This episode gets brought up all the time by people who want to point out that racism exists in Star Trek. These same people fail to recognize that both Picard and Guinan where able to overcome their prejudices when they got up close and were able to see Hugh as an individual, which I think is a more powerful message then simply saying there is no prejudice to begin with.
I appreciate that! What I don't appreciate, is the "rugged individuality", of it all. The Borg are pure evil as a collective identity-group. Borg individuals however, are not. They are people. This is why I don't enjoy race as metaphor, because that is a terrible logic, and it breaks down when you try to apply it to the real world. The lesson becomes more harmful than it is good.
@@TheSuperRatt The Borg here probably work better as a metaphor for an evil state than a race. The armies of Nazi Germany as a whole were a very bad group with internal incentive structures to encourage bad behavior among their members, but if you took a random German soldier from that period (especially one who is not actually a member of the Nazi Party, but just fighting for his country) and removed him from that context, he'd probably be a decent enough chap. So unleashing a virus that kills everyone working for the Nazi government in any capacity whatsoever would also be wrong if you had any other options to stop the organization. So says the episode, anyways, I think.
I feel like Picard's reaction to Hugh's refusal to assimilate the Enterprise is an extension of Picard's inability to do the same back in "Best of Both Worlds." Since he later expresses his guilt that he couldn't resist the Collective's control, he is probably very impressed by Hugh's refusal (even if Hugh obviously has the advantage of being disconnected from the mind control).
My personal theory is that Hugh's introduction of the concept of individuality to the Borg is what (in-universe) triggered the creation of the Borg Queen, an entity with her own sense of individuality but who represents in a singular way the plural consciousness of the Borg Collective. Yes, the Borg Queen herself will claim to have always existed alongside and within the Collective, but this is because this is what she is programmed to believe. She's not really an individual, she's a subroutine being executed by the computer system that is the Borg's linked intelligence. This is why she can be portrayed by multiple actors, why she can be killed and then reappear, she's not really a person, she's a simulation of one.
That is a very interesting take on the Queen's origin. I always assumed she was a conceptual remnant of how the Borg used Picard as Locutus to be a mouthpiece.
I'm unavoidably reminded of Dr. Erskine's line in Captain America: The First Avenger. "So many people forget that the first country that the Nazis invaded was their own." When I heard that line in the movie, I was actually reminded of this episode.
I LOVE TNG season 5. They were so amazingly disciplined and dedicated to telling a great story that they had forgone having Q on that season because they didn't have a story worthy of the character. They have a story that takes place for the first time ever at Starfleet Academy, but it's not a bouncy, fun lark but instead it's a stomach-churning inducing drama. And then there's "I, Borg" which was a major risk by not having the TBOBW part III, but a thoughtful morality play that turns the concept of Borg on its ear. Season 5 is a case study of doing great Trek by creating new things that made the 24th century more interesting with little to no gimmicks.
Although I feel like getting two Q stories in S6 was partly something they did to "make it up" to themselves... when that wasn't really necessary. As much as I like "True Q", largely on the back of Amanda's actor, if they thought one episode a season was better then "Tapestry" absolutely should've taken precedence. Instead they just did both.
I feel like "I, Borg" also has a good callback to "Family" - Picard's reaction to Hugh's refusal to help assimilate the Enterprise gains another layer when you remember Picard's guilt about "not being strong enough" to resist Borg control. Seeing a semi-active Borg able to refuse orders leaves a deep impression on him.
It's crazy how that first scene with Beverly and Worf *immediately* sums up the conflict of the entire episode in two lines of dialogue. "I say we save him" says Beverly. "I say we kill it." says Worf.
Jonathan Del Arco is such a strong actor. I've always loved his portrayal of the Void Species in Voyager too. He communicates the vulnerability and wariness so well, without even ever saying any words. Killing Hugh in Picard was on the whole so pointless. Especially because it deprived them of an opportunity for Geordi to reconnect with him. So shortsighted.
I agree. They made remember a character I had not thought about for a decade, made me get re-invested in Hugh and just...offed him. I liked Picard S1 but that point was the worst of it. Same when Ro and Shelby was offed in S3 as well.
If we're putting together a list of recurring characters poorly utilised by Star Trek Picard, then we're going to be here for a while. Oh, hi Dr. Maddox! Take a seat over there, between ensign Ro and commander Shelby.
One of the biggest missed opportunities, among many, many missed opportunities, with Picard Season 1, was that, while they brought in Hugh, they didnt' bring in Geordi to give him the chance to say goodbye. Why'd they have to go and kill Hugh like that? There he was, mostly human again, making a life for himself and helping fellow ex-Borg, and they had to go off and kill him - and he didn't even get to say goodbye to Geordi. God, that first season sucked.
Killing Hugh was just such a waste of an amazing character. I feel like the showrunners were saying, "Hey, you know what'll really make everybody cry?" I'm not saying he had to live-although Season 3 they seem to be at pains not to kill off any main characters-but as you say he deserved a much better sendoff.
They could’ve at least waited to kill Hugh a little later, AFTER he gets to be a fucking badass for an episode or two, not immediately after ascending to his ultimate glorious form
This is a fantastic episode, driven by great writing and wonderful performances. Jonathan Del Arco is amazing as Hugh, including in his return later in TNG and in Picard's first season. It is a massive shame that they chose to kill him off in that series, his reunion with Jean-Luc was one of the few highlights. And it was made worse by the fact that we never had a chance to see Hugh meet with Geordi again. It was such a meaningless way to end the character's story, it would have been much, much better to add Hugh to Picard's supporting cast and bring him back into the spotlight for all three seasons.
Another interesting aspect of this episode is that it's not the Captain's decision to return Hue to the collective. It was Hue's decision as an individual to return, to protect his new friends!
Yes, they decide to ask Hugh what HE wants to do, to make his first decision as a free thinking agent. At first he says he wants to stay with his friends, but then after some reflection, he realizes that the Borg would eventually hunt them down to retrieve him and he would be putting the others lives in danger. He CHOOSES to sacrifice himself, his individuality, his dreams, to protect others, because he cares for them. For his first and last choice, it was a very human one.
I'm still mad Hugh and Geordi didn't get a reunion. This is my favourite TNG episode and I love it for all the reasons you covered. I love what it says about people and forgiveness.
One theory I’ve seen is this is where the concept of the Borg Queen comes from. Before hand, the Borg are a pure hive mind and a terrifying, unstoppable force of nature, but by First Contact there is a ‘weakness’ in the form of a controlling figure head, which comes from the reintegration of Hugh and idea of an individual Borg. It’s a compelling idea to me.
I like that idea. Unfortunately, they put a line of dialog in First Contact that Picard “remembers” the Borg Queen. Undoubtedly a retcon, and I think it would have been better your way.
It’s a nice idea but First Contact had the line that retconned the Borg queen. Honestly it makes sense, think of it like a really organised construction team with highly qualified and motivated members, the best one in the world doesn’t /need/ a manager there, they can perform standard operating procedures and start new jobs and finish old ones without the manager ever stepping on the job site. Only during special, huge operations does management need to be around to help coordinate and organise just that necessary amount more to ensure the success of the big project. Locutus was necessary for the invasion of the Federation, as they needed a local expert that was already the leading hand of a smaller but formidable crew that could coordinate the efforts of the local borg, as even the Borg know there’s an important job that generals make when they’re on the frontlines, in person. Even if they have the best comms and surveillance equipment in the universe.
Great review of one of my Season 5 faves. It seems like the question of the Borg drones being victims of the Collective was dealt with before Picard-TNG "Descent" and the entire Annika/Seven character arc deal with individuation and its aftermath very successfully. I've often thought of the Borg as a good analogy (probably unintentional, but who knows) for religious cults like Scientology and the People's Temple, where the membership are often both victims and perpetrators. To use one of your favorite references, the lines between Face and Heel aren't always so clear. There are differing degrees of responsibility. Some Borg are born drones and many others are impressed against their will. One path that hasn't been explored as much is the possibility of joining the Borg willingly. In First Contact it's implied that self-assimilation is a path to higher status, which also sounds very much like the way cults operate. Does being a Borg preclude careerism and ambition?
My god I love you, Steve. You're my absolute favorite TH-cam nerd. I'll admit this TNG episode brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched it. THAT LOOK TOWARD JORDI AT THE END!!! Good Lord. Great choice to cover. Thanks for everything you do, Steve. You are amazing.
This is still one of my favorite episodes of TNG. Hugh was such an amazing character, and I liked that they brought him back in the episode with Lore (the name of which is escaping me at the moment). I also enjoyed seeing him on Picard, but for some reason, they only liked bringing back older characters on that series just to kill them off.
