Star Trek Retro Review: "Descent" (TNG) | More Borg Episodes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
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#startrek #review #startrektng - บันเทิง
Dr. Beverly Crusher is not just the most underrated character in the history of Trek, she is also a hardcore badass. She may have a soft voice, but she's never soft spoken. She stands up for what is right even if it means going toe to toe with the captain. She's even hardcore with Lore. In "Datalore" she points a phaser at Lore and threatens him in order to back off from Wesley. In "Descent" she takes on Lore's minions and defeats them through sheer tactical brilliance. It's sad and kind of sickening that this overlooked and disrespected character will always be remember for that dipshit "ghost candle episode". Dr. Crusher and Gates McFadden deserve better.
Until this video I forgot that she had a history of wrecking Borg shit well before Picard season 3.....
At least "All Good Things" gave Crusher her due in the captain's chair. And in fairness, the blame for the ghostfucker episode really can't be pinned on either Crusher or McFadden.
True. Though I’m a sucker for a Scots accent, so that’s a guilty pleasure for me. 😂 But you are right that Dr. Bev Crusher deserves more respect.
And damn, she can cut a rug!
she acted her heart out in that episode too, anyway. her delirious screaming at the ghost of her grandmother is genuinely tense, to me anyway. but i really do love suspending my disbelief and i can take some pretty stupid stuff seriously.
Re: security desk guy, as a security officer, staying out of whatever the hell the command crew are doing is probably the best way to stay alive. You speak up, suddenly you get volunteered to join an away mission.
The scariest thing about the Borg was their hivemind, the implacable singular drive that directed millions of bodies in a common purpose. _Descent_ showed us how weak, and more importantly how _sad_ the Borg are without it. That they turned into a group of bitter, angry, easily radicalized jerks makes perfect sense to me, and might the best thematic element of the episode.
So, Trump voters.
6:45 for the authentic Star Trek experience, pause here and come back in three months for the conclusion.
And make sure to listen to Majel Barrett say "and now, the conclusion" before you press play again.
😂
For the current Star Trek experience pause here and find out about the Gorn cliffhanger from last year sometime in 2025!
"Yes, Jean-Luc, here are the keys back. I had the Enterprise washed and waxed, filled the dilithium tanks, changed the air freshener, and wiped out the Borg. Thanks again."
The Beverly subplot was the highlight, and good callout that her solution to the conflict was a callback to something only she would've had experience with.
Funny how the most memorable part of this episode for me was that poker game. I was a teenage fan of Stephen Hawking, and seeing him as himself, playing poker in such lofty company on Star Trek of all places made me a very happy little nerd. I hope he had half as much fun filming that as we did watching it.
While touring the sets, Hawking is purported to have looked up at the warp core and said something like,
"I'm working on that."
Iconic! 😂
And the one who did was Alcubierre
That sounds very Hawking. If spoken in a computerized voice.
He also asked to be put into the Captain's chair. :)
As someone who used to work security, that security guy doing a crap job is pretty accurate considering he's clearly zoned in on whatever deskjob task he's doing 😂 He was probably monitoring security alarms to look busy or writing a last minute report he'd been putting off, and most definitely did not hear one bit of dialogue and got got before they left.
Sounds like Ensign Johnson😄
*pushes nerd glasses up* "actually it was Redemption not Reunion" 😂
Yeah, that one. One of the Klingon ones.
@@SteveShives well they both start with R. I did like that Sela reveal though at the end of that finale.
I actually kind of liked the Barnaby and Tate thing, but the fact that there's no follow-up in a later episode, not even cameos, kind of makes it feel a little pointless. It just would've been nice to see Tate later on getting pinned as a Lieutenant JG or something basic with Barnaby cheering at the ceremony.
That would have been great. I feel like that's the sort of things that shows only started doing when the internet and fan forums took off, and the showrunners/writers realized that there were thousands and thousands of fans that were keeping track of things and hoping for callbacks.
