
Like, he's pumping life into legendly directed action scenes that
convinces you, my God, this is so exciting because those violins
are telling me so.
Yeah, and he is also very good.
I think we've observed this before in other things that he
scored.
He is very, very good, I think, at creating a sense of tension and
unease.
And I think it was maybe the neutral zone that we send that in.
Don't make me do it.
Yeah, it was great.
You know, I think he's really good.
And I think, too, the other thing that's great here is that this
picks up on not only Q Hu from the previous year, but the neutral
zone from the year before that.
And so this is something that's been coming on for a while, so it
doesn't just have repercussions in the future, it actually echos
back into the show's past.
And nothing subtle about the music in this.
It is literally telling you how to feel from scene to scene, but
it kind of has to do that.
I mean, heavy lifting does not cover what Ron Jones is doing in
this.
And what how Rick Berman could have looked at this and gone, well
this is a bit dynamic.
I'm sorry.
You know, can we please get in some blander musicians?
It's unthinkable.
Yeah, it's incredible.
I mean, he gets Jade Chataway later and Jade Chataway is obviously
extremely good.
But the fact that he gets rid of Ron Jones are not Cliff Bowl
after this. very baffling.
Well, not Gates McFadden.
We will get there.
All right, Jesus Christ.
Well, I've got a couple of bits of trivia about the best of both
well.
I mean, I don't know, you probably know both of these, but the
listeners may not.
There's a wonderful quote from Michael Pillar, who says that his
personal situation mirrored Riker Zone.
So when he's writing Riker scenes in this.
He's quoted as saying, as I was writing this script, I found
myself in the position of Riker, who was deciding whether he
wanted to leave the ship or not.
Much of what happened in part one was what was going on in my
head.
When Riker's talking to Troy about why he hasn't left, that's me
speaking through Riker.
Now I didn't know that.
I didn't know he was he wanted to be a one seasoner now because he
goes on and impacts 90s trek.
I mean, he's already done it in this season, but, you know, he
creates DS 9.
He helps create Voyager.
Like he really does.
He's huge, Michael Pillar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No.
And of course, what he's doing is he's writing part one without
being fully aware of the fact that he's going to come back and
write part two.
He goes, oh, God.
How the hell do I end this?
Oh, they can go to sleep.
That's fine.
Yeah, and like, I have to say, I have to say that it worked for me
this time, as I was watching it, it seemed to make excellent sense
that the reason that the Borg are defeated, not just because they
are vulnerable because of being a collective, and so if you make
one of them go to sleep, they all go to sleep, but they're also
vulnerable because they made themselves vulnerable by kidnapping
Picard and making Picard part of them.
And so we get Picard back.
We managed to get Picard back and so he's able to do it.
And I think it works really well.
I think, however, like so much of the rest of the 2 parter, it's
all resolved in a scene where everyone's standing around in the
sets talking.
If they had the money to do it, they would put the fireworks on
the screen because when they do have the money to do it, they do
put the firework.
The start of emissary, you see Wall 359, they start of 1st contact
you see Wall 359.
The 2nd they can do it, they do it.
I think they want to.
They want to make it, you know, space battle and ships blowing up
and all of that.
They just they just don't have the cash at the moment.
All the ability to do.
So they go for the next best option.
So and I did feel a little bit underwhelmed at how quiet the
ending was.
They were promising seismic changes.
And then at the end, sort of, I felt like, okay, everyone's going
to be back on the bridge next week and everything's back to normal
you know.
But it did work.
Yeah, it's logically it works.
Emotionally, we get the payoff next week in family.
So that works as well.
So it is satisfying overall.
You know, me, I just love a space battle.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I actually think that they do make a good choice, and it's a
choice that they obviously make for budgetary reasons, but just
their reaction to turning up at the battle and just everyone has
died. staggering that moment.
That is pretty incredible.
Again in Way of the Warrior.
They have a moment where there's a lot, and it's a more
technically better executed scene of loads of spaceships, like a
big spaceship graveyard, but because this is the 1st time it
happened.
It's the most potent example because it's like, ooh, I've never
faced anything quite like this before.
Anyway, Warriors, like, well, it's a bit like best of both worlds
really, isn't it?
The trouble is, when they start repeating things, you just compare
again and again, what I'll do it a lot on this podcast.
Pillar also says they've been looking throughout the 3rd season
for ways to bring the ball back and that no writer wanted to touch
it because they were like, well, they're just they're robots
without personality.
How do we do this?
And so Pillar came up with the idea, okay, well, let's have a
queen bee and let's give it a personality.
And obviously, ultimately, they would do that with the ball queen
in 1st contact.
And then when he settled on the fact that this would be the season
finale, he's like, 0 my god, Picard is the queen bee.
That is a great way to end the season.
So it all sort of came together at the right time.
Although I think if they could have the Borg episode would have
been earlier this year.
So, please, they waited.
The other bit of trivia I've got is from Ron Moore, who says that
this is basically the moment that TNG stepped out of the shadows
of TOS.
He goes, we were well into writing the new episodes for the 4th
season when the 1st season finale, best of both worlds, was
broadcast, and all hell broke loose.
That episode, Trek's 1st cliffhanger, touched a chord with the
audience, and suddenly everyone was talking about TNG.
We were seeing press clippings from all over the media with a buzz
about how wild it was to see Picard being borgified into Locutus
and how stunning Riker's shout of fire was just before the final
cutback.
It wasn't until after the best of both worlds that you felt the
whole shift and suddenly we were Star Trek.
So that's probably the biggest impact this had.
It's like, oh, TOS, what was that?
Do you remember that?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think it is already under Michael Pillar starting
to move out of TOS's shadow.
Yeah.
Terrific free.
I mean, the hit rating three.
Yeah, yeah.
But we're just at the real start of Star Trek's Imperial Phase, I
think.
It's huge.
It never gets bigger than this.
And so it's rightly remembered, even though we are forced to kind
of slightly overlook some of its deficiency.
Yeah, well, see, I'm going to do some comparisons with things you
said about Voyager episodes on kindly, which absolutely refer to
this episode too.
But I think I think there's a sort of bias, not from you, but from
people in general that when something is considered an all-time
classic, you sort of smooth over the rough edges and go, well, you
know, who cares, you know, it's a classic.
That's fair.
And like I said, like we've said before, Hegemony, which we did a
couple of months ago, is very much a remake of this, even down to
the resolution.
And so we're still using the knowledge that we have about how this
worked to create new Star Trek, I think.
And in all sorts of ways, Germany is superior to this.
Oh, it's a much better bit of telly.
I'll tell you what, people won't remember Hegemony.
People will remember the best of both.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, what do you think?
We should go in.
Let's do it Yes.
You know, Nathan.
You're in my way.
Let's go.
All right.
I'll count us in.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
Off we go.
Now, I can't hear it, but I know immediately Ron Jones is doing
his suspense music under the shut the Enterprise.
You know immediately something serious is going on.
Yeah.
And I think he did pull that trick in the neutral zone as well, to
be honest.
I think that we got the sense that something huge was happening
just from the music really early on.
I mean, I do like the fact that we're starting like a normal
episode.
We're going down to a colony planet.
We're probably going to see stock colony set number 82.
Yeah, except that the Borg have scooped it off the surface of the
place.
It's so great.
It's so potent, that image, isn't it?
It's like someone's taken on.
Oh go on.
Yeah, go on.
So we've had it described to us because that was the phenomenon
that we were investigating in the neutral zone was these giant
craters where colonies had been taken off the surface of the
planet.
But why does he say you're at the centre of town when they're at a
cliff and then they look down?
I don't think it was the centre of town.
I mean, I don't know how much of this has been cleaned up for the
HD version, but not a lot, I think, at least incredible.
Because I just look amazing, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely it is.
But I mean, you know, this is, you know, the stock planet set
that's been redressed, isn't it?
And it's the only kind of, we get another scene there, and we get
the sets on the Borg cube, but everything else is just as usual on
the Enterprise, I think.
It's just like, and if you've got a long enough memory, you'll be
like, oh, my God.
You know immediately the Borg are back, right?
You can put the pieces together.
It's pretty great, isn't it?
Like I really, really like that.
I think that's tremendous.
But we don't usually go for big spectacle like that in a pre-title
sequence in TNG.
So it does feel like, okay, we're up a notch already.
Yeah, it's huge. absolutely huge.
Yeah, well, those colonies are so boring, you know?
I came along with a giant ice cream scoop and went, right, we'll
get rid of that.
That will save us another boring adventure with politics and
negotiations.
Well, it's really fun, isn't it, that they just described it
before, and so they didn't have to pay to realise that it was just
a line of dialogue that was very cheap to type, and now we
actually get to see it, which is really terrific, and was
absolutely gobsmacking at the time.
They're pulling off that shit where they're just describing these
colony.
Amazing cities all the way up to the 37s in Voyager, you know
right?
My God, did you see that city?
Just beautiful, wasn't it?
But I mean, there is a lot of that here.
Like a lot of the action that they can't afford to realise there's
just being done in what is essentially messenger speeches.
You know, you've got Admiral Hansen on the, on the video phone
FaceTiming into the observation lounge and, you know, his ship
being destroyed, but we can't afford to see that battle.
And that works.
There are lots of lovely touches like that and the mention of the
Melbourne in episode two, right?
Where stuff that could have happened in one impacts too.
And you go, oh, you dodged a bullet there, right?
Thank goodness you didn't take the Melbourne.
So, um, the thing here is, right, we're watching the new HD
special effects, and I think generally they're very good, and I'm
glad that we have them because I think, you know, it increases the
potential longevity of the show, but I would love to see the
original special effects.
I would really, really like to see what it looked like
originally.
I don't think they've changed them substantially. down here if you
want to watch them?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't have access to any of that, and I would really
really like to see what it looks like because there is still an
enormous amount of stock footage, an enormous number of visual
effect shots that they have just reused.
Um, they did create a lot of optical shots, but they didn't often
have to do that in Star Trek, but they wouldn't do DS9, wasn't
it?
Because they had all of those space battles that would have been
prohibitively expensive to do or redo.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
Um, and and things like, you know, the, um, terrible odo special
effects and stuff like that, which would have needed to be
redone.
Now, one of my nickels with this.
I think the Riker storyline is amazing in this, yeah.
But my nickel is, is like, yeah, we're all talking about, okay
he's been offered a ship 3 times now.
He's not taking it.
He's looking a little seasoned, you know.
He's manoeuvred into a position where he does have to take the
Enterprise in episode 2 and B the captain.
It really feels like this should be the point where he moves on.
And the fact that he goes on to do another, what, 4 seasons as the
1st officer, longer even with the movies is like, okay.
Well I guess they just stopped offering him the captain's chair
after this.
But I think that it still works because, like, um, because
initially he's not sure why he wants to stay on, and and Deanna
says, if you're happy, that's a good enough reason to stay on.
You don't have to go on to the next thing to the captain's thing
if you're happy.
You are currently happier than I've ever seen you, and that's a
perfectly good reason to stay.
And he's assured that it's not because he can't do the job or he's
scared of the job, because he's able to do the job and he shows
himself able to do the job.
At the end of this episode, right?
It's a whole sort of episode about Riker making safe choices.
And at the end of the episode, he has to make a very tough choice
indeed.