I mentioned this earlier, but...before Hugh demonstrated that Borg could regain individuality, there was no clear evidence that it would have qualified as genocide. If they're all just parts of a greater whole and that's all they can ever be, then an individual drone is to the collective what an individual cell is to a human body. Killing someone who was going to kill you in self-defence isn't even legally considered murder, never mind genocide. But if drones show the capacity to gain a sense of individuality, then wiping out the collective has now become genocide, not killing in self-defence.
I, Borg also sets up the possibility of a character like 7 of 8 - for good or bad, her arc was very much the extended version of Hugh's arc had he not gone back to the Borg at the end. Other than Picard/Locutus, Hugh was the first time we saw that the "individual" was still there under the drone, an idea then expanded with 7.
There's one thing about this episode that always made me go "Huh?" The idea at the end is that Hugh returns to The Borg as an individual and his individuality is potentially able to infect The Borg in some way, but like... what about *all of the other individuals* The Borg have assimilated in their long time of eating people and cultures? That's never been an issue but giving a Borg their individuality back somehow could be? I dunno, I don't get it. Still, great episode.
The invasive program's concept - an idea that's so nonsensical and confusing that encountering it will cause you to devote more and more brain space just to figure out what the fuck it is until it eventually overwhelms you - is such a perfect metaphor for arguments in TH-cam comments or on twitter. Sometimes, the argument is so wrongheaded that you have no idea how to even begin to critique it, and treating it like a rational argument that can be comprehended is starting down the road to madness.
And indeed the way they'll move the goalposts and try to gaslight you about what they "really meant all along" is a great analogue for how the shape in this episode constantly morphs and the possibilities multiply. You rebut one point, they make 5 more, including 2 you already rebutted but phrased slightly differently. And they can keep it up forever.
One of my very favorite Trek episodes. Great writing, great performances, and the episode makes the Borg even more horrific on top of it all, in that every time our heroes have to engage in battle against the Borg, it's lose lose in a straight-up fight Either the Borg win and our crew gets assimilated, or our crew wins and nukes a ship full of enslaved victims while doing virtually no damage to the Collective itself.
This episode does have a lot of qualities but I mostly dislike what it does to the lore of the Borg. I know a lot of people think First Contact is where the Borg went wrong especially with the introduction of the queen but I think the rot sets in here and First Contact was, if anything, a temporary corrective to what went wrong here and in ‘Descent’. First this episode does greatly diminish the Borg’s sense of menace. Voyager even hangs a lantern on this in the episode ‘Drone’ (which is in many ways a retread of ‘I, Borg’ with Belanna delivering the line “Maybe this is the Collective's new strategy. They don't assimilate anymore, they just show up and look helpless.” This loss of menace is partly a result of the humanisation of Hugh but IMO is, particularly due to, the effort the collective goes to to retrieve him, which is at odds with the tendency of the collective to treat drones or entire ships as expendable (cf. the salvaging of parts from the phasered drone in ‘Q Who’ and the self-destruct of the ship and thousands of drones in BoBW2). This makes perfect sense for a collective of billions of drones. Crusher’s argument from BoBW “it’d be like us cutting off an arm or a leg: we can’t do it” was only speculation about the collective’s interdependency and was almost immediately refuted by the ship self-destructing (the collective excising a faulty system). The ruthlessness with which the collective amputates parts of itself to preserve order was one of the better plot points of Voyager’s borg - seen in Unimatrix Zero, and playing out in physical metaphor with the queen ripping infected parts of her own body off at the end of End Game. The collective would know about the fate of the scout ship as it crashed or by sending its absence : there would be no need to visually confirm its fate and all the drones on it were expendable. Borg should not have bothered to retrieve Hugh, and the scene where a troop of drones turn up to collect him is the first scene in the Borg’s history where they look genuinely goofy. It also loses points for being the episode which laid the ground work for ‘Descent’ which is possibly the worst borg story in ST history. The resolution here - the hope that Hugh’s taste of individuality will somehow spread through the collective, is incredibly stupid to the point that it’s frustrating to watch the characters entertain this thought without the flaw occurring to them. The collective is entirely made up of drones who were once individuals, so the idea that Hugh, being re-assimilated, would somehow give the collective its first taste of individuality is absurd. Overriding pre-existing individuality at assimilation is the Borg’s defining feature: it’s not explained why Hugh’s re-assimilation would be an exception. I’d argue Picard’s arc is too steep here. Its absolutely right that he should begin from a place of prejudice and hatred, born from trauma: this has already been amply set up after BoBW in ‘Family’ and it’s good to see Picard’s attitude to the Borg develop here but he makes too much progress too quickly, which (as many people have observed) effectively has to be retconned in First Contact. I understand the reluctance to let the Captain be the member of the crew who is “in the wrong” in a lasting way, but IMO it would’ve been far better had they allowed Picard to remain traumatised and prejudiced, and effectively be dragged reluctantly by circumstances and the insistence of his crew, towards making an exception for /this/ drone while still hating the collective and considering all other drones within it to be beyond compassion. This would be understandable given his trauma, and follows the more normal trajectory of unpicking prejudice - where initially ‘exceptions’ are made while the general prejudice is still held. A private scene of Picard steadying himself (cf. shaving mirror scene from First Contact but with less horror) would remind the audience he’s still not ok. Obviously they couldn’t possibly have thought that far ahead but doing it this way would’ve smoothed Picard’s journey to First Contact but also reinforced the already diminishing menace of the borg by showing that even the sight of a helpless drone is enough to cause Picard’s trauma to come flooding back. Finally, returning Hugh to the collective, virus or not, is a crime against the new individual: that the crew get away with this without much sense of guilt is a problem, and whether they returned him with a destructive virus, or the virus of individuality, morally amounts to the same thing, which is to use this individual as a weapon against the collective, at that individual’s expense. (Voyager returns to this concept with Icheb’s story, VOY: Child’s Play, where it’s established that his parents allowed him to be assimilated to use him as a weapon against the borg). It might be necessary in order to allow for TNG’s inevitable episodic reset-button, but what they did with Hugh is not OK. It would’ve been far better had the plot placed the crew in a situation of serious peril where Hugh’s sacrifice was the only way out, and he volunteers himself but in circumstances where there is no time to consider other options. There’s an uncomfortable and, I think, totally unintentional contrast between the Borg here, going to great lengths to retrieve and re-integrate a single lost drone, with the Enterprise crew who pay lip service to the importance of the individual but ultimately are more than willing to sacrifice this individual for the sake of their collective. The episode inadvertently makes the Borg look morally superior. They care vastly more about Hugh than the Enterprise seems to. Again… I know it’s heresy to say that Voyager ever did anything better, especially when it comes to Borg episodes, but there are so many parallels to VOY:Drone and in many ways Drone is a better version of I, Borg. ‘One’ chooses to sacrifice himself to save Voyager from the Borg, in extremis, but that’s absolutely not something suggested or even condoned by the Voyager crew and they try to intervene to stop him but are helpless to do so. Voyager likewise deploys the ‘no man left behind’ trope with the lengths they go to to rescue Seven of Nine in both ‘The Raven’ and ‘Dark Frontier’: to them the abandonment or sacrifice of their former-drone crew mate is absolutely not acceptable. Reluctantly I can only conclude that had a young Seven of Nine ended up on the Enterprise D, she would’ve been briefly befriended and then sent back to the collective. Because on the Enterprise D, former drones are people, sure, but not really people like us.. with rights worth fighting for.
My second favorite Borg episode, behind Drone from Voyager. When the Doctors Mobile emitter was taken over by nano-probes and made a 29th century Borg…!🤘
I, Borg is probably one of my top 10 if not top 5 Trek episodes. I realized when you mentioned Guinan not judging Hugh for the actions of the Collective that there's sort of an echo there back to Encounter at Farpoint-- Picard and crew being judged for all of humanity.
"What is a Doctor?" He did not have that data because it was never relevant before to store and being disconnected from the collective that was not available and thus asked to extend Borg knowledge if not know. I don't know, just spitballin'.
I, Borg is my favorite episode of all of TNG. It might be my favorite episode of all of Trek (that depends on what I've seen recently). Jonathan Del Arco is amazing as Hugh. 8th grade me was squealing so much when I got to meet him at a convention in south Florida back in the mid-90s. I loved the concept of the character, I loved the interactions, and while I didn't fully understand all of the dynamics at play at the time, I understood enough to realize the implications of everything Picard wanted to do at first, and why he changed his mind. And as I've grown older, and rewatched it, the story has only grown in both my estimation and my affection.