The Sons of Soong should’ve teamed up as an evil villain team with the Duras sisters…
🤔
Hang on. Completely unrelated to anything, I need to go write an erotic fan fic real quick
Ive seen that episode, but you can’t get it in Texas now.
Don't forget that "Lore" rhymes with "vore", you cheeky person
Can you have Daimon Bok be watching? Like, please?
When you've got that written, can you drop us a hint as to its title, just to make it easier to fine on AO3?
I always liked Lore’s costume in these episodes. Just looks neat and evil
I remember reading that they were partially inspired by David Koresh for Lore in this episode.
Of all the TNG two-parters, this is definitely one of them.
(Happy 69th like)
EDIT: Oh my god you make the exact same joke in the video
😂
Great minds think alike! 😂
5:47 apparently Jean Luc knew the doc would be scary effecive at blitzing the Borg, sad she didn't get a chance this time....
The brilliance of this episode is the allegory of the Cardassian invasion and occupation of Bajor. The Bajoran Starfleet officer sitting in the brig watching Data and Chrosus illustrates that history perfectly.
Hasn’t Data ever used a laser pointer before? What kind of psychopath would fire a phaser in the same room as his pet cat?
I noticed that too! I'll admit to occasionally wishing I had a phaser handy for certain cats at times (set at low stun, of course), but Data should still know better!
Great vid Steve your recaps are hilarious. Hugh "infecting" the borg with individuality makes you wonder why doesn't that happen every time they assimilate someone?
Yeah descent is kinda weak, although I guess it makes sense that the last TNG season ending cliffhanger has the borg since they were in the first, groundbreaking two parter back in best of both worlds. And always great to see Beverly given something to do!
In the 1992/1993 TV season the Borg appear in two episodes: DS9's "Emissary" and TNG's "Descent". "Emissary" is the last true time we see the Borg in their full horror as villains in both the destruction of the ships at Wolf 359 and in the crumpled weeping figure of Ben Sisko. It's a sad switch over from that to "Descent" and the Borg have never recovered since after all these decades.
I don't know if it's considered a hot take these days to say that the Borg were neutered long before season 4 of Voyager.
I don't know. First Contact (the movie) is probably their final TRUE horror outing.
Im glad im not the only one that compared the Borg compound to the command center from Power Rangers lol
Well, the close up shots of the building were actually filmed at the same location that Power Rangers used for the command Center. 🤷♂️
It's the same building, the Brandeis-Barden institute building in California. It was also a background building at Khitomer.
Who cares that we're dating ourselves; ‘90s kids LOVE POWER RANGERS! I personally was 14 when Mighty Morphin started (born in November 1978), so I'm about 1 1/2 years older than Steve.
Well…compared? It is the very same building, right? Or maybe I’m misremembering and misinterpreting the joke 😅
@@augiegirl1 Ok, now I feel like a snob, because I'm the same age as you, and I had already graduated to Stephen King and Anne Rice at 14, and had no interest in Power Rangers. I loved Sailor Moon, in a semi-ironic way though. Please don't judge, I was a messed up kid.
Now that Discovery has concluded I expect a revision to your star trek's number 1 most awesome and handsome badass video with Saru at the top of the list. Starfleet captain. Savior of his own people and ambassador for his home planet. Graceful and mature Vulcan wife. Paris can warp 10 the delta flyer to second place where he belongs
His name is ACTION Saru.
"a funny little in joke you get if you know and if you don't it doesn't matter" ah, so, like Sonya Gomez being a captain in Lower Decks? Because if you don't know who she is, she still just scans as being Carol Freeman's friend? Like that, Steve? So, it's like that, huh? It's just like that, isn't it?
Isn't it?
*Isn't it*?
I guess the biggest difference there is that this cameo happened a few months later and on the same show, whereas the in-jokes and cameos from Lower Decks tend to come decades after the original episodes first aired.
I mean, other than the fact that the casting of James Horan in this episode was nothing at all like having Sonya Gomez show up in Lower Decks, yes, just like that.
@@SteveShives True! Unlike Descent, First First Contact is actually a good episode.