And Shelby is telling him not to make it.
Like Shelby is saying, no, no, no, we have to do something else.
You can't make this choice.
So Shelby is the one who is backing down and he's now the one
making the hard choice.
And so he demonstrates to everyone that he's able to do it
including himself.
And so that closes that question down, no longer becomes a
problem.
He doesn't look like a spare part.
He doesn't look like he's riding on a famous man's coattails or
whatever. brought up again.
Is he ever brought up again after this?
about him having a promotion.
Well, no, I mean, he takes the Titan, doesn't he?
A nemesis, but he's hanging around because he's having fun.
He likes it.
I think that's okay. talk about nemesis, you know.
No.
But the other thing too is, because we're talking about a
potential shakeup, something that affects the show that we're
seeing.
I mean, we've had some cast changes already.
We've had three.
We've lost Denise.
We lost gates and we got gates back.
So we have had changes of cast in this show, but changing him or
replacing him with her.
Or replacing Picard with her.
Do you know what I mean?
That's a huge change to the show.
And so that's the other thing that makes it have scale.
You know how we talked about series 4 of enterprise where they
have those linked stories and one thing that gives them scale is
that the status quo changes and that's what makes it seem like a
Star Trek movie, for instance.
And I think we get that here.
Also discussion from 6 into 7 with DS9, isn't it?
We get rid of DAX and we bring in Ezry Dax, you know?
It's a huge shift.
And you feel the impact. is a different show with a different
regular in there.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, the thing about Pillar, Riker being happy, Pillar said
that that was ultimately, he is literally doing therapy, right, in
this script.
He came to the conclusion that he was really happy making Star
Trek.
What's the point of ambition?
I've got to sold that cliffhanger now.
Yeah, yeah.
But literally, what's the point of being ambitious?
Like, why do you want the big job?
Do you know what I mean?
If you're happy, the way you're living your life, what's more
important than that, you know, like this is revenge though
Nathan.
Do you remember his last script, basics part one, where he's like
right, he leaves that to someone else.
There's lizards everywhere.
See you, guys.
Good luck, Jerry.
Cliffhanger.
It's wonderful.
Get out of that one.
Oh, poor Wesley, the most naive poker player there ever was.
I love data explaining poker to him.
Commander Riker may be bluffing, which I just think is adorable.
I do use these poker scenes a lot to express character rather than
just having character scenes, don't they?
I like it though.
I think it's like a reasonable thing.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's great.
She wins and she's a look how triumphant she is.
She's really great.
She's tremendous.
So she does come back, obviously, in Picard series 3.
And as usual, she's probably killed in that.
If that was PS9 though, we would have been seeing a, you know, a
couple of times a year. the only show that goes, my God, that's a
great character.
Let's find a way to bring it back.
I mean, THG does a bit of that, Gowron, Mrs. Troy.
It does to a bit of that.
Yeah, not as much.
Oh, Ryker's so pissed now, isn't it?
She's already there.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's it's funny too, isn't it?
I love the walk with me.
Like, I hadn't realised as a child quite how threatening that was
because it means we've got to walk out of earshot of these people
because I'm going to rip you a new one.
Have you, which I think is really cool. quotes by Elizabeth
Dennahy.
Oh my god, where she goes, I mean, this language that I had to
talk in Star Trek.
She goes, the 1st time I saw Michael Pillar on the site, I went
you, come here.
What is this bullshit?
I've got to remember.
And she goes, she really struggled because she has to come in
being like an instant authority figure amongst an ensemble crew of
actors that are so used to each other and she's the outsider.
So she goes, it was a real struggle, like maintaining that
authority throughout the entire episode.
But boy, Elizabeth, you did a great job.
Yeah, she's terrific.
And I actually really like, like, the techno babble here too.
And I, because I don't think pillar likes techno babble very much
either.
It's gentle, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
It's the Borg signature, like, which we detected on the big...
Yeah, or something magnetic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It doesn't matter.
It's a footprint.
They say it's a footprint. magnetic resonance traces.
Yeah.
So, again, there's something about the lighting here, which lifts
it a little bit, but it is still a terrible studio set, isn't it?
It does, ultimately, the episode boils down to just firing a gum
at the Baulk ship.
And that's something I can understand completely.
Yeah, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but now, Ron Jones, man, it's just building and building and
building, and it doesn't cut loose until we have engaged the
Borg.
And then the choir comes in, the...
Oh, it's so great.
It's wonderful.
It's really great.
Oh boy.
I see, I like all of this sort of suggestion of horror to come.
We don't do a lot of that in TNG either, really.
No, there's a scene again, which I think he's probably, it
probably doesn't really work, but it's the scene between Gynan and
Picard, where they speculate about whether this is the end of
human civilisation.
And it's all just a little bit too abstract and abstract and
academic and some of the dialogue doesn't really make sense in
context.
But that's a way of expressing the scale of what's going on.
I think the going and Riker scene in episode 2 is extraordinary.
Yeah, but again, it's the sort of thing, I mean, it starts so
poorly that scene. will get there, but it's that thing where he
walks into the ready room, looks at the chair and says, what would
you do?
And you kind of go, come on.
Are we talking chairs now?
before.
We would be able to tell why you were staring at the chair.
We didn't need the line of dialogue for that.
And particularly, starting the scene where he's staring at the
chair and ending the scene where he sat in the chair.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, that's very clearly the trajectory of that.
I don't think we needed them.
Oh, this would you do. wonderful scene where he's asking Troy.
Yeah, why haven't I left yet?
She goes towards it, yes, yeah.
Maybe you're getting a bit seasoned.
He goes, oh, God.
You're kidding me.
I'm beyond season.
I'm ripe now, Nathan.
But I mean, I mean, look, we've got a standing yellow alert.
The Borg of scoop the thing off the ship, and just everyone's in
the bar.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, really.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's not a real sense of urgency happening. here.
Like this scene, you know, there's interest because there's people
walking around the background and stuff.
Like in, yeah, I know I'm making a lot of comparisons to cool to
watch, but I do think it is a better pet television.
That, you know, as they're preparing and Cisco goes, you know
they're going to attack.
Suddenly everyone's got guns.
We're all preparing for the fight, you know, and it's, it feels
like something huge is going to happen.
But I do like in this that we've had Q-Hoo and that amazing
sequence where the Borg slides into the ship and take out like 4
decks or whatever it is.
So we've seen the impact of what they can do on one ship.
So we know they're a massive threat.
And so I still think there is a threat building, even if we are
just sitting in Denford.
Yeah.
I loved her line of dialogue where he says maybe I've just got too
comfortable here and she says, I don't know what that could
possibly mean.
And I think that's a great line.
Like, what's wrong with being comfortable, too comfortable?
Do you know what I mean?
I'm too happy.
I'm too comfortable.
Like being comfortable is good.
That's what we want.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you don't have to go out and make things difficult for
yourself.
Expectation is that people should be ambitious and want more and
climb and yeah, you know, mate.
I'm very happy with my very boring job, you know?
Yeah, I'm comfortable.
Yeah, I think that stuff's crazy.
I think the important thing isn't the at what higher position you
have. how high a position you have.
It's how, what are you living your life?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The bit now where it makes her go to, you know, we all need some
rest and she wants to stay up and he forces her to go and rest.
The look she gives him could wither front.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean it's a vicious look.
His look as well, where he kind of goes, you know, what the hell
is she?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I do like seeing Riker on the back foot, though.
He's normally so relaxed, isn't he?
It's an interesting thing for Jonathan Frakes to play.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
You know, there's that natural companion comparison of him to Kirk
and, you know, it's why he has the middle initial, isn't it?
Um, because they're supposed to be similar, but he's quite unlike
his energy is so unlike her because he is so much more chill.
You should have very cute mad in the back of the scene there, sort
of looking on.
Oh no.
Yeah, he was very handsome.
No, I missed him.
I don't know.
He doesn't have a line or anything.
It's like, why is there?
God knows.
Just to be pretty, perhaps.
I really like too, just how they have nothing.
Do you know what I mean?
There's all this talk about all the Yeah, that look of triumph
where she just goes, you are going to lose to me.
And then he looks at her at them and goes, what is she like?
Like, that's great.
More of that stuff.
You know, it's a neat moment where you walk out of a room and say
I'm not breaking eye contact with you until I'm out that door.
You know, I've heard a few moments. triumph. just like you are, you
know, you are being a coward.
You are, you know, a player, though.
So it's the bit where he goes, I bring every available option to
the captain, you know?
And the very next scene.
She's in his ready room.
And the look on Riker's face is like, I cannot believe you are
going around me.
Oh, it's great stuff.
So have we turned into like just depressing adults who find all of
the workplace shit in this episode more compelling than the Borg
stuff?
Maybe.
There's some tension for once on this ship.
I don't know you don't want tension all the time, but it does
allow these actors to actually act for once.
Yeah.
I think I think there's that.
I think that the, that the, you know, the received fan wisdom that
the thing that makes Star Trek, the Next Generation boring is that
they're not fighting each other all the time.
That's not what makes...
It's the negotiations.
They're all the problems.
It's generally the leaden direction.
And just how cheap it is.
DS9 isn't a more interesting show for the conflict, though, because
I do love the conflict in DS9.
But they just know how to do it.
I don't think it would work here in the same way.
The conflict between the regulars.
It would have worked.
When you bring in an outsider and that creates conflict.
I mean, like Jellicoe later. telling Troy to put her uniform on.
Yeah, yeah.
And and I think, you know, initially Pulaski in season two.
Oh, wonderful.
Oh, here we go.
This is it now.
We're about to engage the Borg.
Oh, come on, bro.
Get your violins going.
It's an absolutely fake choir.
Like, it's like, it doesn't matter.
Because it's electronic choir.
They're the Borg.
They're computers, you know, or whatever.
The cube in the distance and then all of a sudden it's massive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. really well done.
They've learned how to use that screen since the Ferengi 1st
appeared in extreme close-up, haven't they?
Yeah.
So, so, um, again, we're seeing the high definition version, which
has a more detailed model and some interior spaces, and I didn't
get the chance to look at the DVDs, and I don't have a real sense
of what it was like, but my feeling is that the Borg cube only
started to have interior spaces really in 1st contact, um, and
that they were much kind of more solid.
And it's surprising actually how much of what we land on for the
Borgs aesthetic and the things that the Borg do and that they look
like that doesn't actually really occur until 1st contact.
I mean, that's a map painting, the interior of the bullshit.
That's great.
That's so good.
It gives you such scale because it comes right up close to where
you can see the people.
So you can see how many rows of people there are.
But also what's great is that it's the thing that's addressing
them.
It's the ship that's addressing them or the collective that's
addressing them.
There's no one there.
Yeah, you can see the little guys in the alcove, can't you?
Yes, great.
But it's a big empty space that's talking to them, which I just
think is amazing.
And then we cut back to this boring set at the bridge.
Look at that.
We could have had that light in all the time.
I bet we get there and Picard, right?
That ship of Rios has got fabulous lighting.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, do you remember actually in Picard?
I don't know if it's the 1st time we see the ball game season one
but where the camera went through the ball ship through all the
layers into the middle.
I mean, let's not pretend that those Borg scenes weren't
interminably boring in Picard series one because they were.
But that was a great show.
And a great location, like a good thing to do.
