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(More customer reviews)In "Q Who?" (Episode 42), Q sent the Enterprise-D 7,000 light-years away, where they first encounter the Borg. Ever since the conclusion of that episode, which heralded the coming of age of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we have known that the Borg were coming to destroy the Federation. After a year and a half (as reckoned by television time), the Borg finally arrive in the the cliffhanger season finale of season three. Fortunately, this Collector's Edition videotape has both parts:
Episode 74, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" (Written by Michael Piller, First aired June 18, 1990), finds Starfleet has been preparing for the invaders and Commander Shelby, head of the Borg Tactical Analysis Team, arrives on the Enterprise to tell everybody how to do things right, so nobody likes her. The Borg arrive and demand Picard beam over to their ship. Picard refuses and although the Enterprise escapes from the initial battle, hiding in a nebula until they can devise a new high-energy beam weapon, the Borg appear on the bridge during the next encounter and disappear with the Captain. Riker sends an away team to rescue Picard, but to their horror they discover the captain has been transformed into a Borg named Locutus. When he threatens them with assimilation, Riker orders Worf to fire the weapon and destroy the Borg cube and Locutus (to be continued).
Episode 75, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" (Written by Michael Pillar, First aired September 24, 1990), picks up where we left off and we quickly learn that because Picard has been assimilated his knowledge has been added to the collective: the energy weapon does not work. This cannot be good and indeed it is not. With the help of Locutus, the Borg annihilate the armada sent by Starfleet (one of the casualties being Benjamin Sisko's wife, as we shall find out in the pilot for Deep Space Nine). In the wake of this almost total defeat, Riker comes up with a new plan: kidnap Picard and turn the tables by using his knowledge of the Borg to discover THEIR weaknesses.
The first "The Best of Both Worlds" ended with one of the great cliffhangers in television history that produced a summer of intense speculations and suspense that was not satiated until Part 2 aired the next fall. With this set containing both episodes you can relive that exquisite agony all over again. This is the zenith of "STNG" and establishes the Borg as THE villains for the show and not even the show's final episode tops this two-parter. This is where the series fulfills the promise it first showed in "Q Who?", and as we shall see in future episodes, there are significant ramifications to what happens here as well, especially in the next episode when Picard goes back home to try and deal with what has been done to him (Episode 76, "Family").
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Captain Picard is taken by the Borg and transformed into one of them.