Data episodes are my favorite, but Crusher episodes have just as much heart. I appreciate your jokes Steve.
I quite like the ethics-switch flip (more in head canon than in the episode itself). Parts of the human brain, when damaged, do change decision making - anyone who's taken a Psych 101 class might remember good old Philias Gage - it's just the human on/off switches tends to be more fleshy, destructive and less accurate than changing a 1 to a 0. In a different episode one can see a bit of good 'ol TNG philosophizing about whether this means Data is 'just' a machine, or whether we and him are just different types of machine etc.
Crusher’s role as acting captain in Descent also sets up a callback in a season 7 episode where she’s shown commanding the Enterprise’s night shift and serves as an inspiration for Troi to apply to rank up to Commander by taking the Bridge Officer Test
I always liked Lore as a character for the simple reason that I like villains, and Lore is a brilliant one. He's always fun and sort of the snake in the grass tempting the good guy to do the bad thing. Plus he helps to create some fascinating moral and ethical quandaries with Data.
Bev in command and a total badass is my spirit animal.
There was something comforting in the return of our favorite series in the fall. ST:TNG was the first TV series I recorded on my spiffy new 4-head, stereo video cassette recorder. Remember trying to decide "VHS or Beta"?
This episode butchered the Borg as badly as Doctor Who did in that episode where James Corden stops the Cybermen from taking over a shopping mall with the power of love. 🤦♂
Ok but the everything else about that episode was awesome. The fact that Cordon's baby hated him. Everyone assuming he and Doctor Who were husbands. A rare check-up on a previously almost entirely forgotten character. They just... had nothing for a bad fat comedian to do to fight the cybermen
Thank you for recognising the home base of the Power Rangers. It was vitally important to me that someone else see it.
The first cliffhanger I didn't really care about. Heh. The Borg were so disappointing..
It's annoying that the popular concept is that Voyager ruined the Borg. They certainly helped them overstay their welcome but they were well spoiled by the time Voy got it's shot. And honestly, Voyager did do a few good things with them.
This episode or overall...?
No ridicule, just seeking perspective.
geordi saying “still watching porn, huh?” in response to seeing data choke out a borg is genuinely funny i love the little comedy snipes
Crusher was a damn good captain. I think she could have helmed a show about a medical ship. I mean her commanding the Enterprise was the one time the writers utilized Gates McFadden to her fullest.
Having Cam and Tate bicker felt natural, that’s why it connected.
I remember watching this for the very first time on a late night re-run on BBC2 and was very excited to see the Borg again as a young Star Trek fan. On re-watch...it doesn't have the same appeal but I feel is a critical episode in Data's story to reach emotional awareness. I feel like deep down in his programming/soul he is so desperate to feel emotion that the negative side of him truly comes out and is preyed upon by Lore.
It even shows Lore manipulating his brother on that desperation in the scene where Lore tells him that the emotion chip even contains memories of their father. I do wish Dr. Soong did get to see Data achieve not only emotional awareness but his additions to the positronic world of Star Trek with helping Dr. Maddox and creating Lal and then even coming back to life in PIC. Data will always be my all-time favourite Star Trek character as TNG and beyond allowed me to grow up with Data, learning from his crew-mates and friends about the wider world of what it means to be human and understand humanity in the 24th century. Data rules and Lore droolz
Lol, if that was Ensign Shives at the security desk, we're sure this would have all gone so much better....
One of the best things about Part 2 is how something (the metaphasic shielding) that was established in a previous episode, from a previous season even, was pulled out of mothballs to solve a new problem. Call backs of this nature are almost unheard of prior to this as the episodic (picaresque?) nature of the franchise going all the way back to the very beginning meant that every episode *had* to be self contained. Which is understandable given the nature of broadcast TV where *maybe* you'll get a re-run in the summer if a thunderstorm or something knocks out your reception during the regular season, or that episode you're calling back to aired during your mother's funeral or something. It doesn't pay to do call-backs when you can never know if anybody ever saw the episode you're calling back to, but call-backs are a valuable storytelling tool and are used to good effect in modern Trek.