Like you lean into the board because it's Star Trek.
You know, it's a sequel to Next Generation.
The simplicity of the scale.
Look how small the enterprise looks compared to the ball cube in
some shots.
Well, yes, I know.
The continuity advisor was sick this week.
But that's part of the problem is that they're doing what they
can.
Um, but what's this word shield mutation?
Nutation?
Is that what it is?
That's what I'm getting on the credits.
Um, not on the credits on the, on the, um, uh, sometimes.
The coach caption person was sick that week as well.
Well, a mutation must be a word that means nodding or something.
I don't really know.
I like the idea of changing the frequency, so they can't keep up
with the different ways that you're attacking.
That was always there.
Do you know what I mean?
That was always there in Phewoo as well.
I thought they were going to slice a bit out of the ship again
here when the beam came out.
But again, they're reusing a shot, aren't they?
Are they reusing a shot from Q-Hoo there?
Not a shot that they did, though, of that.
And that was in the original Q-Hoo of the deck set up coming up.
I mean, they've added people inside them.
Now, go, oh, yeah.
Oh, did you see LeVar going under that shield that was
descending?
You could really have just walked out from under there. one hero
moment in this whole episode.
I'm gonna make my use of it.
It is, it's a dominating image, though, that ball cube.
And all the better for being a model, I think.
There's just something tangible about it.
But because of, you know, this is the problem because it's still
models, right?
They do start to like composite digitally, like they start to put
elements together digitally, uh, and maybe in part two, um, but
because they have to build models, they're restricted in what they
can possibly do.
And in the scenes later when they're pursuing the Borg cube
through um hyperspace or whatever, light speed.
What is a subspace?
Whenever they're, you know, in warp and they're pursuing the Borg
cube, they just look the same size as the Borg cube in all of
those shots.
And I think that that's a shame.
So they've had a whole breach and we don't even see it.
No, that's right.
All of this is all.
You know, now we would absolutely see people being sucked out.
Well, we do in voyage.
There's 11 people.
People dead, but no one kind of blinks an eye.
There are 11 people...
Matara led me up from Star Trek 2.
Is this a borrowed special effect?
Yes, yeah.
I mean, it's still, it's vivid though, isn't it?
I love the colours.
I think I think it looks beautiful and I think they use it very
well.
It does remind you of just those incredible sequences in the
Mutara nebula in Star Trek too.
Like, they're amazing. better music than they're even better music
than this.
So good.
Sorry, I'm so sorry, this has become the Ron Jones appreciation
sorry, isn't it?
I mean, it looks great, doesn't it?
And we don't say that very often.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The ball ship's like a spider in the web.
It just looks so menacing.
Well, when it arrived and it just eclipses the enterprise and
parks in front of it.
It looks tremendous.
And that's great how the enterprise, all the lights are sort of
lighting up the nebula as well.
Yeah, so they literally put practical smoke around the around the
model to shoot the model in order to make it look integrated into
that background.
So they are trying. they?
Yeah, yeah.
Like this is more expensive.
I know, for fuck's sake, it's 1990.
They're learning as they go.
I kind of appreciate that.
But like, it's not until, say, Way of the Warrior.
That's when they do the 1st big action piece where it's models and
CGI coming together in a very dynamic way.
Yeah.
But I mean, they are compositing in the in the computer and so
they are able to realise the Battle of Will 359 just 2.5 years
later, aren't they, an emissary?
Oh, that is extraordinary, that beginning secret.
It's short. not a long.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's enough to establish it.
And to make us feel like we've seen it.
Yeah.
Do you not remember?
The tractor beam locks onto one of those ships and tears off the
front of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the camera as well.
It's sort of zooming around the model in ways that they just can't
do here.
I mean, they still have, you know, emotional controlled cameras
motion control cameras, and they can still do digital compositing
and stuff.
So the, you know, it's not just the shots of the ship.
Yeah.
This bit in a minute where they go into the turbo lift.
If we've gone past it yet, was it in a second?
No, no.
No, it's in a...
Is it the second?
Yeah, it must be.
When she says you're in my way.
We don't pass up yet.
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know The fact that he goes, you know, she goes, kind of
off the record and all the bullshit.
All the pretence drops.
He discovers her in Picard's quarter in Picard's ready room.
So it's after this scene.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. wonderful.
There's no pretence anymore.
The pair of them, the claws are out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, and she's great.
Like, all of that stuff is so good.
I like as well, though, that he says, you know, it's not the time
her plan, we're not going to put it into action, and she's nodding
her head, going fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just wanted to bring this to your attention.
She's not just ambitious.
She does genuinely want her defeat the ball.
Well, and in fact, none of this bullshit persists into the next
episode.
They just start working together.
And I think that's really good.
I think, like, she's shown to be wrong about Riker, and Reich has
shown to be wrong about himself at the end of the episode, where
she's begging him not to do the risky thing, but instead to try
something else.
You are right.
There could have been ways where him, because, you know, he walked
in that turbo left and went halt and, you know, and he could come
across as being quite aggressive towards her.
You know, like when he said, walk with me earlier on when they
went down to the planet.
But there's, I mean, she's tiny, but the way she prickles at him, I
have no doubt she's in control of everything that they're in
together, despite, he's the fact he's in charge.
But then you're in my way and he says, really, how terrible for
you because I'm not going anywhere and you're not going to be able
to dislodge me.
I mean, he's not aggressive.
He's hostile to her.
Um, and that final line explaining why it is he plays it safe, you
know, so cussing now, you sit in the shadow of a great man.
Yeah, yeah.
But the trouble is, that's what he is asking himself.
He thinks that that might be true.
He's already suggested that that might be his problem and that's
why she gets at him because she's, you know, she's right or she's
reflecting his own doubts anyway.
You know what's the difference here?
Is the character work that we get in TNG?
It doesn't feel like it's coming with big consequences.
No, normally the character work, it feels like it's going to be
wrapped up by the end of this episode and it's fine.
And even though that is ultimately where we land in the best of
both worlds, It does feel like something, a big shift is coming.
Yeah, yeah. huge isn't it?
It's a good magic trick to pull off, actually, that when there's
no shift at all.
No.
And as well, it gets the title too, doesn't it?
Like the best of both worlds, which doesn't quite make sense, but
it is about the competition between...
That was locutious, wasn't it?
Oh, no, I mean, I think human and Borg.
No, but the best of both worlds, there's 2 worlds and we're trying
to see which one the best, you know, like in the whole competition
implied by that. is, you know, in both plots.
Oh, here we go.
Here's your guidance scene.
Yeah, see, I don't really get it.
Captain touring the ship before the battle.
I think the problem is the dialogue.
I mean, it's obviously not the 2 actors or even the idea, or let's
face it, the lighting is pretty good in this scene too.
Whoopee.
A couple of scenes that she gets.
I mean, in two, I swear, I think she just comes in and just flaws
all the other eyes.
She's great.
Unbelievable.
She's so chill.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
We are coming up too now.
I'm going to mention it now because they sort of could skip by
very quickly.
We are coming up to my sort of biggest issue with the direction
now.
Oh, okay.
So in a minute we get the attack on the bridge where the Borg
appear and it's just so static.
Like, wait until you see these shots of the Borg just standing
there on the bridge and no one kind of reacting to anything.
And then, of course, we go across to the Borg ship to get Picard
back once they've kidnapped him and have cameraman.
It's just stuck at fixed angles while people walk around the set
and I'm like, come on, you can do a tracking show, you've got a
dolly or something.
Yeah, it's a bit of a problem because there could be dynamism that
isn't Ron Jones's incredible music.
And then, I mean, but this scene too, like what she's explaining
might happen is, well, perhaps what happened to my people, where
we're scattered throughout the universe happens to you, but you'll
still prevail and you kind of think, well, yeah, but like everyone
will be killed and it will be like really bad and we don't want
that.
But no one seems very urgently worried about anything, and it does
seem to be being discussed on this very theoretical level, and her
attempts at reassurance don't really land, and so I don't quite
know what she's doing.
So I don't think the scene really works on the level of what the
characters are feeling and what they're thinking about, what
they're trying to do or anything.
I just don't get it. put a more knowing line in there and say, I
don't want to pick out an existence as a nomad running a bar. very
much.
You.
I'm quite happy being the captain of the best ship in the fleet.
Good grief.
Now, I think the idea of the bork suddenly appearing on the
bridge.
It's a great idea.
But it should be a shock moment.
It's just so pony the way it's like...
Yeah, terribly slow, isn't it?
They sort of pop in and go, oh, hello, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I actually had to rewind it because I thought I'd missed
something.
Oh, just wait.
I don't know.
Let's see if they do the usual, you know, they're leaving a big
dead space on the screen so they can beam it.
Yes, lets do that. awesome.
I didn't notice Sajil when I was watching earlier.
See that scene there?
That's the last shot of our nebula.
It does turn up again.
Remember, we've seen it in DS9.
Do you remember?
Garak and Wharf in there, runabout when the Dominion fleet comes
through.
Okay, they're not in the Badlands then?
No, no, there he is.
Look.
Yeah, so he sort of just stands there.
Then we react a bit ankles tilted a bit.
He holds up his hand.
Okay, it just sort of falls over.
Yeah, that falls over.
There's a lot of the ball falling over and they're wearing pyjamas
like they're wearing black pyjamas or sort of like, I love that
effect.
I know, but I would do it close.
I mean, look at it, he's just at it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No one's... anything.
Then we get him to beat up Riker and then obviously we have to get
him to beat up Wharf because that's how we...
Why doesn't everybody rush them at the same time?
They all take their turn.
Yeah, yeah.
They all just stand around.
It's really, really stayed.
Like that's our action for the episode and it's really nothing.
Well, that guy turns to dust on the floor.
Plod, plod, plod, cliff bowl.
Yeah, yeah.
It is it's a very bad bit of action, isn't it?
And you're right.
But like, and sorry, cool.
No, no, no.
I was just saying you're right, that doesn't land this lands.
I think Reiker's response now that he's gone.
Do you know what I mean?
He gets up, he's been beaten up.
He's a little bit dazed, and now he's in the captain's position
suddenly.
And we're waiting for that to properly land.
He doesn't sit down or anything like that.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, um, we don't see him adopt the chair or anything like that.
And he's.
What's great about Picard being kidnapped as well is we kind of
used to that sort of stuff?
People, we had Beverly Crusher kidnapped in the high ground, you
know.
So we figure there's going to be some form of a negotiation with
the Borg or something.
Not in my wildest dreams when I watched this in 1990.
Did I think that all of a sudden I was going to see Picard as a
ball?
Yeah, and we know that they assimilate people, but we have never
seen it before.
And so I think that's kind of the thing.
Yeah, I mean, look, the camera is not moving on this bullshit.
It's just fixed.
So the new thing that they added to the sets from Qhu is that
there's lighting from below through the grills on the floor.
Which is effect, yeah.
And see, there's green screen in the background of that of some of
those shots, like at the top of the things.
Obviously, that green becomes the Borg colour, but it's not the
Borg colour yet, is it?
You know, nothing's green.
And, and, you know, the costumes look so much cheaper and the
makeup is much less gruesome.
They're much less kind of zombie like.
So it is still really early days.
I think it, I still think it's sort of atmosphe atmospheric and
does work.
It's far more atmospheric than what we normally get on TNG.