Yep. One of the best Borg episodes, enlightening us to the mindset of the Borg: that assimilation is unquestionably a good thing. Hugh is notably baffled as to anyone not wanting to be assimilated.
Really digging this ‘retro review’ arc, it seems like it’s probably fun and maybe even sorta easy to make - which is no dig, not everything needs to be a struggle for greatness or something. Thanks Steve, loving revisiting these episodes and hearing your insight!
I have to say, this excellent video, combined with the very interesting "Sisko's Nemesis" one you did yesterday (as well as some comments to this video), really helped me to crystalize my thoughts regarding my feelings about DS9. You do a great job getting me thinking.
I actually just watched this for the first time in years, and picked up on the racial allegory of Hugh's designation, and his personhood being recognized. Terrific episode.
Excellent review of a stand-out TNG episode. But while you were complimenting the performances of the regular cast members you might have spared a moment to recognize Sir Patrick Stewart’s fairly AMAZING transformation in the scene where Hugh meets him and calls him “Locutus”. No make-up, no prosthetics.. He simply BECOMES Locutus again, with his face and his voice. That’s craft.
Steve kind of touches that first senior staff meeting with jokes about genocide, but I think it's really an important establishing scene. At this point in Star Trek, Picard had been the only person to ever be un-assimilated, as far as we knew, and he'd only been Borg-y for a couple of days. It was not clear if "assimilation" was the only way Borg made new Borg, or if there were a race of Borg and Picard just got looped into that and by removing their influence he got to return to "himself". I think it's telling in this case no one ever brought up the possibility of un-assimilating Hugh. It is entirely reasonable for them to be talking about wiping out all Borg everywhere, because all Borg *are* the same. Worrying about one drone is like worrying about the fate of a skin cell of the left hand of the person you're punching back at. Seeing the shift of this perspective, going from only bleeding-heart Beverly recognizing the personhood of Hugh to the gradual acceptance by every major player in the episode gives us, the audience, a really strong starting point for the story arc to follow along with as we get pulled to that same conclusion that Hugh is as much a victim of the Collective as Picard or Guinan. It's a really good place to start the conflict of the episode because it really does feel like Crusher is being overly sentimental at first, and it gives the audience a chance to go on that empathy trip together with the crew.
A very good analysis of an excellent episode. I think it's also interesting that Picard took on a lot of heat for his decision later when a Starfleet admiral reamed him out for releasing Hugh instead of using the opportunity to destroy the Borg.
You ever think this is why the borg in voyager are seen piloting ships more like a traditional starship? Hugh made them realize how much they used to love pushing buttons
Oh, this is one of my top ten favourite Star Trek episodes ever. In fact, I like it more than The Inner Light [gasp!] I really wish it had been the last Borg story, or at least second to last, because after that they just get so overused, they lose their uniqueness and everything that made them work so well in Q Who and Best of Both Worlds. At least, I think so.
We certainly did not need to wait until Picard to be reminded that drones are victims and people, that’s literally the point of Seven’s arc. (Oh, now I hear the end of the video, lol)
I agree completely. This is one of the best episodes of that entire series. And it set up a long story arc that was brought back many years later. I wish the writers of Voyager could have learned something from this episode. Maybe they wouldn't have turned the Borg into just another villain making deals with the captain.
I've often thought that the eventual introduction of the character 7-of-9 in Star Trek Voyager was a way of exploring the story of Hugh if Hugh had chosen to remain on the Enterprise.
A bunch of writers sit in a room and are tasked with inviting a big enemy - one of says " Let's take the cyber men from Dr. Who, but give them a Swedish twist!" 😀 This happens before wolf 359, so if they did turn Hue into an WMD, think of all the people they could have saved! Sisco would have of pulled the trigger!
Yeah, Steve, Picard realizes that the Borg are people too...which is why in 'First Contact' he goes all Samuel L Jackson from a 'A Time to Kill' ''Yes, I'm glad they're dead and I hope they burn in Hell!''. I, Borg' humanizes the Borg. 'First Contact' makes them space vampires again.
nice Hulk Hogan plug at the beginning ... knowing what i do now about him im ashamed that as a kid i owned the hulkster workout merch and cassette tape (i was a child of the 80's)
The moment Hugh says "I will not", literally made me gasp and say "Holy sh!t". The idea that the Borg could become human was something we had never considered before.
A point I found interesting and heroic was how Hue was offered asylum and he refused it in order to keep his new friends safe. That's star trek and Spock as fuck.
this episode shows real morals. Picard refuses to sacrifice one person, fully knowing the ongoing conflict with the borg will cause great loss of life. Picard stands for values.
The borg also grow and assimilate babies, as seen in the first episode where they boarded a Borg Cube. Hugh could have been one of those. Hugh's individuality might make a difference in that he was one who had been a part of the collective before--while the Borg can claim that all who have been assimilated are happy with it, Hugh stands to refute that point.
The idea is "oh, new bio resources, lets wipe them clean and make triple sure we install all the mindcontrol implants right" vs "hey there is one drone still functioning but not connected. Lets plug it back in right away. So glad we dont have to triple check theyre not compromised. Nothing bad could come of not properly mindwiping the drone on principle.". Later episodes show that they actually followed the second idea and it led to hugh going rogue with a bunch of other drones. They end up working with Lore, if i dont misremember.
@@russellharrell2747 "It could be assumed that prior to First Contact (the movie) the borg had only assimilated Picard and that all other Borg were ‘home grown’ as it were." How can you assume that when in EVERY episode the Borg appeared in, their main goal was to assimilate everyone they met? They've assimilated other members of the Enterprise crew before even, and Guinans species, and Hugh in this episode tells Geordie about all the other species they've assimilated and that they will assimilate them as well. What a strange thing to say.
I'd love to see yoor take on all of the startrek references in Farscape. There are some great ones. Hell, it would be great to see some of yoir deep dives on Farscape in general. The first season is hard to get through but after that its amazing
Very clever of you to try and sneak the invasive Abbott and Costello program into your video. I should probably be concerned about the subtle effects it may have on me, but I don't care. I'll worry about it tomorrow.
If Jean Luc had listened to Worf, Lore would've never been able to find an exploit later on, thereby tricking Data to learn the enjoyment that only murder can offer.
Adding another comment at the very end: aww, I'm a bit disappointed the "Borg Cooperative" from that one episode of Voyager isn't the next review. It's not an appearance of the main collective, but if _I, Borg_ counts then I think that one should too. Especially as it does explore what happens to people after they regain their individuality, before Seven becomes the embodiment of that struggle for the show. I definitely have a lot of problems with that episode, from the core conceit (being inspired by Braga's reaction against _Ostalgie_ of all things) to the climax with forced mind control undermining their stated ethics. But I still think it's a really interesting examination of the situation, while also managing to avoid bringing the core Collective into it as a threat just like _I, Borg_ did.
@@SteveShives ah! Thanks for the clarification. I’m really looking to hearing your thoughts on that one. As an episode it’s pretty middling, but it’s actually one of the Voyagers I find most interesting to _discuss._
This is why we don't essentialize. TNG takes so many political ideas in a way they're still relevant to today's struggles. I love TNG so much. Thanks for covering this.
Why is it that Hugh's return to the Borg caused and individuality crisis within the Borg, but no other individuals being assimilated did that? Picard? No. Guinan's entire people? No. Annaka Hansen? No. Because he returned as a Borg rather than being a fresh, new brain? I don't know. Seems like a plot hole to me, but I can live with it.
Star trek voyager had an episode like that. That borg was created with the skin cells of one of the crew members 7 Of 9 Borg nanoprobs and the doctor's mobile admitter. That episode dealt with seven gaining more of her humanity
They started diluting the Borg's power and menace when they switched them from a self contained enhanced species, interested only by resources and technology, to an empire assimilating species because, reasons. They went from an unstoppable and impersonal force of nature to mere predators. I understand they had to dial them back a bit if they wanted to keep using them in the show, but they lost something in the process that they were never able to recover.
Troi, I think, has, an overwhelming innate fear of the Borg. I'm not sure why yet, but I think this is why when the Borg are involved counselor Troi and her counselor training go right out the window. That's when she straight-up becomes some kind of amalgamation of a Starfleet officer and herself. That's why she ran away from Jack like he was carrying the plague and why when they suggested aboard genocide the compassionate counselor Troi said, "Hells to yizyea!! Let's do it!!!" I'm telling you she takes killing the Borg and not being assimilated personally. As I'm sure any red-blooded individual would, but I'm certain that hers is a bit of an overzealous reaction...
I think that fear may be due to her empathic nature. She feels what everyone around her is feeling. But the borg, I assume especially in like a cube would be like a cold void of nothing. There is no emotion. Only the will of the collective. But that's my theory.