There is a very 1960s Batman-ish "What if LORE teamed up with the BORG?" component to this, and maybe that's also a nod to the "What if ROMULAN Tasha teamed up with the Duras sisters?" two part cliffhanger from previous seasons. It just reminded me of a Penguin and Joker team up complete with scenery chewing villains.
And that's the last we see of Hugh until 2020 when he starts to look a bit more like Dr. Morales on "Major Crimes".
I thought that the strange shape of the Borg ship was supposed to be a hint that the Borg on this ship were different in some way. Not all the same and not all in one thought.
This just reminded me how the idea of XBs was actually a really interesting, intriguing and totally wasted plot idea.
Season 1 of Picard was extremely frustrating.
How did Data not get drummed out of Starfleet after this? This is the second time that somebody sent out a weird signal that messed with his android brain and made him go rogue. How does the robot have such terrible cyber-security? You think he would've installed a firewall after what happened in "Brothers".
I have to say, this is the first time I've thought about how Data gets his "morality" back and his two big thoughts are - murder my brother, and destroy the emotion chip I took off his corpse cause murdering him wasn't enough.
I really love the energy Steve is bringing this episode lol
Not an especially amazing set of episodes, but I do remember that watching Data turn evil as a kid was really disturbing
I still think that I, Borg should've been the last Borg episode. It's a great episode [at least, I think it is, I know a lot of people disagree], but it worked a little too well. Descent is one of my least favourite TNG episodes, to the point where I've only watched it once.
Know what would have been a cool ending. They’re all in a staff debriefing.
Geordi: Data, why did you suddenly decide to stop the experiment on me.
Picard: oh because i rebooted his ethical program.
Data confused: . . . processing. . . No, my ethnical program is still not running.
They all look around the room at each other with astonished expressions. Cut.
I know that this series is called Retro Reviews, but I would LOVE to see the Prodigy Borg episode included.
The soundproof Brig is just an offshoot of The Soundproof Kitchen trope.
I wish we could've gotten some scenes in part one demonstrating how Hugh's sense of individuality was affecting the other drones and their ability to operate their vessel.
I also think a sequence where they actually show us how Lore encountered these corrupted drones and assumed control of them might've been interesting. Instead, those plot points take place somewhere off-screen and are just explained via exposition dumps.
The overall idea for this two-parter probably sounded phenomenal in the writer's room. "Hey, what if Lore comes back again, but this time he teams up with the Borg!" Unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired.
I remember shortly before Descent, Part II first aired, I read in a magazine somewhere a quote from Rick Berman on TNG's 7th season (I think it was in Entertainment Weekly). He said later in the season they would revisit Hugh and the leftover Borg on that planet. We obviously never got that episode - I wonder if it was one that never got off the brainstorming phase of episode ideas. While it would have been nice to finish Hugh's arc, I don't know what else they could have done with it. And the Borg would not have been the central antagonist either.
I need fanart of Data and Lore as Identical Twin Android Bounty Hunters.
I remember part 2 was interrupted halfway through by a presidential speech about the US sending troops to Bosnia. My sister and I were so pissed!
At the time, I read that there was to be a 7th season episode that dealt with the evolution of Hugh and the Borg on the planet, but it never came about.
In "I, Borg", I always thought that sending Hugh back to the Collective was unwise. We saw the result of that here. Better would have been to let him enjoy his identity within the Federation much as Voyager did with 7 of 9. Lesson learned I guess.
Ensign Smith (security guard) in text chat: "Hey, guys, Commander Data just said the weirdest thing about Commander LaForge." Ensign Jones: "What did he say?" Croisis talking to Data: "You said you'd kill your friend, how about that guy?" Data: "Meh. I don't even know him. I could look him up in my database, but it isn't worth my time." Croisis: "Then kill him." Data: "Sure." Ensign Smith on chat: ….
Seriously, this episode was literally the descent of the Borg.