Yeah, which is overlet sets.
Yes, that's true.
Yeah, there was a wonderful bit of special effects work there
where you had the matte painting and they've added in a little CGI
Borg moving into his cube.
Yeah, it was really subtle but really great.
So now we've got huge stakes, right?
They've got the captain.
So this is somebody we really care about, which is great.
And then by the end of the episode, we're going to sector 001.
The states have never been higher.
We're going to Earth.
So let's all stand around really slowly and just talk to him. while
the camera just, and the cameraman has a bit of a rest, and, you
know, like, it, it's, the most egregious example is in a minute
when they're on the Borg ship to rescue Pecan.
That's supposed to be a dynamic action sequence.
Honestly, 30 seconds or so, that camera don't move for.
I was counting the seconds.
Oh, look at Beverly in the back of the scene here.
Now, the only reason she goes onto the Borg ship is because she
wants to have a phaser.
I've never fired a phaser.
That's awesome.
And he goes, well, all right, off you go.
You don't often have doctors firing faces, but let's do it.
I really hate Deanna's line delivery there too.
Like when she comes and lectures him and kind of undermines his
decision in front of Shelby.
Like, I think that that's a, you know, because why does that have
no repercussion, then the 2 of them just look at each other, but
how do they feel about each other?
Like, we don't know.
Then he finally sits in the chair.
Yeah.
Um, he should have cut to Jellicoe's line, I said, Troy. you know
I prefer my uniform.
But like, why doesn't he say something about, like, why doesn't
she say, you are the captain?
I guess she is doing that, but it's not pointed enough.
It's not enough about not protocol.
It's like you're the captain now.
Like, this is what you have to do.
And then he goes and sits in the chair.
But the line doesn't point to that, I think, directly.
I don't think nowadays we'd be doing all this preparation to go
and get him.
We'd just be there straight into the action.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we're getting some lines of dialogue explaining why they
don't expect to be, you know, fighting the Borg off when they get
on board.
And that was always, I mean, the reason the Borg don't react to
them in Q Who is because we've got some important exposition to
impart and we need them to wander around the ship unmolested.
And so it's like they don't see us as a threat.
But now they have to explain that so that they can walk around for
a while.
The, when they walk around the ship in Qhu, it is way more
atmospheric than here, though.
And why is that?
baby screams in the distance.
It's a bad rector.
It's Rob Bowman doing...
Okay.
You know, he directed the X-Files movie, for God's sake.
He's a he's a serious director.
You're right, though.
The underlying is very effective.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
Well, because it just sort of throws shadows on everybody's
faces.
It's a bit like horror movie.
And it's a little bit less like a normal Star Trek set, which this
looks a lot like, like it's got a lot of things from stock and
things that we've seen before.
And then there's this baffling thing coming up, isn't there?
Is this the thing where there's that node on the ceiling?
Is that coming?
Amazing.
Triangle on the ceiling.
That's right.
It's so something to shovel power through.
My God.
Yeah, look, this is extraordinary, says Gates.
Look at this.
It's amazing.
It looks like a power wave guide conduit.
And there it is.
It's like...
Yeah, triangle.
I think maybe the...
Pella was thinking, you know, it's got to be this hugely
impressive bit of technology.
Sorry, we've only got the triangle that we use every week, but
we'll put it on the ceiling.
We'll put a green bulb in it later for another shot.
This shot now, look, the camera just does not move.
They come in over there all the way around the set.
I mean, it's unbelievable. isn't it?
It's not moving at all.
And it slowly glides upwards so we can see the triangle again.
Yeah, that's right. green now.
Jesus Christ.
I mean, that is stayed, right?
It's amazing.
This is before Jonathan was whirling the camera around like a
madman.
See?
And he was right to do that, you know?
I've started to see your argument. take the sickness tablets, you
know, over this.
Oh, we're moving to intercept at Wolf 359.
Yeah, yeah.
So Wolf 359's real.
It's a planet not far from Earth, but it's an actual real, not a
planet, a star.
Um, not far from earth.
I mean, it's one of the most talked about areas of space going
forward, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's super interesting too, like making it somewhere
real rather than sort of, you know, made up space Star Trek planet
or whatever.
Wolf as well.
That's great name.
Yeah, it's really good.
Actually, we always call it Wolf 359, but Brent will call it Wolf
359 a little bit later, which doesn't happen.
Yeah, see, look, this time we open the drawer up and it's just a
uniform in there.
Last time it was a baby. covered in electrodes.
For this where it's kind of like Shelby to Enterprise, you know, we
found the captain's uniform where every he is on this cube, he's
naked.
We fair they may be seducing Jean-Luc.
We don't want to imagine how they're doing that.
He's somewhere on this cube, but he's got his knob. should never
have shown the uniform.
Because that Robert does hint at what's coming.
Yeah, no, no, wasn't it?
I don't know.
Like, but it is kind of why would he surrender his uniform.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, why are they taking him out of his uniform?
Because they want to have sex with him.
It's like, I don't know, like what's happening?
Now, this, look, when they shoot the nodes, again, this plotting
direction.
Okay, so we've got to shoot at it for a little while.
Oh, pour up gates doesn't look like Gates doesn't look her best
underlit like that, does she?
Not very flattering.
I'm delight me, all right.
I wouldn't be this free.
See, the other thing too is that the Borg look horrible because
like their eyes are gone and like one of them has something over
his mouth and stuff like that, but they're not going to do that to
Patrick Stewart.
Do you know what I mean?
And like I did see some images on memory alpha where like they had
detached his arm and replaced it with a thing or whatever, but
instead they just put a big thing over his arm and he's completely
intact underneath it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she's much more beautiful than Patrick.
That's right.
But they don't want to go too far.
Yeah.
It'll be fleshed, okay?
And everything.
Well, Borg didn't have that in.
Now, look at them all plodding around.
This is them attacking, apparently.
The camera's fixed.
They're all in sort of, they're all facing different directions
and then everyone falls over.
Like, I just think everyone fires one phaser at a time, no one...
Everybody fire at once on the same wall, you know?
For God's sake.
No, remember that they can only use their faces once or maybe
twice.
Oh, you've just missed it.
That's the bit where the Borg falls against the wall when it
wobbles. wobbles brilliant.
Yeah, just like Doctor Who.
Cliff didn't notice.
It's very like Doctor Who is, isn't it?
Stage action and lots of talk.
Here we go.
I really like those uh, kind of those weird quadrilateral um, uh
you know, force fields that appear in front of them.
Here's Picard. where you, that very undramatic shot where the Borg
are all in the way, and you can see Picard, what are you doing
Cliffball?
Make the reveal of Picard, the bit where he turns round.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's very strange, isn't it?
And he's wearing it.
And then the camera's fixed because it's just standing there
everyone's sort of running up to it.
It's just so terrible.
It's action.
He looks like he's wearing a turtleneck as well, like a black
turtleneck, you know.
Okay.
Now, I mean, I mean, look at Gay Sal.
Look, she's trying, oh, is she upset?
I'm not sure what she's thinking.
Yeah, no, she's got nothing.
She's also sort of thinking, you know, I've got to do the schedule
for sick bay next week as well, you know.
But Wharf, Michael Dawn's got the note.
He goes, he is a boy, as if he's going to start crying. wonderful
isn't it?
Well done, Michael.
But again, just the way this stuff is directed, how flatly
everything is lit.
It's so strange, isn't it?
It's, I mean, the one thing he gets right though.
The one thing he gets right is that zoom in on Riker for the
cliffhanger.
And of course, Ron's going da da da da.
No, in the music, again, heavy lifting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But look, here's the scene where we reverse, right?
Here's the same way we reverse. consult with Starfleet Command.
Get Admiral Hanson, do a thing, do anything except the big, risky
the big, risky captain thing that needs to be done.
It's really well done.
And like, for all the complaining about the, the, the production
and the direction and stuff like that and just how staid this is
and how kind of lacking intention, the performances are.
It still worked.
And it worked in context, I think.
And ultimately, they sell the importance and they sell the threat
of it.
Yeah.
Oh, and now I just, I just remember, not being able to figure out
a way out of the show going forward without either the Borg
destroying Earth or us losing Captain Picard.
It's a proper, proper cliffhanger, isn't it?
Where not even Michael Piller knows how we're going to get out of
this one.
No one in the world...
Come on, Rocco, here's the money shop.
But it's also, it's Shelby looking at him, and then the camera
moves her out of shot, and then he says fire.
Then we drop to black for music to be continued, which we'd never
ever seen on Star Trek, the Next Generation and had never seen at
the end of a series of Star Trek.
And, you know, there was the big, it was 1980, the big who shot JR
thing.
Like the 1st time, I think, that an end of season cliffhanger
becomes a massive international news event.
And I remember it.
You know, like I'm in primary school and I'm aware that the who
shot JR is a thing, you know, and...
And then Star Trek does it.
And it really, really properly lands.
It's so incredibly good.
I mean, Pillar says, there's a quote from Pillar of Memory Alpha
that.
He wasn't, they weren't sure.
They were getting a 4th year.
It wasn't a dead sir at this point.
The numbers hadn't gone up that much. at this point.
I think it's after the best of both worlds.
Suddenly everyone's tuning in for series 4 and onwards.
So it was sort of a risky move to end on such a big cliffhanger
but the risk paid off.
I mean, it's the cliffhanger that everyone was talking less the
episode, more that moment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Picard on the screen, you know, and Riker screaming fire at the
end.
Oh, just amazing.
It's really good.
It's really properly.
Like, and I can't underestimate how exciting this was for me when
I was 9 years old.
Yeah, you know?
Like, now I'm 45 and I've consumed a lot of TV and we've moved on
a lot since this and action is amazing and so much about
television is better.
But I will never watch a piece of television now. that was as
exciting as this was then.
Yeah.
All right.
When you're a kid and a bit of TV grips you.
It's the best feeling in the world and boy, this just bewitched me
when I was nine.
So I was a bit older than that when I 1st watched it.
But I have to say that just watching this and I haven't seen it in
ages, absolutely took me back to what it was like.
My 1st experiences of watching this show and how much I loved it
and why and just how huge and epic and incredible this seemed.
And like it really, really worked.
It really worked on me again.
And all of the floors, which we will continue to talk about
perhaps even more in part too.
All of the floors are there.
All of them were more apparent to me now than they ever have been
on any previous watching, but in a way, I'm prepared to give it a
pass because of how it made me feel when I 1st watched it and how
it made me feel again for that very reason.
Usually wear better than that sort of thing, but this time, no
no.
I mean, I'll say there's 22 massive pinpoints in Star Trek, yeah.
Where, and the 2nd one was emissary.
I just will never forget watching Emissary for the 1st time and it
revolutionising the idea of how you can tell a Star Trek story via
just such vivid characters with real emotions, you know, and all
the spirits.
I just remember that as a bit of telly, just knocking my socks
off.
But the 1st one is this. you know, and this was the 1st time a
cliffhanger had got me in my entire life, you know?
So I think I've been searching for my best of both worlds ever
since.
All right, what do you reckon?
I think we should go back in.
It was the quickest summer I've ever experienced.
Yeah, it was pretty quick.
All right.
Now, that's what I wished it had been live back when I was 9 years
old.
Well, that's what we can do now.
That's the great beauty of it.