*_"If they assimilate this individual, maybe they'll remember what it's like to be individuals!"_* As opposed to all the other people they've assimilated... who somehow weren't individuals?
My only one caveat about this episode (which I don't hold against it) is the fact it's now one of many storylines where the characters are like "well we're up against seemingly unstoppable odds, how bout a genocide?" which is unfortunate
Listening to this synopsis of the episode, a thought just struck me for the first time: every single Borg was an individual *prior* to ever having been assimilated. So why should the Enterprise crew expect that Hugh's experience of remembering/discovering his individuality would suddenly cause a ripple effect amongst the collective? Presumably, encountering an independent-minded individual would not have been a novel experience for the Borg. I understand why they didn't touch upon this within the show, as it would've dulled the emotional impact of the episode, but it does seem to be a flaw in the plan's logic.
I am curious what you will pick for Voyager. I feel like some of the better "borg" episodes are: the Raven, Collective and Child's play. They all involve the borg but show a different side to them.
The idea of the EBs, ex-Borg, and how they were being helped was perhaps the single element that I actually really liked from _Picard_ season 1. Being reminded that Hugh's designation was "Third of Five" just makes me irked about the name "Seven of Nine" all over again. "Seven of Nine" means nothing; "Third of Five" means the third member of a group of five. Seriously, would it really have been hard to name her Seventh of Nine and still just call her Seven for short? It just feels like yet another example of the _Voyager_ writers being lazy and sloppy.
I don't think you're completely correct about this episode not weakening the Borg as a threat. Sure, we're afraid and don't want to be anywhere near them. But we also introduce the possibility of wiping them out with a virus. That's a huge hit to their threat level.
What is a Doctor? That stuff was always odd, all the stupid questions the Borg ask that they should know answer to. ~The one thing I never got is: Why every single assimilation before Hugh wouldn't have already caused the "remember what being an individual" See the thing is! If "everything" about people is assimilated by the perfect Borg... also WTF wouldn't the Borg being perfectly connected to each other, detect that Hugh moved his eye to Geordi and what Hugh is thinking in that second... Also why anyone thinks trying a virus would work against all Borg is just baffling, they adapt that is their thing! A core part of what is so scary about them! If you are now saying they can't adapt to this virus if they set it free, than TNG is what started weakening the Scary as hell Borg right here right now. Again just odd plot holes. Also remember the Borg assimilate "all technology" from you while they assimilate you, and obviously have Anti-Virus because ALL computers have Bugs/Viruses Glitches, incompatibilities etc. etc.
Not my favourite Borg story, but an excellent Star Trek episode. The heroes are forced to examine whether they can maintain their morality in the face of an overwhelming threat - and deciding it is worth it. Don't get me wrong: I like "In the Pale Moonlight" even though it comes to the exact opposite conclusion, but it is a powerful message - and very Star Trek.
Are they individuals, though? IIRC, the Borg assimilating beings with nanoprobes didn't happen until First Contact...during the series, canon was that they made their own Borg Babies. Am I remembering that wrong?
@@SteveShives Was it more than just Picard? (That we knew about when TNG was airing?) I don't remember any other existing people being assimilated until FC (at which point everyone acted like it was no big deal).
@@AdamKlein77 it isn't portrayed onscreen until FC, but the dialogue in this very episode has Hugh saying the Borg's MO is to assimilate civilisations. Both technology and people. Hugh says every crew member on the Enterprise will be assimilated, in the scene where he gets confused when they object.
I have to say that the solution to this episode's dilemma never made sense to me. We'll return Hugh to the Borg with the idea that the individuality he developed while isolated from them will spread. Um... this is the same Borg whom have a history of suppressing individuality? This doesn't make sense. Then again, neither did the "unsolvable" object. Even today, having a computer work for an indefinite amount of time on complex problems isn't an issue; "Hey, work on this when you have time, but just in time background as low priority.". It's a ridiculous plan. Don't get me wrong, I like the episode for the character work, but I can't call it a favorite because those issues are just ridiculous.
I agree that it's a great episode in how it's true to the characters and has something important to say about individuals and totalitarianism. But I still think it does a lot to nerf the Borg. The episode could have done absolutely everything the same until the final scene, when the Borg go to rescue Hugh. They could have plugged into Hugh, realized something was "wrong" with him, and vaporized him on the spot or something. That way, the good guys still learn their lessons about humanity--and indeed are emboldened even further to defend it--and the Borg are reinforced as ruthless, nigh undefeatable monsters.
What if instead of a Borg, it was a Nazi. What if it's WW2, and you are part of a resistance group, fighting against the Nazis, who are intent on conquering the world and deliberately committing murder and genocide against anyone who opposes them. You find a wounded teenage Nazi Hitler Youth in the aftermath of a battle. He's been raised on nothing but Nazi ideology his entire life. As you treat his wounds and nurse him back to health, people get to know "Hans" and become friends with him. He seems like a nice, sympathetic kid, and he gradually learns that his Nazi ideology is wrong. You know that the Nazis are looking for him, and won't stop until they find him, which could expose the resistance group to being discovered. You also know the Nazis have absolutely no moral problem with torturing Hans until he breaks to find out everything he knows about the resistance group. The safety of the resistance movement the fight against the Nazis, and maybe the survival of the world is at stake. Do you let Hans live, despite all the risk, or do you shoot him and dump him back at the site of the battle where the Nazis will find his body and assume he was killed there? Not a perfect comparison, but the Borg were infinitely more of a danger and threat than Nazis. With everything the Borg had done, having come so close to destroying and assimilating the Federation, what was the right thing to do?
So, Hugh's sense of individuality was supposed to affect the rest of the collective, changing them. Then why didn't the individuality of the trillions of beings they've already assimilated do anything to them?
This is one of my favorite TNG episodes but how are we supposed to feel about Picard seemingly being a different character in Star Trek First Contact? He goes from not wanting to commit genocide in I, Borg to wanting to make them pay for what they’ve done in First Contact. It doesn’t seem to fit. Am I missing something?
I don't think you're missing anything. They adjusted Picard's characterization to better suit the story they were telling in the movie. I think it works in First Contact, so I don't care about the apparent inconsistency. But, if you need to reconcile Picard's feelings about the Borg in the latter years of TNG with Picard's lust for revenge in First Contact, you can always chalk it up to the fact that people process trauma in all sorts of complicated, contradictory ways, and it's entirely possible for someone to think they've gotten over something only to have all sorts of anger and resentment come roaring back all of a sudden.
What’s the good borg episode ten years after this one? Whenever I see the borg I think of how often they must get those dangly tubes caught on things, like they go for a piss and hook the toilet flush handle thing like would happen back when we wore wired headphones What was I talking about?
This episode gets brought up all the time by people who want to point out that racism exists in Star Trek. These same people fail to recognize that both Picard and Guinan where able to overcome their prejudices when they got up close and were able to see Hugh as an individual, which I think is a more powerful message then simply saying there is no prejudice to begin with.
I appreciate that! What I don't appreciate, is the "rugged individuality", of it all. The Borg are pure evil as a collective identity-group. Borg individuals however, are not. They are people. This is why I don't enjoy race as metaphor, because that is a terrible logic, and it breaks down when you try to apply it to the real world. The lesson becomes more harmful than it is good.
I mean there is Chief O'Brian.
That, plus the Borg aren't even close to a race.
@@TheSuperRatt The Borg here probably work better as a metaphor for an evil state than a race. The armies of Nazi Germany as a whole were a very bad group with internal incentive structures to encourage bad behavior among their members, but if you took a random German soldier from that period (especially one who is not actually a member of the Nazi Party, but just fighting for his country) and removed him from that context, he'd probably be a decent enough chap. So unleashing a virus that kills everyone working for the Nazi government in any capacity whatsoever would also be wrong if you had any other options to stop the organization. So says the episode, anyways, I think.
I feel like Picard's reaction to Hugh's refusal to assimilate the Enterprise is an extension of Picard's inability to do the same back in "Best of Both Worlds." Since he later expresses his guilt that he couldn't resist the Collective's control, he is probably very impressed by Hugh's refusal (even if Hugh obviously has the advantage of being disconnected from the mind control).
My personal theory is that Hugh's introduction of the concept of individuality to the Borg is what (in-universe) triggered the creation of the Borg Queen, an entity with her own sense of individuality but who represents in a singular way the plural consciousness of the Borg Collective. Yes, the Borg Queen herself will claim to have always existed alongside and within the Collective, but this is because this is what she is programmed to believe. She's not really an individual, she's a subroutine being executed by the computer system that is the Borg's linked intelligence. This is why she can be portrayed by multiple actors, why she can be killed and then reappear, she's not really a person, she's a simulation of one.