(of Lor) - "his association with the Borg feels random, and not all that well thought out"
Sir, your gift for understatement cannot be overstated.
I have a lot of problems with this episode, but the end of that one sentence pretty much sums it up.
Hugh's "sense of individuality" gained in I, Borg, existed for a day or two, before being reassimilated. Surely inconsequential since assimilation supposedly can wipe out a lifetime's worth of it.
Not well thought out, indeed.
I really don't like any of the TNG episodes that feature Lor. They just come across, to me, as way too contrived.
I was today years old when I learned that Brent Spiner actually does have a twin brother, Ron Spiner.
I loved how Nechayev dressed Pickard down for him releasing Hugh back to collective without the virus. I thought it was bad decision when I watched "I,Borg" and I think it was bad decision to this day. Even from fan standpoint, all we would lose are ton of average Borg episodes which followed.
Is this the one where Geordi tells the story of Data walking along the bottom of a lake? I remember really enjoying learning about other adventures that we never see
I've been thinking a lot about Data/Lore episodes recently because I'm playing an android in a game of Mothership, which is a sci fi horror RPG. I was thinking about this one in particular because the fact that my character acts a lot like Data only with emotions came up during the last game.
The big problem I had with Hugh was the idea that individuality would destroy the Borg. Literally everyone they assimilate has a sense of individuality and the Borg are experts at crushing that. Hugh’s anomalous behavior should have been noticed are “corrected” pretty quickly
Any TNG episode from the 2nd half of the run that isn't about Data-possessing masks or Crusher-seducing ghosts gets a thumbs up from me. Mostly.
My memory: At the time, seeing a resolution to I, Borg, was very exciting. And seeing emotional, angry, berserker borg was exciting. However, decades later, these episodes leave a similar chalky, bland taste in my mouth as Voyager's Basics, parts 1 and 2.
Something I would talk about if I were an actual youtube reviewer is how the media I consume tends to inhabit my perception with color schemes. The less exciting being more of pastels and browns while dipping towards vibrant shades and combinations for more exciting narratives. I'm sure there's some scientific/expression study for such a thing, but I don't know anything about it, so I won't digress, with the exception that it is seemingly relative to the next part of my comment.
This time in TNG's run seems to represent a sort of color palate shift in the feel of that era of Trek. TNG transitioning from a vibrant silver and deep blue, with occasional green to a tan, wall-panel gradient much like what Voyager was to become. Meanwhile, DS9 held a maroon and black kind of palette for me, with violet creeping in. More exciting and edgy. Does that make any sense to you?
Ok. Enough of that.
At the time this aired, I had a friend who considered only TOS Trek as "real Trek" and TNG-era as "Meh Trek." I remember him saying, "Why does TNG always wheel out the borg for season finales?" And I was like... "This is only the 2nd time. Even if you treat the Season 1 finale as kinda Borg-adjacent, that's still less than half." But, I guess he was expressing a sort of Borg fatigue. Sounds like a theme congruent with the upcoming downhill slide you're speaking of. Just an independent observation that apparently validates the idea, methinks.
The first time I sat down and binged all of TNG on streaming I was really confused by these episodes because I thought I had seen every episode and didn’t remember these ones at all. The second time I binged all of TNG on streaming I was really confused by these episodes because I *knew* I had seen every episode and didn’t remember these at all.
I think as much as this two-parter ruined the Borg, it also ruined Lore. I've always found Lore quite a sympathetic villain, he's angry, he's resentful, he's basically psychopathic, but it does seem like there's something in him that's redeemable. The scene in the episode "Brothers" where he's clearly pretty upset to learn that Dr Soong is dying always sticks out for me to illustrate that. The way everyone, including Data, refuses to see Lore as a troubled person and instead as a malfunctioning piece of technology never sat right with me, because what does that imply about Data's own journey to have his personhood acknowledged? This two-parter was TNG at its most dumbed-down.