We don't have to worry about a cliffhanger at all.
We can just go straight in.
I think the anticipation, though, is, you know, like a show I've
watched recently, Severance.
Yeah, that ended on great cliffhanger.
Amazing cliffhanger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That made me wait.
That's right.
A couple of years, I think.
Well, what about hegemony where we had to wait 18 months or
something?
It's a long wait.
So we will see in a minute where Dr. Bev has nipped off to Sick
Bay to put on a different wig.
So keep an eye out for that and I will count us in.
I didn't know that was a thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, you watch.
Okay, guys.
Is she pregnant at this point?
Is she behind console?
No, I think so.
All right.
I can only assume, though, that the resolution to this cliffhanger
is going to be every bit as spectacular as the cliffhanger
itself.
Okay, let's go.
Maybe.
All right, here goes.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
Okay, previously on...
Mr. Worf.
Dispatch a subspace message.
Astral Pass.
We have engaged the book.
I mean, you don't need to watch the 1st episode.
Look, it's all the best bits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's right.
Well, that's the purpose of it, isn't it?
We've had 3 months to forget what was going on.
Please, do not show the ball beaming onto the bridge as well.
It makes a bit so bad. will do that.
Yeah, well it's sort of important to the story, isn't it?
a little bit.
Yeah.
Oh, here we go.
I mean, the league.
I for Shelby in the turbo lift.
It's just you make room for somebody who can make the big calls
Commander Riker. there it is.
Oh, I didn't realise that Wolf jumped over the tactical console
there.
Yeah, that was pretty good.
Yeah, yeah.
That a bit of action.
There you go.
What were we complaining about?
Like Picard's being kidnapped and all he does is just get out of
his chair and stand there.
Yeah, I know, it's amazing, isn't it?
There's just no reaction at all.
Oh, here we go now.
The stayed camera work around the Borg ship.
Yep, yep.
I hope we get to see that amazing triangle again, do we?
Oh, magnificent.
What does she say?
Extraordinary, incredible.
I think you might see it explode.
Oh no.
No, we just slowly shooting Borg one by one.
Yeah.
Do you know what?
We didn't mention it, but they do it twice in the 1st episode of
him turning around and the beam of light going straight at the
camera.
It's so great.
There's a really, really great moment as well.
Like, there's a really particularly good moment in the reprise
like, in the cold open before we go to the before we go to the
thing.
Oh, it's no, it's the we will service us and then the, then the
thing goes straight into the camera.
You will service us and it looks incredible.
It just looks great.
Mr. Wharf.
Fire.
I bet he does it with that.
Now the conclusion.
And he does it without breaking a sweat, doesn't he?
It's wonderful.
It's really good Oh, so we caught fire.
Well, no, no, we're about to fire.
We've got 6 seconds to fire, so we're all just going to stand
around gulping, I think.
Oh, poor old world.
I mean, I think I probably would have opened on the shot of your
firing.
Yes, I think so too.
Will has got really bad acne during the...
That was that was my biggest disappointment where I went.
The Borg ship is undamaged, so I was like, oh, all that stress.
We had 3 months.
And it didn't work.
Fire off, yeah, it didn't work.
I haven't slept for 90 days.
What do we do now?
Oh, boy.
If about you, let's be honest, we're Doctor Who fans.
We very used to Cliffhanger resolutions being a bit lame.
The famous one where the cliff where the episode ends with kill
him and then the next episode starts with someone coming in, no
wait.
Like, it's basically that.
Oh, did you see?
That's one of the better cliffhangers, you know.
No, oh, no, wait.
Oh, She can have...
She's got spectacular new hair.
I mean, admittedly, even though the cliffhanger resolution is
terrible.
Cutting straight to Picard saying, well, we're heading to Worth
now.
I've got all of Picard's knowledge.
Like, that's exciting.
And calling him number one as well is a bit of a gut punch too.
Like, he's a Borg, but he has a nickname for Riker because he
knows him.
He's like, I'm not lying.
I genuinely do have all of this knowledge.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
It's a great into the titles.
Yeah, it was a savvy move.
And, you know, just give him Patrick Stewart a chance to play for
a bit.
Yeah, yeah, to do something fun to play something different. pretty
good.
Do you think it's unpacked?
It's suitcase at this point.
Yeah.
Isn't he...
I think up the long ladder that we did last time.
Maybe it was still in the cupboard, you know, waiting to go.
Well, isn't he with Jennifer Hetrick at this point?
Don't forget, though, his contract was up at the end of three.
Oh okay.
So that's another reason for this cliffhanger is that if he didn't
want to come back, well, there's your out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He came back with his 2 conditions, didn't he?
One, our direct episodes.
He's terrible director.
Two.
I have more sex.
That was his two.
Oh, so his way...
Is Kevin's Holiday Inn series 4 then?
No, that is that series three.
That's, yeah, yeah. towards the end of three.
Yeah, but he has more romances from this point.
No, he has Wendy Hughes, Australian Wendy Hughes. wonderful.
I love that.
Yeah, me too.
Can't wait till we land on that one.
Yeah, it's probably good.
Okay.
I mean, we don't do the threat to earth very often. do we?
No, in fact, we don't get to go back to Earth, and that's what's
fun about the next episode as well, is that it's set on Earth.
And I always think too.
It's still there.
That never happens.
Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it?
The earth thing.
Like, because just the standing sets are cheap.
So setting it, well, they're not cheap, but they're there
already.
And so they can just set things on the ship and that's super
easy.
But if they have to realise earth in the 24th century, that takes
effort.
And that's what's so great about going back to Earth is seeing
what Earth looks like in the 24th century.
You know, I love that.
That's one of the things that I liked about that 2 parter in Deep
Space 9 as well.
Like, here we are on earth, here is what it looks like.
The 1st duty later.
Go into the restaurant and all of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wonderful.
Although, I do love as well that in family, obviously, he goes
down to his brother's place, his brother who's cruelly murdered in
generations.
We've already covered that It's hideous, isn't it?
But, you know, it's the visuals of all of the vineyard.
And then they pick up on that in Picard.
Yeah.
So it's, yeah.
Well, they pick up on it in the finale of this.
Yeah, I'm sort of suggesting Rick Berman, you know, he didn't
watch Besto Bothwells part one too closely because he's reassigned
Cliff Bold part two.
Yeah.
They're Beverly's Beverly's new hair.
Beverly's new hair.
Oh, I keep missing it.
You keep missing it.
I mean, that's why I thought it was so hilarious that Celia
Gooding had new hair for part 2 of her.
No, come on.
It's not a knowing wink, is it?
to best of both worlds.
Don't you realise, you know, they can just shove their head in
a...
Oh, yes, look at it.
It's much longer, actually, than it wasn't.
And a different, she's died it as well.
Like it's a lighter colour.
I mean, it's a week.
They didn't have to give her the new wig for this episode, but
they just thought, oh, fuck it. let's just.
I think a lot of the time it's a wig, but that's definitely a wig
but yeah.
You know her sort of reddish hair in series one.
That's her real hair, isn't it?
I think so.
I don't know.
It's dark red head, right?
Like she's not...
Let's just figure she can shovel right in a ball when you get a
new haircut.
Technology.
She nipped out to the loo and dyed her hair like during the, it's
pretty casual.
He's always a problem, though, when we end on a cliffhanger.
We've got a pickup and the continuity has to be exactly the same.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so what's happening?
They'll walk heading towards Earth.
Yes.
Yeah, that's what we want to see.
Now, this shot I did like, this high angle shot going down on
Picard.
Yep, it's a great table.
I think it's great.
But of course, it's not action, is it?
It's a contemplative moment.
Yeah, yeah, it's just emphasising, like, because the change is now
going even further than it was before.
They are just putting more of his outfit on, though.
Like they're not chopping any bits off him or anything or doing
anything, although that, with the, uh, with the thing going into
his head.
The same problem, you know, that you have with Doctor Who and the
cybermen in that the horror of it is that you lose your humanity
and you become a machine, but there's no focus on that at all here
is there?
That's family when he talks about being dehumanised.
Well, that tear that goes down his cheek as that's happening to
him, I think, is really good, and that hints at how this is going
to be resolved, isn't it?
that his humanity is still there and will reassume.
But really the trauma is he's been turned into a ball, but that's
not really the drama here, is it?
It's the Borg heading towards Earth. loads of spaceships are going
to blow up along the way.
And then the B plot, which is every bit as important, which is the
workplace stuff between, you know, Riker and Shelby and stuff.
Accelerator coils responding normally.
There you go.
Boy, we're back into normal TNG.
Techno bubble mode.
Ash Shield, sensors down.
But it's her doing her job incredibly well.
Like she's doing the work and she's superintending it and, you
know, reporting to the captain about how the work is going.
You know, like it's her absolutely ensconced in her position.
And we, you know, again, part of the thing is that now they're
disabled.
They can't chase the Borg.
And so we have time and that time is time for the tension to
dissipate a bit in time for the audience to forget that the Borg
are on their way to Earth, and that time's also a bit cheaper, you
know, like they don't have to do any effect shots or anything.
The real joy of the climax of this and we will get there.
It's not because sending the ball to sleep.
I know it makes sense.
It is kind of quiet.
It's Riker saying, Ensign Crusher, collide this shit with the
ball.
And Wesley gives him a look like, are you serious?
I'm a child, you know.
No, but there's a moment of resignation.
He's not angry at it.
It just like, oh, you know, okay, so this is how it ends for me.
Like, there is a...
He even says ENG.
He starts to say engage and then he gets the news.
Oh, this is wonderful.
There's no reason for me to expect to become your 1st officer
except the fact that you need this.
Yes, except I want to be your 1st officer.
I do love it when he officially, you know, makes it official and
war for day, give each other a look, like, really?
I thought you had no emotions, Mr. Data.
Why are you looking so annoyed?
But I mean, look how, like, there is nothing about losing the
captain.
Do you know what I mean?
Like we even referred.
This is the captain, what the captain said to me about you.
The captain thought that, you know, you were like a younger me.
Um, but no one is visibly upset about the captain's absence and
like, I don't know, maybe they're all too professional.
Maybe we don't want to watch handwringing.
I't know, but it just seems so weird.
You just couldn't imagine this in discovery, could you?
The data going, well, Starfleet have engaged the Borg and then
just one person on the screen, sort of jumping about going, oh, my
God, they're taking us out, you know.
This is TOS levels.
It's sub TOS level.
I think it's cheaper, but I do think, though, there is something.
There's something about them being kept out of the action.
Like I'd said that it's cheaper, but also, these things are
happening and they're helpless to do anything about it and they
arrive after everything's gone wrong.
That's really powerful.
It's pretty great. just the image of the ship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Again, as a kid, those ships seem so powerful to me as a child.
Seeing a graveyard of ships like that and knowing how many people
are on them.
I just couldn't comprehend it.
So you know that we find out that 11,000 people are killed in the
drumhead.
Ah, okay.
Oh, Admiral Satay.
It must have been so sad for you, captain.
Losing your humanity like that.
Oh, she was great, wasn't she?
She's our next bitch after Shelby.
So great.
Oh, no, I think we have the woman from Silicon Avatar in this
week.
That's season five.
Oh, okay.
Terrible episode.
Fuck it so much.