That is a very interesting take on the Queen's origin. I always assumed she was a conceptual remnant of how the Borg used Picard as Locutus to be a mouthpiece.
I'm unavoidably reminded of Dr. Erskine's line in Captain America: The First Avenger. "So many people forget that the first country that the Nazis invaded was their own."
When I heard that line in the movie, I was actually reminded of this episode.
I LOVE TNG season 5. They were so amazingly disciplined and dedicated to telling a great story that they had forgone having Q on that season because they didn't have a story worthy of the character. They have a story that takes place for the first time ever at Starfleet Academy, but it's not a bouncy, fun lark but instead it's a stomach-churning inducing drama. And then there's "I, Borg" which was a major risk by not having the TBOBW part III, but a thoughtful morality play that turns the concept of Borg on its ear. Season 5 is a case study of doing great Trek by creating new things that made the 24th century more interesting with little to no gimmicks.
Although I feel like getting two Q stories in S6 was partly something they did to "make it up" to themselves... when that wasn't really necessary. As much as I like "True Q", largely on the back of Amanda's actor, if they thought one episode a season was better then "Tapestry" absolutely should've taken precedence. Instead they just did both.
I feel like "I, Borg" also has a good callback to "Family" - Picard's reaction to Hugh's refusal to help assimilate the Enterprise gains another layer when you remember Picard's guilt about "not being strong enough" to resist Borg control. Seeing a semi-active Borg able to refuse orders leaves a deep impression on him.
It's crazy how that first scene with Beverly and Worf *immediately* sums up the conflict of the entire episode in two lines of dialogue.
"I say we save him" says Beverly.
"I say we kill it." says Worf.
That Hugh’s on First, What’s on Second joke was so unexpected and dumb…
That didn’t stop me from laughing hysterically. Ya got me
Jon Del Arco brought Hugh to life. His vulnerability. His dignity. Excellent performance.
Jonathan Del Arco is such a strong actor. I've always loved his portrayal of the Void Species in Voyager too. He communicates the vulnerability and wariness so well, without even ever saying any words.
Killing Hugh in Picard was on the whole so pointless. Especially because it deprived them of an opportunity for Geordi to reconnect with him. So shortsighted.
Yes, he was among the first in a line of TNG characters to be brought back just to be killed off (Data (sort of), Q, Ro Laren).
I was so dispointed when they killed him off in Picard. He was a great character and his death was pointless too.
I agree. They made remember a character I had not thought about for a decade, made me get re-invested in Hugh and just...offed him. I liked Picard S1 but that point was the worst of it. Same when Ro and Shelby was offed in S3 as well.
Exactly. I hated seeing old characters brought on Picard because they should have just been in a redshirt
If we're putting together a list of recurring characters poorly utilised by Star Trek Picard, then we're going to be here for a while.
Oh, hi Dr. Maddox! Take a seat over there, between ensign Ro and commander Shelby.
5:50 I howled a little too much at this "Who's on First" bit. 😆
Bits like this are the icing on the cake of Steve's writing.
One of the biggest missed opportunities, among many, many missed opportunities, with Picard Season 1, was that, while they brought in Hugh, they didnt' bring in Geordi to give him the chance to say goodbye. Why'd they have to go and kill Hugh like that? There he was, mostly human again, making a life for himself and helping fellow ex-Borg, and they had to go off and kill him - and he didn't even get to say goodbye to Geordi. God, that first season sucked.
Killing Hugh was just such a waste of an amazing character. I feel like the showrunners were saying, "Hey, you know what'll really make everybody cry?" I'm not saying he had to live-although Season 3 they seem to be at pains not to kill off any main characters-but as you say he deserved a much better sendoff.
They could’ve at least waited to kill Hugh a little later, AFTER he gets to be a fucking badass for an episode or two, not immediately after ascending to his ultimate glorious form
Del Arco was so memorable in the role of Hugh that the old Playmates toy line from '92 included an action figure of him in the set. 🖖😎👍
This is a fantastic episode, driven by great writing and wonderful performances. Jonathan Del Arco is amazing as Hugh, including in his return later in TNG and in Picard's first season. It is a massive shame that they chose to kill him off in that series, his reunion with Jean-Luc was one of the few highlights. And it was made worse by the fact that we never had a chance to see Hugh meet with Geordi again. It was such a meaningless way to end the character's story, it would have been much, much better to add Hugh to Picard's supporting cast and bring him back into the spotlight for all three seasons.
Another interesting aspect of this episode is that it's not the Captain's decision to return Hue to the collective. It was Hue's decision as an individual to return, to protect his new friends!
Yes, they decide to ask Hugh what HE wants to do, to make his first decision as a free thinking agent. At first he says he wants to stay with his friends, but then after some reflection, he realizes that the Borg would eventually hunt them down to retrieve him and he would be putting the others lives in danger. He CHOOSES to sacrifice himself, his individuality, his dreams, to protect others, because he cares for them. For his first and last choice, it was a very human one.
I'm still mad Hugh and Geordi didn't get a reunion. This is my favourite TNG episode and I love it for all the reasons you covered. I love what it says about people and forgiveness.
One theory I’ve seen is this is where the concept of the Borg Queen comes from.
Before hand, the Borg are a pure hive mind and a terrifying, unstoppable force of nature, but by First Contact there is a ‘weakness’ in the form of a controlling figure head, which comes from the reintegration of Hugh and idea of an individual Borg.
It’s a compelling idea to me.
Except that Picard recognizes the Queen from his time with the Collective and says that she was always there.
I like that idea. Unfortunately, they put a line of dialog in First Contact that Picard “remembers” the Borg Queen. Undoubtedly a retcon, and I think it would have been better your way.
It’s a nice idea but First Contact had the line that retconned the Borg queen.
Honestly it makes sense, think of it like a really organised construction team with highly qualified and motivated members, the best one in the world doesn’t /need/ a manager there, they can perform standard operating procedures and start new jobs and finish old ones without the manager ever stepping on the job site.
Only during special, huge operations does management need to be around to help coordinate and organise just that necessary amount more to ensure the success of the big project.
Locutus was necessary for the invasion of the Federation, as they needed a local expert that was already the leading hand of a smaller but formidable crew that could coordinate the efforts of the local borg, as even the Borg know there’s an important job that generals make when they’re on the frontlines, in person. Even if they have the best comms and surveillance equipment in the universe.
Great review of one of my Season 5 faves. It seems like the question of the Borg drones being victims of the Collective was dealt with before Picard-TNG "Descent" and the entire Annika/Seven character arc deal with individuation and its aftermath very successfully. I've often thought of the Borg as a good analogy (probably unintentional, but who knows) for religious cults like Scientology and the People's Temple, where the membership are often both victims and perpetrators. To use one of your favorite references, the lines between Face and Heel aren't always so clear. There are differing degrees of responsibility. Some Borg are born drones and many others are impressed against their will. One path that hasn't been explored as much is the possibility of joining the Borg willingly. In First Contact it's implied that self-assimilation is a path to higher status, which also sounds very much like the way cults operate. Does being a Borg preclude careerism and ambition?
🎶 It had to be Hugh
🎶It had to be Hugh...🎵
(Sorry, but I've been waiting years for an excuse!)
My god I love you, Steve. You're my absolute favorite TH-cam nerd. I'll admit this TNG episode brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched it. THAT LOOK TOWARD JORDI AT THE END!!! Good Lord. Great choice to cover. Thanks for everything you do, Steve. You are amazing.
This is still one of my favorite episodes of TNG. Hugh was such an amazing character, and I liked that they brought him back in the episode with Lore (the name of which is escaping me at the moment). I also enjoyed seeing him on Picard, but for some reason, they only liked bringing back older characters on that series just to kill them off.
I mentioned this earlier, but...before Hugh demonstrated that Borg could regain individuality, there was no clear evidence that it would have qualified as genocide.
If they're all just parts of a greater whole and that's all they can ever be, then an individual drone is to the collective what an individual cell is to a human body. Killing someone who was going to kill you in self-defence isn't even legally considered murder, never mind genocide. But if drones show the capacity to gain a sense of individuality, then wiping out the collective has now become genocide, not killing in self-defence.
I, Borg also sets up the possibility of a character like 7 of 8 - for good or bad, her arc was very much the extended version of Hugh's arc had he not gone back to the Borg at the end. Other than Picard/Locutus, Hugh was the first time we saw that the "individual" was still there under the drone, an idea then expanded with 7.
There's one thing about this episode that always made me go "Huh?"