Great review. This is pretty much for the algorithm
I hoped you would mention the security guard! Lol that is such a plot 🕳️
From the tail end of TNG, when they were running on fumes, and continued chugging on those fumes throughout all of _Voyager._
6:03 Everybody has been having the Borg Emblem upside-down all this time. It's always displayed with the stripes at the top, like on the floor - but you're looking at the floor from the wrong side. The emblem is displayed - the right way up - on the two flags on either side of the room.
This is also the episode where they introduce the Borg kitty claw logo. Rawr!
I truly appreciate the many Power Rangers references here because IFKYK. Could have also thrown a Khitamer reference too.
I have to admit, the James Horan actor allusion to Suspicions completely passed me by. Really clever, TNG
I will never understand the hate these episodes get. I think from the beginning that Data should have had more interaction with the Borg. It makes too much thematic sense. The Abdroid who is on a path of self discovery as an individual to understand humanity so as to join it and the faceless collective that lives to strip away choice from beings and replaces them bit by bit with machinery.
And I think they did well to follow up on the Hugh story, rather than leave that hanging. And the inclusion of Hugh to my mind, makes this a bit of a "side" story to the Borg in Trek. The affects of Hugh on his Cube doesn't have to reflect the wider Borg in the Galaxy. Also, Lore using the chip in some way against Data makes sense. I would agree with anyone that said the changes to Data feel rushed and his actions crossed some big lines, emotion chip or not.
I still think it's a really good two partner that brought together elements in the show that I for one naturally thought should freely mix. It felt, plotting wise, like when a comic book is running on all cylinders. This works for me, I dunno?
You have some excellent points. :) I don’t remember hating this episode. And I loved seeing Stephen Hawking in the poker game. That was EPIC at the time! Still an awesome legacy, in my nerdy opinion. :)
i think it’s the obviousness that people dislike. the borg is interesting because it contrasts human individuality. data is interesting because he contrasts human emotionality. the human element is, in my opinion, necessary for them to work as characters. both characters are meant to hold a mirror to humanity. when you pair them together, you just put two mirrors against each other with no subject to play against.
(lore is meant to contrast with data, as a kind of bizarro-mirror for humanity. he’s more of a foil to data rather than being a true contrast, but even then i do find stories strictly about the two to be lacking in a true subject)
moreover this plot is convoluted. lore introduces negative emotionality to data which effectively just changes his character traits, so you’re not truly watching for data’s sake. the borg has also been essentially changed, it’s a “side story” as you said. that doesn’t appeal to me at all. this is just some weird techno-cult.
what are we exploring here? i love data, truly, but he’s not a character i’m invested in in a biographical sense. the events of data’s life truly only matter to me as a viewer so long as they say something about humanity- this is true of every star trek story and character. if it isn’t doing that, i feel like it’s wasting my time. you watched this episode and felt it was firing on all cylinders (and i appreciate the comic-book logic of lore’s involvement, hugh coming back up), but i personally thought it was spinning its wheels.
You would think Picard would be as concerned if not more about the change to datas behavior as he is about the borg, just sayin
Nice video as always, Steve!
I disagree with you that this two-parter was the beginning of the end the Borg as a credible, fearsome threat, though. I would argue that that started the previous season in "I, Borg," where the Enterprise crew decides they can't hurt the poor widdle Borg because Hugh is just so damn ADORABLE.
(SPOILER ALERT: I've thought "I, Borg" was pretty dumb ever since I first watched it in 1992. In fact, I tend to agree with Admiral Nechayev in "Decent Part I": The Enterprise would've saved countless lives if they'd taken the Borg out when they had a chance. They're not a productive race. As portrayed on TNG up until this point, they create nothing and only exist to assimilate and destroy other sentient species, so I don't think the genocide argument really applies.)
This is a weird episode of TNG for me because I remember the first half (especially the cliffhanger and the poker opening) so clearly, and yet I completely blank on the second half.
Oh, and such a missed opportunity for Data and Lore, they could've faced the Hollywood Blonds or the Nasty Boys for the WCW Tag Team belt...or the Steiner Brothers, Money Inc., or the Quebecers for the WWF Tag belt.