Okay, yeah, we are, look, I am noticing we are basically just
sitting around the normal sets.
It's so like everyone's kind of quite chill.
Now let's talk about nanotechnology. very anxious.
No, they're not in the fight, you know?
Even Wolf's got his hands behind his back.
It's very calm.
Are you meditating, Mr. Wolf?
What's going on?
In 2 or 3 weeks, nanites might be all that's left of the
federation.
It's just kind of like, sassy bitch.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty great line.
What a ridiculous idea, Beverly, is what she's actually saying.
And it's funny, isn't it, we're talking about nanites long before
we know that the Borgs operate using nanoprobes. which are, Well
no, but don't forget, we did nanites in evolution, didn't we?
at the start of season three.
So that's a continuity again.
That was, well, that's what Beverly says, given our recent
experience with Nanites.
Come on, Michael Pillar, you're remembering the past.
Now, we don't do this sort of thing and not this strike until we
go to CS9.
It's Beverly who notices it.
Do you know what I mean?
Because it was Wesley who created them.
There we go.
She's officially 1st officer now.
Yeah, but look how he does look a bit as strict as your state in
Jesus Christ.
What would you do?
Chair.
If you were the captain.
I think he's talking to the fish.
Do you?
I think he's talking to the geode.
Oh, whoop. is so great in this thing.
Like, I don't really agree with what she's saying.
She's going, just forget about him.
He's a Borg now and you're the captain and you've got to make
tough choices and you've got to let him go.
Well, if he did that, then we would nap him back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know what this scene is for.
I love her.
I'm just used to having the captain's ear.
I think it's pretty good and I love how she sits in his chair.
I like her hat.
Yeah.
Sorry, just that.
No, no, I love, always love her outfits.
She looks ridiculous.
I love it.
She owns it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think she's tremendous.
When a man is convinced he's going to die tomorrow, he'll probably
find a way to make it happen.
Is that a thing?
Is that what people think?
I don't know.
People think that.
That just seems like an odd thing to say.
I'll give it. some thought throughout the day and see if it
happens tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just makes no sense.
You know, like, and that's one of the thing. just think none of
that really works.
Like what's happening here?
I think if we'd had more exploration of, because obviously her
race has met the Borg before, and they are responsible for
scattering her race about.
So I think what she's saying, given her history with the Borg
makes sense.
But, um, you know, Riker's right to not to not accept the fact
that they've lost him.
Well, I, I like, like, I do like that if he died, it'd have been
easier.
You know, he's still here. and that's a problem.
And I do like the, if the captain wrote that book, you need to
throw that book away.
I think that's very good because...
And all of this is our relationship's beyond friendship beyond
family.
Do you know why we're so close?
They're mythologising that relationship before we ever see why
that is.
And that's a bit of a disappointment, really, to be frank.
Don't you come for times our own, Mr. Pickett.
All right?
She's great in that one.
You tell my father, okay, I'm not interested.
Yeah, because she's sort of a younger sassier guy in it then, isn't
she?
She's really good.
Well, isn't that younger gardening in Picard as well?
Series 2?
played by a younger woman, though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, she's just Sass going on.
I love her.
Do you remember when she's giving Wesley love advice?
I'm so flirting with Riker.
That's really funny.
That's trendous.
I mean, she goes, shut up, kids.
Tell me more about my eyes.
Now he sits in the chair.
Yeah.
Very symbolic.
Yeah.
But it is the 2nd symbolic sitting in the chair in 2 episodes.
Yeah, shouldn't it be... just do the Picard maneuver, though. you
notice that?
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, well now, we're heading towards the graveyard of ships now.
And I remember, I remember as a nipper thinking, oh, we're not
going to see any fighting.
I remember feeling a palpable sense of disappointment of like...
They could never have afforded it at this point.
But I do think that they're using their money well because I think
just the series of defeats and how bad things are at this and how
they have nothing. like they have nothing.
The nanites will take months.
You know, none of the plans, you know, the Defiant didn't work
out.
We'll find out later.
Um, like all of the things that Starfleet was doing don't work and
their big plan, their big deflector shield plan doesn't work.
The Melbourne.
That's such a great moment.
So it was amazing having a ship called the Melbourne. as an
Australian because our 2nd biggest city is called Melbourne.
And having, uh, Patrick Stewart in the cast, um, who clearly has
explained how to say Melbourne because Americans always pronounce
it Melbourne.
Oh, no.
But huge kudos again to Ron Jones, because even though that is a
powerful visual of the enterprise sort of pushing its way through
all the shifts, the music there really stresses the drama of that
moment.
Whatever happened to you, Ron Jones?
I hope you went on to do good work after when Burman cut you
three.
Yeah we should try and find out.
I mean, like, we do.
You know, whenever we go back to one to one to four.
Was this his last one?
I think he does something four.
Okay. where you always compliment the music.
Music, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
How early, early music is a little bit more like TOS music and
then it just becomes terrible wallpaper.
Mm.
God knows why they're lighting all this better.
There's a bit of dry ice in the set now.
I've noticed in the Borg ship.
It's not marsh.
Yeah.
I like that, I do like that screen, that revolving screen is
pretty great.
That reminds me of, you know, the screen in the air in Picard on
Rios's ship, you know, it's a bit, it's not as sophisticated
but...
Yeah.
They're doing something.
So, don't you think the telly on the Battle Bridge is really
small?
Yeah.
I don't know, it just seems tiny.
It's like even smaller than the Voyager, um, tally, the big
tally.
Battle bridge is quite small, wasn't it?
No, but if you're the captain, you want a comfy chair and a big
fucking telly, and that's a, like my television's that size.
I think it's very...
I think they use it as a cinema, usually, you know, they also
gather in, the bridge crew.
We're watching tonight.
Tom Paris's latest cartoon.
So, of course, memory alpha goes into some detail about the Battle
Bridge because we all want to see the Battle Bridge as we learn
from disaster.
Remember how the kids wanted to be taken to the Battle Bridge and
Picard wanted to take them to the Hydroponics Bay and various
boring places on board the ship?
So we love the battle bridge and it's very dramatically lit.
It looks really great.
But bits of it keep being used for the films and stuff.
So...
So they know how to dramatically light a bridge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But they're not doing it normally.
It's so strange.
They never do it again.
Do you know what I mean?
Voyager immediately goes actually, we're turning the lights down
in all these bridge scenes.
And I think Voyages Bridge as well.
I can't visualise it.
It has all those little alcoves and stuff.
You know, there's the bit where Harry sits and there's the bit
where, um, at 2 Vok is, but there's other bits over to the side
and stuff, and you never really get a sense, whereas those big
high shots of the enterprise bridge with all of the spare space
for the cameras to wheel around in. very easy to visualise because
we often see all of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, do you remember that was that one episode of Voyager we
were watching and it sort of swung round and we realised there was
an alcohol to the side for the person?
I was like, oh, the hell?
They've been there and they've been there for 5 years.
Whereas DS9, they just learned how to light within the set, didn't
they?
With lots of different light sources and levels and yeah, yeah
yeah.
So they learned the lessons, didn't they, of that original
points?
I mean, look at that.
Look at that bridge where there's a light on Riker, so you can see
him really clearly and the background is really dark.
It's just very effectively lit, I think.
Picard's brilliantly lit there in the ball cube as well.
Actually, maybe they have learned a few lessons between seasons.
And also the other thing is that we all want to see the source
separate.
Like we desperately want to see it separate.
And this is a kid, I did.
This is the last time we see it separate, I think, because they
have to use the old model.
And then, of course, it separates for Star Trek generations.
Oh, spectacular.
Notably.
Oh, this is fabulous.
Look at these fireworks going off on the exterior.
That's antimatter spread.
It's great.
It's federated.
I don't care what it is.
It's just a load of Catherine whales far in about this bullshit.
Oh, I thought this was quite nice as well, where the shuttle goes
up and you watch, you can see outside the window.
Yeah, it's really good, isn't it?
As it leaves the shuttle Bay.
Look, that's really effective, I think.
Oh, look, even, oh, come on, they put in that later on, surely, the
Enterprise.
I think it's the Enterprise originally.
I think so.
That's a new...
He's shining his red light straight.
He's getting used to it now.
Yeah, yeah.
And the bears had pointed at the camera dramatically.
So it's funny how minuscule the shuttle set is.
It's so tiny.
And it's the big shuttle.
Do you know what I mean?
It's not like a shuttle pod or anything.
It's a big, big shuttle.
You wait until we get to DS9.
I mean, they've got compartments up the back at all sorts.
Oh, those runabouts get bigger every season, don't they?
We use a runabout.
We do use a deep space sign runabout. remember, in timescapes.
Timescape.
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, they set more and more bloody episodes in them.
We've got to open this out a bit.
We can't shoot in this bloody thing.
And that shitty transporter, the shitty transport, where they
where they now kidnap, Picard, this is just as bad as the...
There is a lot of standing there shooting gold one after the other
isn't there?
static camera, static camera.
Move the bloody camera.
Yeah, yeah.
And the Borg are just standing there. like in the corridor.
I guess what else are they going to do?
No, but like, you know, yeah, do you remember Unity?
During the episode Unity in Voyager season 3, where they get a
Borg and bring it onto Voyager, and suddenly it wakes up in Sick
Bay, and there's like a massive jump scare as it wakes up and sits
up and it's like they just learn how to do it more dramatically
them just walking very slowly into short.
Oh my god, and Picard and Michael, like...
Camera not moving yet, yeah. 10, nine, eight, so it's a long
time.
Oh, no, it's the whole beam out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the camera's not moving because it's locked off so they can do
the transporter thing.
And then this lamentably bad transporter on board the ship that
looks nothing like it's like a thing on the ceiling.
There's no anything.
It's terrible.
It's so cheap I just remember that being so dynamic when I was
kid.
Oh my god, they broke into the ball ship and kidnapped Loecus.
Do you know, the one thing is that I do actually think it is
pretty great, because I think what's really good about it is that
we've had these plans discussed in episode one, but we don't get
to hear this plan before it's executed, so we don't know what he's
going to do.
And it's Riker getting it right.
Like he successfully takes the next step.
You know, he gives the orders and it works, exactly what he said
would work, works.
It's good, I think.
He got a good smug close-up there where he was playing words, you
know, justified, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But again, it's it's got to be the story of him proving to himself
that he's the captain.
Look at that man to the right there.
I mean, he has got wide eyes, doesn't he?
It looks very shocked.
God of Mascara on, I think.
That's Gleason, I think. that right?
We're only just out of the 80s, you know?
That's right.
Only Charles.
I've noticed as well because it is a tight space. bowl is shooting
up at a lot of people on that bowl bridge and it's so much more
dramatic.
Yeah.
Okay, so now we sort of hang out in Sick Bay with Picard just
lying on a bed for 20 minutes.
He do for a while, although he does stand up later after Beverly
gets him out of his turtleneck and we get to see his nipples.
So there's that.
We just sort of, I'll tell you what it is.
We learn how to build to a crescent.
I can't say the word, crescendo in latter episode.
Well, do you remember the end of Way of the Warrior?
You know, you go from the space battle to the battle hand to
hand.
You know, everyone been shot and bodies everywhere.
And look, he's firing a laser into Beverly's hair.
That's the thing that's happening.
That makeup is...
I like the hair.
We trying to forget...