The idea at the end is that Hugh returns to The Borg as an individual and his individuality is potentially able to infect The Borg in some way, but like... what about *all of the other individuals* The Borg have assimilated in their long time of eating people and cultures? That's never been an issue but giving a Borg their individuality back somehow could be? I dunno, I don't get it.
Still, great episode.
The invasive program's concept - an idea that's so nonsensical and confusing that encountering it will cause you to devote more and more brain space just to figure out what the fuck it is until it eventually overwhelms you - is such a perfect metaphor for arguments in TH-cam comments or on twitter. Sometimes, the argument is so wrongheaded that you have no idea how to even begin to critique it, and treating it like a rational argument that can be comprehended is starting down the road to madness.
And indeed the way they'll move the goalposts and try to gaslight you about what they "really meant all along" is a great analogue for how the shape in this episode constantly morphs and the possibilities multiply. You rebut one point, they make 5 more, including 2 you already rebutted but phrased slightly differently. And they can keep it up forever.
@kitfaaace this is why I just stop engaging after two replies.
This sentence is false.
@@dharkling Uhhh...True? Yeah, I'll go with true.
When I was a kid, for some reason I thought Hugh was an assimilated Wesley Crusher. Lol
One of my very favorite Trek episodes. Great writing, great performances, and the episode makes the Borg even more horrific on top of it all, in that every time our heroes have to engage in battle against the Borg, it's lose lose in a straight-up fight Either the Borg win and our crew gets assimilated, or our crew wins and nukes a ship full of enslaved victims while doing virtually no damage to the Collective itself.
"Doctor 'Let's not do a genocide' over there."
😂
This episode does have a lot of qualities but I mostly dislike what it does to the lore of the Borg. I know a lot of people think First Contact is where the Borg went wrong especially with the introduction of the queen but I think the rot sets in here and First Contact was, if anything, a temporary corrective to what went wrong here and in ‘Descent’.
First this episode does greatly diminish the Borg’s sense of menace. Voyager even hangs a lantern on this in the episode ‘Drone’ (which is in many ways a retread of ‘I, Borg’ with Belanna delivering the line “Maybe this is the Collective's new strategy. They don't assimilate anymore, they just show up and look helpless.”
This loss of menace is partly a result of the humanisation of Hugh but IMO is, particularly due to, the effort the collective goes to to retrieve him, which is at odds with the tendency of the collective to treat drones or entire ships as expendable (cf. the salvaging of parts from the phasered drone in ‘Q Who’ and the self-destruct of the ship and thousands of drones in BoBW2). This makes perfect sense for a collective of billions of drones. Crusher’s argument from BoBW “it’d be like us cutting off an arm or a leg: we can’t do it” was only speculation about the collective’s interdependency and was almost immediately refuted by the ship self-destructing (the collective excising a faulty system). The ruthlessness with which the collective amputates parts of itself to preserve order was one of the better plot points of Voyager’s borg - seen in Unimatrix Zero, and playing out in physical metaphor with the queen ripping infected parts of her own body off at the end of End Game.
The collective would know about the fate of the scout ship as it crashed or by sending its absence : there would be no need to visually confirm its fate and all the drones on it were expendable.
Borg should not have bothered to retrieve Hugh, and the scene where a troop of drones turn up to collect him is the first scene in the Borg’s history where they look genuinely goofy. It also loses points for being the episode which laid the ground work for ‘Descent’ which is possibly the worst borg story in ST history.
The resolution here - the hope that Hugh’s taste of individuality will somehow spread through the collective, is incredibly stupid to the point that it’s frustrating to watch the characters entertain this thought without the flaw occurring to them. The collective is entirely made up of drones who were once individuals, so the idea that Hugh, being re-assimilated, would somehow give the collective its first taste of individuality is absurd. Overriding pre-existing individuality at assimilation is the Borg’s defining feature: it’s not explained why Hugh’s re-assimilation would be an exception.
I’d argue Picard’s arc is too steep here. Its absolutely right that he should begin from a place of prejudice and hatred, born from trauma: this has already been amply set up after BoBW in ‘Family’ and it’s good to see Picard’s attitude to the Borg develop here but he makes too much progress too quickly, which (as many people have observed) effectively has to be retconned in First Contact. I understand the reluctance to let the Captain be the member of the crew who is “in the wrong” in a lasting way, but IMO it would’ve been far better had they allowed Picard to remain traumatised and prejudiced, and effectively be dragged reluctantly by circumstances and the insistence of his crew, towards making an exception for /this/ drone while still hating the collective and considering all other drones within it to be beyond compassion. This would be understandable given his trauma, and follows the more normal trajectory of unpicking prejudice - where initially ‘exceptions’ are made while the general prejudice is still held. A private scene of Picard steadying himself (cf. shaving mirror scene from First Contact but with less horror) would remind the audience he’s still not ok. Obviously they couldn’t possibly have thought that far ahead but doing it this way would’ve smoothed Picard’s journey to First Contact but also reinforced the already diminishing menace of the borg by showing that even the sight of a helpless drone is enough to cause Picard’s trauma to come flooding back.
Finally, returning Hugh to the collective, virus or not, is a crime against the new individual: that the crew get away with this without much sense of guilt is a problem, and whether they returned him with a destructive virus, or the virus of individuality, morally amounts to the same thing, which is to use this individual as a weapon against the collective, at that individual’s expense. (Voyager returns to this concept with Icheb’s story, VOY: Child’s Play, where it’s established that his parents allowed him to be assimilated to use him as a weapon against the borg).
It might be necessary in order to allow for TNG’s inevitable episodic reset-button, but what they did with Hugh is not OK. It would’ve been far better had the plot placed the crew in a situation of serious peril where Hugh’s sacrifice was the only way out, and he volunteers himself but in circumstances where there is no time to consider other options. There’s an uncomfortable and, I think, totally unintentional contrast between the Borg here, going to great lengths to retrieve and re-integrate a single lost drone, with the Enterprise crew who pay lip service to the importance of the individual but ultimately are more than willing to sacrifice this individual for the sake of their collective. The episode inadvertently makes the Borg look morally superior. They care vastly more about Hugh than the Enterprise seems to.
Again… I know it’s heresy to say that Voyager ever did anything better, especially when it comes to Borg episodes, but there are so many parallels to VOY:Drone and in many ways Drone is a better version of I, Borg. ‘One’ chooses to sacrifice himself to save Voyager from the Borg, in extremis, but that’s absolutely not something suggested or even condoned by the Voyager crew and they try to intervene to stop him but are helpless to do so. Voyager likewise deploys the ‘no man left behind’ trope with the lengths they go to to rescue Seven of Nine in both ‘The Raven’ and ‘Dark Frontier’: to them the abandonment or sacrifice of their former-drone crew mate is absolutely not acceptable.
Reluctantly I can only conclude that had a young Seven of Nine ended up on the Enterprise D, she would’ve been briefly befriended and then sent back to the collective. Because on the Enterprise D, former drones are people, sure, but not really people like us.. with rights worth fighting for.
My second favorite Borg episode, behind Drone from Voyager. When the Doctors Mobile emitter was taken over by nano-probes and made a 29th century Borg…!🤘
I, Borg is probably one of my top 10 if not top 5 Trek episodes.
I realized when you mentioned Guinan not judging Hugh for the actions of the Collective that there's sort of an echo there back to Encounter at Farpoint-- Picard and crew being judged for all of humanity.
"What is a Doctor?" He did not have that data because it was never relevant before to store and being disconnected from the collective that was not available and thus asked to extend Borg knowledge if not know. I don't know, just spitballin'.
I, Borg is my favorite episode of all of TNG. It might be my favorite episode of all of Trek (that depends on what I've seen recently). Jonathan Del Arco is amazing as Hugh. 8th grade me was squealing so much when I got to meet him at a convention in south Florida back in the mid-90s. I loved the concept of the character, I loved the interactions, and while I didn't fully understand all of the dynamics at play at the time, I understood enough to realize the implications of everything Picard wanted to do at first, and why he changed his mind. And as I've grown older, and rewatched it, the story has only grown in both my estimation and my affection.
I wonder if those who are born Borg, as opposed to individuals who were assimilated, could even handle being cut off from the Collective.
Yep. One of the best Borg episodes, enlightening us to the mindset of the Borg: that assimilation is unquestionably a good thing. Hugh is notably baffled as to anyone not wanting to be assimilated.
Really digging this ‘retro review’ arc, it seems like it’s probably fun and maybe even sorta easy to make - which is no dig, not everything needs to be a struggle for greatness or something. Thanks Steve, loving revisiting these episodes and hearing your insight!
