THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS


People who know my feelings about TNG in general might be in for a pleasant
surprise. I'm writing this without yet reading any of the other stuff that's
been said about this episode, so be prepared for some re-hash of What Has
Been Said Before.

Spoilers, natch (and I still haven't figured out how to make a control-L
with this editor!)

[White space deleted]

Well, I liked it!  It lived up to its promotional hype (or what I've read
of it in this newsgroup).

In fact, as a single episode, I think it might be the best TNG episode yet
made (though, of course, I've missed a few, but I liked it better than
"Yesterday's Enterprise", "The Defector" and "Measure Of A Man" and the
Q ones, for starters).

To hit what I feel are the major points in the episode:


THE RIKER PLOTLINE:

This was that suprised me the most about the episode.  It's quite
pleasant to see them giving Riker a little attention and character
development.  Indeed, they might just be giving him too *much* development.

I frankly don't see how they're going to satisfactorily wrap up this thread.
The only two endings that I can think of that would satisfy me as a viewer
would be:

1) Riker accepts Captaincy of another starship, or
2) Riker becomes Captain of the Enterprise.

No 30-second (or even 5-minute) diatribe about how Riker can't stand to
leave the Enterprise or its crew or whatnot would be satisfying after his
discussion with Deanna or the solid, unrelenting illustration here of how
FIT Riker is for command.  (Perhaps, though, in the long term, showing
Riker's career grinding to a halt because he refuses a Captaincy would be
worthwhile, but not in the short term, and it would undo a lot of what was
accomplished here.)

I felt that Picard flat out asking Riker to reconsider his decision was a
superb touch.  It tells volumes of Picard's and Riker's personalities and
the working and personal relationships between them.

I mentioned Riker's fitness for command.  In this episode he truly IS captain
material.  He is decisive, he is not needlessly reckless (although he needed
Troi to point out how he couldn't lead the awayteam to rescue Picard, his
acceptance of this once confronted with it was ideal), he shows himself (in
that very scene) willing to sacrifice personal pride for the good of the
ship, and he is a leader of men, having earned the crew's respect and
loyalty.

Ironically, Picard's line about how the Enterprise will function perfectly
well without Riker proved to be quite true in the reverse: Riker is a good
enough commander that the Enterprise functioned perfectly without Picard.
What better test could there be, especially in a situation where he must
make the decision to kill his Captain and his friend when it is absolutely
necessary?

THE BORG:

As usual, I find that I enjoy Star Trek the most when it's being military.
Indeed, most of my favorite episodes are "police actions" with character
development subplots ("Obsession", ST2:TWOK, "The Doomsday Machine", "Balance
of Terror", "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Contagion" and "The Naked Now" all
comes to mind, some being better than others, of course).  This is no
exception.

Interestingly enough, this episode IS more of a police action than a war
story (but then, perhaps that's how wars start?  Remember World War I).
The danger to the Federation is never SHOWN, only EXPLAINED.  The only way
I feel they got away with this is that there is only a single Borg ship
(that we know about), so we are right in with the action.

The Borg didn't especially thrill me when they were doing any talking. They
were at their best, I felt, when they weren't talking, just impersonally
acting. (But I wonder, what are the Borg milling around the ship DOING? :-)
As an implacable foe, I felt they were as effective as V'Ger, or, indeed,
the Doomsday Machine or the cloud from "Obsession".  As a foe to be talked
to, I felt they were lacking.  The scenes with Picard talking to the Borg
(or, indeed, as the Borg) didn't do much to advance the plot (but see
below for a side-note) or contribute much to the story.  They should have
been shorter, IMHO.

I found it interesting how narrow the scope of the episode was.  No views
of Earth, no Borg en masse, no scenes of the Borg scooping up cities
from major planets.  I felt it worked, partly because it's a two-parter,
partly because the writer(s) provided us with enough going on besides
the Borg plot (i.e., Riker) to keep our minds occupied.

The detour into the nebula (obviously at least a partial tip of the hat to
TWOK) was a nice touch, as was the Borg's reaction.