Even when it came out, I thought this cliffhanger was a big nothingburger. In the good season-enders, there was some sort of believable peril- when the Borg made Locutus, the show wasn't so established that it would be obvious that they weren't going to get rid of Stewart. Here: will we lose Data to evil? We clearly won't. Will he kill Geordi? He clearly won't. The Borg Collective is scary- they represent loss of individuality, which is a conceptual threat. These are just a bunch of guys in rusting cyborg costumes standing around. The damning judgement was that I was an SF obsessed twentysomething when this came out, and I don't recall wondering "What's gonna happen?" for the whole summer. Even bad cliffhangers usually do that for me. And what was even descending, in "Descent", for that matter?
Okay, forget the Borg, I wanna see a spinoff series about Horan and Tait! Or even just a full episode. C'mon Lower Decks, don't let us down!
The guy on the computer terminal wasnt paying attention. He was playing FOE.
Gold is the new Red, st least for shirt colors.
Sweet Coffee cup, Steve.
I gotta rewatch this show, I haven’t seen much of it in years other than via your videos 😂
Descent Part II is a pretty good lower deck episode, maybe even the best of it's era of trek. It puts both the lower deck characters as well as Crusher into a fish-out-of-water situation and Crushers leadership enables both herself and the lower deckers to rise to the occasion. This episode is everything that TNG Disaster tried to be, but wasn't. While other lower deck episodes such as TNG Lower Decks and Voyagers Learning Curve and Good Shepherd focus heavily on the guest characters and have almost no development for the main cast.
Of all the puns and word play, you missed the most obvious in your closing. "This episode marked the beginning of the descent of the Borg into monsters of the week."
I imagine how things would have been different if the Voyager double episode 'The Scorpion' had been used instead of this one for the TGN cast.
Not related to this video, but I would love to see your reaction/analysis of some other great scifi from the era, namely Farscape and Babylon 5.
The sheer hubris the producers had to use Zordon's command center in 1993 (when Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was WHITE HOT) and think no one would notice always baffled me.
Thank you for calling this out. I feel vindicated.
An idea to make the borg scary again. You start the episode on a deepspace exploratory vessel. They have found a world home to a fallen advanced civilization. Through exploring the ruins They find some surviving holographic records of various news and propaganda broadcasts. It seem this world was at war with itself. Something about cyborgnetics vs automation vs natural evolution. You really only hear snippets but it reminds one of the officers of the genetics wars. There seems to be nation states and war lords fight some global conflict. In one of the propaganda holos in the background shows a warlord with some small cybernetic implants in her who we, the audience, recognize as the borg queen. As the ship is about to depart marking the planet as in need of further exploration they detect a borg sphere heading their way. Instead of running they decide the borg haven't been a real threat in years and nobody's heard anything since the events in Picard. They raise shields and prepare for an attack or attempted assimilation but the borg ship just rams them killing everyone. Fast forward a few years. A new ship following beacons left by the previous ship approaches the planet. They are a research following up on points on interest marked by the previous ship. They are increasingly concerned because they expected to pass the previous ship a week or two ago on its way back to federation space. They also haven't detected the next beacon after this. Odd but they always leave a departure heading in the beacons computer logs. Maybe it just took them awhile to find something else worth the research vessels time. They detect the ships debris as they approach the planet. No survivors detected or clues found but there is a faint signal from the surface. Maybe a life sign? They pickup the records from the beacon and see the same holos from earlier. They wonder if the other crew activated some defense grid or maybe the war isn't as ancient as originally believed. On the surface they find a survivor. An ensign who was fixing a glitch in an escape pod that was lucky thrown clear during the impact. All he remembers is a yellow alert before the explosion. Then he saw the borg sphere. It looked like it scanned the wreckage before leaving. After further investigation of the planet they find records to suggest the person we know as the borg queen was the last warlord standing in the war for this world. They find out that one of the factions, a pro cybernetics one, had decided to link themselves together. This solved their infighting and they started to spread. As the hive mind grew they became obsessed with peace through assimilation. The person who became the borg queen thought the many should empower the few, like herself, and adapted the borgs tech to her forces but she would retain control. This led to the destruction of this world and the war continued into space. They decide to head back with the information they had obtained. While trying to leave the sphere appears again this time from under a cloak. They have been waiting. They tractor beam the ship and board. While on the ship they ignore the crew and download their files like the did in thier first episode in tng. While the boarding is going on they are able to disable a drone, they all seemed to freeze for a moment right before but it vaporized itself as it fell. After the computer is downloaded the borg teleport away. The crew find a piece from the vaporized borg. Some kind of nural recorder. While the crew is trying to see if they can get anything valuable from the nural device the borg just hold them with their tractor beam. Not communicating or anything. They descover through the nural device that something they found in the ships database activated a piece of code in all the drones and sent it through the hive mind all at once. It translates simply to "She's dead."