I have to say, this excellent video, combined with the very interesting "Sisko's Nemesis" one you did yesterday (as well as some comments to this video), really helped me to crystalize my thoughts regarding my feelings about DS9. You do a great job getting me thinking.
I actually just watched this for the first time in years, and picked up on the racial allegory of Hugh's designation, and his personhood being recognized. Terrific episode.
Excellent review of a stand-out TNG episode. But while you were complimenting the performances of the regular cast members you might have spared a moment to recognize Sir Patrick Stewart’s fairly AMAZING transformation in the scene where Hugh meets him and calls him “Locutus”. No make-up, no prosthetics.. He simply BECOMES Locutus again, with his face and his voice. That’s craft.
Steve kind of touches that first senior staff meeting with jokes about genocide, but I think it's really an important establishing scene. At this point in Star Trek, Picard had been the only person to ever be un-assimilated, as far as we knew, and he'd only been Borg-y for a couple of days. It was not clear if "assimilation" was the only way Borg made new Borg, or if there were a race of Borg and Picard just got looped into that and by removing their influence he got to return to "himself". I think it's telling in this case no one ever brought up the possibility of un-assimilating Hugh. It is entirely reasonable for them to be talking about wiping out all Borg everywhere, because all Borg *are* the same. Worrying about one drone is like worrying about the fate of a skin cell of the left hand of the person you're punching back at.
Seeing the shift of this perspective, going from only bleeding-heart Beverly recognizing the personhood of Hugh to the gradual acceptance by every major player in the episode gives us, the audience, a really strong starting point for the story arc to follow along with as we get pulled to that same conclusion that Hugh is as much a victim of the Collective as Picard or Guinan. It's a really good place to start the conflict of the episode because it really does feel like Crusher is being overly sentimental at first, and it gives the audience a chance to go on that empathy trip together with the crew.
A very good analysis of an excellent episode. I think it's also interesting that Picard took on a lot of heat for his decision later when a Starfleet admiral reamed him out for releasing Hugh instead of using the opportunity to destroy the Borg.
You ever think this is why the borg in voyager are seen piloting ships more like a traditional starship? Hugh made them realize how much they used to love pushing buttons
Oh, this is one of my top ten favourite Star Trek episodes ever. In fact, I like it more than The Inner Light [gasp!] I really wish it had been the last Borg story, or at least second to last, because after that they just get so overused, they lose their uniqueness and everything that made them work so well in Q Who and Best of Both Worlds. At least, I think so.
Dang. Watching this in December of 2023 is quite remarkable and timely.
We certainly did not need to wait until Picard to be reminded that drones are victims and people, that’s literally the point of Seven’s arc. (Oh, now I hear the end of the video, lol)
I agree completely. This is one of the best episodes of that entire series. And it set up a long story arc that was brought back many years later. I wish the writers of Voyager could have learned something from this episode. Maybe they wouldn't have turned the Borg into just another villain making deals with the captain.
I've often thought that the eventual introduction of the character 7-of-9 in Star Trek Voyager was a way of exploring the story of Hugh if Hugh had chosen to remain on the Enterprise.
Amazing how Picard forgot the lessons of this episode in the First Contact film
I see the film picard as a different character
i was just thinking that too... but hey first contact was a fun romp so i suppose i can let them off.
the guy has been through a lot so one sometimes forgets a thing or two
A bunch of writers sit in a room and are tasked with inviting a big enemy - one of says " Let's take the cyber men from Dr. Who, but give them a Swedish twist!" 😀
This happens before wolf 359, so if they did turn Hue into an WMD, think of all the people they could have saved! Sisco would have of pulled the trigger!
Yeah, Steve, Picard realizes that the Borg are people too...which is why in 'First Contact' he goes all Samuel L Jackson from a 'A Time to Kill' ''Yes, I'm glad they're dead and I hope they burn in Hell!''. I, Borg' humanizes the Borg. 'First Contact' makes them space vampires again.
nice Hulk Hogan plug at the beginning ... knowing what i do now about him im ashamed that as a kid i owned the hulkster workout merch and cassette tape (i was a child of the 80's)
This was some good writing.
The moment Hugh says "I will not", literally made me gasp and say "Holy sh!t". The idea that the Borg could become human was something we had never considered before.
Guinan's hat though!
A point I found interesting and heroic was how Hue was offered asylum and he refused it in order to keep his new friends safe.
That's star trek and Spock as fuck.
this episode shows real morals. Picard refuses to sacrifice one person, fully knowing the ongoing conflict with the borg will cause great loss of life. Picard stands for values.
Isn't everyone who is assimilated an individual when they first get assimilated? Why would Hugh's newfound individuality make a difference?
The borg also grow and assimilate babies, as seen in the first episode where they boarded a Borg Cube. Hugh could have been one of those.
Hugh's individuality might make a difference in that he was one who had been a part of the collective before--while the Borg can claim that all who have been assimilated are happy with it, Hugh stands to refute that point.
The idea is "oh, new bio resources, lets wipe them clean and make triple sure we install all the mindcontrol implants right" vs "hey there is one drone still functioning but not connected. Lets plug it back in right away. So glad we dont have to triple check theyre not compromised. Nothing bad could come of not properly mindwiping the drone on principle.". Later episodes show that they actually followed the second idea and it led to hugh going rogue with a bunch of other drones. They end up working with Lore, if i dont misremember.
@@russellharrell2747 "It could be assumed that prior to First Contact (the movie) the borg had only assimilated Picard and that all other Borg were ‘home grown’ as it were." How can you assume that when in EVERY episode the Borg appeared in, their main goal was to assimilate everyone they met? They've assimilated other members of the Enterprise crew before even, and Guinans species, and Hugh in this episode tells Geordie about all the other species they've assimilated and that they will assimilate them as well. What a strange thing to say.
I'd love to see yoor take on all of the startrek references in Farscape. There are some great ones. Hell, it would be great to see some of yoir deep dives on Farscape in general. The first season is hard to get through but after that its amazing
Very clever of you to try and sneak the invasive Abbott and Costello program into your video. I should probably be concerned about the subtle effects it may have on me, but I don't care. I'll worry about it tomorrow.
If Jean Luc had listened to Worf, Lore would've never been able to find an exploit later on, thereby tricking Data to learn the enjoyment that only murder can offer.
Adding another comment at the very end: aww, I'm a bit disappointed the "Borg Cooperative" from that one episode of Voyager isn't the next review. It's not an appearance of the main collective, but if _I, Borg_ counts then I think that one should too. Especially as it does explore what happens to people after they regain their individuality, before Seven becomes the embodiment of that struggle for the show.
I definitely have a lot of problems with that episode, from the core conceit (being inspired by Braga's reaction against _Ostalgie_ of all things) to the climax with forced mind control undermining their stated ethics. But I still think it's a really interesting examination of the situation, while also managing to avoid bringing the core Collective into it as a threat just like _I, Borg_ did.
I'm reviewing that one eventually, just not in this batch.
@@SteveShives ah! Thanks for the clarification. I’m really looking to hearing your thoughts on that one. As an episode it’s pretty middling, but it’s actually one of the Voyagers I find most interesting to _discuss._
"You assimilate entire species and you've never heard of a doctor?", hahaha.
This is why we don't essentialize. TNG takes so many political ideas in a way they're still relevant to today's struggles. I love TNG so much. Thanks for covering this.
Why is it that Hugh's return to the Borg caused and individuality crisis within the Borg, but no other individuals being assimilated did that? Picard? No. Guinan's entire people? No. Annaka Hansen? No. Because he returned as a Borg rather than being a fresh, new brain? I don't know. Seems like a plot hole to me, but I can live with it.
I await watching Steve's Starfleet Lawyer character gradually intruding into real life as Steve is forced to review the Voyager Borg episodes.
Great review. Fantastic episode.
Star trek voyager had an episode like that. That borg was created with the skin cells of one of the crew members 7 Of 9 Borg nanoprobs and the doctor's mobile admitter. That episode dealt with seven gaining more of her humanity
Steve just can't help but insert a wrestling reference! 😂
They started diluting the Borg's power and menace when they switched them from a self contained enhanced species, interested only by resources and technology, to an empire assimilating species because, reasons. They went from an unstoppable and impersonal force of nature to mere predators. I understand they had to dial them back a bit if they wanted to keep using them in the show, but they lost something in the process that they were never able to recover.
Thanks! May not agree with you on Picard S3, but... the needs of the many...