One odd thing: If the Borg travelled 7000 light years to get to the
Federation in only a year (7000c, obviously) why do they only go at
warp 9 in the episode?  The Enterprise should be eating their dust! It's
strongly implied that warp 9 is LESS than 7000c (since they'd been
expecting more lead time before the Borg arrived), so what's the deal?

As a last note, here, I wasn't expecting the line about how Starfleet had
been preparing for the Borg for a year, since they learned about them.
Smart of the writer(s).  The Starfleet protocol stuff was handled well.

PICARD:

I felt the rationale for the Borg capturing Picard was a good one, but it
seems to me that Picard should have thrown at them the statement that
humanity functions best, and can only contribute to the Borg, when they are
free individuals (it might have made the Borg-talk scenes worthwhile).

The only good aspects of the Borg-talk scenes, IMHO, were explaining the
Borg's rationale, above, and providing Riker the impetus to issue the
episode's final line.

I quite enjoyed the irony of the scene with Picard descending into
engineering on the elevator, considering this is how we first saw him
in "Encounter At Farpoint".  Coupled with his talk with Guinan (which
lacked only a "It's been nice knowing you" line from Picard, to my mind,
which, taken for its literal meaning, could not have been out of character,
I think) put a decidedly fatalistic bent on the episode (wisely).

THE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:

This is the first episode in my memory where everyone has a part to play
in the story.  Wesley's was the weakest (I feel he should have won the card
game.  What is he, 15?  *I* would have stuck with it at that age.  It would
have helped erase a bit of his "wimp" stigma), but even his readiness to
take a break from work in enigneering was a nice touch.

Deanna got the marvelously-handled job of telling Riker he couldn't lead
the awayteam, as well as a fairly well-done scene with Riker about his
career/future.

And Dr. Crusher was wisely given the line to try to keep Riker from firing,
due to her & Picard's emotional entanglement and her own feelings about
killing as imperfectly displayed in "The High Ground".

Worf and Geordi were their usual selves (and Worf's body language after
Picard's capture, that of rushing to the security console, was great!),
as was Data.  Picard and Riker I've already discussed, and Cmdr. Shelby and
the Admiral were well-written and acted for the parts they had to play.

FLAWS:

Small ones only.

First, sending four high-ranking officers over to the Borg ship? Shelby
I can understand (she being the Borg expert), and perhaps Crusher as well
(in case Picard was hurt), but Worf?  Nah, lower ranking security people
(and more of them) would have sufficed.  Data didn't need to be there at all,
really.  This is just Star Trek's usual propensity for putting key people in
danger, and it probably won't go away unless and until the main characters
are all ensigns or something.

Second, the conclusion, but see below.

The rest are small bits I mentioned above.

THE CONCLUSION:

It could have been better.  I myself would have preferred to see the actual
firing and things blowing up left and right (all obscured by smoke so we
can't see what happened precisely).  However, since they obviously want to
leave their options open for next season, this is understandable.  I don't
like it as much as I could have, but it's hardly a critical error.

However, things being left as they were, it's not much of a cliff-hanger.
I know *I'm* not wondering "how are they going to get out of this one?"
I can think of a couple of ways myself, and, I'll be honest, I'm not
overly optimistic that things will be well-resolved.  I am, however,
remaining open-minded.

One more note is that it was remarkably STUPID of Riker to issue the "fire"
command while the channel was still open to the Borg, since the Borg
could conceivably put all energy into their shields and otherwise prepared
themselves.  He should have had Worf cut the channel and THEN fired. Oh,
well.

WHAT NEXT?

Who knows?  Either they fire or they don't fire.  I SUSPECT that the show
will continue the tradition (broken only in the movies and "Conspiracy")
of not visiting Earth of the future.  It's also almost a given that
Picard will be rescued (unless Stewart decides to try to break his contract).

Further, it seems certain that Geordi's weapon will NOT work if fired, since
we still have an hour of story left.  Or, at least, the Borg will survive
in part (so Picard can be rescued).

Maybe the Klingons/Romulans/Ferengi/Whoever will get into the act.

At any rate, the conclusion of the Riker story is what interests me the
most.  I hope they handle it with the care it deserves.  They certainly set
the situation UP elegantly enough.  It would be truly sad if they flubbed
it.  We'll see.

Now, I wonder how many people out there in net.land were surprised by my
reaction to this episode?