Now this is the TNG I remember. It is so good I actually watched it twice, once last night with friends and again today for my review. And you know what, it was at least as good the second time. The conflict between Shelby and Riker is pretty much perfect. You can see how concerned she is but you also want Riker to just do what needs to be done. Everything with Picard is as good as it gets for Trek. The battle is pretty one sided, but that is the point, the Enterprise is totally out classed and in serious trouble. I remember having to wait an entire summer to find out what happened and being stressed about it the whole time! Fortunately for me I get to watch to conclusion as soon as I finish this write up.
The episode opens with the Enterprise investigating the disappearance of a Federation colony. The entire colony has been scooped out of the ground and there is no one left. It looks like the Borg so they meet with an admiral and are assigned Lt. Commander Shelby who is the fleet tactical expert on the Borg. She is aggressive and makes no secret that she is after Riker's job because surprise! He has been offered his own command again. There have been some new weapon developments, but none of them are ready. Suddenly the Borg arrive and start destroying the shields. Their weapons are useless but they manage to stop the attack long enough to flee into a nebula. Geordi gets to work modifying the ship to use some new tech Shelby knows about but it isn't looking good.
The Borg use some sort of space depth charges to drive the Enterprise from the nebula and knock out their shields, but instead of destroying the ship several Bord beam onto the bridge and kidnap the captain. As soon as they disappear the cube takes off at high warp towards earth. The Enterprise pursues, but can't match their speed for long. In addition the only weapon they have will only work if they aren't at warp. Shelby leads an away team over to try and save the captain and stop the cube, but they only find Picards empty uniform.
The away team does manage to force the Borg out of warp by destroying their critical green pyramids but this also signals the Borg on the ship to start attacking. And of course the Federation weapons only work for a few shots before the Borg adapt. But there is hope! They find the captain, only something is wrong, he has been turned into Borg! They beam back to the ship and tell Riker. They are hailed by the Borg only this time it is Locutus, the name the Borg have chosen for the former Picard who orders them to surrener. Over Shelby's objections (totally unclear why she is objecting at this point) Riker orders the weapon to be fired. Stunning cliffhanger!
Review: This episode has great music, great drama and great use of characters. I would spend my time raving about how perfect it is but that is just more time not watching part 2!
10 out of 10
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