I will say bringing a disabled Borg onto the ship is less crazy at this point, since they aren’t spred by zombie bite yet
Troi, I think, has, an overwhelming innate fear of the Borg. I'm not sure why yet, but I think this is why when the Borg are involved counselor Troi and her counselor training go right out the window. That's when she straight-up becomes some kind of amalgamation of a Starfleet officer and herself. That's why she ran away from Jack like he was carrying the plague and why when they suggested aboard genocide the compassionate counselor Troi said, "Hells to yizyea!! Let's do it!!!" I'm telling you she takes killing the Borg and not being assimilated personally. As I'm sure any red-blooded individual would, but I'm certain that hers is a bit of an overzealous reaction...
I think that fear may be due to her empathic nature. She feels what everyone around her is feeling. But the borg, I assume especially in like a cube would be like a cold void of nothing. There is no emotion. Only the will of the collective. But that's my theory.
*_"If they assimilate this individual, maybe they'll remember what it's like to be individuals!"_*
As opposed to all the other people they've assimilated... who somehow weren't individuals?
My only one caveat about this episode (which I don't hold against it) is the fact it's now one of many storylines where the characters are like "well we're up against seemingly unstoppable odds, how bout a genocide?" which is unfortunate
Listening to this synopsis of the episode, a thought just struck me for the first time: every single Borg was an individual *prior* to ever having been assimilated. So why should the Enterprise crew expect that Hugh's experience of remembering/discovering his individuality would suddenly cause a ripple effect amongst the collective? Presumably, encountering an independent-minded individual would not have been a novel experience for the Borg. I understand why they didn't touch upon this within the show, as it would've dulled the emotional impact of the episode, but it does seem to be a flaw in the plan's logic.
I am curious what you will pick for Voyager. I feel like some of the better "borg" episodes are: the Raven, Collective and Child's play. They all involve the borg but show a different side to them.
the Federation are imposing their own idea of individualism onto Hugh, I'd like to see a writer tackle the Borg's plural identity a little deeper.
The idea of the EBs, ex-Borg, and how they were being helped was perhaps the single element that I actually really liked from _Picard_ season 1.
Being reminded that Hugh's designation was "Third of Five" just makes me irked about the name "Seven of Nine" all over again. "Seven of Nine" means nothing; "Third of Five" means the third member of a group of five. Seriously, would it really have been hard to name her Seventh of Nine and still just call her Seven for short? It just feels like yet another example of the _Voyager_ writers being lazy and sloppy.
Descent was a Borg episode. It wasn’t a decade later.
Geordis personal life choices are not a ringing endorsement for individuality
Interesting commentary.
How would you compare Picard vs Janeway in her last act against the borg that does virtually the same thing?
I don't think you're completely correct about this episode not weakening the Borg as a threat. Sure, we're afraid and don't want to be anywhere near them. But we also introduce the possibility of wiping them out with a virus. That's a huge hit to their threat level.
What is a Doctor? That stuff was always odd, all the stupid questions the Borg ask that they should know answer to. ~The one thing I never got is: Why every single assimilation before Hugh wouldn't have already caused the "remember what being an individual" See the thing is! If "everything" about people is assimilated by the perfect Borg... also WTF wouldn't the Borg being perfectly connected to each other, detect that Hugh moved his eye to Geordi and what Hugh is thinking in that second... Also why anyone thinks trying a virus would work against all Borg is just baffling, they adapt that is their thing! A core part of what is so scary about them! If you are now saying they can't adapt to this virus if they set it free, than TNG is what started weakening the Scary as hell Borg right here right now. Again just odd plot holes. Also remember the Borg assimilate "all technology" from you while they assimilate you, and obviously have Anti-Virus because ALL computers have Bugs/Viruses Glitches, incompatibilities etc. etc.
Voyager jab without mentioning Voyager 😅
My question is who WAS Hugh? What was his life like? What were his options, his opportunities? Whihout knowng that how can we judge?
Is that"what Cha gonna do" from Cops?
I laughed more during this synopsis more than any others
Not my favourite Borg story, but an excellent Star Trek episode. The heroes are forced to examine whether they can maintain their morality in the face of an overwhelming threat - and deciding it is worth it. Don't get me wrong: I like "In the Pale Moonlight" even though it comes to the exact opposite conclusion, but it is a powerful message - and very Star Trek.
Are they individuals, though? IIRC, the Borg assimilating beings with nanoprobes didn't happen until First Contact...during the series, canon was that they made their own Borg Babies.
Am I remembering that wrong?
You're right about the nanoprobes, but they were still assimilating people by this point.
@@SteveShives Was it more than just Picard? (That we knew about when TNG was airing?) I don't remember any other existing people being assimilated until FC (at which point everyone acted like it was no big deal).
"Q Who?" establishes that there are Borg babies. We even get to see one of the cute little drones in his Borg onesie.
@@AdamKlein77 it isn't portrayed onscreen until FC, but the dialogue in this very episode has Hugh saying the Borg's MO is to assimilate civilisations. Both technology and people. Hugh says every crew member on the Enterprise will be assimilated, in the scene where he gets confused when they object.
@@kaitlyn__L Ooh. That's good. 10 points for Gryffindor.
I have to say that the solution to this episode's dilemma never made sense to me. We'll return Hugh to the Borg with the idea that the individuality he developed while isolated from them will spread.
Um... this is the same Borg whom have a history of suppressing individuality? This doesn't make sense.
Then again, neither did the "unsolvable" object. Even today, having a computer work for an indefinite amount of time on complex problems isn't an issue; "Hey, work on this when you have time, but just in time background as low priority.". It's a ridiculous plan.
Don't get me wrong, I like the episode for the character work, but I can't call it a favorite because those issues are just ridiculous.
I agree that it's a great episode in how it's true to the characters and has something important to say about individuals and totalitarianism. But I still think it does a lot to nerf the Borg. The episode could have done absolutely everything the same until the final scene, when the Borg go to rescue Hugh. They could have plugged into Hugh, realized something was "wrong" with him, and vaporized him on the spot or something. That way, the good guys still learn their lessons about humanity--and indeed are emboldened even further to defend it--and the Borg are reinforced as ruthless, nigh undefeatable monsters.
I am just old enough at 35 to have been killed by the accurately abrupt THIRD BASE!
GREAT... minus one thing. You misspelled the title. There's no comma for the title. It's just "I Borg"
What if instead of a Borg, it was a Nazi.
What if it's WW2, and you are part of a resistance group, fighting against the Nazis, who are intent on conquering the world and deliberately committing murder and genocide against anyone who opposes them. You find a wounded teenage Nazi Hitler Youth in the aftermath of a battle. He's been raised on nothing but Nazi ideology his entire life. As you treat his wounds and nurse him back to health, people get to know "Hans" and become friends with him. He seems like a nice, sympathetic kid, and he gradually learns that his Nazi ideology is wrong.
You know that the Nazis are looking for him, and won't stop until they find him, which could expose the resistance group to being discovered. You also know the Nazis have absolutely no moral problem with torturing Hans until he breaks to find out everything he knows about the resistance group. The safety of the resistance movement the fight against the Nazis, and maybe the survival of the world is at stake. Do you let Hans live, despite all the risk, or do you shoot him and dump him back at the site of the battle where the Nazis will find his body and assume he was killed there?
Not a perfect comparison, but the Borg were infinitely more of a danger and threat than Nazis. With everything the Borg had done, having come so close to destroying and assimilating the Federation, what was the right thing to do?
So, Hugh's sense of individuality was supposed to affect the rest of the collective, changing them. Then why didn't the individuality of the trillions of beings they've already assimilated do anything to them?
We instead of I is also used by Royalty sometimes
Interesting take...
This situation comes down to life or moral integrity. Both can not remain intact. Which would you choose?
Yoooo. I just re-watched this episode 5h ago XD
This is one of my favorite TNG episodes but how are we supposed to feel about Picard seemingly being a different character in Star Trek First Contact? He goes from not wanting to commit genocide in I, Borg to wanting to make them pay for what they’ve done in First Contact. It doesn’t seem to fit. Am I missing something?
I don't think you're missing anything. They adjusted Picard's characterization to better suit the story they were telling in the movie. I think it works in First Contact, so I don't care about the apparent inconsistency. But, if you need to reconcile Picard's feelings about the Borg in the latter years of TNG with Picard's lust for revenge in First Contact, you can always chalk it up to the fact that people process trauma in all sorts of complicated, contradictory ways, and it's entirely possible for someone to think they've gotten over something only to have all sorts of anger and resentment come roaring back all of a sudden.
What’s the good borg episode ten years after this one?
Whenever I see the borg I think of how often they must get those dangly tubes caught on things, like they go for a piss and hook the toilet flush handle thing like would happen back when we wore wired headphones
What was I talking about?
“Invasive program” is a weird way to say “Windows 50” or whatever version exists during the 24th century