The makeup's not good.
Well, HD has done them no favours.
No, I think that's probably it.
That's probably the problem.
Thank God, they haven't HD Dodo.
Otherwise, we'll get a lot of trouble.
It's bad enough in SD.
That's right Oh, oh, he looks a bit cumbersome, doesn't he, sitting
there and all of that costume?
The costume isn't good initially, I think.
Don't you think?
Well, when he comes back in emissary, you know, when they do the
flashbacks to him, it's a different costume, five, less bulky.
Yeah, and it's sort of brown around the middle. the annoyance of
the Star Trek fans.
Oh my god.
How dare they change this costume?
Yeah, yeah.
But it did look a bit rough.
And then, of course, we get to see it again, don't we?
Do we?
In flashback in 1st contact?
No.
We do get to see him being assimilated in a way that looks quite
different and does involve sticking that drill in his eye, which I
thought was pretty good.
We could have done with that.
I wonder if we should any point see him, I don't know, trying to
fight the conditioning or something.
Like it's some sort of a battle.
Like he's just gone, isn't he?
So the loss of his humanity. just not even relevant.
Well, we do get it later.
Do you know what I mean?
There's a moment where Deanna recognises there's actually a scene
which I think is actually done quite well, where we start looking
at his Borg hand, and that's interacting with them, and that's in
shot, and then at the end it's his human hand that is acting and
focussed and stuff.
So we do see it happen and it's not badly done, I think.
But it's not there at the moment.
There's no conflict, I think.
I think really the, the, like we said, is the tier.
That's the moment where you see it.
Oh, that's good.
And that's fighting.
Yeah, it was good.
Yeah, and for once, you know, dialogue free.
So it looked like that should have been us going into the
credits.
Yeah.
Don't you think Yeah.
Yeah.
That would have been great, actually.
Yeah, yeah.
Because, I mean, we high ankle shot going down the tier.
Yeah.
Because we just go to the, you know, the thing failed sort of
thing.
But it's a sort of action thing leading into the closing credits
but the opening credits, but yes.
The next big moment for me, though, age 9 was when he goes now
we're entering sector 001 and the Borg ship goes towards the
earth.
And I was like, oh my god, the fight's coming.
Uh oh.
That's stupid.
It doesn't actually happen.
Yeah, it's huge, isn't it?
Maybe it shouldn't have been.
I mean they're not that big later, are they?
No, but there are other Borg with big giant appendages in the in
this episode.
Yeah, yeah.
Bake your pile, so, you know, like limbs anyway.
Yeah.
Yes.
And this is super interesting, right?
So it's, you will all become one with the Borg.
We are here to improve your lifestyle, you know, your quality of
life, all of that kind of thing.
We're racist against data because he's just a toaster or whatever
but we want to improve your quality of life.
And like when when you're trying to work out what the Borg are.
So, you know, the Klingons and stuff in TOS was always a Cold War
metaphor on the Klingons were like Russians and they were like
Russians as well as Soviets.
Do you know what I mean?
But, The Borg are just the Federation, okay?
Like, they're the dark mirror of the Federation.
It's literally made explicit when Eddington says it for the
cause.
Right, okay.
At least the Borg are honest about assimilating racist.
Yeah.
But that's what they are, isn't it?
They're us in a way.
And so Picard gets that line about how we're we're assimilating
you to make you happy to improve, you know, uh, to improve your
lifestyle.
We absorb the cultures and add it to our own.
Like all of that stuff.
So it's also, you know, the speech that Tekovma makes at the
beginning of discovery and that 1st sort of moment of discovery, uh
that the federation is, like assimilates.
And I think that's super interesting.
I like that.
It's also the joke that they make in Way of Warrior, Quark and
Garak.
It's insidious.
Just like the Federation.
Yeah, yeah.
You know what, though?
The more you drink it, the more you start.
Yeah, I think so.
Garak goes, it's vile.
Only only Americans think it's not vile.
I think I think, uh, I am feeling that this is flagging a bit
episode 2, watching this now.
One, because I don't think there's enough instant in it.
And two, because it's a lot of plot and not a lot of character
happening at the moment.
You know, there's all these ideas, they're batting back and
forth.
I know you like all that sort of stuff.
But there is a way of doing that and having some character. and a
few jokes in there as well.
The Shelby stuff's on hold so that's gone and that was great in
episode one.
Um, and there's an odd, oddly paced thing where we go on board the
Borg ship like 4 minutes from the end or something, you know, and
I don't know, this, I think it's a pacing problem because this
should be scarier, shouldn't it?
You've got the Borg.
That is not in the original.
Yeah, the bullshit going.
The 3 ships being destroyed.
I don't remember that in the original.
So it goes past Saturn in the previous shot and that's it going
past Mars and that's Mars' defence.
These little ships come out and attack it. don't remember that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's us getting closer and closer to Earth. past recognisable.
Now, see, and now the Enterprise is catching up with them going
past Saturn.
And everyone's, look, Troy, Beverly, they're all just hanging
around with pads.
Yeah, that's right.
Playing Sudoku on the Troop Candy Crush.
Give him a line.
Just give them something.
Oh no.
She's doing medical babble, the hyperphalamus.
Yeah, but why are they taking all his clothes off?
Well, he's been working out.
He wants to shove it off.
It might look like a corpse, but it's got a nice chest.
Yeah, that's right.
When he knew he was going to be running sort of hanging from the
ship in 1st contact.
I mean how much did he work out for that?
God, he really did.
It looks great.
Yeah, doesn't it?
Fantastic.
He looks pretty good.
Shatner.
All right.
That's right.
You fat bastard.
That's great.
Yeah, see, look, I just can't find the drama in zooming in on
Data's positronic break.
No, although I did I did actually like the moment where he turns
around and we see it, you know, but yes, like there's...
It makes sense.
It all makes sense.
It does just a little lacklustre.
Well, it's because we don't see it and they just have to explain
it to us and they have to tell us about the subspace messages that
are going between Picard and the thing.
Like, this is something, here's some action.
Yeah, but that matters.
That's literally guy.
Picard hit him very gently and that man threw himself over.
Very dramatic.
Yeah.
Oh, look, Troy gets a close-up.
My god.
So he's going to win this tug of war between Data and Lucutus.
It's his robot hand and data pulls off.
He looks so ridiculous.
Look at him looking at his massive, disembodied, actually.
Now he knows, what do I do now?
What do I do with?
am I supposed to do with that?
I'm just gonna look around a bit confused.
Yep, yep.
But then he grabs him with his human hand at some point.
So it's a thing.
Like, you know, I'm I'm skipping forward 30 odd years, yeah. this
was everybody's contributing to the solution in discovery, yeah?
right?
The wit would be flying around this scene, wouldn't it?
You know?
And it would be informing all of their characters and it would be
fun.
But see, the moment that Troy realises that Picard is there is
when Picard grabs him with his human hand.
So he had the dumb business with the robot hand, and then we have
the human hand engaging it and that's how we know.
And like, that's not super interesting.
But it is at least trying to tell the story in a sort of visual
way.
And the Borg react to that.
I think it doesn't help that one is building and building and
building. and 2 is sort of coming down and coming.
Yeah, I know it's building momentum as we head towards Earth, but
the stakes, I think, weirdly enough, the stakes when it isn't
Captain Picard on the Borg ship are lesser.
Well, compare it to hegemony, remember?
Where, where you thought episode one was a bit talky and slow.
And then when we hit the 10 minutes from the end of episode one
and then episode 2 just continues to be relentless action.
And so episode one is all set up here because we haven't planned
it properly.
We, we don't know, like we have to do a lot of talking in order to
get to the point where the audience can buy the eventual solution
which is not super thrilling anyway.
But the trouble with it is it promises so much.
It promises potentially because it's not in the show anymore.
It promises potentially Riker's gonna go and captain a ship
potentially the Borg are going to attack Earth.
It promises potentially you're going to see a big space battle and
none of it happens.
It all just goes back to normal at the end. that's the curse of
TNG, isn't it?
You can promise as much as you want, but we will reset.
And the big space battle happens off screen when the Enterprise
isn't there, like when the Enterprise can't get there.
And that's great in a way, but Tell you a good comparison
actually.
And you, you said this when we did the 2 parter, where the
Dominion 1st come through the wormhole, and it's all building.
Do you remember that massive battle outside DS9 that the Romulans
are there and the Klingons are there and it doesn't happen because
they're just going to detonate a sun and take out all of them.
And you were like, yeah, but the consequences of this aren't that
battle.
It's the fact that the Dominion has joined Cardassia and there's a
huge status quo shift to take along with it.
Yeah.
That's not here.
We don't get anything to take along with it.
No, no.
Just the character implications for Picard in the next episode.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, the thing that we, we don't know about and
that they don't know about yet is that they changed, they subtly
changed the premise by having this event have, you know, having
recently happened, you know, being a thing, that this does make a
difference to the world that they're in, um, because this is a
thing that has happened and that that does resonate through the
rest of the show.
And that's the thing that DS9 runs with.
We can do this.
We can change the status quo.
What's that sort of lie, you know, sort of below the belly button
that heads towards, like, what's that lie called there?
I think it's Apollo's belt or something like that?
Did you see Picards there?
Yeah, I mean, his trousers are quite low.
He's clearly been doing some stuff.
I should have a look.
All right.
Yeah.
Wait till you see it.
There was a long shot a 2nd ago.
It's a bit bewitched Adonis's bell.
I've just realised I'm becoming just like you.
I'm starting to admire these corpses on Star Trek.
To be fair, the Borg aren't quite corpses yet.
That really doesn't come until 1st contact.
Yeah, when you and Fraser were admiring the mottled flesh of the
ball queen, it was very disturbed.
You've seen Bob Spur.
Yeah.
Yes, yes.
There's that shot of it.
The Borg cutting into the enterprise, you know, the engineering
hull again, the same shot that we used in part one.
I mean, they're doing pulling that shit all the way up to what you
leave behind where they reuse a load of space effects in that.
Yeah, it's not like they don't do that going ahead.
And obviously they do that all the time in Star Trek, the Next
Generation, that shot of the Enterprise approaching the camera
with the captain's log like that after the episode.
Oh, I've successfully planted a command and sort of all collective
consciousness.
I would have said self-destruct, not go to sleep.
No, but they make that clear.
They can't do that.
They can't access the weapons.
They can't access the things they have to access a low priority
instruction and that's sleep.
They can't access any of the main system.
So they do address that.
They initially trying to get it to do something.
And then, of course, and I do think that works.
I don't think it's just a cheat, that when the Borg cube is
compromised, detects, that it's been compromised and fed an
instruction from the outside, that initiates the self-destruct.
Oh man, you need to go.
Good boy, I boy.
I was just watching the camera angles here on the bridge.
Like, like, you know, you deliver your event episodes to your best
directors.
Later on, they give them to James L. Conway, Alan Croeca, you know
people that can inject some life into them.
A bowl bowls.
I think that one of their safe pair of hands, you know?
But he's not good, is he?
And here we are back on board the Borg ship walking very slowly
around this minuscule set.
Can I just say?
It's not a big set.
Yeah.
You can suggest with those map paintings as much as you like that
it's enormous, really not very big.
Oh boy, oh boy.
Now, I realise we are being a little mean about this now, but...