(Ok, I kinda got myself in a corner and I'm getting sick of typing and using the nural device as catch all so speed round.)
They somehow get limited access to the collective and find out the true borg and the queens hive have both been fighting and assimilating civilizations for thousands of years trying to destroy they other. Now that she's dead, her disconnected hive can be brought into the fold and their perfection and peace can spread unhindered. Needing to get this information back to star fleet. The captain decides to try and destroy the tractor beam emitter and run while having a probe ready for launch with all the information they have and a live update some it can record everything up till the ship destruction if it comes to it. Right before they make thier attempt the engineer who's been monitoring the borg yells, "WAIT!" but its too late. They fire but the tractor beam is unaffected. Then the engineer says, "They were gonna let us go. They didn't see us worth assimilation at this point and not a threat. They have more important things to do apparently. " From weapons control. " Sir, I'm reading....impossible power readings......Sir....I think they're charging weapons. The Capt. orders all power to shields but the response back is a sullom , "Sir, at these power levels it won't matter." The Capt. replies softly, "Launch the probe.... Then we see the probe shoot off into space with a cloak activating right as the federation ship is destroyed in the background right before the borg disappear into warp.
What I remember was the allegory of Data’s emotion being about drugs….
I actually don't totally hate this episode. Probably bc I saw it as a kid and it had Lore & the Borg. Admittedly not the best of reasons.
Your jokes were on point in this episode.
Data was eviler than Lore.
Data and his co-operative Geordi, were Section 31 agents, who together with Sloan, made the greatest poker player ever, Worf, loose every game after, "The Emissary."
That's why Data had more evil than his innocent brother, Lore.
The sons of Soong have joined up to become Wild Stallyns 🤘🎸
Sending Hugh back is what made the Queen. It took longer than they wanted but it ended up being the downfall of the Borg.
Bringing back the borg again?! We can’t all have recurring villains as good as the cardies haha
I thought that if there were more episodes of Lore cult take over of the Borg then it would have improved the stakes of these episodes. It was out in left field as nice being something different then other TNG episodes but there wasn't enough to help me to get behind these episodes. It's bad when the Borg ship from this episode and nothing else about this was never mentioned again as the ideas had promise but I think it needed more time with these Borg characters and Lore to get behind them as threats as 2 episodes weren't enough. A lot of promise but not enough writing to get behind these concepts.
Descent made me feel some things😵💫. Particularly when Data was in his evil mode. It awakened some stuff in me😅.
Given cat behaviour around laser pointers, phasering the chip right there might be a bad idea, Data.
This definitely comes off as a half baked idea that could have actually been good. The metaphor of the Borg representing cults or political movements and the willingness some people have to surrender to them because misinformation makes them think they just can't anymore is a good theme and was hinted at in the earlier Borg episodes.
Yup, save that emotion chip for when a movie "needs" a couple funny moments.
Zordon's Command Center was the best thing
The reference to MMPR is just 🤌🏾
Oh yeah, this was the episode where Diana Troi decided to encourage Data to experience homicidal urges and anger.