Like you can see the air conditioning duct's above the thing.
Oh, yeah, look, look, can you see?
Oh, you can't really see it there.
No.
From the front, they look very impressive.
Unless they've just put some makeup on.
He's like, please, will you make that?
He's, you know, he's getting there.
I mean, when is Starship mine?
I don't know, but look at that shot of Deanna's bum.
Did you see that?
Yeah, no, she's got a great, great ball marina.
She does.
She's always in those figure hockey.
This is a way explosion.
How much of this has been added?
Oh quite a lot.
Was it always like this?
Because that looks great.
In fact, the memory alpha, the memory alpha, description, if you
go to the memory alpha page talking about how they hadn't made
enough money for a Borg model, they could flow up and that they
just got lots of air fix, you know, like airplane, like model
airplane sets and used all of the, all of the, you know, the racks
that the, that you push the things out of.
You don't know about this.
But like all of these plastic kind of outlines and stuff that they
made into a thing that they could blow up and it was really tiny
and stuff.
It's very cute.
They'd completely win out of money.
It looks terrific.
But it did originally look amazing, I think.
I mean, I really like as well that in the last scene, I mean, I
think that last scene with Picard in the Ready Room is terrific
but the fact that he's still got the Borg implants on his face.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think they're bandages, I think they're not the implants as
such.
They're like some kind of derm or a generator thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you look.
But it is like him with those things on his face is kind of a
signal that we are interested in the consequences of this for
him.
And that final shot of him looking out the window, which is
something that we've never seen before.
And it's that narrow window.
It's surrounded by metal bulkhead and stuff.
I think it's a that's a good scene.
Family is a glimpse into what TNG could have been if they just let
consequences rip through the series.
And it is kind of staggering because it's such an outlier, isn't
it?
And it's really good.
Like, I think it's really well constructed because it has all the
silly stuff, like it's got the Rashenko family someplot, which is
just tremendous, you know, lovely.
Yeah.
Wesley and his dad, all of that stuff is wonderful.
I mean, even Beverly Crusher is great in that episode.
Yeah, I think it's really good.
But it's the earth thing.
Love.
Love his reaction here.
And when he goes to the window and they shoot it from outside.
And the music, we get the Borg music is almost what Patrick's
reacting to, is that he hears the Borg music.
You know, he doesn't obviously.
It's not digetic.
But, um, but he reacts to the Borg music, or, you know, we put the
Borg music in, and then he goes and looks out the window, and
thank you so much for letting us take without dialogue what he's
thinking.
Again, not telling us, but it doesn't look out the window and say
we've had 2 moments.
The tear and looking out the window.
And one of them is negated by Riker asking the chair what it would
do, I think.
So we're still up one, though.
We're still ahead one.
I think the conclusion I've drawn from watching that through and
talking about it all the way through is it is flawed.
There are pacing issues, there's certainly execution issues.
Um, but the, you know, the imagery and the cliffhanger and the
character, it endured, didn't it?
people just don't forget the best of both worlds.
Yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely.
It is also astonishing.
It's just a different type of television, a different era of
television where you can't afford to show.
And so there's heaps of telling and there's keeping the main
action on the periphery, which you don't.
I mean, you need to do a little bit.
There's still budgetary constraints on TV now, and there are still
things that they have to do away with because they can't afford to
realise them.
But, I mean, this is a more expensive two-parter than most Star
Trek the Next Generation.
And although at the time we thought Star Trek the Next Generation
looked lavishly expensive, it doesn't look that any longer, does
it?
So, I've never seen TV like it in A, no, me, either.
I'd lived in a house that didn't have a TV for a bit, you know
like I hadn't really been regularly watching television and when I
came back to Star Trek the Next Generation and saw it using camera
techniques and lighting techniques and stuff that were previously
sort of filmmick, and I think because I'd been used to watching
sort of crappy English TV as well.
And I do genuinely think when Next Generation started, UK
television was like a decade behind in terms of how it was lit and
how it was being shot.
And I think the UK caught up in the 90s quite fast.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, when those techniques became available.
But initially, boy, I bought their model shots of the enterprise
in season one, I was blown away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, like, it did it did look incredible at the time.
It didn't seem dated at the time.
This was what 1990s TV was like.
So the complaints that we're making about it now are not all that
fair.
Perhaps.
You know, you're trying to create a massive threat heading towards
Earth on a very limited budget with only the ability to shoot a
few new model shots during the course of the episode.
And so what you do is you make it about the characters, which is
the pillar innovation, what he brings to the show in series 3, and
he has a really, really strong character thing happening.
But then episode 4 comes along and he just has to put so much
effort into making sure that the resolution makes sense.
The toys go back in the box.
Yeah, and we don't really have time to take that stuff any
further.
And so that final scene with Shelby is quite agreeable.
Do you know what I mean?
And it shows that she's learned and that that, you know, she
understands that Riker is absolutely capable of being happened if
he wants to and he's realised that he doesn't really want to yet
and he's fine with that too.
So all of that's resolved, but it's a little bit bad.
So much potential was Shelby, though, isn't there?
Like with Rove, they realise, oh, my God.
Well, keep her around.
She's amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
I think as well, I think in the 1st episode, the structure of it
the momentum throughout our 1st episode, it just builds and builds
and builds with a series of great moments.
We've engaged the Borg.
Then the reveal of Captain Picard and then the amazing
cliffhanger.
So the stakes just keep getting higher and higher and higher.
In that 2nd episode.
There are stakes because you see the graveyard and the morgue are
heading towards earth, but they're small moments surrounded by a
load of scenes on the enterprise with people standing around
talking about techno babble.
Yeah, yeah. you know, the status quo, really.
But the fact that there just hadn't been Star Trek like this
before, there was, and I can still feel it now, the excitement of
experiencing just a huge shift in how Star Trek can be told.
And I think that is what you can take away from the best of both
worlds.
Like, I can understand people that go back and watch this and
still think it's one of the best Star Trek of all time.
I think we sort of decided today that maybe that isn't the case.
But it's still exciting.
Oh, yeah.
And as you said, just incredibly important.
This is literally reinventing what Star Trek does, I think.
And it is still incredible.
All right, we've had a few seconds to come down from our high, and
it is time for us to work out where we're going now.
Best of both worlds was your choice, and I think you had just kind
of press select all, yeah, and then chosen a random episode of
Star Trek, which is a fairly reliable way of getting some 90s
track happening.
This time we are going to go directly for 90s trek with our least
covered series from the 1990s, which is not enterprise, would you
believe?
solely because of me.
I've been tirelessly advocating for enterprise.
We wouldn't watch any otherwise.
We wouldn't know. that's right But this time we're going to do
Star Trek Voyager.
Oh my god.
She's just a thing about choosing Voyager episodes is, you know
half the cast is gray and half the cast is terrible.
So it's like a 50-50 chance as to whether you're going to get
something good or something terrible.
Okay.
All right, okay.
In that case, I am going to press the button.
We've done this one.
Dragon's teeth, the Vardois.
Oh, sort of mid-midish sort of episode.
Not that long ago.
We're not going to do it again.
So let's press the button.
Oh, I think we've talked about this before.
It's season six, episode 14 Memorial.
Oh, I quite like Memorial, you know.
That's the episode that I used to convince the man who became my
husband to 1st come around my house.
I said, I really want to see the episode Memorial, and I seduced
him over.
Voyager episode memorial.
So it means quite a lot to me.
That might be the only time ever that memorial is used in order to
achieve that end.
Excuse me, we had 16 years together, all right?
It did work, all right?
Right.
So February 2000.
It was 1st aired in the United States.
It is a fascinating episode because it's one of those episodes
where all of the regulars have to play other roles and some of
them, Kate Mulgrew, absolutely superb at it and others.
The Roberts, not Robert Picardo. are just dismal at it.
Big sort of moral at the heart of it, up to you.
Ooh, okay.
No, I'm super tempted, and I want to hear more about the
seduction.
So I think we'll pick in.
You've been listening to entitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley, where online at Untitled Star Trek project
com, where you can find subscription links and links to our social
media accounts.
Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Ciceran, and the theme was
composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 2nd of December 2025 and released
on the 5th of December.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager, Memorial.
Yeah, yeah, you won't be disappointed, all right, yeah.
It's the only time anyone's had it off whilst watching Ethan
Phillips.
I'm sure that's not true.
Not even a lie.
It's not even a lie.
That was the video that came out that month and he was buying all
the videos.
I said, I said, oh, I said, we had one sort of date with friends
where we'd gone to the cinema.
And I said, well, bring it over and we'll watch it.
And he's like, yeah, all right then.
And yeah, wow, that was it from that point on.
We had it off over memorial.
And then the next day he decided things have moved too fast and
left me an answer phone message saying no, sorry, and this cannot
be, I've gone home to my mum and she told me I'm too young to have
a relationship.
And then, and then the day after that, so I went to work and just
forgot all about him.
You know, I was like, that was good sex, but then mine.
He came storming into my work and goes, no, I've changed my mind.
He goes, we're going on another date.
I was like, oh, right, this is a fucking whirlwind.
I don't think I've heard that part of the story, actually
already.
He had the worst 90s boy band floppy hair you've ever seen in your
life.
I can just see that hair bouncing when he came storming in.
Oh boy.
I'll relay the story next week.
Yeah, okay. put this in.
Do I put this in the episode?
Is it in the episode?
Is that it?
That's in the episode.
Well, talk about it next week, or you can add it now.
I think this is perfect tag.
I think this is what people tune in for.
Okay.
I'll track Moral and a great shack.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
At the same time.
With Ethan Phillips on screen.
That's awesome God.
Oh, terrified of Ethan Phillips.
Yeah, and he's kind of terrible in that episode, though.
Like, he has, he, he's there in the mess hold, holding Naomi
Wildman hostage for some reason.
He's like, no, don't come.
I'll shoot you.
He's doing all that's all menatrama.
It's kind of, and oh, I think there's some terrific Robert Duncan
McNeil.
I know.
Is it, is it?
I thought it was, like, I always just assumed it was like the
inner line.
You know, like it's like an artefact that makes everyone relive
the terrible thing.
Yes, it is that, yeah.
So it's like the inner light only much, much more shit.
Yes, they, because they, but...
There is a... pitched it in the writer's room.
Can't we do an episode?
Can we do the Can we do the inner light?
But this time, wait for it?
It'll be shit.
And everyone goes, yeah, it's crazy.
George's MO, isn't it?
That's right.
They do that with all the Star Trek.
I remember Garrett Wang given a good performance in this one.
Does he get his shirt off?
He sort of gets all sweaty and dirt.
Oh, we got a blight going on the killing game, didn't we?
Yeah, his hair sort of hanging all over his face stuck in the
whole thing. 90s hair.
Yeah.
I've seen you remember he's pretty good.
I just remember the bit where Kate Mulgrew. where they've
massacred everybody and she's furious about it. she's just killing
everybody off the screen.
Like she's amazing.
Yeah, let's see what you think. yeah Give me an interest one to
talk about.
Yeah, cool.
Excellent.
And I love going to that period of this is where it's just Voyager
for a couple of years.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's the those miserable Voyager only years of 2000 and 2001.
When does Enterprise start?
Oh, it must start after. after 7, I think.
Yeah.
Yes, all right.
Why can I go to bed?